Organically Yours: Sanctuary, Book Five by Abbie Zanders (love letters to the dead txt) 📕

The woman was relentless, doing amazing things with her hands while loving him with her mouth. He was already so worked up that it didn’t take long before his thin thread of control was ready to snap.

“Tina.” The single word was a strangled warning.

Instead of backing off, she doubled her efforts, sucking harder, grasping firmer, stroking faster. He didn’t stand a chance, and before long, he was no longer capable of holding back.

Afterward, she treated him with the same gentle care that he had her—with soft kisses and tender strokes—before pulling up his jeans and tucking him away with a satisfied and triumphant smile. It—she—was perfect.

“Well?” she asked smugly.

He pulled her close and touched his forehead to hers. “Woman, you have no idea what you’ve just done.”

Her grin widened. “What have I done?”

He lightly smacked her ass. “You know exactly what you did. You’ll never get rid of me now.”

She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her body fit so perfectly against his. “Good. At least now, we’re on the same page. But I should be going.”

Doc didn’t like the idea of her driving around the back roads alone after what happened. “Are you sure you can’t stay?” He leaned down and pressed kisses to the tender spot below her ear.

“Tempting, but no.” She cupped his face with her hands and said earnestly, “I’ll be fine.”

“Someone shot at you.”

“Someone shot at my tire and only after I started chasing them.”

“Yeah, don’t do that again.”

She went up on her toes and kissed him, then stepped out of his embrace. “It’s sweet that you care.”

He grunted and grabbed his keys. She had no idea how much he cared or the lengths he was willing to go to keep her safe.

“Where are you going?” she asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

He was going to make sure she got home safely, that was what he was going to do. What he said was, “I need to pick up a few things in town.”

Her lips quirked. “You do, huh?”

“Yes.”

The quirk grew into a grin. She was so onto him.

* * *

After returning from town with a bag of groceries he didn’t really need, his body was still humming as he made his way over to the main building. He was doing his best to remain cautiously optimistic.

He wasn’t a fool. He knew that, in her eyes, he looked pretty good. She was going through some stressful times, and he was there for her, bringing her soup, lending a sympathetic ear, and most recently, giving her pleasure. He was also someone her overbearing brothers didn’t approve of, which added the allure of rebellion.

But would it last beyond the novelty?

For him, the answer was yes. Tina was different. She’d captured his instant and immediate attention, and that showed no signs of changing. If anything, he was becoming more invested every day. And after today? Well, he hadn’t been kidding about not being able to walk away.

For her? Only time would tell.

In the meantime, he’d take whatever she was willing to give him and hope that the inexplicable force that kept drawing him to her was working on her as well.

He set a course for the war room, his intent to use the slick setup to do some digital recon. He should have known Cage was already on it. Mad Dog, who had gotten up close and personal with Eisenheiser’s truck, was there, too.

“How’s Tina?” Mad Dog asked.

“She’s fine. A little shaken. I think she was more pissed off than anything.”

Cage chuckled. “Yeah, I got that impression. She’s pretty tough.”

“She has to be with brothers like hers,” Mad Dog said. “Cage has been doing a little digging. They’re real pieces of work.”

“How so?”

“Besides their questionable taste in friends, you mean?”

“Yeah, besides that.”

“Friedrich isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Reached his peak in high school as a star linebacker. He actually got drafted by a Division I school but got himself kicked out after several drunken brawls and half a dozen charges of sexual harassment. Most of it got buried; apparently, the school didn’t want the bad publicity. He came back here, citing a knee injury and the need to help with the family business. Oh, and you’ll never guess who his BFF was. Dwayne Freed.”

“Shocker.”

The ne’er-do-well son of the Sumneyville police chief had a reputation for being a troublemaker and was, thanks to some poor choices, now serving time in a federal prison.

“Gunther Obermacher isn’t much better. He’s not a linebacker like Rick, but what he lacks in brawn, he makes up for in cunning. According to Sandy and Kate, he considers himself quite the ladies’ man and likes to hobnob with the big dogs.”

When Doc raised his eyebrows, Cage grinned and put up his hands. “Hey, their words, not mine. But it’s pretty apparent Gunther likes to live beyond his means. Expensive clothes, expensive dinners, expensive car.”

“Where’s he getting the funds?” Doc mused.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” asked Mad Dog. “On paper, it looks like he doesn’t have a pot to piss in, but he and his wife have been racking up some impressive tabs. They’re not just wining and dining Phillip Dumas. They’re branching out, contacting heavyweight real estate developers, some of whom have known mob ties.”

That didn’t sound good at all.

“We do know that Gunther is tight with Luther Renninger,” Cage said. “He might even be the mastermind behind Renninger’s financial schemes. Church always said Renninger didn’t have the brains or the stones to pull off something like that on his own.”

“If Gunther is pulling the strings, he’s damn good at covering his tracks.”

“And Ian Callaghan is a damn good tracker. If there’s more there, he’ll find it. We reached out to him earlier.”

“What about the third brother, Kiefer?” asked Doc.

“We don’t know a lot about him,” admitted Cage. “If we look close enough, he’s always there, lurking in the shadows, but his name rarely comes up on the radar.”

“That’s what worries me,” Mad Dog said. “He’s a little