Jonny's Redemption (Gemini Group Book 7) by Riley Edwards (audio ebook reader TXT) 📕

“Should I be jealous of BOB?” Jonny teased.

“I can’t answer that yet. Judging by your first performance I’d say no. But you could be a one-hit-wonder and BOB has three speeds. So…”

Bobby let her statement hang and light Jonny’s chest—warm and bright, it seared through his heart. A supernova of emotions so intense that by the time his shoulders shook with hilarity he was fairly certain instead of the sound being cheerful, it was an uproar of pain.

He hadn’t felt that carefree and optimistic since before his brother had come to live with him. One day Jonny was a happy five-year-old, then everything had gone to shit. It happened shockingly fast. One night his mother had tucked him into bed, the picture of maternal perfection and by dinnertime the next day the mother he’d known was gone. Bitterness and betrayal had settled over the Spencers.

“Lucky for you, I have more than three speeds. I’ve also got a mouth and fingers.” Jonny winked and got up. When he was on his feet, he grabbed the edge of the comforter and covered Bobby. “There are towels in the bathroom and I’ll bring in your clothes before I start the grill.”

“You’re a strange man, Jonny Spencer.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, for starters I’m in your bed pretty much naked and you haven’t looked or touched. You still haven’t kissed me. You’ve said I’m yours, which I assume that’s macho, alpha talk for I’m now your girlfriend. And now you’re getting up to go fire up the barbeque like you didn’t just rock my world.”

“It was the second orgasm, wasn’t it?”

“I’m being serious.”

Bobby’s brow pinched as she stared up at him unable to hide her concern.

Trusting. Open. Honest.

His Bobby.

“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” Jonny started. As he knew she would, Bobby huffed and narrowed her eyes. Time for honesty. “I haven’t kissed you because when I do, the kiss is going to lead to me doing other things to you in this bed. Which was where our first time together should’ve been. But I lost control. Out there in the living room, I didn’t want to kiss you, I wanted to fuck you. I wanted to give in to months’ worth of pent-up sexual frustration and I didn’t want our first kiss to be tainted with rough, angry wall-sex. I was an asshole. Now, I’m trying to be a gentleman. Be what you need. I want to feed you, hear about what you’ve been doing the last month, then later when I bring you back here I’m taking my time. I’m going to give you what I should’ve given you the first time. And to finish, you’re mine. You can take that to mean anything you want it to mean. But what it means to me is you are mine in every way I can have you. I’m done fighting my feelings for you. I’m done trying to shield you from the dysfunction that is my life. The secrets and lies and failures. You stayed, you want it, it’s yours. All of it, all of me. I have to trust you’re strong enough to wade through all the ugly shit you’ll learn because I’m done pretending.”

“I want all of it. All of you.”

“That’s good because as I said, you stayed so it’s yours.”

“And what about you? Are you ready to take on all the ugly in my life?”

“Baby, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”

And with that, Jonny left the room. There was only so much he could take. And it wasn’t the avows of devotion that had done him in. He could do that all day, and over the next few days, while he kept her holed-up at the beach house, he planned on giving it all to her.

It was the beautiful woman in his bed, the one he’d dreamt of, the scent of peaches and vanilla filling his nostrils, the sight of her full breasts encased in black lace, the knowledge she wasn’t wearing panties and she’d still be slick from his release that made it nearly impossible to be the gentleman he claimed to be.

Bobby was finally his.

No more hiding.

No more pretending he wasn’t in love.

Now he’d pray she was strong enough to stay once she learned the truth.

6

“Nine-point-five,” I declared and set my fork down.

Jonny’s eyes hit my empty plate and he smiled.

“Nine-point-five? You licked the plate clean.”

I had not licked it clean, I had some manners after all. Not that I’d learned proper table etiquette back home in Kentucky. My daddy and brother weren’t real big on decorum, civility, or politeness. Dinnertime around the Layne table was a free-for-all. That was if a meal was put on the table. Most of the time EJ and I were left to scrounge together whatever we could find. Daddy also wasn’t big on being a father. Like my mother, Elmer made it clear his children weren’t going to stop him from being the man he wanted to be—which was a low-class, common criminal. He didn’t even have it in him to be big-time. Not Elmer, he was too lazy for that.

My life growing up was so stereotypical it was sad. A hillbilly from the backwoods, living in a rundown house, complete with a rickety porch with a swing and a still not far from the house. The smell of fermenting corn mash was so familiar I could sniff it out the way most people could smell a KFC from miles away.

“Babe?” Jonny called, pulling me from thoughts of a childhood full of nothing that was worth a damn.

“I didn’t lick my plate clean,” I told him. “And I’m deducting half a point because you put pants on.”

Not that his pants had been off. Nope, not his, just mine.

“Where’d you go?”

I was not prone to games. Despite what Miss Lola said, I hadn’t ever played them with Jonny and I wouldn’t start. That didn’t mean I wasn’t up for a little evasive maneuvering when I