Brothers

by Helena Newbury

  He lifted me a little higher and suddenly started walking through the rain, so suddenly I gave a yelp of shock and anticipation. I was bouncing in his arms and every bounce stroked me against his cock, every brief contact making him grip me a little tighter, walk a little faster. We entered the garage. I could still hear the rain pounding down outside but for the first time in what felt like hours, it wasn’t running down my face.

  Sean opened the rear door of the Mustang and almost threw me inside. I landed on my back on the soft leather seat and quickly scooched along it to give him room. He climbed in, his knees between my legs. It occurred to me that we’d never actually done it in the Mustang, despite—let’s face it—Mustangs practically being made for separating good girls from their panties.

  “Guess I don’t need to look for a condom anymore, do I?” Sean panted, hunkering down over me.

  “I guess you don’t,” I said breathlessly

  He leaned down and kissed me hard and it was like I’d been hit by a live wire: everything I loved about him rocketed down inside me, thundering through my body and lighting me up from the inside out. It was like coming alive again: I hadn’t realized how much the stress of not telling him had locked me up tight. We kissed madly, desperately, we kissed like we only had a few seconds left. When the seat beneath me had melted away and I was swirling somewhere on a cloud, Sean broke the kiss, took my chin between his fingers and glared down at me. “Don’t be doing that again—not telling me stuff.”

  “Uh-huh,” I panted, nodding.

  He grabbed the hem of my tank top and wrenched it up, wet fabric catching and stretching. I levered myself up and he peeled it off me and then my bra came off too in one messy, wet tangle of dripping straps. I fought it over my head, grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled that off him, hurling it over my head to slap against the window, and then we were skin to skin and I moaned as my breasts stroked against his muscles. Every sense had awoken: I could feel every millimeter of wet skin as it contacted his body. I could feel the tiny crinkles around my nipples and the perfect, hard curve of his pecs as they ground against them. God, I’d missed him. And he’d never even been away: I had.

  We kissed: slower and open-mouthed with low, groaning breaths. Our hands became frantic on each other’s bodies, moving without conscious control, driven by the kiss.

  He ducked his head and slid down my body. I grabbed at the leather seat, fingers digging deep into its softness as his chest glided over my breasts. Then his mouth was on me, his hands rough as he squeezed my breasts and brought them to his mouth. “Christ, you’re glorious,” he panted between licks, and the heat blazed and scalded right down to my toes. I writhed like a mermaid under him, dripping wet and gasping, my heels kicking at the edge of the seat, his knees and lower legs hanging outside the car. The interior echoed with the sound of our panting; the rain seemed very far away.

  He lifted his head, my breasts shining and wet, throbbing from his mouth. I felt his hands pluck open the button of my jeans and then he was dragging the wet fabric down over my hips. The wet denim resisted, clinging to me, so he pulled harder and I yelped as I was pulled along, too. I had to reach over my head and grab onto the door handle to give him traction and then he did it, jeans and panties slithering down my calves, my sneakers going with them. I saw his eyes lock on the little patch of copper hair between my thighs the instant it appeared. That cobalt-blue gaze seemed to sear straight into me like a laser, melting me into lava: I ground my hips against the seat in response and he reacted to that, every muscle of his naked chest standing out hard and primed….

  He almost dived back into the car, his own jeans rasping on my inner thighs with delicious friction. I wound myself around him, entangling him with arms and legs. We kissed with him taking his weight on his elbows so he could free his own jeans. I felt him ram them down his thighs, his hips spread mine and—

  I cried out and clawed at his back as I felt him enter me. It was my first time without a condom and God, it was so different: so hot and naked and real. He surged up inside me and my knees rose, my toes dancing on the very edge of the seat. “Oh Jesus God yes!”

  He buried himself inside me and for a second we just stopped, our bodies joined. I slowly opened my eyes and we just stared at each other, utterly connected, both of us getting used to the new sensation. His eyes roamed over my naked body and I could understand the lust in his gaze because I was feeling it, too. He was getting off on taking this...maiden that he’d already...seeded. And I was looking up at the hulking, brooding warrior who’d...bred me. It was so caveman, so primal, and it was turning into raw, urgent heat in my groin, a need I couldn’t ignore. I writhed a little, unable to help myself, and he growled low in his throat and pinned my shoulders to the seat, both of us panting.

  He began to move: slow at first, hips drawing back and then pressing forward to fill me again. I moaned and tilted my head way back, wet hair squeaking on the leather. God, I could feel every silken millimeter of him, every vein, as he plunged deep into me. It was like being without clothes for the first time, feeling the air on your skin. His hands slid down from my shoulders, tracing my body all the way down to my hips, sending waves of heat radiating inward to join the twisting, lashing fire at my core. I did the same, palms flowing over his back as if sculpting him, thrilling at his hardness, at the way his shoulders and lats bulged under my fingertips.

  “God, Louise,” he breathed. He brushed damp strands of hair from my cheeks with his thumbs. “You make me crazy. Always have done.”

  I reached up, grabbed the back of his head and pulled him down to me. We started kissing again as he began to move. It became a smooth pumping, his ass rising and falling between my thighs, the car rocking gently on its suspension. The heat was tightening with each thrust, drawing everything inward, stealing the air from my lungs and making me claw and grab at him. My hands slid down his back and found the hard muscles of his ass, pulling him into me. His hands covered my breasts, thumbs stroking over my nipples, and I gasped and moaned and circled my groin under him, needing to move, delighting in the way he so easily held me fast. It became hard, brutal, a pounding between my legs that was exactly what I needed. We stared into each other’s eyes, his fingers buried in my hair, the heat filling me now, cinching unbearably tight—

  “I love you, Louise,” he panted. And even as the glow from those words rushed through me, I saw in his eyes the exact second he let go. I felt his hips lunge forward, felt the first jerk of his cock deep inside me….

  And that sent me over the edge. I knitted my fingers into the short hair at the back of his head and kissed him deep and hard as he shot and shot, my own climax roaring through me as all the tight heat exploded. It rushed through me like a forest fire, blasting away everything before it. I screamed out my pleasure. My shoulders lifted into the air, my heels hammered on the seat and my fingers rasped again and again over the bristly fuzz at the base of his scalp. My groin ground against his as I shuddered through each hot jet inside me. When I finally slumped back onto the seat, breathless and exhausted, I realized all of the stress of the last few weeks had evaporated.

  “We need to do that more,” I croaked. “We need to do that a lot more.”

  Sean didn’t speak, just hugged me close.

  That evening, the others returned from meeting the hacker. Carrick gave Sean and me a curious look as he climbed off his Harley. I flushed and squeezed Sean’s hand, trying to look innocent. Carrick just smiled and, as he walked past us, he clapped Sean affectionately on the shoulder as if to say, well done. I was embarrassed that people seemed to know we’d been having problems but it didn’t matter: I was so happy, it was hard to keep from grinning.

  Until, over dinner, the others told us the plan.

  The plan was to break into the printing works this Mary person had located. And they would do it straight after dinner, so they’d have the cover of darkness. As soon as the meal ended, I pulled Sean into the kitchen on pretense of needing his
help. “You don’t have to go!” I told him.

  He sighed and stroked my hair. “Yeah, I do.”

  “It doesn’t take four of you to break in!” I was desperate, flailing around for an excuse. “In fact, fewer is better. Stealthier. Burglars don’t go around in fours.”

  “Out of all of us, Carrick and me are most used to paying places a visit in the dead of night.”

  “But you used to smash your way in, not be all....cat burglar-y!” I reached up and grabbed hold of his shoulders. “I just have a bad feeling. I don’t want you away...now.”

  He looked down into my eyes, then lower, down to my stomach. He slid a hand down my body and rested his palm there. I could see the battle going on in his eyes: his need to care for me, for the baby; his need to help his brothers. “I’ll be fine,” he said at last.

  “Don’t say that! That’s what fathers-to-be say in movies just before—”

  He gave me a look that quieted me. Then he ran the hand back up my body, stopping on the way to give my breast a squeeze. I gasped and went up on my tiptoes just in time to meet his lips as they came down.

  We had a lot of time to make up for.

  I felt myself slowly relax as the kiss grabbed hold of me. God, he’s a good kisser. I moved with it, my body arching and flexing against his, lips gliding and tongue teasing and—

  He broke the kiss and I reluctantly sank back down onto my heels. “More later,” he promised.

  My eyes went wide. “Don’t say that! Stop saying things like that, just before you—”

  He squeezed me and kissed the top of my head, then quickly turned and walked away. It was only later, remembering that moment, that I realized he didn’t want to leave, either, that he was doing it before he changed his mind.

  I wasn’t the only one who was nervous. Annabelle gave Carrick an extra big hug, clinging to him for long seconds before she let him go. Sylvie, still pale and shaky, clutched Aedan close. I could see the determination in Aedan’s eyes: after what the cult had done to his girl, he was ready to kill: God, he almost looked as if he hoped they’d run into trouble.

  And then there was Kian. He was standing awkwardly by the open door of the Mustang and it suddenly hit me that he didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to him. He was doing his best to hide it: checking the time, looking impatient. But I knew what he really needed was Emily to run up to him, throw her arms around him and tell him not to go. He needed to know that someone wanted him to come back. Should I just run in there and give him a hug?

  Too late. Everyone climbed into the car and I was left there cursing myself. Sean gave me a smile from the driver’s seat and I had to resist the temptation to run to his window and press myself to the glass.

  And then they were gone, the whole street echoing with the Mustang’s roar, and the three of us were left standing on the porch. What happens if they wind up in jail? Or dead?

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the car’s tail lights as they faded into the distance. I reached out my arms, felt for the other two girls, and pulled them close.

  38

  Kian

  We sat there in the darkness, not speaking, just watching. Everything looked good. The printing works was on a quiet backstreet. Only a few cars had passed by the alley we were parked in, there was no sign of any cops, no private security cruising around and no glow of a flashlight inside that would suggest a night watchman. It looked easy.

  So why was I so tense? Why did something feel wrong?

  I looked across at Aedan but he was staring straight out through the windshield, messing with something in his jeans pocket as if he was turning it over and over in his hand for good luck. In the driver’s seat, Sean looked like I felt: eager to get this over with but twitchy as hell. And Carrick was his usual grim, stoic self. We’d let him ride shotgun because foregoing the Harley and being crammed into the back seat was too much to ask.

  The hell with it. Let’s just do it.

  I climbed out and the others did the same. In front of us, the huge brick building stayed silent and dark. It looked to be well over a hundred years old and it hadn’t been maintained well: even from down on the ground, I could see that the roof was ragged in places and the iron fire escape looked like a death trap. Hopefully that meant they were too cheap to spring for decent alarms.

  Carrick and Sean went first because they’d at least had experience breaking into places. Aedan and I were just muscle and hopefully we wouldn’t even be needed: we’d sneak in, find the paperwork we needed and sneak out with no more than a broken window left behind. But as the moon crept out from behind a cloud and I saw Aedan’s face, I realized he didn’t feel the same way. He looked like he was just about to step into the ring. He wanted us to run into some cult member, wanted revenge for what they’d done to Sylvie. Aw, hell….

  “Here,” muttered Carrick. We all joined him at a window. “Other ones are alarmed but they skipped this one because it doesn’t open. So…” He pressed strips of duct tape all over it, turning it into a lattice, and then he punched the pane until it crumpled silently inward. In a few minutes, the window frame was empty and he tossed the mess of tape and glass to the ground. He caught my raised eyebrow. “Had to sneak into a few other MC clubhouses, in my time. Guy called Hunter taught me how.”

  We climbed through one by one. There were skylights in the roof and just enough moonlight came through to see by. It was one huge room with several massive printing presses down the center, each one the size of a truck. Huge rolls of paper, eight or ten feet across, were already in the machines. It wound around rollers and then leapt across the gaps from machine to machine, stretched tight as a drum skin between them. You could actually walk under it in some places, and it was like being under the awning of a tent. The smell of ink filled my nostrils: that scent you get when you unfold a fresh newspaper, but times a thousand.

  Down at one end, some iron stairs led up to a raised area with glass-fronted offices: probably where the boss sat to keep an eye on things. I nodded towards it and we started to move, Sean and me on one side of the presses and Carrick and Aedan on the other.

  Dammit, I wish Emily was here.

  It jumped into my mind, taking me by surprise. No I don’t! If she was here, I’d be arguing with her, hustling her to safety. I didn’t want her here. I just—

  I just wanted her close. Not on the other side of the country with no idea of what she was doing. I wanted to kiss her goodbye, kiss her when I got back, wrap her up in my arms at night—

  It hit me hard: I can’t do without her. I couldn’t understand it: I’d functioned just fine on my own in the Marines and then in the Secret Service. But either I’d lost that ability, now that I’d seen how much better life could be when you had someone to share it with…or I’d been kidding myself that I’d been fine all those years. I closed my eyes for a split second, imagining the brush of her silk-soft hair against my shoulder, my hands stroking down her naked back to her—

  “Christ!” yelled Sean. At the same exact second there was a dull thump as two bodies collided. As I opened my eyes, I saw him crash to the floor, another man on top of him. I winced as the back of Sean’s head hit the floor

  Fuck. I ran towards them but I knew it might already be too late: I’d missed the guy’s silent approach because I was getting all dewy-eyed about Emily. You moron!

  A knife blade flashed in the darkness: the guy raised it, then brought it down towards Sean’s chest.

  My little brother groggily raised his hands and caught the guy’s hands in his, stopping the blade an inch short of his body. The blade winked in the moonlight as they fought for control, muscles straining against one another. The guy was a similar build to all of us: big, muscles standing out in his arms, their shape visible through the thin hooded top he wore. But Sean had had years of swinging that sledgehammer of his: he could hold his own, even semi-conscious, at least for a few seconds.

  And a few seconds was all I needed. With a howl of rage, I barreled into the guy,
knocking him sideways. He managed to keep hold of the knife, though, and he was on his feet in an instant, stabbing and slashing, making me jump back. I’d faced people with knives plenty of times in the Secret Service but most of them were idiots who didn’t know how to fight with one. Someone had trained this guy.

  I had to get him away from Sean, who was still trying to get to his feet, and over to the other side of the room where Carrick and Aedan could help. They were calling to me, trying to figure out where we were in the darkness, but the huge printing presses blocked the direct route across.

  I found a point where the paper stretched between machines and ducked under it, backing away from the guy. He followed, the moonlight from above shining through the thin paper and bathing us in a soft glow. He had his hood up and I couldn’t see his face but I was betting he was with the cult, sent to stop us.

  He suddenly lunged forward with the knife and I only just knocked his hand to the side in time. Then he stabbed up. If I hadn’t staggered back at that exact moment, he would have buried the knife under my chin. Instead, the blade stabbed into the stretched paper above us. I grabbed his hands, trying to keep the blade away from my face. But I was off balance and he just pushed me back. God, he was strong as well as fast. The knife slashed a long tear in the paper as we moved, the two halves falling either side of us.

  He was moving faster and faster, almost running, now, and I was having to stagger backwards to match him. I had to stay upright because that’s the only way I could keep forcing the knife up and away, but sooner or later I was going to miss my footing and then—

  As we emerged from under the paper, it happened. I staggered and went down and he fell atop me. There was too much momentum to stop the knife: all I could do was twist to the side and hope. I felt it burn as it whistled past my cheek and then it stabbed into the linoleum. Jesus, that really hurt. I was pretty sure I was bleeding. And the knife was already lifting again—