It’s hours later by the time I’m done with her. “Done” being, well, not the best word to use there. “Temporarily through with claiming every inch of her body and making her come until she can hardly stand or breathe” might be a better way of putting it.

We’re in our old living room, on the old couch, curled up in front of the fireplace the way we used to be. There’s no Netflix movie we’ve seen a million times playing now though. No distractions. Tonight, it’s just her and I.

“So…”

Leanna arches a brow at me, looking both adorable and entirely fuckable curled up on the couch facing me with her legs tucked under her. The cute look on her face and the curled-up pose is the adorable part. The fact that she’s just wearing my dress shirt and that with her legs like that, I’m completely distracted by the fact that I can see a little peek of her pussy and one nipple is the fuckable part.

I growl and move towards her, but she giggles, pushing me back and wagging a finger in my face.

“Uh-uh, hang on cowboy. I want answers first.”

“First?”

She grins. “Hands off until you tell me about that helicopter and this suit you’re wearing.”

I growl, a grin of my own spreading over my face. “This feels like extortion.”

She just shrugs, biting her lip as she smiles at me in that way that has my heart beating out of my chest. She sticks her tongue out at me playfully as she opens the shirt quickly, giving me a full flash of her nudity before yanking it back closed and giggling.

“Maybe. But too bad.”

I chuckle, shaking my head before I sit back against the couch in just the pair of boxers I’m in.

“It was your lawyer that called me, back when I was still on the rig. We’d missed a few days talking with me being on the night schedule and you trying to lock down those interviews. And after four days, that’s when I got the call.”

Her mouth purses shut, and there’s a fire in her eyes. “You know that wasn’t my lawyer, right?”

I smile. “Well, yeah. Now I do.”

“How…” she shakes her head, looking away as a tear rolls down her cheek. “You really thought I’d just leave you? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Leanna,” I growl, my jaw clenching. “I called. I called a million times, and it never went through. Eventually, I figured out that your number had blocked mine. My emails bounced back too. There was nothing. I called that lawyer another million times too, but I got nothing out of him. Just that you were filing for divorce and there was another guy. A week later, I got the papers in the mail. I called the guy back and told him I refused to sign them, and a week after that, I got new ones with the finalized divorce, pushed through by a judge in my absence and ‘failure to comply.’”

I growl, shaking my head.

“I know now that those papers, both sets, were bullshit.”

Leanna wipes at her eyes, and I groan as I pull her close, hugging her to my chest.

“You thought I’d leave you?” I say quietly.

“It was from your email!” She moans, shaking her head. “And your phone blocked mine, or something. I called and called, and it wouldn’t go through. Same with emails or texts or anything. I even wrote you real letters, and they came back returned. Eventually, my dad even had pictures of the two of you.”

I flinch like I’ve been hit, the snarl curling on my lips.

“Pictures?”

“You and this cute brunette girl in a bikini, on a beach somewhere. Taken by a private eye or something that my dad hired.”

“There’s no girl, angel,” I mutter. “No beach, no bikini. It’s bullshit. Probably photoshopped. The divorce papers were bullshit too. One of your father’s assistants who’d just been fired called me two days ago and told me everything.”

She swears under her breath, holding me close. “I—I can’t believe he…” she shakes her head.

Her father, Philip. The man never liked me. Actually, “not liking me” would have been an improvement. No, I was trash to him. Working class. A roughneck piece of shit that had no business going anywhere near his daughter, much less marrying her. He made that clear as day, constantly. I knew it was at least part of the reason he got me the job on the rig through his company. But I also saw the potential for real money there, to be able to give his daughter the life she deserved.

But this is too far. He fucked with our lives. He tried to destroy our love and our happiness. And for that, he’s going to pay, that I can promise.

But later. For now, again, it’s just her and I, reconnecting. Remembering.

We hold each other for another few minutes, fingers just stroking skin.

“So, the helicopter?”

I chuckle. “O’Neil Enterprises?” A proud grin spreads over my face. “That, angel, is what happens when you divorce me.”

She chokes out a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“When you left—”

“I didn’t—”

“Okay, when I thought you’d left me, there was a rage and this fire in me I’d never known. I could have turned to drinking or drugs, or women, but none of that ever appealed to me. Instead, I turned to business.”

I tell her how I quit the rig the week after I got the papers, and how a few of the guys I’d been working with quit with me. I told her about the bank loan I had no business getting, and how I used it to fund my first minerals survey. That first survey, miraculously, paid out, and when me and my fledgling, four employee business sold the rights to a big mining company for a huge profit, we just went from there.

Turns out, this roughneck laborer had a latent talent for business. And all the training I got on the rig with some of the old-timer drillers and surveyors taught me everything I needed to know. And I got real good at what we did. In the last year, we’ve just kept rolling profit into new surveys, new people, and new tech, and at the moment, O’Neil Enterprises is the leading mineral and resource deposit surveying firm in the world.

“So, that’s where the helicopter and that suit you were wearing very well came from.”

When I’m done, I sit back, pleased with myself. Leanna blinks, her jaw dropped and this warm red glow on her face. It takes me a second to realize it’s admiration.

“Holy. Shit. Baby!” She grins, jumping into my arms. “Are you kidding me?”

I smile. “Nope.”

She kisses me fiercely before suddenly stopping and pulling away. “Look, you do know that I don’t need any of that stuff, right? That I’d have the happiest life in the world being broke here with you in this house?”

“I do know that.”

And I do. But this was for both of us. I knew Leanna was good with nothing. But there was no stopping that fire inside of me—the blaze that pushed me to go higher and dream bigger. I built this new life for me—for us—to prove that I could.

“Angel, we can stay right here. We can live in this house and be happy and just screw and watch movies all day.”

“Um, yes please?”

I laugh, pulling her close. “Say the word, and I’m retired.”

I watch her think about it for a second before she shakes her head. “No. This company of yours… you built something huge, Brooks. With your bare hands. And that’s important. And I wouldn’t want you to quit that for me, just like I know you’d never ask me to quit my career.”

I shake my head, kissing her softly before I frown. “Well, wait, does that douchebag from the restaurant work with you?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes.”

“Forget what I said. You need to quit.”

She laughs, knowing I’m kidding, just like I know that tool-bag never was competition for me. Leanna cuddles into me, snuggling against my chest as the fire in the fireplace crackles and snaps.

“Wait, so, just so I know… I mean, you’re buying private helicopters and all.” She bites her lip as she turns to look up at me. “Just how much is this company bringing in for you?”

“For us, you mean?”

She blushes, nodding. I lean in and whisper in her ear, and when the string of sailor-swears tumbles from her lips as she whirls and jumps into my lap, I just laugh and hold her tight.

Yeah, it’s a fuckload of zeroes.

She giggles, throwing her arms around me and peppering my face with kisses. “I can’t believe you built this by yourself!”

“I had some help, a few guys quit the rig with me and—”

“I saw the name O’Neil on that helicopter, baby,” she purrs, arching a brow as her lips curl into a smile. “That says it all.”

I grin, allowing myself the smugness as she wraps her body around my waist and settles on my lap.

“And I am very proud to call myself Mrs. O’Neil, you know,” she purrs into my ear.

I suddenly realize my dress shirt has slipped open, and I can feel the hardness of her nipples and softness of her breasts dragging over my chest. There’s a heat between her legs that I can feel against my thickening cock through my boxers, and when my hands suddenly grab her ass, she gasps before she hungrily kisses me.

“You got your helicopter questions answered,” I growl.

She whimpers. “Guess that means you’d like something in return? Isn’t that how extortion works?”

“Something like that,” I growl, shoving my boxers down and letting my thick, fully erect and rock-hard cock press hotly against her slippery pussy. “But I think I’ve got everything I need or want right here.”

I raise her up, and when she sinks down, my thickness easing into her impossibly tight, velvety cunt, the moan of pleasure from her lips melts into my ears.