Winner Takes All (A Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) (22 page)

“I know.” He put aside his own plate although
the food was only half gone. He wiped his hands with the wet wipes and moved
closer to her on the blanket. “I’m a little worried too, but the truth will win
out.” He reached for her hand and she took it, noticing again how tired he
looked.

“Lie down in my lap,” she said.

After a surprised moment, he stretched out on
the blanket with his head in her lap, his face turned up to the sky. Now, it
was his turn to sigh. “Everything is going to work out,” he said, as if trying
to convince himself. His eyes closed briefly. Then with a languid motion, he
turned and buried his face in her lap. Breathed in her scent.

“I feel like I haven’t touched you in
forever,” he said.

She smiled. “You're touching me right now.”

“You know what I mean.” He placed a kiss in
her lap, pressing his mouth against her pussy through the dress.

She caught her breath. Over the last few
days, she'd been too worried and emotionally exhausted for sex. So she thought.
But now with Damien's mouth a tempting breath from her warming pussy, she was
suddenly interested indeed. Slowly, her lover got to his knees, reached up to
unbutton her dress and reveal her flesh to the candle and star light. He kissed
her, a light flutter of his lips over her lips, then a firmer connection.
Deeper. Warm mouth on top of hers. His tongue sweetly coaxing what she happily
gave him.

He unsnapped her bra, quickly discarded it.
Then touched her breasts. Stroking the soft skin, tugging at her hardening
nipples, rolling them between his fingers. She sighed. Yes, she had been
missing this. She had been missing him just like this.

His mouth drifted from hers, down her throat.
His teeth nipped her shoulder. “You always smell so good,” he murmured.

He covered her breast with the heat of his
mouth. Sasha gasped. Sighed. Slid her hands into his hair. He licked her hard
nipples, a delicate and arousing motion of tongue against flesh, then teeth
nipping. Wetness settled between her legs, an aroused heat, her pussy lips
plumping under her dress. Candlelight flickered around them, shimmering over
his hair as he suckled her breasts, hands seeking under her dress. She opened
her thighs for him, cried out when he touched her.

“Damien....”

Fingers light on her clit, feather touches
that shot her arousal higher, that tightened her fingers in his hair.

“You feel like heaven,” he murmured. His
fingers sank into her.

“Oh!”

Her slickness easily welcoming him, sucking
him in. Damien's mouth left her breasts, slid down. Settled between her legs.
He pushed her onto the blanket, on her back. And he feasted. Leisurely, hot,
intent. His mouth surrounded her throbbing clit, sucking the hot bud into his
mouth until she gasped, the breath shuddering in her throat, fingers digging
into the blanket. Delight rippled through her. Heated her even more. His tongue
dipped into her pussy, fucking the slick wetness while a finger probed her ass.

“Oh God!”

The hot and wet sounds of his lust made music
in the night. Her gasps of delectation. His moans of appreciation and hunger.
The beginnings of an orgasm coiled in her belly, whipped inside her, lashed her
from breast to clit. Sasha's eyes flew open, lashes fluttering frantically at
the dark sky while her pussy clutched and spasmed in the fulfillment of her
desire.

Slowly, Damien drew his mouth away from her,
kissed her thighs. He lifted his head.

“Delicious.” His blue eyes sparkled in the
candlelight.

She laughed, breathless. Satisfied. Languorous,
her body still buzzing from her orgasm, Sasha reached for Damien’s zipper. But
he kissed her hands and pushed them away, lay his head back down in her lap.
Within moments, his eyes drifted closed.

Poor darling.
He was more tired than she’d even realized.

Sasha smoothed her hand over his forehead,
threaded her fingers through his hair. She smiled as his breathing slowed. His
hair was soft between her fingers, his scalp warm and fragrant from a recent
shampoo. He slept. And Sasha allowed the beautiful peace of the night to soothe
her. The cicadas, wind whispering through the rose bushes. The hot and sweet
scent of the flowers perfuming the night. Candlelight flickered over Damien’s
sleep-softened face, his hand that rested over hers.

The world wasn’t a friendly place. But in
that moment, with her lover sleeping in her lap and with starlight above their
fragrant garden and candlelight glinting over them, the troubles that had
seemed overwhelming mere hours before simply faded away.

The woman walked into Damien’s office and
closed the door behind her.

“Come in.” Damien welcomed her with a wave of
his hand toward the pair of chairs in front of his desk. He waited until she
sat down in the chair next to the one Sasha had already claimed.

The woman was tall, almost aggressively
beautiful with her skin the color of tobacco, her large almond eyes, and short
hair cut close to her scalp. She walked like a woman who knew she was beautiful
but wanted to be seen as strong and intelligent, hiding her femininity behind
the barest minimum of makeup, a plain pants suit in a black polyester blend,
flat shoes. Sasha sat down in the chair next to the woman, her hands twisting
in her lap. The woman was an investigator with the state police. Mia Lara.

The woman with two first names looked first
at Damien and then at Sasha. “As you may have noticed, Mr. Taylor, Ms. Cormick,
my colleagues have all left the premises.” Ms. Lara’s hands rested in her lap,
unperturbed. “The investigation has concluded and we found no wrong-doing on
Ms. Cormick’s part. Someone went through great pains to make this look like she
was the criminal but they were sloppy and their work was discovered.” The woman
paused. “Even the doping of the horses turned out to be unrelated to Taylor
Stables. The race horses discovered with the drugs in their systems had passed
through your stables but had been tampered with after they left here.”

In her chair, Sasha sagged with relief. She
pressed her hands against her stomach that had been tied in knots in the three
and a half weeks since the investigation began. Damien had had faith but she
had steadily lost it when one of the investigators had questioned Sasha about
her past and about James. A past that was more transparent than she thought. The
questioning hadn’t been unkind, but she’d felt exposed. Endangered. But now,
there was this tremendous relief.

She exchanged a glance with Damien who gave
her a reassuring look before giving his full attention to investigator Lara.

“Thank you, Ms. Lara. I appreciate all you’ve
done while you were here. I won’t say that it was good to have you here—” The
woman smiled at that. “—but it’s a relief that the entire misunderstanding has
been cleared up.” He looked at Sasha. “Ms. Cormick is an incredible woman with
nothing but honesty and integrity. It pained me greatly to see someone try to
drag her and her reputation through the mud.”

“I’m glad things worked out to your benefit
sir. You will get an official report of our findings by the end of the month.”
She stood up and shook Damien’s hand.

“Thank you, Ms. Lara.” He nodded, gave her
one of his warm smiles.

The woman shook Sasha’s hand too before she
turned to leave. Even after the study’s door closed, Sasha sat in the chair,
still dazed. The nightmare was actually over. It was finally over. When Damien
came back from walking the woman to the door, he knelt before Sasha took her
hands in his.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she whispered, scarcely able to
believe that just that quickly, the investigation was over. They hadn’t taken
her away. They didn’t call her a liar. The job at Taylor Stables was still
hers. She trembled with the relief of it.

“I can barely believe it,” she said with a
breathless laugh.

“I can. I told you everything would work out.
The truth trumps a lie on most days.”

Sasha dropped her head that suddenly felt
almost too heavy for her neck to carry. “Thank you for believing in me.”

He brushed a thumb across her cheek. “You
don’t thank the sun for shining or the rain from falling. These things simply
happen because they were meant to. There’s nothing to thank me for.”

She smiled shyly at him. They stared at each
other for long moments, the feelings welling up inside Sasha like a hot and
undeniable spring.
I love you.
The words hovered just behind her teeth.
But she did not say them. Did not want him to think she only said the words
because of what he had done for her. Instead, she leaned down and kissed him,
closed her eyes and felt thankful with every fiber of her being.

Damien stood up, wrapped his arms around her.
“Now that that is taken care of, we need to attend to another matter that has
been long overdue.”

The noise in the stands was nearly deafening.
Hundreds of people cheering for their favorite horse or jockey. Most of them on
their feet, racing forms clenched in their waving fists as they stared out onto
the track. Sasha hadn’t been on this side of the railing many times in her
life. Looking out over the sea of desperate humanity, she much preferred being
on a horse than being ridden by whatever demons of addiction some of these
people obviously had strapped to their backs.

Beside Sasha, her brother James, like most of
the people nearby was on his feet. His face was flushed, his pupils dilated,
his clothes rumpled. Another man being ridden by a demon. Sasha didn’t know if
it was just gambling, drugs, drinking or the poisonous combination of all
three. All she knew was that James had been taken over by his demons long
before they had left Tennessee. And long before he had gone to jail.

“Fuck that!” Her brother slumped down into
his seat, slid her a narrow-eyed glance. “That fucking horse must have been
drugged or something. He was a damn winner before.” He tore up the sheet in his
hand, scattered the bits of paper at his feet.

Sasha looked up and around her, realized that
he wasn’t the only one pissed off and raining useless bits of paper around the
stands.

“So what’s up, sis?” He pulled out a pack of
cigarettes, pulled one out and lit up. Gray smoke leaked from his nostrils.
“Why did you want to meet up with me? You missed me?” He laughed. “You want to
put a little more on top of my allowance?” His teeth flashed as he laughed
again. Her brother stretched out as much as the small plastic seats would
allow, propping up his elbow on the back of the empty seat to his left.

Now it was Sasha’s turn to give a narrow-eyed
look. Although it was a good question. Damien was ready to go ahead with his
plan to get James off her back, a plan she knew included the police. But as
much of an asshole as her brother was, as much harm as he’d done her in the
last few weeks and over the years, she didn’t want to be the cause of anyone
going to jail. Even with his visit to Damien’s study that had infuriated her
enough to want to kill him, she still wanted to...to give him a chance to leave
her life in peace and with his freedom.

“I wanted to talk to you about what you’re
doing.” She took a breath. “You have to know this is wrong. No good can come
from it.”

A puff of smoke left her brother’s mouth as
he laughed at her. “Are you joking?” He leaned out of the seat to look at her.
“Do you see the car I’m driving? Do you see the clothes I wear and the bitches
I fuck with?” He made a boastful noise. “All this and I don’t work for it.
Louisville is no New York, but I can still managed to get some good pussy and
other sweet shit at any hour of the day there. It’s all good, sister.” he
chuckled, took a drag of his cigarette. “At least it is for me.”

Sasha clenched her jaw. “Have you always been
such a fucking leech? Why don’t you just do your own work for a change and stop
hurting everybody in your life.”

His hard eyes found hers. “Better I knife
them before they get a chance to stick me,” he said.

Sasha tightened her fists in her lap. “This
is not fucking prison!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, sister. We’re all
in one sort of prison or another. And in prison the rule is always ‘get them
before they get you.’ I know that. I believe that.” He sucked on his cigarette,
blew the smoke in her face. “Now, give me some fucking money or get out of
here. I don’t have time for any of your shit.”

Sasha wanted to knock some sense into him and
show him that this didn’t have to be his life. But looking at him, she realized
for the millionth time, probably, that he didn’t want to do anything different.
He had thrived in jail. There, he was sucking sustenance from the system, from
taxpayers. Out here in the world, he was sucking everything out of her. She
sighed.