by Aly Martinez
Naturally nurturing, she took care of everyone and never expected a damn thing in return.
But at the end of the day, I’d never allowed myself to go there with Bree because she hadn’t belonged to me. She’d been Rob’s, and him being gone hadn’t changed that.
But you know what did change it? Rob’s being a piece-of-shit bastard who’d crossed every line that had ever been drawn in the sand.
All bets were off.
Guy code or whatever the fuck you wanted to call it. It was done now.
Bree was no longer off-limits, and earlier, when she’d pushed up onto her toes, her lips aimed at my mouth, declaring she had never been his, denying myself a woman I could never have evaporated into nothingness.
Fuck them. Bree was mine. My friend, my family, and if I had my way about it, my everything.
I inched over, hooking her around the waist and dragging her to meet me in the center of the bed.
“Eason?” she murmured, sounding so soft and sultry it made my cock stir. Or maybe it had more to do with finally having her in bed with me.
“Yeah. It’s just me.” I brought her flush against my front and found her lips for an all too brief kiss. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of you in my shirt.” I grinned against her mouth, sliding my hand up her side, the cotton bunching in the dip of her hip. “But I’m thinking the view of you without it might be better.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Eason, wait. We need to talk.”
And there they were again, my four least-favorite words in the English language.
“I’m done talking,” I growled.
She caught my hand at her hip and gave my wrist a squeeze. “Okay, but I don’t want to be like Rob and Jessica.”
My whole body went solid and my chest got tight, feeling more of an impending implosion than a grief-stricken ache. “What the fuck, Bree?” I rolled to my back, but she followed me over, draping her leg over my hips to keep me close.
She pushed up onto an elbow, resting her chin on my chest, and ran a finger back and forth across my collarbone. “Stop. I don’t mean it like that.”
“Then how about you find a way of saying shit without bringing them into this bed with us.”
“But don’t you see? They’re already here. Because of the kids, they’ll always be here.”
I arched an incredulous eyebrow. “You got Ash and Mads hidden over there?”
She lifted her head to look at me. “What?”
“I said do you have Asher and Madison tucked in the covers over there, because I don’t have Luna, which means in this bed, right this second, there are no kids. And there sure as shit isn’t Rob and fucking Jessica.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but I didn’t give her time to muddle shit up.
“We are nothing like them. Do you hear me? This thing between us—whatever it is—it does not involve them. I’m not married. Neither are you. We aren’t sneaking behind people’s backs and destroying their lives. They do not get to be in this bed with us.”
She was quiet for a long second. The moon lit one side of her face, but the shadows made her expression unreadable. “I saw the picture on your phone.”
“What picture?”
Despite my defensiveness, her voice was even and measured. “The one of me with the kids you have as your home screen.”
“Yeah, and?” That picture was worth more to me than gold and the humans in it were priceless.
“And it made me realize how much we have to lose.”
I twisted my lips and stared back at her, thoroughly perplexed. “If that’s what you took from that photo, then we’re in bigger trouble than I thought.” Slapping my hand out, I patted around the nightstand until I found my phone. With a tap on the screen, the light flashed on, Bree’s beautiful smile shining front and center. “I found this picture right after I got here. I’d had one of Jessica and Luna on there since the day I got this phone, but I couldn’t stomach looking at her after reading her texts with Rob. I was searching for the one of Luna in the pool a few weeks back, but this one stopped me dead in my tracks. We’ve been through hell the last year. And that’s not including the dumpster fire I found out about today. There were so many nights when everything hurt and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to breathe again. But there you were. With me every step of the way.” I tapped the screen again when it started to dim. “This picture, Bree. It’s not what we have to lose. It’s what I’ve already gained.”
“Oh, Eason,” she whispered, her hand coming up to rest on the side of my face.
I turned into it, kissing her palm before twining our fingers and bringing it back down to my chest.
“Look, I know this is going to complicate the hell out of things. But being with you is the only thing that feels right in my life. I’m gonna be real honest: I’m mad at them. I’m hurt. I’m embarrassed. And I can’t even begin to imagine the agony that’s going to follow over the next few weeks as we sort this shit out with Luna. But there are two things I know for sure: I want you, Bree, and I’m not waiting one fucking second longer to make my move.”
In one swift motion, I rolled over and tucked her beneath me. Smoothing the wisps of hair out of her face, I added, “I can’t wait any longer to kiss you from head to toe, to make you feel good and know for sure it was because of me.”
Her breath caught as I stroked her lip with the pad of my thumb, and her thick lashes fluttered.
“I need to hear you say it first though.” I pressed my lips to her temple, her cheekbone, her jaw.
“Eason, just tell me what you want to hear.” She paused and the sexiest hum vibrated through her to my mouth. “I’ll say anything.”
“That’s not how this works, Sug.”
Her brow pinched, and momentarily, her focus returned and her beautiful, green eyes searched mine. “Excuse me. Sug?”
It had been spontaneous, but now, I was convinced that the name fit her even more. “Short for Sugar.”
A life-changing bellow of laughter erupted from deep in her chest. “That’s rich, Eason. Why Sugar? You’ll never find a person on Earth who’d describe me as sweet.”
“Good,” I easily replied. “Then you can save all that sweet for me.”
Her face relaxed and her chin tipped higher as she reached out to me. Slipping my hand behind her head, I paired her mouth with mine.
If I’d thought working her up and pushing her buttons to get a rise out of her around the house had been fun, I’d been sorely undershooting the enjoyment I could have with her in other ways. Ways that had her quickly sitting up and ripping the borrowed tee off, revealing no bra and modest cotton panties.
When she caught me appraising her as I tugged and kicked my sweats off, she glanced down at her underwear and apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think that… I’ll just take them—”
I swatted her hand away. “Don’t you dare.” And because I couldn’t resist, I cupped one of her breasts and captured the other with my mouth. “Let me work for it,” I said against her soft skin. “Besides, no matter how badly I want to just…” I couldn’t find the words and hissed through my teeth as she arched into my touch. “God, I want to work your gorgeous body over so fucking hard—soon.” I kissed the space between her breasts, across her collarbone, and up her neck to her ear before finally resting my forehead against hers. “But I’ve waited too long not to take my time.”
Chin to chin. Eye to eye. She said the words I’d wanted to hear at the beginning of all this. The words I’d needed to hear straight from her mouth. Not only because I respected her, which I wholeheartedly did. But I desperately needed to know what I was feeling was mutual.
“Eason, I want you. Please.”
The magic words.
Boy, had I talked a good game about going slow. But in practice, it was monumentally more challenging.
I kissed and sucked my way up and down her body. My cock ached to find its way inside her.
B
ut not yet.
Not until I had tasted every fucking inch.
After unwrapping her like a candy and sampling the sweetness between her legs, her hands balling the sheets beside my shoulders, I nearly lost my mind.
Just before I tipped the scales out of my favor, she annihilated them altogether by rolling on top of me. “In my dreams, you said I wasn’t ready. But I’m ready, Eason. I’m so damn ready for you.”
She’d had dreams.
About me.
Fucking fuck, I could have come from that thought alone. “I don’t… have a condom or anything.”
“I trust you. I’ve always trusted you. We’re good. I’m on birth control.”
I wrapped my arms around her as she sank down on my cock with a sigh against my ear. For a beat, she remained completely still and then looked directly into my soul.
“There you are,” she said breathlessly.
It had been a long time, but it had never—ever—felt like that.
“I’m right here,” I replied, my head spinning. An intoxicating cocktail of pleasure and desire and need and purpose and sensation and belonging all at once hit my bloodstream. Lacing my hand through her dark hair, I gripped a handful and steered her lips to mine on a whispered, “You’re perfect. You know that? So fucking perfect.”
Slowly, Bree rose and fell. Taking me deeper with every swell and grind of her hips. She nipped at my neck and held on to me so tight that I suspected she’d left marks in places. Evidence I’d wear like a badge of honor.
And when she’d worked us both into a fevered knot of moans and flesh, panting against one another, I failed to resist the urge to take her.
Not that I hadn’t been right there with her the whole time.
It was that I needed to be the one to give it to her.
With an arm around her waist, I rose onto my knees and lowered her back to the bed underneath me, never breaking our connection. With her legs spread wide, I buried myself inside her and then shut out the world.
“Yes,” she praised. “Yes.”
Needing to feel her climax around me, I slipped my thumb between us and gently applied pressure to her swollen clit. The moment her body rolled into it, guiding me to what she wanted, I kept a rhythm with her until her back arched, her thighs trembled at my sides, and the words, “God, Eason. I’m coming,” filled my ears.
A fuse ignited, my spine became rigid, and as I spent myself inside her, I dove into the ocean of Bree, praying I’d never return.
We were left panting in a tangled mess of sated sweat.
There’d been a damn good chance that things after what had just happened would be different. For the better or the worse, I wasn’t sure. But catching my breath, naked, and sharing a now wrinkled sheet with the woman beside me, I had a sense that no matter what was to come, there were no two people on this great big Earth who could handle it more than we could.
We were battletested. We’d experienced a baptism by fire—quite literally. To be honest, there was no one I trusted more or had more confidence in than Bree. Though I was terrified she couldn’t say the same.
Settling on my side, I stretched my arm out under the pillow, bringing us nose to nose again. But if there were words left in the English language, my brain couldn’t find them.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, her usually satiny voice now gravely and hoarse.
How nothing in my life had ever felt so right.
I kept that to myself and went for the humor that came so easily when I was with her. “Those naughty cotton panties. You have found my weakness.”
With a playful smack, she caught me right across the chest.
“Ow,” I mumbled, laughing at her murderous glare.
“Give a girl a break, it’s not like I planned to come up here and seduce you.”
“Oh, but you did. Tell me more about these dreams you had about me. Was I always naked? Or just in the really good ones?”
Under the sheet, she kicked at my leg. “Eason!”
This was the Bree I was falling for. The fighter. The fierce and scrappy hothead. A gorgeous pain in my ass.
“What? It’s a valid question.”
Her weak attempted assault on me halted. “The only valid question is where we go from here.”
Sliding my hand down to her ass, I pulled her against my front. “What do you want me to say? I think it’s a little late for ‘Bree, will you go out with me?’”
Her brow shot up.
I was tiptoeing out onto the thinner ice and I knew it. And I was so fucking happy I just didn’t care. “Okay, okay,” I said. “At home, we just act natural. It’s not like I’d bend you over in front of the kids at the dinner table.”
“Oh my God. I know. But you don’t think we should say anything?”
I pulled her closer and stroked her arm. “I don’t. At least not for right now. Neither of us are going anywhere. There’s no rush to define anything or confuse them. They’ve seen us together. Honestly, they’re the happiest when it’s all five of us anyway.” I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Besides, we all know about your policy with sugar in the house.”
She pinched my nipple. “I’m serious here,” she said, her voice not just becoming serious, but revealing her vulnerability. “What if we don’t, you know…work?”
“All right. Relax. It’s good. We’re good. We’re two grown adults who have been through far worse than any breakup could throw at us. I really want to explore this thing between us. So far, we’ve made a stellar team, and clearly getting naked together was not an exception. But on the off chance we don’t work, nothing changes. I’ll write a tragic breakup song about you, make a million dollars, and you’ll have to listen to it on the radio every day for the rest of your life. But besides that, we’ll be fine.”
Her soft laughter made my heart ricochet off my ribs, but it was her words that made it feel like they were breaking. “I’m scared, Eason. I can’t lose you.”
“Hey,” I soothed, drawing her into a hug. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She tucked her face into my neck and clung to my back, her nails biting my back in desperation. “For the first time in a long time, I’m happy. With you, I’m happy.”
“Then, babe, you have nothing to worry about. I promise I’ll always be honest with you, and if this isn’t working out for me, I’ll let you know. With you, I’m happy too. The rest will fall into place, okay?”
She didn’t voice her agreement. She didn’t actually speak again at all. But for the rest of the night, she never let go. That was good enough for me.
In what should have been the worst of days, with the road ahead bound to be rockier than ever, I couldn’t help but feel like with this woman by my side, together, we’d get through it all.
BREE
Almost everything had changed in the last twenty-four hours. I still had no idea where Eason’s head was about Luna. When it came to dealing with personal disasters, I had two speeds: obsession or turbo obsession. There wasn’t a lot in between.
Eason, however, took a much slower path when processing his emotions. He’d get quiet, sit on it for a few days, and work out all the different scenarios in his head, and only when he’d looked at it from every possible angle would he come to a conclusion.
Yes, I was curious if he’d consider a DNA test to confirm or disprove what we both feared, but it wasn’t my place to even suggest such a thing. When Eason was ready to talk about it, he knew where to find me. And after last night, that somewhere would not be on the other end of the couch around the firepit.
He kissed me good morning, slow and reverent.
He stroked my thigh under the breakfast table where Luna couldn’t see.
And when I told him I needed to get home to Asher and Madison, Eason—being even more incredible than I already knew him to be—gave me a hug and told me to give him a few minutes to pack his stuff because he was coming too.
Unfortunately, some things were still the same, ma
inly the house we had to go home to and the memories that would forever live inside it. As much as I would have loved to move and get a fresh start somewhere new, it was important for me to maintain stability for the kids. Rob was still their dad regardless of how he’d broken me. It was my job to keep his memory alive for them, and if it meant pictures hanging on the wall in the house he’d called a home, then that was a sacrifice I would have to make.
Given the situation, it sucked knowing Eason had to make that sacrifice too.
However, not all change was bad.
While he packed up Luna’s stuff and prepared the cabin for us to leave, I made a phone call to Jillian. As I explained our situation, I was met with outrage on what Rob and Jessica had done, curses banishing them to hell, and, finally, pleas for all the details on what Eason was really like in bed. But by the end, she promised she would take care of a few things for me at home. With it only being a four-hour trip back, I didn’t have high expectations for how much she could accomplish.
Though, as we pulled up to find two furniture delivery trucks and three others marked Hud Construction filling the brick horseshoe driveway, I couldn’t help but laugh. Clearly, Jillian’s skillset was far greater than answering the phones and providing vibrator coupon codes.
Damn, that woman needed a raise.
Smirking, I parked on the street. Eason pulled up behind me to do the same.
“What’s all this?” he asked, folding out of his black Tahoe.
“I’m not entirely sure.”
Confusion crinkled his forehead. “Does that mean you know what’s going on and were expecting one truck instead of six or that you have no clue and I should probably stretch out in preparation for hand-to-hand combat with whoever the hell is robbing us right now?”
I chuffed and walked over to him, fighting the urge to kiss his handsome face off. “Chill out, Chuck Norris. I asked Jillian to do me a favor, and clearly she was up for the challenge.”
“What kind of favor?”
“You’ll see.”
He narrowed his eyes but didn’t delay in getting Luna out of her car seat. Together, the three of us meandered up to the house.
