by Alina Jacobs
“I figure this vibrator isn’t as big as I am, so it’s a good introduction.”
“Excuse me, what are you...?”
He showed me instead of telling me.
Lube. It was all over my rear, and it was followed by the buzzing of the vibrator poking at my hole. I gasped in surprise as he pushed it in deeper, harder, and nibbled on my lip as I prepared to enjoy what was to come. It was such an odd feeling, but I wasn’t going to stop him. Trust. I still had it for him. Also, I’d had a lot to drink, and this was seeming like a really good, even desirable idea.
I couldn’t help but moan as the vibrator softly hummed inside me. It was such an odd feeling, but what an experiment this was.
“What?” I gasped, stars bouncing in my vision at the new sensation. “Preparing to fuck my ass? Tired of the old-fashioned way already?”
“Tired of it? Never. I’m just exploring new and fun things just for the two of us, Brea.”
I turned around and saw that while I was opening—heh—myself up to new experiences, he had stripped himself down to nothing, his cock throbbing with need for me. I heard a condom packet tear.
When I lay back on the bed, he climbed on top of me, even as the vibrator hummed along. After a brief kiss, he guided himself into my pussy, ready to fuck me as I was already being fucked.
I gasped again as Mark thrust himself in. Yeah, he was a whole lot more than the vibrator, and I’d enjoyed him so much already, but this was new. Quite the intense feeling arose from the war in my most sensitive parts, both of them fighting over my attention.
I just murmured and struggled a bit as he slid inside me, my insides wonderfully crushed between his cock and the vibrator.
From the sound of his harsh breathing, I could tell what I was doing to him. I wiggled against him and moaned at the sensation, the tightness this was causing within me. More than ever, my pleasure was his pleasure. I stammered, nibbling my lips as he fucked me, but I was soon overwhelmed by sensations.
He quickly went to fucking me hard. The intensity pushed us both beyond our normal stamina, and we peaked toward our ecstasy fast.
The intensity of the orgasm that hit me...crashed over me…was like nothing I’d ever felt. Mark was right there with me, a panting, growling mess.
Mark pulled the vibrator out, leaving me sore yet so very satisfied. He cleaned us up then curled up next to me on the bed, pressing soft kisses to my face.
“That was—” Amazing? Intense? Unlike anything I’d ever done with a guy?
But Mark was lying back on the mound of pillows, breathing deeply. I brushed a lock of hair off of his forehead.
I had saved some food from the party. I wasn’t going to tell him, but I had been craving chicken wings all night, and I went to the kitchenette in the next room to grab one or five out of the fridge.
My phone lit up with a call, and I hastily answered it so it wouldn’t wake him.
“Memphis Eve,” I said warily. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Mom admitted who our father is,” she told me over the phone.
I yawned. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s Jack Holbrook.”
47
Mark
Brea wasn’t there when I woke up the next morning. Her clothes were gone, and so were her bag and coat.
I tried to remember the previous night. I didn’t think I’d had that much to drink. I thought we’d had fun. Maybe I had been a little harsh on the games she’d set up. I texted her but got no response.
Wes and Liz were awake. Liz was eating leftovers and drinking a sparkling water when I knocked on the suite door.
“Don’t worry!” Liz said when I asked in a rush about Brea. “She is supposed to do my final dress fitting today. I’m sure she’s at home sewing!”
“But she didn’t say anything,” I said.
“She can be a bit scattered. She’s one of those creative types,” Liz assured me. “She probably had a random thought and just decided she needed to work on it without waking you up. I bet when you two move in together, you’re just going to find her in her studio working at odd hours of the night.”
“You’re a workaholic too,” Wes reminded me. “During family functions, you’ll periodically wander off to answer emails or work on one of your equations.”
“I guess,” I said.
But I still hadn’t heard from Brea that afternoon when Liz had her dress fitting. Wes had been banished to my apartment. I didn’t need to be at the dress fitting, of course, but I needed to see Brea.
She was efficiently pinning the strips of fabric around Liz with color-coded pins and making notes in her book. I stood shifting my weight as Brea worked. I cleared my throat when she was at a stopping point.
“Hi, Mark,” she said then went back to her notebook.
“That was some party, huh.”
Brea just nodded. When she walked quickly past me to grab another piece of ribbon, I made a move to kiss her, but Brea practically jumped out of the way.
“No—not now.”
“Shoo, Mark.” Liz said. “I need to put on the other dress.”
I fled back to my condo.
“I think I fucked up,” I said to Wes.
He was playing a complicated game of fetch with the dogs. Kal knew the rules, but Beowulf hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it and would snatch the tennis ball and run wildly around the room until he hit a piece of furniture or Wes was able to wrestle the ball away from him.
“It’s the wedding,” Wes said. “Seriously, relax. She was all over you yesterday.”
“What if it’s a sign? What if there was something big I’m missing?” I said, starting to pace around the room.
Wes didn’t seem convinced. “Brea seems pretty straightforward.”
“What about her twin? Did she cheat and is feeling guilty? Did I do something?” I wondered.
Wes sighed. “You shouldn’t invite trouble.”
“I have to analyze this from every angle. I need to be vigilant.”
Wes patted me on the shoulder. “Seriously, Mark, relax. You’ve been so happy since Brea has come into your life. Just enjoy it. She’s probably hung over and stressed because Liz is about to pop. Hell, I’m stressed. If you need something to worry about, why don’t you call your mom and help her worry about the rehearsal dinner.”
“Fuck.”
“She wants to go over the final details with someone. I don’t think your dad wants to hear it, and you are the best man.”
I didn’t want to deal with my mother. Instead, I texted Brea to come downstairs—if she had time, of course—but received no response.
She’s working. People work. I bet a few months from now, she’s going to be mad at you if you aren’t immediately answering your phone because you’re in the middle of a big presentation. She’s a seamstress, and this is two days before the wedding. Just cool it.
Someone knocked on the door, and I practically raced Beowulf to see who it was.
“Oh,” I said dejectedly when I opened the door. “Hey, Mom.”
“‘Hey, Mom’?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow. “I hope you greet the guests better than that at the rehearsal dinner tomorrow.” She walked into my condo, toting the oversized planner that she used to make her event notes.
“Good, Wes is here.”
My cousin grimaced.
“Let’s go over the program,” Nancy said. “We need to strategize to make sure your grandfather doesn’t get up there and start a thirty-minute speech.”
All through the drawn-out meeting for the rehearsal dinner, I tried to put Brea out of my mind. But I couldn’t. She didn’t call. She didn’t text. And when I went to bed that night, it felt cold and empty without her.
48
Brea
“You’ve been having sex with your half brother?” Amy screeched that evening. We were at the Weddings in the City office. Everyone was in go-mode for Liz’s wedding in less than forty-eight hours, but they had taken a break to co
me talk me off a ledge.
“I can’t believe it. I felt like I was going to vomit all day,” I said with a shudder and wrapped my arms around myself.
“I hope you’re not pregnant,” Elsie said.
“Dear lord!” Sophie crossed herself.
“I already peed on a stick,” I said miserably. “What am I going to do? I can’t tell Mark. I have to take that secret to my grave.”
“Yeah. I think you can go to jail for sleeping with your brother,” Grace said.
“Is no one going to put forth the possibility that your mother or Memphis Eve could be lying?” Elsie said dryly. “Why are we already jumping to the worst-case scenario?”
“Even if we aren’t related—dear lord, please let us be not related, because there is not enough cake in the world to pull me out of that rock bottom—I cannot tell him that it might even be a possibility. He would freak out. He’s—brittle right now,” I countered. “What would I even say? ‘Whoops, remember my twin? She’s actually evil, and I only kissed you so she wouldn’t ruin your life, but then I let it get ruined anyways. Totes sorry about imploding your family. Have a nice life? Peace out!’”
“We need a plan,” Ivy said, taking out her Happy Planner. “Step one. Verify paternity.”
“We have the rehearsal dinner tomorrow,” Grace said with a nod. “Ivy, Brea, and I will be there. We can try to steal a DNA sample.”
“Step two: Hope that Brea is not related to Mark’s dad,” Ivy continued. “Step three: If Brea is, then she can move to Harrogate and hopefully never see the Holbrooks again.”
I trudged home from the Weddings in the City office. I still had to finish Liz’s dress, but all I wanted to do was curl up on my bed and eat the leftover wedding cake Sophie had given me. Instead, I stopped at a Starbucks and ordered two extra-large mocha cookie crumble Frappuccinos with three extra shots of espresso, extra cookie crumbs, and extra chocolate sauce. I was sucking down one of them as I walked up to my building.
I screamed and almost dropped my beverages when I opened the door. In the small vestibule, Memphis Eve and my mother were waiting.
“We need to talk about Jack Holbrook,” Memphis Eve said, eyes a little too bright in the dark. It made her look predatory.
“He’s your father,” my mother insisted. “I slept with him a bunch of times around when you were conceived.”
“I’m going to try to steal DNA from him tomorrow,” I said in a low voice. “Dave’s DNA didn’t come back positive?”
“Thankfully, no,” Memphis Eve said.
“I hope it is Jack Holbrook!” my mother gushed. “Just think, girls, a billionaire! You’d be entitled to part of his estate. I could sue him for child support. I could buy a yacht!”
“No one is buying a yacht,” I snapped. “Even if he is our father, no one can know.”
Memphis Eve’s mouth curled up like a cat about to strike. “Why?” she hissed. “What game are you trying to play?”
“I don’t want to hurt Mark.”
“Oh, right.” Memphis Eve laughed like the Wicked Witch of the West. “You slept with your own half brother.”
“Alleged,” I whispered, face hot with shame and anger. “Alleged. And you can’t go around claiming that we are related with no proof. That’s not right.”
Memphis Eve jerked forward and spat at me, “You don’t care about the Holbrooks and their reputation. You don’t care about Mark. In fact, you never cared about Mark. You only wanted him because I wanted him. You were always jealous of me. Now you’re trying to go in there and use your influence to cut me out of the inheritance.”
“You sound crazy!” I cried. “Both of you sound crazy. I’m looking for the truth.”
“Bullshit!” my sister yelled. “You want money. You want all of it, and you’re trying to squeeze me out. Well, I’m not going to let you. Those billions are mine.”
I trudged into the apartment. My dads tried to convince me to come watch TV with them, but I mumbled excuses about needing to finish Liz’s dress.
“You haven’t told us about meeting Mark’s parents,” Todd said.
“Or your bachelorette party,” Beau said in concern. “What’s the matter, Brea?”
“I have a wedding in a couple of days,” I said. “I promise we’ll talk after.”
Once in the safety of my room, I laid out Liz’s wedding dresses, reviewed my notes, and forced myself to concentrate on finishing them. A Frappuccino and a half later, I was wired.
“Okay!” I said, doing jumping jacks. “Three amazing wedding dresses coming right up! We are thinking lace! We are thinking embroidery! We are thinking silk! We are not thinking about Mark!”
I selected an audiobook on my phone and let it play while I started to stitch. I had downloaded a free collection. The stories were pretty good, and I sank into them as I stitched up the seam where I had marked earlier that day.
I tied off a thread and started the next seam as the next book came up in the short-story collection.
“Dirty Deep Desires: A Hot Incest Alien Billionaire Romance. Chapter 1. Her hot brother was—”
I furiously mashed the skip button then thunked my head on the desk.
“This is going to be a long night.”
49
Mark
Brea still hadn’t contacted me the next day. I was becoming very worried. To distract myself, I had worked all morning then headed over to the Holbrook estate for the wedding rehearsal.
The ceremony was going to be out in the garden. I was grateful, because I still hadn’t been inside the building since the fire almost two years ago. I had been hoping to have Brea by my side for the experience. However, when I saw her at the rehearsal, she looked wan, like she hadn’t slept. I smiled and waved at her, but she just looked away.
That’s more than stress, I decided. Brea looked sick, as if she was going to faint, while we ran through the wedding rehearsal. Maybe you were too rough. I was sick at the thought that I had hurt her the night of the bachelor party. Brea was the stand-in for Liz, and she stood, wavering slightly, at the other end of the aisle. As she walked down the green path flanked by white chairs, I envisioned her walking down the aisle to me.
But Brea was slipping away.
I tried to catch up with her after the rehearsal was over, but my mother pulled me away to the restaurant at which the rehearsal dinner was taking place later. With all the people from out of town, my mother had insisted that Uncle Walter host a reception dinner for anyone who wanted to attend.
Mark: There are snacks here. And coffee.
No answer.
Brea’s just busy. The wedding is tomorrow.
People started trickling in to the rehearsal dinner as my mother was putting the final touches on the table arrangement. “That chair isn’t even, Mark.” She pointed.
I moved the chair over a centimeter.
“And make sure there is a prix fixe menu card at every table, dear. We can’t have people up and down during the speeches. I don’t want your grandfather to have any excuse to grab the microphone.”
The outdoor restaurant was packed when I walked out after helping my mother. They were doing a cocktail hour on the back deck looking over the bay. I stayed on the lookout for Brea. I had to talk to her, but I also had to greet various out-of-town relatives and friends of my parents, who all felt the need to bring up the last time there had been a big gathering and, oh, wasn’t it a shame about that fire, and how are you holding up?
My jaw was tense from clenching a smile, and the rehearsal dinner hadn’t even officially started.
There she is.
I spotted her across the room. Brea wasn’t even eating. She was just looking around nervously and fiddling with the buttons on her jacket.
Just when I had disentangled myself from one of my mother’s great-aunts, my uncle announced that everyone should go inside to take their seats. Fortunately, Brea and I were seated at the bridal party table.
“Brea,” I whispered, leaning
over to her. “Why haven’t you been talking to me?”
She dipped her head. “I’ll—I’ll tell you later, okay?”
“Okay.” I grabbed her hand. She jerked it back. “Can you please just tell me, did I hurt you or anything? I’m so sorry.”
She looked as if she was about to cry. “No,” she said. “No, Mark, you’re fine. You’re perfect. I’m just... I’ll tell you later, okay? Promise.”
“We are gathered here today,” Walter said, raising his glass, “because my son Wes and his girlfriend Liz are getting married. And having a baby! In that order, though it’s going to be close, isn’t it, Liz?”
Everyone laughed. Brea managed a wan smile.
“I’m so excited to be a grandfather and to add a daughter to our family. And because we Holbrooks are all about sharing, here’s Mark to share a few words as the best man.”
“Wes and Liz, congratulations,” I said, looking over at them.
I noticed Brea stand up from her seat and scurry over to the far side of the room. What was she doing?
“I know, Wes, you and I maybe didn’t start off on the best foot, but I’m glad to be able to stand up here to see you on to your next chapter in life. And Liz, it’s great to add a woman to our family! Just try not to be too hard on him.”
“You stupid bitch!” a woman’s voice cut across the room.
I peered through the lights. Brea was furiously shushing someone.
“Wes,” I continued, glancing down at my notes, “it was a surprise when you and Dana showed up, but a welcome one. Your new baby is clearly following in your footsteps. I know you’re going to make a wonderful husband and father. Having been raised by a Holbrook myself, I know that while we can be gruff, we do make pretty good dads.”
Jack smiled at me.
“No, they don’t!” the woman in the back of the room screeched. There were shouts of surprise as Memphis Eve strode to the front of the room, Brea racing after her.
