Single Mom's Sparkle: A Military Reverse Harem Romance, page 5
“I’m okay, just tired,” I reply with a soft nod, then excuse myself and go upstairs.
But it’s not my room I’m headed for. No, it’s the playroom. I need time alone in there, so I can blow off some steam. There’s just too much swirling around in my head. Too many thoughts and unverified suspicions, concerns, and frustrations. The pregnancy could be having an impact of its own on my judgment, I’m not sure. Or it could be the years of physical and emotional abuse I endured while I was married to Daniel. It could also be a combination of both, along with the certainty that my men aren’t being entirely forthcoming about something.
Either way, I know I can rely on my time alone in the playroom to ease my nerves. I’ve done it many times before, especially when the guys were away on a business trip. Oddly enough, it’s the first time I’m doing it while they’re all in the house.
Slowly, I take my clothes off and pick out one of the vibrators from the nightstand drawer. My mind is riddled with unsavory thoughts, so I close my eyes as I lay on the bed, dissolving into the silken covers for a sweet minute. It smells of lavender and roses in this room. Of body oil and sex. Of spicy nights and orgasmic release. I love this place.
I start touching myself, hoping to get my body to a space where this frayed mind of mine can follow. Massaging my breasts, I take my time with myself, squeezing and pinching my nipples hard until the stinging sensation translates into a myriad of electrical spikes running through my flesh, until liquid heat pools between my legs and starts trickling down onto the sheets.
Moaning softly, I spread my knees and turn the vibrator on, listening to its steady hum as I press the tip against my clit. My core tightens as I burn from the inside, tension gathering in my lower belly with each second. I don’t even hear the door open as I press the tip harder against my swollen nub, using my spare hand to hold my breast tightly in anticipation of a much-needed release.
“Playing by yourself?” Luke’s voice pours into my ear.
I’m startled, but I don’t move. I simply open my eyes to find him standing beside the bed, his fingers already working his shirt buttons. The blue pools of his gaze have darkened into a stormy ocean, shadows dancing and desire flashing through them as his lips part slowly.
“Yes,” I whisper, but don’t let go of the vibrator. It’s doing something to my senses, removing every inhibition as I watch my man undress.
His cock stands up under my attention, swollen and thick and dying to be inside me. He strokes himself and watches me as I please myself. “I would like to see what happens next,” Luke says. “If you don’t mind the company.”
“I never mind the company,” I reply, my voice low and raspy.
“Then show me what you like.”
“You already know what I like.”
“Show me anyway.”
Despite the issues we’ve been having, issues we haven’t exactly addressed, our sexual chemistry is more intense than ever. So I slide the vibrator deep inside me and turn it up to its maximum level. My insides shake as I move my spare hand down to work on my clit while I thrust the toy in and out, my pussy clenching.
“Harder,” Luke says, hand locked tightly around his cock as he bites his lower lip.
I fuck myself harder as he commands, fingers flicking over my swollen nub until I lose my breath altogether. My eyes never leave his. My hips tilt upward as I torture myself in the most satisfying way with the toy, bringing myself closer to the edge. Closer and closer, until I’m about to explode.
I see a devilish grin blooming across Luke’s face. “Are you about to come, my love?” he asks.
“Yes”
“Stop.”
I blink several times. “What? Why?”
“Give it to me,” he says.
“Not yet,” I tell him, continuing to pleasure myself. This was meant to be “me time” and quite frankly, he’s interrupting. I’m going to finish what I started before giving in to him. I come hard, screaming out, continuing to rub my clit and thrusting the vibrator in and out of my pussy.
Before I can say or do anything, he drags me down, ass on the edge of the bed, and pulls out the vibrator, spearing me with his full, glorious length while pressing the vibrator’s tip against my clit.
“Oh, God!” I cry out.
“Hold me tight,” Luke grunts, and I wrap my legs around his waist.
I hold on for dear life as he turns the vibrator up and brings me back to the top of the mountain, thrusting himself deeper and harder inside me.
“Dammit, Avery, you’re fucking perfect… so fucking tight and wet… so hot and needy… I love it. I love you,” Luke says.
“I love you, too,” I manage. “Oh, fuck… FUCK, harder… fuck me harder!”
I moan loudly as a shattering orgasm blows through me like a hurricane, shaking me to the core. I clench myself tightly around him, desperately welcoming every thrust as he fills me with his seed, roaring like a lion as he comes.
“Oh, wow…” is all I’m able to mumble as I unravel like a thread, still shaking from the powerful climax.
My mind is blank. I needed this. How did he know I needed this? How did he know that I needed him? My anger has dissipated and I feel like a ragdoll.
As Luke kisses me, his lips soft and sweet, his tongue playful, I realize that it’s only a moment’s high that he’s giving me. Our troubles are far from over. Outside this room, there are still secrets and things left unsaid. There is still frustration and silence. But in here, at least for now, at least for tonight, I get to simply let it go.
Luke is hard again. “I’m not done with you yet, Avery.”
“Good.”
I’m not done either. I want my body owned and consumed, my heart filled. I want my breath gone and my skin gleaming with passion. And as Luke tosses the vibrator aside and gets down on his knees to lick my ridiculously slick folds, I brace myself for madness. It’s what I desperately need tonight.
8
Luke
Avery is understandably concerned, and I get it, but we can’t tell her anything yet. Charlene’s return to Lincoln County is no coincidence. It’s deliberate. I can tell from the way she accosted Kellan outside the sheriff’s office. She’s looking to get back into our good graces, but I don’t trust her. I will never trust her again. I made that mistake once, and I almost lost myself. We all did.
Charlene was supposed to be a closed chapter, forgotten and buried. The shame we felt, the betrayal, the misery that followed… it took the three of us a long time to heal our bruised egos and learn to trust people again. Especially a woman we genuinely cared about. Her return is anything but auspicious, and now the three of us must prepare for whatever it is she’s bringing back into our lives. It’s nothing good, I’m certain of it.
“Are you sure you want to keep this from Avery?” Marcus O’Neill, our Director of Operations, asks as soon as we sit down in his office to go over the intel he’s uncovered so far. He was with us when the truth about Charlene came to light, and he helped us liaise with the FBI in order to bring her down. “She’ll figure it out, eventually. It’s only a matter of time before Charlene shows up on your doorstep.”
“I’m hoping she’ll be back in prison way before then,” I tell him, shaking my head as I go through his laptop folders. I find the one I need and click it open. “Besides, I’m pretty sure there’s a ban in place for her where our security system is concerned. Our guys should be able to pick her up from the gate.”
“Yes, facial recognition cameras at the front, plus the ones on the porch,” Marcus agrees. “We do have a problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
I kind of already know the answer, judging by the handful of flimsy image and document files available for me to peruse at this point.
“There’s not much to go on right now,” he says. “She doesn’t even have a bank account open in her name. Charlene is completely off the radar this time around. We don’t know where she’s living, who she’s working with, or where she’s getting her money from. Kellan said she was very well-dressed for a woman who just got out of prison.”
Outside, the beginning of spring is grey and sullen, a perfect match for my overall mood. There isn’t enough lovemaking in the world to drown out the gloom of Charlene’s return, and it makes me feel terrible for Avery. I love her. Kellan and Fallon love her. Deeply. We are determined to keep this marvelous woman in our lives, yet until we figure out Charlene’s endgame, the tension is fucking suffocating and messing with our dynamic.
“I had a brief conversation with Agent Freely. You remember him, right?” I ask Marcus, and he nods once. “He said the injunction on Charlene’s accounts is still in place. All of her assets are frozen, and until further notice, they will stay frozen. So, whatever money she’s using, it’s likely cash or from associates’ accounts. Her parents are dead, but she still has a sister, Corinne Maddox. We should look into her, check her financials from top to bottom.”
“Would it be wise to put a detail on Charlene anytime soon?”
I think about it for a moment. There are risks to such an endeavor, but the payout would be justified. We do need to know more about her every movement and nip any threat in the bud. I’m confident Kellan and Fallon would agree. Of course, Kellan would protest at first, but Fallon would definitely be on board. I’m not sure which of us despises Charlene more, though I reckon it would probably be a tie between the big guy and me. Kellan has always taken the more noble path with a forgive-and-forget approach—that is, until she showed up outside his workplace. We’ve got too much to lose if we allow Charlene to get too close, and that snake knows precisely which nooks to sneak through.
“Do that,” I tell Marcus. “Make sure they’re discreet, though, just assign one agent. A female in an unmarked car. We don’t want Charlene to get suspicious anytime soon. Have her keep an adequate distance, no matter what.”
Marcus goes through a roster of available agents who would be able to undertake the mission. “Should we put a tracker on her car, too? Just in case our girl loses her.”
“We need something small and untraceable. Charlene will likely be paranoid after how things went down between us.”
“I’ve got a couple of devices from my buddy at Langley. State-of-the-art stuff. As small as a fingernail and just as slim.”
“Yeah. Worth a shot. But only if she can get close enough to Charlene’s car without being seen. That woman does not get her own hands dirty. She probably has an associate working with her,” I warn Marcus. “That’s who we need to be careful about.”
“We’ll monitor everyone she meets with, even if it’s just for a minute,” he assures me. “How are you feeling, Luke?”
I know the meaning behind his question and I can’t blame him for asking. What happened with Charlene was so awful and filthy, we all did our best to put it out of our heads and move on but it was deeply personal for me. I lean back into my chair and stare at the laptop screen for a while, trying not to let my mind slide into the past.
“I’m angry,” I finally say, my voice low and cold. Chills trickle down my spine, the memories flooding back in with a ruthless vengeance. “When we met Charlene, we didn’t know the repercussions, Marcus. We had no idea of her connections.”
“How could you have known? She was always the secretive type. And you do understand how dark money flows, man.”
“Yeah and I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve had you looking into her from day one. Maybe we would’ve found out sooner.”
“You had no reason to suspect her,” Marcus insists. “Luke, you had absolutely no way to immediately link her to those fuckers in Iran. Yet she knew exactly who you were from the moment she first shook your hand. She knew, and she kept her mouth shut.”
“What was she supposed to say?” I scoff. “Hi, I’m Charlene Maddox and I’m partially responsible for the submarine explosion that cost you your leg?”
Marcus frowns, a deep shadow creasing between his brows. “She had money flowing all over the Middle East while you and the guys were on active duty. You didn’t even know her then.”
“Fair enough. It doesn’t make what she did right, though, does it?”
“No, it does not.”
“It was illegal. It was treason. And the fucked up part is that as soon as I found out, I knew I had no way of nailing her for it. I couldn’t prove her connections there.”
“You got her on fraud and embezzlement, though,” Marcus points out. “The best we could do was nail her for the domestic activities.” I know he’s trying to make me feel better, but I can still remember how frustrated he was when we sat down and went through all the evidence we’d managed to gather against Charlene. Everything we had regarding her dark money movements was circumstantial at best, and it wasn’t enough for a treason charge.
“Yeah and how did that work out in the end?” I ask, already knowing the answer. “She went to prison for five years, released early for good behavior. We couldn’t even tie the Cassidy’s back to her. We never cut the head off the snake, and here we are, doing it all over again. Trying to nail her down for good.”
“I’ve got a feeling it’ll be different this time around.”
“Pray tell,” I mutter.
“We’ve learned a lot from that episode. We know she’s hiding something, or things, plural. Let’s go with the plural here, because a woman like Charlene Maddox has an ego the size of the Empire State Building. We can be sure that she’s back with a purpose, and the fact that the older Cassidy’s were rattled by your visit is telling enough. She’s working with them again. We know who to watch and what to watch out for.”
“Fair enough.”
“We also have better surveillance tech than we did five years ago, and we’re aware that the snake is trying to slither her way back into the garden,” Marcus adds with a wry smile. “Whatever she’s up to, we’ll get her. Charlene thinks she’s the smartest person in the room. That was her undoing before, and it’ll be her undoing again. You can’t cure arrogance, Luke.”
He makes a multitude of valid points. But it’s Avery I’m worried about. “She’ll figure out Avery’s role here,” I tell him. “She will attempt to get close to her, to try and hurt her.”
“Charlene will never be able to get that close,” Marcus says. “I could have a secondary detail keeping an eye on Avery and the girls, too.”
“Kellan and Fallon will be pissed.”
“But do you really think they’ll say no, given that the three of you are so determined to keep Avery in the dark about Charlene?”
Good point. “Okay. Do that, then. Have a pair of eyes on Avery and the girls as well. But make sure they’re discreet. If Avery realizes we’re tailing her, she’ll fly into a panic, especially after what happened with her ex.”
“Don’t worry about that. Here’s what I’m thinking—let me keep watch on Charlene, first. Let me figure out who she’s meeting with and where. And if there is any overlap with Avery at any point, even by a couple of feet, I’ll put a security detail on her, too,” Marcus suggests. “How does that sound?”
“Smart. Thank you, my friend.”
I’d thought surveilling Avery was a thing of the past. Daniel is dead and buried. That was supposed to be the end of it. I never expected Charlene to get out of prison so soon, and I certainly didn’t think she had the audacity to come back here the way she did. Her actions scream purpose and intent, of a plan she’s likely hatching. And if she’s targeting the three of us, she will be looking for soft spots to hit.
There is no softer spot than Avery and her little girls.
I had to kill a man in order to protect them, and I still have nightmares about that. I had plenty of kills during my Navy service, and I’ve done my best to place Daniel in the same batch of dirty fuckers who had it coming. I don’t want to ever have to do that again, though. I don’t know how much more of my own soul I can sacrifice in order to keep the woman I love safe—especially when I’m trying to keep her safe from a woman who once had her own place in that same fucking soul.
You don’t get over that kind of betrayal. You simply swallow the hurt and you move on.
But like Marcus says, when the snake tries to slither back into the garden, what are you supposed to do? You keep an eye on it, and if needed, you grab a shovel and sort that shit out.
9
Avery
The first week on Charlene’s project turned out smoother than I had originally anticipated. Her parents’ house is old, and I’d expected necessary work on the pipes before I could go in with my work on the walls. But according to the plumber I brought in, the bones in the place are good, and the copper pipes are in excellent condition. Charlene also decided to keep the original flooring, which makes the rest of my job easier.
I’m done with the living room, and I’ve moved all of my tools into the ground-floor bathroom, the room I’m starting on next. A mason helped with removing the original tiles from the walls. We’re preserving the floor tiles, though—they’re large and beautiful ceramic pieces that only need a good steam and grouting before applying a coat of high-traffic varnish to bring out their original teal color. The best part is that I’ve found wall tiles that match that particular shade, and I love their minimalist design.
“How are you coming along?” Toby asks one afternoon just as I add more adhesive to the wall prior to affixing another tile under the bathroom sink. “Do you need anything? Coffee?”
“I’m cutting back on my coffee intake these days,” I reply with a smile. “Maybe some tea? Something green? Or ginger, if Charlene has any in the pantry.”
“I’ll go check.”
I listen to his footsteps echoing through the bare house. Charlene is staying at a nearby hotel while I work on the place, but she does come in once a day to see how I’m coming along and to chat. She strikes me as a solitary creature. I don’t know where she’s been, but she loves losing herself in our conversations. She’s friendly and warm, always curious about me and the girls. I haven’t told her where I live or who I’m with, and I am keeping that a secret by default, but I have shared bits and pieces of my past with her. I figure if I want her to open up to me, I need to do the same, even if it’s only in very small amounts.
