Page 2 of Small Town Beast 2: Saverin’s Duet (Sins of the South)

Her daddy had been Black, her mama one of those Melungeons, the strange olive-skinned folk who kept themselves scarce from all society, preferring to stick to their distant hills.

Lorrie had yellow eyes and a flat nose, with bow-like lips that he often, to his fury, caught other men staring at.

Her beauty was easy to see, but her heart was pure as pearls, something so fucking rare and true it had a heartless sonofabitch like Absalom Green Tree head over his heels.

And still, he’d fucked her over.

Broken her heart.

Lorrie, whom he loved beyond all sense and reason, had been sacrificed for his ambition.

“I had a bad dream last night,” she said, trailing her fingers on the table. “You were falling down a dark hole. It was so cold. I tried to throw you a rope but it slipped from your hands.”

The hair on his neck prickled. “Dreams don’t signify,” he said.

“I know. What are all these papers for? Why do you actually have a desk in here?”

“Just doing some research.”

“For your Masters Degree?” she teased.

A laugh exploded out of him and she chuckled. He’d missed her so fucking much.

“Come here,” he said.

“One sec.” Lorrie scanned an eye over the papers.

There was a file cabinet’s worth scattered on the table.

Some were finely-drawn maps, some were lists of names, places, or coordinates.

Together they all made a complete survey of the town, Absalom’s home and hopefully soon, his kingdom.

Florin County sprawled across four hundred square miles of mountain range: a trove of farmland, old-growth pine, deep rivers and fertile watersheds.

In this slice of Virginia, sixteen thousand people dwelled in uneasy harmony.

Of those thousands, Absalom’s cousins numbered in the hundreds. McCalls, Baileys, Greentrees and Snatch Hills (or Snatchells , depending on the hill) made the four greatest clans. But McCalls had always ruled them all, across all living memory.

Tomorrow would make history for Absalom and the mountain.

My mountain .

Lorrie plucked up a paper from the desk. “What’s this?”

“Leave that,” he said sharply.

With a shrug Lorrie put down the list of dead men and walked over to him. She draped her soft curvy body in his lap, snuggling close.

There was a chill coming up the mountain that night, as if winter had broken through a crack somewhere in the banquet hall of summer.

Absalom didn’t feel the cold much but Lorrie always did.

He rubbed the goosebumps from her arms as she wrapped them around his neck.

Her presence was a comfort; he nosed her neck for that sweet wild-honey smell she kept trapped in her waist-long hair.

He was happy to have her here, yes. But damn it, she should have stayed down the mountain.

Why did she never listen to a word he said?

Lorrie was too free sometimes. One day she might get hurt, traipsing all around the damn place like she used to do when they were younger and she sold that caramel candy.

When he used to get her up under Mrs. Filfeather’s willow tree and kiss her slow and deep like they had all the time on earth.

.. So many things he missed about having Lorrie in Florin.

Put it from your mind , said the voice of cold reason that had never steered Absalom wrong. She doesn’t belong up here and you know it.

But damned if wrong didn’t feel so right sometimes.

“I’m happy to see you again, Abi,” she murmured. “After everything, I still love you.”

“I love you too, Lorraine. I never stopped.” I’m sorry. The words stayed in his throat.

“Thank you for the money you sent.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’d rather see more of you than your money.”

“I’m busy. That’s why I told you to wait for me. You never listen. You got to listen to me sometimes.”

“Abi, I hardly ask you for anything, right?”

“Don’t change the subject. We were talking about you not listening.”

She didn’t reply at first, so Absalom figured she was wrestling with her pride. She smelled like lavender and her hair trailed on his cheek soft as dandelion seeds.

A damned distraction— you ought to be with the men right now getting ready for tomorrow. Put her down and leave.

“How was your first night as Deputy?” Lorrie asked, interrupting the sensible thoughts. “Lord, but I wished I could have seen you in that uniform. Did anybody get shot?”

“You like that morbid stuff. Yeah, there was a shooting. Somebody died. Nobody you know,” he added, before she could ask.

His first night as Sheriff’s Deputy had been interesting indeed.

But it wasn’t for Lorrie to know these things.

That was mountain business, and she didn’t live here anymore and she wasn’t involved in the “hillbilly mafia stuff”, as she called it.

And she damned well never would be as long as he lived and breathed.

“I want to ask you something,” Lorrie said. “Oooo, baby, you’re so tense.”

Absalom groaned as she dug her fingers in his hair. Forgetting his resolve he adjusted her weight in his lap and sucked on the hollow of her neck. He had rocked up the second she climbed up on him. Lorrie knew it, and deliberately rubbed herself where her man was thick and hard.

Her juicy peach, covered by a scrap of cotton and no more, teased him in a bouncing, shivering rhythm.

But.

For all their years of fooling around, he’d never fucked Lorrie. They’d panted and petted and french-kissed, and once she’d even wrapped her hands on his cock and stroked him, but she remained a virgin. Or so she said.

You really believe that? His friend Sam Bailey had asked him once.

Yeah, he did. Because it was Lorrie. One thing about him and Lorrie was that they never lied to each other.

“We could do it tonight,” she whispered in his ear as he slowly kissed her neck. “I’m ready, Abi. I want it. Please .”

Fuck… Each time he held her in his arms, temptation put her silver tongue to his ear and told him what it would be like to give in to his selfish urges, bend Lorrie over... Years of denying himself, denying her—bust a heavy nut inside her— God, inside her…

Stop.

He had principles; temptation might be full of tricks but surely temptation strengthened principle like fire did to steel.

With Lorrie bucking in his lap, he was tempted.

You might die tomorrow . You’d die without feeling her once?

Maybe it was meant to be tonight. In this room.

She came dressed like that– you know why.

Just do her. On the desk. On the bed. Up on that wall.

Wouldn’t she be tight? Wet and slick; tight as her mouth was that time she almost— you made her stop, didn’t you?

Jackass…She’d be tighter than that…She’d do anything for you…

He knew she would let him. Lorrie had never denied him anything. But then, principle. Principle…

Absalom lifted up the light cotton scrap she was wearing over her breasts. His throat went dry but his mouth filled with hot saliva.

Christ, if I don’t have her today, if I die tomorrow…What the hell am I doing? Those tits were proof of divine creation. Overflowing, heavy, golden, thrusting up like torpedoes. Perfect.

Once Absalom heard tell of a whore who could jack a man off between her tits, and he avoided seeing Lorrie for months after that due to the shameful fantasies of her on her knees, flushed and eager to bust his nut.

She hated him for that– for avoiding her, not for the fantasies.

He never told her about any fantasies at all. And there were a good many.

It wasn’t a normal relationship, had never been. What red-blooded southern male would hold back screwing a girl as fine as Lorrie who would give it up for him in a heartbeat? He was a Christian but he wasn’t fucking crazy.

It wasn’t sex he opposed, but thoughtless sex. Sex without regard. If he couldn’t have Lorrie completely then he wouldn’t have her at all. That was the bottom line. Truth. But the more he wrangled his lust the worse it became; not helped by Lorrie’s own sexual frustration.

Absalom now allowed these small transgressions, realizing he would have to compromise or banish Lorrie from his life, which was unthinkable.

Lorrie’s areolas were the size of her two palms, the color of ripe plums contrasting sharply with her honey-toned skin. She covered them shyly. “Last time you said we shouldn’t…”

“Just for a minute.”

“You can have more than that,” she said, and released them.

They fanned out, the tips pointing to his lips.

She hadn’t even worn a bra today. Just for a minute…

one minute won’t hurt… The soft full fruit yielded at first, but then her nipple rudely pushed back on his tongue.

So good. So fucking good… He propped her up against the desk, squeezing the other in his hand as he suckled on the first, as if trying to coax a flow of milk.

Her breasts overflowed even his giant hands.

He wanted drown in them. There were worse ways to die.

So good…so gooood…More, must have more…why not fuck her now?

She was saying something, through her moans, trying to get his attention, tugging his hair…

why not just push aside her underwear and pin her down, he’d only use the tip, keep her a virgin…

unless she wanted the rest, then why not… why wait any longer? Fuck!!!

“Baby,” she pleaded.

“Hold on, darlin’,” he said jaggedly. “I ain’t done.”

He was as hot for Lorrie as he’d been four years ago when they first met.

She was just sixteen then, and he was a fool of eighteen, watching her selling hard lemon candy to the men coming down from the harvest. It felt like yesterday.

Seeing her there in that green flower dress.

Working up the guts to talk to her or even just buy the candy, but he never did.

“Abi!”

“Hold the other one to me like that…Just like that,” he ordered roughly.

“Abi, wait…”