Mark’s mother was taken to the hospital, but she was too old and had been drugged for too long to survive the detox process, her heart just couldn’t take it.
This is the last day, the verdict is in and we’re all here for Charlie. A family that she didn’t know she had, at her back.
The judge asks all of us to rise and then gets straight into it. He talks about the reprehensible things that Mark has done in his life. He agrees that Mark is indeed sick, that there is something inherently wrong with the entire Perry clan, and I think that this is it, that he’s going to get off.
“However sick Mark LaFleur is, he is not insane. Mr. LaFleur is a murderer, an abuser, and a very disturbed individual. I am sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”
Mark screams, but the judge ignores him, stands and leaves his bench. Charlie turns to Tulip, her eyes watering before tears stream down her cheeks. I watch as Tulip stands to her feet, then the two women embrace.
“You ready, Charlie?” I ask.
She lifts her gaze to me and nods. My apartment in Vegas has been on the market but hasn’t sold yet. I just took it off and am going to let Charlie move there and start over. She needs to move out of Gallup and away from all of the memories here that plague her.
Together, the three of us make our way outside. I spot her brother, the sheriff’s deputy, Hernandez, waiting at the sidewalk of the courthouse. He’s going to take her to the airport, see her off.
Charlie turns to me, her eyes still shimmering with tears. Tulip is talking to the other women, so I know that she can’t hear us. Charlie wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me in for a hug.
“Thank you, Louis. Thank you for everything, but most of all, thank you for protecting Tulip and loving her the way that you do. Any other man, I didn’t I’d ever be able to say this, but thank you for being a man that she deserves.”
Charlie releases me and before I can respond to her words, she swiftly walks toward her brother. I watch as she slips into the front seat of his patrol car.
Tulip slides her arm around my waist and I look down at her, but she’s focused on the sheriff’s car that’s pulling away from the curb.
“What did she say to you?” she asks, still not looking up at me.
I squeeze her a little tighter. “Nothing, it was only between us.”
Tulip finally looks up at me and I give her a small smile. “Thank you for setting everything up for her. You didn’t have to do that, I appreciate it so much,” she breathes.
“She needed someone to show her kindness. She has you and her brother to show her love, but she needed a different kind of kindness and I’m happy that I could provide that for her,” I murmur.
Tulip’s eyes water immediately and she isn’t able to dash the tears away before they fall down her cheeks. “I don’t deserve you,” she hiccups.
Shaking my head, I touch my lips to her forehead. “Yeah, Tullie you do. I deserve you too, baby. Waited my whole life to have you, and I’m never letting you go.”
PROTECTOR
An Unfit Hero Short Story
Prologue
LAURIE
Jesse’s lips crash against mine. He picks me up, slamming my back against the hotel room door, right before he thrusts inside of me. My head falls back against the door and a mewl escapes my throat. I’ve never heard myself make a sound quite like that before.
“Look at me,” he growls.
Grabbing ahold of his shoulders, I look directly into his eyes. His jaw is clenched, his focus on me and nowhere else. He smirks because he knows how good he feels buried inside of me. He’s the biggest I’ve ever had, and the way he swivels his hips, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
The cocky fuck.
“Harder,” I groan.
He shakes his head once. “Sorry, babe. Enjoying myself right here.” He grins.
“Pussy,” I snap.
He chuckles. “Deep inside yours, babe.”
He grinds his pelvis against my clit and I gasp at the feeling. He leans forward, his lips a hairsbreadth away from mine. I can feel his breath wash over my mouth and I want him to kiss me, I need him to kiss me. He grins, knowing exactly what he’s doing to me.
“You gonna come on my dick, babe?” he whispers.
“Only if you make me.”
“Fuck, Laurie,” he barks.
His hands are on my ass, he squeezes before he turns us around, his cock still buried deep inside of me, and he walks us toward the bed. He lowers me down on my back, while he stays standing.
Jesse shifts one hand to my waist, the other he wraps around the side of my neck and squeezes gently. His eyes never once leave mine. I swear my pussy spasms. Never have I had a man look into my eyes as much as Jesse does.
“Fuck me, Jesse.”
Something shifts in the way he looks at me. A growl crawls up his throat and he snarls as his fingertips sink deeper into my flesh. Then, without notice, without warning, he does exactly as I demanded.
He fucks me.
Hard.
He owns me.
This man who only knows my first name consumed me in an instant.
It’s downright fucking terrifying.
JESSE
Amazing.
Maybe it’s because I’m fucking her sober? Maybe it’s because she’s not some groupie? Maybe they do things differently in Small Town, USA, but fuck me, Laurie is a goddamn firecracker and the best lay I’ve ever had.
Burying my cock deep inside of her, I shove my face in her neck and I groan as I come. Hard. The hardest I’ve ever come in my fucking life. Well, maybe not as hard as the first time I nutted. That was pretty fucking hard, I saw goddamn stars.
She wraps her legs around me and for a moment I feel weird. I feel at peace. “Jesse,” she whispers.
I don’t want to lift my head from her neck. I don’t want this feeling to end and I know it’s fucked because I don’t even know this chick other than she’s friends with Beau’s new bitch.
Slowly, I lift my head from her neck and look into those eyes of hers. Deep fucking brown, so goddamn deep that they suck me in and hold me fucking immobile.
“Yeah?” I grunt when she doesn’t say anything.
“Wanna take a shower, start all over again?”
My lips curve up into a grin. “Fuck yeah, babe.”
That’s how we spend the rest of the evening. Sucking, fucking, licking, and more fucking. She drains my dick like no other woman ever has and even when there’s not even an ounce of cum left in my body, I want to do her all over again.
Never in my life have I felt this way.
I’m in goddamn trouble.
Chapter One
JESSE
I throw my hands up in the air as I watch her cross her arms beneath her luscious tits. Laurie Howard is a goddamn bitch. A sexy as shit bitch. The best bitch I’ve ever laid, but a bitch. I’ve been trying to get her to at least try, not for me, not for her, but for that baby she’s carrying. She fucking refuses.
“What do you want?” I ask.