“Now that,” Belle breathed, “sounds like a plan.”
“Count on it,” Jack muttered, his eyes dropping to her mouth, his head descending toward hers.
She felt a trill race up to her scalp but still, she whispered, “Jack, honey, the food will get cold.”
“Let it,” Jack murmured against her mouth then he took it in a sweet, deep, long, wet, delicious kiss.
They didn’t get to the dinner table in two minutes. It was more like five.
But they walked in hand in hand and they did it after Belle had managed to make Jack feel better.
She sat down to dinner at Jack’s side feeling like she’d just moved a mountain and she was proud of it.
And, even a little late, the food still tasted great.
* * * * *
Calvin
Calvin Cole aimed one, last, vicious kick into his prone wife’s belly and watched her body jerk on the floor.
Then he bent over her and, ignoring her spitting blood into the carpet in front of her face and wheezing, he got close to her face and hissed, “Now get your ass up and unpack. You leave when I say I’m done with you. Not before.”
Her eyes looking to the carpet that the side of her face was resting on, she slowly nodded and he also ignored her wince of pain that this subtle movement caused.
He jerked upright and looked at the bags on the bed.
The bitch saw the article. The bitch heard shit at work. The bitch came home early and thought to leave him.
What the bitch didn’t know was that he took shit at work that day too. Including his supervisor telling him they were going to have a meeting at the end of the week and that he felt it was best if Calvin didn’t come into the office until the meeting.
Calvin knew what that meant.
Fuck.
He looked back down at his wife who hadn’t moved and informed her casually, “You know, if I hadn’t kicked Belle’s ass out, I’d be married to a national f**king hero instead of f**king you.”
After he delivered that, he heard the bell at the door go and he left her, stomping to the door.
Unable to move because every time she tried the pain wracked through her body so intensely she had to fight against going unconscious, his wife listened from her place on the floor to the murmuring of voices.
The murmurs went on for some time. Then her husband’s voice got louder. Then angrier. Then louder and livid.
Then she heard different noises, muffled grunts, muffled groans of extreme pain.
Calvin’s groans.
She couldn’t move to get to the phone to call 999 or go to her husband and help him.
She couldn’t move but still…
Even if she could, she wouldn’t.
Chapter Twenty
Can’t Get Loose
Jack