Jesse (19 page)

“Hurry,” she begged him when he lifted
his mouth from hers to take off her shirt and bra. Her nipples were already
hard as stone and seemingly begging to be suckled.

He felt the cool air brush over his
cock. She’d gotten his pants undone despite the way they were straining toward
each other. Lifting her higher on his waist, she wrapped her uninjured leg
around his hips as he held her other one. Moving with as much grace as he could
manage with his pants at his thighs, he got them to the bedroom door and in it.

“I can’t…I’m sorry, honey, but I want to
be deep inside of you ten minutes ago.” She was nodding as she shimmied out of
the cotton pants she had on. He decided when he ripped them from her body that
these were all she was ever going to wear again.

“Now. Hurry now. Please.”

He didn’t have to be asked again. He
didn’t just slide into her, but became a part of her. His cock felt thicker
than he’d ever felt in a woman, and he knew that when they came it would be
explosive. As he began to move, hard, quick strokes that took her breath away,
he felt his climax spreading over him, taking him and simply overpowering him. When
she screamed, loud, long, and that she loved him, he threw back his head and filled
her with his seed, marked her with it, and claimed her. Roaring again when a
second release took her, and him right along too, he knew that he would love
this one woman for all of his life.

Dropping down onto her, rolling at the
last minute, he took the ring off his finger and put it on her ring finger. She
was asleep or unconscious and he smiled at the thought of doing that to her.
He’d ask her later. Right now, he was as content as he’d ever been.

Chapter 17

She watched as Samuel flipped the hash browns
expertly. She smiled at him when he turned to look at her. She shook her head
when he told her to give it a try.

“No. You’ll have a bigger mess than the
toast I tried to burn the house down with. I’ll just be your taste-tester. I
can do that without hurting anyone.”

He pulled down a plate and dumped the
beautifully browned potatoes onto it. She heard the toaster pop and hobbled
over to get the toast and jam he’d put out for her. By the time she returned,
she had two over easy eggs on her plate as well.

“You will eat all of that now, missus. You
need to get better.” He put a glass of juice in front of her as Jesse walked
through the door.

Something she’d been avoiding for a long
time hit her. She was in love with him. And probably had been since he’d come
into her hospital room the first time. Then the night before when he’d made
love to her so gently. She turned away before he could see it on her face.

“Ah, so you’ve got Samuel eating out of
your hand already, huh?” Jesse kissed her on the mouth as he walked toward the
man.

“If you think to kiss me, too, young
man, I’ll bash your head in with my favorite skillet.” Samuel held the pan up
threateningly. “And she is worth having around. She doesn’t scowl at me.”

The cook was standing nearby, simply
watching the other two men as though he were at a tennis match. She’d been
surprised when Samuel had met her at the bottom of the stairs earlier and even
more so when he told Cook that he would be cooking for her. She smiled when
Cook took the pan and said something in what she thought was French.

Joey watched Jesse pour himself some
coffee and lean against the counter. She cleared her throat. “I found this. I
wanted to give it back to you.” She held out the beautiful ring that had been
on her finger when she’d woken this morning. “I think someone might have made a
mistake.”

He took another sip before answering
her. “No. There was no mistake. I want you to have it.”

“I don’t want your things for sleeping
with you.” She flushed, feeling her face and neck heat up when both Cook and
Samuel turned to look at her. “Here. Take it before someone gets the wrong
idea.”

“What idea would that be? That I love
you? I hope so, and it wouldn’t be a wrong idea. The best I’ve had in a long
while, I think. You’re going to marry me.”

Samuel and Cook left the kitchen. She
felt bad for running them out when it was so obviously their domain. She waited
until the door closed behind them before she spoke again. “I’m not going to
marry you. You’re a very nice man, and I like—”

“I don’t want to be a nice man. I want
to be your husband.” He knelt down in front of her and took the ring. She was
happy, but that was short-lived. “Tell me you’re going to marry me, Joey.”

Well, that wasn’t very nice
, she thought. “Why
are you calling me that now?” she asked him suddenly. “Before it was ‘Josephine,’
and nothing else. What changed your mind?”

“Meeting your grandmother. Her name is
Josephine, right?” She nodded. “And…did she ever hit you with that cane? Before
yesterday, did she ever hit you with it?”

She looked away, not able to tell him
while he was staring at her so intently. “Yes. She thought it would cure me. I
didn’t…most of the time she was so drunk she’d miss for the most part, but
she’d catch me too. I suppose it could have been worse. It ended up only being
a three year, seven month, fourteen day sentence.” She looked at him, horrified
at what she’d said out loud.

“Cure you of what?”

His voice was so soft that she couldn’t
help but answer him. If he had demanded, she would have simply changed the
subject like she always did. “School was difficult for me. Not because I
couldn’t make the grades; that was easy, but keeping myself…lower. At first I’d
wanted to make her like me. You know, have her not regret that she’d taken me
in when no one else would?” She turned in the seat and propped her leg on the
other chair, not really needing it, but it was easier to talk without seeing
Jesse. “The first time I’d brought home an A, I’d been so proud. It hadn’t been
hard, you see. I can see the words forever once I read them or hear them. But
she’d accused me of cheating. That was the first time she’d…hit me.” She’d not
only hit her, but had beaten her. Badly. It had taken her over a week to be
able to go back to school, and a lot longer before she realized that it wasn’t
her fault that she’d been hurt.

“How old were you? And why did she think
you cheated?” She snorted at his questions. “Joey?”

“It was about a month after my parents
had died. I was fourteen. And why did she think I cheated?” Joey closed her
eyes, remembering her grandmother standing over her with the cane held up high.
“She said that I was a good-for-nothing female, and an ugly one at that. And if
I was to get caught putting on airs she’d let them take me to prison and let me
rot there. It was my mother’s fault that I was like I was.” Joey had found out
a few months later that her mother had been like her. Or at least she was like
her mother. A photographic memory, the school had told her. When she’d been
tested to go into high school she’d been the only one to finish the
standardized tests. And had asked if she could read a book while the rest had
finished. She’d been sent home instead. That was the second beating. The one
that she’d had to hide from nearly everyone it had been so bad. It had taken
months for some of the bruises to heal, and longer still for the fear to
subside.

“Then when? Was it every time you tried
to better yourself?” She nodded. “I should have killed the fucking bitch when I
had that fucking cane in my hand.”

She stared at him open-mouthed, then
snapped it closed before she answered. “She would have hit you back. When you
weren’t looking or asleep, she’d sneak into your room and hit you. There were
times when I’d sleep with a chair under the knob so she couldn’t come in. But
soon she started putting me in a room with just walls and a door. There were no
locks, no windows to escape. I had to…” She stood up quickly. “I have to go.”

He stood as well. “Where? I can take you
wherever you want. Or Samuel can. I think he’d enjoy it.”

As if on cue, Samuel and Cook walked in
and they were arguing. Again. They’d been doing that since she came in. Both
men smiled at her then frowned at Jesse.

“You’ll be late if you don’t hurry your
bottom along, and your mother will blame me. You’d best have Michael run you
in. I’ve already called him.” Samuel took off his clean apron as he started
fussing with Jesse’s coat before helping him put it on. “Be off. We’ll keep
your miss entertained today. We might even take her with us to play our chess
in the park.”

Jesse kissed her again. This time, he
pulled her fully into his arms and held her before setting her away. His cock
had been hard and she could see him tugging his coat around him as he went out
the door. Joey looked over at Cook.

“The ring looks lovely on your hand,
miss. You will make Mr. Jesse very happy. He needs a woman in his life.”

She looked down at her hand and was
surprised to see that he’d slipped it back on her finger. She was going to kill
the man. As soon as he walked in the door, she was going to kill him. Sitting
down hard, she remembered that she wanted to go to Patty’s graveside and asked
Cook if it was possible that she could call a cab.

“No cab comes here, miss. We have the
big gates and also there are many cars for you to have a ride in. I take. Or
Samuel. We will serve you in any way you need.”

~~~

Doyle watched the young man come in the
building. He’d been waiting for an hour, not really sure when the owners would
show up. He’d half expected them to show up at noon or later. Here it was just
after seven in the morning and, as far as he could tell, he was the last Hunter
to arrive. The security guard nodded to him and Jesse came toward him.

“They said you’re here to see me. I’m
sorry, Doyle, but I have a meeting in about five minutes that I can’t miss.
It’s with…it’s about Joey and what’s going on.”

 The man looked worried and Doyle was
glad to see it. He’d take care of his girl. “I have some news on that front
too. If you would let me walk with you, I’ll explain it to you.” Doyle liked
this man, but was sure that all he saw was a large, bald man who owned a bar. Doyle
liked to think he was more than that, but also liked the low profile he kept. It
had helped him gather the information he had to give this man.

“All right. We’ll take the elevator up.”
He started past the desk and paused to speak to the man there. “Jay, could you
please call my mom and tell her I’m here? And will you also give Mr. O’Donnell
a visitor badge so he can come up with me?”

Doyle was asked to show his ID. He
hesitated for a few seconds and finally pulled it out. And then showed them
that he was armed as they’d seen his carry permit. He heard Jesse say something
that sounded like, “mother fuck” under his breath, but didn’t comment. He was
planning to tell him anyway. They were in the elevator when the younger man
spoke.

“You’re the Feds. Why are you pretending
to be a bartender? Or is this all a scam to get something from…hell, I have no
idea. What the fuck is going on?”

“I’m not pretending. I own the bar. Have
since I retired about ten years ago. I only started paying attention to the
things going on around Joey since she came in one night beaten to shit and
back. She said she’d been mugged. Took me about a week to figure out what had
really happened.” The doors opened then and Doyle saw two men that he knew from
the Bureau and one he did not. They shook hands and Doyle was suddenly a part
of the team.

“Who hit her?” Jesse asked as soon as it
was understood that Doyle wasn’t a visitor so much as an informant. “You said
she’d been beaten and you found out from whom. So, who hit her?”

Doyle took measure of the younger man.
He wanted to hate him or, at the very least, dislike him some, but couldn’t. He
thought the guy genuinely liked Joey if he didn’t already love her. He nodded,
knowing that what he said here today was going to either change his mind or
not.

“She has a grandmother. Probably already
met her.” Jesse nodded that he had, as did the other three men. “She’s a lot
worse than you’ve probably heard or seen. When Joey lived there she was little
more than a servant. The old bitch wouldn’t let her spread her wings and fly so
when Joey turned eighteen, she lit out like the house was burning around her.”

“We talked to a few of her neighbors.
They said that Joey had been an issue with the grandmother and felt that if she
hadn’t taken a heavy hand the girl would have ended up on the wrong end of a
slab in a funeral home.” Doyle shook his head as Levy spoke. “You saying ten
neighbors lied?”

“No. They probably told you what they’d
been told. Joey wasn’t in the house most of the time…not so’s anyone could see
her. She had to live in a single room in the basement and then, when she wasn’t
there, she was cleaning, toting, or catering to the woman. I got my information
from the hospital where she’d end up when the girl wouldn’t do something that
the grandmother demanded. Guess there were times when Joey’d be brought in and
the grandmother would take her home without medical care. Only reason she’d end
up in the emergency room in the first place is ‘cause she’d collapse somewhere
from the pain.”

Doyle reached into his pocket and tossed
an envelope on the table between them. He didn’t speak as they went through the
pictures and the testimonies from the staff he’d been able to interview. Jesse
looked at several of the pictures and got up to pace. Doyle changed his opinion
of the kid. He
was
a keeper.