Hook-Ups and Hang-Ups: A Swamp Bottom Novella Page 11

  I’d run my whole life. I ran from him. I ran from Terrebonne. I ran from Sugarbirch.

  I’m tired of running.

  Zep ran a hand down the length of my hair, and I weakened under his touch. I felt like a shaken can of soda, ready to explode.

  Palming my cheek, he held my stare. “This is on your terms.”

  My terms.

  It was the first time I’d felt in control. Zep willingly handed over a decision that affected both of us. Shocked, I realized it gave me the confidence to finally say what needed to be said.

  The moment I opened my mouth, he shoved his cell phone in my hand. “Call him. Tell him you’ll give him back his fucking name and be done with it. You don’t need it. Give him what he wants—and then give me what I want.”

  I froze.

  “Don’t you see how strong you are?” he said, bending his knees and gazing at me from eye-level. “He didn’t break you. You’re still my Addie.”

  The warmth of his hand and the heat of his stare spurred me on. He was right. Roland didn’t break me. Old Addie did what everyone else wanted. New Addie took what she wanted.

  And she wanted Zep.

  Until the phone in my hand chimed.

  Jo: Hey Big Sexy! Did you say to meet you at five or five-thirty?

  She also wanted to come first for once.

  As my heart dropped to my feet, I shoved the phone in his face. “Your date.”

  His eyebrows squished together as his eyes scanned the text. “Addie, I can’t stop my friends from texting me.”

  “Friend,” I repeated, choking on the word. “Is that all she is? Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never had sex with her.”

  The moment I issued the challenge, I already knew the answer. His face fell, and his jaw ticked with unspoken truth as his phone chimed again.

  “Addie…”

  Turning his phone around, I read the words that put a final nail in the coffin.

  I handed it back to him and hugged my purse tight around my chest. “Enjoy your date, Zep.” Nodding to the phone in his hand, I opened the door. “She’ll be ten minutes late, by the way.”

  His cynical voice forced a stumble in my step. “Addie, that was before you came back to town. You expected me to be celibate for ten years?” When I didn’t respond, he grabbed my arm again. “Maybe if we were together, I wouldn’t need other friends.”

  And maybe if we were together, I’d just end up being pushed to the back of the stage.

  “I can’t be duck number twenty-seven again, Zep.”

  Without giving him a chance to respond, I closed the door for the last time.

  Ads,

  Gone to Pope’s. I want to surprise him when he gets off work. Don’t wait up. **wink**

  By the way, you really need to take a vacay or something. Your insane work ethic is going to kill you one day.

  XXOO,

  Sav

  Throwing my purse and keys on the floor, I balled up the note I found on a side table and threw it across the room. It landed next to a pile of dirty dishes and unfolded laundry, and I couldn’t help the dry laugh that fell from my mouth.

  God, Zep was right.

  We are fucking nasty.

  Comforted by the silence, I barely made it to the couch before collapsing into an explosion of tears. How stupid could one person be? If Josie’s text had been ten seconds later, I would’ve called Roland, and Zep and I would’ve been naked and sweaty on top of my desk without a care in the world.

  Maybe this whole move to New Orleans was a mistake. Things weren’t so bad in Terrebonne. It was safe, familiar, and most importantly, Zep-free. Since we’d already moved the business, there wasn’t much I could do on that end. However, the drive from Terrebonne to New Orleans was just a little over an hour—doable for a commute.

  I had no doubt that Savannah would eventually move in with Pope. It was just a matter of time. Until then, I could find a roommate who she wouldn’t end up smothering in the middle of the night. For the fourth time in my life, I could start over and stop repeating past mistakes. Wiping away another wave of fresh tears, I made the decision right then.

  I was leaving New Orleans.

  Curling up on the couch, I made a rough to-do list in my head of things I needed to get done in the next few days. I’d miss my sister, but I missed me more. I had to find her and bring her back.

  I’d almost dozed off when my purse chimed from across the room.

  Rolling off the couch, I crawled on my hands and knees to where I’d unceremoniously tossed my belongings. As I pulled out my phone, a pain hit me square in the chest.

  Zep: Did you get back safely?

  Unable to process any more, I ignored it and dropped it on the floor beside me. Not five minutes later, another text came through.

  Zep: Are you going to ignore me after I drove all this way?

  Running to the window, I pushed back the curtain and gasped. He stood in my driveway, leaning against his truck with his phone cradled in his hand. He looked lost, and it took all I had in me to not bang on the window. Forcing myself not to move, I stared at the ravaged look on his face and the way the corners of his mouth pulled down as he stared at the phone, waiting for an answer.

  More tears spilled down my face, and my chin quivered. Opening the door would open my heart, and I couldn’t let him inside either.

  Zep: Addie, please…

  Please. He was on his verbal knees, and I couldn’t bring myself to kick him while he was down. One of us had to be an adult. If I planned on leaving New Orleans, I at least owed him the courtesy of telling him to his face. Taking a deep breath, I reached for the door.

  With a quick explanation, I’d walk away from him, and we’d end this. However, the only thing that broke as I wrenched open the door was me.

  He stood on my doorstep, both arms braced against the frame, and his eyes a little wild. For a moment, neither of us moved as we stared at each other, waiting for the other to react. The minute I opened my mouth, he rushed into me, cupping the back of my head with one hand and jerking my hip toward him with the other. Stunned, I tried to speak again just as his lips slammed against mine. It jarred me, like a thunderstorm followed by a soundless tornado.

  The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was passionate and needy and erased every single thought from my mind. I had no idea why I didn’t pull away when he deepened it, and when his large hand grabbed my ass and squeezed it for dear life, I exploded.

  Zep kissed me like a man about to lose everything. I drowned in the dominance of his hold, the stroke of his tongue, and the repeated groans that rumbled in his chest. Pushing me backward, he followed me down as I fell against the top of the couch. Without missing a beat, he dropped insistent, short kisses against my lips, finally pulling back and holding my face between his calloused hands.

  “I lost you once,” he whispered in a voice heavy with emotion. “I won’t make the same mistake again. I can give you the happiness you should’ve had all along, Addie. You’ve just got to open your heart to me. You want me to fight for you; I’ll fight. Let me in. We’ve wasted too much time, and I’m done settling. I think you are too.”

  As he raked his thumbs across my cheeks to dry my tears, his words rang familiar, and I tucked them away in the back of my mind for later. Too overcome to do anything else, I held his gaze as I ran a hand down his cheek and nodded.

  That was enough for him.

  Sweeping his arms beneath me, he cradled me into his chest, claiming my lips again as he stumbled up the stairs. Bouncing between the walls like human pinballs, we managed to make it through the door to my bedroom without breaking the kiss. Mumbling my name against my lips, he lowered me onto my bed.

  “You’re sure?”

  There was no other answer. “I’m sure,” I assured him with a smile.

  Zep stared at me, and his jaw twitched. “What will it be, Addie? Slow and careful like the porcelain doll you’ve been all your life or hard and rough enough to shatter that mo
therfucker for good?”

  I swallowed as my body lit on fire. “Yes, please.”

  He quirked a lip and bent over me, bracing a hand against each shoulder. “Is that a please be gentle, or please make me come so hard I see fucking stars?”

  Yep, I’m going to die.

  “Stars,” I managed to squeeze out. “I’ll take stars.”

  “Good choice.” After releasing the button on my dress pants with one hand, he hooked his fingers around the waistband and dragged them down my legs. “Take a deep breath, Addie,” he mumbled against my skin as he chased the material with his tongue. “You might forget to later.”

  “Huh?” Confused, I popped my head up and searched for his face. With a wicked chuckle, he sank his fingers inside me and lowered his head while licking his lips. True to his words, I saw stars. “Fuck!”

  As I clawed the sheets, he pushed my limits, drawing out three consecutive orgasms before I begged him to stop. Giving the inside of my thigh a bite, he crawled up my body and hovered over me with a smug grin.

  “Problem?”

  “I can’t take anymore,” I begged. “I need you.”

  “Then ask for it.”

  Prim and Proper Addie reared her innocent head. “Ask for what?”

  “If we’re going to shatter Trophy Addie, you need to learn to ask for what you want,” he rasped. “Tell me what you want me to do to you, Addie.”

  “I want you to make love to me.”

  He shook his head. “Not good enough. I want dirty words coming out of that pristine mouth, Snow White. Either you learn how to talk in bed, or I’m—”

  My patience snapped. “I want you to fuck the shit out of me until I come so hard I pass out!” With a gasp, I slapped a hand over my mouth, not quite believing those words had come out of me.

  Zep grinned as he pulled my hips toward him. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? My pleasure.” Shedding his pants, he reached into the pocket and produced a foil packet. With a flick of the wrist, he had it rolled on and my legs over his shoulders. With a wink, he dropped a kiss against my knee. “Shooting stars.”

  I didn’t have to ask. On a drawn-out groan, he slammed into me, causing a spray of brightly lit stars to erase all further thought.

  Shooting stars.

  Fully embedded inside me, he stilled, giving me a moment to adjust to his possession and the size of him. He’d stretched me to my limits, my literal and figurative walls shaking around him.

  “Mine,” he said with a growl as he closed his eyes. “Fuck, Addie, you were made for me.”

  As he pulled out and drove back into me, I squeaked out his name. “Zep!”

  Thrusting so hard that I was confident I had sheet burn on my spine, he made me lose my mind for a second time. I screamed his name and free fell back to Earth just in time for him to launch me back into the stratosphere.

  He’d done just as I asked. He’d fucked me until I came so hard I passed out.

  Sometime during the night, I awoke happy and sated, wrapped in strong arms that held me close. Glancing over my shoulder, I watched Zep sleep, his dark hair falling over the tip of his nose and I knew I would never leave New Orleans.

  He’d said the words I needed to hear and destroyed Trophy Addie once and for all.

  “I can give you the happiness you should’ve had all along. You’ve just got to open your heart to me.”

  As I snuggled deeper into his arms, the earlier nagging memory crawled out of a dark, tapestry-laden room and slapped me across the face.

  “Another from your past, from before the darkness will make himself known again. You’ll find the true happiness you always should’ve had, but only if you open your heart to it.”

  Who knew a crack fortune teller and a drunken night out at Mardi Gras would change everything.

  Epilogue

  On Bended Knee

  Savannah

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  “What are you doing, Pope?” I asked as he guided me into the house. He’d covered my eyes with his hands as soon as we reached his front door and wouldn’t let me in until I agreed to follow orders. If he weren’t a cop, I’d think he was about to murder me.

  Pope slowly walked forward, his entire torso plastered to my back, I did not hate the position. I felt every divot and hard plane of his body, and I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering to all the different ways I’d experienced that body in mine over the past day and a half.

  “It's a surprise, now hush.”

  “When did you have time to come up with a surprise? You’ve been wrapped up in me for the past thirty-six hours.” I shuffled along as he continued to guide me forward. If I counted my steps correctly, we were in the living room.

  I could practically hear the smirk in Pope’s voice as he bent down to whisper in my ear. “I called in some favors.”

  We stopped walking, and I waited impatiently to find out just what the hell he had up his sleeve. What on earth was he doing?

  “Okay, are you ready?”

  “No, I think I’d rather stand like this for the rest of the night, thank you very much.” Pope’s laughter vibrated throughout my body, and it had me foaming at the mouth for more of what I’d just had. I couldn’t help my reaction; the man turned me into a hussy in heat.

  “Open your eyes,” he murmured, removing his hands.

  I had to blink a few times, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light in the room. Once everything came into focus, a lump formed in my throat. It was beautiful. Candles were everywhere—on the tables and across the mantle of the fireplace—and he’d sprinkled rose petals all over the floor. It looked like something from a movie.

  “What’s all this for?”

  Coming to stand in front of me, he took my face in his hands and stared into my eyes with a fierceness I’d never seen before.

  “You mean the world to me, Savannah; I want you to know that. I have something to ask you.”

  Crazy boyfriend say what?

  The sound of a record scratching reverberated in my head, and my eye twitched. I experienced a full-on systems failure in my brain. Neurons weren’t firing, and his words began to run in a loop.

  I have something to ask you. I have something to ask you. I have something to ask you.

  Pope’s voice broke through the haze. “So, will you?”

  Oh shit, did he already ask and I missed it?

  He wasn’t down on one knee, and I didn’t see a ring. What if he’d slipped some fucked up shit into the proposal? Addie always told me not to agree to something I didn’t fully understand. Fuck, I’d have to bite the bullet and tell him I wasn’t listening.

  “Will I, what?”

  Pope grinned, clearly enjoying the sight of me off-balanced. “Go to the Policeman’s Ball with me. My parents will be there, and they’re looking forward to meeting you.”

  Holy hepatitis, Batman! That’s better than a marriage proposal.

  “You’re not fucking with me?”

  The toothpaste-commercial smile came out in full force. “No, I’m not fucking with you.”

  I let out a scream and lunged. We both toppled to the floor in a mass of elbows, knees, lips, and tongues.

  Blue Lights & Boatmen

  Meet The Popes

  Officer Quentin Pope

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  Sunday.

  The only day of the week I had to will myself out of bed. It was only two hours, tops. Two hours of absolute torture that no person on the planet should be subjected to. Two hours of sitting across the table from my father, listening to all the ways I’d screwed up my life in the most polite and condescending way imaginable. Of course, my father insisted we have brunch on the terrace, ensuring not only my civility but that everyone passing by the Columns Hotel saw his perfect family enjoying a perfect meal at the perfect establishment. Image was the only thing that mattered, and every moment provided an opportunity to advertise our brand.

  Yes, my fucking family had a brand
. At least that’s what my father called it. My mother, on the other hand just wanted to listen to the music. The jazz brunch was her absolute favorite part of the week, and that was the only reason I still showed up.

  Every. Fucking. Weekend.

  I bit back a groan as I approached the lobby of the hotel. My parents and sister, Katherine waited for me, and I was sure it was because my father wanted to make a grand entrance with the entire Pope clan. This meant the first half of brunch would consist of my father telling me how unfortunate it was that I’d made my poor mother wait on the sidewalk.

  “Quentin.” My father’s clipped voice grated on my already frayed nerves.

  I kept my lips sealed. If I tried to speak, I’d lose my cool and cause a scene, upsetting my mother and sister in the process. Swallowing my pride, I nodded at my father and offered my elbow to my baby sister. She squeezed my arm and gave me a wink of solidarity as we made our way toward the hostess.

  The same hostess who had seated Savannah and me months ago peered over the hostess stand. “Good morning, Senator Pope. Please follow me, I’ve got your usual table all set up.”

  Senator. The worst thing that ever happened to my family.

  Acknowledgments

  K.A.’s Acknowlegments

  Cora- I bow to you, my Queen! I don’t know how we still like each other after this, but I love you and thank you for not murdering me.

  The Swamp Bitches: Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You guys are amazing and work tirelessly to promote these books. You da bomb! #InVodkaWeTrust #KJBCB