A Certain Girl

  

  Suncoast Society

  A Certain Girl

  Rusty and Eliza have survived every trial life has thrown at them. In their thirty years together, there hasn’t been a storm they couldn’t weather. They’ve been partners in everything, and Eliza is the glue that holds Rusty’s tattered soul together.

  Now toss in spending a month apart while Rusty is overseas for work, combined with an emotionally triggering curveball from where they least expect it. Parenthood is hard, but letting go is even harder, and Eliza makes choices to withhold info from Rusty for his own good.

  When a normally reliable outlet for Rusty becomes embroiled in a battle for control, will the dependable barbarian finally snap, or can Eliza rein in her hard-headed and emotional knight before he does something he can’t take back?

  Genres: BDSM, Contemporary

  Length: 26,899

  A CERTAIN GIRL

  Suncoast Society

  Tymber Dalton

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  A Certain Girl

  Copyright © 2018 by Tymber Dalton

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-417-0

  First Publication: September 2018

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

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  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  For Sir and the shadows. He knows why.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tymber Dalton is the wild-child alter-ego of author Lesli Richardson. She lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida with her husband (aka “The World’s Best Husband™”) and too many pets. Active in the BDSM lifestyle, the two-time EPIC award winner and part-time Viking shield-maiden loves to shoot skeet and play D&D with her friends. She’s also the bestselling author of over one hundred and fifty books and counting, including The Reluctant Dom, The Denim Dom, Cardinal’s Rule, the Suncoast Society series, the Love Slave for Two series, the Triple Trouble series, the Coffeeshop Coven series, the Good Will Ghost Hunting series, the Drunk Monkeys series, and many more.

  She loves to hear from readers! Please feel free to drop by her website and sign up for her newsletter to keep abreast of the latest news, snarkage, and releases. You can also find all of her Siren-BookStrand releases under all four of her pen names on her author page on the BookStrand site.

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  Author’s Note

  This is book 81 in the Suncoast Society series. You do not have to read all the books before this one to understand the plot or characters—the series is full of mostly standalone books.

  Rusty and Eliza first appeared in A Roll of the Dice, were featured in Almost Gothic, and have appeared in several other books in the series. Chronologically, this book takes place only a few weeks after the end of Almost Gothic.

  Some of the characters in this book appear in or are featured in previous books in the Suncoast Society series. While most of the books in the Suncoast Society series are standalone works which may be read independently of each other, the recommended reading order to avoid spoilers and to not miss any backstory can be found on the Suncoast Society series page, along with character information and other trivia, on my website at:

  http://tymberdalton.com/books/series-info/suncoast-society/

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A CERTAIN GIRL

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  A CERTAIN GIRL

  Suncoast Society

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  Dr. Rusty McElroy sat at a table in a small all-night cafe in Frankfurt, Germany. It was nearly one o’clock Wednesday morning, and “exhausted” didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what he was feeling.

  This was the middle of week two of a grueling series of professional conferences and private meetings with clients he was attending in the city. He’d managed to pry himself out of a dinner a little early, so he could prepare, just to discover the Wi-Fi was down at his hotel.

  And, so, now he was here.

  “No, I can’t do that,” he wearily said as he sat back and loosened his tie.

  “What do you mean, you can’t do that?” Milo asked. “You’re standing right freaking there! Um, so to speak.”

  “I crit fumbled last round,” Rusty reminded him as he tweaked the volume up a hair on his earbuds. “I’m stunned for another round.”

  “Oh, fudge.”

  “But he didn’t say fudge,” Eliza piped up, prompting a round of laughter from his iPad. He had its cover flipped up to double as its stand, the Skype app open as he watched the play from where Eliza had her iPad propped up next to her in his usual spot at the game table in Grant, Darryl, and Susie’s game room in Sarasota, Florida. There, it was almost seven on Tuesday evening.

  “Danke,” Rusty said to the waiter when the man refilled his coffee for him.

  This wasn’t the ideal way to play D&D with his friends, but he didn’t want to miss their game. Last week, he’d been able to play from his hotel room, even though it’d sucked having to put clothes on.

  Skype worked both ways.

  He loved his friends, and had even known some of them since high school, but he didn’t know them that well.

  Well, actually he did, and most of them had seen him naked at some point. He’d even seen a couple of them naked. Still, they had to be cool around the game group, because John remained relatively clueless, and Darryl’s son, Kyle, was a teenager.

  Someone male started singing “Danke Schoen” in Florida—he thought it might even be Axel, their distinctly evil and sadistic DM—and Rusty groaned.

  “Come on. I begged you guys not to evil earworm me!”

  Eliza giggled again. “That was your first mistake, barbarian. You should know better than to tell a group of sadists what makes you cringe.”

  Rusty grumbled and reached out to fiddle with his set of polyhedral dice, where they sat on top of his game sheets. Translucent light blue with sparkles in them and black numbers, it was Eliza
’s favorite set. She’d sent it with him on his trip as a little reminder of her for him.

  Sure, he could have had Eliza play his character for him, but he missed her. This was one small way he could feel connected to her.

  And a way to keep a little normalcy per his usual routine, especially since by the time he finally returned home, he’d have been gone nearly four weeks, total. While being a global financial expert had its perks in terms of their personal finances, it was times like this that suuuuuucked.

  Three hours later, Rusty was about to fall asleep despite having lost count of how many cups of coffee he’d consumed, and having lasted through a shift change and now having a new server.

  Still, he didn’t want to log off.

  The game was breaking up, Axel’s phone having wheezed out the sound of the TARDIS taking off at ten p.m. Florida time. Eliza picked up the iPad and brought it close to her face, her gaze glancing around for a moment before she smiled directly into the camera.

  She also dropped her voice. “Want to ride home with me, Rus? Or do you need to get to bed?”

  He didn’t miss she used his name.

  He knew she wouldn’t miss how he answered, either. “My first meeting isn’t until after lunch today, Ma’am.”

  He might have planned that into the itinerary.

  For all three Tuesdays he’d be there.

  “Okay. Let me grab my stuff and we can say good-bye and blow this pop stand.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am.” He sat back in his chair as she set the iPad down again, this time flat on the table. He could see part of the ceiling and half of her face as she gathered her game sheets together. She had the originals of his sheets with her, and he had copies. That way, if something came up, she could still play his character for him.

  She’d hooked her iPad into her phone’s hot-spot upon reaching Grant’s tonight, because they had unlimited data on their cell plan, and she was a little superstitious sometimes. She didn’t like the idea of maybe losing the connection with him if she had to switch from Grant’s Wi-Fi to her hot-spot.

  After saying their good-byes, where she carried him facing out so he could wave and talk to the others, they headed out to her SUV.

  “Want me to belt you in, barbarian?” she teased as she set her things in the back seat.

  If he was there, he’d be carrying everything for her, holding her door open for her—passenger side, because he’d be driving her.

  He hated that he wasn’t there for her, even though he knew damn well it was this very same job that kept them able to live the way they did. Sure, they wanted for nothing, and lived in the house he grew up in, but it also meant he could have Eliza retire and not need to work.

  “I want to watch you drive, Ma’am,” he quietly said.

  Overall, he had little to bitch about professionally.

  This was one of those rare times, with loneliness and homesickness so painfully keening that he struggled not to break down crying right there.

  Retirement was looking good. Better every month. Their bottom line meant he could do it.

  Except…fear. Fear of not being able to take care of Eliza, old fears creeping in, of the long hours his mother worked, until she worked herself to death.

  I don’t want to die like that.

  The way his younger brother almost did.

  I wish Eliza was here with me.

  But they didn’t want to leave their two bulldogs alone for that long. They’d only just adopted Chica a few weeks before Rusty was scheduled to leave on the trip. She’d settled in quickly with Boo, their other, older bulldog, but neither of them wanted the dog to think they’d abandoned her.

  He wanted to buy an RV, take them, the dogs, and travel the US.

  Except…work.

  In his line of work, taking a month off here and there wasn’t advisable. Volatile markets, political upheavals, Brexit—all sorts of stuff. Hell, the nearly a month he’d be gone and hyper-focused on what he was doing over here now meant he’d be playing catch-up for weeks on the back end upon returning to Florida.

  And his own back end wasn’t getting the kind of workout he wished it was, either. Not with Eliza being home and not with him.

  Once she was safely belted in and had started the SUV, she smiled at him. “Are you really okay, honey?”

  “I’m just tired, Ma’am. I want to make sure you’re safely home first, though.”

  “Kailey called me this afternoon.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Good. Just wanted to chat. She indicated things are going well with Gerald.”

  Rusty grumbled. “Why can’t I pound him?”

  “Hey, you told me I couldn’t pound him.”

  “At least you got to nearly dislocate his shoulder.”

  She snorted. “That’ll teach him to startle me.”

  “He didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Maybe I did mean to scare the crap out of him.” Her wicked smile confirmed something Rusty had long suspected ever since the incident happened, but hadn’t outright asked.

  “I think you did that, Ma’am. And then some. I kinda suspected you meant to do it.”

  “Can’t sneak anything past you, can I, barbarian?”

  It felt good to chuckle. “Love you, Ma’am.”

  “Love you, too, Rus.” She sighed. “Miss you like hell.”

  “Miss you, too.”

  She glanced his direction. “You going to be able to sleep after all that coffee?”

  “I hope so.” He wanted to reach out and touch her. She was so close, merely inches away, and yet completely unavailable to him right now like this.

  “You have permission, you know.”

  She didn’t need to specify what permission she meant. “I know, Ma’am,” he softly said.

  “Have you?”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  Eliza audibly sighed and sent another glance his way. “Rus, I told you before you left, do what you need to do to get through this. It’s okay.”

  He propped his chin in his left palm, his elbow on the table. “I’m a big boy. I’ll survive. I survived a couple of years of a certain gorgeous girl grinding on me. I can survive a few weeks.”

  “Yeah, but I was helping you relieve the pressure in other ways back then.”

  He shrugged without dislodging his chin. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Besides, when he wasn’t with her now, experience had shown him, it was damned near impossible for him to come. He could get himself to the edge and usually couldn’t get over.

  Not without Eliza there.

  And then he’d just be lonely, horny, and frustrated as hell. Sure, there’d been times at home he’d been horny and she hadn’t been in the mood, so she’d told him to take care of himself.

  That was a direct order. And he was usually lying with his head tucked against her shoulder while he did it, breathing in her scent, listening to her voice in his ear, feeling her fingers caressing his cheek, or tangled in his hair.

  Her teeth clamping down on his shoulder, or nails raking up his abs.

  Something.

  He needed that, needed the pain to really sail over the edge like that when masturbating. Absolutely he could have sex with her—as vanilla as it ever got between them, anyway—and not need pain to make it over.

  But that was with her.

  And he wasn’t with her right now.

  Sometimes he could make it over if he had her on Skype, talking him through it.

  Kind of difficult to do with no Wi-Fi. Besides, he honestly wasn’t in the mood to do anything. He was too tired and too lonely, and trying to force himself to come “just because” frequently kicked him in the ass on the back side with bad nightmares of what he’d endured as a kid.

  Nightmares made infinitely worse by not having Eliza in bed with him to soothe him back to sleep.

  When Eliza made it home, he watched while she once again juggled her things. He hated that she had to carry her own stuff. No, Eliza was
far from helpless.

  But that was his job. Taking care of her and things around the house should be what he was doing right now.

  He felt like he was failing her, even though he logically knew she didn’t feel like that.

  The bullydog dance times two now, with Boo and with Chica, as Eliza tried to avoid getting slobbered by bulldog tongues on her way to shut off the alarm.

  “Come on, babies. Let’s go outside for final walkies so I can finish talking to Daddy.”

  Now he blinked back tears as he watched the two fawn and white bulldogs clumsily bounce around Eliza as they headed for the back door with her.

  He missed Eliza, he missed their babies, and he missed the hell out of Kailey, even though he was used to her being away because of college.

  Our baby is all grown up.

  An Olympian-to-be, in a relationship…quite possibly going to get married.

  Grandkids, maybe.

  Eliza held the iPad so he could see the dogs. He leaned forward, watching the two bulldogs as they scrambled outside to the fenced in yard.

  “It’s muggy tonight,” Eliza said. “Got up to ninety today.”

  “It’s in the fifties here.” He kind of liked that one thing about being here. He didn’t mind the cooler weather, unless he wanted to be out naked in it at the clothing-optional resort up in Pasco County that he frequented from time-to-time for naked running to help settle his mind.

  Couldn’t exactly do that in their neighborhood. Neighbors might…complain.

  To put it mildly.

  “Are you taking care of yourself, Rus?”

  He sighed at her insistence on talking as equals. He much preferred Ma’am mode. “Li, you’re not with me. I’m doing my best to muddle through, the way I always do.”

  “Are you taking some time off when you come home?”