Her arms drop to the sides and her purse hits the floor with a thump and a clatter. She’s moving swiftly towards me and my mind screams that this is a trap. It is. Because when her hands hit the wall of my chest and sweep around my sides, wrenching me in, I’m standing upright as I fall for her.
She squeezes my waist and pushes up on her toes and her lips meet mine and every muscle in my body reacts. My arms circle her body and I crush her to me, lifting her from the ground in the same motion. I cup her ass, squeezing it hard and she breathes hard against my mouth as we come together in the middle of my room. She tastes like lavender and butter and I melt into her. Her hands move quickly over my face and neck and arms. She grips my shoulders, slips her fingers underneath the edges of my shirt, and as I collapse down onto the edge of the bed she rips it off of me. She’s got my belt in her fists and my erection kicks violently towards her.
“Easy,” I hiss, taking her two hands in one of my own and stretching them above her head. I lie her down, sliding my other hand against her stomach, beneath the edge of her blue, blue shirt, one that has nothing on the color of her eyes.
She gasps and her eyelids flutter. “Please,” she begs, “I’ve wanted this for so long.”
I can’t believe that, but I want to. I kiss a circle around her belly button before covering my body with hers. My right hand shoots down the front of her jeans and I cup her core through her panties. They’re soaked and I’m unraveling. “Jesus,” I murmur.
“Christ,” she mimics.
I taste her cheek, her jaw, her throat, and then I feel my way down the front of her G-string and run my fingers over that soft, supple section, loving the reaction that I win from her. The sudden surge of air that sweeps into her lungs, and as she expels it, my name. She comes for me the first time, and everything kicks into high gear after that. Her pussy is pulsing around my fingers as I draw her shirt over her head and wrench off her jeans. She rips my belt free of the loops and I push her all the way onto the bed. My hand around the back of her neck, I stare deep into her eyes as our two bodies come together at the hips.
We release a shared moan and goddamn, she is tighter than a vice. Moving slowly at first, I soon pick up speed and glide in and out of her relentlessly, the pressure enough to shatter. But she takes it with deep moans. Her porcelain skin is splotchy, red flowering under my palms as I squeeze her breasts and twist her nipples between my middle finger and my thumb. I kiss her lips, taste her cool breath.
“Sara,” I whisper.
“Dixon,” she whispers back.
Her lips part and her eyes close. Her nails bare down into my shoulders and watching her come for me, I lose control. The orgasm folds over me like the dawn, tackling me from behind. I worry I’ll crush her beneath me, but she only wraps her arms around my shoulders and her legs around my waist. A few moments pass before my length hardens inside of her again, without waiting for either of our heartbeats to settle.
“Sh…” she says and I release low laughter between us as slide my hand beneath her lower back and lift. She gasps.
“I’m not finished with you by a long shot,” I growl into her neck, knowing that nothing I could have ever done in a past life would have made me worthy of her. So as my lips pull at hers I vow that I will treasure every minute of this life that I have been given because every minute with her is a gift.
Aiden
I wake though I never really fell asleep. My eyes were open the whole time, though I wasn’t conscious of what I was seeing. Now, I want to close them, but I remember what can happen in the dark. Even just the darkness of an eyelid. All the lights in my room are on and though there are no mirrors here, I catch my reflection in the glossy surface of the dresser. I’ve got bags like bruises under both eyes and I’m unshaved. My lips are dry and I imagine that if a stranger saw me standing beside Clifton right now, they wouldn’t even know we were brothers, let alone twins. I’m meat and ash and he’s sunlight. I remember thinking that the first time I met him. He’d called me brother. I hadn’t seen the resemblance.
It’s three am. I get up and go to the gym.
My bare feet pound down on the treadmill. Music blasts into the room through the ceiling and walls. Rakim, Bob Dylan, ocean sounds, Faith Hill, Local Natives, Tupac, Mozart. No theme, artist, band, genre, consistency. Just sounds. I like sounds second to silence but these days silence gets my mind wandering and there’s only one thing to dream about.
The cross that does not belong to me thumps against my chest beneath my shirt. I looked for her. Thought I’d return the cross. Swore I would. Hacked her accounts. Email, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter. All active but no posts, despite fans flooding her DM. All of her messages went ignored, including those from photographers and clients from fashion magazines and well-known brands. I gained some insight from an email sent from her law school study group wishing her the best with her grandmother’s illness, but it still didn’t help in tracking down where Gavriil had taken her.
Sweat runs down the back of my shirt as I force myself to shut down all thoughts of Alina. Concentrating instead on the sound of Death Metal blasting through the speakers overhead, my mind finally drifts. I think of nothing. Some indeterminate amount of time passes before the door behind me opens and shuts. I know it’s Clifton when he doesn’t announce himself.
He stands directly behind the treadmill and when I don’t step down or slow, he says, “I don’t know how you live like this.” He has to shout to be heard. “Daft Punk’s shaking the whole damn house.”
Glancing at the treadmill dashboard, I hit the red button. Fifteen and a half miles will do. I step off the treadmill and silence the surround sound. I toss Clifton the remote and he hands me a bottle of water.
“You look like you need it. You’re raining, man. How long you been down here?”
I take the bottle from him and crack the lid, emptying most of it down my throat. “An hour.” I shrug. “Maybe more.”
He makes a face and leans in towards me, then sniffs like a dog. “Funny. After an hour of sweating like this I’d have expected the smell to have worn off.”
He’s talking about the perfume I sprayed on my wrist earlier that day. The smell of it helps me nod off. These days, it’s the only thing that helps me sleep at all. I say nothing and he shrugs. “Nothing doing, just doesn’t seem like you. Wanted to know what was keeping you up.”
“Nothing from the Russians yet.” I don’t know if it’s a question or a statement. I just want him to shut up.
Clifton shakes his head. “Nothing yet. And Ollie’s completely MIA.”
“Unlucky for him.”
Clifton clenches his teeth together and gives me one of his stern glances, full of condescension that I don’t feel, or respond to. “He was our friend, man.”
“Yeah. Our friend.” The word means nothing to me. “Which is why I’d have killed him outright instead of torturing him.”
Clifton shakes his head. “You’ve got no soul, brother.”
I don’t contradict it.
“Are you even happy here with us?” he asks as I brush past him and head to the door.
Happy. What's that?
I cross the full-sized basketball court and my feet echo as they slap the glossy wood. Tossing the crushed plastic to the side, I step back into the house. I move quickly to avoid Clifton, whose footsteps I can hear chasing me down the hall. I pass Dixon’s closed door, then Knox’s, which is open.
“Shit,” a woman’s voice says. Mer’s. I glance up and she’s standing in the light of the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of Knox’s boxers. I reach into the room to close the door at the same time that a body tackles me from the side.
“What the…” Clifton says from the end of the hall. He’s running, but I’ve backed Dixon into the wall hard enough a picture frame falls and shatters. I elbow him in the ribs and he hisses, relaxing his hold enough for me to twist out from beneath him and sweep his feet.
&n
bsp; On the ground, Dixon shouts, “Don’t!” He glances at the door, and holds his hands up like he might stop me through will or kinetic energy. “I know what I asked you to do, but don’t do it.”
I smirk. Funny. He thought I was going to kill her then. “I was shutting the door.”
“What the hell is going on?” Mer’s wearing a tee shirt now that drapes to her thighs and stands in the open doorway. Her arms are crossed and her hair falls around her shoulders in glossy waves.
“Dixon thought I was going to kill you.”
Mer looks at me, then at Dixon. He’s still on the ground and makes no move to get up. “And you tried to stop him?”
Dixon doesn’t react, except to clench his teeth.
“Why would Aiden try to kill Mer?” Clifton asks behind me. It doesn’t take as long as it should for Mer to figure it out. Unsurprising. A girl in the cartel, I’m likely not the first bastard who’s tried to kill her.
“Because you asked him to,” she says, voice passive except for the slight hiccup at the end. Trying to be strong but love’s made her weak.
I don’t respond to that, but step over Dixon, leaving the three of them in muted silence. I’m in the kitchen, making a sandwich, when Clifton curses long and loud. “You’re a selfish fucking bastard.”
There’s commotion before Mer cuts in. “Hey. Hey! Gillopas, it’s done. It’s over. I’m still here and Dixon clearly doesn’t feel the same way anymore if he tried to stop…” Their voices dissolve to white noise and I find myself again drifting in and out of this perpetual state of hallucination, a sandwich in one hand and in the other, a stolen cross.
Sara
“Sh…” my voice is a silent curse as I drift awake.
“What’s wrong?” His voice comes as a shock because it’s so close and because it means that last night wasn’t a dream.
I shake my head and bury my face into my pillow, not wanting him to see how haggard I likely look. “Nothing’s wrong.” In fact, everything is pretty perfect. “Just achy all over. In a good way.” Not to mention a little hung over.
He laughs under his breath and his hand finds the back of my head. Fingers gently comb through my hair. It’s tangled. “That can’t be good for me then.” As he speaks, he shifts across the mattress and lines my body with his.
Against my rear, I feel the pressure of his erection and I emit another half-curse. He laughs again, the sound a deep rumble I can feel against my back, through his chest. He sounds so satisfied and I feel hopeful in ways I haven’t felt in a long time.
I roll over so that we lay face-to-face. Kissing his shoulder, I work my hands around the thickness of his erection, loving the way his eyes close and his whole body tenses. He whispers something that I don’t quite catch, but it sounds sensual and dangerously like my name, and his whole face is contoured in a profound rapture that I’m not worthy enough to break.
So instead, I straddle his hips and lower myself down onto his shaft. My whole body buzzes pleasantly and when Dixon asks me if I’m okay to do this, I tell him the truth: “Never wanted to do anything more.”
He smiles and his teeth are bright white as they clench together. His large, flat hands roam over my breasts, cupping my neck and drawing me down to him. I come first, which is good because after he comes and pulls out of me, his semen is everywhere – my thighs, my pussy, the sheets, the pillows, the duvet – and I remember that we willfully forgot to wear condoms again. He seems to have the same realization I do as he collapses down at my side, like all of his muscles have been liquefied.
“Are you on the pill?”
“Nope.” I groan, “I’ll have to pick up Plan B from a pharmacy.”
“Shit,” he grumbles, “I’m sorry. I should have…”
“It’s not your fault. I thought about it last night but I just…” My voice trails off. I’m too winded and windswept to be talking right now, because every word out of my mouth is going to be embarrassing. “Never mind.” I shake my head and turn my face away from his.
He doesn’t press me. Just lays there in silence. I glance over at him and he’s staring at the ceiling until all at once, he looks at me and says, “I love you.”
“Sh…” I start to curse and stop myself and he grins.
“I think that’s what I first fell in love with.”
“What?”
“That sound you make when you’re about to say shit, but don’t.” He slides his palms beneath his head and glances down the length of my body, as if he’s either the happiest or the proudest man in the world. Maybe both.
I gulp hard, wondering if this is what he tells all the women he sleeps with…but somehow, I don’t think so. “I love you too,” I say.
That seems to shock him because he sits up, then collapses back onto his elbows. His full lips hang suspended, forming a loose O. Then he licks them. “I didn’t need you to say anything back. If it makes you uncomfortable…”
“I’ve loved you since I first saw you.” He stares at me skeptically and I can feel myself blush as heat begins to build in my chest. “It’s true so stop staring at me like I’m lying to you.”
“I don’t think you’re lying,” he says after a moment. “I don’t think you ever do. I just know I don’t deserve it and I’m grateful, just so grateful for you.” He leans over me and plants a kiss gently on my forehead before taking my hand in his.
He laces his fingers through mine and I stare at the contact. “I think you might. You’re not just paying for my school. You’re paying for Brant too, aren’t you?”
He hesitates before he redirects and I know I’ve got my answer. “Speaking of Brant, shouldn’t we be collecting him about now?”
“We? And don’t think you’re going to get out of answering me.” I’m shaky, but with him watching me like that, it helps me feel sure. He looks at me like no one’s ever looked at me before. Like I’m the only thing in the world.
Shaking his head, he sighs, “Looks like we’ve made a hell of a mess, and I don’t just mean the sheets.” He slides off of the bed and, standing at its foot, hooks his hands around my ankles. I laugh as he drags me to him with a swift jerk. He scoops me up and carries me to the bathroom where we make love again without a condom because that option’s already come and gone. By the time we make it to the car, I’m spent.
We pick Brant up first and Dixon walks with me to the door, then leaves Mrs. Petersen a generous tip. She doesn’t complain about the late arrival after that. We stop by a pharmacy next and Dixon pays for the Plan B – as well as a box of condoms, for the next time, he says. That keeps me grinning because I had hoped there’d be a next time.
The breakfast place he picks is kid-friendly and Brant is pleased as a peach the moment he’s got Cheerios in front of him, and stuck to most of his arms and face. Dixon laughs as he eventually gives up trying to keep Brant clean and lets him do whatever he wants, which had been my plan to begin with.
The light glints off the glossy wooden tabletop and when I glance up, I see that the sun’s out. Winter’s upon us but with my boys laughing as they are and the sun shifting in between the blinds like a coy dancer, I imagine that it’s summer and that we’ve reached nirvana and that everything in the world is just right. Dixon catches me smiling and leans across the table to kiss me. He kisses me so deeply, I have to push him back before we make a scene because he’s so tall it makes the table between us seem like nothing.
Massaging his thumb across my cheek he asks for the check, then looks to me and says, “I better get you home.” He plants his elbows on the table and takes another sip of his coffee. As he sets it down, he grins and ruffles Brant’s hair. “I think I got some Cheerio in that last drag.”
I laugh and lean over to kiss my baby’s chubby chestnut cheeks. He howls with laughter as I near his neck and I notice that the sound is infectious. Several of the people in here are staring at us and I wonder for the first time, if they don’t think Brant is my baby and Dixon’s.
The thought fills me with pride.
“You were saying,” I blurt in an effort to distract myself from the pleasant and tingly sensation that thought brought on. Dixon grinning at me in that funny way he has been the past twelve hours certainly isn’t helping me much. On the contrary, the space between my legs is soaked and I’m not wearing any panties, but the same jeans I was wearing the night before and one of Mer’s camis underneath Dixon’s coat.
Trying to harvest whatever we’d been talking about earlier, the conversation takes an abrupt left turn. “Thank you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For the first time we met. What you did.”
My fingers pluck a piece of fruit off of my plate and I chew thoughtfully. “You’re welcome.”
“Who were those guys anyways? Did you know them?”
Dixon looks away from me and shakes his head. “No. Just some assholes.”
“Yeah I’m sure you did nothing to deserve it.”
“Nothing at all.”
I roll my eyes. “What on earth were you doing that drunk, alone, in the middle of the night on Seventh?”
Dixon winces. He doesn’t answer right away and that concerns me. His gaze passes to Brant and he uses his thumb to wipe a smear of lord-only-knows-what off of my baby boy’s cheek. “I don’t have an alcohol problem, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Oh. I umm… I hadn’t really thought of that. Guess that makes me a lousy doctor.”
He smiles though there’s no feeling in it. “I don’t have healthy coping mechanisms though I’m working on that. And I’m a fairly private person.”
No kidding. Man was shut tighter than an oyster. Too bad I was such a sucker for pearls.
He continues, “When Knox brought Mer home, it ticked me off. Was the first time any of the brothers had invited anyone to live with us. I didn’t handle it well.”
I gulp. “Wow. That explains a lot. And last night?”
“Don’t make me spell it out for you.” When I don’t prompt him, he breathes through his mouth like a horse. “I was jealous.”
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 27
