Home at Last [Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 1] (Siren Publishing Allure) Read online

  Iona@Pangloss: Everyone’s back to normal. I’m not worried about Clint and don’t take your libido out on him. I wanted to come home. It’s good to be back, Buster/Bunny/the gaggle missed me.

  CJ@OKEY: You’re too young to be missed by animals. Seems stupid to me when you could be here, but you young ’uns have to see for yourselves. How’d you sleep last night? I couldn’t, I miss you, Lil Bit.

  Iona weighed the truth with a convenient lie and chose somewhere in the middle.

  Iona@Pangloss: I didn’t sleep very well, I got used to hugging the edge cuz I shared the bed with a big ol Oklahoma boy. I had too much room. 

  CJ@OKEY: Any feelings at all?

  Iona@Pangloss: More than I can tell you without losing it again. Back to work. I think you should pursue the wind farm the way that you set it up but it would be a mistake to try to under leverage. You’ll spread liability…

  That diverted the conversation back to business. For the next two hours they worked. No more mentions of what had happened between them and they’d even signed off with a nice “Good night, cuz” from CJ. It was possible to go back to the way things were. Iona felt settled and ready to sleep, but that didn’t happen. At three she woke up searching her bed for CJ and feeling a little lost. This time instead of going into a full woe-is-me depression, she got up to smoke the rest of her bowl and crashed on the couch. The confines of the little sofa gave her the illusion of being held close by strong arms.

  The geese woke her up again. Her heart beat fast only to slow down when Cyn appeared at the door, shooing the dogs outside. Iona’s sister didn’t believe in allowing dogs in the house. Buster and Bunny moved to the space they occupied when Cyn was home. Buster smiled his doggy smile, as if he knew Cyn might have a third interest in the house but still hadn’t been able to spend the night in the house.

  Now they sat in the bright-blue tiny little kitchen and listened as Cyn filled her in on the gossip from the Holla, Mount Olive, and DC, where Cyn practiced law. Finally, with the sisters settled in chairs on either side of the island, Cyn settled with a huge cup of tea. Iona nursed a small glass of juice.

  “Now, tell me all about your trip.” Her bright brown eyes searched Iona’s face, not missing what was trying to be said.

  “It was wonderful. London is way colder than here. Okey closed the deal, and with the money I’ve been shoving in the stock, you can buy the house in the suburbs of DC pretty soon. I went to a pub and met some people, played darts, went shopping. I got you some really nice sweaters from Harrods. That’s about it.” Iona finished in a rush, hoping that that would keep Cyn from talking but knowing it wouldn’t.

  “Uh-huh. What about Oklahoma? I talked to that big ole tall man that swept you out the house like a summer storm. He ain’t talk about shopping. He was all, ‘Cynthia, I’ma take care of her. Cynthia, we’re in this together. Cynthia, she needs me right now.’ That’s what I heard. I didn’t hear anything about shopping, darts, and other people,” Cynthia said. She waited silently for Iona to speak. Minutes passed with only the sounds of the birds and geese breaking into the room.

  “You’re not talking, baby sister. You okay? Did he hurt you?” Cyn said.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Cyn. I had sex. I had sex with CJ and it was good. You can’t expect me to tell my older sister all the details,” Iona said. She shifted on her stool, trying to find a comfortable position under Cyn’s laser-like stare last used during the Donald Ray Todd incident and successfully defeated.

  “This is not like the other time. I know you took care of that fool better than the police or even I could, but that man sounded like he was in heavy lust,” Cyn said.

  Iona did a double face palm. No escape. “It was great. I like him, he likes me, I think. We work together and may, heavy on the may, see each other again.”

  More bird sounds. Cyn sat with her arms folded across her chest tapping her long manicured nails.

  “Okay! I went totally batshit crazy in front on his fiancée, both sets of parents, and everybody else in the house. I couldn’t help myself. She kept picking and prodding and before I knew it I punched her. On two separate occasions. He told her it was over, and then I ran home. It was too intense. He’s not a little rich, he’s gazillionaire rich, like whatever he wants rich, like the little brown nerd is interesting at the moment rich. I feel so, so…”

  “So in love?” Cyn said.

  “Exactly, and he’s done this before, I think. I’m so different that after a few months it’s ‘thank you so much for playing, here are your consolation prizes’ from him. If last night was any indication, I will absolutely shatter into little pieces if that happens. I’m scared. It’ll hurt too much. I can’t do it. I’m not used to doing stuff like that. He brushed Elizabeth off without a blink. He could do that to me, too,” Iona said. She was pacing her small kitchen.

  “Yes, he could, might do it, too. But what do you feel when you’re around him?”

  “I feel everything. I feel colors, I feel high, better than my own homegrown, I feel complete. I feel scared, and like I can do anything.”

  “Let’s say that everything bad you say happens. What would that bring more than a broken heart? Baby, you cut yourself off from regular life for way too long. It’s partially my fault. It was easier after the accident to see you standing so strong by yourself to convince myself that you could handle anything. But you were too young and I was just too much in pain to see that. But broken hearts happen all the time, but for that feeling of joy and love, it’s worth it. You don’t miss your water ’til your well run dry. You got a helluva well you been drinking from. I say ride it ’til it sweat,” Cyn said. Knowing Iona, she let it drop at that.

  “Go get me the sweaters you’re talking about. It’s already colder than a witch’s left nut,” Cyn said.

  Chapter Fourteen:

  All That I Need

  Iona wanted Cyn to go home. Or go somewhere. Cyn was great to drive in from DC, the company had been appreciated, but now Iona wanted to be alone. Besides, there was only so much to catch up on when the family had four members. Linc and Jeff were arguing about whether to adopt. In Cyn’s job as chief counsel for a trade association, backbiting and under-the-table deals were the norm. Those topics were hashed and trashed.

  Cyn usually spent the night at Linc’s. She used their carriage house. “You look like you want me to go. Why didn’t you say something?” Cyn said.

  “Because you and Linc keep telling me I’m too blunt.”

  “I get the hint. I’m out. Let’s have lunch at the diner tomorrow. Eleven thirty. We’ll beat the rush,” she said. They both laughed. She gathered her purse and car coat from the back of a low leather chair Iona used to read.

  Cyn stopped suddenly at the door. She glanced down into Iona’s eyes. “You should have done all this lovesick shit when you were sixteen or seventeen. You’re kinda old. That’s why it feels worse than the usual shitty you feel when these little interludes happen.”

  “I wouldn’t call it an interlude, but uh…it was what it was,” Iona said standing in the now open door. Brisk, fresh air flowed into the house. It would rain soon, if not snow. Iona hadn’t checked the weather.

  Cyn pulled out and headed down the road. As her brake lights disappeared around the curve, Iona went to wash the few dishes she and her sister had used. She switched off the water at the quick knock on the front door.

  CJ stood in the door. “Déjà vu all over again, huh?” he said. For the first time, Iona understood the expression “my heart dropped.” She stood still for another few heartbeats then walked into his open arms. She buried her nose into his chest to inhale his scent. She’d been lost without it.

  “Want to go to London with me? I figured since we had to fly over West Virginia I might as well stop and ask,” he said. His chin rested on the top of her head, while his arms hugged her closer to him.

  Minutes ticked by as they held one another. “I’m serious. I’m going to London for a
few meetings. Do you want to go?” He pulled her back to look into her eyes.

  “No, I’m working on the South Pacific thing.”

  “You can work on it there. Pack, let’s go.”

  “No, seriously, I don’t want to go with you,” she said.

  “You are so stubborn, but it won’t be for long. Got anything for dinner?” CJ slipped into the kitchen, rummaging through her fridge before she could get into the room. He plated a meal of chicken and broccoli and sat at the island to eat.

  She searched through the stuff Cyn had stocked on the bottom shelf of the fridge and found a six-pack of beer. She found a glass for it but CJ shook it off. He explained to her the reason for his trip, which involved expanding the integrated advance planning team and schmoozing with some cabinet members. She sat watching him devour half a chicken and later a platter of fruit and cheese.

  “When was the last time you ate?” she asked. He finally pushed his plate away. He thought about the question through a long pull of his beer.

  “I haven’t been eating. Clint says I’ve been mooning around like a lovesick hound. Guess I have. I’ve not been sleeping either.” She stacked his dishes in the sink. She turned to look into those shocking green eyes.

  “Can you leave tomorrow?” she said.

  “Yeah, that was the idea.” CJ stood up and clasped her hand, leading her up the stairs to her bedroom.

  * * * *

  “This is the only unopened toothbrush I have.” Iona handed CJ a small pink brush with pink fairy princesses on the handle.

  At his raised eyebrow she said, “It’s one of the few things that survived the fire. Besides, I hate fairy princesses, pretentious little bitches.” Iona brushed her teeth and washed her face. She drifted around her small bathroom without a clear idea of what to do, so she went to bed. CJ turned on the shower, sighing heavily while she washed her face, moisturized, and put on an old flannel shirt of her father’s. She was in the bed, without her usual socks, and drifting off to almost sleep when CJ turned off the lights and climbed into bed.

  “Missed you, Lil Bit.” CJ turned on his side and gathered her tight against his naked body. He wasn’t hard but he was very, very firm. Iona resisted the need to wiggle her ass over and around his thighs. She finally went to sleep.

  * * * *

  She dreamed she heard a long, low moan that sounded of raw lust and longing. It took her a few minutes to realize that it wasn’t a dream and she was the one moaning. CJ was slowly re-entering her open and leaking pussy. She thrust back to capture more of his thickness.

  “Glad you’re awake, Lil Bit. I was afraid I’d come without you waking up. But you are now, aren’t you, little baby? Did you miss me as much as I missed you?” He stroked all eight inches deep enough to touch her cervix. She hissed, slamming her hips against his thrust, panting as he stopped moving and allowed her to ride and ride him until she was so at the brink of coming.

  CJ quit moving, and instead lay pressed against her back, running his hands over and over her nipples. Pinching them, rolling them, tweaking them until they were hard peaks and sensitive to each caress and she was close to begging for release. “Why do I have to beg him for this?”

  “Because you need to let me know that I mean something to you, that you trust me, that you want me to fuck you.” CJ thrust hard at each declaration as Iona gripped the forearm wedged under her breast. She dropped her head to begin to suck his hair arm as she danced over his dick. Loving, reveling in the feel of the familiar thickness stretching her to fit his dick.

  He growled as he began to long dick her. Driving as much of his hard cock as deeply into her as he could, he picked up speed and intensity to match her cries, which matched his thrust. He added a deep grunt each time he passed his full length deep enough so that he slammed against her clit.

  “You’re damn clit is throbbing. I can feel it. I need to wiggle my other hand down there to see what that is pressing against me,” CJ said as he casually passed his right hand down her heaving body. He barely touched her with his fingertips as he slowly drew a line from her shoulders to her hip. She moaned into his arm and gave up trying to control the jerk of her hips.

  CJ allowed her to ride him until he got too close to coming, then he used his right hand to pinch down on her clit. She moaned loudly into his arm. She even placed his hand over her mouth, licking his palm as she used him to stifle her moans, gasps, and growls.

  By now, CJ had placed both hands on her hips and flipped her to her stomach. With hands on either side of her head, CJ began to thrust all the way in after he pulled back to just the tip of his dick, always remaining in her, claiming his territory.

  Iona lay in total submission with her entire body set to receive all that he was pounding into her. She collapsed under his 240-pound frame, but he continued to drive into her. He did stuff pillows under her stomach and they both groaned when it caused the angle of the penetration to move them even closer together.

  CJ used his hands to slam Iona back against him. The sound of the fleshy slaps of his pelvis to her ass rang through the room. She stuffed the blanket into her mouth until CJ ripped it away.

  “I want to hear you go slut crazy for me. Why are you trying to be so quiet, anyway?” CJ slowed his thrusts, not stopping but waiting for an answer and ready to fuck the memory of anything from her mind.

  “I don’t want Buster to hear me.”

  “You’re way too late for that, baby. You got your scent all over the house. You started leaking for me when you saw me at the door.” CJ punched deep into her soaked pussy. The sound of the wet slap of skin was louder than before.

  Iona screamed out her pleasure and was rewarded by a growl and another deep, soul-rendering slam of his rigid cock.

  “Yeah, scream for me, Lil Bit. Do you like this fuck?” he growled.

  “Yeah, God yes.” She groaned, using the momentum of him guiding her hips back to him to keep him buried as deeply as possible. She rippled her pussy muscles each time he pulled back. The feeling of his prominent veins and the slight curve of his shaft were making her cream all over him.

  She didn’t, couldn’t talk as she came for the first time. It made her clench every muscle of her body, tightening them so hard that she almost ejected CJ from her sopping wet cunt.

  “Oh.” A single exclamation escaped her. Sounding more like she was surprised by the sight of a red bird rather she was progressing into a series of orgasms that twitched her ass back and forth against his thrusts. He couldn’t hold back the torrent of cum that she felt splashing her insides, marking her as his a very basic way.

  Once again he gathered her close to his chest as he pulled the pillows from beneath her. He tossed the top wet one to the small chest by the window. The last thing Iona remembered CJ doing was pulling the covers over them and kissing her head.

  When she woke up, he was already gone, the deep smell of their serious sex session hanging in the air.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Filling What’s Hollow

  During the rest of fall and into early winter, CJ and Iona e-mailed, IMed, and did a few conference calls. Each phone call was always with other people. Never did they speak to each other directly. After the final mind-shattering sex in her bedroom, neither discussed their affair.

  Jeff and Cyn were over the moon because Iona started to go to town by herself. Linc pretended he didn’t notice, but Iona noticed that he seemed to leave his old car on the road in front of her road more often than not now. She and Cyn went to a few plays in Richmond, but Cyn preferred DC, so Iona took the train up.

  Iona arranged to have an IUD inserted. “Luck should not be tempted,” she said to herself as she lay waiting for the doctor to arrive in a nondescript strip mall front clinic. Iona had no doubt that she would have sex again sometime in her life, but she couldn’t imagine wanting to take the risk that she would become pregnant by anyone but CJ.

  On a dreary, damp Saturday in early November, Iona drove into town in Linc’s car t
o meet Cyn for lunch. The clouds hung over the mountains as snow threatened as it had for the past week. There’s only one street in Mount Olive, Main Street. The rest of the roads in the hamlet had names of like Collins Hill, Red Star, and No Name. She parked on Main, went to the post office before going to the tiny little diner that served food according to the season. This time of the year, there was a lot of pork on the menu.

  “Iona, Cynthia just called and said to tell you two things. One, she can’t make it today because she had some kinda emergency meeting she had to go to in DC.” Vanessa Davis carefully scratched her blonde beehive. She was the owner, chef, baker and waitress at her diner. Tall and thin and brassy, Vanessa was rightly proud of being one of the best bakers in the county but Iona knew from past experience that some of her desserts were so rich they should be followed by a colonic.

  “I’ll have a strawberry milkshake and probably get some cake in little while. What was the second thing?” Iona said

  “Ahh, yeah, she said turn your damn cell phone on.” Vanessa laughed as she poured her homemade strawberry sauce into the silver container and added ice cream and real cream. While it mixed, they discussed holla business. Vanessa lived at the front of the holla with the other white cousins. Seems Joan’s daughter was pregnant with her sister’s boyfriend’s baby. “That girl always did have a white liver,” Vanessa said.

  Iona took her milkshake to the one table of a total of six that faced the big picture window. From there she saw the huge Mercedes as it slowly rolled through town. The driver was a large blond man. She shook herself. “I have to stop imagining CJ is every tall white guy I see.”

  “You talking to me, Iona?” Vanessa asked. Iona looked up at the older woman’s question, shaking her head. As it made its return trip, Iona stopped pretending. It was CJ. The old men from the trailer used for the barber shop came out on the tiny porch to watch it park beside Linc’s old Oldsmobile. CJ got out of the car, stretching wide and tall. He added height with a cowboy hat and boots. She slumped in the chair. “Please don’t see me, please don’t see me.” She exhaled as he disappeared into the post office. Knowing that he would know she wasn’t there in the one-room brick building, she didn’t attempt to leave. He was out the door almost as soon as he went in. She watched him glance up and down the street. He waved to the guys still standing on the porch. Without hearing what he shouted across the two-lane street, she knew from every finger pointing to the diner that they’d snitched.