Alannah

by L. A. Casey

  “You all look like ants!” I swallowed. “Tiny ants.”

  Keela laughed but covered her mouth so I wouldn’t hear her, but I heard her anyway.

  “Why did ye’ let me do this?” I snapped at her. “Why, Keela?”

  “Because ye’ wouldn’t let me do it!”

  “You’re pregnant!” everyone chorused.

  “Story of me bleedin’ life.”

  “What is all the shoutin’ about?”

  “Branna,” I squealed. “I can’t move, and the ground is movin’.”

  “Oh, bollocks.”

  I could see Branna walk into Alec and Keela’s garden out of the corner of my eye, and a tall figure followed her. I assumed that to be Ryder. When I heard babbling and soft crying, I knew they had the twins in their arms.

  “I knew you’d get stuck up there,” Damien informed me. “I’m gonna have to come and get you before gravity does.”

  Keela laughed. “He sounds like Marlin from Finding Nemo.”

  “You take that back because I’m always down for adventures. Just last night, Alannah and I were roughhousing and—”

  “Okay!” I screeched, mortified that he would talk about our sex life so openly. “I’ll come down. Just stop talkin’.”

  “If I knew kinky tales would have got your ass in gear”—Alec snickered—“I’d have gotten Damien over here sooner.”

  “Kiss me arse!”

  “Can’t,” he answered. “Baby brother would hurt me.”

  “You bet your ass I would.”

  I closed my eyes and took each step very slowly. I listened to everyone’s encouragement, and when I felt hands touch my hips, I just about died with relief.

  “I’m never doin’ that again,” I said when my feet touched the ground. “That was horrible.”

  “I don’t know why you got up there in the first place.”

  I stiffened. “Because Keela needed me to do it.”

  Damien sighed but said nothing further.

  “Why aren’t ye’ in work?”

  “The shop is slow today, so we took our break earlier than usual. Harley and Dante went out a while ago to get Gavin and we covered for them, so they’ve got it on lock until we come back.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “What does hmmm mean?”

  “Nothin’,” I replied. “It means nothin’.”

  I turned to Keela, who hugged me and thanked me profusely for helping her.

  “I need a cup of tea,” I announced. “Me nerves are gone.”

  Everyone chuckled as we entered Alec and Keela’s house and, of course, headed for the kitchen. The lads got the bags of messages in, and once they were on the counters, myself and Keela began to empty them and put the food away. I felt Damien’s eyes on me the entire time, but I ignored him as best as I could. I was angry with him over our fight, and I refused to pretend like it didn’t happen.

  “I read something interesting today.”

  I took Jules from Branna and snuggled him against my chest as I gave my attention to Alec.

  “You know how to read?”

  “Don’t annoy me, dwarf. I’m in a good mood today.”

  “Fine, proceed.”

  “I read online this morning that the first thing a man notices about a woman and keeps his attention is ultimately the thing he can’t live without.”

  “Did it give you statistics about what a man notices first?”

  Alec grinned. “Of course.”

  He no doubt found it on the recommended section of Twitter.

  “What’s the first thing you think a man notices?”

  “The first thing a man notices in a woman are her eyes.”

  I eyed him, wondering what was wrong with him.

  “When her eyes aren’t looking,” he continued, “he notices her tits.”

  There’s the man we all knew and love.

  “You’re so predictable.”

  “It’s the truth.” Alec shrugged, then looked at Damien. “Be honest, what did you notice about Alannah first?”

  “Not her tits.”

  Alec rolled his eyes. “Her ass then.”

  Damien dimpled, and I blinked with surprise.

  “I don’t have a nice arse, though.”

  Gasps were sounded, and Damien looked like he was physically wounded.

  “Don’t say that,” Branna warned. “When I said I didn’t like mine, I got an hour-long lecture about it.”

  “I’m still upset with you for saying that,” Ryder mumbled. “It’s my favourite ass in the world.”

  I smiled and looked down at their son in my arms. I pretended to chew on Jules’s fingers when he stuck them in my mouth, and he laughed.

  “You’re so perfect,” I told him. “You and all your white hair.”

  When he looked up at me and smiled, my heart squeezed.

  “Oh God, these twins look like duplicates of the big twins.”

  “The big twins.” Keela snorted. “Is that what we’re labellin’ them as, big twins and little twins?”

  “Nico and Damien can be Thing One and Thing Two,” I said. “These precious boys can be called angels instead.”

  “Typical,” Damien muttered.

  I ignored him.

  “I can’t wait until I can babysit these two.” I looked up at their parents. “When will that be?”

  Ryder looked at Branna. “She wants to take them, so we should let her.”

  Alec laughed as his eagerness.

  Branna hesitated. “What if I cry?”

  “I’ll hold you,” Ryder answered. “I’ll make it all better.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I mumbled.

  He grinned but kept his eyes on his wife.

  “Okay.” Branna nodded. “But we should start with them just being gone for a few hours. Not overnight yet.”

  “Sweetness, a few hours alone with you is all I need for us to experience heaven.”

  I blushed on Branna’s behalf, and it amused Keela, who was watching me.

  “I can take them for a few hours on Saturday,” I suggested. “I have a free day from work, and Damien is home that day, too. He’ll be drafted in if I need any help.”

  Damien agreed with a bob of his head.

  “Sounds good to me,” Ryder said and looked at his wife.

  “Me too,” Branna said. “Be warned, I bet I’ll cry.”

  I chuckled, then turned to Alec. He had his arms around Keela with his hands on her baby bump.

  “Since you mentioned readin’, I just remember that I read somethin’ on Twitter last night that will mind fuck ye’.”

  Alec locked eyes on me. “Hit me with it.”

  “The alphabet song is really just ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’.”

  I watched as Alec mumbled the two songs, and when the realisation dawned on him that they had the exact same melody, it cracked me up.

  “How the hell have I not known this before now?” he asked Keela.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t know it until now either.”

  I watched as he tried to disprove my fact, and he couldn’t.

  “Ah!” He grunted. “Fuck you, Alannah.”

  I beamed.

  “You enjoy your bickering so much it’s actually scary.”

  I looked at Ryder. “It keeps me young.”

  Alec then announced he was making pancakes, and both Damien and Ryder were happy with the news.

  “He is obsessed with makin’ pancakes,” Keela said to me. “It’s his thing as of late.”

  “Not just any pancakes,” Alec corrected. “The perfect pancakes.”

  “What is the perfect pancake?” I quizzed.

  “I’m glad you asked.”

  Keela’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not.”

  Alec ignored her and focused on me.

  “The perfect pancake requires skill. Any moron can make a basic pancake, but it takes a true master to use his talent to execute the perfect circle of roundness, the right consistency of fluffiness, a
nd of course, the correct ratio of golden brown.”

  I blinked. “I just pour the batter in the pan, wait till it bubbles, then I flip it.”

  Alec curled his lip up in disgust. “I expect nothing less from a rookie.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Okay, pancake master. Make me one of these perfect pancakes.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  He then proceeded to make a bunch of pancakes, and when he put one on a plate in front of me and handed me a fork, I cut off a piece and tasted it.

  “Well, Lana, is it the perfect pancake?”

  Alec leaned closer after Keela spoke and asked, “Is it?”

  “I already regret sayin’ this … but yeah, it is.”

  “Aha!” Alec shouted and spun to his fiancée. “I told you!”

  “That was the hardest thing I have ever had to admit in me entire life.”

  Keela snorted. “It looked like it physically hurt ye’ to say it.”

  “It did.” I bobbed my head. “Like I swallowed acid.”

  Everyone chuckled but then quietly ate the pancakes Alec made. After we had all eaten, our conversation resumed.

  “Do you think you’ll become a dad today?” Ryder quizzed.

  “No,” Alec answered with a grunt. “The kid is too snug in there. I’m worried the baby will come when I’m not around. I’ve been thinking about how Keela can reach me if she can’t find a phone, and I’ve come up with an idea.”

  I gave him my full attention.

  “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  He ignored me.

  “Storm is untrainable,” he began, “but Tyson isn’t, so maybe I can train him to find me when Keela’s water breaks.”

  “And how are you going to pull that off, Mystic Meg?”

  “I’m talented,” Alec stated, narrowing his eyes at me. “I can impart wisdom easily enough.”

  Bull. Shit.

  “If you manage to train Tyson to find you when Keela’s water breaks, I’ll give you a hundred euros and call you Lord Alec for a whole month.”

  “Deal!”

  We shook on it, and it amused everyone. The twins became restless then, so I handed Jules back to his parents, and the four of them returned home, leaving just me, Damien, Alec, and Keela in the kitchen. Alec and Keela were cuddling and being cute, whereas I wouldn’t look at Damien even though I felt him staring at me. Alec noticed this and, of course, called us on it.

  “Trouble in paradise?”

  I snorted but said nothing.

  “We’re just fine,” Damien said, his tone sarcastic. “Aren’t we, baby?”

  “Fuckin’ dandy.”

  Keela blinked. “I love when you curse. I think it’s sexy.”

  I grinned. “Fuck a duck.”

  “Stop it.” She giggled.

  “What can you two possibly argue about?” Alec asked. “You’re still in the honeymoon stage.”

  “Oh, I think we jumped that ship a while ago.” I snickered. “Right around the time Damien became a walkin’ arsehole when he doesn’t get his way. Isn’t that right, Jack Frost?”

  Keela widened her eyes at me, then flicked them to Damien behind me.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “This will end in angry sex.”

  “I can assure that it most definitely will n—Damien!”

  “Yup.” Alec snorted as I was twirled around, picked up, and tossed over Damien’s shoulder before he stalked out of the room. “It most definitely will end in angry sex.”

  I smacked my fists on Damien’s behind and shouted obscenities at him as he climbed the stairs of Alec and Keela’s house. He brought us to the first guest bedroom, slammed the door behind us, and quite literally threw me onto the bed. I smacked my hands against the mattress in outrage, but before I could push myself into an upright position, Damien leaned over me and crushed his mouth against mine. He bit down on my lower lip, and when I opened my mouth to yelp, he plunged his tongue inside.

  I was furious with him, but by God, I was so turned on by his forcefulness that I kissed him back with a raw hunger. He’d behaved this way only a handful of times, and it was always when we were fighting. This was what I liked to call Damien fucking me into submission. As he kissed me, he pushed my dress up, pulled my underwear from my body, and then busied himself with yanking down his own clothes.

  “What did I tell you I was going to do to you whenever you caught an attitude with me?”

  I licked my lips. “You said you’d fuck me.”

  “Yeah.” Damien glared down at me. “I said I’d fuck you.”

  He moved down my body, and I cried out when his tongue lapped against my clit, before it slid lower and plunged into my pussy. He tongue fucked me until my eyes crossed and my hands fisted the bed sheets under me. When he removed his tongue from me, he replaced it with his cock. I opened my eyes and locked them on his as he pushed into me. We both moaned in unison. He wasn’t gentle as his fingers bit painfully into the flesh of my thighs, and I didn’t want him to be.

  Damien loved me, but when he was angry, he fucked me like he hated me, and I loved every second of it.

  Straight away, he thrust into me with hard, fast-paced strokes. I slammed my hand over my mouth when a cry climbed up my throat. I was very aware of whose house I was in, and I was trying to keep our lovemaking silent instead of confirming what Keela and Alec already knew we were doing, but Damien wouldn’t allow it. He grabbed my hand, pulled it from my mouth, and pinned it to my side. He pounded into me, and I cried out in delight.

  “Yes, harder!” I shouted. “Fuck!”

  “Let them hear you,” he growled. “Let them know exactly what I’m doing to you.”

  He leaned his head down to mine, and just when I thought he was going to kiss me, he dipped his head, brought his mouth to my neck, and he bit me. Not enough to break the skin, but enough for it to sting with pain. I hissed, but my body arched against Damien’s, confusing the pain with pleasure. Everything happened rapidly then. Damien leaned back, then balancing himself on one arm, he removed his hand from my wrist and brought it to my pussy. He rubbed his thumb up and down before he rested it on my clit and swirled it around. My breath caught, and an orgasm began to build.

  “Damien.”

  His eyes fluttered shut. “Again.”

  I groaned as he bucked into me, stealing my breath.

  “Say it again!”

  “Damien.”

  “Fu...ck.” He licked his lower lip. “I’m gonna come.”

  He pinched my clit the second the words left his mouth, and the pain caused my orgasm to unexpectedly slam into me. A silent cry passed my lips as a pulse of ecstasy started at my clit and spread outward like scorching flames. The sensation wrapped around every muscle and drained me of energy. I hadn’t realised that my eyes had closed, but when I blinked them open, Damien was already pulling out of my body. He retrieved my underwear as I pushed myself up to my elbows. He didn’t speak a word to me as he slid them back up my shaking legs to my mid-thigh so I could pull them the rest of the way up.

  “I didn’t wear a rubber,” he said. “You’ll have to go to the bathroom so your panties don’t get ruined.”

  I lay back on the bed in a sweaty mess and tried to remember if I took my pill that morning. I couldn’t recall whether I did, and I inwardly kicked myself.

  “I’m mortified.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” I repeated incredulously. “We aren’t at home. We can’t just have sex in your brother’s house like it’s okay.”

  “I told you about your attitude and what I was going to do if you had one with me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m aware.”

  “You could have said no.” He shrugged. “If you showed any sign of not wanting me, I wouldn’t have touched you and you know it.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Ye’ know I can’t think straight when ye’ start touchin’ me.”

  My body acted of its own accord when Damien put his hands on me. Li
ke a shark who caught the scent of blood, he needed to feed. When Damien touched me, I needed him to never stop touching me.

  “Yeah,” he replied, and I heard the smile in his tone. “I know.”

  I exhaled a breath.

  “I’m still mad at ye’ over our fight.”

  “And I’m still mad at you over it,” Damien replied. “But don’t for one second think I don’t love you because I do. My brothers don’t care if their women talk shit to them, but I do, so remember that when you want to run your mouth.”

  It was almost embarrassing how attractive I found him to be when he was domineering.

  “Yeah.” I grunted. “I got that message loud and clear, bossy hole.”

  He pulled me to my feet, and before I could fix my underwear and dress, Damien caught my chin with his fingers, tipped my head back, and pressed his lips to mine. He kissed me until my hands found their way up to his hair and tangled around the thick strands. My toes curled, and my body pressed against him before I realised I had moved. His arms were wrapped around my waist, and when we finally separated, my eyes were closed, and my breathing was laboured.

  Damien, on the other hand, sounded perfectly fine.

  “Ye’ can’t kiss me when I’m mad at ye’.”

  I opened my eyes just as he invaded my space.

  “Fucking watch me.”

  I experienced a moment of déjà vu because I was sure he said something just as similar to me once before. Before he could dip his head and kiss me again, I backed away from him, keeping my eyes trained on his.

  “I have to get cleaned up.”

  He rolled his eyes over me, then jerked his head as if to give me permission to go to the bathroom. When I narrowed my eyes, a delicious grin tugged at his plump lips. With my head held high, I turned and walked as best as I could with my underwear around my thighs to leave the bedroom and go into the bathroom. After relieving myself and cleaning up, I washed my hands and returned to the bedroom to find Damien had already remade the bed and had the room looking just as pretty as when we first entered.

  “I have to go back to work,” he said as he followed me down the stairs. “I’ll be home in time for dinner.”

  “I’m not makin’ ye’ dinner,” I told him. “Ye’ can go to Branna if you’re hungry; she’ll feed ye’.”

  Damien sighed. “You’d really let me starve?”

  “Yes, I would. Now, don’t let the door hit ye’ in the arse on the way out.”