Solid Read online

  A Jettie Woodruff Novella

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  A Cul-de-sac spinoff

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, dead or alive are a figment of my imagination and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s mind's eye and are not to be interpreted as real.

  All rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 Jettie Woodruff

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.

  Chapter One

  Paxton

  Her hand slid into mine as we walked behind the kids. Two girls and one little boy. I don’t think a man could have been more in love than I was. Everything was different, yet the same. Gabriella fought for control on a daily basis, and I loved her for it, but I wasn’t about to hand it over. Not all of it. Nonetheless, she made me a happy man. Happier than I think I had ever been in my life.

  “Vander, stop it. I’m walking here,” Ophelia yelled with a shove right to his arm. An entire beach and they had to fight over the same space.

  “Really, Phi?” Gabriella questioned with a stern tone from a few feet behind.

  “I was here first.”

  I jerked back on Gabriella’s hand, pulling her in the opposite direction while I called for my troops. “Come on, let’s head back.”

  The look in her eyes when she turned back to me was odd, confusion with a blank stare, not at me, but through me. Just like she had done in the kitchen earlier that day, and the day before when she zoned out at breakfast.

  “What’s wrong?” I questioned as I watched all three kids take off in a sprint, racing back up the beach toward the house, Ophelia in the lead by a foot. I had to ask again before she snapped out of it. “Are you remembering something? That’s the second time you’ve zoned out like that today.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then why do you keep doing that?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel, I don’t know. It’s weird.”

  “A memory?”

  “No, not a memory. Just a flash.”

  I turned my attention to Phi, yelling kid-profanity at Vander. Something about smelling like poop, looking like poop, and cheater poop-head. Minivan, cheater poop-head to be exact. I turned back to Gabriella, deciding to let them work that one out on their own. Phi was just like me. She hated to lose and I couldn’t fault her for that. “What kind of flash?”

  “I can’t even pinpoint it, Pax. I don’t know how to explain it. Come on. It’s nothing.”

  I watched her run away in a jog, right to Ophelia, sitting on her butt, arms crossed in a pout. The smile was instant when Gabriella snuck up behind her, screamed, and dug tickling fingers into her ribs. Phi screamed, cackling like a crazy person, her body thrashing from the torturous fingers. My hand slid into my pocket and my fingers wrapped around my magic stone, a feeling of darkness hovering around me. If I had one true wish, it would have been her memory. I didn’t want it to come back, and I would have done anything to keep her from it. This frightened me, scared the hell right out of me. Was she remembering? Was she trying to hide it?

  I worked on a bid for a job in my office while Gabriella sat on the sofa between Rowan and Phi with her tablet, reading some book she was so excited about getting. Vander rocked the ottoman on two legs while he watched television on his belly, and I stared from my computer screen to my family. Mostly Gabriella. She wasn’t really reading. Her eyes didn’t move like they normally did, she never turned the page, and she chewed on her bottom lip. Had I asked her what she had just read, she wouldn’t have been able to tell me. I was sure of that.

  Gabriella shook her head back and forth, and then looked to me. I held her gaze briefly, wondering once again what went through her mind, until she looked away.

  “What do you guys want for a snack?” she asked as she switched off her tablet and stood. I have no idea why she asked that. She knew she would get three different answers and make what she knew they would all like anyway. Van wanted popcorn, Phi wanted a bun, whatever that meant, and Rowan wanted graham crackers with peanut butter.

  With a deep breath, I stood, feeling the apprehension building from a place I couldn’t see. The calm before the storm. I flipped the television off and picked up Gabriella’s tablet when the kids all followed her to the kitchen. Just like I had presumed, Gabriella wasn’t reading at all. The book hadn’t even been downloaded yet, and she was deep in thought, but I didn’t know about what. Every time I asked, she blew it off as nothing. I didn’t feel like it was nothing, but for whatever reason, she wouldn’t admit to it, and there was nothing I could do but wait it out.

  Once I had done my good deed for the day, cleaning up the blocks Vander was told to clean up half an hour before, and the colored pencils Rowan left on the stand, I joined them. My nose followed the sweet scent to the kitchen and my family. The topic was school. Rowan was the excited one. For whatever reason, she loved her new teacher. Mr. Jandt. Mr. J, as she was told to call him. She found him extremely funny, I found him exceptionally immature. I didn’t want some kid who failed as a country music singer, dumbing down my daughter. Of course, Gabriella took her side. She liked him, too, and to keep the fire from burning out of control, I let them win. I’d give the guy a chance, but it wouldn’t take me a half a second to pull her out of his class if I felt the need. I didn’t pay tuition to get a public school teacher. That’s the way I looked at it. That’s the only way that mattered.

  I worried about Gabriella being alone once they were all in school. The reasons may have been different than before, but my thinking behind it was the same. I kept Gabriella busy before because of my own insecure hang-ups. Now I did it in a manipulative manner. Not because I was afraid of her cheating, but because I was afraid of her remembering. For the first time since I had married her, I didn’t worry about her infidelity. Not even a little. Gabriella was so in love with me, and I knew it. I saw it in the way she looked at me, the way she touched me, and the way she gave up control. Not because she was weak, or afraid of me like before, but because she knew it made me happy. I needed her mind to stay busy. That was my main goal, an attempt to keep her from remembering.

  I wrapped my arms around Gabriella and looked over her shoulder while she texted her weirdo friend, Mi. “Do you want to come to work with me after we take the kids to school on Monday?” I asked while all three kids sat at the bar, dipping Vanilla Wafers in warm vanilla pudding before bed. Her shoulder shoved me back and her eyes gave me that look. A quick glance and a frown that I read loud and clear. She didn’t like my idea.

  “No way. I’m meeting Mi for lunch, and then I’m getting groceries. Why would I want to come to your job site?”

  “I do, Uncle Paxton,” Vander announced, one arm going into the air, waving for me to pick him.

  “You’re going to school,” Gabriella assured him with her thumbs on her phone.

  “You can come when I start the Hampton job next week. Maybe Aunt Gabby can drop you off after school.”

  “Me too, Daddy?” Ophelia questioned while giving me her best sad face ever. She didn’t need to do that. I sucked at telling her no, at telling any of them no. That was another thing new that I loved about my wife. The girls were a lot calmer, and I didn’t have to handle the discipline anymore. Thank God. Gabriella was way better at it than I w
as. I handed that piece of control over quicker than you could blink an eye, and I loved it.

  “Of course you, too. It’s just down the road from here. Wait until you see the mountain of sand.”

  Vander and Phi talked about climbing up it, but Rowan wasn’t interested. She ate her pudding, listening to their conversation without responding. I was sure she wouldn’t be joining the other two in the massive sand pile. For a girl that has never been around her mother, Rowan sure was a lot like her. Minus the stick up her ass. She wasn’t snooty like Tatiana was at all, just prissy. She hated dirt under her nails, changed her clothes if she got the littlest thing on them, and like this, opted out of unclean fun.

  “What’s she talking about?” I questioned as I read Mi’s message.

  “Stop being so nosey. She’s mad at Nick.”

  “Why?”

  The same look, this time with her hair flipping in my eyes. “Do you really care?”

  “Maybe. What did he do?”

  Gabriella dropped her phone to the counter and slid from my arms. “Come on, Phi. Rinse your bowl and go brush.”

  I watched them walk away, feeling the same eerie dread that I had been feeling for the past few days. Something wasn’t right.

  “I’m going to show Mr. J my magic stone,” Rowan said.

  I looked from Gabriella’s ass to my daughter. “Oh yeah? Wipe your mouth, Van,” I said while commenting on Rowan’s plan, glancing at Vander, and the pudding covering his top lip.

  Rowan dabbed the corner of her lips like a little lady and Vander used the sleeve of his Transformer’s pajamas. All boy…

  “Yes, and I’m going to be the line leader on the first day. Mr. J said so.”

  “I’m going to do be that, too,” Vander decided.

  “Van, Row, come on. Bedtime,” Gabriella yelled in an urgent tone, calling to them from the hall.

  “Thanks guys,” I mumbled while they walked off, chatting about school again, and leaving their mess for me. Rowan couldn’t go a day without talking about it. She was so stoked. Vander and Phi were excited as well, just not as much as my little genius.

  Once all three kids were in bed and somewhat settled down, Gabriella walked upstairs to shower. I got Vander another drink of water, clipped a toenail from Ophelia’s little toe, and finished up a few things in my office before joining her.

  Gabriella was already in bed, laying on top of the covers, sideways across our bed with her tablet. Two little ass cheeks peeped from below a blue night shirt, briefly until she sat up, eyes on her tablet. I have no idea how I missed it before, but I did. I had never seen her, not like this, natural beauty glowing all around her. She absently twirled her wet hair around her finger while she read to me. If I had ever seen exquisiteness in my life, it was that moment.

  The thin sheers lightly blew from the wind, the moon shined a gleaming light upon a dark ocean in the distance, the air felt warm and sultry, and the sound of waves echoed from below. My wife sat centered in it all. Her shirt fell off her right shoulder as she tucked her feet under her butt, wrapping a strand of hair around one finger. She was breathtaking and I had never seen it, not until the last few months. When she didn’t know who I was. Maybe it was the clean slate, or maybe her age, the maturity permeating the beauty from within.

  No matter how I justified it in my mind, the cold hard truth was I didn’t want to see her, but now I did. I wanted to see her, I wanted her to see me, and I was terrified of losing it. That’s what went through my mind while I half-listened to her soft words.

  “I wish there was a way back home, a way for you to know him the way I did. His loving arms that held me strong. He would hold you both with safety and peace in his soul. He would assure you with his touch that everything was okay, that you were in control. He would stroke your hair, and talk you calm, keeping you safe, buried in his arms. You would float like angels, and he would catch your fall, never a care in the world. Not in his arms. I wish there was a way. I wish it every day.”

  “Do you think she’s talking about our dad?”

  “You’re fucking beautiful.”

  Gabriella smiled and tilted her head. “You don’t have to butter me up. I was already planning on letting you go down on me.”

  I smiled and blew out a puff of air. This was what I fell in love with, what I hadn’t taken the time to see before. “Is that so?”

  “Yup,” she said while flipping to her back, sliding out of her panties, and then her shirt. Her hands lifted her long dark hair into a pile on top of her head, and her eyes closed. “I think I was even bad today.”

  “Is that so?” I asked again as I felt the sudden growth behind my gym shorts. I was too tongue-tied and mesmerized to come up with anything smart to say. So much for keeping control.

  “Yup.”

  Gabriella closed her eyes when I moved her leg out, and slid a finger up her already wet slit. “So what are you saying, baby girl? You think I should punish you?” I questioned while I slid one finger into her warm, wet pussy.

  Her eyes opened again, and she watched while I slid the front of my shorts down, taking my hard rod in my hand. I stroked it a few times, squeezing pre-come to the tip of my head while I massaged her arousal around her growing clit. I never paid attention to that before either. Her pain was for my pleasure, not hers. Now I wanted nothing more than to please her. That was something I never saw coming. Not even a little.

  I walked myself to her mouth on my knees and coaxed her to speak. “Answer me. Do you need to be punished?”

  My cock may have grown another inch when her tongue peeked between her lips, and glided over the clear substance. Her moan hummed over my shaft when she sucked me in, all the way in, and back out. Fuck. “What do you have in mind?”

  I grabbed a fistful of hair and shoved my cock to the back of her throat, and then tapped my head across her lips as I contemplated a plan. A dirty, sexy plan. One that always brought back memories, but only for me. The newness of the things that I used to do to her was always exciting, a new kind of embarrassment that fueled my fire.

  Gabriella slipped my cock out of her mouth and rolled to her stomach, perky little ass, begging for my hand. As sexy and tempting as it looked, I had other plans. My fingers slid up to her clit and I pinched her little nub, hard between my fingers. She moaned and bucked her hips, spreading her ass cheeks enough for me to see her tight little pucker, and rub her juices across it with my thumb. This was one of those nights that I knew I had to make her come first. I was ready to blow my load just touching her. Not that I didn’t feel like that every time I fucked her now. I did. She was right, passion changes things.

  One hand stroked my cock while the other one played with her tight little pussy, her clit, and the pucker in her ass. I abruptly stopped, and brought my hand down hard on her ass, squeezing her ass cheek roughly after the crack. Her body tensed, jerking with the blow, and then calmed when I walked away. She rolled to her side and watched while I unlocked the same cabinet she’d had in her own room, a smile curving on her lips. “Watcha doing?”

  “Get off the bed,” I ordered with a sharp nod to the floor. This was the sick part that fueled my fire, pumped adrenaline fast through my veins, and turned me into a junkie. A Gabriella junkie.

  Bringing her feet to the floor, she obeyed. “Now what?”

  I walked two steps to her and spoke down to her, right in her face. “Stop talking. Shut up and do what you’re told. Do you understand, princess?”

  “Yes,” she smirked as both her lips sunk between her teeth. This was new, too. The old Gabriella would have already been on her hands and knees. Not this shit, not laughing at me. It pissed me off, yet I didn’t know how to handle it all the time. What I got away with before Gabriella remembered me was in a different world. Not this one.

  “You think I’m playing with you, Sl—”

  “Don’t you dare,” she ordered, a threat heard loud and clear with sharp words.

  I placed my hand on the ass cheek, I kne
w still stung from my hand, while I slid my tongue between her lips. Her body relaxed into mine, and I pulled her close, kissing her, and feeling the passion searing between us.

  “Get on your hands and knees.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so. You’re being punished, remember?”

  Our lips continued to taunt one another’s while our fingers lingered together, lightly touching at the tips.

  “I thought you were going to bend me over your lap?” she questioned, tongue gliding across my bottom lip.

  “Oh, I am, but you’re going to do something else first. Get on the floor,” I demanded once again, fighting for the control.

  Sharp nails slid down my chest and over my thighs as she obeyed, sinking to the floor as she was told. Like a good little slut. I moved her hair to the side and ran a finger down her spine, watching her shudder from the chill. “Stay, don’t move,” I said while stroking her hair like a pet. My pet. Although I heard it loud and clear, I ignored the snort. She thought this was cute, that I was joking, but I was about to show her who was the boss.

  “Don’t move,” I said again when I found the contraption I had in mind. She hadn’t been subjected to this one yet, not that she remembered anyway. I grabbed my favorite crop and walked to the sitting area and plugged it in, situating it right in the middle of the floor. After I had pulled the little pin, I moved the arm to the elbow position, and tested it out. The eight-inch dildo moved out and in, just like it was supposed to.

  “Come,” I said with a quick snap, pointing to the fucking-machine that I paid a hell of a lot of money for. I stepped out of my shorts and stroked my cock, thrusting my hips while holding it at the base, a show for Gabriella. If she was a good little slut, I might let her suck it off.

  “What the hell is that thing?”

  I had to press down on her head when she tried to stand, coaxing her to move along with a couple pats to her ass. “Shhh, come here. I’m about to show you.”

  “I don’t know if I like this,” she confessed, and I almost broke. Almost.