Southern Seduction (60 page)

I don’t even pause once I get back into my bedroom. I keep right on walking and head into my shower, turning it on hot as I climb under the spray. Trying to reign in my feelings, I go through the motions of washing myself. As soon as I finish the task, I lose it. Turning my back to the spray of the showerhead, I lean against the wall and let myself go. I’m not a crier by nature, but since Vi left, I’ve cried more times than I can count. It’s fuckin’ depressing, is what it is.

I startle when the shower door opens and Vi walks in, the door closing with a soft snick behind her. I say nothing, but let out a groan when she wraps her arms around my torso and lays her head on my back.

“I hate that I’ve hurt you, Ryder. I’d give anything to be able to take that back, but I can’t. What you said in there was wrong, and what you’re thinking right now is wrong too. It’s not that I didn’t believe in you or your love. I believed one hundred percent that love would make you stay. I knew that, no matter what, you would be there. I was depressed and in shock, and the head space that I was in wasn’t right. I saw myself as a burden, not a life partner. I was so freaked out that I lost faith in
myself
. I needed help, but I went about it in the wrong way. I let fear dominate me, and by doing that, I let us both down. When I was in therapy and the doctors had me focus on my most positive memories—they were all about you, about us, and the life that we’ve built together. Every minute of every single day of my life since I was fourteen years old, I have been in love with you. You’re my everything, Ryder Jennings.”

I process her words in silence as my tears stop falling. She is silent, that uncanny ability of hers to know what I need seeming to have kicked in. For the first time in three months, my heart doesn’t break for me—it breaks for her. Realizing that she lost faith in herself and then chose to walk away from her own happiness in order to keep from ‘burdening’ me is gut wrenching.

Turning around, I stare down at her. “Vi, even if the worst were to have happened, I would still have chosen, freely, to live out my life with you, come what may. You’re carryin’ around my heart in your hands, and without you, nothing means anything. My heart could no more stop lovin’ you than it could walk out of my chest and ride a horse. Some things are impossible, and bein’ without you is one of them.”

Her own tears are fallin’ now, but they aren’t sad tears. I can see her relief, mixed with her joy. Lookin’ at her now and seein’ this woman, my woman, happy the way she always should be melts my heart. Violet Hammond is my fuckin’ life, and as long as my heart’s still beatin’, it will be livin’ for her. Life isn’t a fairytale—bad things can happen, mistakes will be made, but—at the end of the day—I will always choose her. There is no question.

I need her to know how that I love her just as much as she loves me, need her to know that I want our future together more than anything in this world. Cupping her face in my hands, I kiss her gently before pulling back and sliding down onto one knee.

“Violet Hammond, will you be my wife? Not because it’s part of my granddaddy’s will and not because I asked before. For no other reason than the fact that I love you more than life itself, I’m askin’ you to share this life with me, no matter what. Good times or bad, I want to walk this road with you to the very end. You hold onto me, I’ll hold onto you, and no matter what, we’ll make it.”

I can see the answer in her eyes even before she drops to her knees and says, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES,” as she wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly.

We hug and kiss for several minutes, long enough for my dick to have turned to steel. Helping her stand, I wash her from head to toe, reverently, as I tell her over and over again how much I love her.

When she’s clean, she pushes me against the wall with a sly smile before dropping down to her knees. Looking up at me adoringly, she smiles. “I missed sucking you, Ry. Do you know how many nights I dreamt of the taste of you, the feeling of you in my mouth or in my pussy?”

Fisting my hand in her wet hair, I nod. “I thought about you every fuckin’ day, baby. I’ve woken up damn near every night hard as a rock cause I was dreamin’ about eating or fucking your hot cunt.”

Something passes through her eyes quickly, and it’s a look I don’t like because it isn’t comin’ from a happy place.

“What is it, Vi? What’s wrong?”

“I know I have no right to ask, know that whatever happened, it’s on me, but I need to know. Did you have sex with anyone else? Did you date?”

My head rears back in shock and I let out a harsh laugh. “Violet Hammond! Do you really think for one second that I would have gone out and had revenge sex? No, baby. You will always be the only woman I’ve ever been with. I’m damn proud of that. So proud, you can put it on my gravestone when I die. Have it say somethin’ real cool like ‘Here lies Ryder Jennings. Husband. Father. Friend. He only ever loved or touched one woman from beginning to end.’”

My words earn a giggle from her, and it’s very clear to see how happy they make her. Fisting the bottom of my shaft with her hand, she smiles up at me. “Mine can say ‘Violet
Jennings
. Wife. Mother. Friend. Crazy for Ryder Jennings from start to finish.’”

As I smile, she leans forward and pulls me into her hot mouth. Letting out a moan, I rest my head back against the tiles and watch as she begins working me over. As the steam continues to billow around us, and the intensity of her sucking picks up, I give silent thanks to my tank-less water heater. Granddaddy had been against it, but Vi and I have always had a penchant for shower sex so I stuck to my guns. Talk about a great investment. I watch like a hawk as she sucks my cock, jerking the bottom with her right hand, all the while fingering herself with her left, her eyes never leaving mine as she works me over and gives me the mother of all blowjobs.

The slurping sounds and the feeling of her mouth on my cock is making me nuts. I’m half tempted to bury myself against the back of her throat and fill her mouth with my come, but the need to be inside of her surpasses that. Helping her from the floor, I lift her up so that she can wrap her legs around my waist. Pressing her against the shower wall, I smile at her. “Are you wet, baby?”

Nodding her head, she moans. “So wet, Ry. We’ve never gone this long before, not since we started. One hard fuck after ninety-two days of celibacy didn’t even begin to take the edge off.”

She’s right. We went from being two horny, fumbling kids who used every available free moment to go to town on each other, to being two adults who knew every hot spot on each other’s bodies and couldn’t wait to set each other ablaze. We’ve always laughed at people who talk about variety being the spice of life. Neither of us thinks that’s true at all. To us, the spice of life is giving yourself over and sharing an experience with someone you love. We committed a long time ago to fall in love with each other over and over again, and I’m happier than a pig in shit that we’re going to make it.

With a growl of pure lust, I bring her down until my cock is touching her slick opening. I push into her slowly, inch by inch, drinking in her moans with my mouth as we kiss. Last night, we fucked. Right now, we’re making love. With Violet, every time, every experience, is a fuckin’ winner.

When I’m buried balls deep in the woman I love, I begin a slow but steady rhythm of in and out thrusts. Breaking our kiss, Violet drops her head back and lets out a shout. “Fuck! Ryder… you’re incredible.”

Holding her tighter, I continue thrusting into her tight wet heat as I lean forward and begin licking and biting her neck. Each bite causes her pussy to spasm around me, and I growl low in my throat as I feel my balls start to tighten. Pulling back from her neck, I move back to her mouth and kiss her passionately as I begin to thrust harder. She pinches her left nipple and then her right with one hand as the other hand heads straight to her clit and starts applying just the right amount of pressure to take her over the edge. The second she seizes up on me and yells out my name, I let go and come.

These past three months were the worst of my life, but now that she’s back, I can’t fucking wait to start our lives together.

Hours later, we’re curled up on a blanket underneath ‘our’ tree, trying to catch our breath after making love. We meant to go slow, but after one kiss and a few minutes of my fingers in her panties, I’d pushed her dress up, opened my pants and fucked her hard and fast. If this tree could talk, it would have some crazy stories. Fun stories, sad stories, silly stories and, let’s face it, sexy stories. Second only to the shower or my bed, our blanket under this tree has been our go-to place to make love.

With her head lying on my shoulder, Vi absently traces circles against my t-shirt. Looking up at me, she bites her lower lip.

“Ry?”

Looking down at my girl, I smile. “Yeah baby?”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when Uncle Weston died. I didn’t know his heart had gotten that bad. Every time he called and talked to me, he never mentioned it.”

My head rears back as I look at her in shock. “Baby, what do you mean when he would call you? You were talkin’ to granddaddy while you were away?”

She twirls a piece of her hair in her fingers as she nods her head. “I was so over stimulated that I didn’t want to talk to anyone for the first month or so, but once I could handle it, I wanted to talk to you first. I called the house, and Uncle Weston told me straight that you were angry. He was angry too, and he told me my grandfather was beside himself. Once I explained everything to him, he was so supportive. He wanted to tell you everything, but I begged him not to. After everything that I had done wrong, I wanted to be the one to tell you why. It was me that owed you that explanation, not anyone else. Uncle Weston was as stubborn as they come, but he understood why it had to be me.

After that, he called and talked to me for ten minutes or so about once every ten days. I thought he sounded more out of breath than usual the last time he called, but he told me I was being a ‘silly filly’. Since my granddaddy didn’t say anything about his health, I assumed he still had time left. It meant everything to me that he called—and you know how huge that was. Your granddaddy hated the phone almost as much as he hated the internet, but he told me he wanted the mother of his great-grandchildren to have good things to say about him after he was gone. I didn’t realize that he meant his time was coming. My grandfather didn’t tell me Uncle Weston was gone until he called me the night before Daisy and I flew home. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Ry.”

I’m actually stunned and beyond touched that my granddaddy called Vi every week. He really did hate the damn phone, but he had always considered Vi to be his kin. Knowing that he called her, that he never lost faith in either of us, it means the world.

Leaning forward, I take the piece of hair she’s been playing with and twirl it in my fingers. “It’s okay, baby. Clearly granddaddy wanted us to be together, and I think that’s amazing. I’m glad he’s not strugglin’ to breathe anymore, but I miss him somethin’ fierce. He must be so damn proud of himself right now for gettin’ us back together. Stubborn old coot always said he knew best.”

Vi’s laugh before she covers my lips with her own is like music to my ears.

Our plans for a courthouse wedding are quickly squashed. Instead of having the big wedding her mother wanted or a courthouse wedding that neither of us did, we choose to get married in the way that we have always wanted to.

Standing beneath our tree, I watch with tears in my eyes as my fiancée walks toward me. Instead of hundreds of guests, there are just five. Violet’s grandfather, her mother, her stepfather, her sister Daisy, and my Uncle Zeke are the only people we absolutely have to have here with us today. There is a special guest, though. A chair at my side, in the place a best man would have stood, holds my granddaddy’s urn.

My palms are sweaty as I shake Uncle Jonah’s hand and take Violet from him. Together we turn and stand in front of the Reverend to say our vows. Each of us speaks clearly and with no hesitation, and when all is said and done, we are officially Ryder and Violet Jennings—just the way we were always meant to be.