Disengaged: A Dangerously Forbidden Love Affair (23 page)

I giggled at the feel of his stubble gliding across my neck. “But I’m telling you a story.”

I glanced back to the box that was soaked from the melting ice around it then down to the cold I felt him gliding over my stomach.

Slayton grinned, his shy grin that I was sure no other soul on the planet had seen. He laced his fingers through mine and brought both our hands up for us to see. A ring was shoved on his forefinger. “My ice started to melt in this sweltering room.” His lips brushed my neck. “And I knew there was no way I’d have the restraint I needed. So I changed my play...”

I didn’t say a word. Shock had taken me by storm, and my mind was whirling. Looking back, I’m sure my pause was one of the cruelest things I could have done to him.

“We can make it, you and me,” he swore. “I know it’s been hard, and I know it’s not over. But I know I can make it with you.” I met his stare, the beautiful gray I loved so much. “You are my grace...I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

My lips were on his, and I was inhaling his touch ready to become slick with sweat and desire before he leaned back and drew in a breath. I fought to get closer, but he raised the ring between us.

“You doubt my answer?” I asked with a lifted brow.

Ever so slowly he leaned down and took my lips like he was tasting a delicacy, something he did often. Then he pulled back as his eyes searched mine. “I taste a yes.”

I giggled as he slid the ring on my finger.

“It is hot,” I breathed pushing out of my snow covered boots, and jeans. I was reaching for the ice when he pulled me back to him. “Next bout,” he hissed, like a man barely in control of his lust—just the way I liked him—as he slammed my back to his front.

All he had on were basketball shorts, the second they dropped to the floor, and I felt the heat of him against me, as one hand rushed over my chest and the other milked my clit to a fever pitch I felt myself heal, really heal. I don’t think a ring or our familiar, ever addicting bouts of love making triggered such a sensation. I was almost sure I had been healed for a while, that he had healed me, but I just never let myself notice. All I knew was I had never felt more free or alive as I did right then.

I wanted to turn and hold him, glide my hands over every ridged muscle of his chest, rake my nails down his back—kiss every inch of him he’d allow me to, but he was in control as his knee parted my legs and I felt the edge of his cock taunt my entrance.

He leaned me forward on the bed, and I braced myself to take him deep, to feel him all around me. The sound he made every time he pushed inside me was empowering. It was humbling that I made him feel that way. I couldn’t fix everything, but I could fix how he saw this part of life.

He’d crawled onto the bed with me as his strokes became more powerful. We’d landed on our sides with our hips at an angle. I loved him this way, how deep he would go, how his arms felt as they encircled me. The way his lips tasted when I leaned back and stole them.

I bellowed his name as I felt the rush take me over. More times than not he was stubborn and waited until I could not move anymore before he surrendered, but this time we fell into oblivion together.

As I came down from the rush, my stare landed on our intertwined hands and the ring he had put there. I had just about sorted all the questions I wanted to ask, the words I wanted to say when I heard a whimper.

I tensed as his hand gripped mine and I heard him chuckle. I moved to my stomach searching the dim room, and that is when I saw her—a husky puppy, trying to reach the bucket of ice and chocolates on the trunk.

His lips landed just behind my ear, “She was my backup plan if you said no.” I rushed to pick her up. “It was her eyes, I couldn’t turn them down,” he said staring at mine, and not the bright blue eyes of the puppy.

This wasn’t our happy ending. It was a happy beginning. I didn’t know where life was taking us, but I was excited to learn. 

It was the next morning, when I pulled the journal from our precious puppy’s mouth that I finally decided to do what Slayton had told me to do the very first year.

I wrote...

The devil is as mouthwatering as sin, drenched in charm and unthinkable charisma.
Those were the famous words my grandmother spoke every time a pretty boy with all the right words and charm would knock on my door.

She wanted me to keep my guard in place. To always see the good
and
evil in people.
“Look under the mask we all put out for the world to see...”

Acknowledgements

Over the past four years, I have published twenty novels and each of the acknowledgments are moved from one novel to the next. That wasn’t done to take short cuts, but because on this journey I have been blessed enough to keep the same souls at my side. I wanted to take the time with this acknowledgment to state how precious they are to me.

My Creator, for I know this gift and passion for words comes from a divine force that I humbly adore and owe everything to. 

My husband, no doubt, deserves some kind of medal! The man is there from the first instant the idea is thought to life, through the long days of writing where I slip into another world. He manages the blessed life we have built, taking care of our little ones, making sure that there is some kind of substantial meal on the table for each of us. He’s a saint when it comes to telling me what day of the week it is, and letting me know that dawn is approaching, and it might be a good idea to get some sleep. He understands that music drives me and is just fine with the same song playing on repeat for days until I have the scene trapped in words. He’s used to having a conversation with me and in mid-sentence, I stop and rush to write a line down. There is no doubt that he didn’t sign up to share his wife with the fictional family that always dances in my mind, but he rocks it all the same. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to have someone want your dreams as much as you do, someone that never lets doubt creep into your mindset.

My children, they make me smile every day. They are now to the point where they’re all for naming characters, dancing to that same song that plays over and over. They love to joke about ‘mom’s bubble’—they know that mom dreams wide awake and tease me when they have to pop that bubble to tell me something.

Special thanks to Amy Donnelly, Steffini Walker, Alysia Kurtz, and  Heather Falls for reading through these pages with me!

I have the best street team ever! Thank you girls for sharing my daydreams with me! dpgroup

Readers. I swear to you, to this day it blows my mind that there are people on this earth that I will never have the chance to meet that have shared these stories with me, people who get it, who leave reality and step into my daydreams with me if only for a moment. You humble me. I can’t stress that enough. Thank you so much for taking a chance, giving up your time to read my work.

As you can clearly see, people often think that writers have solitary lives, and in some real fashion we do, but more so than not, the story you are reading was impacted by not only those that walked the publishing line with the writer, but the world at large. Inspiration is everywhere, in every dark and positive moment, in every song, drive, commercial. Everything is inspiration. Life is beautiful, even the dark stressful moments. You just have to find that beauty, and thankfully I have outstanding people in my life that ensure that I notice it each and every day.