A Kiss to Remember: NYE Kisses Collaboration Read online

  Love Without End

  A DILF MANIA NOVELLA

  © 2018 Geri Glenn

  All right reserved.

  Love Without End is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental.

  This book, or any portion thereof, may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design by Dark Water Covers

  Formatting by Erin Trejo

  Dedication

  To my Mac, because we’ve been through hell and back together, and I would die without you.

  Prologue

  ***A note to the reader***

  If you are viewing this book, there has been an error with Amazon. This is the placeholder file for A Kiss to Remember and should have been updated by now. If you are seeing this one, and good God, I hope you’re not, rest assured that I have already contacted Amazon to send out the correct one! You should be able to update it already on your Kindle, but if not, check back shortly!

  In the meantime, enjoy Love Without End! I am so sorry for any confusion!

  Geri

  Xander

  Eight months ago

  Iknow something is wrong before I even get the door unlocked and step inside. It’s a feeling burning deep in my gut that I can’t seem to shake and when I turn on the lights, illuminating the house I’ve shared with my wife for more than five years, I understand why.

  Everything is gone. Every single fucking thing. Where our couch had once stood, there’s just the imprint of its legs on the carpet, crumbs and dust that had rolled under there to escape the vacuum. Wires run down the wall where the TV had been mounted when I left this morning. Books, photographs, movies and trinkets. All gone.

  What the fuck? With wide eyes and a racing heart, I pull my blade from inside my boot and slowly, quietly walk down the hall to the kitchen. My ears strain for any sound at all, but aside from the thudding of my own boots, the whole place is silent. I flick on the lights and my guts twist. The table my gran had given us is still there, but several drawers and cupboards stand open, their insides empty.

  Turning, I dash up the stairs, ignoring the other rooms in the house, worry for my wife urging me on without any concern for my own safety. “Carla!” My shout bounces off the empty walls, echoing around me, but no answer comes.

  I crash through the bedroom door so hard it slams off the wall behind it, leaving a doorknob shaped hole in its wake. Carla isn’t here. Nothing is here. No bed. No dresser. Even the fucking lamps are gone. The closet door stands open, and from where I stand, I see that half of it is empty, the only thing still hanging there being my own clothes.

  That’s when I know. This house hasn’t been looted or robbed, and my wife is just fucking fine. She’s left me, and cleaned me out in the process without so much as a fucking letter to say why.

  I jam my blade back into my holster and dig my phone out of my back pocket. I slam my finger over the screen, pulling up Carla’s number. It doesn’t even ring, but goes straight to voicemail.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Carla. You know what to do.”

  I grip the phone in my hand so hard it cuts into my skin. “Are you fucking kidding me, Carla? You’ve left me nothing! Fucking nothing!” I slam my fist into the wall, adding yet another hole to match the one I’d made with the doorknob. “What happened to forever? I’ve been good to you. Treated you right. Never fucked around. And this is how you wanna play it?” I sigh. “Go fuck yourself, Carla.”

  After hanging up, I shove the phone back in my pocket and make my way back downstairs in a daze. I’d met Carla when we just juniors in high school. She’d moved to town that summer and hadn’t made any friends yet. She was so fucking beautiful. Blonde curly hair, blue eyes I could easily get lost in, and the biggest tits I had ever seen in person. I’d invited her to sit with me and the guys during lunch that very first day and we’d been together ever since.

  Back in the kitchen, I fish a beer out of the fridge and twist off the cap. Turning, I rest against the door and tip the bottle back, downing the cold liquid so fast it burns at my throat and fills my belly with heat.

  That’s when I see it. In the center of my Gran’s kitchen table, is a piece of paper. And on top of that, are Carla’s engagement and wedding rings. I’d bought the pair together from a jewelry store in the mall six years ago. I’d worked my ass off to pay for them.

  I’ll never forget how fucking nervous I was when I’d finally decided to ask her to marry me. My friend, Nutsy, had thought I was insane. “Why marry the bitch if she’s already lettin’ ya bang her?” Yeah … Nutsy has always been a real ladies man.

  We’d been twenty-two years old back then, with the whole goddamn world ours for the taking. I’d been apprenticing as a carpenter and prospecting for the Satan’s Descendants and Carla had been working double shifts at one of the diners in town. We didn’t have much at the time, but fuck me, we’d loved each other.

  I’d taken her to the mall that day, which just so happened to be one of her favorite places on earth. I’d spent hours on a bench outside of different stores while she went inside and tried on outfit after outfit, spending more money than either of us could afford.

  I’d carefully chosen the entrance I had parked near so that on the way out, we had to pass by one specific photo booth. It was there I’d popped that life changing question.

  Carla had sat on my lap and both of us had laughed as we moved around, trying to get our faces in the perfect position. The first photo had been of us making silly faces, our tongues stuck out and our eyes crossed. In the second photo, she’s making yet another silly face, and I am opening the ring box. In the third, she’s noticed the ring and I am looking at her with a strange combination of fear and hope on my face. In the fourth, our lips are mashed together, our smiles huge and my ringer placed on her finger.

  It was simple, but the four tiny photos of our engagement in progress has always been one of my most prized possessions. Until now. I snatch the handwritten note off the table and stalk into the living room. Sure enough, the only photo frame left on the wall is that one. The one where she had agreed to be mine forever, and I’d felt like the luckiest man on the planet.

  I take another stinging chug from my beer and lift the letter, not sure I even want to read what she’d said. But I need to know. I need to know why the only woman I’ve ever loved would just clean me out in a single day and throw away everything we’ve built together.

  X,

  I’m sorry. I’m in love with someone else.

  C

  xoxoxo

  I blink down at the letter. I read it seven different times. It never changes. That’s it? She’s sorry? She’s in love with someone else?

  A roar tears from my throat as I chuck the nearly empty bottle of beer across the room, barely noticing as it shatters, sending amber shards and foamy liquid across the room and running down the wall.

  “Bitch!” I scream, yanking the framed photo off the wall and slamming it over my knee.

  Even that doesn’t make me feel better though. I slide to the floor, my knees cocked and my head in my hands. How did I not see this coming? I thought me and Carla were okay. I thought we were in love.

  I jam my fingers through my hair and coil them into tight fists. Love. Love is bullshit. Marriage is bullshit. If this night has taught me one thing, it’s that I am not ever going to allow myself to fall into that trap
ever again.

  One

  Emery

  Ican feel their eyes following me as I walk through the skeleton of a house. Men are everywhere, tool belts strapped tightly to their waists, power drills and hammers in their hands. It’s my first day on this job, and already I can tell it’s not going to be any different from any of the others.

  Being a woman in a man’s field has only one bonus that I can tell. As a female electrician, I am surrounded by men all day long, some of them being quite easy on the eyes. But there are several drawbacks as well.

  The men stare. They roll their eyes. They make jokes about me when they think I can’t hear them, and a lot of times they do it to make sure that I do. They don’t care that I’m a certified and talented electrician. All they see are my tits and ass and long silky hair, and automatically assume I can’t do the job without their input. It’s annoying, but after six years of working for Ron Harper Electric, I’m used to it.

  Ron had brought me along on this job because he’s one man that knows what I can do. This house is set to be completely finished in less than three weeks, so that means we have to get it wired from the ground up, and fast.

  I make my way to the basement and find a place where nobody else is working and put down my toolbox. “As good a place as any,” I say, turning to Ron with a grin.

  He glowers at a couple of guys hammering wooden beams into place before turning to me. “Works for me. You take a quick walk through and see that everything is ready for us, and I’ll go grab the supplies.”

  I sigh and look around. Aside from a subfloor and the bones of the walls, nothing in this house is anywhere near completion. Contractors from different companies and different trades are still working on building up the outside walls, hammering plywood into place and getting it ready to be bricked over.

  My father had been an electrician, and as a little girl, I used to accompany him to some of his jobs during my summer vacation. I’d learned early on how to avoid the cords and power tools and the men that were hard at work. I’d loved watching my dad work though.

  I found the whole concept of electricity fascinating. I loved the simplicity of it all. How one wire connects to a box and then to another wire and a switch, all of them combining in the end to run tens of thousands of kilowatts of electricity rushing along, hidden behind walls and powering everything from the tiniest nightlight to the stove that cooks the family’s meal.

  When my mother had learned my chosen profession, she’d about had a heart attack. Momma was an old fashioned, stay at home mom and housewife. She didn’t understand why a woman would want to work in a “man’s job,” but I didn’t care. If my father had still been alive, I know he’d have been proud of me, and that’s all that really mattered, as far as I was concerned.

  “Yo, honey. Grab me a coffee from downstairs, would ya?”

  I glare at the man on the ladder. It isn’t the first time a man has assumed I’m just there to run errands for them, or that I’d drop what I was doing to obey their self-serving bidding. “Grab it yourself, honey,” I shoot back, not pausing on my walkthrough of the house.

  Chuckles erupt around us. “She told you, Randy,” one man says.

  “Damn,” another one mutters.

  I know I shouldn’t do it, but as I turn the corner, I can’t help but look back. The man they’d called Randy is still on the ladder, his narrowed eyes never leaving me. I know from one look just what kind of man he is. There’s at least one on every job I’ve ever done.

  A man that assumes he’s the big shot around here. One that tries his damnedest to make me cringe and put me in my place. One that thinks because he’s a man and I’m a woman that anything I have to say is bullshit, but is always sure to take the credit if any is due.

  As I make my way up the stairs, my stomach sinks. Just once I’d like to start a new job and not have to worry about assholes like that. Looks like this job isn’t going to be the time though. I’d just earned myself a new enemy.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Xander

  “I shit you not,” Nutsy says on a laugh. “The stupid prick took a swing and fell right on his ass. Was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I throw my head back and laugh. Nutsy and I have been friends since we were just kids. I’d met him on the first day of third grade. He and his family had just moved here and some of the kids were being dicks. They’d had him cornered in the bathroom, threatening to dunk his head in a piss filled toilet when I’d walked in.

  Being the son of a biker has its advantages. Even kids know not to fuck with you. I’d taken one look at those little bastards and they’d dropped Nutsy right then and there, running out of the room like their hair was on fire. We’d been buds ever since.

  “Did Pounder kiss his ass after that?”

  Nutsy chuckles. “Oh yeah. Walked right up to him and lifted him off the ground with one hand. Asked him if he knew who he was messing with. One punch and the dumb fuck was out cold.”

  I grin. Good old Pounder. I haven’t been spending a lot of time away from the clubhouse with the guys from Satan’s Descendants. I just haven’t felt much like partying since Carla walked out on me. I wasn’t sitting at home pining for her by any means, but I definitely wasn’t up for socializing with a bunch of people that once though her and I were the perfect couple.

  I take a bite out of my sandwich, thinking that maybe it’s time I get back into the fun part of being in a club. The parties, the drinking, the brotherhood.

  “Check it out.” Nutsy whistles. “You don’t see that on the job very often.”

  I follow the direction he’s looking with my eyes, not having a clue what he’s talking about. And then I see her. Tall, lean, tan. Her dark hair is tied back in a braid that falls down to the center of her back. Her tool belt sits low on her hips, accentuating the curve of her waist and long shapely legs.

  “Who is that?”

  Nutsy shakes his head. “She works for Ron. Can’t remember her name. Word is she’s a real bitch though. Likes to bust men’s balls for just lookin’ at her.”

  I watch as the woman walks to Ron’s truck and pulls lunch pail from the back. She looks around for a place to sit and finally settles on just dropping the tailgate and eating all by herself. Every other man out here is staring right at her, a few of them whispering and chuckling softly amongst themselves.

  I can’t blame them, really. She’s gorgeous. Looking at her is definitely more appealing than looking at the rest of these fuckers around here. I smirk a little as I watch her pull a book out of her bag, and then a thermos and a couple of plastic containers. She isn’t giving any of these men the satisfaction of a response as they stare and jeer at her.

  With her shoulders squared and her head held high, she opens her book, digs out half of a sandwich and begins to eat.

  “Crash, you comin’?”

  I tear my gaze from the woman and look over at Nutsy. He’s got his drill already in hand, his lunch all packed up. How long have I been watching her?

  “Yeah,” I say, stuffing my uneaten food into my lunch box and getting to my feet. “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

  I take one last look over at the woman as she reads. When Carla left me, I decided that women weren’t worth the hassle. They might be nice to look at, and definitely nice to fuck, but a relationship with a woman can lead to heartache and ruin. I experienced both at the hands of a woman I thought I would one day grow old with.

  This woman feels different though. She seems tough. Independent. And I can tell by the way she carries herself that she doesn’t play games.

  Doesn’t matter, I tell myself. No woman is worth the hell you’ve gone through. Just keep on walking.

  Two

  Emery

  Ireadjust the heavy roll of wire in my grip and climb the stairs to the main floor, slowing only when I hear the argument happening above.

  “That’s a fucking support wall, Randy. Do you not know how to read a damned blueprint?”
r />   “Ah, fuck you, Xander. It’s not even necessary. The architect on this house was hittin’ the crack pipe one too many times when they drew it up.”

  I come around the corner just the man from the ladder earlier hurls a hammer in the direction of another man. “Look out!” I scream, but it wasn’t necessary.

  The man snatches the hammer midair and glares daggers at Randy, his face red with rage. “Go home. And look for a new job, because when I tell Mitch about this shit, you’ll be done.”

  Tension and anger curl through the air like a heavy smoke as the two men keep their glares locked on one another. This new guy doesn’t look like he’s going to back down, but neither does Randy.

  “You’re a real prick, Xander. You think your shit don’t stink just as bad as the rest of us?” Randy snarls. He takes a step toward the man he calls Xander, his hands clenched in fists the size of small boulders.