Eden Butler's Blog, page 6
February 15, 2015
THIN LOVE BOOK TRAILER!!!
Thin Love Trailer and Series Sale
You guys...I'm dying. IN. LOVE. with the book trailer for Thin Love.
I got inspired and decided to have a sale on the series.
You can pick up Thin Love RIGHT NOW for 1.99 and My Beloved for .99
Check out the trailer and tell me what you think!!!
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http...
www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1oWaVeX...
You guys...I'm dying. IN. LOVE. with the book trailer for Thin Love.
I got inspired and decided to have a sale on the series.
You can pick up Thin Love RIGHT NOW for 1.99 and My Beloved for .99
Check out the trailer and tell me what you think!!!
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http...
www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D1oWaVeX...
Bestie Giveaway over on my FB Page - Kele Moon!
Bestie Giveaway over on my FB Page - Kele Moon!
Check out the pinned post for your chance to win one of your choice of Kele Moon's books AND a $10 gift card!
January 18, 2015
Writing Progress
I'm basically posting this for my own benefit since I'm such a noob and slacker on my personal blog and can't figure out how to list this on FB.
I have a LOT of projects I'm working on this year and I'm trying to keep tabs.
Night Shift Anthology Novella
"Swimming in Shadows"
"Shadows and Lies"
UF - not by Eden Butler
I have a LOT of projects I'm working on this year and I'm trying to keep tabs.
Night Shift Anthology Novella
"Swimming in Shadows"
"Shadows and Lies"
UF - not by Eden Butler
December 19, 2014
THICK LOVE EXCERPT
*Unedited As of This Publication*
Ronnie Blanchard had been playing that damn song for a half an hour straight. A shower, an attempt to drown myself under the blissfully hot spray hadn’t taken the headache from my skull or lessened the constant bump of the bass line downstairs.
Fuck, how I hated Chris Brown.
After our third straight win and telling my parents I just wanted to chill at the team house, I’d managed to get away from Blanchard and that stupid song by leaving the party still raging below. Just a few weeks into my first college football season and I’d already learned one thing about Claiborne-Prosper University: these assholes considered partying a God-given right. But, only when we win.
The bathroom in my room was small and the hot water fogged up the mirror, filtered the air with heat so thick I grabbed a towel and swung the door open before I completely dried off. It didn’t matter. No one would see my naked ass in this room. It was mine, private, just one of the perks of having a high ACT score and a coaching staff that hoped I’d play as well as my father had when he was on the defensive line.
But “private room” didn’t always equal privacy, a fact that became abundantly clear when I walked out of the bathroom and found a pretty girl I didn’t know sitting on the edge of my bed.
Fuck. Why do they always send me the redheads?
And it was red, more auburn than orange and fell past her elbows, had long waves working through the strands. Those eyes were dark, like the color of whiskey that shone against the lamp light on my bedside table. She looked scared, like seeing me in nothing but a towel with water dotted over my shoulders and chest was some sort of threat to her. Hell, she was in my room and I still got that 'don’t hurt me' vibe from her.
“You lost, sweetheart?” I tried to make my voice calm, hoping that she wouldn’t catch on to how annoyed I was. This shit was getting old.
“No.” That answer was barely a squeak and figuring she might be more relaxed if I wasn’t naked, I only moved my chin, acknowledging her before I hurried to my dresser to fish out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. Her voice came out louder, clearer as she moved from the bed. “They said…well, that Trent guy said you might…want to…” She stopped her explanation as a low grunt moved from my throat.
Trent Fucking Marshall. That asshole was always tossing girls in my room, knowing I wouldn’t be a bastard to them. “He trying to hook up with a friend of yours?” I watched the girl in the mirror over my dresser, trying pull up my boxers without dropping my towel. But, shit, maybe I should try and scare her off. She didn’t even look legal.
“How did you know?” Tone light, distracted, I caught her gaze lowering, following the towel as I dropped it. It wasn’t something that surprised me. Girls watched. They liked to pretend they didn’t, but they always watched. The redhead jerked her attention back to me when I turned around to face her. “Um. He said I was your type.”
“Did he now?”
The blush was killing me. She was too damn pretty, nice curves, long legs, but she looked too young. That red flush against her pale skin grew the longer she raked her gaze over my body and I forgot that I was annoyed by my surprise visitor. She only nodded in response, curled her arms around her waist as though she needed to keep her hands to herself.
“He said…” She stopped speaking, deciding, I guessed, that biting her lip would snap some sort of sense back into her pretty head. “He said that you…”
Those red splotches on her cheeks darkened and I could tell her nerves were totally shot. “Hey,” I said, stepping in front of her, making her look up at me. “You okay?” I doubted the nod she gave me. It was all bravado. Someone must have laid it on heavy and thick and this girl seemed eager to see if the rumors about me were true. I wasn’t immune to a pretty smile, but God knows I didn’t deserve the attention. If any of them knew me, the real me, how fucked up and twisted I could be, not one of them would come tapping on my door.
'The only thing you will ever give anyone in this life is heartache'
I should get that shit tattooed on my forehead. It was an insult I took like medicine, one that I tried to prove wrong every time some random girl came around me wanting a taste. I wouldn’t take one for myself, but I could at least give them what they asked for.
When the girl moved her head down, pulled those arms tighter around herself, I rubbed my eyes, trying to keep that insult from sticking, shouting too loud in my head. “Are you even legal?” I asked her, voice soft. No matter what I’d done, I wasn’t going to jail for any damn body.
This time when she nodded, I believed her. “I hit eighteen last month.”
“I’m not trying to get arrested.”
“I can show you my I.D.”
How desperate was she? How badly did she want this? I didn’t think about what I’d get out of her being here. I never did, but it always blew my mind when girls hit on me, when they fucking begged to be with me like I was some sort of big Hawaiian rock star and not the dumbass jock I knew I was.
She followed me around the room, watched as I tugged on my shirt, ran the towel through my damp hair and I let her, wanted to give her a second to change her mind.
“I heard things…” she started, her voice following me as I sat on the desk next to the door. She didn’t stand close, but she had dropped her arms, seemed to relax.
“I bet you did.” Those fucking rumors had my reputation a bit inflated. I wasn’t the whore of CPU. I didn’t fuck anything that offered it to me. That much, at least was all bullshit. But I liked to touch. I liked to service and girls, I guessed, talked just as much as guys did. Maybe more. Word got around, some of it ridiculous, along the “Poor, broken Ransom” variety. Some were spot on. “He won’t let you touch him.”
No. I wouldn’t. No one touched me. Not ever.
“The thing is, I didn’t believe them.” The shrug was cute, a little self-effacing but I didn’t think it was an act. This girl was genuinely curious, nervous. I liked that. “I just wanted to know if it was true.”
She watched me close as I nodded, but didn’t ask for any explanations. She only stared back at me as I assessed, wondered if she wanted what they all did. Hoping, she didn’t. Knowing she did.
I licked my lips and stood in front of her, trying to keep my tone light, curious. “You wanna know if I will make you come?” That damn blush resurfaced and just then I didn’t care why she was in my room. The innocent, sweet bit wore me down and I wanted to touch her. I wanted to show her how good I could make her feel. “Has anyone ever done that to you?”
“No.” Red pushed her hair off her shoulder, looked at her feet and when she spoke, I had to twist my head down to hear her. “Not really.”
“Alright,” I said, offering her my hand and she took it, glanced up at my face like she wanted to make sure I wasn’t messing with her.
“My name is…”
“No.” She didn’t recoil or step back when I dropped her hand. “I can’t know it.”
“So. It’s true then?”
“That I do this and nothing else?” She nodded, took to biting her lip again and I felt like an asshole, like I’d just deflated whatever bullshit ideas she’d had about me. Her skin felt like satin, pale and soft and fine to the touch when I brushed my fingers over her face. I could smell the faint hint of cinnamon from her breath and the sweet scent of lilac in her hair. Sensory overload was always my downfall. I liked all mine engaged and this pretty little girl managed that without any effort whatsoever.
It was always the hardest part for me; pushing back the sensation, the sights and smells that women put off. It always had me doubling my efforts, ignoring how my body reacted to it, ignoring what my brain told me I needed.
Her warm breath against my wrist when she kissed me there, forced me to close my eyes, to take control when my body wanted nothing more than to take her, lose myself, forget what I’d done at sixteen, just for a moment.
“Lay on the bed and I’ll show you.” She wasn’t eager, didn’t shoot straight to the bed and I liked how cautious she was, how she kept her eyes up, straight at me as she climbed in the middle of my black sheets. She even lost her shoes, tucked her feet under and kept her hands on her lap, like she need me directing her. That would help me to keep from letting things slip out of control. I appreciated how perceptive she was, how she let me take the reins, but she sat with her back too stiff, with her shoulders too straight. That wouldn’t work. I needed her relaxed.
“You nervous?” She only nodded, her apparent go-to response but I didn’t laugh at her, didn’t do much more than mimic her nod and sat in front of her with my thumb tracing across her knuckles. “Don’t be, sweetheart. I don’t bite.” Those thin fingers of hers shook under my touch and I slid closer, hoping my size, my width didn’t scare her. It was damn hard making this body seem less threatening, but I always tried. “At least…I don’t bite hard.”
The little joke worked and Red gave me a smile, moving her shoulders down, then laying back against the pillow when I caught the back of her neck and led her there. “You ever touch yourself?”
“Sometimes. Well, not a lot.”
“You’ve never made yourself come?”
“I haven’t ever…”
I stopped her explanation with a twist of my chin, feeling a sudden need to make this right, to make it perfect. Maybe this night would set the tone, lift the expectations of what she wanted. Maybe the way I touched her, taught her, would have Red expecting nothing but mind-blowing orgasm from anyone she was with. I could not fuck this up.
“Can you unbutton your shirt?” She tried, her movements a little shaky, disjointed and I covered her trembling fingers with my hand. “Want me to help you?” Another nod and I caught her throat working as she swallowed, the small breaths that moved past her open mouth as I slipped each button open. “Don’t be scared about this. If you are, it makes coming difficult.” The bra was pink with white lace covering the cups and I closed my eyes, took several deep breaths when my dick throbbed against my boxers.
A spattering of freckles speckled along her collarbone. So fucking similar. Christ, I needed to stay away from redheads. Spotting each one, I remembered the first time I’d touched a girl, the first time I’d kissed skin this soft. I had to squeeze my eyes tight, force out that first time, all the times after that one.
Instead, I focused on the girl laying in front of me. I concentrated on lowering those pink straps, on running my tongue over the curves of her generous tits. “You’re beautiful here, sugar.” She tasted like her lilac-smelling perfume. She was delicious and I craved more of that skin, more of the sounds she made as I kissed up her neck, over her collarbone. “And here…” I said, marveling at those perfectly round nipples I uncovered, loving the shocked, awed expression on her face when I grazed my thumb over that peak. “Pink and hard, just the way I like them.” She moaned, the sound louder, breathless when I took her nipple between my thumb and forefinger. The sensations rose up then, her voice like a melody, those raspy intakes of breath heady, shooting straight to my dick. “That feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah…yes.” And the rasp in her voice only caught, became breathless when I rolled the nipple with a little more pressure. “God I’m…”
I caught the signs, knew what she wanted, knew that she was scared, still nervous around me. She gripped her inner thigh, tugging on her loose skirt and I couldn’t help but grin, knowing she was just on the edge of having what she wanted. She was right there and I’d gladly see her off that cliff.
“Touch yourself if you need to.” Red’s quick glance, her widened eyes and the return of that blush pulled a small laugh from me. “You don’t need to worry about me, sweetheart. Nothing you do leaves this room. On my hon…” No. I couldn’t say that. I had no honor. Not anymore. Not after what I’d done. I wanted it back, I wanted to earn it, but it wasn’t mine, not yet. “I promise.”
“I don’t know…how.”
“I’ll show you.” I was careful to watch her face, gage her reactions, see if she’d change her mind, but my fingers on her skirt, pulling, then slipping down her too sweet, too girly cotton panties did nothing to make her stop me. “Relax. Just take a breath.” And she tried, nodded again but dug her fingers into my sheets as though she needed some grip to keep gravity in check, like she couldn’t manage to trust touching herself. It was fine. I’d do it for her.
She was pink everywhere. Pink and wet and pulsing like a grape on the vine full and ready for the taking. This wouldn’t take long, I knew that. This girl was desperate and hungry for something she couldn’t quite reach. Something she probably didn’t even understand. So I was gentle as I lowered over her, as I separated her folds with my big fingers and brushed my tongue against that swollen clit. I thought she probably felt my smile against her pussy when I watched her, when the flush on her skin and those panting breaths made her skin glow. God, she looked beautiful. So looked ready to burst. “Is that good?”
“So…so good. God…”
“This is better.” Red bucked against my fingers when I slipped them inside, feeling the searing heat of her pussy, the tight, tight muscles that wrapped around my fingers. Fuck, those smells, the feel of her, the hiss of her throaty voice when she groaned, it was like a slice to my chest, feeling all of this at once, knowing I could only taste, could on touch.
My penance. My punishment for taking something that had never been mine.
“Ransom…oh God…what…Oh!”
Fingers dipping deeper, tonguing flicking fast against her clit, Red only became wetter and she dug her fingers so hard against my sheets that her knuckles turned white. “Squeeze my fingers.” And she did, tight, greedy grip around my fingers and then the memory came back, like it always did. That small body, that sweet, sweet taste, the first I’d ever had.
The way she’d called my name, how she’d tasted on my tongue. That memory cripples me. Every damn time. The memory stung, but I let it in, taking that pain, cradling it—Emily’s tight, wet body gripping my fingers, how fascinated I’d been by her reactions, by how responsive she was. I had felt like a god. I’d felt powerful and strong and so very astounded that it was me, the clumsy, senseless sixteen year old that made Emily writhe against my fingers. Me that had her pulling at my hair, pushing me closer into her body.
Red’s climax was hard and I took her scream, her quaking body as my chance to dry my face, to scrub my palms into my eyes, hoping that the memory would fade; hoping that Emily’s face, her taste would finally be erased by the girl laying next to me.
But again, it hadn’t worked. Maybe it was the red hair. Maybe it was the freckles, but for the hundred time it seemed, touching another girl, tasting someone else’s body, hadn’t managed to pull Emily from my thoughts.
I didn’t think anyone ever would.
When the girl’s breaths evened out and she rolled to her side, I took her hand, laid next to her. “When you’re alone, when you want to feel this again, touch yourself deep.” I picked up her hand, kissed her knuckles. “Use those beautiful hips to ride your fingers.”
“O…okay.”
I liked that she was shy again, as though she was just realizing that it was her voice that shouted out into the room, her body that had washed over in pleasure. But the blush didn’t return.
“Don’t ever let anybody tell you what your body needs. Only you can do that and don’t you settle until you find someone that will give you what you need.”
“Ransom…”
I shook my head, knowing what she’d say. Knowing what the pull of her frowning lips meant. Sympathy. Pity. I’d seen it a hundred times before. “I’m good, sweetheart, really.”
“You…you were crying. I felt it on my legs.”
It would be so damn easy to talk to this girl. She didn’t know me. She knew nothing about my folks or my baby brother or that my mother was about to drop another one. She didn’t know about the years mom and I spent in Nashville, how I’d know Kona Hale was my father since I was thirteen. Red didn’t know about all the fuck ups I’d made. She didn’t know about my anger and need to excel.
She only knew that I was the first person to make her come. She only knew what her friends had told her about me. She knew nothing and sometimes it was easier telling a total stranger about all the bullshit weighing you down than your own blood.
But I couldn’t take the pity. I didn’t fucking deserve it.
Finally, I shook my head, reached down to drop a quick kiss against her lips. “You’re sweet to worry, but I’m fine. Really.”
“I just thought maybe you would want…”
But I cut her off, standing to pick up her clothes. She dressed in silence with me waiting for her near the door. It was a little harsh, I guess, but seemed to work. They’d come for a release. I’d give it to them gladly, easily. There was no need to linger.
“Thank you, really.” Red looked me in the eyes, all the hints of shyness absent from her features. “You’re a good person, Ransom.”
Behind my closed eyelids, I said a little prayer, wishing that was true and the girl took her cue, left my room with the smell of her climax and the scent of lilac perfuming the air.
“No, sweetheart,” I said to myself. “I’m not good at all.”
Ronnie Blanchard had been playing that damn song for a half an hour straight. A shower, an attempt to drown myself under the blissfully hot spray hadn’t taken the headache from my skull or lessened the constant bump of the bass line downstairs.
Fuck, how I hated Chris Brown.
After our third straight win and telling my parents I just wanted to chill at the team house, I’d managed to get away from Blanchard and that stupid song by leaving the party still raging below. Just a few weeks into my first college football season and I’d already learned one thing about Claiborne-Prosper University: these assholes considered partying a God-given right. But, only when we win.
The bathroom in my room was small and the hot water fogged up the mirror, filtered the air with heat so thick I grabbed a towel and swung the door open before I completely dried off. It didn’t matter. No one would see my naked ass in this room. It was mine, private, just one of the perks of having a high ACT score and a coaching staff that hoped I’d play as well as my father had when he was on the defensive line.
But “private room” didn’t always equal privacy, a fact that became abundantly clear when I walked out of the bathroom and found a pretty girl I didn’t know sitting on the edge of my bed.
Fuck. Why do they always send me the redheads?
And it was red, more auburn than orange and fell past her elbows, had long waves working through the strands. Those eyes were dark, like the color of whiskey that shone against the lamp light on my bedside table. She looked scared, like seeing me in nothing but a towel with water dotted over my shoulders and chest was some sort of threat to her. Hell, she was in my room and I still got that 'don’t hurt me' vibe from her.
“You lost, sweetheart?” I tried to make my voice calm, hoping that she wouldn’t catch on to how annoyed I was. This shit was getting old.
“No.” That answer was barely a squeak and figuring she might be more relaxed if I wasn’t naked, I only moved my chin, acknowledging her before I hurried to my dresser to fish out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. Her voice came out louder, clearer as she moved from the bed. “They said…well, that Trent guy said you might…want to…” She stopped her explanation as a low grunt moved from my throat.
Trent Fucking Marshall. That asshole was always tossing girls in my room, knowing I wouldn’t be a bastard to them. “He trying to hook up with a friend of yours?” I watched the girl in the mirror over my dresser, trying pull up my boxers without dropping my towel. But, shit, maybe I should try and scare her off. She didn’t even look legal.
“How did you know?” Tone light, distracted, I caught her gaze lowering, following the towel as I dropped it. It wasn’t something that surprised me. Girls watched. They liked to pretend they didn’t, but they always watched. The redhead jerked her attention back to me when I turned around to face her. “Um. He said I was your type.”
“Did he now?”
The blush was killing me. She was too damn pretty, nice curves, long legs, but she looked too young. That red flush against her pale skin grew the longer she raked her gaze over my body and I forgot that I was annoyed by my surprise visitor. She only nodded in response, curled her arms around her waist as though she needed to keep her hands to herself.
“He said…” She stopped speaking, deciding, I guessed, that biting her lip would snap some sort of sense back into her pretty head. “He said that you…”
Those red splotches on her cheeks darkened and I could tell her nerves were totally shot. “Hey,” I said, stepping in front of her, making her look up at me. “You okay?” I doubted the nod she gave me. It was all bravado. Someone must have laid it on heavy and thick and this girl seemed eager to see if the rumors about me were true. I wasn’t immune to a pretty smile, but God knows I didn’t deserve the attention. If any of them knew me, the real me, how fucked up and twisted I could be, not one of them would come tapping on my door.
'The only thing you will ever give anyone in this life is heartache'
I should get that shit tattooed on my forehead. It was an insult I took like medicine, one that I tried to prove wrong every time some random girl came around me wanting a taste. I wouldn’t take one for myself, but I could at least give them what they asked for.
When the girl moved her head down, pulled those arms tighter around herself, I rubbed my eyes, trying to keep that insult from sticking, shouting too loud in my head. “Are you even legal?” I asked her, voice soft. No matter what I’d done, I wasn’t going to jail for any damn body.
This time when she nodded, I believed her. “I hit eighteen last month.”
“I’m not trying to get arrested.”
“I can show you my I.D.”
How desperate was she? How badly did she want this? I didn’t think about what I’d get out of her being here. I never did, but it always blew my mind when girls hit on me, when they fucking begged to be with me like I was some sort of big Hawaiian rock star and not the dumbass jock I knew I was.
She followed me around the room, watched as I tugged on my shirt, ran the towel through my damp hair and I let her, wanted to give her a second to change her mind.
“I heard things…” she started, her voice following me as I sat on the desk next to the door. She didn’t stand close, but she had dropped her arms, seemed to relax.
“I bet you did.” Those fucking rumors had my reputation a bit inflated. I wasn’t the whore of CPU. I didn’t fuck anything that offered it to me. That much, at least was all bullshit. But I liked to touch. I liked to service and girls, I guessed, talked just as much as guys did. Maybe more. Word got around, some of it ridiculous, along the “Poor, broken Ransom” variety. Some were spot on. “He won’t let you touch him.”
No. I wouldn’t. No one touched me. Not ever.
“The thing is, I didn’t believe them.” The shrug was cute, a little self-effacing but I didn’t think it was an act. This girl was genuinely curious, nervous. I liked that. “I just wanted to know if it was true.”
She watched me close as I nodded, but didn’t ask for any explanations. She only stared back at me as I assessed, wondered if she wanted what they all did. Hoping, she didn’t. Knowing she did.
I licked my lips and stood in front of her, trying to keep my tone light, curious. “You wanna know if I will make you come?” That damn blush resurfaced and just then I didn’t care why she was in my room. The innocent, sweet bit wore me down and I wanted to touch her. I wanted to show her how good I could make her feel. “Has anyone ever done that to you?”
“No.” Red pushed her hair off her shoulder, looked at her feet and when she spoke, I had to twist my head down to hear her. “Not really.”
“Alright,” I said, offering her my hand and she took it, glanced up at my face like she wanted to make sure I wasn’t messing with her.
“My name is…”
“No.” She didn’t recoil or step back when I dropped her hand. “I can’t know it.”
“So. It’s true then?”
“That I do this and nothing else?” She nodded, took to biting her lip again and I felt like an asshole, like I’d just deflated whatever bullshit ideas she’d had about me. Her skin felt like satin, pale and soft and fine to the touch when I brushed my fingers over her face. I could smell the faint hint of cinnamon from her breath and the sweet scent of lilac in her hair. Sensory overload was always my downfall. I liked all mine engaged and this pretty little girl managed that without any effort whatsoever.
It was always the hardest part for me; pushing back the sensation, the sights and smells that women put off. It always had me doubling my efforts, ignoring how my body reacted to it, ignoring what my brain told me I needed.
Her warm breath against my wrist when she kissed me there, forced me to close my eyes, to take control when my body wanted nothing more than to take her, lose myself, forget what I’d done at sixteen, just for a moment.
“Lay on the bed and I’ll show you.” She wasn’t eager, didn’t shoot straight to the bed and I liked how cautious she was, how she kept her eyes up, straight at me as she climbed in the middle of my black sheets. She even lost her shoes, tucked her feet under and kept her hands on her lap, like she need me directing her. That would help me to keep from letting things slip out of control. I appreciated how perceptive she was, how she let me take the reins, but she sat with her back too stiff, with her shoulders too straight. That wouldn’t work. I needed her relaxed.
“You nervous?” She only nodded, her apparent go-to response but I didn’t laugh at her, didn’t do much more than mimic her nod and sat in front of her with my thumb tracing across her knuckles. “Don’t be, sweetheart. I don’t bite.” Those thin fingers of hers shook under my touch and I slid closer, hoping my size, my width didn’t scare her. It was damn hard making this body seem less threatening, but I always tried. “At least…I don’t bite hard.”
The little joke worked and Red gave me a smile, moving her shoulders down, then laying back against the pillow when I caught the back of her neck and led her there. “You ever touch yourself?”
“Sometimes. Well, not a lot.”
“You’ve never made yourself come?”
“I haven’t ever…”
I stopped her explanation with a twist of my chin, feeling a sudden need to make this right, to make it perfect. Maybe this night would set the tone, lift the expectations of what she wanted. Maybe the way I touched her, taught her, would have Red expecting nothing but mind-blowing orgasm from anyone she was with. I could not fuck this up.
“Can you unbutton your shirt?” She tried, her movements a little shaky, disjointed and I covered her trembling fingers with my hand. “Want me to help you?” Another nod and I caught her throat working as she swallowed, the small breaths that moved past her open mouth as I slipped each button open. “Don’t be scared about this. If you are, it makes coming difficult.” The bra was pink with white lace covering the cups and I closed my eyes, took several deep breaths when my dick throbbed against my boxers.
A spattering of freckles speckled along her collarbone. So fucking similar. Christ, I needed to stay away from redheads. Spotting each one, I remembered the first time I’d touched a girl, the first time I’d kissed skin this soft. I had to squeeze my eyes tight, force out that first time, all the times after that one.
Instead, I focused on the girl laying in front of me. I concentrated on lowering those pink straps, on running my tongue over the curves of her generous tits. “You’re beautiful here, sugar.” She tasted like her lilac-smelling perfume. She was delicious and I craved more of that skin, more of the sounds she made as I kissed up her neck, over her collarbone. “And here…” I said, marveling at those perfectly round nipples I uncovered, loving the shocked, awed expression on her face when I grazed my thumb over that peak. “Pink and hard, just the way I like them.” She moaned, the sound louder, breathless when I took her nipple between my thumb and forefinger. The sensations rose up then, her voice like a melody, those raspy intakes of breath heady, shooting straight to my dick. “That feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah…yes.” And the rasp in her voice only caught, became breathless when I rolled the nipple with a little more pressure. “God I’m…”
I caught the signs, knew what she wanted, knew that she was scared, still nervous around me. She gripped her inner thigh, tugging on her loose skirt and I couldn’t help but grin, knowing she was just on the edge of having what she wanted. She was right there and I’d gladly see her off that cliff.
“Touch yourself if you need to.” Red’s quick glance, her widened eyes and the return of that blush pulled a small laugh from me. “You don’t need to worry about me, sweetheart. Nothing you do leaves this room. On my hon…” No. I couldn’t say that. I had no honor. Not anymore. Not after what I’d done. I wanted it back, I wanted to earn it, but it wasn’t mine, not yet. “I promise.”
“I don’t know…how.”
“I’ll show you.” I was careful to watch her face, gage her reactions, see if she’d change her mind, but my fingers on her skirt, pulling, then slipping down her too sweet, too girly cotton panties did nothing to make her stop me. “Relax. Just take a breath.” And she tried, nodded again but dug her fingers into my sheets as though she needed some grip to keep gravity in check, like she couldn’t manage to trust touching herself. It was fine. I’d do it for her.
She was pink everywhere. Pink and wet and pulsing like a grape on the vine full and ready for the taking. This wouldn’t take long, I knew that. This girl was desperate and hungry for something she couldn’t quite reach. Something she probably didn’t even understand. So I was gentle as I lowered over her, as I separated her folds with my big fingers and brushed my tongue against that swollen clit. I thought she probably felt my smile against her pussy when I watched her, when the flush on her skin and those panting breaths made her skin glow. God, she looked beautiful. So looked ready to burst. “Is that good?”
“So…so good. God…”
“This is better.” Red bucked against my fingers when I slipped them inside, feeling the searing heat of her pussy, the tight, tight muscles that wrapped around my fingers. Fuck, those smells, the feel of her, the hiss of her throaty voice when she groaned, it was like a slice to my chest, feeling all of this at once, knowing I could only taste, could on touch.
My penance. My punishment for taking something that had never been mine.
“Ransom…oh God…what…Oh!”
Fingers dipping deeper, tonguing flicking fast against her clit, Red only became wetter and she dug her fingers so hard against my sheets that her knuckles turned white. “Squeeze my fingers.” And she did, tight, greedy grip around my fingers and then the memory came back, like it always did. That small body, that sweet, sweet taste, the first I’d ever had.
The way she’d called my name, how she’d tasted on my tongue. That memory cripples me. Every damn time. The memory stung, but I let it in, taking that pain, cradling it—Emily’s tight, wet body gripping my fingers, how fascinated I’d been by her reactions, by how responsive she was. I had felt like a god. I’d felt powerful and strong and so very astounded that it was me, the clumsy, senseless sixteen year old that made Emily writhe against my fingers. Me that had her pulling at my hair, pushing me closer into her body.
Red’s climax was hard and I took her scream, her quaking body as my chance to dry my face, to scrub my palms into my eyes, hoping that the memory would fade; hoping that Emily’s face, her taste would finally be erased by the girl laying next to me.
But again, it hadn’t worked. Maybe it was the red hair. Maybe it was the freckles, but for the hundred time it seemed, touching another girl, tasting someone else’s body, hadn’t managed to pull Emily from my thoughts.
I didn’t think anyone ever would.
When the girl’s breaths evened out and she rolled to her side, I took her hand, laid next to her. “When you’re alone, when you want to feel this again, touch yourself deep.” I picked up her hand, kissed her knuckles. “Use those beautiful hips to ride your fingers.”
“O…okay.”
I liked that she was shy again, as though she was just realizing that it was her voice that shouted out into the room, her body that had washed over in pleasure. But the blush didn’t return.
“Don’t ever let anybody tell you what your body needs. Only you can do that and don’t you settle until you find someone that will give you what you need.”
“Ransom…”
I shook my head, knowing what she’d say. Knowing what the pull of her frowning lips meant. Sympathy. Pity. I’d seen it a hundred times before. “I’m good, sweetheart, really.”
“You…you were crying. I felt it on my legs.”
It would be so damn easy to talk to this girl. She didn’t know me. She knew nothing about my folks or my baby brother or that my mother was about to drop another one. She didn’t know about the years mom and I spent in Nashville, how I’d know Kona Hale was my father since I was thirteen. Red didn’t know about all the fuck ups I’d made. She didn’t know about my anger and need to excel.
She only knew that I was the first person to make her come. She only knew what her friends had told her about me. She knew nothing and sometimes it was easier telling a total stranger about all the bullshit weighing you down than your own blood.
But I couldn’t take the pity. I didn’t fucking deserve it.
Finally, I shook my head, reached down to drop a quick kiss against her lips. “You’re sweet to worry, but I’m fine. Really.”
“I just thought maybe you would want…”
But I cut her off, standing to pick up her clothes. She dressed in silence with me waiting for her near the door. It was a little harsh, I guess, but seemed to work. They’d come for a release. I’d give it to them gladly, easily. There was no need to linger.
“Thank you, really.” Red looked me in the eyes, all the hints of shyness absent from her features. “You’re a good person, Ransom.”
Behind my closed eyelids, I said a little prayer, wishing that was true and the girl took her cue, left my room with the smell of her climax and the scent of lilac perfuming the air.
“No, sweetheart,” I said to myself. “I’m not good at all.”
December 15, 2014
December 6, 2014
The Scandie Awards-Thin Love Nomination
You guys, I am so very humbled and excited to have been nominated by Scandalicious Book Reviews in two categories for the Scandie Awards. Would be so very thrilled if you threw a vote my way. Wow.
http://www.scandaliciousbookreviews.c...
http://www.scandaliciousbookreviews.c...
MY BELOVED NOW LIVE !!
Early release! My Beloved - A #ThinLove Novella is available on most formats right now. I'd love for you to share the word! Thanks so much.
December 3, 2014
November 29, 2014
MY BELOVED SNEAK PEEK!!!!
Happy Saturday! Who wants a sneak peek to my upcoming #ThinLove novella, #MyBeloved ??? And...the cover is uploaded!!! Don't forget to add it to your GR TBR list! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
(Some of you might recognize a moment in this scene, if you follow this page. :) )
Kona was her perfect.
He snored. Sometimes, he left the toilet seat up and he always kept his massive shoes right next to the bed. Keira had broken her pinkie toe twice because of them. Kona was not perfect, but he was her perfect.
She loved the long, large planes of his body, the way his naked chest brushed her chin as he moved over her. She loved how he arched his neck, how he always held onto her, gazed down at her as he took her.
And Jesus, how she loved when he did that.
“Knees up, baby.” His voice was shaky, raspy, and that smile, that irresistible smile that Keira had learned decades before would be trouble, was still beautiful, still meant only for her. That smile grew even wider when she lifted her legs and pulled his hips closer.
“Like that?” Her eyebrow came up and she felt her cheeks ache when his tempting smile faltered, wavered under the strength of her movements.
Kona gripped the pillow above Keira’s head, grunting as he thrust harder into her, pushing her deeper into the mattress. “Yeah…shit, yes, baby, just like that.”
She would never be tired of them together, him inside her, the way he looked at her, the soft whisper of her name flitting off his lips as he climaxed. Their bodies sounded like music, coming together, skin damp, fingers nimble, eager as they touched each other. She’d missed this. He had only been gone a week this time and still her body missed his so much. It was all she could do to keep her pulse from bursting through her skin.
His arms shook, elbows trembling and Keira knew he would not last long. The nights had been too many and he’d missed her, too, had ached for her body while he was away on his latest temporary assignment with ESPN. She’d barely opened the door before he had her naked and flat on her back.
A quick kiss and she moved, pushed Kona over and on to his back against the large mattress, climbing over his lap, knees against his hips as she rode him. He fit his fingers around her waist but didn’t guide her, didn’t show Keira how to move. She knew already.
“Christ, you are beautiful, Wildcat.”
And she did feel beautiful, just then, with her back arching as he filled her, Kona’s hand cupping one breast, his low, awed words whispered into the dark room as she took him harder, deeper. She always felt beautiful with Kona. Every second she was with him, when he touched her, when he kissed her, even when she pretended to be asleep as he watched her. Keira felt like the most beautiful woman on earth, but that was Kona. That was what he did to her. She’d been without him for so long that just a few months of them together again, learning each other, planning a life, a future with their son, with more children that he begged her to have, felt like moments compacted, pressed together in something no one had a right to feel. The years of loneliness had disappeared in four short months and Keira and Kona were finally there together, the past misplaced in the happiness their new lives brought them.
Now Kona was pulling on her hips, urging Kiera to move faster and she took his invitation, feeling the swell of aching pleasure as it tingled through her whole body, down her legs to her feet, from her hips, straight from her core and she came around him, loving how hard he held her, how his grip was fierce, eager as he followed her in his own climax, and then spent, pulled her down to him.
Cheek against his chest, Keira smiled, ready to purr when he rubbed her back, kissed her forehead. Kona’s long sigh moved against her bangs and he rested his hand on the center of her back. “Never. Leaving. Again.”
“Uh huh.” She rolled off him, stretching against the soft cotton sheets as Kona ran his fingers along her stomach. “That’s just post-coital talk, Hale. You’ll leave again when they want you commentating on another game.”
“Nope. I made a decision.” One quick jerk of his hand and Kona swung Keira back on top of him, pressure tight on her back so she could not move away. “I’ve decided that Ransom can stay with Leann and you and I will live here, right in this bed for the rest of our lives.”
He frowned when she rested her chin against his chest, trying not to laugh. “Leann would kill Ransom inside of a week and you and I would starve.”
“We’ll live off love.”
Keira rolled her eyes, swatted his hand away when he tried keeping her still. “You eat way too much for that to fill you up.”
“You’re the one that fills me up, Wildcat.” There was a slow tingle of pleasure that ran down her spine as Kona pulled her up his body so that their mouths were inches apart. “I get full on you every day, baby.”
Keira couldn’t laugh at him then. She couldn’t take that smile off his face or resist the slow slide of his lips against hers.
Can you die from too much contentment? Keira knew better than to ask that. The universe had a way of fracturing anything she might want for herself. Even all those years ago, after she left New Orleans with Ransom swelling her belly, after she first walked away from the only life she had known, from Kona, and set about trying to figure out motherhood on her own, Keira spent most days waiting for the other shoe to drop. She’d watch Ransom as a baby sleep for hours, just to make sure his tiny, infant chest continued to rise and fall. Every gurgle scared her, every sigh had her convinced she couldn’t take her eyes from him even for a moment.
When you are so used to bad being intrinsic to your life, then you expect the shoe dropping. Sometimes, you count the seconds before it does. Even when it doesn't.
“Stop thinking,” Kona said. He always did that—guessed when she was worrying about things that may never come. Keira closed her eyes as he rubbed his thumb between her eyebrows. “You have this tiny little line that dents right here when you start that bullshit worrying.”
“You saying I look old, Kona Hale?”
“No. Not too old...ow!” She rolled off him and darted into the bathroom before he could retaliate from her projectile pillow aimed right at his head. “You’re beautiful and you know it.” His voice was muffled behind the bathroom door as Keira tidied herself up, trying to keep the smile off her face. Most days lately, she found that impossible to do.
“Again, post-coital compliments, jackass.” She shook out her hair, splashed cold water over her face and neck before she returned to the bedroom. “You know, I don’t think…” but Keira was talking to herself, or at least the empty room. “Where’d you go?” she shouted toward the open door.
The rich scent of coffee came into the room and Keira’s mouth watered. She gave in to a fleeting thought that Kona would bring her a cup as she rubbed her hands over her naked arms. The late November chill had already set into the house, the sharp bite of wind kicking off the lake cooling the air before the temperatures dropped.
She wrapped the down cover over her shoulders, then pushed it back to fetch Kona’s white button up off the floor. It fell to her thighs as she pulled it onto her shoulders and Keira bounced against the mattress, buttoning the shirt before she noticed something square pinching against her butt. Reaching back, she gripped the corner, pulled a hardback copy of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved from underneath the duvet.
Kona tended to read non-fiction or horror novels—he was currently obsessed with Joe Hill and Kealan Patrick Burke—but he hadn’t been there the night before to read in bed before sleep, and hadn’t even bothered with his luggage before he was on her, so a book being on the bed made no sense.
Until Keira opened it.
It took three full seconds for her brain to make sense of what she saw when she pulled back the cover. She expected to see her worn, dog-eared copy of the novel with its fraying pages from the number of times she’d read that book. But that wasn’t what caught her eye. That wasn’t what had the air stilling in Keira’s lungs.
“Oh God.”
The pages had been glued together and a small square, just big enough for a ring box, had been cut into the center. The book was opened to page 164 and the highlighted text of Morrison’s words lined the top of the square.
Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.
Keira hated that her eyes burned, that the small gesture, those words, could cripple her so easily. The words were theirs, a brief quote that defined what Keira and Kona needed from each other. They were the vows of two kids who had no idea what real love was. But those lines had stuck, they said everything about who Keira and Kona were to each other, who they’d always be.
Kona slipped up behind her, his arms around her waist before Keira could lift her fingers to the velvet box in the center of the page. Blinking, she couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at. That black box meant so much, it meant forever, yet even now that part of her that waited for the other shoe to drop wouldn’t let go of the expectation of disappointment. She tried to clear it from her mind. She tried to hope for the question she knew Kona wanted to ask, but that negative, niggling voice remained loud, persistent. It told her not to expect anything.
“I’m sixteen years late,” Kona said, moving the hair off her shoulder. He smelled mildly of sweat with the slightest hint of coffee on his breath. Keira wouldn’t have cared if he smelled of moth balls. He pulled her tight against him, sliding his hands under hers to take the box away from the book, lifting its velvet lid. “I wanted to do this a long time ago, baby. Every day since the second I realized I loved you.”
A quick jerk of her head, a glance over her shoulder and Keira’s vision was blurred by the burning moisture in her eyes. She couldn’t speak, didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She didn’t know if she’d be capable of much more than a nod of her head.
When Keira only continued to blink at Kona, silent, eyes rounding, he took the ring from the box and gently pushed it onto her finger. Her eyes followed the movement, but she was still left dumb, too shocked to make any coherent thoughts organize enough to form speech.
“Be my always, Keira?” What he said was simple. It was sweet. It was Kona saying little and meaning so much with four insignificant words. Separately they were nothing. Together, they held everything that they could ever hope to be.
She’d never heard him speak so gently. She’d never seen Kona sit so still, but his voice was small, so unlike the huge man he was. His expression was guarded, anxious and it took her several moments before she realized he expected an answer. Still she could not move, waiting for it all to vanish.
Then, Kona blew a breath past his lips and his grip around her waist tightened. “Baby, you gotta say something before my heart beats out of my chest. I’m holding my breath here.”
Keira’s throat felt raw and sore, she cleared it and finally glanced down at the ring, a beautiful square cut diamond on a simple platinum band that sparkled against the lamp light.
At last she managed to speak. “I only have one question.” She brought her gaze back to Kona, spotted the way his eyebrows moved up, as though he wasn’t sure what she’d say. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this my signed copy?”
Keira watched Kona’s eyes moving across her face, at first confused, but then he must have realized what she was saying and his mouth relaxed as a smile inched against his lips and he released his held breath. “Do you think I’m crazy? I like my balls right where they are.” When she arched one eyebrow at him, he laughed, moving her around to face him. “Second hand bookstore in Atlanta. I know better than to mess with your books.”
No one had ever loved her like Kona. He had shown an introverted eighteen year old what passion was, how it could fill you up, make you soar. He had given her laughter and love and as much of himself as he could, when he couldn’t give her his all. He had given her Ransom. She knew she could spend a lifetime looking into those dark eyes, kissing those soft lips and it would never be enough.
“Well?” he said nudging her with his hand. “What do you say? You wanna marry me, Wildcat?”
“Yeah.” She erased the doubt, the dread from her mind. It didn’t belong there anymore. “Okay.”
(Some of you might recognize a moment in this scene, if you follow this page. :) )
Kona was her perfect.
He snored. Sometimes, he left the toilet seat up and he always kept his massive shoes right next to the bed. Keira had broken her pinkie toe twice because of them. Kona was not perfect, but he was her perfect.
She loved the long, large planes of his body, the way his naked chest brushed her chin as he moved over her. She loved how he arched his neck, how he always held onto her, gazed down at her as he took her.
And Jesus, how she loved when he did that.
“Knees up, baby.” His voice was shaky, raspy, and that smile, that irresistible smile that Keira had learned decades before would be trouble, was still beautiful, still meant only for her. That smile grew even wider when she lifted her legs and pulled his hips closer.
“Like that?” Her eyebrow came up and she felt her cheeks ache when his tempting smile faltered, wavered under the strength of her movements.
Kona gripped the pillow above Keira’s head, grunting as he thrust harder into her, pushing her deeper into the mattress. “Yeah…shit, yes, baby, just like that.”
She would never be tired of them together, him inside her, the way he looked at her, the soft whisper of her name flitting off his lips as he climaxed. Their bodies sounded like music, coming together, skin damp, fingers nimble, eager as they touched each other. She’d missed this. He had only been gone a week this time and still her body missed his so much. It was all she could do to keep her pulse from bursting through her skin.
His arms shook, elbows trembling and Keira knew he would not last long. The nights had been too many and he’d missed her, too, had ached for her body while he was away on his latest temporary assignment with ESPN. She’d barely opened the door before he had her naked and flat on her back.
A quick kiss and she moved, pushed Kona over and on to his back against the large mattress, climbing over his lap, knees against his hips as she rode him. He fit his fingers around her waist but didn’t guide her, didn’t show Keira how to move. She knew already.
“Christ, you are beautiful, Wildcat.”
And she did feel beautiful, just then, with her back arching as he filled her, Kona’s hand cupping one breast, his low, awed words whispered into the dark room as she took him harder, deeper. She always felt beautiful with Kona. Every second she was with him, when he touched her, when he kissed her, even when she pretended to be asleep as he watched her. Keira felt like the most beautiful woman on earth, but that was Kona. That was what he did to her. She’d been without him for so long that just a few months of them together again, learning each other, planning a life, a future with their son, with more children that he begged her to have, felt like moments compacted, pressed together in something no one had a right to feel. The years of loneliness had disappeared in four short months and Keira and Kona were finally there together, the past misplaced in the happiness their new lives brought them.
Now Kona was pulling on her hips, urging Kiera to move faster and she took his invitation, feeling the swell of aching pleasure as it tingled through her whole body, down her legs to her feet, from her hips, straight from her core and she came around him, loving how hard he held her, how his grip was fierce, eager as he followed her in his own climax, and then spent, pulled her down to him.
Cheek against his chest, Keira smiled, ready to purr when he rubbed her back, kissed her forehead. Kona’s long sigh moved against her bangs and he rested his hand on the center of her back. “Never. Leaving. Again.”
“Uh huh.” She rolled off him, stretching against the soft cotton sheets as Kona ran his fingers along her stomach. “That’s just post-coital talk, Hale. You’ll leave again when they want you commentating on another game.”
“Nope. I made a decision.” One quick jerk of his hand and Kona swung Keira back on top of him, pressure tight on her back so she could not move away. “I’ve decided that Ransom can stay with Leann and you and I will live here, right in this bed for the rest of our lives.”
He frowned when she rested her chin against his chest, trying not to laugh. “Leann would kill Ransom inside of a week and you and I would starve.”
“We’ll live off love.”
Keira rolled her eyes, swatted his hand away when he tried keeping her still. “You eat way too much for that to fill you up.”
“You’re the one that fills me up, Wildcat.” There was a slow tingle of pleasure that ran down her spine as Kona pulled her up his body so that their mouths were inches apart. “I get full on you every day, baby.”
Keira couldn’t laugh at him then. She couldn’t take that smile off his face or resist the slow slide of his lips against hers.
Can you die from too much contentment? Keira knew better than to ask that. The universe had a way of fracturing anything she might want for herself. Even all those years ago, after she left New Orleans with Ransom swelling her belly, after she first walked away from the only life she had known, from Kona, and set about trying to figure out motherhood on her own, Keira spent most days waiting for the other shoe to drop. She’d watch Ransom as a baby sleep for hours, just to make sure his tiny, infant chest continued to rise and fall. Every gurgle scared her, every sigh had her convinced she couldn’t take her eyes from him even for a moment.
When you are so used to bad being intrinsic to your life, then you expect the shoe dropping. Sometimes, you count the seconds before it does. Even when it doesn't.
“Stop thinking,” Kona said. He always did that—guessed when she was worrying about things that may never come. Keira closed her eyes as he rubbed his thumb between her eyebrows. “You have this tiny little line that dents right here when you start that bullshit worrying.”
“You saying I look old, Kona Hale?”
“No. Not too old...ow!” She rolled off him and darted into the bathroom before he could retaliate from her projectile pillow aimed right at his head. “You’re beautiful and you know it.” His voice was muffled behind the bathroom door as Keira tidied herself up, trying to keep the smile off her face. Most days lately, she found that impossible to do.
“Again, post-coital compliments, jackass.” She shook out her hair, splashed cold water over her face and neck before she returned to the bedroom. “You know, I don’t think…” but Keira was talking to herself, or at least the empty room. “Where’d you go?” she shouted toward the open door.
The rich scent of coffee came into the room and Keira’s mouth watered. She gave in to a fleeting thought that Kona would bring her a cup as she rubbed her hands over her naked arms. The late November chill had already set into the house, the sharp bite of wind kicking off the lake cooling the air before the temperatures dropped.
She wrapped the down cover over her shoulders, then pushed it back to fetch Kona’s white button up off the floor. It fell to her thighs as she pulled it onto her shoulders and Keira bounced against the mattress, buttoning the shirt before she noticed something square pinching against her butt. Reaching back, she gripped the corner, pulled a hardback copy of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved from underneath the duvet.
Kona tended to read non-fiction or horror novels—he was currently obsessed with Joe Hill and Kealan Patrick Burke—but he hadn’t been there the night before to read in bed before sleep, and hadn’t even bothered with his luggage before he was on her, so a book being on the bed made no sense.
Until Keira opened it.
It took three full seconds for her brain to make sense of what she saw when she pulled back the cover. She expected to see her worn, dog-eared copy of the novel with its fraying pages from the number of times she’d read that book. But that wasn’t what caught her eye. That wasn’t what had the air stilling in Keira’s lungs.
“Oh God.”
The pages had been glued together and a small square, just big enough for a ring box, had been cut into the center. The book was opened to page 164 and the highlighted text of Morrison’s words lined the top of the square.
Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.
Keira hated that her eyes burned, that the small gesture, those words, could cripple her so easily. The words were theirs, a brief quote that defined what Keira and Kona needed from each other. They were the vows of two kids who had no idea what real love was. But those lines had stuck, they said everything about who Keira and Kona were to each other, who they’d always be.
Kona slipped up behind her, his arms around her waist before Keira could lift her fingers to the velvet box in the center of the page. Blinking, she couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at. That black box meant so much, it meant forever, yet even now that part of her that waited for the other shoe to drop wouldn’t let go of the expectation of disappointment. She tried to clear it from her mind. She tried to hope for the question she knew Kona wanted to ask, but that negative, niggling voice remained loud, persistent. It told her not to expect anything.
“I’m sixteen years late,” Kona said, moving the hair off her shoulder. He smelled mildly of sweat with the slightest hint of coffee on his breath. Keira wouldn’t have cared if he smelled of moth balls. He pulled her tight against him, sliding his hands under hers to take the box away from the book, lifting its velvet lid. “I wanted to do this a long time ago, baby. Every day since the second I realized I loved you.”
A quick jerk of her head, a glance over her shoulder and Keira’s vision was blurred by the burning moisture in her eyes. She couldn’t speak, didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She didn’t know if she’d be capable of much more than a nod of her head.
When Keira only continued to blink at Kona, silent, eyes rounding, he took the ring from the box and gently pushed it onto her finger. Her eyes followed the movement, but she was still left dumb, too shocked to make any coherent thoughts organize enough to form speech.
“Be my always, Keira?” What he said was simple. It was sweet. It was Kona saying little and meaning so much with four insignificant words. Separately they were nothing. Together, they held everything that they could ever hope to be.
She’d never heard him speak so gently. She’d never seen Kona sit so still, but his voice was small, so unlike the huge man he was. His expression was guarded, anxious and it took her several moments before she realized he expected an answer. Still she could not move, waiting for it all to vanish.
Then, Kona blew a breath past his lips and his grip around her waist tightened. “Baby, you gotta say something before my heart beats out of my chest. I’m holding my breath here.”
Keira’s throat felt raw and sore, she cleared it and finally glanced down at the ring, a beautiful square cut diamond on a simple platinum band that sparkled against the lamp light.
At last she managed to speak. “I only have one question.” She brought her gaze back to Kona, spotted the way his eyebrows moved up, as though he wasn’t sure what she’d say. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this my signed copy?”
Keira watched Kona’s eyes moving across her face, at first confused, but then he must have realized what she was saying and his mouth relaxed as a smile inched against his lips and he released his held breath. “Do you think I’m crazy? I like my balls right where they are.” When she arched one eyebrow at him, he laughed, moving her around to face him. “Second hand bookstore in Atlanta. I know better than to mess with your books.”
No one had ever loved her like Kona. He had shown an introverted eighteen year old what passion was, how it could fill you up, make you soar. He had given her laughter and love and as much of himself as he could, when he couldn’t give her his all. He had given her Ransom. She knew she could spend a lifetime looking into those dark eyes, kissing those soft lips and it would never be enough.
“Well?” he said nudging her with his hand. “What do you say? You wanna marry me, Wildcat?”
“Yeah.” She erased the doubt, the dread from her mind. It didn’t belong there anymore. “Okay.”
November 26, 2014
************SALE!!!!**********************
So look what Santa asked me to do...
