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  He leaned in and touched his forehead to hers. “She was my slave. I was supposed to take care of her. I’d promised…”

  He closed his eyes, trying to fight back the tears. “I wanted to kill myself when I lost them. I nearly did. I spent a couple of days in the hospital until her parents finally talked me out of it. I thought my dream was finally coming true and in a split-second, I lost everything. I just wanted to be a husband and a dad and take care of them, and I couldn’t even do that. Like everything I touched turned to shit.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Her sigh hovered around them. “If I hadn’t been an idiot and broke up with you back then…”

  She didn’t finish.

  He didn’t want her to, either.

  He didn’t want to think about the daughter she had who could’ve been his.

  She’d known even back then how much he’d wanted to be a dad. He’d never made a secret of it. They’d even talked about it back then, in futuristic, what-if kinds of ways, when they were together.

  He cupped his hand around the back of her neck and gently kissed her. “I want to go to sleep with you and wake up with you in the morning. Can we spend the day together? Please?”

  “We have the funeral.”

  “I want to spend it with you. Ride with me in my car. I’ll drive you both. It’ll give you the perfect excuse to get away from your parents.”

  Finally, a smile from her. “You sneaky Dom.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” He nuzzled her nose with his. “And I’m not too proud to admit I don’t want to let you out of my sight.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tracey awoke disoriented early Saturday morning, the light looking wrong, the room strange.

  Then there was the naked man in bed with her, spooned along her back.

  She startled before relaxing, realizing it wasn’t Jeff with that…

  Yum.

  That deliciously hard cock pressed all nice and friendly-like against the seam of her ass.

  Eric’s arm closed around her waist, his hand cupping her breast, her nipple hardening against his warm palm.

  Was it horrible of her to want to skip the funeral and spend the entire day in bed with him?

  Knowing Cara, she could almost hear her cousin laughing and telling her, “Get you some, girl!”

  Except Tracey didn’t want to miss the final good-bye to her friend.

  His warm breath caressed the top of her shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

  She looked back at him and stared up into his green eyes. “I’m not exactly rolling in dough,” she admitted. “I’m renting a room from a friend of mine. I work for a grocery store chain as an office manager. I’ve worked for them since…well, since I moved to Florida. Started out as a cashier. I’m trying to get a promotion and take college classes so I can become an assistant manager, or maybe even a store manager.”

  His hand slid down her side, settling on her hip. “I couldn’t find another job in finance after I lost mine. Too much competition, too many guys with more experience than me and better connections, and younger, hungrier, willing to work eighty hours a week. I had a wife and had to pay bills, so I took what I could get, anything with health insurance. I’m an assistant store manager. I’d been there a year when…”

  His sigh broke her heart.

  That was not where she wanted his mind today, either. It’d be hard enough on all of them going to the funeral. Reaching behind her, her fingers closed around his cock. She arched her back and spread her legs, and he easily slid inside her pussy.

  Eric’s hand closed around her breast, his fingers rolling her nipple between them as his warm breath rumbled in her ear. “I think I know what you want, don’t I, baby?”

  She tipped her head back. “Yes, Sir.”

  In one smooth movement, he rolled her onto her stomach, him on top of her, his cock deeply sheathed inside her once more. His hands closed on her hips and pulled her up onto her knees, her shoulders still pressed against the mattress.

  It wasn’t so many years ago she couldn’t remember the fun of him taking her like this, how he’d sometimes smacked her ass as he fucked her.

  How it felt even harder and deeper like this, and how much she’d loved it.

  When he started fucking her, she pushed up onto her elbows to thrust back against him. She wanted it hard and deep and the good kind of possessive he’d always been, the way he’d always made her feel like she was His.

  The first light slap across her ass startled her in the good way, her head drooping while the jolt of pleasure ricocheted through her nervous system. “Yes!”

  “Like that, baby?” He smacked her other ass cheek.

  “Yes, Sir!”

  He slowed his thrusts as he spanked her. Fisting the sheets, she spread her knees even wider, allowing his cock to bottom out in her and fill her in a way Pat never could. After a few minutes, and with her ass nice and warm and stingy, he reached under her and started playing with her clit.

  “Come for me, baby.”

  * * * *

  Eric felt every flutter through her pussy as he spanked her, her body responding to him, his cock screaming for relief as he held back. He wanted to feel her come with his cock buried inside her.

  He didn’t know if anything permanent would emerge from this weekend besides really great memories, but that was one memory he wanted.

  Needed.

  As her pussy tightened around him, her back arching and the sounds of her moans changing in pitch and volume, he knew he had her. She came with a muffled moan from burying her face in the pillow. That’s when he started fucking her again, hard, fast, deep—frantically. Needing to finish with her.

  One damn good thing in his head for a change to balance out all the dark and shadowy crap that usually resided all tangled in his soul. As his balls tightened, he gasped at pleasure so sharp and piercing it nearly felt like pain when he came.

  Panting, he braced himself over her, his lips trailing down her spine from the nape of her neck. “God, I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

  She tipped her head back, fixing him with her brown gaze. “I’ve missed you, too, Sir.”

  He stretched out next to her, pulling her into his arms, savoring their kisses like sweet, fine wine.

  Something finally feeling good in his soul for a change.

  The darkness…lifted.

  Like he’d been living in a damp, dark cave for so long he forgot what sunlight looked and felt like.

  “We’re supposed to have a breakfast this morning,” she said. “Downstairs.”

  “What time?”

  “Eight.”

  He fumbled for his cell phone and saw they still had an hour. “I only need fifteen minutes to get ready, if that. We have time between breakfast and the funeral?”

  “There’s a social, lunch for those who want it, then making our way over to the funeral home. A big group dinner back here after that.”

  “Okay.” He trailed his fingers down her side, his hand cupping her ass. “You don’t want to go see your family before then?” A pang of guilt swept through him that he wasn’t over with JJ right now.

  “Not particularly. Did you make concrete plans with JJ?”

  “Not really.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I could probably be easily persuaded to hide out here with you for the rest of the weekend.”

  “We fly out early tomorrow.”

  He struggled not to let grief in yet. “Once we’re home we can coordinate like responsible adults.”

  She smiled, and it lit his soul on fire. “I’d like that a lot.”

  Her cell phone chirped. She rolled to grab it off the other bedside table, looked at it, then tapped in a quick response before setting it down again. “Sorry. Jeff checking in on me.”

  “Is he upset?”

  She snuggled in tight against him. “No, just looking for proof of life.”

&nbs
p; The laugh barked free before he could help it. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. He had one job this weekend—to help me through this—and I’ve kind of ditched him.”

  “He can still come with us to the funeral.”

  “Oh, he absolutely will. I’ll need both of you when my parents realize I’ve been here since Thursday night and didn’t tell them. And that I didn’t bring Emma with me, even though I already told them I wasn’t.”

  “What’s the deal with that, anyway?”

  She told him about her parents not bothering to contact her when they were in Tampa and close enough to visit the year before, then trying to heap guilt on her for it.

  “Let me get this straight. They gave you static for not knowing something they hadn’t told you?”

  “Exactly. Is it any wonder I moved to Florida after high school?”

  He nuzzled the top of her head. “Now I really wish I’d talked you into coming to college with me. I could have lied to your parents and told them I was trying to help you get into school so they’d pay for you to come with me.”

  She felt so good snuggled in his arms. “We can’t change the past,” she softly said. “All we can do is make a better future.”

  * * * *

  Tracey honestly believed that with all her heart. That the two of them could have a better future together.

  Had no clue how to do that, not without one of them completely disrupting their lives—and with Emma, she knew it couldn’t be her, but it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to give up his job.

  They talked and her heart broke for him as she got him to talk about Paige…and losing the baby. That he’d come so close to ending his life after losing them scared her.

  “Promise me, please, that you won’t ever do that? Call me, let me talk to you. Please?”

  He looked so sad it nearly broke her heart all over again. “I’m not a fraction as…bad as I was then. I still struggle sometimes, but I’ve learned to live with my grief.” He played with her hair the way he always had, twisting it around his fingers and stroking the ends of it along the pad of his thumb. “The guilt…not so much. I still struggle with that.”

  She rolled on top of him. “Sounds like you aren’t at fault there. You didn’t cause her death. Just because you didn’t drive her doesn’t mean you might not have been in an accident anyway. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. You’re punishing yourself for something you don’t need to.”

  “Well, I am a sadist.” But he didn’t smile despite the sarcasm. “We should get showers before breakfast.”

  “Come take a shower with me in my room.”

  “I’m not sure Jeff would be chill with that.”

  “Yes, he will.”

  “How about texting him that question to make sure?” He added an arched eyebrow that made her want to jump him again right there.

  But she grabbed her phone and texted Jeff. He texted her back a moment later.

  As long as you bring me coffee. :)

  She laughed.

  “What?”

  She showed him her phone, watching his expression, the way he smiled. “Guess we’d better get the man some coffee then.”

  She stood and prepped the room’s tiny coffeemaker while he hit the bathroom and gathered his things. As the cup brewed, she walked over to the windows and stared out at the view. Her body still firmly on Florida time, it felt later than it was locally and it jolted her to see the purple water under the lightening skies.

  “Wow.”

  He returned from the bathroom. “What?”

  “That. Honestly? I wasn’t sure I’d ever see the Pacific again. What’s worse is I haven’t really missed it much. The Gulf is so pretty, and it’s always felt like home.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “Any emotional landmines I need to know about for today?”

  “SSDD.” She turned. “I mean it when I say they’re worse than they were.”

  “They were sort of judgmental back then. No offense.”

  “None taken.” She walked over and sat next to him, flesh against flesh, his body warm next to hers. “I missed this. You. Having you on my side. That’s what it always felt like.”

  He draped an arm around her. “Sounds like your ex is on your side. He cares enough about you to make sure you aren’t alone this weekend.”

  “He is, and does. He was always great.” She snorted. “You should have heard the way he stood up to Kendall on the phone when he called me about the funeral.”

  * * * *

  Eric tried to summon jealously, like he’d felt the night before for Jeff, but couldn’t. Now that he completely understood the situation, it was like he wasn’t capable of feeling jealous of her gay ex-husband.

  “Sounds like a nice guy.”

  “He is. I treated him like shit for too many years when I was with my ex. I’m damn lucky he’s forgiven me. Him and my daughter, both.” She looked up at him. “I know how lucky I am. I promised her the next time around, she gets veto rights. My ex treated her like crap, and I’m ashamed I looked the other way and let it happen out of fear he’d leave me.”

  “Did he abuse her?”

  “He…” She let out a sigh. “Not physically or sexually. I guess some of what he did was just over the line of mental and emotional. He was jealous of her, of the fact that she was Brandon’s daughter, and the fact that she was smarter than him. I literally mean smarter than him.”

  A small laugh escaped her. “One time, his car wouldn’t run right. We were so fucking broke all the time. She did some research, begged me to take her to the auto parts store, and got the part. She fixed the car. He was furious, but what was he going to say? I found out later she did it deliberately to gig him because she knew it’d piss him off. But how immature of him, instead of being grateful that she could fix the car, to hold it against her.”

  “Why didn’t you stand up to him?”

  She studied her hands. “I knew I couldn’t support myself on just my salary, and I thought I was doing the best I could. I was mad at Brandon for leaving me, and I was mad at Brandon for what I first blamed on him, me being with Pat. That if he hadn’t left me, I wouldn’t have settled for Pat. Which is stupid, I know. I think part of me was hoping he’d see Pat and come to me and tell me to divorce Pat and he’d come back.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know, right? I don’t deny I was screwed up in the beginning, and most of it was fear, of a lot of things. Then it became easier to just…settle. To let Pat call the shots, even when I didn’t agree, because Em could go to Brandon’s but where could I go? I didn’t have anyone, and I wasn’t calling my parents and asking for help. I was so ashamed of myself I didn’t even ask Cara for advice. I just…knuckled under.”

  “But you did leave him.”

  “It almost cost me Emma before I did, though. And I’m always going to feel ashamed of myself for that. He tried to use Emma to get money out of his parents, claimed she was doing poorly in school, that we needed private tutors for her, things like that. Then Emma moved in with Brandon full-time, and god help me, I actually felt relieved. Not because I wanted her to go, but because I knew she’d be better off there and it’d eliminate at least one area of stress—one less thing for Pat to bitch about.

  “But that enraged Pat, because it meant giving up child support payments. He was basically using what I was getting from Brandon to supplement what he had to pay his ex-wife for his son, Corey. Then Pat tried to force Emma back by holding her there when she came for a visit. I almost begged Brandon to take me with them when they left, but I was still more afraid of Pat.”

  “Why?”

  She slowly shook her head. “I don’t even know now. The final straw was that day at the pool. Thank goodness Jeff and Stu were there. Pat used his own son to try to set it up to look like Emma stole Corey’s cell phone. Stuart pointed out the video cameras the pool had for surveillance. If Stu hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have had a way to prove Emma was innocent, even though I knew she was in
nocent.”

  Her gaze finally met his. “I felt like the world’s shittiest mother. I knew I had to get away from Pat. I talked to Ruth the next day about renting a room from her, and then got everything ready and filed for divorce and moved out.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. Brandon is an amazing father. Thank god Emma had him.”

  “I always wanted to be a dad.” He hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until she tipped her head onto his shoulder.

  “I know.” Her voice sounded soft, sad. “I’m sorry.”

  He nuzzled the top of her head. “I didn’t mean for you to feel guilty about that. It’s not your fault.”

  “It is. If I hadn’t been an idiot—”

  “Please, stop.” He made her look at him again, her face gently cradled in his palms. “You’re not at fault for my life.” He brushed his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Let’s get dressed and go get our showers so we can get moving. This is going to be a long day.”

  “Did you mean it?”

  “Mean what?”

  “That we can spend today with you?”

  He sensed her vulnerability, her fear.

  Her grief.

  “Of course, sweetie. You two will stay with me all day. Jeff might be perfectly capable of handling your family, but the two of us together will be unstoppable.” He leaned in and kissed her, savoring it, wondering where this would lead.

  If it could lead anywhere.

  She had a life. He had…well, technically he had a life, not much of one. But starting over again somewhere would be difficult in his situation.

  All he could do was beat back his ever-present blues and pray for the best.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Now that Eric knew the full story behind Jeff and his presence there, he found it easy to like the guy. Especially since Eric knew Jeff was there out of altruistic feelings, not romantic ones.

  Eric knew no one would blame Jeff for resenting Tracey and her presence in their lives, but here he was, willing to stand up for her, even though physically he had limitations.