The bar is packed with people holding drinks and looking toward the stage where Jen and Camille wait, both looking nervous as hell. Jen holds her glossy black guitar like a lifeline, and Camille is gripping the microphone stand like she’s trying to choke it to death. Her eyes find me in the crowd and I smile, raising my glass of bourbon toward her and winking.

The lights dim and Jen strums her guitar, hushing the crowd.

Camille bites her lip, eyes searching the faces watching her, and then she squeezes them shut, humming out the first note of the song. It starts slow, and she rasps a few quiet, controlled verses into the microphone as Jen strums out a slow tune.

The song Jen plays gets louder and faster, faltering for a beat before breaking into a more full, rich sound. At the same moment, Camille belts out one of the most pure vocal notes I’ve ever heard, giving me chills and probably everyone else in the crowd. There’s a brief delay and then everyone claps and starts to whoop.

Camille’s eyes open slightly and she smiles as she sings now, carrying through the rest of the song with even more power than before.

When she drags out the last note, the crowd erupts in applause and cheering. Jen and Camille beam from ear to ear and continue their set with more confidence than before, looking like they are enjoying themselves now instead of fearing for their lives.

I look to Selene, Tanner, and Murph, who stand beside me clapping along. Selene looks like a proud mother, Tanner is busier watching Selene than anything else, and Murph just looks constipated.

“You okay, Murph?” I ask him.

He looks over to me, face strained. “I’m good. Just tacos.”

“Nice,” I say dryly.

“Taco Tuesday, man. I’d have to be an animal to pass that up.”

Camille

Dean leads me in through the back of a brick building in the middle of town. The door we step through is heavy and it slams behind us, closing us off from almost every last shred of light. I feel around for a light switch, but Dean takes my hand in his. He’s almost fully healed now that the shootout is weeks behind us, and he has been acting suspicious all week about this surprise.

“Was the surprise that you’re going to murder me?” I joke.

His deep voice comes to me in the near pitch black building we’re now inside. I can hardly even see my hand in front of my own face. “There are two parts to the surprise. Part one is that I got clearance from the doctors to ‘engage in sexual activity’ again.”

A pulsing heat spreads between my legs when I follow his not-so-subtle implication. “And the second surprise?” I breathe.

“No need to rush now,” he says. “You’re going to have to trust me. Take two steps back and sit down.”

“Dean,” I say, laughing. “I can’t see anything. I’ll fall on my ass.”

“Trust me,” he says.

I sigh, doing as he says, and I’m a little surprised when something hard catches my fall before I collapse to the ground. “This is so disorienting,” I say.

“Good. That’ll make it more fun.”

“Make what more fun?” I ask.

The only response I get is the sound of his zipper. “You don’t need light to get undressed, do you?”

“No,” I say, grinning into the darkness and reaching to strip out of my dress.

“Did I tell you to undress yet?” he asks.

“How did you even know? And--”

He shushes me with a finger to my lips. “You’re mine right now. You probably couldn’t even find your way out of here if you tried, could you?”

I look to my right in the vague direction I remember the door being in, but realize he might be right. I really am trapped in here with him, not that being trapped in the dark with Dean Sharp is an altogether terrible thing.

“If I’m yours, like you say, what do you plan to do with me?”

“Use you,” he says breathily in my ear. “I’m going to use that perfect body of yours the way it was meant to be used. And you’re going to let me do things my way.”

“Is that right?” I ask, heart thudding.

Instead of responding, he reaches to the hem of my dress, somehow finding it in the near blackness of the room, and lifts it over my head roughly. I expect him to fumble for the clasp on my bra, but he instead grips between my breasts with both hands and pulls away, snapping the front of the bra in half and letting the tatters fall off me to the unseen surface I’m sitting on.

I shiver. To be in the dark like this, to be handled so brutally is scary, but in a strange, thrilling way that has my whole body on alert, nerves tingling and core throbbing with need. I reach for him but he slaps my hand away.

“Naughty kitten,” he says teasingly. “As I say, when I say, remember?”

I lean back, glaring through the dark at him. “How did you even see my hand?”

Again, he doesn’t answer me. Instead, he pushes me back, gently enough not to hurt, but hard enough to startle me. I’m lying down, knees bent over the edge of whatever he’s got me on while the rest of my body is flat. I know what to expect this time and don’t even flinch when he grips my black cotton panties and tears them away in a single pull.

His breathing is heavy--passionate--and his hands are hungry. His wide palms roam my bare skin, lingering when he wishes to and gliding near my mound but never across it. He’s teasing me, ramping up my desire for him until I can hardly take it.

His lips find mine now and he kisses me deeply, fingers spearing my hair and pulling me into the kiss closer and harder like he’s drowning and I’m the only thing in the world that can save him. The intensity of the need I feel both from him and toward him is almost too much. There’s so much pent up sexual tension between us it feels like the sparks should be bathing the entire room in a red, fiery glow, but when I open my eyes I see only darkness and the barest hint of his shape on top of me, moving as he tortures me with touches full of promise.

“Take off my clothes,” he says. “But,” he says quickly when I sit up and reach for his suit jacket. “You only have ten seconds. Anything you can’t get off in ten seconds stays on.”

“That’s not fair!” I say. “You had as long as--”

“Begin.”

I leap to my feet, pushing him back slightly in my haste to get after his clothes. If I should feel embarrassed for how badly I want to get him completely naked, I don’t have time. I strip his jacket first, and don’t bother with his buttons. Instead, I grip the inside flap of his dress shirt and yank it open, sending a shower of buttons clinking to the ground. I try to rip it free, but it catches at his neck where I realize his tie is still tight. I fumble with the tie, loosening it just enough to get the shirt free, even though I lose a precious second yanking the sleeves over his powerful biceps where they get stuck.

My hands blur down to his belt, which I rip free in a fraction of a second. I hook my thumbs in the waistband of his pants and under the elastic of his briefs and kneel, taking the pants down with me. I manage to get them to his ankles before he stops me.

“Time. Not bad,” he says. “Everything but pants around my ankles, a tie, and shoes.”

I greedily reach for his chest, wanting to feel the smooth muscle and the ridges of his abs below. He grips my wrists, walking me backward and easing me down into position again, not letting me have the fun I want yet.

“You’re so bossy,” I say.

He growls, actually growls and flips me over so my ass is in the air.

“Oh god,” I gasp.

“You’re starting to make me wish I had the lights on.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“No. It’d ruin the second surprise.”

He grips me by the hips, pulling me toward him until I feel the warm head of his cock pressing against my entrance. I’m so wet for him that he slides in effortlessly, stretching the walls of my core as he works in thick inch after thick inch, filling me with his length until it feels like it can’t possibly go any further, but it does.

“God,” he groans. “You’re so tight.”

“And you’re so big,” I say breathlessly.

He pumps himself into me, leaning over and kissing a hot path up my back, around my neck, and to the bottom of my ear, where he tugs at my earlobe with his teeth before soothing away the sting with the warmth of his lips.

I reach back to grip his firm legs and this time he doesn’t stop me. I feel him responding to my touch as I lean to the side so I can reach more of him, gripping the hard muscles of his leg as they flex and relax with each thrust. I can’t quite reach his ass, but I make a valiant effort of it and manage to wrap my fingers around most of it, loving the way it tenses every time he plows into me.

I can’t reach everything I want to touch, but I try, at least until he pins me down by my back, smooshing my face to the box with how forcefully he’s fucking me now. He ruts into me like an animal with no restraint, gripping me tight and slamming his hips against mine so that his skin slaps loudly against my ass.

I’m moaning now, even though I don’t think I’ve ever been this noisy in bed before in my life. The sounds escape my lungs unbidden, and I don’t try to stop them, even if I could. He’s groaning now too in rhythm with his thrusts, the sounds of his pleasure intensifying every time he pumps himself into me. I slide my hand down my stomach, reaching beneath myself to grip his base and feel his body slamming against me. I gasp with pleasure, knowing I’m close, that my climax is only moments away.

I stretch to reach farther down until I can cup his balls, and the way he responds to me nearly pushes me over the edge. He gasps, slamming his cock harder into me than he did before, nearly knocking me over with the force of it. I feel his balls tense at my touch, pulling up toward his body even as his cock pulses and fills me with the warmth of his cum. My orgasm comes at the same time like an explosion of white heat, ripping through every fiber of my being and filling my mind with blinding light until nothing matters, nothing at all matters except where his skin meets mine--where our bodies touch and our hearts connect.

Some time later, he pulls out of me, and I instantly miss the closeness of having him inside me. I know it’s not the last time we’ll make love--no, fuck. It’s not the last time by a long shot. My heart rate spikes when I think about the warm flood of his cum filling me and what it means that we are both willing to take that step. There isn’t a single part of me that regrets it. I didn’t realize how much I actually meant it when I asked him to cum inside me that first time, but I did. I want him in every way imaginable. I never want to be without him and Jen. I want everything with them.

“So,” I say, when I’ve finally caught my breath and I lay languidly, knees bent over the edge of the box again, breasts heaving. “What’s the second surprise?”

I hear him stand and slip on his pants. I take that as my cue to throw my dress back on, even though my underwear is shredded somewhere on the floor, I can at least give myself that dignity. Then again, I feel his cum starting to drip down the inside of my thigh as I stand, and I’m almost ashamed to admit how much it turns me on. Almost.

Light floods the room, and I have to squint at first against the sudden brightness. I take in a hundred small details at once--the music notes painted on the walls, the show room full of instruments gleaming like they are brand-new, the back hallway with small rooms that look exactly the right size to be rooms for music lessons, and the letters above the register that read “Cammy’s Corner”.

“This…” I stammer, covering my mouth. “This is for me?” I ask.

“All of it,” he says. “It’s paid off so you can just focus on the lessons. This is your dream, Cammy. Make it what it you want it to be. You want financial help, just ask. If that ruins the fun, then I’ll keep my nose out of it. It’s completely yours. However you want to handle it.”

“Dean,” I say, still gawking at everything. “No one has ever done something like this for me.” My voice is thick, and my mind goes to all the times in the past that I’ve been passed over or unappreciated--the forgotten birthdays, the canceled plans, the rude comments. All my life I’ve been conditioned to believe that was my stock, it was just what my life was like. Now this. This is the kind of thing I read about happening to people or watch in movies. It’s not the kind of thing that happens to someone like me. “I don’t deserve this, Dean. I can’t.” My hands shake over my mouth and I fight against the tears and fail.

“You deserve every fucking brick, Camille. You deserve the world, and if you want it, I’ll give it to you.”

“I just want you and Jen,” I say, rushing toward him and hugging him tightly, letting him wrap his powerful arms around me and letting him breathe his protective energy into me, making me feel so secure and safe I know no one will ever touch me again if I don’t want it. “This surprise might have topped the first one,” I say, laughing.

“This wasn’t even the second surprise,” he says, pulling back and smirking. “That’s waiting for you in the office.” He grabs what remains of his shirt and throws it on as we head to the back.

“The office?” I ask, following him as he leads me toward a door behind the register. He pulls it open and takes me down a short hallway before opening a large wooden door.

I do a double take when I see Jen sitting on top of the large, granite desk strumming a peaceful, almost romantic tune on her guitar and grinning at us. Murph, Tanner, and Selene are in the room too, all dressed to impress and smiling at us too.

“What’s going on?” I ask, smiling even though I have no clue what is happening.

When I turn to face Dean, he’s on one knee, looking up at me with those forest green eyes I could get lost in for hours. “Will you marry me?”

The question paralyses me, making my mouth and legs numb, making me unable to speak. I look quickly to Murph and Tanner, who I thought were still in the dark about the whole fake engagement thing. This can’t be real. I must’ve fallen asleep and dreamed this all up to escape from my shitty life, because there’s no way this is all happening. Not for real.

“I told them last night,” says Dean.

“So everyone knows?” I ask.

“I’m kind of waiting for an answer here, Camille,” he says.

I look down, seeing the ring in his hand for the first time. It’s gorgeous. It’s an oval diamond almost as big as my knuckle, and the band is made of three, delicately intertwined strips of silver. “I do,” I say, then I laugh, covering my mouth. “I mean yes. Yes, of course.”

Dean flashes me a half smile as he slides the engagement ring over my finger and stands to kiss me. I notice Selene nudging Tanner aggressively from the corner of my eye, but Tanner is just glaring at his brother, likely wondering what kind of expectations Dean just set for Selene.

Jen starts to strum something more upbeat, something almost playful enough to dance to.

Dean quirks an eyebrow, leaning forward and reaching to take my hand. “Care to dance?” he asks, and then he leans even closer, lowering his voice to a whisper only I can hear. “Kitten.”

The pet name makes my skin tingle. He has only called me that in the bedroom before now, and hearing it in front of so many people feels dirty in all the right ways. “I’m a terrible dancer,” I say.

“Me too.”

It turns out Dean’s idea of terrible is far from the truth. Either that, or the way I can’t seem to take my eyes from his face as he laughs and moves with me blinds me to everything else. It should probably be awkward to dance while everyone watches, but everyone here feels like family now. Come to think of it, after the wedding, almost everyone will be. Although when I look at the way Selene and Tanner are dancing together, I’m not so sure Selene won’t end up being my sister-in-law, too.

Three months later

* * *

Barry Conway stabs at something gray and shapeless with a plastic fork. He looks around him for the thousandth time, trying to come to terms with how a man with so much could have fallen so far. Men in police uniforms with batons patrol the edges of the cafeteria, and Barry is just one of hundreds of inmates, all wearing the same orange jumpers.

He recalls how women used to look at him when they saw him get out of one of his expensive cars. They used to try to discreetly check their makeup and sometimes they would fight over who got to approach him.

He had it all, didn’t he?

No. Not everything. He never had the company. Dean Sharp made sure of that. Had he known Dean would be both the means to his fortune and the cause of his undoing, he would’ve put a bullet in the man’s head when they first met all those years ago.

When Dean’s lawyers presented the case and shared the recorded conversation, there was little that could be done. Forty years without parole, and for Barry, it might as well be life. Hell, he’s already forty-five, and the idea of living out forty years in this depressing, mind-numbing shithole is too much.

Dean won, didn’t he? But why should that be a surprise. Dean won at everything.

* * *

Pictures of a little girl with blonde hair and an angelic face line the shelves in a ranch-style suburban home. Of the nearly forty pictures displaying the little girl, only one also shows a slightly older girl who looks similar enough to related. The man and woman sitting at the long dining table scrape knives and forks across their plates, eating their meals without enthusiasm.

“Camille called the other day,” says the man.

“Fred,” says the woman with a tone of exasperation. “We’ve talked about this.”

“No, Janice. You’ve talked about this.”

She sets her fork and knife down, glaring across the table at her husband. “I don’t want to talk about Camille. Frankly, I don’t give a shit what she said.”

“Janice. Maybe it’s time we take a step back and look at ourselves here. Think of how we’ve treated her.”

“Is that why she called? She wants an apology?” asks the woman.

“No. She apologized to us. She wanted us to know she understood how we felt, but that she wasn’t going to be coming to see us again. Not ever.”

“Good riddance,” says the woman, but her eyes move uncertainly across the table.

“Really?” asks the man. “Is this what we wanted, Janice? One of our daughters lost her life, and what did we do?”

“We did what any parent would do. We protected her memory.”

“By pushing away our daughter who was still alive?” asks Fred. “Did we ever stop to think what Vanessa would’ve wanted?” Fred’s voice falters and he slams his fist down on the table. “She loved Camille. She loved her so fucking much, and we ostracized Camille. We did the last thing Vanessa would’ve wanted out of our own weakness, and we hid behind the idea that we were protecting her memory.”

“That’s not true,” says Janice quietly.

“It’s probably the only true thing I’ve said in years. And I’m ashamed of myself for letting it go this long.”

Janice’s lip quivers. She looks off toward the ceiling as if searching for the words she wants. “Did she say anything else?”

“She said she wasn’t coming to see us, but that we could come see her, if we ever changed our mind about things.”

A tear slips down Janice’s cheek, landing on her half-eaten steak. “Maybe we could have handled things differently. But I don’t know…”

“I want to go see her. I want to see her new life. I want to apologize,” says Fred.

Janice watches him for a long time before nodding her head and looking toward the solitary picture in the house of both Vanessa and Camille.

* * *

Tanner Sharp sits in a hollowed out cargo plane beside Selene, who holds tightly onto him even though her parachute is fastened to the ceiling of the plane for safety. The bay doors are wide open and air rushes through the plane, making it almost impossible to hear anything but the wind in their ears.

Selene looks at Tanner, who has a habit of asking her on extravagant dates like this where they do incredible things and have the times of their lives. The only problem is she keeps thinking they are a set up for the proposal of a lifetime, so she finds herself waiting and watching for the moment he will finally propose, but it still hasn’t come.

After dozens of let downs, she has finally decided to just enjoy the moment for once and stop obsessing about the ring. If he loves her like he says, he’ll realize sooner or later he should make a move.

So when Tanner gets down on one knee and holds out the ring, it takes Selene a few seconds to realize what she’s looking at.

“Is that…” she says, but her words are drowned out by the roar of wind.

Tanner’s mouth moves and he’s grinning, but Selene can’t make out the words. All she knows is she’s not about to jump out of this plane--she isn’t sure she was ever going to be able to do that. She may be a little on the crazy side, but jumping out of a plane was pushing it for her. Tanner promised she’d want to do it once she got up here, but she doubted it, especially now.

She reaches for the ring, but he pulls back, grinning in a way she has come to fear. He hooks a little string through the ring, ties it off, and then she realizes the string is attached to a tiny backpack--no, a tiny parachute.

He moves to the open bay door, holding the ring and the tiny backpack out. Selene tries to run to stop him but he yanks a small cord and sends the backpack out into the open sky. The parachute deploys and the ring starts its slow descent toward the ground. Tanner is nearly knocked to his feet by the small woman who explodes out of the plane, speeding toward the ring without a moment’s hesitation.

* * *

The door to a small music shop on one of the busiest streets of the city dings. A woman and her little girl walk inside. The little girl has dark red hair and freckles spotting the bridge of her nose. She hums melodically while her mom leads her to the back of the shop. Dean Sharp stands behind the counter, flashing a smile and nodding his head as they pass.

He looks to be in his mid thirties with deep, green eyes like a forest just before sunset. They are arresting eyes, and were it not for the sharp jawline and masculine features of his face, they would be the only thing most people noticed. But the mom notices all of it, including the way his collared shirt hugs the lean and toned body beneath.

“Hi Mr. Dean,” says the little girl to the man.

“Hey there, May. Did you practice this time?” he asks.

“On the car ride over,” admits the mom.

He laughs. It’s a good laugh. A laugh that makes the woman think Mr. Dean must be a very happy man, and why shouldn’t he be? She imagines women must line up for him, at least they would, if he wasn’t happily engaged to Camille.

The pair passes the racks of guitars and heads to the back of the shop where the lessons are held. Camille comes out of her office and absolutely beams when she sees the little girl.

“Miss Camille!” cries the little girl, rushing forward to hug Camille.

Camille’s blonde hair falls around her shoulders in springy locks. Her smile is radiant and her skin has a rosy, youthful glow to it as she kneels down to hug May. “I heard you haven’t been a good practicer again,” scolds Camille, but her tone is playful.

“I’ll practice next week,” promises the little girl.

“Camille,” says the mother, “Is that a baby bump I see?”

Camille places a hand on her lower stomach, making it clear how her normally flat belly curves out slightly. She waggles her eyebrows playfully. “That’s exactly what you see.”