Hoping for Forever (The Lottery Winners Book 1) Read online

  They drove to his house and Scarlett was amazed at the beautiful, contemporary style. The large windows overlooked only treetops, there weren’t any other houses for miles.

  Scarlett turned to say something, to tell him that she liked his house, but he was there, pulling her into his arms and she didn’t care about his house any longer. She didn’t care about anything other than just being with him, kissing him and feeling him. She wanted him inside her body. Now!

  “Don’t make me wait,” she urged, pushing his jacket off his shoulders so her fingers could explore. He was still tall, still strong and powerfully built. Maybe more now than in the past. Her fingers were shaking so badly, she struggled to open buttons on his shirt. When she finally managed, she sighed with relief as her fingers moved over his warm skin. Pulling away from his mouth, she kissed the exposed skin, tasting him, doing all of the things she’d wanted to do for so many years.

  “Take me now!” she demanded.

  Mick could barely believe this was happening. For too many years, he’d dreamed of having Scarlett back in his arms and here she was. “Now!” he growled and lifted her up into his arms, carrying her down the hallway to his bedroom. When he kicked the door closed, the sound of it slamming barely penetrated his desire-fogged mind. She pulled out of his arms and stripped off her clothes. He watched, not sure if he was more amused by her urgency or turned on by it.

  “You’re not getting naked, Mick,” she reminded him.

  He realized that he was just standing there, watching her and admiring the curves that were revealed to him. She wasn’t as slender as she used to be, but she was fuller, more mature. And incredibly gorgeous! Time might have added a few wrinkles and gravity might have started to pull things downwards, but he thought she looked better than ever. More feminine and real. And when he pulled her into his arms, none of that mattered because she fit against him perfectly. This was Scarlett. This was his woman. From that first moment when he’d decided to sit behind the prettiest girl in class, he’d felt this way about her.

  “Now, Mick!” she urged, reaching down to take his erection in her hands. He groaned as she caressed him, but the pressure only increased. He wanted her too and wasn’t in the mood to slow down. He’d take things slowly the next time. This time….

  He grabbed a condom and rolled it down, then came back to her, pulling her leg up and then sliding into her heat. “Scarlett!” he groaned. She was tight and hot and perfect for him!

  “Move!” she demanded, lifting her other leg up and shifting her hips. He felt her inner muscles tightening around him and had to shake his head to regain control. This was Scarlett. His Scarlett! He’d never thought he’d see her again, let alone feel her like this again!

  Moving inside of her, slowly at first, but faster when he saw the look in her eyes, he held back his control. Too soon, he felt her body shiver, tightening and he wanted to stop, to make this last longer. But he couldn’t! Not with her hands sliding up and down his arms and his chest. Everything inside of him clamored for release. He stroked her, pushing her, shifted until…

  She screamed his name, her body arching into his and he felt her inner muscle contracting around him. That sensation took him right over the edge with her. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t hold back any longer. It was too intense and too powerful. He dove over the edge to a climax and just held her as gently as possible.

  When the waves of intense pleasure slowly subsided, he loosened his hold on Scarlett and looked down at her. “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

  Slowly, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up into his darker eyes. “That was just as beautiful and incredible as I remembered, Mick.”

  He rolled to his side and slipped out of bed, heading to the bathroom to take care of the condom. But when he came back, he slipped into bed, pulling her into his arms again. “Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”

  Scarlett laughed, rolling on top of him and resting her chin on her stacked hands. “You didn’t hurt me at all. In fact, that’s the first time I’ve climaxed with another person since…” she stopped, shocked that she’d actually admitted that to him.

  “Since when?” he prompted, chuckling as he pushed a pillow behind his head so that he see her better.

  “Since we were together twenty years ago,” she admitted with a long sigh.

  Mick understood the significance of that statement and his heart pounded. “I’m so sorry I left. I shouldn’t have.”

  She put her fingers over his lips. “We’ve found each other again. Let’s look forward. No regrets, okay?”

  “But…”

  She leaned up and kissed him, stopping whatever he was going to say. When she pulled back, she looked at him seriously. “Mick, I’ve loved you for so long and missed you to the point where I couldn’t think about you anymore because it hurt too much. But now, here, we have to look to the future. I didn’t get a vote the last time. We didn’t talk. I’m telling you right now, I want to spend every moment of my life with you, getting to know you and learning to live life again.”

  “What do you mean about that last part?”

  She sighed and pressed her cheek against his chest, hearing his heartbeat. “When you left, I sort of lost touch with how to color outside the lines, Mick. I’m starting to learn it again. I love my job. It’s exciting and different, but I haven’t figured out how to do much more.”

  “What do you want to learn to do?” he asked, sliding down and kissing her neck. He loved hearing her voice again.

  “I want to learn French,” she told him. “I want to do things that I shouldn’t. I want to flout the rules and do things that women aren’t supposed to do.”

  He smiled. “I think I can help you with that.” He ran his fingers up and down her back. An old memory came back to him and he slipped out of bed. “Hold that thought,” he walked naked over to his dresser. Rummaging through an old box, he found what he was looking for and came back to her.

  Bending down on one knee, he took her hand. “I understand that we don’t know the adult versions of each other, Scarlett. But perhaps the first step in coloring outside the lines is to take a risk on us. Will you marry me?” he asked, slipping a gold ring with a tiny diamond on her finger. “I know this is small, but it was all I could afford twenty years ago.” He kissed the small diamond, looking up into the tears shimmering in her eyes. “Every year, I’ll give you a bigger diamond, just to demonstrate how big my love has grown.”

  She sobbed as she flung herself into his arms. “Mick! Finally!” she laughed and cried at the same time. “Yes! Damn you, yes!”

  He laughed as he got them both back into his big bed. Then he made very good use of the extra space of his custom bed, making love to her in ways that made her squirm and then scream. She was his woman, he thought and loved every moment with her.

  Chapter 21

  Twenty-five Years Later…

  Scarlett and Mick stared up at the statue. “That’s got to be the ugliest statue I’ve ever seen.”

  Mick squeezed her in agreement. “I have no idea why I thought to take this exit, but I kind of like this town. What’s it called again?”

  “LowPoint.” She twisted, putting a hand over his where they rested against her waist. “What a horrible name!”

  “Agree. But the town is cute. A bit old fashioned. I like it.”

  Scarlett agreed. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked, smiling up at her husband.

  He kissed the top of her head, now covered with grey hair. “I’m thinking that we have been traveling for the last twelve months and it’s time to settle down. Chris and James can easily drive here from Nashville for the holidays,” he pointed out, referring to Scarlett’s two sons and their families. “Maggie is only a few hours east in Pittsburg,” he said of his daughter. “So, it would be easy for her to pack up her two girls and head this way as well,’ he continued.

  “I like it,” Scarlett agreed, even though she didn’t need to say anything.
After twenty-five years of marriage and one year of retirement, they had learned how to communicate without words.

  “We’ll need at least four bedrooms.”

  Scarlett snorted. “I’d say six or seven,” she corrected. “Maggie, James, and Chris will each need their own rooms so each of them can retreat with their spouses. And then the six grandkids,” she chuckled. “I’m not sure I want all six of them sleeping in the same room like we did that year down in Alabama at your place. Their excitement fed on each other!”

  He hugged her gently. “It was that massive box of chocolates that created the chaos, honey,” he teased.

  Scarlett grinned. “Yeah, that was pretty fun.”

  He snorted. “Fun for you and the kids. You didn’t let any of us have any.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing. “Are you complaining?”

  He saw the look and remembered what she’d done to make up to him for the lack of chocolate. “Not in any way,” he replied, grinning rakishly. “In fact, I think we should get another box of chocolates for this Christmas.”

  Scarlett laughed. “Maggie told me that she’d leave her daughters with us and run if we ever did that again.”

  Mick shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. They’re fun girls.”

  “Yeah, but put them together with James and Christopher’s four boys and…”

  “Say no more!” he laughed. “No box of chocolates.”

  She smiled. “That’s a nice house,” she observed as she looked down the street. “All the other houses are Victorian with the fancy ornamentation all over the exteriors. But I like that one.” She pointed to a house further down the street that was more craftsman style. The huge front porch had wide columns and lots of windows along with a big yard.

  “Let’s go take a look,” he urged, taking her hand. “Have I mentioned today that I love you?”

  Scarlett leaned her head against his strong shoulder as they strolled down the sidewalk towards their future home. “Not today. But I know that you do. I love you too.”

  Excerpt from “Tempted” – Coming April 20, 2018

  Daisy’s story in The Lottery Winners Series

  To Order this story, click HERE

  (As usual, there’s a bit of build up to this scene – but this one sets the tone for the entire story so I thought it was perfect to give you a sense of what is to come. Enjoy!)

  What the hell was he doing here? Rocco slammed the door of his pickup, looking around. The tiny town of LowPoint wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d heard. There were several houses that looked nice, but the rest…he shook his head, everything looked so abandoned.

  Years ago, some reporter had done a series of stories about coal mining towns that had died. LowPoint had been one of the featured towns and had appeared to be about to crumble at any moment.

  But as he’d driven through town, he’d seen stores and people walking along sidewalks filled with flowers and trees that had just burst with leaves as the warm spring sun heated the earth. The downtown area definitely was different than the images he’d seen on television so many years ago.

  These houses though? Yeah, they looked ready to be demolished. The whole street looked…abandoned. There were broken windows, lawns filled with weeds, doors and windows missing on some of the houses, and…he did a double take at the house across the street. Was that a toilet on the lawn?

  Rubbing the back of his neck, he wondered what the hell he was doing here. There were no buildings going up, no construction anywhere to be seen.

  It was just a run-down neighborhood. Yeah, his mind immediately began cataloguing all the ways that he could improve the houses. A bit of...

  “You showed up!”

  Rocco turned, looking at the woman approaching him with a breathless smile. She wasn’t wearing a business suit and killer heels like she’d worn yesterday, but the loose jeans and cotton top were pretty damn nice! Were those steel toed boots? Damn, she looked hot! Much more intriguing that the Barbie-look-alike he’d seen yesterday.

  And much more enticing!

  Keeping his features neutral, he waited for her to approach him, unwilling to give anything away.

  “I’m here,” he agreed, when she was a few feet away although it was obvious.

  She sauntered up to him and he was startled to realize how short she was. Maybe five feet, five? Not more. Since he was several inches over six feet, that caused him to look down at her more than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t noticed the height difference yesterday because she’d been sitting down. And yeah – because he’d been a bit too focused on her mouth.

  His eyes dropped to take in that particular body part, thinking back to his dreams from the previous night. He’d woken up hard and aching and it was due to this woman and her full lips that….

  “Why am I here?” he demanded, sounding a bit more gruff than he’d intended, but those damn lips stretched into a grin.

  Hell, he’d thought that she couldn’t get prettier but that smile lit up her features and…

  He was a gonner. Better to get out of here before he got any deeper. One night of hot and heavy dreams was about all his libido could take. It had been too long since he’d had a woman in his bed.

  “Follow me,” Daisy-Barbie invited.

  If it had been anyone else, he would have just gotten back into his truck and driven away. But one other feature he hadn’t noticed yesterday, besides her height, was her amazing butt! In jeans, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from that enticing feature. It wasn’t even that the jeans she wore were tight. Just the opposite in fact. But if she was trying to hide her figure in those baggie clothes, it wasn’t working!

  So instead of getting into his truck and driving off, as he should, Rocco followed her up the weed-choked lawn and into the dilapidated house, shaking his head. He was following a woman, ignoring his instincts, just because she had a nice ass.

  Daisy pushed open the door and stepped into the dark interior of the house. “This is the job,” she announced, spreading her arms wide.

  He looked around, still thinking about her lips and her ass. “Tearing down the house?” he asked, trying to make sense of everything.

  Daisy laughed, shaking her head and moved deeper into the room. “No, silly! I need a team of people to remodel the houses.”

  He frowned at her and it took all of her concentration to keep from squirming. What was it about his blue eyes that unnerved her so completely? She’d thought she’d just been nervous yesterday about confronting him since he was so big but…maybe there was more to it.

  “Houses…plural?”

  She couldn’t hide her eagerness, even in the face of this man’s derision. This was her passion. Fixing up LowPoint, renovating each of these houses so that people could move in and find a safe place to raise their families. After gaining such incredible wealth with her lottery winnings, her life had changed dramatically. This was her way of giving back to the world.

  “Yes. LowPoint’s population dwindled to about two hundred families several years back. The town was kept going only through low paying jobs. But it wasn’t alive,” she explained, seeing the surprise in his eyes and taking that as a positive sign. “I wouldn’t even say that the town was on life support. It was dying. There were no jobs, no true source of employment, other than commuting to Louisville but many people couldn’t even afford that. Most families left the area for cities that offered more jobs. As you can see from driving down any of the streets, most of the houses haven’t been lived in for about ten years, some longer than that. The owners simply abandoned them when they couldn’t sell them and moved on.”

  He was looking around at the interior now instead of staring at her as if she were a lunatic. That was a positive sign.

  She watched in fascination as he moved over to one of the walls and knocked on it. When it didn’t crumble at his touch, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “And your company is renovating these houses…why? There still aren’t jobs in LowPoint. Everyone
I know lives in Louisville.”

  She laughed, relief surging through her since he hadn’t outright rejected the job or laughed at her dream of revitalizing the town. “LowPoint has two things going for it and the company I work for is banking on that to put this town back on the map.”

  “What are those?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He moved into the kitchen now, opening and closing the cabinets. One of the cabinet doors fell off in his hand and Rocco jumped back so that the heavy wood didn’t smash his foot, causing a loud clatter to break the tense silence.

  Daisy tried to ignore the tug of something deep inside of her as she took in the lovely view of those muscles flexing underneath the plaid flannel of his shirt as it pulled tight across his broad shoulders. Every time he moved, her eyes were drawn to those shoulders or his trim waist, the impressively tight butt revealed by his soft, well-worn jeans that hugged his butt and strong thighs. Yummy!

  She jerked slightly when he turned to look at her over his shoulder, obviously waiting for an answer. Daisy stepped back slightly, as if that could somehow keep her eyes from roaming. Focus, she admonished herself firmly.

  Blinking, she pulled her eyes away from his butt and focused on his eyes. Okay, actually, she was now looking at the scruff of his jawline. The man hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. It was probably a sign of disrespect, but she loved the rough look.

  His dark eyebrows lifted when she forgot to answer him. Daisy turned away and walked towards a sliding glass door that used to be clear, but was now covered in so much dust, it was just a filmy, cracked piece of glass. “First of all, Ivy Taylor’s studio is here. Ever seen her photos?”

  His expression didn’t change in any way. “Everyone knows of Ivy Taylor’s photos. Every time she comes back from one of her trips, everyone talks about nothing else.” He shrugged. “I saw her gallery when I drove through town.”