Page 69 of Outlawed

“Starving,” I admit with a smirk.

I finish the wine and place the glass back down. The lights turn off as I walk closer, but as I pass the candles that litter the room, they ignite, bathing us in a soft glow. When I reach the foot of the bed, I climb on and crawl between his legs and swirl my tongue around the head of his cock.

He murmurs approval before pulling my hair out of the way so he can watch me. Wrapping my lips around just the tip at first, I suck lightly. I take a little more of him when he starts to groan, using my hands to work the rest, stroking and twisting as I take him deeper and deeper. His grip on my hair tightens, making fire race through my blood before my pussy tightens.

“Fuck, get up here and ride me, baby.”

I grin and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Can’t refuse an offer like that.”

I crawl up his body and grip the headboard as he holds his cock in place. Using his free hand to guide me, he presses inside me and holds steady as I slowly ease myself down. When I’ve taken him all, his hands move to my hips as I grind into him, moaning when his thumb moves to my clit.

I tighten my grip on the headboard and start to move, slowly at first, until I pick up speed. When that’s not enough, I bounce up and down on him wildly like it’s a competition to see which one of us will come first. My hubby knows me too well, though, adding more pressure to my clit until I can’t take it anymore. I throw my head back and come with a deep moan. He curses, gripping my hips hard enough to bruise as he plants himself deep and comes hard.

When I can catch my breath, I collapse over him, my hair covering us both as I kiss him, softly, reverently, never taking a second with this man for granted. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He tugs me until I’m lying beside him, my head on his chest, my leg hooked over his. He trails his rough fingers down my arm and back up again as we lie in the silence. I lift my hand and swish my fingers through the air, making the candles blow out so the darkness can envelope us.

“You want to go out to dinner tomorrow?”

I rest my chin on his chest. “I can’t tomorrow, I’m driving down to see Calliope. What about Saturday?”

“I’ll see if Camelo’s has our usual table free.”

“For you, they’ll make it free.”

“True.” He chuckles, his fingertips now drawing circles across my shoulder blade. “So…”

“James.”

He sighs. “Calliope deserves the truth, Jen. And you deserve the peace that comes with unburdening yourself.”

“This isn’t one of those cases of the truth setting us free. It won’t. It can’t.”

“Babe. She loves you. She deserves to know she’s your daughter.”

I roll away and get off the bed, the lamp turning on as I grab my silk robe and wrap it around myself. “You don’t get it, James. Joanie Hart failed her daughter in every sense of the word. It doesn’t matter that she was scared and traumatized. What matters is that she ran, that I ran, and I left behind that precious girl to take my place. There is no righting that wrong. All the truth would do is make me lose her all over again.”

He sits up and pulls my robe, forcing me to sit on the bed beside him. “I’m sorry. I just hate seeing that sad resignation in your eyes. I hate that you have to literally wear a mask of an older woman and pretend to be someone else whenever you see her.”

“That’s the price I have to pay. But what you don’t realize, James, is that it’s worth it. She loves me as Jen. She trusts me, and I get to be a large part of her life, which I would never get to be otherwise.”

He presses his forehead against mine as my eyes slip closed and memories of another life batter my defenses. Pressing a kiss to my little girl’s forehead while she slept, begging the house to keep her safe before I slipped away in the dead of night.

The house howled in despair, but I put one foot in front of the other, my arm wrapped around my broken ribs as I fled, knowing I’d die if I stayed. I planned to make myself strong again. To get educated and have money to fight for custody. I needed a home and a job, something that could compete with Martin’s. But these things took time, and before I knew it, five years had turned into ten and then fifteen.

It was my fear that kept me away. I know that now. And my cowardice cost my daughter years of her life. The second I heard, I went back and used my degree as a way to get close to her. Fifteen years of planning went out the window. I had untold powers at my fingertips, and yet I was impotent to do anything to spare her.

All I could do was make sure she had me fighting for her on the outside and an ally inside, to protect her, which is where Mama Ray came in. I might have paid her to be the mother Calliope needed, but over the years, she ended up loving that girl as much as I did.

When I came face to face with the man who had made my life hell that day at the ranch, the one I thought was dead, I almost lost it and revealed who I really am. Of course, I’d used magic to change my appearance in much the same way he’d used cosmetic surgery, but I couldn’t do anything about the bond. And yet his eyes didn’t even flicker, whereas I knew who he was right away. I’d recognize his brand of evil even if I were blind.

It took some digging for me to find out why the bond didn’t snap between us. I found an obscure reference about heirs in one of the books I sourced for Calliope over the years. I’d thought, naively, that Martin’s evil must have been what severed the bond, that it was a punishment from the gods so he couldn’t use me anymore. But it was I who was responsible. When I left Crowhurst, everything that connected me to the place and the man I’d married withered and frayed until it died off completely. I was completely free for once in my life, but it came at the expense of my daughter.

As the only living Hart heir, she was the one who remained bonded to the land. Even when she was incarcerated, the bond remained, though it was weak. There was nobody else for the land to bond to, and Hannah, regardless of her witch blood, isn’t a Hart.

“Can you live with it? Can you keep up this ruse until you’re dead and gone? Because that’s what you’re suggesting.”