Seventh Circle

Hixon

“COME AROUND,” HIX rumbled.

“Mm,” Greta mumbled to his back before she took a nip of the flesh at his lat.

His hips pulsed into her hand.

“Come around,” he growled.

She slid her lips up to the side of his neck, pressing her tits in his back, and bossed, “Keep your hands to the headboard, Hixon.”

“Greta,” he warned, fucking her fist that she kept wrapped tight around his cock, her other hand cupping and squeezing his balls, the whole of her pressed to his back, her lips on his neck—it was too hot, he couldn’t take more.

“This feel illegal?” she asked.

No.

It felt phenomenal.

Fuck it.

He took his hands from where they were, curled around his headboard where he’d promised to keep them, and twisted, his movement making her lose hold and throwing her back.

He caught her at the waist, hauled her around to his front, then up. His other hand going to his dick, he pulled her down, the head of his cock slid through her wet as she wound her legs around his hips, and he found her.

He surged up as he yanked her down and her head flew back with her, “Yes.”

He walked on his knees until he had her back tight to the headboard and then he hammered her.

“This feel illegal, gum drop?” he asked.

“Yes, baby,” she gasped.

“Tit, Greta,” he ordered.

She took a hand from clenching his ass to put it to her breast and lift it to him. He kept pounding inside her as he bowed his back and sucked it hard into his mouth.

She jolted in his arms, he felt that jolt in his cock and not because her pussy spasmed around it, and she started shifting her hips to meet his thrusts.

He circled her nipple and muttered, “Other one,” against it.

She exchanged hands, one now in his hair, one to her other breast, and lifted it for him.

He took it with his mouth.

She ground into his drives.

“Baby,” she whimpered.

He let her nipple go, quickly slid his middle finger between his lips and out, wetting it. He then put his lips to hers and kept hold of her with one arm, the other hand he slid down her spine, over her ass, through the cleft, and he dug that middle finger up her ass to the second knuckle.

That did it.

“Hixon,” she breathed, bucked, cried out, and her pussy throbbed around him.

Her reaction took him over the edge and he drilled her against the headboard, shoving his finger all the way in at the back only to hear her moan and feel her legs wrap tighter around him as he exploded, thankfully now able to do it ungloved since she’d got her ass on the Pill, shooting deep inside.

Hix came down with his face in her neck, sliding his finger gently out but keeping her planted on his dick.

“No fair,” she muttered hazily into the skin of his neck.

“No fair?” he asked, grinning into the skin of hers.

“You hadn’t won the bed wrestling match of the millennium part two to earn your right to take my ass.”

He lifted his head, looked down at her beautiful, sated face and asked an unnecessary question, “You didn’t like it?”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t bother to answer his unnecessary question.

He pressed her into the headboard, tightening his hold on her with his arms, getting her complete attention.

“That wasn’t taking your ass, sweetheart. That wasn’t even fingering your ass. That was staking a future claim when I win our bed wrestling match of millennium part two.”

“I’m totally buying lube,” she declared.

“Good idea.” He grinned at her.

Her eyes narrowed. “For you.”

He busted out laughing.

“I’m so gonna win, Hix.”

“Right,” he snickered through his continuing laughter.

“You’ll see.”

He did his best to sober, was shit at it, so was still chuckling when he said, “You’re right. We’ll definitely see.”

“I should have spanked you when I had your hands to the headboard,” she snapped.

He put his mouth to hers and held her eyes, “Now we’re totally havin’ our rematch ’cause that’s a good idea, and you got a great ass, baby, but it’ll be pretty, takin’ my cock, all pink.”

Her eyes got big right before she nipped his lip and did it hard.

He took her mouth.

She smacked his ass.

He pulled her off his cock, tossed her to her belly on the bed and covered her, shoving both hands beneath her, each going separate directions, all this while burying his face in her neck.

And from there, Hix commenced proving to his woman he could still go all night.

They both had work the next day.

They both dragged their asses all day that next day.

And they both thought it was totally worth it.

“Okay, I got the stocking stuffer candy and the stocking stuffers are all bagged in different bags to make it easy to stuff them tomorrow night after the kids go to sleep, but they’re not wrapped. Andy wants to help me do that. We’ll do it tomorrow while the kids are with Hope at Jep and Marie’s. But I got the tissue paper. Christmas plaid for Shaw, snowflakes for Corinne, candy canes for Mamie. I already wrapped Andy’s in star paper. Your paper, I’m not gonna say, you’ll see on the day, but that’s also done,” Greta prattled.

Hix was sitting at a stool at his kitchen island (Corinne, Mamie and Greta had chosen his new stools, Shaw, Andy and Hix had approved them, but it was Hix who bought them) watching his woman pace around the island.

She had a pen in one hand and a huge legal pad in her other that she was flipping through, back and forth, in what Hix would suspect Santa would do with his list if he used a pad and not a huge-ass scroll.

“Babe—” he tried to cut in to find a gentle way to tell her he didn’t give a shit what kind of tissue paper his kids’ stocking stuffers were wrapped in and they should also get a move on because the sun was setting and they needed to go get her brother.

“Nuts in their shells, check. Always have to have nuts with shells so you can use the nutcracker,” she declared. “We’re having Coke-glazed ham.” She opened the fridge. “Ham in fridge, check. Two-liter of Coke, check. Four more two-liters of Coke for you, Shaw and Andy. Check. Diet for us girls, check. Hash brown casserole.” She closed the fridge and opened the freezer. “Hash browns, check.” She shuffled to the pantry, tapping the end of her pen to the pad as she called it down. “Cookie stuff. Check. Roll mix. Check. Stuff to make Chex mix. Check.”

“Sweetheart—”

Still tapping her pad with each “check,” she went on like she hadn’t heard him, which she probably hadn’t. “Crackers. Check. Chips. Check.” Back across the room to the fridge she opened. “Deli meat. Check. Blocks of cheese for crackers. Check. Cheese slices for sandwiches. Check. Grated cheese. Check. Makings for cheese ball. Check. Philadelphia cheese. Check. Three types of bread—”

Christ.

There was more cheese in his house than all of Wisconsin.

“Greta,” he pushed out through laughter.

She whirled on him and abruptly changed subjects. “Where’s Mamie’s barre?”

“Like I told you three times, Tommy’s bringing it over Christmas morning, early. He’s gonna put it up when he gets here. If we’re still asleep, he’s got a key.”

“We won’t be asleep. It’s the law you don’t get up past five o’clock Christmas day. Will he be able to get here before five?” she asked.

“I know the law pretty well, baby, and I’m not sure that’s the law,” he told her through a smile he knew was immense because it was hurting his face.

“It’s a Christmas law, smokey, and only Santa gets to be sheriff of that.”

That was when his gut hurt from stopping himself from busting out laughing.

“Can Tommy show at, say, four?” she requested.

“Tommy’s a forty-three-year-old, never-married, single guy who took a single’s cruise last Christmas, and by his report, nailed four broads during this cruise. Do you think a man like that is gettin’ up at three-thirty in the morning to drag a ballet barre across town and install it in his friend’s basement?”

“It’s Christmas, so yes,” she sniffed.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up on that, gum drop,” he warned.

“I wouldn’t call women broads again, Hixon,” she returned. “I’d take you to task for that but I’m in a Christmas mood.”

Hix could say for definite he hadn’t missed her Christmas mood.

“I didn’t think bitches was the way to go,” he teased, and she assumed a severe expression.

“You were right,” she shared.

“Or pieces of ass,” he went on.

“You’re right about that too.”

“Or asses he tapped,” he kept at her.

“Hix . . . the barre,” she pushed.

“He’ll get here when he gets here, but he said early and the man owns a farm. His early will be early.”

“If it isn’t early-early, she’ll hear the drill, Hix.”

“You can’t muffle a drill, Greta.”

Suddenly, she threw up her hand with the pen, her other hand with the pad, and declared loudly, “There has to be a big Christmas surprise! Corinne only wanted clothes, hair stuff and makeup, nothing big enough to make a huge to-do over, except her new phone, which we agreed with Hope that she could give her. Shaw wanted videogames and money, so ditto with the to-do. Andy never gives a crap what anyone gives him because he’s too excited for them to open what he got them. Your Christmas surprise is gonna be a Boxing Day surprise after the kids and Andy are gone because I don’t think I’ll be able to be quiet after you do what you do to me when you see me in it. Mamie’s barre is our only surprise!”

Hix wasn’t feeling amused anymore.

“Let’s go back to my Boxing Day surprise,” he suggested in a growl.

He had no clue what Boxing Day even was.

He still wanted to know about his surprise.

She looked smug, a look he felt tighten in his crotch.

She also sounded smug when she announced, “We’ll just say Santa has a variety of little helpers and you’re gonna be glad one of them is sleeping in your bedroom.”

“Sneak peek now,” he decreed.

She shook her head. “We have to go get Andy.”

“He can wait an hour . . . or two.”

“He always comes to me Christmas Eve’s Eve, Hix. Homemade pizza and viewings of Lethal Weapon to start the festivities. It’s tradition. And it’s getting late. So if we’re missing something, we have to drop by the store on the way home with Andy.”

“Babe—”

She interrupted him. “We need to make sure we have everything. The Christmas feeding orgy starts tonight and I’m not going to the grocery store if we’re missing something after we get home and you aren’t either.”

And thank Christ for that since she’d sent him on four runs the last three days to prepare.

He opened his mouth to say something, whatever that had to be to get him a sneak peek of whatever his present was going to be, when the doorbell rang.

He got off the stool, ordering, “I’ll get that. You get your ass upstairs and get in my surprise.”

She shook her head. “Not gonna happen, darlin’.”

So it was lingerie.

Please, Christ, make it a teddy.

She had three teddies. He’d seen them all. He liked them all. Enough he wanted another one.

He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. “Thirty minutes.”

“Oh no,” she said softly, her eyes flaring. “That would be an impossibility.”

Fuck.

She smiled a wicked smile. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The doorbell rang again.

So Hix muttered, “You knew exactly what you were doin’.” And he heard her equally wicked chuckle as he stalked to the door.

The lead glass panes in the door obscured who was behind it except for the fact whoever it was had big hair.

Hix didn’t have a good feeling about that.

His feeling was correct when he opened the door and saw Tawnee Dare standing on his porch.

She didn’t waste any time.

“I wanna see my daughter.”

Shit, he had her, they hadn’t yet served her, and he didn’t have the papers.

All his deputies had volunteered to find her in order to serve her but it was Donna who won that job in an epic scissors-paper-rock battle that took fifteen minutes.

This meant Donna had the papers.

Shit.

Before he could think of what to say, she kept speaking.

“I know she probably doesn’t wanna see me but it’s Christmas and I wanna see my boy.”

Probably?

“We’re not doin’ this,” he told her, beginning to close the door at the same time scanning his street, his hand going to his back pocket to get his phone.

“No!” she shouted, and his eyes sliced back to her as she opened the storm, stepped in it and put a hand up to press on his door.

“Stand back, Ms. Dare,” he warned.

“I get it. She’s done with me. But I wanna see my boy.”

“Take your hand off my door, Ms. Dare, and remove yourself from my property.”

“I got him a present. It’s in the car. I wanna see him. I wanna give it to him.”

“Do you honestly think she gives one shit what you want?” he asked and went on, “And trust me, your boy wants nothing from you either. Since birth, Greta’s given him everything he’s needed, you didn’t damage his brain so much he doesn’t understands that, so he won’t give a shit he gets anything from you now.”

He couldn’t credit the wince his words got him, but before she could say anything or he could push the door closed, her eyes went over his shoulder.

“Greta. Greta, girl, I’m not here to cause problems,” she said quickly. “I just wanna see Andy.”

“Greta, move outta sight,” Hix demanded. “Call Donna, tell her Ms. Dare is here and tell her, she leaves before Donna gets here, the woman is driving a late model, blue Honda Accord. Colorado plates. Plates that are expired.”

Tawnee’s eyes shot to him. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

He didn’t answer her.

He ordered, “Step back, Ms. Dare.”

“Okay, just let me give you his present and I . . . I . . .” Her eyes went over his shoulder again. “I got something for you too, girl.”

“I’ll say it once more, step back,” Hix clipped.

Greta obviously wasn’t doing as he asked because Tawnee kept her attention over his shoulder and something came over her face. Something strange. Impossible to achieve. Pugilistic but defeated. Entreating yet stubborn. Sad but hopeful.

“I know you’re done,” she said quietly, all those things in her tone too. “You haven’t unblocked me, they haven’t put me back on the visitor list. But I got nothin’, Greta. Kavanagh ousted me. Got nothin’ and it’s Christmas. Not askin’ for much. Just to give you and Andy a little somethin’.” She tried an unpracticed smile. “And you love Christmas. Always did.”

“You’re wrong. I hated it,” Greta said coldly. “Until Andy was two and he could grasp a little bit what it meant.”

Tawnee’s face fell but she pushed, “Just let me drop your presents. You can give Andy’s to him.”

“Though,” Greta went on like Tawnee hadn’t spoken, “only way I could give him anything was to steal from you. But it’s miraculous how a three-dollar, beat-up teddy bear from the Salvation Army can light up a two-year-old kid.”

“I knew that was you,” her mother muttered.

“Yep, didn’t remember to buy us presents but you sure missed that three dollars from your purse,” Greta returned.

“It wasn’t just one year you did that, Greta,” Tawnee fired back. “And I never said shit. Did I? I never got in your face about stealin’ from me so you could give Andy a Christmas.”

“Are you serious?” Greta whispered.

Hix had the same question.

He just didn’t give a fuck about the bitch’s answer.

“This isn’t gonna happen,” Hix growled, pushing on the door, and Tawnee’s boots actually slid his welcome mat (Greta and the girls got it online so he didn’t have to buy that) across the porch as she put her weight into keeping it open.

“I wanna . . . I wanna explain. I wanna . . . I want you to understand why,” she stated urgently.

“Greta, call Donna,” Hix ordered.

“No, honey. I wanna know,” Greta said.

He looked over his shoulder at her.

Her eyes were pinned on her mother but she kept talking to him.

“She wants to explain, I wanna hear it.”

“Right, sweetheart, but I don’t want this woman in my house,” he shared honestly.

She looked to him and nodded. “I get that. So I’ll get my jacket.” Her attention returned to her mom. “Stand out there, I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Greta, it’s cold and—” Tawnee began.

“Mom, do that or spend Christmas in one of Hix’s cells. You’re trespassing. You have another arrest for that in this county. You also have a record. And you have a protection order as granted by a judge that you haven’t yet been served, but he knows you’ve been stalking me and taking pictures. And we’ll just say, you haven’t made a friend of local law enforcement. Stand on the porch. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Greta’s mom looked shocked. “A protection order?”

“You can’t follow anyone around and take photos of them with malicious intent, Mom. You did that. When you’re served, if you continue to do anything to harm me in any way you can, it’ll be handled as a felony.”

The woman’s face paled.

“You wanna explain, I’ll give you time,” Greta granted. “You have this. Then it’s over. No more chances. No more time. No more anything. If you don’t leave me and Andy alone, I’ll take it as far as I have to take it to make certain that you do.”

Tawnee’s hand came off the door so fast, the pressure Hix was putting on it meant it closed right in her face.

He didn’t think of that.

He turned to Greta to watch her moving quickly toward the kitchen to get to her coat in the mudroom.

“Baby,” he called after her, his hand at his back pocket to get out his phone as he followed her.

“I wasn’t kidding, she gets this, then it’s over,” Greta said, not looking back at him.

“Not sure this is a good idea,” he told her.

“There’s half a chance I’ll get back out there and she’ll be gone,” Greta replied, hitting the mudroom and grabbing her coat.

Time to call Donna.

This he did at the same time he grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on, following her.

Donna answered, he gave her the details and he was doing this as he saw Tawnee hadn’t left.

Greta moved out. Hix moved out after her.

“Gotta go now,” Hix said into his phone.

“Be there in ten, max, Hix,” Donna replied, reading the urgency in his tone.

“Right,” he muttered and hung up.

Tawnee had her gaze to him.

“Reckon I’m about to be served, right, Sheriff?” she asked snidely.

“Is that more important at this juncture than speaking to your daughter?” Hix returned.

She glared at him then looked to Greta.

“You got me, Mom. Last chance, after thirty-eight years, to finally give me the answers for why you broke Andy, why you broke Keith and me, why you tried to break Hix and me, eventually broke Keith and never faltered in your quest to do just that to me.”

“If I could take back what happened to Andy, I would,” Greta’s mother said softly.

“Well, that makes you about one-sixteenth of a decent person, but nothing happened to Andy except you. You happened to Andy,” Greta told her. “You did that to him so the appropriate words are, ‘if I could take back what I did to Andy, I would.’”

The soft disappeared.

“I paid for that, girl,” she hissed.

Greta shook her head and turned to Hix who was standing just outside the closed door, murmuring, “This is meaningless.”

He began to move to open the door for her but Tawnee cried, “No! Don’t! I don’t got nothin’, girl. I don’t got nothin’. ’Cept the two of you.”

Greta gave her mother her attention. “Now give me one reason, one even infinitesimal reason that would make me feel you earned me giving that first crap.”

She swayed forward like she was going to move toward Greta, and Hix coming forward to stand close to Greta’s back wasn’t what stopped her.

She stopped herself, her gaze never leaving her daughter.

“I’m your momma.”

“You are. And?” Greta prompted.

Tawnee shook her head. Fast, short, little shakes like she was trying to pry something loose to keep a hold on a daughter she’d never actually had.

“I was supposed to have a different life,” she said. “Not be knocked up at seventeen and thrown out on my ass by your grandparents.”

“Were you raped?” Greta asked unemotionally.

“No,” Tawnee snapped.

“So you had consensual, unprotected sex with someone, decided not to abort the baby, but instead, do your best to make the whole of her life a misery,” Greta deduced.

“Look at me,” Tawnee exclaimed, suddenly angry, lifting a hand, finger pointed to her face. “The life I led wasn’t the life meant for me. I was supposed to have more. Be a model. Be a movie star. Be a singer, like you. You got that from me too, Greta. I got chops. Choir director at school said I had more talent than any student he’d seen. I coulda gone the distance. Maybe found a man who’d look after me, the real way, hold me close and not let me go. Then I got you and all my chances were shot to shit.”

“So because you were attractive, you were supposed to live the big life, not work for it, not earn it, not find a way to be happy with whatever you worked for or earned, but what? Be handed it because you aren’t hard on the eyes? Then when I came along and ruined that, I had to pay for the fact you’re literally criminally conceited?”

“It’s hard to bounce back from your dreams dyin’,” Tawnee bit out.

“Sorry. I wouldn’t know about dreams, Mom. The way I grew up, I knew from early never to have any,” Greta retorted.

At hearing that knowledge, Hix couldn’t beat back his snarl.

“Well, it’s hard,” Tawnee shot back.

“You had fourteen years before Andy came along to accomplish that,” Greta noted.

“And Andy was supposed to do that,” Tawnee spat.

“Yeah? How?” Greta asked.

“His daddy was loaded. His daddy also wouldn’t leave his fuckin’ wife to make an honest woman outta me.”

“Andy’s father is wealthy?” Greta whispered, and Hix put a hand to her hip as he felt a different energy coming from her.

“Don’t get excited like I did, girl,” Tawnee advised, now sounding world-weary. “He was. He was also twenty-seven years older than me. And now he’s very dead and he gave half his money to that cow he called a wife, and since the bitch couldn’t give him kids, when I could, he gave the other half to some museum or somethin’ so you won’t get blood from that stone. Believe me, I tried.”

“Did he . . . did he want something to do with Andy?” Greta asked.

“He wasn’t gettin’ his shot at havin’ a son without puttin’ a ring on it, Greta. God, did I never teach you nothin’?”

Hix didn’t snarl at that.

He stared at the woman in shock.

“So he did,” Greta whispered.

“In the end, I told him Andy wasn’t his. Asshole believed that fast enough.”

“What, after you did that, did his wife want DNA and you couldn’t assure he was the daddy?” Greta asked.

Now the woman was offended. “You take me for a slut, girl?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus,” Tawnee hissed. “No. ’Cause lawyers like to get paid even before the big payout actually happens, least the good ones do. The other kind are shit and can’t get nothin’ done.”

“So you actually harassed this poor woman whose husband you slept with in order to take his money, harassing her after the fact in order to take another shot at getting her husband’s money?”

“Didn’t work,” Tawnee muttered.

“You do know, Mom, that this isn’t making me feel real good about standing out in the cold listening to your crap.”

“I was tryin’ to do right by you both,” Tawnee retorted.

“That wasn’t the way to go about it,” Greta informed her.

“It was the only way I knew how,” Tawnee snapped.

Greta let that ludicrousness go and asked, “And my father?”

“Your father what?” Tawnee asked back.

“This is the first I’ve ever heard about Andy’s dad. So what about my dad? Who was he? Did you know him? Should I know him?”

“He was a waste of space,” Tawnee answered. “A punk ass gettin’ his rocks off with an underage girl, and when that had consequences, he scraped me off. I was seventeen, Greta. He was twenty-two. I needed help. He didn’t have a lot but he coulda helped me. He wanted nothin’ to do with you and the fifteen thousand times I asked him to help after I had you, he still wanted nothin’ to do with you. Eventually got himself a wife. Made himself a family. I even showed at their place with you standin’ at my side, holding my hand, and that bitch shut the door in our faces. So fuck him. And fuck her. Because never, not once, did he show, askin’ after his girl. He knew where I was. Where you were. And he didn’t give a single shit. I’d even see their asses out in Denver and he’d look right through me. You were with me, he didn’t even look at you.”

Greta had no response to that, she just turned her head away and Hix pressed closer to her back.

“Greta, girl.” Tawnee leaned in and his woman looked back to her mother. “I got nothin’. I got some clothes. That car. Kicked out of my mobile home. Sold all my shit I can sell and I got three hundred and twenty-two bucks in my purse and that’s it. That won’t even get me back to Denver.”

“So you’re here to give Andy and me presents and ask for gas money,” Greta guessed.

“I’m here to see my boy, and yes,” she bit off the last word, “my girl for Christmas.”

“Mom, although you’ve never used this tactic, I’ll warn you now, pretending to be nice won’t work.”

Tawnee’s voice was rising. “You broke my life.”

“You broke your own life,” Greta shot back.

“Then I broke his!” Tawnee screeched.

Greta went still.

Hix went still.

Tawnee stood before them, panting.

“Do you have any clue . . . any clue . . . ?” Greta’s mother’s head jerked to the side, her hands came up in fists, her head jerked back, and she whispered, “He was so beautiful.”

“Yes he was,” Greta whispered back. “He still is.”

“I would . . . I would . . . Sometimes I’d look at the two of you and think God got it wrong. God wouldn’t saddle me with that. God wouldn’t give me the ability to make somethin’ that beautiful and then weigh me down with it. The biggest diamond in the world could be the size of a boulder and you might want it, but you couldn’t wear it on your finger ’cause you couldn’t do nothin’ but that seein’ as it was weighin’ you down.”

“So we were nothing but a weight,” Greta said quietly.

“You had babies, you’d get me,” Tawnee replied.

“I did have a baby, Mom, and the only time in my life growing up with you I felt light was when I was with Andy.”

Hix got closer to her and slid his hand to her belly.

“You took him,” Tawnee accused. “You took him and made him yours. You two were so close, even if I tried, I couldn’t get in. It was like I wasn’t even there. Put a roof over your heads, food in your bellies, and both ’a you acted like I was a piece of furniture.”

“It’s odd to know right now that you felt the same as you made us feel,” Greta remarked coolly.

“You aren’t gettin’ me. You took my life then you took my boy,” Tawnee stated.

“You gave me life, Mom, and it was your responsibility to do everything in your power to make it a good one.”

“You never went hungry, you had clothes on your backs and where’s the thanks for that?” Tawnee sneered.

“That isn’t even half of it,” Greta retorted. “If you watched me with Andy like you said you did, you’d know.”

“By then, it was too late. You two had each other and I was the outsider in my own home and there was no turnin’ back.”

“How can you know? You didn’t even try,” Greta pointed out.

Tawnee’s focus became acute. “And if I’d tried, would it have made a difference?”

“We’ll never know since you didn’t,” Greta responded. “You did something entirely different. Do you even have a clue how much pain you’ve caused?”

“What happened to Andy was an accident,” Tawnee spat.

“What happened to Andy was an avoidable accident,” Greta returned.

“You don’t think I live with that every day?” Tawnee asked. “You don’t think that doesn’t eat away at me? You don’t think that’s why it was tough to get up the nerve to go see him, because goin’ to see him meant seein’ right in front of my face what happened to him?”

“You know, no,” Greta told her. “Until right now, the way you’ve behaved my whole life, Mom, that never occurred to me. But you’re standing here talking to me. You’re standing here trying to explain to me. We both know what you did to Andy was hideous and tragic. What I want to know is why you felt the need to torture me.”

“You coulda been somethin’ too,” Tawnee fired at her. “You coulda used the looks I gave you, that voice I gave you to go places. You didn’t. But you did manage to hook yourself a man who was rollin’ in it. And what? Every time I came to you for help, you acted like I was a huge pain in your ass. And he was worse. He treated me like a snake in the grass. You ever been treated like that, Greta, you’d know. You’d get it. You’d get pissed about it. So if you think I should feel bad for playin’ with that asshole, you’re wrong. You say your momma didn’t give you dick, but I did, you just never paid attention. But I taught you that too, girl. People treat you like shit, you don’t let that lie. You treat ’em like shit right back and you do it ten times better.”

“I think you might just be crazy,” Greta whispered.

Tawnee studied her daughter a beat before she said, “You don’t understand me.”

“No, I don’t,” Greta confirmed.

“You’ll never understand me,” Tawnee stated.

“No, I won’t,” Greta agreed.

“You don’t want my present,” Tawnee went on.

“No, I don’t,” Greta repeated.

“Andy won’t want his either.”

“No, he won’t.”

“So we know. We know what I always knew. I’m standin’ here in front of you, tryin’, and you’re throwin’ it in my face,” she kept at Greta.

Greta didn’t flinch or hesitate.

“Yes, I am.”

Tawnee’s focus intensified on her daughter’s face and her shoulders straightened before she decreed, “You also don’t understand I made you what you are. All you are, Greta. From your looks right down to your grit. I gave you all ’a that, girl.”

“You’re forced through the seven circles of hell, you get to the other side, you don’t turn and thank the seven circles of hell for making you pull up the fortitude to endure. You take hold of what you earned after you got free and you get as far away from them as you can. Unfortunately, my seven circles live and breathe and can drive a car, so they keep following me.”

“Well, that’ll be done now, Greta,” Tawnee spat.

“Finally, something from you that I actually want.”

Tawnee’s head jerked, her mane of fake, golden curls jerking with it.

Before either of them could say more, Hix cut in.

He did it because it was time.

He also did it because Donna’s Ram had parked at the curb and she was out, making her way up his walk.

“I think this has run its course,” he stated. “Now, Ms. Dare, you’re about to be served. If you break the protection order you’re about to receive, I’ll charge you with criminal harassment and I’ll talk with our prosecutor to see you serve time. The maximum is five years. The good part of that is, it won’t matter you only have three hundred and twenty-two dollars since your accommodation will be courtesy of the state. The bad part of that is, your accommodation will be courtesy of the state.”

Donna had arrived while he spoke and she lifted up the envelope with the order in it that Tawnee automatically accepted when he stopped.

“This protection order lasts fourteen days,” Hix continued. “The minute it expires, we’ll be requesting a permanent one from the judge. I can’t speak for him, but he’s not been feeling beneficent these days, especially about the fact that people keep fucking with Greta. So my guess is, he’ll grant it. You can’t be within one hundred yards of her. If you are, I’ll do everything I can to put you in prison. If you harass Andy, we’ll get a protection order for him too. And after your scene at Sunnydown, the photos the judge saw that you took of Greta, the effort you clearly put into that, and the statement he read from Greta’s ex-husband as to how you used those, I doubt Judge Bereford will deny that request. So my suggestion is, get out of Glossop, get out of McCook and don’t come back.”

Slowly, Tawnee’s gaze went from studying the envelope to Hix.

Then it went to Greta.

Hix waited. He felt Greta waiting. Donna didn’t know what was happening but she also waited.

He didn’t know what he expected. He didn’t expect much. The woman was what she was. She was also a mother.

So he expected something.

Greta probably expected nothing.

And that was what she got when Tawnee turned to his steps, walked down them, right to her car. She got in, slammed the door, started it up, pulled out into the street and drove away.

She didn’t even say goodbye.

“Okay, that woman is, well . . . that woman,” Donna started after the silence of Tawnee’s departure stretched long. “But I’m not feelin’ even a low hum of Christmas spirit on this porch. What’d she do now?”

“She gave me the only thing of value she’s ever given me,” Greta answered.

Donna looked to his woman. “What’s that?”

“She left,” Greta answered, pulled from his hold, walked around him and into his house.

Hix looked to the door she closed behind her and then to his friend.

“It wasn’t even half as much fun to serve her as I thought it would be,” she quipped worriedly, watching him closely.

“Thanks for comin’ out, Donna.”

“Think you best get in there and look after your woman, Hixon,” she replied quietly.

He nodded.

She turned to leave.

He went into his house.

Greta was standing in the doorway to the kitchen pulling the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

“I have my coat on, might as well go get Andy,” she announced. “If we missed anything, I’ll go get it. Andy likes going to the store.”

“Just a minute,” he replied, moved to her and got in her space, putting his hands to either side of her neck and bowing his back so he could set his face in hers. “You okay?”

“Yep.”

“That was rough,” he noted.

“No it wasn’t. It’s just her.”

Carefully, he reminded her, “Can’t believe it, we never talked about it, but it’s clear that’s the first time she spoke to you about your dad.”

“I don’t have a dad, Hixon. Just a swimming bunch of cells that came out of some random guy I never met and never want to meet. It isn’t a loss, darlin’. Honestly. You can’t lose something you’ve never had.”

“Babe—”

“It’s done. To rejoice would give her time and emotion, which she doesn’t deserve. To be sad or angry would be the same. She clearly kept the trump of knowledge of our fathers close at hand, ready to use when she needed it, but that backfired because they gave us less than even she did, which is saying something. They gave up on us so easily, it’s clearly no loss.” Her shoulders shrugged. “And now, it’s over. I suppose when you finally swat the annoying fly that’s been bugging you for hours, you take a moment to feel the satisfaction of it being gone. Then you get on with shit. I’m getting on with shit. It’s Christmas Eve’s Eve. I’m gonna go get my baby brother.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said gently.

She made a move to pull from his hold but he pressed his thumbs under her jaw and she halted.

“I love you,” he told her.

“I love you too. And I love my brother. And we got it down to a tag-team art to make hella-good homemade pizza. So get a move on, smokey.”

He examined her face and saw she’d gotten over it after what her mother did to her ex.

She wasn’t in a place where Tawnee Dare could harm her anymore. The fact that Tawnee Dare wouldn’t be physically in a location she could try to harm her was irrelevant.

Greta had made it through the seventh circle.

And now she was free.

“We have another Christmas surprise, sugar,” he reminded her.

Her expression turned curious. “We do?”

“Andy’s bedroom.”

She melted into him, her arms finally going around him. “He knows you’re setting that up for him, Hixon.”

“He knows, but it’s now set up and he hasn’t seen it yet.”

She grinned and gave him a squeeze. “You’re right. We do have a surprise. Because he’s gonna love the comforter Mamie and Corinne chose for him.”

That surprised Hix because Andy might have a TBI but he was still very much a guy.

“He will?”

“He won’t care even a little bit, until we tell him Mamie and Corinne picked it. Then he’ll make a big deal out of loving it.”

That, Hix had learned, was undoubtedly true.

Hix had no idea about Greta and Andy’s fathers, he knew too much about their mother, so he figured it was down to that grit Tawnee Dare mentioned that Greta had that made her brother fall not far from his sister’s tree.

He dug his fingers into her neck gently and said, “Let’s go get your brother.”

She blinded him with a smile and replied, “Yeah, let’s go get Andy.”

He kissed her. He walked her out to his Bronco.

And even if she didn’t want to rejoice, that bitch was gone, so he did.

Thus as a celebration, for the first time in his life with his ass in his Bronc, he let someone else drive her.

And he was in no doubt Greta was the one.

But how much she loved driving his baby proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“I was close.”

“Mm,” he mumbled, sliding a hand over the curve of her ass.

The scary thing was, she had been.

Close to winning.

Then again, he’d been dazzled by his Boxing Day present, a skintight, red lace teddy with fluffy, white feather trim at hips and chest, little straps over the shoulders, crisscross ribbons between her tits and even a thin, red-velvet belt with a tiny rhinestone buckle.

Watching her walk into his bedroom wearing that, he hadn’t even paid attention when she tossed a tube of lube on the bed.

His attention didn’t come back seeing as she tossed it then crawled to him in that getup with her tits almost hanging out and he had to devote his attention to all of that.

So she’d laid down the gauntlet for their rematch, immediately got the upper hand and it took a while for her to lose it.

This was why they were both covered in a sheen of sweat, on their stomachs, flat out across his bed, and he’d just slid out of her ass after making her come taking it then coming himself really fucking hard giving it.

She was hot up there. Unbelievably tight. And she’d gone wild with his hands on her, his mouth on her, drilling her into the bed with his cock up her ass.

It was Hix’s best Christmas present ever, bar none.

Starting with the teddy.

He slid two fingers through her crevice and held her there, murmuring, “You good?”

She turned her head on her arms, her mass of curls shifting with it, and gave him her big, blue eyes.

“You up for a bath?”

He grinned at the look on her face that gave him his answer as well as her question. “Yup.”

She grinned back and he slid his hand up and over, smoothing it on her hip.

“After a recovery bath, loser gives winner a colossal blowjob,” he informed her.

She frowned even if her eyes flared. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“Winner gets to say the deal after he wins.”

She started pouting. “You’re a terrible sport, Hix.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s not how you lose that tells the tale, it’s the class you show when you win,” she educated him.

He leaned in and kissed her shoulder, saying there, “Maybe you can show me that if you win someday.”

“It’s good I love you,” she groused.

He lifted his lips from her shoulder, looked her dead in the eye, and there was no teasing in his voice when he said, “I know.”

The pique went out of her face and her eyes got bright. “Don’t make me cry.”

He shifted so he could pull her slightly under his body, but keep his place on his stomach and put his face in hers.

“I’ll never make you cry,” he vowed.

“Happy tears,” she told him.

“Never,” he whispered, moved in and touched his mouth to hers.

Hers opened so he took the touch into a full-blown kiss.

When he pulled away, she didn’t look like she was going to cry anymore.

There.

All better.

“Did you like your present, baby?” she whispered.

“Are you in doubt, baby?” he whispered back.

“No.”

He touched his nose to hers and held her gaze.

“Hated hearin’ you never had a dream, sweetheart,” he shared gently.

She tightened. “Hix, don’t bring her—”

“But I figure,” he cut her off, “when you’re a walking, talking, singing dream come true, you don’t get it the other way around.”

Her eyes got bright again. “Shit, totally gonna cry.”

He grinned again and moved his hand to cup her ass and give it a squeeze. “None of that.”

“Boss,” she muttered, pulling it together.

“I’ll run the bath,” he murmured in return.

“I’ll lounge here and let you run the bath.”

He pulled back an inch, thinking how hard she’d come.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he ordered.

Her brows shot together in insult. “Would I fall asleep?”

“Not with the promise of sucking me off on our agenda.”

“You like that more than me, Hixon.”

“Considering you’ll be sittin’ on my face doin’ it, I’m not sure that’s true.”

That got him another eye flare.

“Bath,” she ordered.

“Boss,” he muttered, kissed her nose and moved out of the bed.

He ran their bath. He made it nice and hot.

Then he walked out and smiled to himself when Greta let out a surprised scream as he grabbed her ankle, dragged her off the bed and threw her over his shoulder.

“You fell asleep,” he accused, his woman’s ass in the air, her body draped over his shoulder, walking to the bathroom.

“Whatever,” she replied to his back.

They entered the bathroom with Hix still smiling.