His One and Only

“I wish you had called me,” Beau said, rubbing her back. “I would have paid for Loretta’s apartment, gotten her anything she needed. She raised me.”

She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “I was so ashamed. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone,” she whispered to him. “I shouldn’t have let him trap me like that. I should’ve been smarter.”

“Ssh, darlin’” he said. “You want know something? I couldn’t be prouder of you right now.”

She shook her head, confused. “Why?”

“Because you saw you were in a bad situation and you tried to fix it. That’s more than a lot of women would have done… men, too. You had me fooled into thinking the old Josie was gone, but you’re still in there. Even though I’m blind right now, I can see that girl clearly in you.”

She clamped her lips together to keep from bursting into a fresh round of tears. She hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear that. That she was still her old self, that Wayne hadn’t taken the best parts of her with him to his grave.

“Thank you,” she said. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips softly to his.

But he stiffened and dropped his arms from around her.

She nearly wheeled back, she was so embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have guessed after that story I just told you, there was no way you’d still be interested in me like that.”

“Josie…”

But Josie couldn’t bear to hear him let her down easily. “I’m just going to go… I don’t know, clean or something.”

She started to leave, but his arm snaked around her waist like a vice.

“Josie,” he said again. Then he grabbed her wrist and placed her hand on his crotch.

Josie’s mouth fell open. It felt like he had a steel rod hidden underneath his sweatpants.

“I want you,” he informed her. “I feel like an right now because I want you so bad, even more than before now that I know Sam’s a girl and I’m the only one.”

“Really?” she said, finding it hard to believe the hard proof under her hand.

His mouth hitched into that half smile of his. “Josie Witherspoon, it would take a lot more than that to make me ever stop wanting you.”

“Then why didn’t you kiss me back?”

“Because I can’t think straight when I’m kissing you, and we need to talk about a few things.” He brought her hand up to his face and laid it against his bearded cheek. “Are you still on birth control?”

She nodded.

“I’m going to need a yes or a no out loud,” he reminded her with a teasing smile.

“Yes,” she said.

“And I’m scrupulous about my condom use. I took an STD test a couple of weeks before my accident. For charity.”

She laughed.

“I’m not kidding. L.A. takes HIV awareness very seriously. Last year a bunch of us Suns took the test for World AIDS Day and tweeted the results. You can look it up on the internet if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“Good, because Josie, I don’t want anything between us anymore. No more secrets.” He kissed her. “No more condoms. Nothing but you and me, darlin’.”

Josie wasn’t sure how it happened, but somehow they ended up in one of the kitchen table’s chairs with Beau sitting down and Josie straddling him, bottomless, in nothing but one of her plaid shirts.

No words were exchanged, but they kissed and kissed until her kit kat was aching with desire. She let out a sigh of relief when his thick pressed in. Without waiting for a command, she began riding him and soon felt his hands on her as she bounced up and down on his lap.

“Damn, Josie, so tight, so good,” he said.

She arched her back to press more of her into the front of him. And she moaned when he moved his hands under her arms and began physically lifting her up and slamming her back down on his penis as if she weighed nothing.

“This is just the beginning,” he growled. “The things I’m going to do to you tonight, Josie.”

Unbearable pleasure rippled inside of her vagina, signaling a much larger tidal wave on the horizon. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she said. “Mr. Prescott…”

But then he suddenly stopped again and his hands slid down to still her bucking . “Call me Beau,” he said.

“What?” she panted.

“From now on I want you to call me Beau. Not Mr. Prescott, not Beau Prescott. I want you to call me Beau.”

“But you said—”

“I don’t care what I said before. Call me Beau.” Technically, he was issuing her yet another command, but there was a plaintive note in his voice. Like he was begging her to call him by his given name.

As if to confirm her essment, he began moving her on top of him again, his pumping action wild and frenzied. “Call me, Beau, darlin’,” he said, his voice sandpapered with raw desired. “Call me Beau.”

“Beau,” she cried out as a volcano of pleasure began to erupt inside of her. “Beau!”

She wrapped her arms tight around his neck and keened, “Oh, God, Beau!”

The orgasm ripped through, hot and pulsing like electric magma, turning her body into a pool of quivering jelly.

But Beau wouldn’t stop his ault on her senses. He kept bringing her down on his with relentless force until he came, too, with a gruff bark of triumph.

“Josie,” he said, with a happy sigh. “Josie.”

They held each other. Josie straddled across his lap, Beau’s arms wrapped around her like a cocoon, just the two of them, in pure bliss, their baggage dropped, their individual problems on hold. The world stopped spinning and put itself on pause, just for them. And for a moment everything was perfect and pure.

“Josie,” he said, sounding happier than she’d ever heard him. “Josie, I—”

The sound of the doorbell popped their perfect little bubble.

And Beau’s face fell. “Don’t answer it,” he said, drawing her closer and kissing her neck.

“I have to answer it,” she said. “It’s probably Sam. She’s forever leaving her purse behind.”

She scrambled off his lap and pulled on her jeans, hoping to God she didn’t smell too obviously of the mind-blowing sex she’d just had.

“I’ll be right back,” she said as she left the room.

“What happened to ‘Whatever you say, Mr. Prescott’?” he called after her.

“I thought you wanted me to call you Beau now!” she called back, letting the kitchen door swing shut behind her.

She was still giggling when she opened the door…

…and found Colin Fairgood, standing on the doorstep.

CHAPTER 18

COLIN FAIRGOOD WAS STILL TALL, but he was no longer skinny. Long, lean muscle had thickened out his entire body and even his face, which used to be somewhat gaunt, was now more sculpted and defined. It all made for one very arresting picture, especially when you threw in the blue eyes glittering with determination under his white Stetson.

But still she said, “Colin?” just to make sure this perfect specimen was the same guy she used to walk to the comic book store with every Wednesday.

But then he said, “Holy shit, Jo-Jo, it really is you!” before letting loose that same big, old Colin grin and pulling her into his now very strong arms. “I had nearly given up on trying to find you. I can’t believe you were here all this time!”

She pulled away from him. “You were trying to find me?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I Googled your name last month and found a news story about what that er you call an ex-husband tried to do to you. I flew straight out to Atlanta to find you, but by that time it was too late. You’d already moved and nobody could tell me where you went.”

“Are you serious?” She really couldn’t imagine a blond country star at Colin’s level wandering around her old suburb, asking her mostly black neighbors if they knew where she’d gone.

“Dead serious,” he answered. “And you wouldn’t have believed my face when I called my mama up this morning and she mentioned Mindy had seen you in the grocery store, and that you were working for Beau Prescott now. I didn’t think it could be true.”

She cringed inwardly. If he was this incredulous about her being Beau’s maid, how would he react if he found out what else she was getting paid to do for Beau? “Well, I’m really happy to see you,” she said. “I can’t believe you came all this way.”

His eyes ran over her. “Are you okay?” he asked, cupping his hands around her shoulders.

“I’m fine,” she said. “And I’m sorry I got you worried.”