by Naima Simone
I used to call her Ro when we were younger.
The “when we were younger” spins in my head, gathering velocity and volume with each revolution.
Jay… Jay… One of Katherine’s sons had been named Jude.
I suck in a silent breath, shock pummeling me so hard, I lock my knees to keep from swaying into my father.
Goddamn.
I screwed my stepbrother.
My stepbrother gave me multiple orgasms.
That must be a sin. There aren’t enough beads on a rosary to give me absolution from this.
Stupid. So stupid. How did I not know? But, hell, how could I know? The huge, beautiful, golden man before me who practically vibrates with an intense sexuality doesn’t resemble the tall, skinny kid with hair dyed varying shades of the rainbow and with holes in his ears, nose, and mouth. Not at all. And God knows I’ve changed from the overweight, awkward girl with bad hair and coke-bottle glasses. Still…
Damn.
This clusterfuck just got a lot more fucked.
“I didn’t know he used to call you that,” Dan murmurs beside me. Maybe I’m extra paranoid, but there’s an underlying vein of suspicion in his otherwise innocuous statement.
My mouth has gone as dry as Rosanne Barr’s career, but I manage to swallow and smile. It probably looks as phony as it feels. “Yes. He was…cute.”
The guy with the same shade of dark blond hair as Jay—no, Jude, not Jay—and blue eyes snorts. “No, I was cute. Jude was a little, brooding, hormonal son-of-a—”
“Simon,” Katherine hisses.
He holds up a hand, throwing a glance over his shoulder. “Sorry, Heavenly Father.” His grin doesn’t contain an ounce of repentance as he steps forward and, before I can brace myself, envelopes me in an embrace, pressing a smacking kiss to my cheek. “I don’t know how you could possibly forget me, but I’m Simon.”
Good Lord, what is it with the men in this family? Are they all size extra-big-as-hell? Simon’s not as tall as Jude—just barely shorter—but he has the same wide shoulders, deep chest, and thighs like tree trunks. Where Jude is more I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-fresh-from-screwing sexy with his seven o’clock shadow—he’s about a day too late for five—tousled curls, and hooded, sensual green eyes, Simon could grace the cover of a men’s magazine. With a smooth, clean-shaven jaw, perfectly styled hair, and features that are prevented from being too pretty by the rock-hard line of his jaw, I can’t blame the girl over in the corner of the room for not being able to take her eyes off him.
Yet it’s Jude my attention slides back to even as I struggle not to fidget under Simon’s casual and easy affection, something I’ve never been comfortable with from others. Jude’s piercing gaze locks with mine, and though wisdom would be avoiding everything about him at all costs, I can’t look away. Suddenly, I have an unsettling affinity with the vampire who lingers in the dawn seconds too long, just so it can see and feel the sun’s rays for those precious moments—even recognizing the danger, knowing that it will burn and inflict pain.
“I remember,” I reply to Simon. By sheer force of will, I drag my attention from Jude and give his brother a flimsy smile. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“We’re so glad you could join us for dinner, Cypress.” Katherine moves forward, extending her hands toward me. My father’s wife is still beautiful, though ten years have passed since I last saw her. She’s older, and…sadder. Losing a son would do that to a person. Her tone is warm, welcoming, but I catch the wariness in her blue eyes.
And I understand the root cause of it.
My behavior toward her in the past was horrible. As a thirteen-year-old, I’d blamed her for taking my father away from me and shattering my mother’s heart and our family. Years, maturity, and life have taught me differently, opening my eyes about the true nature of my parents and their relationship. Dad hadn’t been faithful—hence my two half sisters. Oh yeah. Dad had been a rolling stone.
The truth is, if it hadn’t been Katherine, it eventually would’ve been someone else Dan would’ve left us for. Someone else he would’ve chosen over us. So my resentment toward her is gone.
But not toward him.
As irrational as it may be, there’s this lingering sense of betrayal and anger that lurks in my chest.
My mother longed for this—longs for this. My father. A family with him. Sunday dinners with him beside her. Over a decade has elapsed since Dan walked out on us for the Gordons, but Mom would take him back in a second if he showed up on her doorstep. Hell, she still lives in the same apartment they shared because it reminds her of him. I’d tried to convince her to move out to California with me, but she turned me down time and time again.
Love. Is it any wonder I don’t want any part of it? After having a VIP pass to the devastation and wreckage it leaves behind? My father used it as an excuse to cheat on my mother and, eventually, as a reason to abandon the woman who refused to leave him.
The strictly physical relationships I’ve indulged in, the one-night stands like Jude—they’re far more honest, less destructive. I’d rather be upfront with a man about what I want and for how long I want it than become a slave to my heat and body, so emotionally out of control I’m ruled by my needs. Or worse, waste away for the “love” of someone.
Unbidden, my gaze drifts to Jude again. Skims over his masculine beauty.
He’s the kind of man a woman could get wrecked over.
Unlike last week, I’m heeding that flashing neon warning now. If I’d obeyed it at the bar, I wouldn’t be in this sticky, worthy-of-a-cheesy-romance-film moment right now.
“Thanks for having me,” I say to Katherine, accepting her hands in mine and squeezing them in a small assurance that I’m not the disrespectful brat I used to be. Well, mostly, I’m not.
A soft smile curves her lips, and the nerves in her eyes don’t disappear, but they lessen.
“Let me introduce you, and then we’ll get to the reason we’re all here. Food.” She laughs, and hooking her arm through mine, guides me around the room.
Even through the introductions to her priest and neighbors, Jude’s scrutiny is a caress that strokes over the hair I spent forty minutes ruthlessly straightening, sweeps down the black cocktail dress that is a relic from my past life, and even brushes over the toes of my stilettoes. I don’t have to peek behind me to verify; I feel his visual touch. It pokes at and stirs the flames that haven’t simmered since I first caught sight of him.
I agreed to attend this dinner because I need Dan’s help—more accurately, his money. I wouldn’t be here if I had any other options, but at the moment, I don’t. I need him to help me with my mom’s medical bills. Not to reconnect with him and establish a relationship that hasn’t been there for too many years to count. Not to reacquaint myself with his chosen family.
And definitely not to revisit a night that was a one-time event.
Okay, so I might have touched myself to the memories of Dan’s middle stepson once or twice in the last week. Fine, four or five.
But now more than ever, Jude is off-limits.
Because he’s my stepbrother.
Now if I can just stop soaking my panties and get my nipples to stand down.
Damn. This is going to be a long dinner.
“So, Cypress, are you enjoying being back home?” Katherine asks, lowering to her chair across the table from me.
I lift the coffee cup she just filled for me, as she did for everyone else at the table, taking a moment to formulate my answer. My first response of “hell no” isn’t the politest response. Not to mention, offending Dan’s wife before I ask him for thousands of dollars isn’t smart either.
“It’s an adjustment after living so long in California, but it’s going fine.” I’m amazed I could admit that with a straight face. Either I’m becoming a good liar or beginning to believe my own brand of bullshit.
“I know your father’s glad you’re back,” she says, placing a hand over Dan’s.
Inst
ead of replying, I sip my coffee. It’s not my business what Dan tells his wife about our relationship, but the fact that he’s “Dan” to me and not “Dad” should be a clue. So should the detail that I’ve been in Chicago for months and this is just the second time we’re seeing each other. We’re more of the call-on-major-holidays-that-commemorate-the birth-or-death-of-Christ relatives. He ceased being a father figure to me years ago—about when he abandoned me at thirteen to clean up the emotional mess he left behind, to sweep together the pieces of a broken woman. Pieces I’m still trying to hold together with duct tape and a prayer.
Which is why I’m here now at this table, pretending. He owes me.
No, he owes Mom.
Setting down my cup, I lift my head and am instantly ensnared by a bright green stare. Over the course of the dinner, I’ve tried to avoid Jude. Which is damn hard to do with him sitting across from me, next to his mother. But it’s either that or drown in memories of the other night.
A small electric pulse tingles in my clit. He’d fulfilled my request; I’d felt him deep inside me as I gathered my clothes and sneaked out of his place. And it wouldn’t require much concentration to close my eyes and feel the lash of his tongue on my sex. Or the stretch and branding of his thick, big cock as it forged a path through my flesh. Or the burn in my ass as his fingers opened me up, possessed me. Underneath the table, I squeeze my thighs together and focus on evening out the breath that threatens to rattle from my throat.
As if he can peer into my head and view the dirty picture show there, Jude’s eyes darken, become hooded. Just like when he thrust into my pussy and owned it like he had the Proof of Purchase tucked in his wallet…
A cough from my left jerks me out of my personal porn video, and I turn my head to meet Simon’s amused scrutiny and his little half grin.
“I-I’m sorry?” I stammer, heat swirling in my chest, surging up my neck, and pouring into my face.
“Mrs. Brendt wanted to know if you were back for good,” Simon drawls, gesturing with a jerk of his head toward one of the neighbors.
“Oh, I don’t know where my mind drifted,” I offer the excuse that sounds lame and cliché even to my own ears. I lean forward and address the older woman on the other side of Simon. “I’m not sure yet. Nothing’s really set in stone.”
“Did your job transfer you?” Dan asks, his fork hovering above his slice of lemon cake. “Cypress works for one of the biggest insurance companies in the country,” he informs the others, and I can’t miss the pride in the announcement. Returning his attention to me, he says, “Surely they didn’t send you here for so short a time.”
“No, it wasn’t a transfer.” I straighten my shoulders and lean back in my chair. “I’m no longer employed with Universal Health Group.” Just uttering the name of my former employer curdles my stomach. Has the acrid stench of disappointment and failure stinging my nose.
“Why?” he presses, laying his fork down beside his plate. “Did something happen?”
No way in hell am I explaining what happened with UHG with him, especially in front of a group of people who are basically strangers to me. Even if I know one of them biblically. But Dan is old school—a work-makes-the-man kind of person. For all his other faults, failure to provide for us financially—including my half sisters that Dan had sired with other mistresses before he’d met Katherine—had never been one of them. As far as I know, he still works for the same auto parts factory, going on thirty years now.
He would never understand my quitting a high-paying, secure job that offered full benefits without another one lined up. As for why I quit—Dan would probably abhor the actions of my employers, but he wouldn’t get my giving up and not sticking it out. He’d see it as my letting them push me out, run me off, and that he wouldn’t condone.
I thought I was that strong, stubborn person, too.
But a year of harassing retaliation tactics stripped me of that resolve. It ripped me clean of my confidence, my idealistic visions of my carefully mapped out life. The whole thing broke me down, and at my cracked, bruised core, I discovered something about myself: I was scared. Uncertain. Lost. And so damn tired.
So I’d left. With no job, no plan, no idea of what or who I wanted to be at twenty-six years old, I’d run.
No, Dan would never understand that.
But to be fair, most of the time, neither did I.
“You found a better paying position in Chicago?” he prodded after I hadn’t responded to his initial question.
“Actually”—I notch my chin up, meeting his gaze head-on without flinching—“I’ve been waitressing at a local dive bar in the Ukrainian Village for the last couple of months with Dara.”
Well, damn, I hadn’t meant to let that slip.
I flick a glance at Katherine, but since she doesn’t seem confused at the mention of my sister’s name, I’m assuming she’s aware of Dara and Jesse’s existence. Unlike her sons, or at least Jude, judging by the shock in his expression. Dara works at The Rabbit Hole—it’s how I got my job there. How strange that, while he was apparently a regular there, he hadn’t been aware of his own relationship to Dara through Dan. Though Jude doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who wouldn’t acknowledge her, no matter how distant the connection.
“Are you serious, Cypress?” Dan gapes at me. “What kind of sense does that make?”
“For the time being, perfect,” I say, injecting a calm into my voice that I’m far from feeling.
“Dan,” Katherine murmurs.
He glances at her, then back at me, his lips thinning into a firm line that is probably straining to hold back demands for an explanation.
“Are you talking about The Rabbit Hole?” Simon cocks his head to the side. “Hey”—he jerks his chin toward Jude—“Isn’t that the bar near the shop?”
Oh goddamn. Judas couldn’t have been as uncomfortable at the Last Supper as I am at this dinner.
“Yes, we go there sometimes,” Jude replies, and I threaten myself with a self-inflicted marathon of Jay Leno’s Garage if I dare to look in his direction. So I settle for studying his forearms that are braced next to his empty coffee cup. Big mistake. White cotton might cover them, but it can’t hide the tight muscles beneath. And at closer glance—and screw it, I can’t help but take a closer glance—the dark ink of the tats scrolling up his skin are faintly visible. I remember those tattoos, the strength in those arms as he levered himself above me, staring into my eyes as he thrust into me…
Mouth suddenly dry, I tear my too-absorbed contemplation away…and crash into Dan’s narrowed scrutiny. It flicks to his stepson then back to me, speculation heavy in its depths.
“Shop?” I damn near shout, desperate to change the subject to… God, anything. To avoid my father’s far-too-discerning-for-comfort scrutiny. “What kind of shop?” I ask, deliberately lowering my volume back to my “inside voice.”
And from the smirk playing at the corner of Simon’s mouth, my tactics have not gone over his head.
“Tattoo,” Jude rumbles. “I’m a tattoo artist.”
“And a damn good artist, period,” Simon boasts.
The art covering his body, all the pictures in his bedroom…it makes sense. Being able to draw wasn’t the only mark of a true artist. It was the appreciation of it, the love. And from the walls in his room, he appeared to be a man who enjoyed being surrounded by it.
God, I wish I’d been able to sneak a closer peek at those pictures. What more would they have told me about him?
My brother offered me a job opportunity that most people would kill for. Would be damn fools for passing up.
For some reason, his admission from the alley slips into my head. As did the bitter disappointment and disgust that had saturated his voice. Disappointment and disgust that had seemed self-directed.
The brother. That had to be Knox. He’d been a hugely popular MMA fighter but now owned a tattoo shop.
“What Simon is too humble to tell you is he’s graduating from t
he Art Institute this year,” Katherine interjected. The pride in her voice is impossible to miss. “He’s already received job offers from some of the state’s top marketing, design, and animation companies.”
I part my lips to congratulate Simon, but one glance at his shuttered, hard expression, and they snap closed. For a moment, I glimpse the steely core beneath the easy humor and lazy smiles that is much more obvious within Jude.
Whoa. A fine tension hums in the air between Jude, Simon, and their mother. It’s a plucked guitar string with ear-splitting feedback. And from their neighbors’ sudden preoccupation with pie, they must feel it as well. Even the priest looks like he’s torn between sipping his coffee and minding his business or conducting a counseling session right at the table.
Option A, padre. Option A.
Because I’m not confident he’ll follow my mental advice, I jump in with another subject change. “Is it Knox’s shop?” I ask Simon, Jude, hell, Father Donovan. “I’d heard after he retired from fighting, he opened one.”
A thick, ominous silence answers me. It’s chilly, suffocating, both graveyard quiet and rock-concert deafening.
I’ve stepped in another pile of shit, and I have no idea how to shovel my way out of it. By this point, I don’t even care to. This whole evening has been a minefield. And I’m getting out now before I blow myself to hell and back.
Pushing back my chair, I stand and force my lips into a weak semblance of a smile. “Katherine, Dan.” I nod at my father and his wife. “Thanks for dinner. It was wonderful.” How I manage to say that blatant lie without choking on it, I’ll never know. Must be one of those miracles the priest believes in. “Dan, before I go, could I speak to you for a moment in private?”
Not giving him much of a choice, I murmur a goodbye to the table in general, ducking the intense, emerald gaze on me, and walk out of the room.
As soon as I step out into the hallway, a weight lifts off my chest, and I inhale the first deep breath I’ve sucked in since entering this house. My mission for coming here hasn’t been accomplished by a long shot, but it doesn’t matter at this moment. Something is amiss with this family. Give me my depressed mother and my crazy half sisters any day over that room teeming with unspoken anger, pain, and secrets covered with a brittle, shiny veneer of politeness.
