“She’s fine,” Hawk said.
And just like that, Von had forgotten that they now had a real man in their lives. He was accustomed to being the one to help his sister. Now she had Hawk. And that was fine by him. “I’ll be up front if she needs me.”
“Okay,” Hawk said. And Von went back up front.
But Hawk was still holding onto Janita until she regained control of her emotions and managed to stop sobbing. Then he helped her to the tub and she stepped in.
But she would not let go of Hawk’s arm. In that moment, she was just too scared to be alone and closed in. Even when she was undressing in her bedroom and Hawk had closed the door, she was scared. She came too close to being closed in for possibly the rest of her life if she was convicted of a crime she didn’t commit. She needed a little more time before closed doors would feel alright to her again.
Hawk understood that by his standards she was an innocent. She wouldn’t believe it, but he knew it. And innocencehad to be protected. He removed all of his clothing too, and got in the tub behind her. When they sat down, she was between his legs with her back to his chest. He held her, for a long time, and then he bathed her.
But he knew both of them needed more. Because his arousal had only gotten harder and the more relaxed she became the more she became aware of that arousal. Which triggered her own arousal.
That was why she turned around, straddled him as she sat on his lap face to face, and kissed him passionately as she allowed him to enter her.
And they made the kind of long, slow-drag of a sweet love that neither one of them had ever experienced. It started out as a stress-reliever to be certain. But it became so much more than that as he kissed her mouth, her breasts, held her ass as he pumped deeper and deeper inside of her. And she held him tighter and tighter and moved her body to his every gyration.
Until they both came together.
They wanted to cry out, but they held it in. Because they weren’t alone in that house.
Her desire, as he continued to pour into her, was that she would never again be alone like she felt in that jail cell.
His desire, as he lifted her ass so that she could continue to ride his rod harder and harder, was that he wouldn’t fumble this powerful ball of a woman ever again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Later that day, after they had driven for hours around town searching for any clues, or any signs of Reecie Webster, they went back to Janita’s house. She and Hawk ended up at her small kitchen table eating a sandwich while Von, who had already eaten, was asleep on the sofa. Hawk looked at the young man and then he looked at Janita. And in that moment, he felt responsible for both of them. And it wasn’t as scary a feeling as it had been before Janita’s liberty was in danger. They needed him. That was a fact. And as he watched her eat, and watched Von sleep, he realized that he needed them maybe even more.
But Janita had something on her mind and Hawk could sense it. “What is it?” he asked her as he sipped from his cup of coffee.
Janita decided to be direct. “Why didn’t you wake me up before you left this morning?”
Hawk exhaled. He decided to come clean. “I needed time to think.”
“About what? Your mother?”
Certainly she was a part of it. “Yes.”
He expected her to go further, but she didn’t. He suspected she knew he was thinking aboutthemeven more.
And that brought Janita to her next question. “You don’t seem as worried about your mother as your father and your siblings do. Why is that?”
Hawk was about to take another sip, but instead he sat his cup down and leaned back. “My mother . . . how do I say this? She always has schemes in her head.”
“Schemes?”
“She always think more than one way. She plots. She plans.”
Janita was confused. “Are you saying that you think she had something to do with her own kidnapping?”
He hesitated. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
Janita was shocked. “But why would she do something like that?”
“I think the fact that one of my father’s out-of-wedlock children will be the first in the family to get married, rather than one of the children of the married wife, did a number on her. I think it’s crystalized for her the depths of my father’s betrayal and the fact that she hasn’t gotten over it like she pretends she has.”
“I never thought she got over it,” said Janita.
