Free Fire and Rain, Season 2, Episode 5 (Rising Storm) by R.K. Lilley Page A

together,” he eventually said, his lips at her neck. They’d been there for a while, inundating her tender flesh with affectionate kisses that made her shiver in sated delight. “I’m sorry we didn’t make it to a bed.”
    “It was perfect,” she said. And it had been. She didn’t care about a bed. All that mattered was that she was here with Marcus.
    They looked at each other, then smiled. For tonight at least, they could put their troubles aside and just bask in their newfound intimacy.
    Brittany felt hopeful. Tomorrow might bring more troubles, but they would work through them together.
     

CHAPTER NINE
     “Please, Hector,” Joanne begged as he herded her into their bedroom yet again. Her voice grated on his nerves. This was the second time today she’d forced him to tighten the reins on the household. “Not again. Not now. I need to finish making dinner.”
    Hector clenched his fists to keep from touching her, but it was an effort. He was sick and tired of her telling him what to do. She’d become dangerously willful in his absence. The woman honestly thought that every little thing had to go just the way she wanted. It was his job to show her otherwise. First she’d hurt Dakota. It was bad enough to have her panting after the damn sheriff. But now she was choosing Tate Johnson over him. Abandoning preparations for his dinner to answer the goddamned phone.
    “Dakota is right,” he said, voice low and mean. “You’ve tainted the Alvarez name. I can barely stand to think about what you’ve been up to while I’ve been gone. And poor Dakota. That girl needed her mother, meanwhile you were off working—”
    “Someone had to pay the bills.”
    He blinked. Once, twice, three times. His arm cocked back and then slammed into the wall.
    Joanne cowered appropriately.
    “Did you just interrupt me?” he breathed. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
    “I was just explaining myself. I had to work. I had to keep the bills paid.”
    “Meanwhile, your sheriff boyfriend kicked me out of town.” He saw the way she flinched when he said boyfriend, and knew he’d be coming back to that later. “And you basically stopped being a mother to poor Dakota.”
    “I did not,” Joanne defended. “I tried my best. She’s a grown woman, and she doesn’t listen to me.”
    Her tone was so impertinent that he couldn’t hold himself back. He took a step toward her.
    She took a step back. And another. Every foot he advanced she retreated until her back was to the wall.
    “You let that bastard senator take advantage of our little girl!” he shouted into her face.
    “I had no idea that was happening!” she retorted in the wrong fucking tone.
    Snapping, he let his foot sweep out, taking her legs out from under her.
    She almost fell to the ground, but caught herself on her small project table in the corner, causing her sewing machine to crash to the ground, hitting her leg on the way down.
    She whimpered.
    He sneered at her. “Are you that stupid? Did you think there wouldn’t be consequences for the way you acted while I was gone?”
    Her eyes were appropriately on the floor, her voice finally submissive, “I never thought that, Hector. I always knew you’d be back.”
    “Damn fucking right,” he said. “This is my house. Your little boyfriend”—again he noticed how that made her flinch—“managed to get me out of town once, but that will not be happening again.”
    She didn’t say anything, and perversely that made him want to lash out even more.
    “Not even going to deny that he’s your boyfriend?” he growled. “Have you become that shameless?”
    She shook her head furiously, eyes still downcast. “Of course not. I knew you weren’t serious.”
    “Did you now? Why do you suppose, then, that the sheriff wanted me out of town so bad?”
    She flinched and he noticed. Oh yes, he noticed.
    “You think I don’t know that he has a thing for you? That he always has?”
    “I don’t know what he