need it.”
She frowns at me in that demanding way that is so Mom, I smile through my tears and do as she asks.
Her eyes soften but she looks so tired, a frail shell of her former beauty. “I’m glad,” her voice comes out a frail whisper. “I’m glad you went. Too much of your life,” she takes a heaving breath, “in this sick room.”
“No, Mom, all I want is to be with you.” More tears well and spill down my cheeks. Please, the last thing I want her to think is that she’s a burden. “You’re the best part of my life.”
She smiles at that and then lifts a wan hand to run through my hair. “A mother’s job is to send her daughter out into the world. To see her happy.” A big, heaving breath. “Not to hold her back like your father and I have all these years.”
I shake my head fervently. “You haven’t held me back. I’ve been so happy.”
“You will be. You will be. Live your life. For me. Swear you will. Swear it.”
I nod, trying to swallow back tears. “I swear.”
“Good,” she breathes out. “Because I want you to spend every day at the beach. To fall in love a hundred times. Or maybe just once with the right man.”
I can’t help lowering my eyes as my cheeks flush.
Mom squeezes my hand. “Oh darling. Logan?”
I open my mouth to tell her it’s just a stupid crush but when I look up, she’s beaming at me. “He’s a good man. And I see the way he looks at you. Like you hang the moon and stars.”
And then she relaxes back into the bed, her eyes closing. I suspect it’s taken more effort than I thought for her to say so much, but still she whispers. “I’m so glad. You’ll need someone strong to look out for you when I’m gone.”
I shake my head and start to chide her for negative thinking, but only her gentle snores meet me. She’s fallen asleep.
Her hand is cold in mine and when I feel along her arm and her feet, her entire body is cold. So I climb in bed beside her and nestle in behind her, chafing her arms lightly to warm her up.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Mama,” I whisper, terrified I don’t believe my own words. “Everything’s going to be okay. Daddy’s going to fix you, just you wait and see.”
But the next morning, when I wake up, it’s to the loud buzzing of machines alerting of a problem.
And my mother is cold in my arms.
Dead and gone from this world.
Sixteen
Present Day
Daphne
A huge dark shape moves over me in the darkness, then settles behind me, grabbing both of my wrists in one strong hand and holding them at the small of my back.
“Surrender,” he murmurs, his cock gliding along my fingers and then settling in the cleft between my legs. He is a wall of heat behind me as his body weight settles into the mattress. His cock a hard, unyielding promise. My hands fist but my bottom rises to meet his thrusts. “Let go. Let yourself be mine. Every part of you. Don’t hold a single part back.”
“Logan,” I whisper. I flex my fingers and he releases my wrists, but only so he can guide them over my head where he takes hold of them again.
But not before a dark glint catches my eye. The ring is a weight heavy on my finger. Not a diamond, though. A signet ring crowned with a gold beast’s head. The mark of his claim. My heart soars at the sight.
Logan threads his thick fingers with my small ones, covering my hand with his. In the dark, my lips curve.
“I was always yours.”
My eyes snap open and the sun hits me in the face. My pussy’s tight and aching, my hips rocking towards the ceiling. I breathe out in frustration, so turned on from my dream it must have freaking woke me up.
And no wonder. I look down at myself and my breath hitches again. I’m still covered in Logan’s cum. Was it only last night? He barged in here, made me beg and then…
I turn and bury my face in the pillow, wishing I could have stayed in the dream a little longer. Maybe in that dream world he would have eventually let me touch him. Maybe even wrapped his arms around me like he did that one night…after the funeral, when I felt more alone than I ever