Chapter 22
Layla
“So, let me get this straight,” Deputy Green says, tugging his buttoned collar away from his neck nervously. “You and Russell are in a loving, committed, consensual relationship.” It’s not a question per se, and for good reason.
Despite the thick, stale air, I shiver, hugging myself the way I wish Russell were here to hug me. My knees throb painfully as they swell, dried blood leaving crusty tracks down my shins, but my voice still comes out strong, if not a little sassy, because I have the truth on my side. “If you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask your Granny? I’m sure she’d be more than happy to get pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and marched into the station to clear things up for you.”
Green coughs into his fist, squirming in his seat like a restless child. His Granny is the Granny, and she has a reputation for boxing ears, which is why his hands drift up to the sides of his head briefly. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I believe you,” he says low, his kind, dark brown eyes pinned to the gray wall over my shoulder, respectfully never looking at the lewd photographs thrown on the table after I was hauled in here for questioning like a criminal.
“Well, I don’t,” Deputy Butthole— Allen —barks, slapping a hand on the metal table, making the photographs skitter along the shiny, smooth surface. “Not for one goddamn second.”
I lean as far back as I can, icy fear shooting down my body, trembling that much worse. Allen has been a regular at Granny’s long before I started working there. Though he’s not much of a tipper, he’s never given me the impression he’s ever thought about me so contemptuously. I see now he’d been hiding it all along. If anything, there’s satisfaction in the twitch of his angular features beneath ashy brown waves too pretty to be wasted on such a man.
Deputy Allen tosses my business card on top of the envelope of cash pulled from my purse that I still hadn’t deposited into my bank account. “Explain this.”
“You know firsthand that my fiancé,” I emphasize, “is a generous man with a big heart.” Everyone knows someone employed at BT. Russell may be a grumpy butthead sometimes to everyone but me, but he takes care of his people and thus our whole town.
“Fiancé,” Allen scoffs, sneering at the top photo he picks up and tries to wave in my face.
It’s of me in only my white boots and jean shorts, on my knees before Russell with my hands on his big thighs, face upturned to his with my lips parted as Russell grips his bare cock.
“You’re just smart enough to play it dumb.” Pitching his voice higher to sound like mine, Allen mocks, “All cute and innocent and poor me.” He waves another photo of Russell pressing his cock against me while I was on my hands and knees after changing the bedsheets. “Made him believe you love him of all people when really, beneath the surface, you’re a low-class gold-digging slut who took advantage of his ‘big heart’,” Allen accuses, giving voice to my greatest insecurities and fear. “You used that sweet pussy of yours to sucker an old man into proposing to you the same way you did Steven when everyone knows you can’t turn a whore into a housewife! Didn’t you?”
“No!” I try to yell, my throat closing in at the same time as Green turns on Allen, his face going as gray beneath his bruise as I’m sure mine does.
Green nearly trips over his chair when he stands, backing away toward the closed door, looking at Allen as if he’s never seen the man before. A monster . I want to scream at Green not to leave me alone with this monster, but I can’t get my voice to work.
I’d forgotten how close Allen and Steven were since Allen rarely came to the house. He’s not acting as an officer right now, protecting and serving his community. His only interest is in protecting his friend . It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s just like Steven, if not worse, given the garbage he’s spewing. It’s sickening that someone like him wears a badge and weapon to work every day. What other nauseating thoughts does he have about the women in this town?
Allen lunges from his chair, looming over the table, spreading the cash and photographs out on the table, though I can’t look at any more of them without bile rising in my stomach. These should have been for our eyes only.
Allen’s voice rises until he’s screaming as a purple vein bulges in his forehead. “Admit you’re nothing but a heartless bitch who cons men into falling in love with you, Lady, and maybe I’ll put in a good word for you with the judge.” My mind goes blank with terror when Allen pulls his silver money clip from his pocket, waves a fifty-dollar bill in the air, then crumples it in his fist, and throws it at my chest. “Hell, I’ll do you one better. Give me that tight little asshole of yours, and I’ll—”
“Die,” Russell finishes, dropping his cuffed wrists over Allen’s head and around his neck, yanking him backward off his feet. Green holds the door open, having let in my murderous fiancé and a slightly older man in a three-piece black suit carrying a leather briefcase.
Allen claws at Russell’s fists, which have turned purple from his tight cuffs, when he drags Allen out of the interrogation room into the hallway. I’m so shocked by the turn of events that I remain glued to my seat, lightheaded. Green whistles a tune, turning a blind eye to Russell choking the life out of his fellow officer while the other man flashes me a bland smile.
“Stop him,” I mouth, then louder. “Stop him before he kills Allen and goes to prison!”
Green scratches the back of his neck. “Who?”
My chair falls backward when I stand up fast, jerking my hand toward the hallway, Elliott filling the doorway with his phone held to his ear. “Russell!”
“I haven’t seen Russell around here.” He turns to the man I assume is a lawyer. “Have you, Mr. Montes?”
Mr. Montes mimes zipping his lips, then motions me forward. “Time to go.”
Disbelief has me swaying on my feet until I have to brace myself on the table to keep from falling. Green is really going to let Russell get away with murdering an officer, and I’m, miraculously, being set free? It’s too much.
Elliott steps back and disappears, letting Deputy Cooke push one of the two girls in the denim mini skirts from the bar into the room, the girl sniveling and begging to be let go. Cooke points to the floor at the back left corner. “Sit down and shut up, Harper! You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“Please! I didn’t do anything! I’m totally innocent,” the girl whines, snot running from her nose while narrowing her cold eyes in a familiar fashion.
“Innocent, my ass! I knew you were up to no good, but this…the tires…the drive-by…it’s crazy, even for you!” Cooke scoffs. “That slimy creep. No wonder you wanted to move to this backwards ass town!” Cooke shakes her head, pacing from one side of the small room to the other, her boots scuffing the floor. “Just you wait ‘til Mama hears about this. She’s going to tear a strip off your hide a mile wide. You’ll have more fun in prison.”
The girl collapses into a heap on the floor, crying into her hands, missing several manicured fingernails, perhaps having been caught up in the fight herself. My gaze bounces between them, putting the puzzle pieces together as I edge around the table away from Harper.
The motion alerts her, and she snaps her head up, screaming at Cooke, “You’re going to let her go? After what she did?”
“Are you kidding me? What she did?” Cooke balls her hands. “She wasn’t the one paying people to vandalize shit on behalf of a narcissistic loser! You could have killed her when you loosened those lug nuts!”
Harper rolls up onto her knees, spittle flying when she explodes, “You don’t know him! He’s not a loser!”
“Yes, he is!” Cooke screeches, her voice breaking at the end, and she crashes to her knees before yanking Harper into her arms, her slick, low bun the same white-blonde shade as Harper’s. “He’s a loser who preyed on your crush. Manipulated you into breaking the law time and time again to get back at the woman he cheated on and kicked out.”
Steven’s cheating is news to me, though it doesn’t surprise me because Cooke is right on the money—he really is a narcissistic loser. Russell was right, too—if it weren’t for my dad, I never would have stayed with him, no matter if I could afford to leave him or not.
Cooke pleads for Harper to listen. “He couldn’t stand that Layla moved on and was happier without him. Steven abused her then, and he’s abusing her now, just like he is you, Harp.”
Harper slips her arms under Cooke’s, wrapping them around her sister’s back as she cries on the shoulder of Cooke’s uniform. “He loves me. We’re going to get married when he gets out and start the family he’s always wanted.”
Mr. Montes’s hand hovers in the air, not quite touching me as he guides me out of the room ahead of him. Cooke’s voice trails behind us when she says, “That’s not love, Harp. He doesn’t want a family—he wants to trap you with a baby, and I think you know it’s true, even if you don’t want to believe it. You deserve better, just like Layla.”
I’m so frazzled and exhausted and running on empty that I can’t muster more than a huff when Elliott slides out of a dim side hallway when I’m led to the front of the station. We have to wait nearly an hour to collect my things, along with a few others who hadn’t been released en masse earlier on Sheriff Gibson’s orders once he found out what his officers had executed while he was away.
Mr. Montes extends his hand to shake Elliott’s. “Call me when your brother needs representation.” When , not if .
Once I get my purse back, missing the cash I don’t know will ever be returned, Elliott leads me silently out of the lobby to his Bronco parked under a broken lamp. “What about Russell?” I ask. “Shouldn’t we wait for him, or—where is he?”
“It’s better you don’t know,” Elliott says, remaining silent for the rest of the drive home while my mind spins with worst-case scenarios, wondering if Russell is going to end up in prison beside Steven, giving Russell the perfect opportunity to kill him. I rub my temples, praying the future we’ve been planning won’t be abruptly cut short before it ever really got started.
When we turn onto my driveway, pulling in behind Trace’s parked truck on the U, I poke my hopefully future-brother-in-law in his massive bicep. “You tell me right now where he is, or I swear I’m going to ugly cry all over your car and make you hug me until I feel better.”
Elliott heaves a long, defeated sigh, leaning away from me. “He’s at my place.”
“Is he going to kill Allen?”
Elliott combs his silvery-gray strands back on his head impatiently, then throws open his door without answering my question. “I’ll wait with you until he gets home.” After pushing me inside the dimly lit house and locking the door behind us, he steps past and dips in and out of doorways on the first floor.
I stop short at the entrance of the living room when Trace holds his index finger to his lips. “Shhh.” Standing at the kitchen island with a glass of water, wearing only a pair of Cora’s light pink sweatpants knotted tight around his hips, he points upstairs and whispers, “Princess and Little G are asleep. So is Paul.”
Given what I witnessed at the bar, I don’t know why I bother asking Trace, “Soooo, you and Cora, huh?” I drop my purse on the kitchen table and lower myself on a chair to yank my boots off.
“Yeah, me and Princess,” Trace says with a goofy smile, his cheeks blooming pink. He puffs out his lean, bruised chest, smiling proudly despite his eyes nearly swollen shut. “When you know, you know.”
“Sounds familiar,” I say with a matching grin, wiggling my pinched toes and checking my heels for blisters after peeling my white tube socks down since my boots hadn’t been properly broken in yet.
Trace snaps his fingers as if he’s just remembered something. “By the way, I moved in since I share an apartment with two dudes, and it’s not fit for my future wife and son. Hope you don’t mind.”
I blink a few times before laughing. “No, I don’t mind,” I answer truthfully, stretching my arms above my head with a yawn. “The more, the merrier. But no filming thirst traps in front of the house. We like our privacy out here.”
“Aw, man, really?” Trace groans, thoughtfully passing me a fresh glass of water. “Don’t you know how many views I’d get? One viral video, and I could make bank.”
“Them’s the rules,” I say with a raised brow, taking a long, satisfying swallow. “Take ‘em or leave ‘em.”
Trace huffs with faux annoyance. “Fine, whatever you say, roomie.”
A key turns in the lock on the front door, and my hope that it’s Russell returning home is dashed when Max tries to blow past me. He’s as banged up and bruised as Trace when he goes after my new roommate, and I stick my foot out to trip Max, sending him sprawling on the floor .
I shoot up out of my chair and slam my glass down on the table. “You are no longer welcome here,” I snap, sensing Elliott at my back, which is the only reason Max doesn’t come after me when he gets to his feet. “And I want my house key back.”
“Gladly, bitch,” Max spits, struggling to thread the bronze key off his key ring since his fingers are so stiff, maybe even broken. He slaps it so hard in my open palm that it stings.
“Oh, hell no!” I dart in front of Max when he turns to go upstairs. I back up five steps so I’ll be a few inches taller than he is, stopping Elliott and Trace from approaching on either side with my hands held up. This is something I need to do on my own . “You’re not going up there. I’ll pack your stuff and forward it to you.”
Max fists his bloody hands, one dusty boot on the first step, then limps up the second and third. “I’m not leaving without my family.”
“They’re not yours anymore—you don’t deserve them,” I say staunchly, standing tall, keeping my aching knees from knocking together like they want to. I won’t let Max intimidate me into retreating and cowering in my own home.
Max ignores me and hollers, “Cora! Get your ass out here! We’re leaving!”
“No!” I shove Max, though I only manage to knock him back one step. “My house, my rules, my family! She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Damn right!” Trace adds, his black and blue jaw clenching as he slinks closer on bare feet, his cheeks turning red with fury.
“Oh my god,” Cora whispers from behind me, though I won’t take my eyes off Max long enough to confirm she’s standing on the landing, holding Gauge, who is starting to fuss after being awoken by our voices. The flurry of heavy footsteps hopefully means Paul has joined her.
Molten hot cruelty flashes across Max’s features, though he does cut his bloodshot gaze sideways, growing nervous but trying not to show it as Elliott and Trace close in on him. He laughs, trying to save face when he says, “I see how it is. Russell wants to rescue another damsel in distress to add to his little harem.” He twirls his index finger around. “And you’re so desperate for a kid that you’re gonna steal mine, and what? Make Cora pop out the babies you can’t have?”
He may as well have sucker punched me as hard as he did Trace at the bar, and I scream, “Fuck you!” I shove Max harder this time, making him grab onto the railing to keep from falling backward when he loses his footing. “I would never, ever do that!” Seething with more rage than I’ve ever felt, I make a quick motion to Elliott, grab the sawed-off he had hidden somewhere, and aim it squarely at my brother-no-longer’s chest. The gun’s recoil will likely knock me off my feet if I pull the trigger, and there will be a hell of a mess to clean up, but it’ll be worth it. “Get the fuck out of my house and life!”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Max sneers, though there’s plenty of doubt in his voice.
“Castle law, Maxwarison.” I jab him in his chest with the barrel, making him flinch hard and suck in a pained breath. “You make one wrong move, and I’ll shoot you and get away with it. Self-defense.” He jumps down onto the floor when I go to jab him again, and as soon as I clear the last step, Trace rushes upstairs.
Finally taking me seriously, Max holds his shaky hands up between us, backing away toward the front door while I stalk him.
“Go on, call my bluff,” I goad when Max hesitates to open the door. “Give me a reason to pull this trigger. Cora will raise Gauge with Trace, and my nephew will never get the chance to grow up to be anything like you or Dad.”
Elliott takes one step toward him, having lost his patience, and Max tucks tail, shuffling fast through the front door without a look back. He barely misses hitting the back end of Elliott’s Bronco when he swings his car out and cuts directly across the lawn, speeding down my driveway.
As soon as Max is out of sight, Elliott takes the gun and catches me by the elbow when my knees give out, my body shaking so hard from my sky-high adrenaline and fatigue that my teeth chatter.
“You did good,” he says, helping me to the kitchen table and pushing my glass of water in front of me.
I take a greedy gulp, then another, my stomach roiling. “He’ll be back. For Gauge, at least, if not Cora.”
Elliott drops to his haunches so I don’t have to keep straining my neck to look up at him. “No, he won’t. Guys like that? They see their families as property, not people to be loved and cared for. He’s going to cut his losses and run.” Seeing how unsure I am, he says, “But if he does come back, Russell, Trace, and I will be here to take care of him. So will you. Bet on it.”
That, I believe wholeheartedly.
Something to the side catches Elliott’s eye, and I follow his line of sight to the back doors, watching Russell cross the lawn after slipping out of the woods. I’m already running out of the house before Elliott has risen from his squat.
* * *
Russell - 2 hours earlier
I’ll break my wrists before letting go of the motherfucker who dared to talk so vilely to my little darlin’, throwing money at her, soliciting her. Sheriff may hold the legal authority in this county, but I’m the one who bankrolls it with my company, the region going bust if I were to move operations or shut down. It’s why this side of the station is a ghost town, not a single deputy within sight to stop me as I drag Allen, limp after passing out, toward the back exit. The security cameras and any body cams the deputies might be wearing will be wiped or have mysteriously glitched and stopped recording long before anyone thinks to check them.
I don’t have any kind of solid plan when I jam my hip against the door’s metal bar to open it, yanking Allen out into the wee hours of the night. My truck is presumably still at the dance hall, and I can’t exactly call a cab or order a ride with a prisoner in tow, so it’s a hell of a relief to find Wyatt’s new beast of a black truck idling behind the station with Davis in the front seat beside him. They both jump out when the exit door slams closed behind me, working together to lift Allen and swing him into the bed of the truck with a heavy thunk.
“Elliott,” Wyatt grunts, answering my unspoken question of why the fuck they’re waiting for me outside around back.
Figures . The only reason my brother isn’t here himself is that he knows I would want him to stay with Layla.
Wyatt unlocks my cuffs with a set of keys he got from who knows where, and he tosses both to Davis, who then cuffs Allen’s hands together. My wrists are raw meat, the cuffs having dug deeply into my skin, my blood dripping down my hands as I regain feeling in my fingertips. Davis takes a seat on the rear wheel well, holding Allen’s service weapon across his lap, and he taps the top of the truck to signal we’re good to go.
Wrapping my wrists with the clean fast food napkins I find in Wyatt’s glove box, I ask, “Are you and Davis sure you want to get involved in this?”
“Layla is family, and no one fucks with our family,” Wyatt says, tugging on his overgrown beard before putting the truck’s gear in drive.
* * *
“Deeper. Don’t want animals digging your corpse up and eating it, do you?” I nudge the side of Allen’s head with the toe of my boot when he sags with exhaustion, his palms and fingers as raw and bloody as my wrists after an hour of shoveling the dense clay soil.
I’ll give it to Allen—it isn’t until now, the top of his head barely peeking above the edge of his grave, that he starts to cry. “Please, please. I don’t want to die.”
“Then confess,” Davis says, looking bored with his arms crossed, leaning back against a tree with one heel kicked up against the trunk. We’ve picked the perfect location where no one could accidentally stumble upon the grave—a small clearing in the middle of a copse of old, fat pines choking the light a mile and a half from Elliott’s cabin.
Finding a sudden burst of energy, Allen yells, “I told you I didn’t do anything! There’s nothing to confess! ”
“Wrong,” I growl low in my throat, nudging his head harder. “You let your good ol’ pal, Steven, spin some kind of sob story, somehow making my sweet Layla out to be the bad guy. You waited until Sheriff Gibson was out of town to haul her in on trumped up charges so you could terrorize and humiliate her, and then you had the fucking audacity to—” I can’t even repeat what he said, or I’ll go ballistic and shoot him straight in his dick.
Wyatt begins kicking piles of freshly dug soil on top of Allen, growing more agitated. “And you cuffed my wife! You were there that night—you remember what I did to the last man who put his hands on her!” he roars.
Davis springs forward, grabbing Wyatt’s arms from behind to tug him backward just as Wyatt is about to leap into the grave. “Hold on, brother. It’s Russell’s turn.”
Wyatt shakes Davis off and paces away, taking deep, ragged breaths, close to ripping his beard out.
I pinch my jeans to hike the fabric up an inch so I can crouch low to Allen’s ear, propping my elbows on my knees. “Confess, or Wyatt will be the least of your problems.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Allen whines, throwing the shovel to the side and falling to his knees. “That was all Harper’s doing.”
“And you helped her!” Elliott had already cleared Cooke of any wrong-doing after I texted him about my suspicions, but we didn’t dig deep enough and look more closely into her little sister, Harper, who we thought was too young to be involved in any of this, her circle of friends rarely mixing with Steven’s due to their age difference. We should have known better.
“No, I didn’t!”
“Bullshit.” I suck my teeth and straighten, taking the service weapon from Davis and aiming it steadily at Allen’s head. “Changed my mind. Let the animals dig you up for all I care.”
Allen whips his chin up. His face, which had been ruddy with effort, now drains as white as his undershirt had been before he started digging.
I inhale the humid, earthy scent of the night deep into my lungs with satisfaction. It’s almost over . “Go on. Lay down, right there in the middle.”
“No, no, please! Don’t do this!”
I nod to Davis, who takes another one of Elliott’s shovels and slings of pile of soil in Allen’s face.
Allen sputters, wiping the dirt away with his blistered hands, crying out, “Please!”
I wave a hand to stop Davis from slinging another pile, then lower my aim to Allen’s pelvis. “Last fucking chance. Confess, or we bury you with or without your dick.”
“I’m in love with her!” Allen screams, cupping his dick over his pants with both hands.
“Harper?”
“Layla!” His veins bulge at the sides of his sweaty temples when he nails me with a look I bet he wishes could knock me dead. “But you,” he growls, “you’re no fucking better than me or Steven or anyone else. For years, I watched you watch her like a sick pervert. Watched you put your filthy fucking hands on her the second I finally got Steven to ditch her so we could be together! You defiled her, turned my Lady into nothing more than a used-up, money-hungry wh—”
Allen throws himself to the side a half-second before I fire a bullet straight through his hands into his dick, which is unfortunate. I idly wonder if any of the neighbors are close enough to hear the gunshot and Allen’s long, unbearably high- pitched howl despite missing the bullet.
My world rearranges itself as I process this new information, more than pissed and disappointed with myself for being so distracted by my obsession that I completely failed at spotting Allen’s. Some protector I am .
“You took the pictures after you saw her car at our house that day…And the rock through our bedroom door…It was your boot that stomped on her windshield. You arrested Joel’s boys and forced them to confess. I’m right, aren’t I?” I ask, though Allen is in no position to answer as he blubbers and begs, coughing and choking on the dirt he stirs up with all his thrashing, trying to climb out of the grave.
With his breathing under control, Wyatt stands shoulder to shoulder with Davis, holding another shovel. “Dead or alive, boss?” He scoops up a pile of soil, waiting for my answer.
* * *
After the adrenaline fades, my head pounds with a headache. I push through the last of the trees and cross the lawn on feet as heavy as cinder blocks toward the house.
“Russell!” Layla sprints barefoot from the house, knees scuffed and bloody, her gorgeous face a mixture of terror and relief.
This, right here, is why I work out. It’s so I can race toward my woman and meet her before she’s even left the patio. It’s so I can stand sturdy and strong as an oak when my future wife throws herself into my arms, finding comfort and safety within my arms. It’s so I can pick her up with one hand beneath her bottom, the other gripping the back of her neck as our lips move over each other’s while I carry her inside with her legs wrapped around my waist as far as they’ll go.
Layla cups my face and kisses every inch of me except where my skin has been scraped off, crying when she says, “I love you. I love you so much. I don’t even care that you might be a murderer, I’m just so glad you’re home.”
Elliott snorts a laugh before he slips Allen’s gun from my waistband at my lower back and closes the door behind him, heading home. That gun will never see the light of day again.
“I’ll always come home to you, darlin’,” I promise, my voice thick with emotion. “Nothing and no one could ever stop me.”
Layla whimpers, threading her fingers in my hair while I continue on into our bedroom, then lock us into our bathroom. Turning the overhead lights on but dimming them to the lowest setting, I hold Layla while I fill the free-standing garden tub with hot water. Though I have to set her down on her feet, some part of us is always touching as I slowly slip her dress and bra off over her head, then tug her panties down.
I shiver when Layla kisses my neck as she unbuttons my top and pushes it off my shoulders, her fingers moving faster to pull my jeans and boxer briefs down while I toe off my boots.
In the two years I’ve lived here, I’ve desperately longed to have Layla relax in the tub I chose specifically for her, but it’s even better having her straddling my thighs while I lie back against the edge. The hot water, fragrant with her favorite lavender-scented body wash, eases the ache in our muscles—and our hearts—as she delicately washes the dried blood and dirt from my face with a warm washcloth, crying harder when she moves on to my wrists. I do the same, carefully washing her knees and then the tear tracks from her cheeks.
She lightly scrapes her nails through my chest hair, her gaze steady on mine. “Should I put your clothes in the wash…or do we need to burn them?” Layla asks in a low murmur after I’ve drained the bath of our filth and refilled it.
I wring out our washcloths and set them over the lip of the tub, then grip Layla’s hips. “Burn them.”
Layla swallows, her hands stilling. “And do we need to call Mr. Montes?”
“I already did.” When a fresh tear falls from the inner corner of her eye, I ask, “Does that scare you?”
She nods, her chin quivering.
My chest constricts when I ask, “You’re scared of me?”
Layla circles my neck with her arms, our fronts pressed together. “I’m scared for you. What if…what if you go to prison? Texas has the death penalty. I don’t want—I can’t lose you.”
She’s breaking my heart all over again when she starts to sob in earnest, shaking so hard that it creates a ripple effect in the water.
I hold her as tight as possible, skimming my lips across her slim shoulder and up her neck. “They might arrest me, take me to court, subpoena and question a thousand witnesses, but I’m not going to prison.”
“You don’t know that. You’re rich but not rich enough to buy an entire justice system.”
“I don’t have to be—only a few key players.” I pull the curtain of her damp hair aside and stretch to whisper in her ear, “Trust me when I say Elliott and Mr. Montes are already working on it. Gibson won’t want to help, not with something like this, but he will. I’m not going to prison now, nor will I when I’ve dealt with Steven.”
Layla shivers, tipping her head back, allowing me to lick and suck the underside of her jaw. “You really weren’t joking. ”
“No. Scared yet?”
“No, Daddy.”
I’d ignored my hard cock throughout our bath since sex wasn’t on either of our minds as we washed the night’s effects off each other, but her breathy, whispered Daddy has my brain switching gears, thinking with a different head.
“Is that what you need, darlin’? You need Daddy to take care of you? Take your mind off of tonight?”
Layla whimpers, rolling her hips in a slow circle as she flexes her thighs. “Let me…let me take care of you first.” She kisses me before rising from the tub, carefully climbing out while my cock stands up straight in the water.
Wrapped in a towel, she rummages through the bathroom cabinets until she finds first aid supplies to patch my wrists. When I step out of the tub, Layla takes off her towel, holding eye contact as she drops low to dry my feet, then works the towel up higher, stopping briefly to kiss across my hips, teasing me when she bypasses my cock to finish drying the rest of my body.
Layla leads me by the hand to the bedroom, then climbs onto our bed on top of our silky sheets, lying on her side facing me, reaching out so I’ll do the same. She slides her top leg over mine, inching closer until my cockhead brushes her entrance. “Help me,” she begs, wiggling her hips.
Gripping and lifting the back of her knee, I guide her onto my cock, only deep enough to tuck myself just inside her heat. While this position is better than some others, it’s not perfect, and I don’t want to go so far as to make her tense up in the slightest. Neither of us needs any more pain tonight.
My little darlin’ cups her right breast. “Kiss me goodnight, Daddy. ”
I kiss my way down her chest, curling my back until I can close my lips around the hard tip of her nipple.
Layla gently scrapes my scalp with her nails, moaning, “Yes, Daddy. I love it when you kiss me.” She urges me closer as she flexes her hips, her pussy growing wetter the longer and harder I suck, using my tongue to draw her deeper into my mouth.
With her legs spread, I glide my hand down her ribs, the nip of her waist, and between us, finding her clit and rolling it in circles, making her pant and arch her back, tugging on my hair. I fight to keep the rest of my body still instead of rocking into her. I don’t need to. Her pussy clenching and releasing around my cockhead with her breathy orgasm is enough to have my shaft swelling thicker until I cum, filling her with my release.
I only let her breast fall from my mouth so I can suck her arousal from my fingertips while she watches with a sleepy, soft smile. “Thirty-one days, darlin’.”
“‘Til what?” She pulls me back onto her nipple when I don’t answer, my eyelids growing heavy, drifting off with her supple breast on my tongue and my cock nestled inside her.