Shine: Book One of the Wild Love Ménage Series Read online

  Shine

  Book One of the Wild Love Ménage Series

  R. L. Jameson

  Copyright © 2016 Lanita Beth Joramo

  All rights reserved

  Smashwords Edition

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Want to read more by Red L. Jameson?

  Also by R. L. Jameson

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  So, yes, I’ve decided Paul will become my lover.” I wait for Bethany, my best friend and only confidante to say, “It’s about fucking time,” like I expect her to. We’re in our favorite bar and grill that’s quiet with an older staff who knows our names and gives us extra cheesy nachos with wide smiles. It’s our Wednesday tradition after work to meet, have drinks, eat greasy food, and laugh. In the pub, it’s dark but not dreary. Just enough warm light to remind me of a campfire. Of sparkling orange ambience, which when I was a child was what I thought love would look like.

  Bethany’s been pushing me to find a new man for the last two years, and sometimes the pushing is a lot like bullying.

  Still, I know she loves me, is looking out for my best interest. And it is about time I give up the ghost of my husband and start to live a little. Even if I’m only mildly interested in Paul Reddick. He is, however, the best out of the lot, which is a small lot since I live in Laramie, Wyoming—small town, Americana-style. Besides, he’s an English professor and poet. Can’t beat that, right? Dark crazy hair, slightly reminiscent of a saner version of Poe, dark intense eyes that seem to see right through my clothes. I like that about him. He acts like he owns me, and I should hate it. But it makes things easier. I don’t have to guess if he’s into me or not.

  Bethany chokes.

  I roll my eyes, thinking she’s making fun of me and my Victorian ways, as she calls them. It’s not entirely my fault I have crazy virtues, the kind women a hundred and fifty years ago had, wanting to hold out until marriage to make love. And, yes, I’ve always called it making love. At least, out loud. In my head’s another thing…

  I’ve tried my best to shake free from my fanatic background. I mean, it’s not every day a girl is proposed to by her uncle. I was fourteen. After escaping my past, I was left with the delightful question of what to be.

  I’m an academic like Paul. An anthropologist. We teach at the University of Wyoming. And it’s hard to be anything but open-minded when looking at young faces five days out of seven who want to experiment and find the answers to life. But some mind fucks are hard to shake. Like the idea that a man will never want me if I have sex with him before marriage. Lord, I’d love to shake that right out of my mind. But I never do.

  It haunts me as much as my husband. And, yeah, I’d waited until marriage to have sex with him. I thought it’d mean something; I thought he’d notice the offering I made for him. I’d been young and innocent and so goddamned naive it now hurts my teeth to think about.

  My husband, Tim, had taken my virginity in stride. And who knows how many others he’d taken after we were blissfully wedded. The fairy tale ending I expected was not for me.

  It’s not nice to think ill of the dead, I remind myself for the millionth time. That day.

  That’s when I focus more on Bethany. Her usual cheerful pink cheeks are darkening, blooming a color close to purple. Her quietness should have alerted me sooner.

  “Are you okay?” I finally ask.

  She grabs at her throat, tearing along her skin as if hoping to find a rope there that she could pull away.

  Jumping from my stool, I race behind her, angry it took me that long to figure out she is really choking. My best friend is in need and I was absent-mindedly thinking about taking a lover and my dick of a dead husband who I really shouldn’t call a dick, even if only in my head. He’s dead. He can’t defend himself now.

  Vaguely I hear our waitress, Nan, yell for someone to call 911 as I reach around the one woman who’d seen me through the tangled mess of what was my marriage. She stood by me when I found out Tim was cheating and how often, how he’d been funneling our money into a separate bank account, how he’d been getting ready to divorce me and steal my money, and when he found out that cough of his was cancer. I waited on him hand and foot. The obedient wife, even though I never said that in my vows. I took him to his appointments, shaved his head and my own after the chemo. I cared for him so he wouldn’t need a hospice. I loved that son of a bitch so fucking much. Then he died. He just died, but right before he told me he didn’t deserve me, begged me to forgive him, and whispered so sweetly how he did love me after all.

  I’m a thirty-two-year-old widow. I’ve only made love to Tim. And I’ve only loved him.

  Bethany knows all this and she loves me anyway. She doesn’t pity me as others do. I am a doormat. I know. I’m an idiot for my husband. My dead husband. But Bethany has always encouraged me to be more. She thinks I have it in me to do anything I want. Like take a lover, although I know I won’t marry Paul. And I’m scared out of my skin he’ll call me a slut after. No, I’m more scared he’ll look at me with disgust. Is there anything as painful as a man’s disgust? There is. His apathy. When he looks at you with as much interest as a piece of tissue he’d used to mop up his masturbation mess.

  I find Bethany’s notch under her ribs, right where the bones knit together. She holds my arm in a tight grip. My mind takes a picture of her hand on me—her beautiful bronze skin against my paper-white flesh. She’s always teasing me that being the anthropologist I am I know more about her aboriginal background than she does. I need her teasing; I need her friendship. Terrified, I thrust my fists into that notch. Push back and up. Push back and up into her stomach.

  Bethany’s making this terrible noise, similar to a rabbit getting skinned alive.

  Push back and up. I thrust with even more strength.<
br />
  I’ll never give up on Bethany, like she’s never given up on me.

  Push back and up.

  Finally, I hear her cough. She doubles over then falls from my grasp onto the floor. I follow.

  Whither thou goest, I will go.

  She’s smiling and crying and wiping my face, her face still so red. Her body is shaking.

  “I’m okay, Jane. You saved me. I’m okay.”

  I didn’t know I was crying. I’m bawling.

  “And it’s about fucking time you get laid,” she says and starts to laugh. “Just don’t shock me so much when you say something like that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m kidding, silly sausage.” She’s Australian, hence the endearing euphemism. She’s also loud, crass, has maroon hair and I love everything about her. My only friend.

  Someone tries to take my shoulder and bodily move me. But I won’t have it. I need to keep Bethany in my view. I need to make sure she’s okay because I love her so much and if one more person dies on me I’ll buy a gun and…okay, not really. But I couldn’t stand life without her.

  I fight strong arms, gripping me around my waist, pulling me away from Bethany. I kick, buck, do everything possible to get my body back under my own volition.

  Whiskers rake my cheek. “Shh, shh, I got you,” a man whispers. His arms hold me even tighter.

  That’s when I see the firemen around Bethany. Their royal blue pants, royal blue t-shirts, light blue gloves over large hands.

  “That’s it,” the man holding me says. “That’s it. You gotta make room for the men to work on your friend, baby.”

  Baby?

  I’m breathing so hard my lungs feel like there are fissures in every inch of them. The man has me in a weird grip, almost cupping one of my breasts, and I realize the position of my hands are forcing him to hold me that way. But I don’t let go of him.

  “You saved her?” the man whispers into my ear.

  “Yes, she saved me,” Bethany says loudly, smiling at me, still so red-looking it scares me. “She did the Heimlich thing. That’s my friend, Jane, Jane Emory. She’s super smart and super fast and she saved my life.”

  I want to laugh at Bethany’s statements, but I just can’t. I want to cry. However, my hands relax against the man’s iron-like forearms. I notice the striations of his muscles there. They twitch, still holding me in a firm grip. He has blond hair. Golden. It sparkles in the light. His chest encompasses me from behind. It’s so firm, and his heart is beating into my back. His whiskers are still against me. This is intimate.

  “Good job,” he says.

  My bottom scrapes against his crotch. Was that…? Is he…excited? God, it’s been so long since I’ve felt a man’s erection I can’t tell if that’s just him or if he’s slightly aroused. Probably not aroused by me. Like my name, I’m plain. Well, I’m fairly certain I’m plain. The way my husband treated me led me to think I’m nothing extraordinary.

  But I like the feel of the man holding me. He’s hard everywhere. My awareness of his body, of him, a man I haven’t even seen yet, invades me, penetrates too deep. My nipples contract and I’m embarrassed.

  “You did really good work,” he whispers.

  Ambulance workers pile into the small bar. The firefighters are talking with the new medical men to see if Bethany needs to be taken to the emergency department.

  “I want to go with her,” I shout into the fray of what seems like a million men fighting over who takes care of Bethany. God, she’s got to be loving this. She is smiling at me, and glancing at the man behind me.

  “You’ll get to go with your friend,” the man promises.

  I sigh. I hate to admit how good it feels to be held like this. My legs are shaking and I’m not sure I could hold myself up otherwise.

  “You okay if I let you go now? No kicking my ass again?”

  I snort a laugh. “I didn’t kick your ass.”

  He softly chuckles and it bounces down my spine like the low keys of a piano. Plonk, plonk, plonk—the noise ricochets, descending into my clitoris.

  He caresses his face against mine. His jaw feels like warm granite. His whiskers make my nipples contract even harder. Slowly, he releases me and stands beside me. His hands are out as I, embarrassingly, sway. He catches me by my waist, and my cheek smacks against something so hard I thought it was a wall at first. Nope, it’s just his chest.

  “Whoa, there. You all right?” he asks into the top of my head.

  “Jane!” Bethany yells. “Jane, are you okay?”

  I nod, humiliated. My legs are that of a newborn calf.

  “Breathe,” the man reminds me.

  I glare at him, although I don’t know why. I’m angry at myself. Not him.

  But I stop my frown when I look up into the most open face I’ve ever seen. His breathtaking light blue eyes are the kind of azure only seen on a mountain top where the air is still virgin. His countenance is devastatingly handsome. The huge firefighter, still with his hand on my waist, is smiling at me. Or is that a smirk?

  “You sure you can stand?” he asks.

  I nod, unable to talk any longer. God, he’s beautiful. I love his voice too—smooth, masculine, with just the right kind of roughness to land a few of his words into my body, making me much more turned on than I should be in this circumstance.

  What’s odd, I think, is the way he’s looking at me. Maybe I have guacamole on my face. Maybe I’m ashen. I can’t tell if he’s looking at me with concern or ridicule. Or something else entirely.

  His hand is still on me. Now the small of my back. The very small of my back that on some days is kind of my ass. He just smiles at me.

  “Do I know you?”

  I shake my head. I would remember him. Well, no one would ever forget meeting him. He’s huge, about six and-a-half feet, all muscle, a blond god. He’s Odin. He’s Thor. One of those Nordic gods who makes mortal women weak in the knees. Which would be perfect if I did genuflect before him. Then I could suck his cock.

  Just where are these thoughts coming from?

  I decide to take a lover then imagine taking another?

  Who am I?

  “I think I do know you,” the man leans over, whispering in my ear.

  I stiffen, sickened. When I escaped my uncle’s proposal, my family, the fanaticism and horror, a reporter followed me around, asking me personal questions and annoying me senseless. She got her story then moved on. I had been told they’d blurred my face, but I worry if years later someone would reveal the real me to the world. An abused girl. A victim. I loathe that word. It can’t define me. But it does anyhow.

  The man rubs his cheek against mine, his whiskers are enough to make me want to clutch at him, pull him even nearer.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re my new girlfriend.”

  I can’t believe I’m laughing at that.

  “Cheesy line, huh?”

  I don’t agree with him. I don’t know why, but I love that line. Perhaps he said it to get me to laugh, to feel stronger on my own two legs. Perhaps some crazy part of him is trying to hit on me. Whatever the purpose, I think I love him a little. And I don’t even know his name.

  He helps shepherd me though the crowd of people, following Bethany on a stretcher. He argues with the EMT workers, saying I should be in the ambulance with Bethany even though I’m not family. He makes several points, promises to wash an ambulance on his day off, then I’m inside the medical van.

  I make sure Bethany’s okay, hold her hand, try to think of something reassuring to say. Then I glance out the back of the ambulance, heartbroken. The blond demigod is gone. He was just giving me a line to make me laugh, to make me feel stronger than I was at that moment. I hate how disappointed I am that he vanished so fast.

  I keep smiling at Bethany. The ambulance workers are like wonderful bees, always working, buzzing around.

  “Can you believe this?” she asks me.

  I smile at her and shake my head. The ambulance begins
its trek to the hospital, and I’m even more disheartened that my blond fireman didn’t do more, didn’t mean his cheesy line.

  “I should have done this ages ago,” Bethany says. “I haven’t seen such hot guys since I was in college, back in 1645 or so.”

  I laugh. Bethany’s a tad older than I am, but she’s always exaggerating about her age. The thing is, she has more energy than I do. So I think of her as younger than me.

  We make it to the hospital in minutes. There’s a lot of nurses, and then there’s a lot of waiting as the apparently one and only doctor in the whole hospital—I am exaggerating—will eventually see my friend. I’m not sure why we’re in the hospital now that the emergency is over. I guess they want to check her throat, make sure she can eat again. And as the minutes tick by, I hate how much I’m thinking about that big, blond man who was at my back.

  Bethany takes a nap as I fantasize about the demigod, taking me from behind. I can imagine his huge hands covering my breasts. His tongue slides down my neck and we kiss over my shoulder. He bites my lip and back. He’s thrusting inside of me and—God, I miss sex.

  After rolling my head on my shoulders, I sigh, sexually frustrated and maybe suffering from some wounded pride too.

  “Go get a drink of water.”

  Bethany has one eye open, which is looking at me crossly.

  “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  “I wasn’t quite asleep, but you need to run off some energy. Go get some water or a magazine to read.”

  “I’m too loud, huh? I’m sorry. I—”