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  Just sex.

  “Yeah you do,” Joe clipped.

  I shook my head. “No, really, I don’t.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m not gonna be a dick to your daughters because you tell me to and I’m not gonna put up with your shit because you read somethin’ into what happened.”

  “Okay,” I agreed quickly.

  “I don’t need to walk out of my house and run into your wall of attitude.”

  “You won’t,” I promised.

  “You’re standin’ there tremblin’, scared outta your fuckin’ skull even though I’d never fuckin’ hurt you, tellin’ me what I wanna hear. How do I believe you?”

  “Um…” I treaded cautiously but pointed out, “You did kind of drag me to your house in the middle of the night.”

  “We need to work this shit out,” he stated in a way that made it clear that he thought dragging me to his house was a perfectly natural thing to do.

  “We could have maybe done it over coffee or something,” I carefully suggested an alternative.

  “Yeah? Last four times I spoke to you, you acted like a bitch, told me to fuck off, told me you hated me, you gonna have coffee with me now?”

  “I make pancakes every Sunday morning, you’re welcome to come over,” I offered.

  I didn’t actually want him to come over, I wanted him to let my arm go and I wanted to get the fuck out of there.

  “Don’t be scared of me, Violet,” he warned.

  “That’s kind of hard when you’re bein’ scary, Joe,” I explained.

  When I told him this, instantly he let me go and stepped back.

  Then he growled, “Go home.”

  I just stood there, staring at him in the dark.

  Then hesitantly, sounding stupid, I asked, “Are you coming over for pancakes?”

  “Yeah, buddy, I’ll be over to your house for fuckin’ pancakes,” he clipped, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m sure you can’t wait.”

  “Joe –”

  “Go home.”

  “Joe –”

  “Go home, Violet.”

  “I kind of need my remote,” I whispered.

  He didn’t move so I did, taking a cautious step toward him my hand lifted, palm up. He didn’t put the remote in my hand. Instead, he tossed it into a chair and then I was in his arms and his mouth had slammed down on mine.

  I shouldn’t have let it happen, I knew that, but I did.

  And I did because firstly, I was fucking thrilled he wanted to kiss me. Secondly, because this time I knew the rules to his game. And lastly, and most importantly, I loved him kissing me. I’d been hungry for it for weeks and having it back, I was going to take it.

  The first time we had sex, it was a battle which he won.

  This time, it was war.

  I didn’t know if it was the last time I’d have him. The times before, he let me take a little but most of the time Joe took what he wanted from me.

  Now I was going to get what I wanted.

  We didn’t even make it to the bedroom. We were too busy with our hands and mouths, both colliding as they touched, tasted, explored and pulled off clothes. It was going fast and Joe was losing because I was determined. Therefore Joe took advantage, hooked an arm around my waist, shoved my lower body to the side and tagged me with a calf behind my knees which immediately buckled. I went down but he controlled my fall so I didn’t crash to the floor. Then his body covered mine and I lost the advantage.

  “My turn,” I panted into his ear, my hand wrapped around his hard cock as his hand curled around my breast. “I want you on your back.”

  “Next go,” Joe growled back and his finger and thumb rolled my nipple.

  My back arched as that shot straight through me but I didn’t give up.

  “Joe, my turn.”

  He pinched my nipple and that felt so fucking good, my entire body bucked.

  “Baby, you can have me next go.”

  “Joe –”

  “I’m gonna fuck you in a minute. We don’t have time for you to play.”

  That sounded good to me so I whispered, “Okay.”

  His mouth came to mine and he ground his cock into my hand. I liked the feel of him, hard and big. I missed it and having him pressed into my hand made me squeeze him, the nails of my other hand dug into the muscles of his back and I mewed low.

  “So hungry,” he muttered, his tone rough but approving.

  “Starving,” I whispered my admission.

  “Then let’s fill you up.”

  That sounded even better.

  His hand left my breast, slid down my side and his fingers hooked into my panties, the only piece of clothing either of us was wearing and he did all this as he kissed me deep. I lifted my legs, curling my ass off the floor as he pulled down my panties and I kicked them off when he got them to my ankles. I didn’t delay in dropping my legs and spreading them for him, he rolled between and I barely got them wrapped around his hips before he had me full.

  My mouth tore from his as my neck arched and my fingers curled into his ass.

  “Joe,” I breathed.

  His hand fisted in my hair and he positioned my head so he could again take my mouth.

  “You say my name, buddy, you say it in my mouth,” he ordered.

  “Whatever you want,” I agreed as he pounded inside me.

  “Whatever I want?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Careful what you promise me, buddy, even in your state.”

  “Just fuck me, Joe.”

  I could swear, through his thrusts, I felt his grin against my mouth.

  Then he muttered softly, “You got it, baby.”

  Then he fucked me, harder and harder, until I came and when I did, I moaned his name into his mouth.

  * * * * *

  Surprisingly, the next “go”, after he carried me to his bed, Joe let me “play”.

  It was brilliant.

  Then he played and, I had to admit, that was even better.

  After a double orgasm that was so fucking splendid, if I could write, I would have written pages of poetry about it, I passed out.

  I woke up and looked at the clock.

  It was five seventeen.

  I hadn’t been asleep long and wanted to sleep more but I needed to get home.

  I looked at Joe who was on his back, one of his arms under me but curled up around me, I was pressed into his side and he appeared to be asleep.

  I kind of wanted to watch him sleeping but I didn’t think that was allowed during a booty call. That was something I did with Tim, on occasion, because I loved him so much and he looked so cute when he was asleep.

  Joe didn’t look cute. He looked a little scary and a lot delicious.

  But watching someone sleep was something lovers did. We weren’t lovers. This was something else entirely, something that didn’t involve intimacies like watching someone sleep. I reckoned the intimacies shared during a booty call had pretty stringent boundaries and I’d read that situation wrong once, I wasn’t about to do it again.

  I moved and his arm tightened, his eyes opened and his chin started to dip.

  I didn’t catch his eye, just pushed against his tight arm, trying to roll away.

  This didn’t work.

  “Buddy,” he called softly, his voice gruff.

  “I gotta get back to the girls,” I mumbled.

  “After,” Joe muttered.

  “I have to go.”

  His arm loosened, I rolled to my other side but then his other arm wound around me and he yanked me into his front.

  “I said, after,” he growled into my hair, pressed his hard cock against my ass and my resisting body stopped resisting.

  He pushed into me, rolling me to my belly. Then his hand went between my legs and he cupped my pubic bone, gently pulling me to my knees as my torso stayed in the bed and my head stayed in the pillow.

  And I retained this posit
ion for awhile first while Joe’s mouth worked me then while he was on his knees behind me and his shaft worked me.

  After, when I was done and he was done, his hips pressed into mine, taking me off my knees and back to my belly. His body covered mine for only a second before he rolled us to our sides, his fingers drifting from between my legs, up my belly to glide along the curve under one breast.

  He lifted up and kissed my shoulder then at my ear he said, “Now, you can go home.”

  Released from my booty call, I started to move away but his fingers at the underside of my breast suddenly moved up and curled around.

  “You understand what this is?” he asked and instantly I nodded.

  I knew what it was. Sex. Just sex. A booty call. A really fucking good one.

  “My truck’s in the drive, buddy, you’re welcome in my bed.”

  “Okay,” I whispered into the pillow, my eyes closed, unsure what to make of this but deciding I’d think of it when Joe hadn’t just given me an orgasm and I didn’t have his body pressed to mine, his hand curled around my breast, his mouth at my ear.

  He moved, his whiskered chin scraping my skin as it pulled the hair away from my neck and he kissed me there.

  Then he let me go.

  Then without looking at him (mostly because I was naked but also because I was uncertain about how I felt about the state of affairs, primarily me being naked, thoroughly fucked by a man I went from not liking, to hating, but kept screwing and I’d never left a man in his bed, in his house, to run home in the shortest walk of shame in the history of womanhood, except, of course, the times I did this with Joe), I escaped his room, threw on my nightie, underwear and robe as fast as I could in his living room and I got the hell out of there.

  * * * * *

  Stupidly, for the next several hours, my eyes went to any window they were near and I peered out.

  I wasn’t on the lookout for Daniel Hart’s delivery men, his car, his driver or him.

  I was wondering if Joe would come over for pancakes.

  Kate and Keira got up, I made pancakes and Joe never showed.

  So there it was. Booty call.

  I took a shower and got ready to work the afternoon shift at the garden center.

  Cheryl had told me there was nothing wrong with a girl getting some. And getting it from Joe was good. So he wasn’t going to be the next love of my life. At least I wouldn’t be totally alone anymore, not if his truck was in the drive. And I doubted it would be hard to call it off if, someday, some guy who did want to “take it there” walked into my life.

  It wasn’t great. It wasn’t perfect. It was kind of sad after what I had with Tim.

  But it was better than where I was without him.

  I figured I could live with that.

  * * * * *

  Even so, I was on tenterhooks on the run up to dinner, thinking, since the girls asked him, he’d come over. I didn’t make pork chops or risotto because, with having to work, I didn’t have time to make it to the grocery store. I just made meatloaf.

  But it didn’t matter.

  Joe didn’t come for dinner.

  Chapter Seven

  Visit from Bonnie

  Cal lay in bed, his window open, listening.

  He’d been gone a week and a half, had to leave the day after things smoothed out with Violet to see to some work.

  He’d told her he was going before she slipped out of his bed the second night they were together, telling him she had to go home to her girls. She hadn’t slept with him that night, just told him she needed to go after they’d finished their second round. It wasn’t even midnight.

  Her car hadn’t been in the drive when he got home that day but the boyfriend’s yellow pickup and Kate’s Fiesta were there. From his driveway he could see the girls through the kitchen window, laughing and looking like they were making dinner. Dane was sitting on the counter facing the windows, laughing with them. If they were laughing, things were good. Colt had called while he was gone, reporting there were no more flowers and Vi hadn’t received any further gifts.

  He knew Daniel Hart though, he knew the man wouldn’t be done until he had what he wanted, something else caught his eye or someone made him done.

  Cal just hoped something else caught his eye.

  How life could make it that Hart’s current obsession moved in right next to him, the wife of a man Hart murdered, when Hart had also murdered Cal’s cousin Vinnie, Cal had no clue.

  He had been struggling with the decision of whether or not to make the call to Vinnie Senior, his uncle, since Cal found out about Violet and Hart. But after talking with Colt, he decided to wait to see if Hart lost interest before he talked to Vinnie. A call to Uncle Vinnie about Daniel Hart would mean a call to Sal and then there’d be war. Sal was itching for it. Then again, so was Uncle Vinnie.

  He heard the sliding glass door to Vi’s house open and he shook his head in the dark, grinning.

  Then he threw the covers back, knifed out of bed, grabbed his jeans, yanked them on and went to his backdoor.

  He had it open before she hit the steps and he met her on the deck.

  She tipped her head back to look at him.

  “Hi,” she whispered as if they were in her bedroom and she didn’t want her girls to hear.

  “Buddy, get inside,” he ordered, pulling the remote from her hand, he walked passed her, down the steps, across their yards, up her steps and, pressing the buttons on the remote without looking at it, he disarmed the alarm before he got close to the door and tripped the sensors. Then he went through her sliding glass door, closed it, locked it and walked through her house. Unlocking the side kitchen door, he nabbed the key he’d seen on a hook on the wall behind the door and he walked out, locking the door and hitting the buttons on the remote that would arm the alarm.

  She was perched on the arm of his father’s chair when he came back. She had her black satin robe on but he could see the lace of another of her sexy nighties hugging her cleavage through the opening of her robe.

  “Where’d you go?” she asked as he was sliding his door shut.

  He turned to her and tossed the remote on the couch.

  “You’re in the wrong room.”

  “Where’d you go?” she repeated.

  “Your system is tight, Vi, but you can’t leave a door unlocked. I locked it, went out your side door.” He lifted his hand, the keys to her kitchen door jingled from his fingers then he palmed them and pushed them in the pocket of his jeans. “Now, like I said, you’re in the wrong room.”

  She stood and whispered, “Thanks for thinkin’ of that, Joe.”

  Christ, why did his dick twitch every time she said his name?

  He decided he was definitely done talking in the living room.

  Therefore, he growled, “Get in my bed.”

  “Joe –”

  There it was again.

  Fuck, she undid him and she did it just saying his name.

  “Bed.”

  She hesitated then she whispered, “Okay.”

  He watched her turn and walk down his hall like she had all the time in the fucking world.

  He gave it a second to get himself under control so he didn’t go into his room, rip her nightgown off and scare the shit out of her when he did her.

  Then he followed her.

  * * * * *

  “I have to go,” she said against his neck.

  She was on top of him, his cock still inside her, he was still hard, he’d come not a minute before (she’d come earlier but she still rode him hard until he found it) and now she was talking about going.

  He had an arm draped around her waist, the other hand in her hair and he tightened both to make his point.

  But he made it verbally too. “Not done with you, buddy.”

  “Really, Joe, I should go.”

  He looked to his clock, it was nearing midnight.

  “You tired?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she answered.

 
His arms got tighter. “Then sleep.”

  “Joe –”

  He pulled her off his dick and rolled them to their sides, shoving his knee between her legs, forcing her to wrap her thigh around his hip and he did this to make another nonverbal point.

  She got his point and whispered into his throat, “My girls are alone.”

  “Anyone gets near your doors or windows, your alarm will go off, I’ll hear it, so will Colt, and we’ll move on it.”

  “But –”

  “Not to mention it’s wired straight into dispatch and Colt’s told them, they get the signal, they go in hot.”

  “But, I –”

  Cal tipped his chin down to look at her and tugged on her hair to force her to tilt her head back.

  When his eyes caught hers, he spoke, “I thought for a second they were unsafe, I’d be in your bed.”

  “Are you sure?” she whispered.

  What he was sure of was that he was relieved that she wasn’t slipping out of his bed to make some bitchy point or that she was using him to get off and leaving him to go home and sleep. Why he was relieved, he had no fucking clue. Any other woman did any of that shit, he wouldn’t care less and some of it he’d encourage.

  Vi, it’d piss him off.

  He was also sure nothing would happen to her girls. Daniel Hart might have money and power but he didn’t have anyone on his payroll who could slip through Cal’s system.

  “I’m sure.”

  Her body relaxed, settling into his. He loosened his hand in her hair and she tucked her face back in his throat.

  “It’s weird,” she said softly and after she spoke her body got tense again.

  He waited for her to say more but she fell silent.

  “What’s weird?” Cal prompted.

  “Nothin’,” she replied quickly.

  “Buddy.”

  She changed the subject, not that she introduced the subject in the first place still she changed it.

  “I’m just gonna doze before I go home.”

  “Vi, what’s weird?”

  “Really, it was nothin’. I was just thinkin’.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  His hand slid from her waist to her ass, he cupped it and he squeezed his warning while verbalizing it. “Not gonna ask again.”