Rouse Family Christmas: Book 5 of Sag Harbor Black Romances Paperback

This novella is the Christmas edition of the steamy romances, rivalries, and riches of the Black Hamptons.

Before Christmas, can love get them through the storm?

Madison Rouse’s eyes flickered a moment before hardening to stone. “If you were going to torture me about him, I seriously wish you would never have married me."

With his chest sagging into his feet, Jerrell turned and headed out of the bedroom, to sleep on the couch. “Me too.”

The Rouse men have found love in the women of Sag Harbor.
But with new revelations and old battle scars threatening their foundation, can the bonds of these couples withstand their worst storm? In this Christmas novella, return to the hearts of Adella, Desmond, Chrissy, Sheldon, Jerrell and Maddy one final time, for Christmas. Told from all six perspectives.

**It is highly recommended that you have read the Sag Harbor Black Romances and Explore You, to fully appreciate these storylines. As this is the fifth book of the series, there is no character development.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: *Two scenes of domestic terrorism

Paperback Page Count: 149

*Strong language & sex

Heat level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/s

That night, Maddy and Jerrell returned to his Sag Harbor townhome. With her bones dragging, she packed her things and the baby’s things to return to Washington, D.C., early the next morning.

“What are you thinking?” She asked him, standing across the bedroom.

“I’m not thinking. Thinking is the last thing I want to do,” he replied.

She dropped in the clothes she was shoving into a suitcase and moved around the bed to where he undressed.

Maddy ran her hands over his tense back and wedged her face against his back muscles. “Tell me what to do. You and Chase mean more than anything to me. I don’t want us going on like this. So, tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”

Jerrell picked up both Maddy’s hands and kissed them, and studied her face. All she wanted was to clear this mess that had divided them these past few weeks.
“Baby, I have to be honest, I don’t know. I’m trying to forget. I swear I am.”

“What Kevin said, it didn’t mean anything to—”

“Don’t. You could be telling me the truth. But I’ll never know. You’re going to say whatever sounds good, so you come out of this white as snow, the way you always do.”

His words knifed Maddy. “How could you say that? It was ten years ago. Let it go.”

Jerrell seethed. “You lied to me. Less than a year ago.”

She combed her hands over her face and hair. Seeing the distrust and hurt in his eyes was eating at her. And in a few precious hours, she would have to leave and go back to D.C. with this chasm between them. The commute between New York and D.C. was taking its toll, getting harder for her to make. “I did not lie. I already had the job. I showed you. What else do you want me to do?”

Jerrell stared into her the way somebody would a stranger. Like he was gathering every shred of his manhood just to face her. “Why is it whenever things are good for us, that dude shows up and pulls your cord? Like you’re his puppet? And he can control you, yank you, any way he wants.”

Jerrell’s eyes searched hers.

Maddy’s fingers clung to his chest. “I’m looking at the man who controls every part of me.”