The pressure is building. I’m shaking with the effort to hold back.
“Let go for me, baby. I want to feel you come all over my cock.”
His words do me in. I’m thrust over the edge. He groans loudly, and I know he’s flying with me. Hot spurts fill my pussy, and I can’t help but feel complete. I collapse onto his chest, and he wraps an arm around me, holding me close. My heart is pounding, my body is sore, but my mind and spirit are calm. I know this is exactly where I’m supposed to be in this moment.
“Love you, girl. Never stopped.”
I look up, floored by his admission.
“This ain’t about
some mark or tradition. This is about me telling you I’m never letting you go again.”
I open my mouth to protest.
“No, you don’t have to say shit back. We’ve got a lot to work through, I get that, but I’m tired of having to hide how I feel about you.”
The man is handing me his heart on a platter. His words humble me and strip away the protective layer I’m desperately trying to keep my soul wrapped in. I open my mouth, but my vocal chords refuse to work.
“Don’t say it until you mean it, D’Rose. At least give me that. I can wait. ’Cause when it’s worth it, shit’s always hard. At least for us in this life it is. All I need to know is that you’re in this with me.”
“I am in this, Joel,” I whisper.
He cups my face, and we seal the agreement. He rolls us over, and I feel him thickening against my thigh. “You didn’t think we were finished yet, did you?”
Oh shit. He captures my mouth, and I know there will be very little sleeping tonight.
Echo
Church has never gone by so slow. I sit back in my chair listening to the updates. There’s nothing big cooking, but Stone seems to want to rehash our year so far. Fucking figures. I do my best not to fidget and try to look attentive. He’s the type to call you out if he thinks you’re daydreaming. It’s a Friday night, which means a big party after this lets out. So, I’m not the only one chomping at the bit.
“All right, any new orders of business?” Stone asks.
I stand, and all eyes fall on me. “I got an announcement.”
“Go ahead and speak your mind, brother,” Stone says, eyeing me expectedly. His lips quirk up.
Now, I know Hoss must’ve told him. If it kept the old man from slitting my throat, I couldn’t care less who he spilled the beans to. No brother likes to see his little girl grow up and get a man of her own. That makes them number two in her life and brings on a whole new potential set of problems. We love hard, and there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for our family. It makes shit like this a delicate thing. “I took on an old lady,” I say.
“No, shit? Who?” Stone says.
“Dixie Rose Dunn,” I reply, proudly puffing out my chest.
A chair slams to the floor. My father glares at me, hands balling into fists at his side. “What did you just say?” he asks.
“You heard me. I want all of you motherfuckers here to hear me. She’s taken. I’ve marked her and this bullshit against her ends now. If I see any of you so much as look at her funny, that’s your ass.” All the years I spent growing my power, making contacts and waiting for my father’s people to fall out, or ease up on his cause…it all culminates into this second. I see the rage burning in his eyes. I smile. There’s not a damn thing he can do about it.
Stone looks from him to me. “Take this shit into the ring, and leave it there,” he says.
“Gladly,” Mouth snarls.
My pop might be pushing sixty, but he’s fit. I’ll go easy on him. This is how we do shit around here when we don’t see eye to eye. Especially my father. The man has always had a taste for blood and violence.
“I think that’s church, unless someone else has a bomb they’d like to detonate,” Stone says sarcastically.
Silence answers him, the doors open and we all flood out.
Dixie Rose stands the minute I leave the doors. Her eyes are full of worry and she’s biting her lip.