Swan Song (23 page)

Epilogue

“You remind me a little of my mom.”

I pause, staring up at the ceiling above our bed. It’s a hot night. The kind where you sleep with the windows open and listen to the sound of the crickets and cicadas singing a symphony outside. It’s late, after midnight, and Alexia is sound asleep after a long day of swimming out at the lake with her cousins. She’s a spit like her mother, but a plotter like her father. She can get away from you and into trouble faster than you can blink, and I want to be mad at her, but I’m too proud. Too relieved that she’s so strong and too grateful that she’s so cunning. It gives me hope in my heart where I usually carry only dread.

“I don’t know to feel about that,” I tell Drew. “Is that a good thing?”

He chuckles, the rumble shaking the bed. “It’s a good thing.”

“Was she a siren too? Gorgeous? Talented? Dangerous?”

Drew chuckles, reaching over and tugging on my hair until it a hurts a little. “No. She was a plain woman. My dad left us when I was a baby because she was so plain.”

“That’s terrible,” I scoff.

“He was a terrible man,” he mumbles, taking a drag off his cigarette before eying me sideways. “A siren, huh?”

I grin smugly. “Sucked you in, didn’t I?”

“I guess you did. Capones too. Did they land you fresh off the bus?”

“Nah, first club I ever worked in Chicago was a place downtown, not Cicero. It was completely on the level. Squeaky clean. It served hot sandwiches on soggy bread and soda with too much fizz.” I smile as I remembered it. Warm wood, bright lights, a small corner with a piano where an old gray haired Jewish baker accompanied me on the weekends. “I loved it there. It was my first taste of being on stage in front of people and when I think about the difference between the five or so I entertained every night there and the seventy I sang to at the Cotton Club, I can’t believe I was ever nervous.”

“But you were?”

I grin. “Shaking scared.”

He chuckles deeply, his smile lightening his eyes.

“Of course you’re laughing,” I grumble, my grin remaining.

“I can’t help that you’re funny.”

“I think you find people being scared funny.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you don’t get scared.”

He offers his cigarette to me, watching me as I take a drag. “I didn’t used to.”

I meet his eyes and know what he’s thinking, but I don’t want to
know
because I don’t want to think about the things I can’t control, so I hand his cigarette back and fan my face with my hand. “What about your mom?” I redirect him. “How do I remind you of her?”

“Because you’re a little bit of a bitch.”

I sit up, slapping him hard on the stomach. It shakes under my palm as he laughs at my indignant expression. “You’re the one who’s terrible,” I accuse.

“I’ve told you that from the start.”

“I’m not a bitch.”

“You’re a little bit of a bitch.” He reaches up and runs his rough palm along my cheek. I nuzzle into it, grinning. “I like it. I liked it about her too. She could hold her own. No one likes a pushover.”

“Bullies do.”

“You’re a little bit of that too.”

I collapse down onto the bed, smiling as I push my hair out of my face and rub my hand over my flat stomach that’s barely starting to bow. “I hope this next one is another girl, because I’m not sure I can handle another smart mouthed man in this house. You’re just being evil for fun.”

He snuffs his cigarette, then rolls on top of me, hovering his nearly naked body above mine. My breath catches in my throat as I feel him on my bare thigh, hot and hard. “Do you want me to be sweet?” he asks huskily, burrowing his face in my neck.

I shake my head, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pulling him to me. “No. I want sour.”

His knees push between my legs, forcing them wide, and I groan as he rubs against my entrance. “I can be that too.”

Before I can catch a breath, he’s inside me to the hilt and I’m gasping and writhing underneath him. He moves quickly, decisively. He takes and takes and takes, over and over, and I’m burning like kerosene from my head to my toes. His rhythm is perfect – smooth, hard strokes, even and persistent that drag the pleasure out of me with pure force and determination. Before I know it, I’m on the edge, gasping and keening, and all it takes is one swift shift of his hips to cause that friction that sends me flying into nothing, calling his name.

He continues on long after I’m spent, until I feel it building all over again and I’m begging him to move faster, harder. He grunts as his speed picks up, his breath tickling the hair around my ear. I hear him mutter my name softly and it sounds like singing. Like one perfect note played on the piano that resonates in my soul and tells me a thousand things that no one else could ever understand, and suddenly I’m so full of sea salt and a breaking tide that I worry I’ll wash away forever, and all I want to do is take him with me. I don’t care where I go or what stars I leave untouched, what dangers lurk at our door, just as long as he’s beside me. Inside me. Surrounding me and devouring me.

Loving me.

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If you’d like to read more of my novels, please see the links below:

New Adult Romance

Knockout
(North Star Novel)

Brawler
(North Star Novel)

Young Adult Sci-Fi

Sleepless
(Bird of Stone)

Fearless
(Bird of Stone)

Until the End
(Quarantined)

In the End
(Quarantined)

Writing on the
Wall (Survival)

Backs Against the Wall
(Survival)

Tearing Down the Wall
(Survival)

Dissever

About the Author

I was born in Eugene, Oregon and studied English Literature at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) I love writing all kinds of genres from YA Dystopian to New Adult Romance, the common themes between them all being strong character development and a good dose of humor.
My husband, son, and snuggly pitbull are my world.

For more information on me and my books, please visit my website at
Tracey Ward

I don't write romances, I write relationships.

One is pretty and perfect and all consuming.

The other is real.