Trouble Brewing

by Selena Kitt

  “Tease.” He hissed air between his teeth, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, rocking into me. His cock was so hard it almost hurt as he buried himself as deep as he could go.

  “You like that?” I rubbed my cheek against his. “So tight and wet…”

  “Brat.” His teeth raked my shoulder and he nipped at my collarbone, tracing wet circles up my throat, making me moan. “You’re not gonna make me come before you.”

  “Oh yeah?” I grinned, rolling my hips under him, starting a hot, slow grind. Oh hell, that was good. My clit was still aching from all the attention he’d paid with his tongue. Everything between my legs felt fat and swollen, ripe and ready to burst.

  “Goddamnit,” he swore softly, giving a low, pained groan. “You’re such a brat.”

  “I know.” I grazed my fingertips over the little nubs of his nipples and he shivered, propping himself up on his elbows to look down at me.

  “I can’t believe how good you feel,” he whispered, meeting my eyes. “With nothing between us…”

  Nothing between us.

  I liked that.

  Tyler’s hips met mine, and we both worked in unison, rocking together on the mattress. He impaled me with his length repeatedly, the hot, slick sound of our bodies meeting filling the room. It was a dizzying sight, him propped over me like that, the muscles in his belly working as he fucked me, his gaze growing more heavy-lidded with every stroke, but he never stopped looking at me, looking right into me.

  “Oh baby,” he cried, his hips grinding, pushing deeper, bottoming out with short, fast strokes now. “Come for me, Katie. Oh fuck, I can’t…”

  “Yes!” My fingernails dug into the hard, ropey muscles of his biceps as I felt my body respond instantly to his demand. My clit, aching for release, flickered for a moment, like a sparkler just catching flame, and then I was coming for him, just as he’d asked.

  “Oh God! Ty! Ohhhh now, baby!”

  He groaned and thrust even faster, taking me there with every delicious stroke. I felt him explode inside of me, flooding me with heat, the slippery squelch of our bodies making the sweetest music. He collapsed onto me, breathing hard, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing the salt from his skin.

  “Welcome home,” I whispered, and Ty propped himself on one elbow to look down at me.

  “You, too.” He leaned in to kiss me, his lips soft and full. I gave a little whimper when he slipped out of me, shifting on the bed so he could grab the edge of the covers and pull them over us.

  “You sure you still want me here?” I asked as he pulled me into his embrace, spooning me from behind and rolling us both up like a burrito.

  “Yes.” He kissed my temple. “I want you here… and in the shower… and in the pool… and in the kitchen… and—”

  “Oh no, not the kitchen.” I laughed. “Daisy would have a heart attack.”

  “We’ll have to get our own place, then.” His fingers tangled in my hair and I glanced back at him, my eyebrows going up.

  “Our own place, huh?”

  “Something on the water,” he continued. “With a private beach. What do you think?”

  “I…” I swallowed. The truth was, the thought both thrilled me and scared the crap out of me. Everything had moved so fast, even if I’d put the brakes on after the U.S. leg of Trouble’s tour. How had I ended up here, in this man’s arms, in his bed, living in his house?

  “Say yes, Katie,” he whispered, his lips against my ear making me shiver.

  “Yes, Katie,” I whispered back, smiling when he chuckled.

  And that’s just what I was doing, I realized, as I settled back against him. I’d never known a place in my life where I fit better than in Tyler’s arms.

  I was saying yes to Katie. Yes to me, to everything I’d ever wanted.

  What could be wrong with that?

  Chapter Four

  “Katie, are you awake?”

  “Hmm?” I snuggled back against him in the darkness. It still felt a little like I was dreaming this. Like I might wake up back home at any minute, in a cold, empty bed. But I was hoping that was just the nightmare thought, and this, Tyler’s strong, solid frame behind me, was the blissful reality.

  “God, I love you,” he breathed into my ear, his breath tickling my cheek. His words were the stuff dreams were made of, and just loaned more credence to the possibility that I was making this all up in my head.

  “I love you, too.” I reached a hand back to touch his cheek, sliding my fingers behind his neck. “Ty? What is it?”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry… about earlier…”

  “Me too.” I nodded in agreement.

  I never should have brought it up, never should have pushed it. I stayed silent, letting my body do all my talking as I wrapped my arm around his, at my waist, and fitted my body more completely against him. I wasn’t going to mention it again. If he wanted to talk about it, I would listen. But it was his secret to tell, and his keeping it didn’t have anything to do with us.

  “I want to tell you,” he confessed.

  “Okay…” I said this softly, slowly, hesitant. It was like he’d opened a door, just a crack, and I was watching from the other side.

  “But baby…” I heard him swallow and he pressed his nose against my cheek, his breath warm. “Katie, you can’t tell anyone. I mean it.”

  “Okay.” I agreed without hesitation this time. Did he think I was incapable of keeping secrets? I hadn’t told anyone when he told me about his diagnosis. Tyler most especially hadn’t wanted Rob to know his genes had saddled him with a chronic disease like rheumatoid arthritis, and I hadn’t told him.

  But you did tell him about the heroin.

  Well, yeah, okay, so I had snitched about Tyler’s addiction. But at the time, it had seemed like the only solution. I didn’t have the resources to really help him, and I knew Rob did. And he’d dealt with it before. Tyler needed help. I needed help. I’d turned to Rob because I thought he was the only one who could give it. And I’d been right—Tyler had recovered in rehab, and he was still clean now. The longest he’d ever been clean, Sarah said.

  “Even Sabrina,” Tyler insisted, sitting up on his elbow behind me. “Fuck, especially Sabrina.”

  I still wondered if Sabrina already knew. Rob and Sabrina were a couple now, for real. They were expecting a baby together. Could Rob really keep that part of himself a secret from a woman he intended to marry?

  Tyler kept it from you.

  Okay, yeah, so he had. And it would probably be a secret, still, between us, if he hadn’t let it slip today. And while that thought was hurtful to me, I also understood. At least, that’s what I told myself. Besides, Tyler was coming clean about it now. He would tell me, in his own way, in his own time.

  “I don’t tell Sabrina everything, Ty,” I assured him. “Especially not anymore.”

  “Not anymore? What’s that mean?”

  “I mean, since… us.” I rolled toward him, so we were belly to belly, twining my legs with his. “Me and you. She’s my best friend, but she’s not my…”

  I heard his smile in the dark. “Your what?”

  “Mine.” I put my arms around him, tucking my head under his chin. It was a perfect fit.

  He was quiet, and I didn’t want to push him about it. But I did want him to know how I felt. I didn’t want him to feel obligated, like he had to tell me, or he would risk losing me. Because at that point, I couldn’t think of anything, short of him getting into bed with another woman, that would make me leave him.

  “Ty, it’s okay,” I whispered. His silence was killing me “You can tell me if you want. And if you don’t want to… that’s okay, too.”

  “You’re not mad about it?” He sounded incredulous.

  “No.” It was the truth. I wasn’t mad. Hurt, maybe, but even that wasn’t that big of a deal. “I wish you felt like you could trust me with it. But… if you don’t want to tell me, I know you must have your reasons.”

  “It’s not
that. I do trust you. I just…” That silence again. He swallowed, and managed, “It’s hard for me to talk about.”

  That broke my heart. He’d already told me a little bit about his living in foster care, moving from family to family, place to place, never really having a home. I knew he’d been separated, not only from his mother, but from his siblings, too. But I’d had no idea, at least until today, that he’d found them, that Rob and Sarah were the brother and sister he’d lost so long ago.

  “I was ten.” Tyler cleared his throat. “Rob was twelve. Sarah was only six.”

  “When you went into foster care?” I asked softly.

  “Sarah got taken in by a family,” he went on. “She was still little—and a girl.”

  “I can’t believe they separated you.”

  It seemed so horrible to me, to do something like that to children. They were already vulnerable, had clearly been living in a precarious environment to begin with, if Child Protective Services had stepped in to take them away, and were being faced with losing their parents. Then they had to deal with losing the rest of their family, too?

  It seemed downright sadistic to me.

  “Who’s going to take three kids?” Tyler snorted. “Foster families mostly want cute babies or toddlers. They don’t want older kids so much.”

  Sarah had been a kindergartener, I thought, or close to it. And a sweet little girl. It made sense she’d found a “forever” home rather quickly. But the boys—Rob and Tyler. What about them?

  “I lost everything and everyone I’d ever known.” His voice was soft, slightly hoarse, and I clung to him, just to let him know I was there. “They didn’t give us much time to take anything. The clothes we had on. I had my guitar. The one Rob gave me and taught me how to play. That was pretty much it. We never got to go back to the house.”

  My God. Why wouldn’t they have let the children at least get their personal things?

  “It was a crime scene,” he told me. A crime scene? Drugs, I thought. I knew his mother had been a junkie and was still in jail. “I really thought I’d never see them again. I’d given up hope when Rob found me. By then, he was twenty, and he’d already been out of the system for two years.”

  “He came looking for you?” I breathed.

  “Arnie helped him hire a private investigator.”

  “Arnie?”

  “Our agent-slash-manager,” Tyler explained. “Well, Rob’s agent, at the time. He’s been with us since the beginning. He basically created Trouble from the ground up.”

  “He helped Rob find you?” I couldn’t imagine the time and resources it had taken to find Tyler. He could have been anywhere, by then.

  “After they found me,” Tyler said. “Then we both went looking for Sarah. With Arnie’s help, of course.”

  “I’m so glad you all found each other,” I told him, feeling tears stinging my eyes, and was glad of the darkness. “And Arnie paid out of his own pocket for all of that? Was it before Trouble was even famous?”

  “Well…” He paused, then told me, “Arnie put some conditions on his… uh… help.”

  “Conditions?”

  “He knew the whole story. The real story. Rob told him. Arnie said he’d help Rob find us, but we could never tell anyone.”

  “That you were related?”

  “He wanted to keep Trouble’s nose clean,” Tyler told me. “And our past is… pretty fucking dirty.”

  “Because of the drugs,” I murmured. “Your mother’s addiction? The fact she’s in jail now?”

  “That’s the least of it.” Tyler let me go, rolling to his back with a deep sigh. The bed felt suddenly cold, and far too big.

  “Look, whatever it is… I know you, Ty.” I reached a tentative hand out, resting it on his chest. His heart was beating a little too fast. “And I love you. Nothing is going to change that.”

  “I think you even believe that,” he whispered to the ceiling.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Right.” He gave a bitter little laugh. “Until I tell you…”

  Tell me what? He’d already told me, hadn’t he? I mean, how much worse could it possibly be?

  “Tell me then,” I insisted as I scooted closer to him, sliding my knee over his thigh. “And I’ll prove it to you.”

  I couldn’t imagine anything he could tell me about his past that would make me love him any less or that would give me the motivation to leave him. He’d been a child, for God’s sake. Whatever the big family secret was, it hadn’t been his fault.

  “My father was a pedophile.”

  I don’t know what I’d expected. Maybe that Tyler had been involved with using or selling drugs for his mother. Maybe that he’d been beaten by his parents, neglected. But hearing those words just took my breath away.

  “…what?” It’s the only word I could get out of my mouth, and it was woefully inadequate.

  “He was a fucking pedophile.” Tyler’s voice turned hard when he talked about his father. “He ran a child prostitution ring.”

  “Oh my God.” I knew how incredulous, how stunned I sounded, and I put my hand over my mouth to keep any more words from escaping.

  “You know Catherine?” Tyler asked. “Rob’s Catherine?”

  “…Yes.” Of course, I knew Catherine. The entire world knew Catherine. She was a super-model, and had been—well, technically, at least, legally, still was—Rob’s wife.

  “She was one of the girls my father had a thing for,” he told me. I literally bit my own palm, still covering my mouth, to keep from gasping out loud. “One of his special girls. My mother knew. She didn’t really care, because he had the drugs.”

  “Oh Ty…” The words escaped from behind my hand.

  “So, when I told you that it was bad—I wasn’t kidding.” His voice was like steel.

  “Okay,” I breathed. “I get it.”

  “No. You don’t.” He gave a laugh that was so hard it fell around us like shards of glass. “Because the reason we were taken away—it wasn’t the drugs, and it wasn’t the child prostitution. It was because my father… was killed.”

  “Oh Ty…” I could hear the pain in his voice. “I’m… so sorry…”

  He was quiet then, and I wondered if he would tell me any more. Had it been a drug deal gone bad? I’d known that his father was dead, but I had no idea how he’d died. So, he’d lost his father, and his mother, and his siblings, everyone all at once.

  “How did it happen?” I asked.

  “He was shot in the head. We were… we were all there.”

  “Oh my God.” He’d witnessed that? How could a child see something like that and not just fall apart? It was no wonder he had continued his mother’s habit of addiction. They all had. Even little Sarah.

  “See, Catherine wanted out.” He swallowed. I stayed quiet, listening, knowing it had to be easier to say this, to tell me, in the darkness. “She was fifteen by then, I think. But my father didn’t want to let her go. She still brought in a lot of money, even though she was getting a little old for his tastes.”

  Old? At fifteen? I shuddered but didn’t say anything.

  “Rob was already half in love with her.”

  “He was just twelve?” I asked, doing the math in my head.

  “Yeah.” Tyler shrugged. “Puppy love, you know. But I don’t think he ever really forgot about her. Not after that day.”

  “The day… your father was killed?” I blinked in the dark, putting the pieces together. “Catherine was there?”

  “Our parents were fighting. My father had his gun. He put it on the kitchen table. He was hitting her. Just… over and over… I thought he was going to kill her…”

  “Catherine?” I whispered.

  “My mother,” he replied with a shake of his head. “God, it happened so fast...”

  Tyler’s voice was low, almost like he was talking to himself.

  “They were fighting, and everyone was screaming, and Sarah was hiding by the fridge. Rob was there, and Cather
ine said, ‘He’s going to kill her! He’s going to kill your mother!’ and I knew it was true. Her face was turning purple! And then—”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I could practically see it all. “Did Rob do it? Did he kill your father?”

  The silence stretched out, but somehow, I just knew it was true.

  “Did he do it to save your mother?” I asked softly. “To save Catherine?”

  “My father would have killed them both,” Tyler said flatly. “We told the cops it was an accident. But it didn’t matter. My mother went to jail—there were drugs everywhere. And we all went into foster care. If it wasn’t for Rob—getting Arnie to help him look for us?—I’d probably be in jail right now.”

  “But he found you.” I snuggled closer to him. “All of you. Even Catherine. And he… married her.”

  It was like Rob had been trying to put together the pieces of something long ago broken, carefully gluing them all into place.

  “Well, Catherine found us… but… yeah…”

  “Do you really think they shouldn’t have gotten divorced?” I asked him. “Sabrina is so in love with him…”

  “No, he loves Sabrina.” Tyler sighed, squeezing an arm around my shoulder. “I think he only thought he was in love with Catherine. The truth is, she’s fucked up. She’s always been fucked up. I think he thought he could save her. That he could save all of us.”

  “Why did they get divorced?”

  “You mean, besides the crazy?” He snorted a half-laugh. “She was unbelievably jealous. She didn’t trust him on the road. Not that, you know, I blame her. But to be honest, Rob’s not like me.”

  “Like you.” I raised my eyebrows even though I knew he couldn’t see that in the dark.

  “Before I met you, baby.” He chuckled. “Since I met you, I don’t even see other women.”

  “Uh-huh.” I rolled my eyes.

  “I mean it.” His lips found my forehead. “I’m a fucking monk now, when I’m not with you. My dick won’t even work unless I’m thinking about you.”

  I snorted. “Lay it on a little thicker.”

  “Look, I know I was bad.” I could hear his grin. “But Rob wasn’t. That’s my point. He never fucked around. But Catherine… she wouldn’t believe him. They fought constantly. It was… nuts.”