General Joe: Magnolia Ridge Series Read online

  General Joe

  Magnolia Ridge Series

  Alexa Riley

  Contents

  General Joe

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Bookstore Barbie

  Chapter 1

  Cozy

  Chapter 1

  Read Me Romance

  Stalk the Author

  Copyright © 2020 by Author Alexa Riley LLC. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email to [email protected]

  http://alexariley.com/

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Edited by Aquila Editing

  General Joe

  Kayla may have pulled on the tiger's tail one too many times. She’s been in love with Joe her whole life, and when he leaves for the military she has the bright idea to send him dirty letters and pictures the whole time. When he comes back from his time away, he makes it clear he’s coming for her. But has she gone too far?

  Joe has been teased by Kayla for years and it’s about time she made good on her filthy words. He’s been counting down the days until he can make her his…and now the wait is over. She’s going to admit to him and herself that this is what’s right. No matter their age difference or their time apart.

  Warning: He’s a great American hero coming home to claim his reward. Don’t worry…it’s the dirty happily ever after we know you want!

  To my dad…

  For always making the time to play Barbies with me.

  I love you.

  Prologue

  Kayla

  I don’t know why I’m nervous. I’ve told Joe every fantasy I’ve ever had and sent him all kinds of dirty pictures of myself. He never returned them when I sent them, but he never responded either.

  Except once.

  The day I got to the post office too late and they’d already closed, so I had to drop the letter off the next day. I made a point to send something every day because I wanted Joe to know I was always thinking about him. Thinking about him in the dirtiest ways.

  On that one day he didn’t get a letter he called me.

  I was shocked he had my cell number, but it wouldn’t have been that hard for him to find it. We live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and my dad is the chief of police. Not to mention he and Joe shared a few beers back in the day when I was too young to be fantasizing about him. It never stopped me because it isn't something I can control.

  I’d answered my phone even when I didn’t know the number, and the second I heard his voice I knew who it was. The deep rumble of his voice was one I’d never forget and it didn't matter that it had been years since I’d heard it.

  You forgot my letter. Don’t do it again.

  It was all he said before he hung up and I didn’t get the chance to respond. He gave his order and he expected it to be followed. It should have made me mad that he was bossing me around since he never asked me to write to him to begin with. He didn't even tell me he was leaving town even though I knew he was a Marine and would be called up at some point.

  Everyone in the Bierman family served in the armed forces for a few years before they came home to run the family business. But Joe doesn’t have a family anymore since he’s now the last living Bierman. Until he comes back and gets married and makes his own. I push that thought as far away as I can because I’m too young for Joe. It doesn't stop me from sending my letters and packages and all the naughty thoughts. I have no idea when he’ll be back and maybe he never will be.

  I prop my phone up so it points at my bed and get ready to make the video. It’s the first I’ve ever done and I’m going to put it on a USB to send in the package with my letter today. I’ve gotten bold over time and I think more than anything it’s because I’m trying to get him to snap. I want him to come back to town and have his way with me even though I’m not sure it will ever happen.

  Over a decade separates us but I hold out hope because of that one phone call. He’s been reading the letters and opening all the packages. I know without a doubt he’s looked at the pictures I’ve taken of myself, but I never show too much. The last thing I need is for someone to get ahold of a naked picture of me, but I don’t leave much to the imagination either. Each time I get a little bolder because I don’t care anymore. I want him to see me and want me, and maybe this video will do the trick.

  I hit record on the phone and jump onto my bed. I cringe when one of my stuffed animals falls off and I sweep my arm across the bedspread and send the rest of them flying. I can edit this out later. I don't have anywhere else to do this but my own bedroom and I’m lucky my dad’s at work.

  Everything I’ve sent him before today was only a peek of my cleavage or a tease of my panties in a short skirt that would lift just a hint. I was trying to drive him crazy and to break him into writing me back or even calling. More than anything I want him to come home and claim me as his own, but I know this isn't one of the stories I write. This is real life.

  Nothing else has worked so far. Sure, I could try and skip a day and he might call again, but I can’t bring myself to not write to him because it’s become an addiction I can't quit. I get off on the thought of him fantasizing about me. He probably thinks it’s so wrong and that I’m too young for him. I know that’s what he’d say even as he jerked himself to pleasure with my name on his lips. At least that’s what my fantasies are. That he can’t even get hard unless he’s thinking about me and no one else.

  I smirk at the camera and pull my oversized sweatshirt over my head. My boobs bounce free as I throw it away, leaving myself in only a pair of white cotton panties. I lick my lips as my hand trails down my stomach and my fingers dip into the simple material.

  In my letter I’ll tell him how I never put my fingers inside myself because I want him to be the first thing I ever feel there. I’m going to tell him that it’s his for the taking and that I only play with my clit. I’m going to complain about how I wish I had self-control to not even do this little bit, but I ache too much for him and I need something to hold me over until he comes back.

  “Joe.” I moan his name as I close my eyes. My other hand cups my breast and I pull at my nipple. “Please,” I beg him, moving my hips.

  I dream about him pushing me down onto the bed and taking what he wants as he tells me what a tease I’ve been. That I belong to him now.

  “I need more. I need you,” I cry out as the orgasm hits me and I fall back onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s not enough,” I whimper, because the ache is still there. “I need you,” I whisper, knowing he may never be mine and that this ache is all I’ll ever know.

  Chapter One

  Joe

  “So you’re staying?” Chief says as he leans back in his chair. “Are you sure about that?”

  I nod, thinking about that decision and how it will impact all of our lives.
“I’m planning on putting down roots.” He and I stare at one another for a long moment and he lets out a breath.

  “All right then, you’re hired.” He stands up and holds out his hand, and it’s probably the most formal he’s ever been with me. But this isn’t the past; this is me taking the job as his deputy at the police department in Magnolia Springs and him becoming my boss.

  I shake his hand, but before I can take it back, he grips it a little harder and pulls me to him. “Having you back is a good thing. Just don’t go running out on us again.”

  We share another look and I nod. There’s so much neither of us is saying as I leave his office and walk out to my truck.

  I didn’t want to leave Magnolia Springs to begin with, but I had to. Every member of the Bierman family has served in the armed forces and it’s been that way for generations. It was important to me to keep this tradition even though I lost my mom and dad when I was seventeen.

  Chief let me come stay with him and his kids, Kayla and Ben, during my last year of high school before I enlisted. Ben was my best friend from the time we were in kindergarten until he was killed in a car accident a couple of years ago. Chief has been through so much grief that I wondered how he was still able to go on, but I knew it was because of Kayla.

  I was twelve the day Kayla was born and I remember it so clearly. She’d been a surprise for Chief and his wife later in life, and it was a difficult pregnancy. Kayla was born six weeks premature and her mom died in labor. It rocked the whole town and later when Ben passed I thought about how unfair life was.

  After my mom and dad died, Chief took me in and treated me like his second son, and I loved Kayla like a sister. Ben and I were inseparable and we made our own version of a family. We always made what we could out of the broken pieces we were given, and although it was hard, I never felt alone.

  I enlisted in the Marines and stayed there for nearly thirteen years. I came home after basic training for a few weeks and then I was called out for a deployment. That happened a few times, where I’d be home for a short stint and then have to turn back around for a year or more at a time. Each time I came home, things changed. Mostly Kayla changed. She went from a five-year-old that begged me to play dolls with her to a moody pre-teen that rolled her eyes at everything I had to say almost overnight. But during one of my last trips home, right before her eighteenth birthday, something shifted.

  I knew that the next deployment I had would be my longest one yet and I made sure I was home for Christmas. That was always her favorite time of year and we had traditions. I knew she would kill me if we didn't stick to them. She’d long ago stopped believing in Santa, but we still stayed up late baking cookies on Christmas Eve, just the two of us. Chief always threw a party for his guys at the station and they invited most of the town. But after everyone left and the chief went to bed, we had our cookie tradition.

  I remember seeing it snowing outside, and when I pointed it out, Kayla nearly came out of her skin with excitement. She pulled me outside and we had a snowball fight in the front yard in the middle of the night. At one point, I nailed her in the back and she started to fall. I ran over and caught her, but she ended up taking both of us down and we fell into the snow laughing.

  I rolled her over so I was on top, and when I looked down at her I saw she’d become more than just a little sister who made me sing Disney songs in the car on full blast. I saw a woman below me that I loved more than my own life and everything changed. What I wanted to do out there in the snow would have broken everything we’d built and change our little family forever.

  I left the next morning without even saying goodbye because I couldn’t look her or Chief in the eye. I didn’t even bother to open my Christmas presents and took the coward’s way out. It’s not something I’m proud of, but I would have been more ashamed if I’d stayed.

  That’s when the letters began.

  Kayla had always sent me a few letters and care packages when I was on deployment, but never this many and never writing so many things I shouldn’t have read. Things I couldn’t stop reading.

  I’ve been gone from home for a long time and I’ve finally ended my service. My plan before this all started was to come back and then figure out where in the world I wanted to go. I dreamed about living in another country for a few years or just traveling until I found the place I loved most. But the longer I pictured what my life would be like, the more I couldn’t picture it without her.

  She’s too damn young to know what she wants and she doesn’t deserve an old man like me holding her back. Her father is a damn good man and someone I consider a father and mentor. There isn’t anything I would do to break his trust, but my head and my heart are at war. I may not be the thing that’s best for her, but I know I won’t let anyone else try and do better.

  “Hey, Joe, you back in town?” Amelia from the diner calls as I walk by the storefront.

  “Yep, trying to find Kayla. You seen her?” I shove my hands in my jeans as she smiles at me.

  “I might have seen her ducking out the back of the jailhouse a little bit ago. Can’t say where she went afterwards, but if I were you, I’d check the gazebo by the park.”

  “She still likes to sketch out there?”

  “It’s almost like she’s got something on her mind she can’t seem to shake.” Amelia raises an eyebrow. “Funny, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” I nod my thanks as I get in my truck and go toward the park.

  Small towns love good gossip, but I don’t give in to Amelia’s bait. The thing I do love about small towns is they’re only so big.

  Kayla is running out of hiding places.

  Chapter Two

  Kayla

  “What is wrong with me?” I throw my arm over my eyes as I lie under the gazebo. I’m running out of places to hide. For so long I’ve been waiting for Joe to come back home. Now that he’s here, I’ve spent the last two days hiding from him. Never in all the time that I sent things to Joe did I think I’d be running from him. I’m acting like a coward.

  Before now it was all a fantasy and I could live in an imaginary world. One in which I’d made myself believe Joe had this long-lost love for me, that he held out on love for me. I imagined one day he’d come home and confess it all, but now it all could come to an end and I’m not ready. I’d rather live in my made-up world than face the reality that Joe isn't mine.

  Life has been full of too many heartaches and I’m not sure I can face another. Living in the world of make believe is so much easier. In that space no one died or left me. I know I’m fighting the inevitable and I can’t avoid Joe forever. Unless I can hide until he leaves for another deployment.

  I can’t let my heart think that he’s out of the Marines and finally coming home. The possibility of seeing him every day, even if he isn't mine, is too much. Although I wouldn't have this constant worry that he could get hurt and we’d get a call that something bad happened to him.

  If anything, this should send me running to him because you never know when it might be the last time you see someone. I don’t know if I can risk falling more in love with him. The hurt could ruin me.

  “Bunny.” I jerk my arm from my eyes at the name Joe gave me so long ago because he said I could never sit still. My eyes meet two cool blue ones and he furrows his brows. “Are you done running?”

  How did he walk over here and hover over me without me feeling him? Joe isn't a small man, so I should’ve heard him coming.

  “I don’t think I can move,” I manage to whisper.

  He leans down closer and places his arms on either side of me, pinning me below him.

  “You want to tell me why you were in jail?”

  Is that really his first question?

  “I didn’t do anything. It’s not my fault things are cheaply made and just break.” I clamp my mouth shut knowing I’ve already said too much. Barbie told me to stay quiet.

  “Let me guess. This has something to do with Missy?”

  I glar
e at him. How the hell did he know that? Did she tell him? Probably. I’m sure she’s been all over him since he got back to town.

  “Oh, so you remember Missy. Did you stop at her place and get one of her fake donuts?” Again, I shut my mouth before I say more. I can’t ever seem to keep my thoughts to myself. If it wasn't for Barbie I would have been busted at the police station. She kept my mouth sealed with a few elbows to my ribs.

  “Fake donuts?” he asks, and I open my mouth to tell him all about it, but close it nice and tight.

  Those fake donuts were wonderful but they were not made by Missy. They are a lie because Missy doesn't bake shit. I’ve hated her since she went on a date with Joe back in high school. Now she’s poking at my best friend Barbie’s romance book store downtown. Missy’s gone too far this time, so she’s fair game.

  I stare up at him, deciding now that he’s caught me, I’m not going to back down. I glare harder but it doesn't do anything. He shifts over me, stretches out, and my whole body lights up and it finally dawns on me how we’re lying. He’s on top of me and that has to be his cock digging into my hip. I feel something that is really big and hot and I assume that’s how a cock feels when it’s pressed into you. These are things I can only speculate on since I have exactly zero experience.

  “Are you hard?” I blurt out. Why can’t I keep my mouth shut? Get it together, Kayla.

  I should have known he’d find me. I’m lying under the gazebo that’s all lit up at night. Maybe in my subconscious I was trying to be found. I’ve practically got a spotlight on me. That also means anyone who walks by can see us.