With her legs spread wide, knees bent, he devoured the swollen folds below, licking over them as his fingers eased along the narrow valley below the entrance to her vagina.

His fingertips found her rear entrance, pressing against it, entering as his mouth covered her clit.

Not enough.

Her head tossed, her hips arching forward to create the needed friction. Each push against his lips pushed his finger deeper past her anal entrance. When she was begging for it another finger joined the first and penetrated the tight ring of muscles.

Using the natural lubrication spilling from her vagina he was pumping his fingers inside her, fucking her rear with the same deep, bold thrusts he’d used when pushing inside her pussy.

His lips tightened on her clit, suckling it deep, harder. His tongue flicked at it, rubbed against it, then pressed …

“Oh God…” Like a trigger. His tongue pressed at the side of the swollen bud, rubbed and flicked and sent shocking, fiery explosions tearing through her.

Her muscles tightened, locked in place as his fingers moved along the incredible, nerve-laden ring tightening around them. Brilliant white light infused her senses and sent her hurtling into a release that had her sobbing his name.

Waves of ecstasy battered at her senses as she shuddered in his hold. Her body jerked, trembled until the aftershocks eased to a few little ripples racing up her spine.

And it wasn’t enough.

She whimpered as her vagina clenched and flexed. The additional hunger almost torturous to her now oversensitized body.

“This is the part I like.” Jazz’s voice was guttural and rough. “Every time you come it’s like your pussy gets tighter. It’s going to be so tight, baby, that the pleasure and pain will…”

The head of his cock moved into place, pressing against her then thrusting. Just as quickly he withdrew, only to push in again.

Three hard, agonizingly escalating thrusts and she was coming around the shuttling length of his cock as he buried it to the hilt inside her.

She was screaming his name as she felt her wrists release. Coming over her, Jazz gripped her hip and began moving against her. Even as her release rained around the head of his cock he was driving her higher, pushing her into a supernova she could feel reaching out for her.

“That’s it, baby,” he groaned at her ear. “Move with me just like that, Kenni … Ah hell yeah. Fuck me back, Kenni.”

She couldn’t control the arch of her hips. Jazz was thrusting into her fast and hard, pistoning strokes that ignited a torturous flame … It built. It seared her with pleasure, then when it exploded destroyed her with ecstasy, with a pleasure that drove her far beyond any previous concept of ecstasy.

Above her, Jazz called her name, his voice tight, strangled as the feel of his release throbbing inside her extended the rapture lashing at her, burning through her senses until she collapsed against the bed.

Boneless.

Exhausted.

She made a mental note though:

Never dare Jazz sexually again.

Not ever.

“I love you, honey-girl,” he whispered drowsily. “With all my soul.”

Okay, maybe she’d dare him occasionally.

EPILOGUE

Six weeks later

The funeral was a travesty. A joke Grace found little amusement in. But she was ordered to be there. Despite her objections, despite her arguments, still, she sat there beneath the summer sky at the edge of the Maddox family cemetery and kept her mouth shut as her mother was buried.

Lucia Maddox, widow of Benjamin Maddox, second wife to his brother Vincent Maddox, sister to Vincent’s first wife, Sierra Maddox. Betrayer. Traitor. Murderer.

Her fists clenched in her lap, her nails biting into her palms at the knowledge of what Lucia had been and what she had ultimately gotten away with. She hadn’t paid for her crimes. She hadn’t suffered for what she’d done or served time without freedom for the crimes and the pain she’d inflicted on the Maddox family. Grace couldn’t say she’d hurt those who loved her, because honestly, those who really knew her, hadn’t loved her.

She’d played the poor unloved wife for nine years. Poor little Lucia Maddox, the townspeople whispered. She’d married her sister’s husband only to suffer with the knowledge that he’d only married her because she’d so resembled the woman he had loved. Then there were those who said Vincent and Lucia had been sleeping together long before Sierra’s death. Grace knew better than that, just as she’d suspected it was Lucia who had begun the rumor.

What she hadn’t known was that her mother had murdered her only sister and nearly murdered her niece, Kendra “Kenni” Maddox. For ten years Kenni had been on the run, often attacked by cousins she’d been raised with, men sent to kill her by Lucia and their demented belief that they could overthrow the Maddox family as commanders and overseers of the Kin. Lucia and the men following her, the men she’d whored herself to, had actually believed they could fool the Maddox men so effectively. Her uncle Vincent, his sons Cord, Deacon, and Sawyer, his nephews, loyal Maddox men and commanders of the mountain fighters known as Kin.

She’d destroyed so many lives—for what? Some demented belief that the Maddox family held stores of gold and top-secret government information?

Grace wanted to laugh at the thought.

She wanted to laugh as the reverend spoke so solemnly, so kindly of a woman who had fooled him as she had fooled so many others. She wanted to stand up and tell them all what fools they were. But how could she, because she had been the greatest fool of all. She’d loved her mother, despite her cold nature, her criticisms, and subtle cruelties. That was still her mother, until the day Kenni had returned to her home. Until Grace had stood outside the living room and heard her mother furiously admit to killing her sister. And she’d seen the pictures one of her mother’s hit men had turned over to Jazz Lancing and his brothers. There were pictures and videos, reports of jobs and the low-level, weaker members of the Kin who had followed her.

Six weeks she’d kept the knowledge to herself that she’d gone through the information her uncle had thought was hidden on his computer now. Six weeks.

That day Lucia had been taken from the house by several government agents. Four days ago, her body had been returned, a report of an auto accident that killed her accompanying it.

Auto accident, her ass.

She had no proof, but she had no doubt that whoever had taken her back to DC had executed her. Knowledge of the Kin, of what they did, what they were a part of, couldn’t be allowed to be revealed during a trial. She knew that. She’d known that when Lucia was taken away.

Heads bowed as the reverend solemnly recited prayers and asked that Lucia’s soul be held in God’s heart and everlasting light. Grace glared at the coffin. She remembered sitting there ten years before, sobbing, destroyed at the loss of a beloved aunt and cousin. Aunt Sierra and her cousin Kenni had been such an integral part of Grace’s life that at times she’d felt as though she’d lost her mother instead.

God knew Lucia hadn’t been much of a mother.

Finally, the prayers were finished, mourners dismissed, and it was over. The coffin would be lowered once everyone had left, dirt heaped on top of it, and Lucia Maddox’s legacy would be buried with her. She would no longer torment, torture, or attempt to kill those who trusted her, those who would have loved her.

All that was left now was the fallout, and that fallout had once again destroyed her daughter. Lucia had ensured that the only dream Grace had held in her heart for so long was ripped apart.

“Grace, come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home.” Uncle Vinny laid his hand on her shoulder, pulling her from her musings as everyone began to drift away.