For the Roses

  

  Suncoast Society

  For the Roses

  Between losing her job, surviving cancer, and her long-term Dom dumping her, Meri’s hit rock-bottom. When her Dom of a little brother unexpectedly shows up on her doorstep in St. Louis with a moving truck to bring her home with him, she’s ready to go.

  Returning to Florida means reunions with old friends and getting involved with kinky locals in the Suncoast Society. Except she doesn’t expect to run into her old high-school teacher, Elvin. She definitely didn’t expect him to look so…haaawwtt.

  Elvin was only a couple of years older than Meri when she was his student. Since then, he’s survived a crushing divorce and a near-fatal accident. He’s rebuilt himself inside and out and is ready to truly be himself. He never thought he’d date a former student…except Meri’s all grown up, and has way more experience in kink than he does. Now it’s time to see if Elvin can learn a few lessons of his own.

  Genres: BDSM, Contemporary, Interracial

  Length: 57,325

  For the Roses

  Suncoast Society

  Tymber Dalton

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  For the Roses

  Copyright © 2018 by Tymber Dalton

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-231-2

  First Publication: May 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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  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  This one’s for my bestie, Trish, who came up with the idea and begged me to write a book about a teacher who looks like The Rock. :) Love you!

  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 forty 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.

  Honest reviews are always welcomed. They help with a book’s visibility and can boost its placement on book retailer sites. Even a few lines about what you felt reading the book will help. Thank you so much, it’s greatly appreciated!

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  For all titles by Tymber Dalton, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/tymber-dalton

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Jackson and Noah were first featured in Judgment of the Moon and Stars. Grant, Darryl, and Susan were first featured in Initiative, and have appeared in other books in the series. Chronologically, this book takes place after Happy Valenkink’s Day, but before the events of Any World That I’m Welcome To and See You Sometime. Keep in mind that the overall timeline in this series isn’t “fixed” because many of the books overlap each other, which is why this book also can take place after Steady Rain and JofMaS.

  (Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.)

  Yes, Ron gets a story, too. Look for Blue Motel Room.

  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 information is as follows:

  1. Safe Harbor

  2. Domme by Default

  3. Cardinal’s Rule

  4. The Reluctant Dom

  5. The Denim Dom

  6. Pinch Me

  7. Broken Toy

  8. A Clean Sweep

  9. A Roll of the Dice

  10. His Canvas

  11. A Lovely Shade of Ouch

  12. Crafty Bastards

  13. A Merry Little Kinkmas

  14. Sapiosexual

  15. A Very Kinky Valentine’s Day

  16. Things Made Right

  17. Click

  18. Spank or Treat

  19. A Turn of the Screwed

  20. Chains

  21. Kinko de Mayo

  22. Broken Arrow

  23. Out of the Spotlight

  24. Friends Like These

  25. Vicious Carousel

  26. Hot Sauce

  27. Open Doors

  28. One Ring

  29. Vulnerable

  30. The Strength of the Pack

  31. Initiative

  32. Impact

  33. Liability

  34. Switchy

  35. Rhymes With Orange

  36. Beware Falling Ice

  37. Beware Falling Rocks

  38. Dangerous Curves Ahead

  39. Two Against Nature

  40. Home at Last

  41. A Kinkmas Carol

  42. Ask DNA

  43. Time Out of Mind

  44. Happy Valenkink’s Day

  45. Splendid Isolation

  46. Similar to Rain

  47. Happy Spank Patrick’s Day

  48. Fire in the Hole

  49. Pretzel Logic

  50. This Moody Bastard

  51. Walk Between the Raindrops

  52. Rub Me Raw

  53. Any World That I’m Welcome To

  54. Heartache Spoken Here

  55. Roll With the Punches

  56. See You Sometime

  57. Borderline

  58. A Case of You

  59. Reconsider Me

  60. Never Too Late for Love

  61. Blues Beach

  62. Happy Spanksgiving

  63. Our Gravity

  64. Friends in Common

  65. Almost Gothic

  66. Empty-Handed Heart

  67. Steady Rain

  68. Indifference of Heaven

  69. Like the Seasons

  70. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

  71. Through With Love

  72. Judgment of the Moon and Stars

  73. For the Roses

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  For the Roses

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three


  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  For the Roses

  Suncoast Society

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  “Sorry it’s not bigger, Meri.”

  “It’s wonderful. Seriously.” Meredith turned and hugged Ron. “I really appreciate this.”

  Meredith Dutton never thought she’d be about to celebrate turning forty by moving in with her little brother.

  She also never thought it’d be because she’d lost her job eight months earlier due to a massive corporate downsizing after the data analysis company she’d worked for was bought out, and she had been unable to find a new job since then.

  Or that her retirement account, savings, and severance package would be wiped out because of a breast cancer diagnosis shortly thereafter, including a double mastectomy and treatments, which had also impacted her ability to work.

  “You know there’s no way in hell I’d let you be homeless,” Ron said. “I know you’d do the same for me. I’m just glad you finally quit fighting me about it.”

  “You showed up at my front door with a moving truck and boxes. Like I was going to argue at that point.” She rested her head on his chest. “I feel like a failure.”

  He made her look up at him. “You’re not a failure.” He’d ended up with the tall genes, and at six-four he was thirteen inches taller than her, even though he was four years younger. He surveyed the bedroom, in which stacked boxes filled most of the spare floor space around her bed and dresser. His garage was now crammed with everything that they couldn’t fit inside his small three-two house.

  “You’re stubborn, but that, unfortunately, runs in our family. Mom and Dad proved that,” he added in a dark mutter.

  She squeezed him in a crushing hug. “Don’t think about them today, please? I think we need to chill out, call in a couple of pizzas, and drink the growler of mead in your fridge that you promised me.”

  “Deal.” He fist-bumped her. “Showers first.”

  She snorted. “Deal.”

  They retreated to their respective bathrooms, his the en suite master bath, hers the guest bath across the hall from what was now her bedroom. Ron had pre-arranged for a group of his friends to help them unload today. She wasn’t sure how he got them to show up on a Friday during the day, but may his heathen gods bless him, her brother was crafty and persuasive.

  The two of them had arrived at Ron’s late last night from St. Louis. She’d slept on Ron’s couch despite him trying to get her to take his bed and him the couch. His friends had just left a few minutes earlier.

  Being back in Sarasota felt…strange.

  Unreal.

  Surreal.

  At least one part of her life was finally firmly anchored again. Being homeless wasn’t a concern. Even the sting of being broke had eased somewhat. Hell, if all she could find was a fast-food job, she’d take it, if they’d hire her. Something to be earning money and, hopefully, get on an insurance plan again.

  Twenty minutes later, she’d finished her shower, called in the pizzas, and was trying not to cry when she stood in Ron’s dining room and stared at the piles of boxes stacked there, too.

  Her life.

  Her whole damn life.

  A full-circle kind of journey. Not back to her childhood home, not exactly. Her hometown, her brother—all that was sort of left of her family.

  He rejoined her there. “That looks like a sad face. I thought I banned sad faces?”

  She let him pull her in for another hug. At least she didn’t feel weird or self-conscious about hugging him. “I’m trying not to. It’s all finally…sinking in.”

  “I know, sis.” He sighed. “Still wish you would have let me pay your ex a visit.”

  “No. He’s not worth you going to jail for.”

  She had no doubts Ron would have landed in jail, too, when she remembered the anger in his voice that morning on the phone, when she’d finally confessed to him everything that happened.

  Everything she’d been undergoing—and had kept secret from him—since her cancer diagnosis.

  They ended up in the kitchen, where Ron retrieved the sixty-four ounce growler of mead from the fridge and grabbed two coffee mugs from the cabinet.

  She arched an eyebrow. “Coffee mugs?”

  He handed her one. “Yeah. Harder to spill when you get shit-faced. Tomorrow’s Saturday, meaning I can sleep in.”

  She giggled. “Love your logic, bro.” She held her mug out while he filled it, then his.

  After returning the growler to the fridge, he held up his mug in a toast. “To the Dutton kids. May they find love, may they kick ass, and may they prove their homophobic parents wrong. Skål.”

  She gently clinked mugs with him. “Skål.” They took a drink and she sighed in contentment as the sweet, strong mead slid over her tongue. “When do I finally get to see you shield fighting in person?”

  “We’re taking a couple of months off. Everyone has to recover from BARF and deal with end of the school year stuff. Plus we’re coming up on summer and it’s fucking hot.”

  “Eh, BARF?”

  “Bay Area Renaissance Festival. Up in Tampa. We already had the Sarasota one. Everyone’s kind of worn out. We’ll only have a few events here and there until May, then start again after school lets out.”

  “I thought you had regular get-togethers?”

  “We do, but just social stuff.” He grinned. “Having one next Wednesday. You can come with me and be my designated driver so I can actually enjoy mead there and not have to buy another growler.”

  “Oh, you’ll still buy another growler. This shit’s amazing.”

  Fortunately, they weren’t totally sloshed by the time their pizzas arrived. They spread out on his couch with the pizza boxes open on the coffee table and chilled in front of the TV.

  It felt good to be with him again. Yeah, he was almost four years younger than her, but they’d always been close as kids, and had stayed that way as adults.

  Which turned out to be fortuitous when they realized they had a common enemy.

  “So…have you heard anything from them lately?” she finally asked.

  “She sent me a birthday card. Well, I’m assuming it was meant to be a birthday card. It arrived the day before my birthday, but had a bible verse printed on the outside about repenting. She wrote some garbage on the inside that she loved me even if I was a ‘sinner,’ and she wished I would ‘turn straight’ again before I go to hell.”

  “Grrrr.”

  “And that’s why I didn’t tell you when I received it.” He took another bite of pizza. “I knew you were going through enough as it was. I didn’t want you to add the stress of a screaming match with Mom on top of it.”

  She held her mug in both hands as she lifted it to her lips. “I might not have gotten into a screaming match with her.”

  He arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Not a loud one.”

  Ron snorted. “I know you.”

  She took another sip of mead. It really was good stuff. “She’d deserve it.”

  “I’ve decided not to let it bother me.”

  Now it was her turn to arch an eyebrow at him.

  “Much,” he clarified. “It’s their problem, not mine. I have friends, I have a good job, and now I have my big sis back.”

  “You never lost me.”


  “I meant here. Calling or FaceTiming with you every day isn’t the same as having your face here, with me, every day.”

  “I’ll try to get out of your hair as fast as possible.”

  “Nope. I want you living here.”

  “I’m going to cramp your style, won’t I?”

  “I’m single, soooo no. Not exactly worried about it right now. I’m more worried about you.”

  Her face heated, and it wasn’t from the mead hitting her. “I’m the older one. I should be taking care of you.”

  “Had you kept me in the loop and not lied to me about how bad things were, your ass would have been moved here months ago.”

  “I didn’t lie, exactly.”

  Serve: Ron. His eyebrows slid up. “Reeeeaaally?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Okay, so I concealed a few things. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  She set down her mug and picked up her slice of pizza. “At least I didn’t have to resort to a short sale on the condo. Paid off the mortgage and my credit cards and didn’t totally fuck my credit.”

  Left her with only three grand to her name. Paying her medical bills had totally wiped her out. The only bright spot was that, so far, her credit was still intact. But without a job, she wouldn’t have been able to get another place in St. Louis. It was only when she’d broken down crying during a phone call one morning last week as she talked to Ron about how she needed to start packing her condo that he’d finally ordered her to tell him everything.

  And then he’d taken over from there.

  She hadn’t believed he was really going to show up in St. Louis to save her ass.

  Again.

  Then he’d shown up in St. Louis, that night, a week before her deadline to move out of her condo following the sale. He flew in, rented a truck, showed up with the truck, boxes, and other moving supplies, helped her pack, loaded the truck, and then, less than two days later, she was looking at the Arch one last time in her rearview mirror as she followed him down the Interstate in her car as he drove the moving truck.