by C. A. Harms
“You do realize that the two of us can be very dangerous for one another.” I looked back over my shoulder to find him smirking in that cocky, confident way I’d seen before, though never in this kind of situation. “Now that we’ve let go and have begun to explore, I don’t think we’ll ever stop.”
Um, no. We would not stop.
I was just about to tell him so when I felt the tip of his cock push into me before he pulled back, making me groan in protest. I felt him smile against my neck before he repeated the movement, only this time going deeper. “Is this what you want?”
Nodding my head, I pushed back against him, taking him inside me further.
“Jesus,” Mike said with a growl, shifting forward, and entering me completely. Together we moaned, saying the other’s name in unison. We remained in that very position for a few seconds before he began to move, drawing out each withdrawal of his hips before pushing in deep once again.
“What are you dreaming about, pretty girl?” Mike’s deep, husky, sleep-filled voice asked from my side, and a silly grin took over my face. “Must be good.”
“Oh, it was way more than just good.” It was then that I finally turned to look at him and found he had his eyes closed. A matching silly grin was on his lips, his hair matted and sticking out in so many different directions. Thoughts of my tugging on those locks as he tortured me with his tongue. After he’d made it impossible for me to squeeze my thighs together, I had no other means to express what I was feeling. It was that or scream so loudly, the neighbors ended up calling 911 and breaking down my door, thinking some innocent girl was being murdered inside.
Note: I was definitely nowhere close to innocent, at least not when Mike was around.
Who had I become?
“You keep rubbing your ass against me the way you are, I’ll be forced to find that tiny little spark of energy I’m sure is still inside of me somewhere deep and hidden and used it to make you squirm.”
“Promises, promises.” Mike smacked my ass, catching me completely off guard, and I squealed.
Suddenly, he had me on my back and his body was holding mine to the floor. His lips lingered, skimming over mine but never actually kissing me. “Are you laying down a challenge?” I shook my head. Oh my God, this man was trying to kill me. “Because you should know that I never back down. I’m a must win kinda guy, Mad. You know this about me already.”
“This is going to get complicated.” I had too much attitude in me not to attempt to fire back at him. It wasn’t like me to shy away from a battle of wills. “Because I like to win too, so how are we gonna both win?”
“Don’t you think we have already?” His expression instantly softened, and though I wanted to keep going back at him, I couldn’t. Talk about swoon, this man knew how to weaken me. The irony in that was not missed. Mike had just won, with one simple, sweet make-my-heart-melt phrase.
He was right; we were not definitely going to be dangerous together, for so many different reasons.
Trouble never looked so good.
***
“So, I take it things are good with you and Mikey now?” I sat on the couch, wearing a pair of shorts and Mike’s t-shirt, staring down at him where he slept on the floor. A huge mound of couch cushions and throw pillows formed a soft place to lay, and a large blanket wrapped over his body made him appear so at peace. He was curled on his side, one arm tucked up, and his hand resting under his cheek.
“Or should I take your silence as an answer?” my mother interjected once more, reminding me that I was on the phone with her and that she had asked me a question.
“He’s good,” I finally responded, knowing she would keep pushing. “We’re good.”
“Okay.” There’s that, or maybe not. “Is it good, or is it really good?”
“Mom,” I tried to warn her, and she laughed.
“What, we can’t talk about it? We’ve always talked about things like this before.” She was right; she and I had always been super close. There was never something I couldn’t tell her, but this just felt strange.
“It’s Mike,” I said in explanation and again stared back down at him. I was still reeling from the fact that he was here, with me, and that we had done all the things we’d done.
“Because it’s Mikey, we can’t talk about him?”
“Doesn’t it feel weird?”
“Only if you make it weird.” She paused, and I could hear her wrestling around with something on the other end of the line. “I think the two of you underestimated the family. We’ve all been rooting for this to happen for years.”
I was so wrong about everyone’s reactions.
“So.” She used a long, drawn-out voice, indicating she was still digging for information. So what did I do? I gave her some insight into Mike and our blooming relationship. But I kept it as PG as possible. After all, she was my mom.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mike
Offering the cashier a twenty, I picked up my small bag and waited for my change. Each time I moved, I was reminded of my night with Maddison. Night, all through it and in to the next morning, with little sleep. My body still ached in remembrance.
“Here’s your change.” The cute cashier handed me my five and a handful of coin, giving me her best come-hither look. She was young and still had in no way mastered seduction.
I offered her a nod and a kind smile and moved away from her without looking back. As I exited the store, my phone vibrated in my pocket, and I reached around to gather it when I ran into someone briefly. “Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to right my bag and not drop my phone that teetered in my grasp.
Finally getting it under control, I looked at the screen and saw a text from Rhett.
Speaking of Rhett, I then glanced ahead and came face to face with a flash from his past.
“Hi, Mikey.” Harley, the girl Rhett thought was his everything, until he met AJ, that was. “It’s been a while,” she said as she raked her eyes over me from head to toe and back up again. “It’s nice to see you.”
I wanted to laugh at her. She was nothing like the girl I remembered, the sweet country girl that was in such awe with Rhett. She was also thoughtful, friendly, and in no way the version that was now standing before me. She had changed.
“Harley.” I nodded as I tried to step around her.
“Is that all you’ve got for me?” she asked, stepping closer to me. Before I knew what she would do next, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down to her. There I stood in the center of the parking lot, with a tiny blonde hanging from me like a small child, and all I wanted to do was shake her off.
“You look good.” I shrugged out of her hold when she said this near my ear, making me feel even more uncomfortable. “So, what have you been up to?”
“Working,” I said, now placing the small bag of food between us, which was what I should have done to begin with.
“You shouldn’t work so much.” Again, she gave me that interested smile, and I saw what Rhett and even Grace were talking about. Harley had become a different person, because the one I knew wouldn’t be flirting with the best friend of the man she used to claim to love so deeply. “Maybe we can meet for a drink or dinner sometime?”
“Don’t think my girlfriend would like that?” I went for playful and friendly, but I could feel tension inside me growing.
“Girlfriend?” She pushed a little more.
“Maddison.” That still felt strange but in the best kind of way.
“Wow.” Harley wrinkled up her brows and took on a look I could only describe as disbelief. “As in Maddison, your cousin?”
“Yes, but I think we both know she’s not my cousin.”
“Yeah but—”
“No but,” I interrupted her. “She isn’t my cousin.”
“Just seems odd, ya know?” At that point, I was past pleasantries. I’d been raised to respect women. I had also spent years being taught to control my anger and to hold my shit together. All of that was
being tested at that very moment.
“Fortunately, I don’t need your approval.” Harley flinched at my directness. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a beautiful woman waiting on me at home.” I didn’t, but she didn’t know that. Maddison was at work, and I was on my way to Rhett’s, though Harley did not need to know that, either.
When I made it to my truck and climbed up inside, I finally took the time to look at Rhett’s message.
Rhett: Grab some milk while you’re at the store, babe.
I pressed the phone button next to his name, and the call instantly connected to my Bluetooth.
“Yeah.” The word sounded muffled when he answered.
“You know how I get when you call me babe.” I smiled when he chuckled.
“Yeah, which is why I do it.” I could hear Blake cooing near the phone, which meant he was holding the little man. “You on your way?”
“Yeah.” I placed my truck in reverse, backing out of the parking space, seeing the back of Harley as she walked into the store I’d just left.
“Did you get the milk?”
Spinning back around, I shifted to drive, and as I was driving away, I told him exactly why I wouldn’t be going back into the store to get his milk. I’d just stop off at the gas station instead.
***
AJ was at the kitchen table, Blake sitting in his little vibrating chair next to her on the floor. She was pretending to focus on the laptop in front of her, but I could see the scowl on her face.
Apparently, talk of who I’d run into at the store had put her in a sour mood. She wasn’t a real big fan of Harley, not before she and Rhett got together and certainly not now. With Harley now back in Brooklet, with no real ties holding her here, AJ believed her soul purpose was to weave herself back into Rhett’s life.
She was a little territorial of her man, it seemed.
“So,” I leaned in closer, careful to ensure that AJ didn’t hear me when I spoke again, “does she really believe that Harley is trying to win you back? Even after you now have a son with another woman?”
Rhett looked over my shoulder, as if he was checking to see if AJ had heard me. Then slowly and very stiffly, he gave me a firm nod. “Yep.” I didn’t miss the way he grinned from ear to ear. The guy loved it, the attention he got from AJ. But now, instead of taking the opportunity to make fun of him, I could honestly say that I knew exactly how he felt. Maddison had tried to hide her jealous behavior, but after her night at the bar, the one she had her catfight with Raven, it was a feeling I knew well.
I loved her taking on the territorial shit with me. It meant we’d finally reached the point where hiding what we felt toward one another was no longer an option. I knew our family was the biggest obstacle we had to face, and the rest would now just fall into place. I’d be damned sure it did, because reaching the point we had now took a lot of frustration, confusion, and even heartache. Those were all things I didn’t want us to have to ever face again. If I had things my way, we wouldn’t.
“You smile more now.” I refocused to find Rhett staring at me with a shit-eating grin. “Who knew all it’d take is for Maddison and you to get your heads out of your asses and admit that the two of you have been in love with one another since childhood?”
I didn’t know about all that. I mean, could a child really know that a crush was love? I thought it was a crush that became infatuation and, over the years, slowly and teasingly might I add, turned into a crippling love that I never wanted to lose.
“Feels good to smile,” I confessed, wearing my own silly-ass lost in the clouds kinda smile. “Feels damn good.”
I laughed, feeling crazy for my overflow of happiness. It was long coming and something I thought I’d not truly found since I’d been home until now. Of course I was happy to be home, surrounded by my family and friends, but there had been something looming over my head every single day since. Now I knew what it was, or who it was, I should say.
“Speaking of happy and this feeling good,” I finally wiped the goofy smile from my face, “have you decided when you’re gonna pop the question?”
“I’ve got the ring. Hell, I’ve had it for months, but I’m just waiting for the right time.”
“I don’t have to tell you again about wasting time.” I looked back over my shoulder toward AJ, who was now up and moving around their small kitchen.
“Do you wanna know what I find interesting?”
“What's that?” I asked as I turned my attention back to him.
“You’ve used that line on me twice, yet you wasted a shit ton with Maddison.” He said exactly what I had thought to myself more than half a dozen times. “You should have gone after her right when you got back.”
“The timing wasn’t right.” Rhett didn’t argue, just lounged back in his chair and propped his feet up. “I think we both had to come to terms with what was going on between us before we could ever move forward. There was so much confusion, embarrassment maybe, and fear of what people may think as well as how it would change who we thought we were to one another.”
“And now?”
“Now there’s no going back. We’re doing this.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Maddison
“It’s still so hard to believe you are eighteen.” I still remembered when Grace was born, how I’d spend the afternoons with Aunt Kori helping her. Or so I thought I was helping. She always made me feel so. She’d let me fasten the hair bows into Grace’s hair or allow me to put on her socks.
Tiny Face was almost like my little baby doll. While all my friends were playing with the plastic ones, I had a real live, giggling, pooping, spitting-up little bundle of crazy. And it didn’t stop there. Grace had always been one to grab other’s attention, even when she wasn’t trying for it. She just had that spark, that natural beauty. The girl was a knock out, but she had no idea.
“Are there any guys I should know about?”
“Nope.” The way she said this piqued my curiosity, and when I lifted my head to look over at Chloe, who sunbathed just on the other side of her, I knew she’d noticed it too.
“What’s his name?”
“There is no he.” When Grace looked behind her toward the space where all the guys sat, I followed her gaze and went over the faces one by one.
Garrett, Mike…I stopped there for a few seconds and took in his handsomeness. He was sitting on the tailgate of his truck, alongside his friends, and it wasn’t just because he was mine that he stood out; it was just a given. The guy carried himself so much differently than those around him. His shoulders squared—and my, what fine, built, and completely distinguished shoulders they were, might I add. A broad, profound chest, I swore the man had not an ounce of fat on him.
Moving on, I begin to scan over the guys once more. Layne, a friend of Mike’s, sat at his side. Then there was Rhett’s goofy friends who, even though Rhett didn’t get out with us all as much as he used to, still tagged along.
I looked back at Grace, then at the guys once more, trying my best to pin what I was missing. Then it hit me.
“Grace Jackson, you did not fall for one of your brother’s friends.”
“What? No!” She gasped, jerking her gaze away from the crowd of men. “Are you crazy?”
“Are you?”
There were only a few options, and I highly doubted that Layne, Mike’s friend, was the one that had piqued Grace’s interest. He’d only just started coming around; I barely knew him myself.
“Nothing has happened,” Grace finally added, and I looked away from the guys, staring at her. For the first time, I saw the woman she’d become and not the child she’d always seemed to be in my eyes. Grace was sweet, kind, and so full of love; she always had been. But there was this vibrance about her, this alluring touch that I hadn’t seen before. I had to remember that I wasn’t talking to a little girl anymore. I was talking to a woman.
“What do you mean, nothing has happened?”
“I mean he won’t let it
.” She shrugged, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, but I could see the sadness in the way her mouth tilted downward at the corners into a frown. “Because of the age difference."
“And because until a week ago, you were a minor.” Whoever it was, they were smart enough to not let their desires overlook that fact, at least.
“Yes, and that.” Grace’s chest rose as if she took in a deep breath before slowly letting it out.
“Then, there’s your brother,” she nodded, “and your father.”
“Yes, Maddison.” A heavy, defeated sigh fell from her lips as she pushed her sunglasses up and left them to rest on the top of her head. “I know all this. The obstacle surrounding me are endless.”
For the first time, I saw sadness in her eyes as she looked back again with a longing on her face. Then Terrance looked up, their eyes connected, and I knew without a doubt it was him. My heart hurt for her, because I understood what she was feeling in that moment, the need to be with someone but knowing it was pretty much impossible.
Not to mention Rhett would gut his friend, then Reed would surely burn the pieces to hide the evidence. Then they would toast his demise over beers and pleased grins that they’d eliminated the man that threatened to compromise Grace’s virtue. Crazy, I knew, but true. Those men were ruthless when it came to Grace.
“Most guys would not have let any of those factors stop him, so I have to give him bonus points for that.” Grace hurried to look away from Terrance, but the moment she saw me, she knew it was too late; I had figured it out.
“Well, none of that will matter to my brother or my dad. To them, he’ll always be the guy who is four years older than me and my brother’s friend. It’s the ultimate friend violation, blah, blah, believe me, I know it all. Terrance repeats those things over and over every single time we find ourselves close enough that we actually have the chance to talk.”
