Dark Needs (The Dark Light of Day 1.5)

I was getting hard again.

"I figure I would get you barefoot and pregnant as soon as possible anyway. You wouldn't understand. It's a man thing," I joked.

"Oh yeah? So that's your new goal? To knock me up, again?" she asked.

"No, if that happens, it happens. That would be great, but my new goal is actually something else." My stomach had fucking butterflies in it as I prepared to say what I'd wanted to say for so fucking long.

I'm such a motherfucking pussy.

"Oh yeah?" Bee yawned, stretching her arm out over my chest. "What's that?"

I never expected to feel the way I felt about Bee. I never expected to love anyone so completely. She made me feel like at least a part of me was capable of some sort of normal, and since I was able to experience such great love, maybe I wasn't such a monster after all.

Maybe.

Probably not.

"Marry me," I whispered.

Bee froze. I didn't know if she had faded into a sudden deep sleep or was holding her breath. She had about one more second to answer before I shook her awake and demanded a response. It seemed like an eternity before she lifted her head from my chest. The most amazing pair of blue eyes, the eyes I fell in love with four years ago, gazed up at me like I'd hung the fucking moon.

"Okay," she said simply. A tear rolled down her cheek. Her perfect pink lips formed a huge smile meant only for me.

I loved the shit out of this girl.

I reached down and lifted her up on top of me until we were eye to eye. "Okay," I said, pushing her hair behind her ear, then covering her mouth with my own in a deep all encompassing kiss.

The need to be inside her again took hold, my cock harder than the first time around. Rolling over on top of her, she eagerly spread her legs for me. I entered her easily and completely, sheathing myself to the hilt. She took all of me, but gave me even more.

She always had.

I planned on making up for lost time all night.

And then forever.

THREE

One year later...

Reggie and I were at the shop working on our new pet project, restoring an old Shelby Mustang that some kid had blasphemously turned into a fucking donk. A hydraulic system was hooked to the suspension so the car would hop up and down on the tires, the body was painted a matte black from a fucking spray can, and when Reggie pulled it into the lot of my shop and put it in park, the twenty inch gold rims continued to spin. The six inch lift made it almost as tall as my truck.

I imagine that when I died someday, the hell that was waiting for me looked very much like the purple velvet ridiculousness that covered the entire interior.

My stomach rolled when I thought back to the condition it'd been in when I first saw it. Reggie felt the same way because when the kid who was driving it pulled into the parking lot of Bert’s Bar one night, Reggie had flagged him down and offered him way more than what it was worth. Thank fucking god the stupid kid accepted his offer, handing over his keys as soon as I rode in with the cash.

I wasn't even mad that Reggie made the deal without asking me first. I'd gladly have paid twice that amount for the opportunity to turn it back into what both God and Ford had intended.

Maybe not necessarily in that order.

I'm glad Abby and Georgia weren't there when the Sheriff showed up that day, fish-tailing his old patrol car into my gravel parking lot like he was a fucking stunt driver for Dukes of Hazard, dust and dirt billowing from under his tires as he skidded to a stop, lights and sirens blaring in the middle of the fucking day. The Sheriff’s only deputy followed closely behind him with the only other patrol car in Coral Pines.

Sheriff Fletcher and Deputy Harbord got out of their cars and drew their guns, shielding themselves behind the open doors of their vehicles.

"Get your fucking hands up!" the sheriff ordered through a small portable bull-horn that muffled his voice as if he was repeating our order back to us from the old drive through of the Dairy Queen.

Reggie's hands shot up in the air. "Drop the wrench!" Deputy Harbord shouted.

Reggie looked up to his raised hands and dropped the wrench as soon as he realized he was still holding it. It bounced off the concrete and clattered down into the oil bay.

I lifted my head out from under the hood of the Shelby and wiped my hands with the rag I kept over my shoulder. I took in the scene in front of me as I lit a cigarette and wondered which of my arrestable offenses could've warranted such theatrics.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" I asked sarcastically. Leaning up against one of the tall tool boxes that lined the outside of the work bay, crossing my legs at the ankles. I took a long drag of my cigarette and blew the smoke out of my nose.

Sheriff Fletcher was as crooked as they'd come. After I found out he'd helped Owen when he'd raped and almost killed Abby, the motherfucker was lucky he was still fucking breathing.

I couldn't kill everyone.

At least, that's what Abby kept telling me.

"Jacob Francis Dunn?" the deputy asked, slowly approaching the work bay. Sheriff Fletcher stood his ground by his car, gun at the ready.

Fucking coward.

"Griff, put that thing down," I said, gesturing with my cigarette to the gun he had aimed at my chest. "You know me. Don't pretend like you fucking don't." I put out my cigarette on the heel of my boot. "You've know me since the ninth grade when I fingered your girlfriend in the back of the room during English Lit while you gave that presentation on Jane Austen." Griff's face dropped. "Don't worry though. I only made her come once."

"Not exactly the thing to say to someone holding a gun to your head," Griffin spat, his face turned red with irritation. "And it was Shakespeare, asshole."

"So you do remember. It was so long ago, man. You remember the name of that whore you used to date?" I goaded. I already knew the answer.

"Kristy, her name was and is Kristy. And if you say one more word about my fucking wife I'm going to squeeze this here trigger," he warned. "Now put your fucking hands up." He redirected his gun from my chest to my head.

"Everything all right over there?" Sheriff Fletcher called out, still hiding behind his car door.

"I got this, Boss." Griff called back without taking his eyes off me.

"What exactly do you fuckers want?" I asked, irritated that they'd interrupted me while I was resuscitating the Shelby. I'd just started Mustang CPR on her when they'd pulled in.

"Jacob Dunn, we have a warrant for your arrest. We came to take you on in," Griff said, proudly.

"You gonna arrest me?" I asked. "What the fuck for?"

Griff reached behind his back with the hand that didn't have a finger on the trigger and produced a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. Just about then I noticed that the good sheriff was no longer hiding by his patrol car. Then, I was slammed into from the side, and my chest smashed up against the hood of the Shelby. Cold metal cuffs were slapped tightly around my wrists.

"What am I being charged with?" I asked again as they both yanked me up to my feet, shoving me toward the cars. Sheriff Fletcher planted his hand firmly on the chain connecting the cuffs. "You are under arrest for the murder of Owen Fletcher," He finally answered, before leaning into my ear and whispering so only I could hear. "You messed with the wrong fucking family, boy." His breath hot on my neck, I fought to contain my gag reflex. There was no way I was going to let that fucker know he'd gotten to me in any way, and that included cringing because of his hot garbage breath.

At that moment, Bee pulled her truck into the lot. When she saw what was happening, she jumped down from the drivers seat, leaving the door wide open, the engine still running.

"Jake!" she yelled, her little legs blurring together as she sprinted across the lot.

I planted my feet in the dirt and locked up my knees in an attempt to hold my ground so I could talk to my wife, but the sheriff pushed on the cuffs and I had to again move forward so I wouldn't wind up face first in the dirt.

"Baby, call a lawyer," I told Bee when she came running up, the idiot lawmen pushing me right passed her.

"Jake! No!" Abby shouted. I was shoved onto the sticky back seat of a patrol car.

"You're gonna need more than a lawyer, boy," Sheriff Fletcher said, slamming the door behind me. He then plopped himself into the driver’s seat. "Jesus Christ himself isn't going to get you out of this."

"Lawyer," I mouthed to Abby, who stood with her mouth agape next to the patrol car.

She nodded, crossing her arms protectively over her chest. In what was only the time span of a few short seconds, the look on Bee's face changed from an expression of concern one would expect to see from the wife of a man being dragged away in cuffs, to completely unreadable.

Her eyes glazed over.

Her mouth formed a straight line.

Bee was shutting down.

Fuck no.

No. No. No.

I'll take my girl angry. In fact, I liked getting her riled up from time to time. The way her eyebrows scrunched together when she's trying to yell at me for throwing my smelly fishing shirts in with the regular laundry is fucking adorable, and has resulted in me bending her over the washing machine on more than one occasion.

I'll take my girl sad. I'm a fucked up individual, and for reasons I'll never understand, the taste of her tears made me rock hard. Besides, when Bee was sad, which wasn't often, I could always crack a few inappropriate jokes and make her laugh her way back to happy.