Breathless-kindle

by Alexander, R. G.

  JD put his hand to his ear. “Excuse me, I think I hear my parents and nine foster brothers calling.”

  Tasha snorted, and then her expression turned devilish. “You should tell Joey there’s a huge market of overworked moms and single fathers here looking for his kind of services, too. He could open an office in this city and make a killing. And if they’re all as attractive as the one I got a look at, he should think about catering to adults, as well.”

  “Here?” JD sounded like he’d swallowed a frog. “I don’t know. He’s pretty happy where he’s at right now.”

  Fiona bit her lip to hide her smile. JD loved his family to pieces, but they had a tendency to overwhelm him when they came by for a visit. Royal was already married into the Waynes. If Joey moved here, too? Well, then JD would probably be coming to the pub more often.

  Tasha handed him a card. “Give him my number and tell him to think about it? If Stephen and I weren’t helicopter control freaks, and I didn’t think my husband would be jealous of all that hotness wandering around our house, we’d steal the Manny away from Noah today.” Her expression lost some of its sparkle. “Did that sound as awful as I think it did? I’d never do that.”

  Fiona impulsively covered Tasha’s hand with her own. “Of course not. And if Zach is doing as well as you say he is, Noah would probably fight you for him. You know how he is about Zach’s education.”

  Tasha nodded, but she still looked chastened. “Ellen says we need to bring next month’s family dinner to him, regardless of his mood, but Stephen is worried it might be too soon. Can you find out what Wyatt thinks? He knows Noah better than anyone.”

  Noah was a touchy subject with Wyatt lately. “I’ll ask him.”

  She got to her feet, straightening her purple summer dress and slipping her purse back onto her arm. “Thanks for the drink, but I’ve got to run.” She threw a thumbs up at Fiona. “And good job distracting me from the baby daddy question. The other members of this family haven’t been this much of a challenge in ages.”

  She should probably be scared that Tasha wouldn’t let it go, but Fiona found herself smiling at the door in bemusement instead. This family. They said things like that all the time now. As if it were a given that she was one of them.

  You know you can’t be. Not really.

  “Fiona? How worried should I be that the senator’s wife sounds like she wants to start a Manny stripping business? I’m not saying it’s not a brilliant idea, but I don’t think my brother would go for it.”

  At least Tasha had managed to distract him from the baby-daddy dilemma.

  Her phone buzzed and she glanced down at the screen.

  Wyatt: I gave him the remote. I love you. Please bring home chips.

  Thor: Suck. Up.

  She just needed a little more time.

  Chapter Six

  Wyatt

  “Time’s up! Five more minutes and I’m coming in.”

  Wyatt snarled silently at Thoreau’s warning, which was muffled by the bathroom door, and tightened his fist stubbornly around his cock. He didn’t bother to answer. It had been a month, and the man never made good on the threat—he was just breaking his rhythm on purpose while making a point. Something to do with Wyatt paying for the water bill with all these showers he was taking.

  Like Wayne wasn’t selling enough beer to be generous to an injured man.

  Could anybody really blame him? If he weren’t sleeping on the foldout bed in this crowded damn duplex the Wayne’s had named after themselves, finding a place to jerk off in peace wouldn’t be such an expensive problem.

  Empty apartment, right next door. That’s why it’s called a duplex, dumbass.

  Thoreau had given him that option when he’d extended the invitation along with a few sips of what was now his favorite beer, but he’d known Wyatt wouldn’t take it. Why should he? So he could torture himself wondering what Fiona and Thoreau were getting up to on the other side of the wall every night? That wasn’t fucking happening. As in, as long as he was around, any fucking without him was not happening.

  He’d become the monster he’d always sworn to defeat. The unapologetic cockblocker.

  Not that he could have done much about it if they’d decided to ignore him and have wild sex on the kitchen table. Until this last week, all he’d been up for was sleeping and coughing up half a lung. And even though he was back on solid foods, they still wanted him to drink that damned broth. Worse, he was actually starting to like the stuff. Especially the way Fiona made it. Or maybe it was the way she’d smile at him whenever he drank it without complaining like a grumpy toddler.

  Jesus, living with her had made it hard to focus on anything else. Hard being the word of the day. His balls couldn’t get any bluer. He had a feeling Thoreau was in the same state, if his nightly throw-pillow placement was anything to go by. Their quiet evenings watching home-improvement shows were getting hotter than the porn he used to get off to, back when he had privacy and his bedroom hadn’t taken over by Noah’s nurse.

  Fuck, he didn’t want to think about that when he was this ready to pop. He’d jumped in the shower right after Fiona left for the day. She’d perched her sweet ass on his lap to kiss him goodbye, and things had escalated quickly. Her moan when he copped a quick feel, while Thoreau was literally steps away in the kitchen, almost had him coming in his shorts.

  He’d wanted to lift her skirt and have her ride him right there. He’d wanted to tug down that lace-scalloped tank she loved to wear to show off her tattoos and suck on her hard nipples until she was sobbing his name.

  He’d wanted Thoreau to watch.

  God, that was twisted.

  Hot, firecracker. The word is hot.

  She’d love it, he knew. Fiona had a thing for making out in public places. She also liked it a little rough, and she loved it when Wyatt took control.

  What would Thoreau think if he saw Fiona bend over so Wyatt could spank her ass? Would he give him that disapproving look he got when Wyatt ate the last of his favorite cereal? Or one of the strange glances he’d sent his way when Thoreau thought he wasn’t looking? The ones Wyatt couldn’t define. The ones that made him feel naked.

  He stroked himself harder, letting another scene play out in his head. That night last week when they thought he was asleep on the couch and Fiona was on the loveseat with Thoreau, a book in her hands and a crocheted blanket over her lap.

  Thoreau had been whispering in her ear, his eyes on the flat screen, but Wyatt noticed when his hand disappeared under the blanket. Thoreau had bitten his lower lip at the same time Fiona swallowed a quiet gasp, and Wyatt had known what they were doing.

  He’d lain there watching their not-so-covert session, listening to Fiona’s breath coming faster and harder, and he hadn’t done anything to stop it. The sight of Thoreau’s arm flexing as he fucked her with his fingers in the darkened living had made Wyatt’s own hand had curl under his pillow as he savored the memory of how she felt, wet and tight, around his fingers.

  He remembered biting his tongue when he saw how close she was. He wanted to know if Thoreau was rubbing her clit the way she needed it rubbed. If he’d gotten a second finger inside so she could feel stretched. Claimed.

  When her book dropped and she buried her face in his neck, her legs bending so the blanket was only partially concealing them, he could have sworn Thoreau was looking at him. Staring at him as his hand worked so fast there could be no mistaking what he was doing.

  Wyatt hadn’t known if it was his imagination or a challenge, but he still let it happen.

  He watched it happen. Watched her body bucking, riding his hand. Listened to their rough breath and the wet sounds of fucking so arousing his hips pumped against the couch before he could stop himself.

  Fiona’s muffled moans as she came had been worth the trouble of feigning sleeping. Seeing Thoreau grimace and shake his head a few minutes later, after she’d recovered from her climax and tried to return the favor, was nearly as satisfying.

>   Cockblocker.

  After they went to bed, Wyatt had taken a shower just like this one, and wondered why he wasn’t storming out, seething with jealousy. Wondered what would have happened if he’d joined them—just gone over there, gotten on his knees and sucked on her clit while Thoreau fingered her to climax.

  Somehow, some part of him knew that’s what Thoreau was waiting for.

  Him.

  “Fuck.” He grunted, trying to hold back his loud groan as he came in hot spurts into the shower’s spray. Yes. God, yes. Damn, that was good.

  Shudders wracked him, followed by a short, hoarse cough as he leaned more heavily against the wall, recovering.

  Shit.

  He didn’t know what to do with the fact that, aggravating as he could be, Thoreau was now a part of his Fiona fantasies. Most of them, anyway. And they were getting more detailed by the day.

  Maybe it was the close proximity combined with three large helpings of sexual frustration. They were all feeling it. But that didn’t explain Wyatt’s reactions. Not entirely.

  He was still feeling the effects of his climax when he heard the door to the bathroom open. “What the hell?”

  “Are you done whacking it or what, Finn? I’ve been waiting out there a while now, and either your dick is really into foreplay or your meds are having unfortunate side effects.”

  Had Thoreau just broken in to the bathroom? “I thought I locked that door.”

  A few seconds later he heard the toilet flush and rolled his eyes.

  “You did,” Thoreau assured him. “But Fiona’s at the pub until happy hour is over, and we need to talk. I got impatient, and I grew up with secretive sisters. I eat locked doors for breakfast.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my dick.” Wyatt had his arms crossed defiantly, a waste since Thoreau couldn’t see through the patterned curtain concealing him. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “So you’re good then?” He heard the water running in the sink. “You got your permission slip from the doctor now? Everything in working order?”

  Wyatt frowned suspiciously. “Why do I feel like that question is a trap?”

  Thoreau chuckled. “That makes sense. You think if you say yes, I’ll make you stay in the other apartment instead of on my couch. That is, if I don’t kick you out and send you back to the Finns because you’re a pain in the ass.”

  Exactly. That was exactly what he was thinking. It threw him off that Thoreau knew it. “She says I’m doing better, okay? Any other questions?”

  The doctor still advised some caution, but when he’d specifically asked, she’d given the okay for exercise that included sexual activity. “Just no marathons yet,” she’d joked with another glance at his X-rays. “And I mean that in every way you’re imagining.”

  He wondered if that included jerk off sessions. In the last week he’d come close to beating the record he’d set when he was fourteen.

  Beating. Ha.

  You’re still fourteen.

  Maybe. But he was big for his age.

  “Good. That’s good,” Thoreau said from the other side of the curtain. “That means we can finally start phase two of my brilliant plan.”

  Wyatt snorted, about to toss back a sarcastic zinger about mad beer scientists, when his slick shoulder slid along the tile and he almost landed on his ass. “Shit.”

  The curtain was pushed to the side and Thoreau was there, studying him with a worried frown and a towel in his hand. “You alright? You’ve been in that steam for a while and you—are you dizzy? You look dizzy.”

  “What do you think we need to talk about while I’m in the middle of a shower?” he demanded. “And how can we be in phase two of a plan I know nothing about?”

  Ignoring him, Thoreau manhandled him out of the shower, set him down on the lid of the toilet and handed him his towel. Wyatt told himself he was too confused by the man’s actions to give him the punch he so richly deserved, but the truth was, he did feel dizzy.

  Damn it, he hated this. He’d never been sick or injured enough to have anyone hovering over him, to have his family stopping by to visit him voluntarily. To have someone he used to consider his sexual rival sneaking him beers and keeping an eye on his company in case they tired him out. Helping him out of the damn shower.

  He didn’t like feeling weak.

  Wyatt forced himself to think of Noah. Recovering from this smoker’s cough on crack had been a cakewalk compared to what his brother was going through. All that had really changed with Wyatt was his voice. But Noah?

  He was healing fast, they said. He was young and strong and in great shape. Lucky, they said.

  Noah’s ego wasn’t as well developed as Wyatt’s, but it still existed. When he’d seen him a few days ago, he’d realized what his brother already seemed to know. That though the surgeries they’d already begun could repair most of the damage to his face, he would never look exactly the same. And his shoulder might have been too badly damaged for him to do more than desk work at the station. Though it was way too soon to make assumptions about that.

  Wyatt could tell him no one cared how he looked or what he did for a living, but he knew Noah did. He wished that asshole would stop giving him the silent treatment so they could talk about it.

  “Wyatt?”

  While Thoreau turned off the shower, Wyatt rubbed the towel over his hair before covering his junk again. “Is phase two me moving to Seamus and Bell’s place? I’ve got no issues with that. They’ve got—”

  “A pool, I know,” Thoreau interrupted sarcastically. “They’ve got a great library, too. I’m pretty sure there’s a wrestling gym. But everybody’s always going on about that indoor pool.”

  He leaned against the counter and stared down at Wyatt. “The plan is not for you to leave. Let’s get that out of the way first. Noah still has a lot going on, and you going back into Finn territory would just excite the reporters who seem to have decided he’s the star of this story they won’t let die.”

  The damn story hadn’t died because new details kept popping up every week. Money laundering. Dirty accountants and political intrigue. Not to mention an affair, compromising video and a potential homicide.

  The amount of accelerant used could have done more damage than it had, but from what they’d managed to piece together, the arsonist was an amateur with no idea what he was doing. Maybe he’d watched a bad video online, because Wyatt knew they were out there.

  Thank God for incompetence, otherwise he and Noah wouldn’t have made it out of there.

  “I’m staying?” He looked up at Thoreau. “I’m freezing my bare ass off and you’re blocking the exit, so am I being moved to the bathroom for the duration? If so, I’d like to borrow one of those nice blankets your sister makes.”

  Thoreau laughed and he fought the desire to smile in return. Then Thoreau tossed him the folded boxers he’d set by the sink and Wyatt caught them automatically, watching as he disappeared around the corner. “There. Warm those cheeks up.”

  This was what he was talking about, he thought as he slipped his legs into the shorts before managing to slip them on without losing his towel. Normally he was proud of his body—a little too proud, maybe, and too quick to show it off—but today he felt the need to hide. In his defense, it had been weird as hell around here. He and Thoreau had never thrown down or anything, but he’d always felt there was a little bit of tension to their interactions. Like two dogs trying to mark the same territory.

  You’re the only dog in this scenario.

  He draped the towel around his neck and followed Thoreau into the living room. Was that true? Had it really been him all this time? He tried to think back, and other than some occasional snark, he couldn’t remember Thoreau ever doing anything to him. He’d never challenged him or insinuated he wasn’t good enough for Fiona. And he’d never been an asshole the way Wyatt had.

  He was the one who hadn’t been secure enough to share Fiona’s time, partly because he knew Thoreau was mo
re her type than he could ever be. Smart. Steady. Better at expressing his feelings.

  The business owner even took his clothes seriously. The tan pants, new belt, and wrinkle-free blue shirt that made him look like he dropped off a catalogue were like nothing Wyatt would wear unless he was headed to a wedding or a funeral. Thoreau reminded Wyatt a little of Stephen. Or one of those political interns that circled his cousin like a pilot fish.

  He was younger and way more together than Wyatt. He knew where he wanted to be five years from now. Fifteen years. There was confidence and direction in every step he took and every gesture he made. Clarity of purpose. That was the phrase, right? Thoreau had that and Wyatt didn’t.

  Shit, where had all this introspection come from? He was a simple guy. Or he used to be. And he never used to sit still long enough to have such deep fucking thoughts.

  “You’re really just going to leave me with something like phase two hanging over my head?” he griped.

  Thoreau laughed as he went through the pile of books collecting under the coffee table, and Wyatt winced as he read the titles. “I was going to put those back.”

  In addition to the book on brewing and a couple of political intrigues, there were three of Fiona’s self-help books. She said she read them like other people read romance, and that while what was inside wasn’t necessarily accurate, but there were kernels of truth and a guaranteed happy ending.

  Wyatt liked them.

  “Been having a hard time sleeping on this lumpy-ass foldout?” Thoreau asked with a grin, carrying the books over to the shelf and stacking them neatly.

  “I’m trying to keep up with dinner conversations. You know how you and Fi like to talk while you eat.”

  All the reading and living with a guy like Thoreau had made him start to question his own ambitions. Which until now had consisted of fighting fires until he couldn’t, and then… Something to do with sleeping in and drinking beer for breakfast? Going to Disneyland? He’d never thought that far ahead. He’d never thought about becoming an arson investigator or even the captain of his own station someday either, but that was changing, too.