Sally: Autumn Storms (F&L Story #4)

Sally: Part 24

Part 24

He found her, slumped on the sofa in the living room, guzzling the bottle of wine he bought earlier. She had her eyes closed and a wet tissue in her hand. The anger he felt earlier – all damn day – abated as he took in the sight of her. It seemed she’d been crying for a while. Her eyelids were puffy and the tip of her nose, shiny and red.

After he left her earlier, he wondered around for a while before deciding to saddle up Casanova and ride out to the river. He found a ledge where the ground jutted out over the water, and he perched there for hours, staring across the expanse of the flowing river.

She had no right! None!

Yet, she did it anyway. Linc was his problem. Yes, he failed to call him all week, but not because he didn’t want to or was afraid to. He’d been basking in the strange, new emotions he felt for Sally. Then she went and betrayed him this way. Honestly, what she did hurt him more than when Linc declared him dead in his family’s eyes. She promised she would never hurt him. She promised!

And yet, like everybody else he trusted in his life, she let him down. Except he still loved her. She meant well – he knew that, but it pained him nonetheless.

A muted sob escaped her lips as she drew another gulp of wine. His heart swelled for her. He’d like to think that her tears wouldn’t affect him – that those female wiles could never influence his actions – yet they did. Hers did.

Macie’s did, too.

Oh, God…he did not want to think about Macie right now. Macie manipulated him – and Linc, too – from the first day he knew her. So sweet and innocent, but a devious tactician underneath. She could turn on the water works on a whelm, and both he and Linc fell over themselves trying to make the world right again. Maybe that was why he never fully fell in love with her. Not seeing as she and Linc were engaged, but Wilson saw her for what she really was, and yet, he’d been too blind to realize it. He wasn’t as impervious as he wanted to believe. Perhaps that was the true reason he had yet to call Linc, because he knew his brother would try to talk him into coming home, and he didn’t think he had it in him to say no.

He’d dial Linc’s number right now if he didn’t have more important matters to attend to. Namely that “officious” woman sitting across the room from him. Wilson smiled to himself. Officious. Yeah, she was that. A bothersome, exhausting pest that burrowed her way into his heart and latched on without mercy. But she had to know when to keep herself in check…to control her impulses…to stay out of other people’s business, even his.

It was time she learned a lesson she won’t ever forget.

He unbuckled his belt and cleared it from the loops of his jeans with a single, fluid jerk. Sally’s eyes flew open and bolted first to his face, then to the strip of leather in his hands.

“Wil?...what are you…”

“Hush,” he ordered and stalked over to her. She scrambled to her feet, dropping the wine bottle to the floor, red liquid spilling in a pool that soaked under the braided rug. He tapped the belt along his thigh, towering over her with a stern stance. They faced each other for a long time, until Sally began to fidget and turn red in her cheeks.

“Wil?”

“When was the last time you had a spanking, Sally?”

Her eyes widened to twin round orbs, and then immediately narrowed as she glared at him. “Don’t you dare—“

He clamped a hand on her shoulder and tugged her into his chest. “I said hush,” he whispered and kissed her into silence.

He’d never been gentler, more tender and loving with a woman. In the time it took for him to finish that one kiss, she was swaying in his embrace, making these adorable mewing sounds in her throat and hanging onto him for dear life. His hands drifted up to cradle her face, releasing his belt to fall and join the wine on the rug. She tasted intoxicating, like the Merlot she drank, and her heady scent filled his lungs with longing.