Every night, he tucked her against his chest, kissed her everywhere, touched her over her clothes until she was wet, and… “No sex.”
“Well, hello? You were shot. With a bullet.”
“In the leg. Not in my vagina.”
Tula burst into laughter. “Haven’t you figured out that these guys are different? They’re not like those selfish, abusive boys back home. They want us healed and healthy and begging for it before they beat us.”
They stared at each other, biting back smiles.
“Never thought you’d crave a fist around your throat, huh?” Tula gave into her grin. “Or a stinging-red ass, bite marks, bruised thighs…”
“Never in a million years.” She leaned back on the lounger and sighed. “It’s been a rough road for us, you know?”
“Don’t you feel like the hardest part is behind us?”
“Yeah. Even if it isn’t, the hard stuff feels a lot less hard with someone you love at your side.”
“Or two someones.”
“You’re such a whore.” She knocked the sunglasses off Tula’s head.
“A happy whore.” Tula chuckled.
“Who’s a whore?” Amber strolled up to their loungers.
“Your mama,” Tula said.
“Doubtful. She spent a lot of time clutching her pearls. Can I join you?”
Tula dragged over another lounge chair. Meanwhile, Vera couldn’t take her eyes off Van’s wife. The woman radiated head-to-toe beauty, from her shiny chestnut hair and rosebud lips to her flawless, hourglass figure on full display in a tiny black bikini. Good God, she was gorgeous. Beauty queen gorgeous.
It was hard to imagine her with a man like Van Quiso. Vera knew their story and couldn’t help but resent the man for everything he’d done to Luke and the others. She also knew they’d forgiven him.
He was among their kindred, which meant she would learn to accept and forgive him, too.
“I’m just going to put this out in the open.” She shifted on the lounger, adjusting her injured leg before meeting Amber’s eyes. “Your husband terrifies me.”
“Me, too.” Amber moved the coasters around on the small table beside her, arranging them in neat groups of four. “He’s meaner than piss.”
“With you?”
“Hmm. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“No, that’s—”
“Van!” Amber leaned to the side, shouting toward the open door of the veranda. “Come here!”
“Oh, now you’ve done it.” Tula groaned. “You call one of them out here, and they’ll all show up.”
Sure enough, as Van ambled into the pool area, Joshua and Ricky trailed behind. They wore swim trunks and carried beers. Sunglasses and sexy hair. Shirtless and shredded with stacks of muscle. Where was a camera when she needed one? They belonged on a vigilante calendar. She would call it Freedom Fighters, the Weapons of War edition.
Van paused beside Amber, gazing down at her, and his smile stretched the scar that curved from his mouth to somewhere beneath his shades. As he leaned down to kiss her fully on the mouth, his hand swiped over the coasters she’d arranged on the table.
When he straightened, her eyes zoomed in on the mess he’d made.
Apparently, Amber’s OCD was a work-in-progress.
“Vera wanted to know,” Amber said, without looking away from the scattered coasters, “if you’re mean to me.”
“Nah.” He removed a toothpick from his pocket and set it between his teeth. “I’m a big sappy baby.”
Joshua laughed as he stepped into the pool. “He’s an asshole. With everyone.”
With an unapologetic shrug, Van rolled the toothpick to the corner of his smirk. “Anything else you want to know? Like if I’m mean when I suspend my wife from the trees out there?” He nodded at the rainforest. “When I whip her and welt her pretty skin? Or when I bring her to orgasm, and she screams so beautifully everyone in the estate can hear her?”
“No, I…really didn’t want to know that.” Vera squeezed thighs against the warmth that rushed between them.
During that brief and disturbingly hot exchange, Amber had discreetly started moving the coasters back into symmetrical groups.
Van tossed his toothpick next to her busy hand. Then he kicked the table, just enough to jostle her attempt at order.
“Excuse us.” He grabbed her, tossed her over his shoulder, and walked straight into the pool, submerging them both as she screamed.
Vera shook her head. “Well, that was…”
“Typical Van.” Ricky took Amber’s chair, stretching out his legs and closing a hand around Tula’s knee. “You’ll get used to him.”
Not likely.
For the next few hours, she hung out with Tula, Ricky, and Joshua. Van and Amber stayed in the pool until Van started removing her bikini. Then they disappeared, taking their foreplay elsewhere.
Beer flowed. Platters of food arrived, and the air buzzed with laughter and conversation.
Until Tula started harping on Vera for hiding the magnitude of their mother’s medical bills. They both had regrets and hashed it all out over multiple beers. Then Tula revisited the topic of Luke.
“He hasn’t fucked her in a week,” she said to Ricky.
Vera gave her the stink eye.