September: Calendar Girl Book 9 (8 page)

Wes growled, licked, sucked, bit, and nibbled me into sheer oblivion, my body rocking against his face. I held onto his dirty blond hair in a death grip as he held open the petals of my sex and sucked me for so long and so hard that I physically couldn’t stop coming.

Eventually, he pulled his mouth away, lifted up his arm, wiped my juices off his face onto his forearm, lifted up my hips, keeping them nice and wide, and slammed his rock hard cock home.

I screamed out as my entire body shook with the effort of being filled so perfectly.

“Wake the fuck up, you crazy cunt!” Ginelle was shaking my body the same way Wes was shaking me in my dream, only his was through pile drives into my wet sex.

The new sensation was foreign, like tiny bony fingers shaking my upper chest in an annoying painful jarring.

Opening my eyes, blinking fast, I looked around the room and realized where I was. Ginelle’s apartment. I surveyed the room. Wes was gone. Nowhere to be found. Damn, it was only a dream. A beautiful dream that had me slippery as all get out between my thighs, which was the very last thing I wanted to be when I was in bed with my best friend.

“What the fuck?” Her voice sound like she’d swallowed a box of rocks.

“Gin, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” I lifted up onto my elbows and pushed the long strands of hair out of my eyes.

She sat back on her heels, her hair a wild, wavy mess of blond curls. Her good eye narrowed, the other swollen shut. Seeing her alive, safe next to me, I swear she’d never been more lovely.

“Yeah, you did, while you were trying to dry hump me!” She frowned and chuckled into her hand. “Dirty whore!”

I’m certain my eyes widened so much that they could’ve popped out of their sockets like one of those squeeze stress dolls—squeeze the body and their eyes bulge out. Let go, and they go back to normal. That’s what I was feeling right then.

“No way.”

“Yes way! You were all moving around talking in your sleep.” She got up on her knees and rubbed her hands down the sides of her breasts and along her waist. “Oh, Wes, baby, yeah.” She winced and then her hand flew up to her busted lip. “Ouch.” She kicked her leg out and tagged me right in the thigh. Not hard enough to bruise, just enough to get her point across. “Don’t make me move and laugh. Can’t you see I’m all fucked up?”

I covered my face with both hands. “Uggh, I’m sorry, Gin. It’s been weeks since Wes and I were intimate, and then I had this full on make out session with Blaine last night and Max interrupted me, thank God, before it could go any further.”

“You made out with Blaine, the fucker that had me kidnapped?” Her eyes changed to dark blue, indicating her instant anger.

“No! Well, yes, but I need to explain. Hear me out.”

Ginelle pursed her lips, cringed against what I assumed to be pain from the cut, and then crossed her arms over her chest. “This better be good. Being woken up by a crazy broad humping your back while you sleep needs a solid explanation.”

I went through the entire event from the minute I got his text with the video through my date with Blaine and what happened at the restaurant to our agreement of one kiss for the extra week of time with the caveat that he’d let her go. She seemed a lot more even tempered once she realized I’d done it for her. It worried her, though, that I got so into the kiss. It worried
me
, too, but for different reasons.

I definitely did not want to hook back up with Blaine in any way, shape, or form, and had no desire to betray Wes by fucking my way out of debt. All that aside, I still didn’t know what to do.

“So you were kissing him and then all of a sudden you imagined Wes?”

I nodded. “It was so real. Blaine kissed me, and then it was like he morphed into Wes. Gin, if Max hadn’t broken it up, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

“You were that deep in your imagination?”

“Yeah. I swear, it’s like I could smell him and that ocean scent that clings to his skin even after he’s showered when he’s finished surfing.”

Gin shook her head and smiled the best her busted lip would allow. “You’ve got it bad for this guy, huh?”

I thought about Wes. About how much he was probably hurting and I felt a physical ache in my stomach. “Gin, I’m beyond in love with him. He’s it for me.”

Her non-swollen eye widened. “As in, marriage it?”

Marriage. It wasn’t something I’d ever really given a lot of thought to since my parents had failed so miserably at it, along with most of the friends I’d had growing up. But right then, in that moment, sitting on the bed with my battered best friend, my heart bursting wide open for her to see, I nodded.

“I think maybe, yeah,” I admitted on a whisper.

“Wow. You are so fucked.”

The sad thing was, Ginelle was right, because if Wes didn’t make it out alive, I’d lose a lot more than the man I loved. I’d lose my heart and my sanity right along with it.

G
in took
a week’s leave of absence, explaining what happened to her. Her boss was sympathetic and told her to take all the time she needed. Everyone in town knew who Blaine was and how he controlled the underbelly of Vegas. Since neither of us were in a big hurry to be away from one another after yesterday’s trauma, Ginelle followed me to the hotel. She was still a little off, but definitely coming back to the feisty girl I knew and loved with every hour that passed. We’d spent the morning talking about Wes and where I thought we were headed in our relationship provided he made it back in one piece. She admitted that she was worried about me moving in with him, but now that she saw how affected I was over him being gone, about the dreams, and the imagination, she admitted that I was beyond bonkers over him, and just like that, she supported me. That easy.

When we entered the hotel, Max was sitting in the dining area with Maddy and Matt. He’d stayed with her overnight since I was gone. There was a spread of food over the table, enough to feed an entire army.

Max stood when he saw us. He came to me and airlifted me into a huge bear hug. I held on tight, my arms gripping for dear life as he squeezed the living hell out of me.

“Worried about you, sugar. Glad to see you back and with your friend.” He slowly lowered me back to the floor and pressed his forehead to mine. “You okay?” he asked.

I cupped both his cheeks, leaned back, and kissed his forehead. “I’m good, Maximus.” I smiled for his benefit and he returned the gesture.

Max turned to Gin who stood awkwardly, swaying side to side rocking herself. “Hey, darlin’, you doin’ all right?” He lifted a hand to her face, and Gin jerked back a step. Max’s hand fell to his side, his pale eyes turning hard, his nostrils flaring. “This is so wrong, a man laying his hands on a woman in anger.”

I huffed. “You think that’s wrong? He almost killed Pops. The man and his goons are pure evil. Now I just need to figure out what I’m going to do to put this all behind us.”

Max was about to respond when my cell phone rang. I looked around the room, and all eyes were on me. The raid was supposed to happen last night in Indonesia. Pulling out the phone, I glanced down and saw Warren Shipley’s name.

“Hello, Warren?

“Yeah, it’s me, Mia. Got some news.” His voice was calm yet firm. “You sitting down?”

I beat it to the nearest chair and plopped down, pressing the phone close to my ear. “Okay, yeah. I’m ready. Did they find him?” My heart started pounding out a violent thudding that I swore I could feel in my fingertips and all the way to my toes. It was as if my entire body was one big heartbeat.

“They got him, but the entire mission was ugly. A lot of lives were lost.”

I closed my eyes, sending up a silent prayer for all those that didn’t make it. “Tell me what happened, and where is Wes?”

“He’s safe, being treated in a secret location.”

A weight the size of a two-ton anvil lifted off my chest, replacing the worst of my fear with a much smaller weight. Now I just needed to lay my eyes on him. Kiss his lips. Hold him close and reclaim what was mine…forever.

Then Warren’s words registered. Secret location? “What? I need to see him!”

He cleared his throat. “Honey, you can’t. Not yet. They treat the victims medically, and then they will debrief them about what they might know about the terrorist cell. Any information they have could be incredibly powerful to help fight the war on terrorism. This group was particularly heinous, honey. The things they were doing to women and children not of their faith, you couldn’t imagine. That didn’t even include the eighteen tourists that were secured and saved through the raids.”

“Eighteen tourists? I thought it was just Wes and the five remaining crew members.”

Max sat down next to me and put a hand to my knee. It was bouncing like a five-year-old on a trampoline. Maddy sat on my other side and clutched my loose hand, kissing the top. I gripped her hand and held it close to my face, taking solace in her warmth and presence as I listened to Warren.

“Doesn’t matter. How is he, do you know?” I waited with bated breath for any scrap of information on how he was.

“All I know is that when the team struck, they started killing hostages. Apparently, they decided that if they were going to die, they’d take the vile Americans and their religious propaganda with them. One man was used as a human shield. He was dressed in their clothing, forced to hold an unloaded gun and walk out of the hut they had him in. The snipers had no idea he wasn’t one of the hostiles. They killed him and the man leading him with a gun at his back on first sight.”

“Jesus.” My heart clenched.

Warren’s voice got low. “Honey, the things they did to that woman, that actress, I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

Gina DeLuca.

Fuck. I hated the woman—not because I had any right to hate her, but because she’d had a casual sexual relationship with Wes at one time. She had been getting what I wanted from him but wasn’t strong enough to go for myself. Even still, I didn’t wish her any real harm. Maybe for an ugly picture of her eating a hot dog to appear on the local smut mag but not to be mistreated by the hands of sick and twisted men with nothing but an axe to grind.

“Is she uh, okay?”

Warred blew out a long breath. “Physically and mentally, no. Will she live? Yes.”

I blinked away the tears, trying to hold it together as best I could. “Did anyone else make it?”

“Hold on.” I could hear Warren sniff and blow his nose in the distance. “I’m okay, Kathy, talking to Mia. Gotta finish this. Yes, some tea would be helpful. Thank you, dear,” Warren said to Kathleen.

Kathleen was the woman he’d finally admitted he was in love with after all these years. They were together, and it made me happy knowing that even second chances at love happened in this world.

“Sorry, Mia. Even at my age, this stuff never gets any easier to say.”

“No, I can’t imagine it does.” I took a breath, squeezed Maddy’s hand, and swallowed. “When is he coming home, and when can I talk to him?”

“My sources say he’ll be home within two weeks. They are treating him medically and psychologically, trying to be considerate of the fact that they are severely malnourished, have had little to no sleep, and have been tortured, beaten, and seen some incredibly vile things occur.”

Every word Warren said was like sticking straight pins through every pore. My skin itched with the need to see Wes, touch him, love him.

“Warren, I need to see him. Talk to him.”

“As soon as I know more about where he is and when you can see him, I’ll notify you. Just give it a few days, okay?”

I stood up instantly and paced the room. “A few days? You want me to wait a few days to talk to the man I love, the man who has been missing for over three weeks? Are you insane? Warren, this is ridiculous. He goes from being held hostage by radical extremists to being detained by the government? The United Fucking States! The land of the free!” I roared so loud that Max put his hands on my shoulders, once again stole the phone, and put it on speaker.

“Shipley, this is Max here. What is it going to take to get my sister a phone call to her man?”

Warred grumbled and huffed loudly. “A lot of fucking strings being pulled.”

“Then I’d say you need to become a puppeteer. From what my sister tells me, you owe her a favor.”

“Mia, you told him?” Warren’s voice turned to ice.

“No!” I shot back, pissed that he’d even think I’d risk telling more people, though my brother wasn’t just anyone.

Max’s eyes went from pale green to a dark forest green, the pupils big and frightening. Right then, Max realized that whatever I held over Warren was big enough to screw a very rich, very powerful man over. Usually, those things were jail worthy. If Aaron so much as fucked up by missing a single anger management class or a counseling session, I had the power to make a formal complaint and he’d lose his status as the Senator for California. Not that it would be a huge love loss for the state. With one phone call I could ruin Aaron Shipley’s career. Not only that, I knew doing so would screw over Warren in the process, and I had absolutely no intention of destroying the good he’d been doing with his new business venture to help people in third world countries. Now that I knew what type of crazy shit happened in those countries, it was even more important.

“Mia, I’ll see what I can finagle, but I make no promises.”

“Anything would be helpful. Anything, please.” My voice was low, emotional, and pleading as I said the words through the tears that had started to fall.

Maddy’s arm came around me and pulled me close. I held on to her, one of the most solid things I had in life. My sister.

“You need money or resources, you call me,” Max stated in his I-run-an-empire business drawl. “Whatever it costs, make it happen. You hear?”

“Loud and clear,” Warren answered.

At that point, I was too raw to even think straight, let alone respond. My man had been saved only more lives were lost, but the lives of those tourists had been saved, yet I couldn’t see or speak to him. Now the government had him locked away in some secret location for another couple weeks. Jesus. How would I survive the next fourteen days without another word? The simple answer was, I wouldn’t.

“Good man. Have him call her cell and see about making it quick,” Max demanded and I smiled through my tears.

Leave it to my new brother to move some mountains. Hell, he was big enough to do it single handedly. Now I knew how he could run such a large empire. Not only was he forceful and fair, but when he spoke, people listened. Natural born leader. That’s what happened with a father like Jackson Cunningham. I didn’t know the man, but the son he’d raised was something to behold.

A
fter the call
, I went to bed. Ginelle slept in the other, and Maddy cuddled next to me. Apparently, she’d been worried all night even though I texted where I was. She wanted to come and see me. Matt had forced her to stay with him. Matt.

I blinked away the hours of sleep, got up without disturbing Maddy or Ginelle, and tiptoed into the other room, carrying a new pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Once I’d had a steaming hot shower, and with the knowledge that Wes was safe—unreachable, yet still safe—I felt a lot better. Pops was breathing on his own, the medicines were helping the allergic reaction, and the doctors believed his prognosis would be good.

The only thing I had to do now was deal with Blaine, but first, I settled for a chat with my sister’s fiancé. I entered the main area and found Max snoozing on the couch. The balcony doors were open and the breeze wafted through the room, which was lit with the orange-and-pink glow of the sunrise. I could see Matt’s feet up on the railing.

Grabbing a bottle of water from the mini bar, I walked outside and made sure to shut the door. Matt turned to me, a pair of black sunglasses perched on his nose. He wore a plaid button-up shirt and nice dark-wash jeans. On his feet were a pair of Converse chucks. The epitome of a college kid. Well, a smart looking one.

“How’s Maddy?” he asked when I sat down, his body going tight, alert.

I put my feet up on the railing, fluffed my hair back, and looked out over Vegas. The desert mountains that surrounded the city were something to behold and were part of the attraction that brought out the tourists in droves. That and the casinos, of course.

“Relax, she’s fine. Sleeping still.”

Matt’s shoulders dropped and he laid back into the lounge chair. “She was really worried about you last night.”

I chuckled. “I can take care of myself.”

“Doesn’t hurt to lean on someone who loves you.”

Tilting my head to the side, I squinted at him. “You mean the same way you were leaning on her to get married right away?”

His eyes widened. “She, uh, told you about that.” He moved his legs to straddle the chair and leaned forward, head hanging down.

Poor boy. He had no idea whom he was dealing with. “Matt, let’s get a couple things straight. I’ve been Maddy’s primary protector since she was five. I’m her sister, but a lot of the time I had to be the parent too. We’re tight.” I held up two fingers pressed together.

“Yeah, I got that, but I thought what happened was private. I made a mistake.” His voice was low, apologetic.

“One I hope you’re not going to be making again anytime soon.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “I still want to marry her. As soon as she’ll have me,” Matt said, rushed.

I put out my hands. “I get it. I didn’t tell her not to marry you. Truthfully, I think you guys are great together. You’re good for her, and you’ve proven that through all of this.” I waved my hand in the air. “It’s just Maddy needs some time to adjust. You’ve only been together a few months. Enjoy one another, be silly, hang out with friends, and work hard in school. Don’t let the pressure of needing to grow up too fast make you miss out on the best parts. The journey.”

I looked down at my foot and the script that had come to mean so much more than I ever thought possible. The letters intertwined with the petals blowing in the breeze reminded me that I needed to touch base with my friends as well as add some new petals. Even though my life seemed out of control, I should make time for the other people that have come to mean so much to me. Alec, Mason, Rachel, Tony, Hector, Angelina, Tai, Heather—Anton, just thinking about each face brought memories of better times and put a smile on my face.

“Why were you in such a hurry to tie the knot anyway?” I asked and focused on his body language. It looked…defeated, and for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why. He wasn’t the type that would cheat, and if he did, I’d absolutely kill him so it couldn’t be that. The Rains clan was a loving breed, and they didn’t seem too pushy about the marriage side. Matt’s parents seemed happy that their boy had found a great girl, and they’d been supportive of their decision to move in with one another.

Matt shook his head. “You’ll think it’s dumb.”

I laughed. “Probably, but tell me anyway.”

He smiled and then just as quickly as the grin spread across his face, it disappeared. Matt blew out a long, slow breath. “There’s this group of guys. Jocks. Big dudes, good looking. They’re always chatting Maddy up after class, casually trying to get her to study with them, help them with their homework. Saying they’d even pay her to tutor them.”