At least, not for me it didn’t.

Pup jabbed her finger at the paper. “Just keep going. Please,” she insisted, her hands curled up around my bicep, her head against my shoulder as her lips silently moved as she read along with me. The smell of whatever girly shampoo she used wafted into my nostrils and did nothing to help reduce the massive hard on still pressing painfully against my jeans.

Focus.

I sighed, started at the beginning and then paused after reading the very first sentence. No fucking way. Not believing what I was reading I glanced from Pup back to the page and started all over again. Pup was no longer looking at the document, but at me as I read it again, this time out loud. “State of Florida, Division of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Marriage. Issued to Samuel Clearwater and Andrea Anne Capulet, issued this day, June the...” I paused and read the rest quickly, mumbling my way through the rest of the numerical facts with my hand over my mouth until I reached the bottom where the both the official seal of Florida and the County’s stamp were right there on the bottom. “What did that girl say her name was?” I asked.

“Dre. Short for...”

“Andrea,” I finished for her.

Pup nodded. “I showed this to Dre. She was surprised as hell. She said she was trying to help Preppy get Max by forging some documents to make Preppy seem more like an upstanding citizen but Preppy actually filed this with the clerk’s office after she’d already left to go back home.”

“Holy fuck. He did lie to me,” I said, hating the way the words sounded coming from my own mouth and feeling bitter and hurt that my best friend, a man I saw as my brother could lie to me. “For YEARS he’s been lying to me.”

“So you don’t care that he’s married?”

“No, I don’t fucking care. I mean, I don’t know WHY but him getting married would never fucking bother me. What I fucking care about is that I was lied to by one of the only people on the planet I never thought I had to worry about lying to me!” I said, my voice rising along with my temper.

“You should talk to him. Ask him what it’s all about. Maybe we can help him,” Pup said.

“That’s what I’m going to do,” I said, stomping out the door with Pup close on my heels.

“What are you doing?” she asked, struggling to keep pace beside me as I stormed over to the main house.

“Going to get some answers,” I replied.

“Wait!” Pup shouted, grabbing me by one of the belts on my arm. I stopped and turned around to face her. “We don’t’ even know where he is!”

Instantly my temper cooled at the reminder that we’d gone without him for so long. We fucking BURIED him for fucks sake and now we knew he was alive but didn’t know where he was.

“We will find him. And then you will talk to him. I promise if that fucks things up more then we can talk about speeding up you getting me pregnant again.” She pressed her soft lips to my neck and smell and nearness combination sent a shot of sensation directly to my already hardening cock.

“But what about right now?” I asked.

“Now?” She asked, growing bolder, slipping her hand into the back waistband of my jeans and cupping my ass. “Now we practice.”

A growl tore from my throat as I lifted her up into my arms, her legs instantly wrapping around my waist. I felt the heat of her pussy against my cock as I walked with her into the shadows under the house and pushed her up against a pillar. “I’m particularly fond of this particular pillar,” she cooed, tightening her legs around me.

“You make me fucking crazy woman,” I said, grabbing her face in my hands and kissing her furiously. “You can bargain with me all you want, but you best remember who’s in charge here.” I squeezed her ass. “Of this,” she arched her back against the pillar. “Of this,” I said, pinching her nipple between my fingers. “Of this,” I growled, shoving my hand down the front of her shorts and cupping her pussy in my palm. Her head dropped back as she rotated her hips, her body begging for more.

“More,” she said, breathlessly.

I claimed her lips again, rocking rhythmically against the opening of her pussy, kissing her deeply and furiously, my tongue intertwining with hers in a way that made me ache to be balls deep inside of her.

It never mattered how many times I’d kissed Pup or even how many times I’d fucked her since we’d first met. None of that even mattered because it was as if time only made me want her more and more. I was sick with lust for her. A sickness I never wanted to be cured of. I pulled back for air and pushed a stray hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. Her face flushed, her lips swollen and red. As soon as she spoke the last syllable of her question I entered her pussy in one long hard thrust that has me seeing stars as she squeezed around me like a fucking vice. She cried out and dug her fingernails into my shoulders.

Of course my phone rang right when I was about to drive home into my girl. It stopped but only to start back up again. Finally, Pup reached into my back pocket and handed it to me. I glared at her when I barked “What? We’ll be right there,” I said, clicking END on the phone and dialing Bear’s number. I set Pup down on her feet and righted my jeans while waiting for him to answer.

“Who was that?” Ray asked, jogging beside me to keep up as I made my way to the garage where Bear had been tinkering around earlier.

I pounded on the door and it lifted seconds later, Bear stood there with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a greasy wrench in his hand. I looked from Ray to Bear. “Billy called. He said Preppy came in screaming and knocking shit over at his crab shack. When Billy tried to settle him down he darted out the back. He can’t find him anywhere and he just hopes...” I trailed off.

“What? He hopes what?” Ray asked, pulling at my shirt.

“That he didn’t jump off the seawall.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

DRE

When there was a knock at the front door I assumed it was the realtor who was coming by to show a perspective buyer the house, but when I opened the door and saw Ray standing on my porch I was pleasantly surprised.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised until I realized what state she was in. Her eyes were red. She was twisting her hands together and bouncing nervously on the balls of her feet. King was standing outside of the truck in the driveway, an unreadable expression on his face? “Is he here?” Ray asked, glancing over my shoulder into the house.