Page 60 of Refuge for Cherilyn

“Not at all. I think it helped to hear them from somebody who’s not a relative. She thinks we have some kind of grudge against her, my parents and me, but that’s not true. Hearing it from somebody who has nothing to gain from her approval and nothing to fear from her anger should make it something she’ll take to heart. She knows we love her. She just wants us to love her with stuff, not with time and relationships. Those have no value for her, because she hasn’t had those with her mom or Austin. They handed her stuff so she’d be quiet and stay out of their way, and it worked, until it didn’t.”

Cherilyn reached for Shaw’s hand and he gave it to her without hesitation. “Good. I didn’t want to make you mad, make you want us to go or?”

“Short of screwing somebody else in my bed, I can’t think of a thing you could do that would make me want you out of here.” Shaw extended his arm and Cherilyn scooted up against him, letting him pull her in, resting her head on his shoulder and taking in his warmth.

“You don’t have to worry about that. You’re all I’ve ever dreamed of.” It was right there on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say it. She needed him to say it first, to make sure she wasn’t rejected.

“Good. Because you’re all I could possibly want.” She felt his kiss on the top of her head, light as a feather but carrying the weight of the commitment he’d promised her, then he yawned. “Let’s go to bed. It’s been a long day and I’d really like to spend the last of it in your arms.”

“And I’d like to spend the last of it in your arms.” She’d been there barely forty-eight hours, but she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. Shaw was her dream come true, and she hoped he knew that.

The two people who took to his bed that evening wanted and needed each other. He kissed her lips, her neck, her nipples, down her belly, and stopped at the most sensitive spot on her body. Cherilyn gasped as he drove her higher, and she could feel her climax building, its power growing and burning through her. Staying quiet was almost impossible, but she managed. She tried to push him back as he crawled toward her. “No. I want to give back. Just let me? Please?”

“No. I mean, yeah, I want you to, but tonight, I want to be inside you. I just want to be with you, Cheri. That’s all.” His lips covered hers as his hardness pierced her, and she was sure she’d never felt such joy. His length was perfect. His thickness was perfect. The way he moved his hips?perfect. Everything about him was perfect, and she hoped he knew that. As he moved inside her, his lips traveled from hers, across her cheek, and to her neck, and her hips rocked against him. God, she wanted him even deeper inside her! “Damn, girl. I haven’t ever wanted any woman the way I want you.”

“No man has ever made me feel this way. I think about you all the time, and I…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She craved him. That was what she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to sound foolish or desperate.

His hands covered her breasts, then slid until his fingers could tweak her nipples. It made her groan with pleasure, and he slammed into her harder. “God, baby, I hope you’re falling for me because I’m damn sure falling for you.”

Even as her body fell prey to his, her eyes filled with tears. “I know it’s too soon, but…” She just couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come out.

“It’s not too soon, babe. It’s all right here. You don’t have to say anything. Just come with me. That’ll say it all.” The speed of his strokes increased, and something deep inside Cherilyn contracted painfully, but from that pain radiated pleasure, a throbbing, hot pleasure she’d never experienced before. His fingers tweaked her nipples again as the throbbing continued. “That’s it, babe. Let it all go. Awww, hell, I wanted to hold out a little longer but I just can’t. You’re just too much, beautiful. Way too much.” He slammed into her and stilled for a few seconds, then relaxed on top of her and wrapped his arms under and around her. Rolling them together to their sides, he gave her a lazy, testosterone-laden smile. “I don’t want to pull out of you. I want to stay in there forever.”

“I’m going to have a hard time cooking breakfast with you attached to me,” she whispered with a giggle.

“Screw breakfast. We’ll stay in bed. There’s cereal and milk. They won’t starve.” The kisses started again, and Cherilyn saw stars. He was falling for her, and she had already fallen for him.

Eventually, he wound up in the bathroom, ridding himself of the condom he’d filled, and she took a turn when he was back in bed. As she stood there, watching water drip from her face in the mirror, she marveled at what was happening. She was nothing, a trash girl who’d become a trash woman and a trash mother raising two trash kids, but a man like Shaw cared for her. That wasn’t just wonderful.

It was a miracle.

* * *

The sky was overcast,and the forecast said it was going to rain. There was talk of busting some pot growers in the national forest. Great. Nothing like being out in the rain and the darkness to make a man feel warm and cozy.

The girls were eating cinnamon toast Cherilyn had made, but they weren’t really talking. From time to time, Candace would glare at Maya, and the far-less-worldly girl shrank back. It hurt Shaw to watch what was happening, and he was about ready to say something to his daughter when she blurted out, “Oh, by the way, I heard you.”

He looked out at her from under a furrowed brow. “Heard me?”

“Heard you. And you,” she said, motioning to Cherilyn. “Fucking.” Shaw thought he’d heard her wrong, but his eyebrows shot up of their own accord. Then she made the mistake of repeating herself. “I heard you guys fucking.”

White-hot rage traveled through Shaw’s body, and he closed his eyes, trying to calm himself before he spoke. He’d almost managed to do it when Lara yelled, “FUCKING!”

Those eyes flew wide open and he took in Cherilyn’s face. She looked like someone had hit her in the gut. That look sent him over the edge. “You,” he growled and pointed at Candace. “Out. Now. Out. Get out.”

Candace smirked. “Couldn’t you be a little quieter? I think they could hear you in the next county.”

“I said out. Sit on the porch. I’ll come and talk to you when I’m calm and rational, which I’m not right now.”

“If you didn’t want me to hear you, you should’ve?”

“Candace, shut up. Absolutely, positively shut up and get out of my house.”

“It didn’t sound all that great, to be honest. Sure not like the porn I watch sometimes on?”

Everything inside Shaw torqued and the next thing he knew, he had Candace by the collar of her pajamas and was dragging her toward the door. She was screaming, and Cherilyn was yelling something, and Maya and Lara were making some kind of racket, but he couldn’t tell who was shouting what, and he didn’t care. As soon as they were out the door and it was closed behind them, he rounded on Candace. “You. You’re my daughter and I want to love you, but you’re making it very, very hard right now. That shed out there? You’re sleeping there for the next two nights.”

“What? No! I’m not sleeping in a shed. Fuck you.”

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