by V. Theia
“If that’s what you need. You leave them out of your crusade to get captain stripes.”
“Jesus,” Mal sighed, raking both hands through his hair and once again, Texas got the sense something was up with his brother. “How did it come about that you and I are on opposite sides?”
That shit was easy. “Addison.”
Mal snorted. “True enough. I wish it were different.” And then, “that summer, wish so much now that it never happened.”
That summer.
Two innocuous words which had haunted Texas’ mind for years now until recently.
Now he didn’t care and wondered why he’d held onto that for so long.
“Things aren’t going so well with Addy.”
Texas wanted to roll his eyes to the ceiling, instead he took another gulp and finished off the bottle, setting it aside.
“Your marriage woes are your business.”
“You know that isn’t quite true.” A quiet Mal said, calling over to the waitress for a second bottle. “My wife is spoiled, entitled and she never let me forget how I have the wrong face.”
Texas snorted. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before and a grin kicked up half of his mouth. Not because he was gloating, he’d never do that to his brother, no matter how much they differed in opinions.
“No one said you had to marry her.”
“She was having my kid.”
“Funny then that I don’t have a nephew to spoil.”
He’d thought for years that Addison fabricated that whole thing to get a chain on one of the Hunt brothers. The evidence was damning.
Mal’s jaw tightened.
“She said she lost it on that trip to Cabo.”
Convenient.
“If it’s so bad, why are you still married?”
Mal looked down at the ring on his finger, then met Texas’ gaze and he said the words that he’d suspected to be true, even when Addison was Texas’ girlfriend. “I love the spoiled bitch.”
“You need to get right with it, brother. This shit is messing you up. I’ve been gone a long time. I shouldn’t even be a factor in this, you get me? What she did the other night was crazy. My girl gave her both barrels for turning up the way she did.”
Mal scoffed and shoved a hand into his leather jacket pocket and came out with the hard candy he always carried, offered some, then tossed one into his mouth. “You’re never gone in my house. She loves me, wants me, but she also wants you.”
As bombshells go, it wasn’t a massive one but Texas still felt the weight of it in his chest because it was his twin saying the words.
“She’s a spoiled bitch, Mal, who wants all the toys in the toy box, that’s it. Wake the fuck up.”
Over the years, Addison made subtle plays for him, even turning up at his loft the day he got kicked out of the club, when he was most vulnerable, it was as if she sensed that shit. She’d made a play for him then, but he’d told her the same as he always did, she was his brother’s wife.
When Mal’s blue eyes met his, they held something that put pain in his own belly. “You ever think about it?”
“About what?”
“Addison. If it had been different.”
“Why the fuck are we raking over old news?”
“It’s never old. Not when she fucking whispers your name while I’m inside her.”
Texas felt sick.
Addison really was a special kind of fucking viper.
He’d always seen it, but the allure of her, the temptation of her as a teen had overrode all sense of logic.
He saw it clearly now; he just wished his twin did too.
“That’s fucked up.”
“You didn’t answer. You thought about it? What she asked us before the wedding.”
The summer it all changed for the both of them, Texas and Mal were sixteen.
Texas saw Addison first, so he’d called dibs.
His twin acted nonchalantly, he had his own girlfriend at the time, Misty...someone.
Addison loved nothing more than playing the twins off against each other.
Getting them to compete to impress her.
Texas never realized what she was doing until much later.
He just thought he was making his girl happy.
He never noticed how the sly way she wormed her way into their lives, making herself the center of everything.
He was a boy with a hard-on for a pretty redhead.
And the night they were going to lose their virginity together, Texas had been called downstairs for something for his mom and when he got back up to his room, he heard the muffled moans and the whispers of panted breaths.
It took him a minute to realize Addison was in bed with Malachai.
Their silhouettes moving together in the dark.
He stood in the doorway; his heart ripped out.
Only to hear her moan his name.
He got out of there after that, didn’t even confront her.
He was too busy feeling like death.
“When she said my name, what did you do?” He suddenly asked Mal. “That summer.” He clarified.
“I realized she thought I was you. That she’d crawled into the wrong bed. When I told her who I was, she just kissed me and told me to keep going.”
The confrontation that came afterwards was brutal.
But for Texas it was done, no matter what his feelings had been at the time. Addison begged and pleaded that she was sorry. She wasn’t sorry enough to stop fucking his brother when she realized, or to keep fucking him all night.
Yeah, Texas was forced to listen to that shit.
To his girlfriend getting railed by Malachai, to hear her orgasms that should have been his.
For Texas, he was done after that.
For years until Mal hit twenty and supposedly got her pregnant, he avoided being around the couple as much as he could.
Until she’d told him the night before her wedding, “it should have been you.”
Even then, when she’d hooked the other Hunt brother, she was still playing her conniving games because Texas was still stupidly drawn to her.
At their rehearsal dinner, she’d made a play for him and then when Mal walked into the hallway, saw them together, asked what the fuck was going on, his cunning bride turned to Mal and said she wanted them both so they had to work it out.
Texas tuned back into the question Mal asked him and met his eyes.
It was almost as if they could fit right back into their twin souls, where emotions, thoughts and body language virtually became one skin.
“She wanted to marry you and have a relationship with us both. What the fuck do you think I would have said, Mal? Fuck no.”
At the time he hadn’t even given an answer, just turned on his heel and left.
He got through their wedding and the next day he disappeared for good.
Not that she left him alone, for years, she’d plagued him.
We could be good together if you gave us a chance. Malachai is okay with it.
Only he started to see her for what she was.
She was a beauty with a black soul and a vicious heart.
He’d felt bad for Mal, but he’d made his bed.
Now he knew his brother loved the woman and he had Texas’ sympathy because he knew what it felt like to be loved by a good woman, a woman who wouldn’t dream of manipulating him.
Texas was loved and he knew he had the better life. Knowing it didn’t make him glad.
“What would you have said?”
Mal laughed indifferently and shrugged. “I’m not like you, brother. Probably would have given in. Even now if you…”
“Don’t finish that sentence, swear to Christ.” Texas ground his teeth and leaned over the table, eyeballing the person he was once closest to in the entire universe. The man he felt lost without. “I don’t want your wife, then or now, Mal. Grow a fucking pair of balls for fucks sake, see the shit she’s doing. Don’t tell me the reason you came was
because of her.”
He shook his head. “No, this is for me. I miss you.”
He missed him too.
Texas was no longer the same person and Malachai was exactly who he’d left behind.
Family ties and blood would always have a hold on him, but he’d left all that other stuff behind him long ago and he had no desire to resurface it.
“We can work on that, see if there’s something we can salvage. But just you and me, Mal. You never bring Addison into it, ever. That’s a hard limit. I’ll bring you around Poppy, let her get to know you now, but if you ever disrespect her, then you’re gone, do you understand?”
“I wouldn’t do that. I always thought she was a nice kid, she followed you around a lot.”
There wasn’t much else to say and he was eager to get back to his girl. “I want you to be happy, Mal. You should be a dad, throwing your kids in the air. I want you to be a present uncle in my kid’s lives when I have them.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, his head over his hands then he looked up at Texas. “I’d like that.” And then. “It won’t mean much, I know I have to earn your trust and respect back, but I am sorry, for everything. I mean everything, brother. If I could do it all differently, I would have always chosen to be your twin over anything.”
Texas didn’t know if he spoke the truth or was blowing smoke up his ass again but only time would tell.
He’d give him a chance. It was up to Mal to fuck it up or not.
The brothers left the conversation in a better place.
It was anyone’s guess if the Hunt brothers would ever get back what they lost.
But Texas walked toward his future, he dumped his clothes on the floor of the hotel room where his girl slept soundly and he climbed into bed, curling around her back.
This was home, he thought.
This was his place, where he was meant to be.
Where he’d fight to stay.
He didn’t know if he felt redeemed as a decent person yet.
Maybe it would take a lifetime.
He knew he’d always try.
For his friends, to gain their trust back.
But constantly to earn this girl’s love.
Some missions in life he didn’t know he wanted and now he couldn’t live without it.
Loving Poppy felt real and natural.
About the best damn thing he’d ever done with his life.
“You’re back,” her drowsy voice whispered, turning in his arms, her face found his neck and she curled around him, all arms and legs and wandering mouth.
She was such a tiny savage and he couldn’t thank her enough for running away from her wedding straight to him.
“I’m back, baby.” In more ways than one.
Texas was back.
And about to fuck the love of his life again when she started pumping her hips.
Life was sweet.
And he didn’t know his lies would bring him to this indecent and perfect happiness.
He might have lied sooner had he known.
EPILOGUE
“Bought and paid for created a happily ever after for the runaway bride.” - Poppy
He swore to God that his vision blanked out when he hit the bottom of Poppy.
“Ah, fuck, baby. Stay still for a minute.” He rasped with his mouth lingered against her ear.
Chest to back, an arm around her waist keeping her near and still it wasn’t close enough.
“I can’t,” she whimpered, gyrating her ass to make his cock twitch inside her and that’s when Texas had to move too.
He pulled back and shoved forward, impaling his girl in a gentle fucking.
They’d had the furious sex earlier when he got her to the hotel, barely through the door and he had her dress pulled up around her waist and his hand in her panties while he kissed her.
“You are not going to take off on me again, are you?”
Mouth at her throat, he tasted her with slow licks, as slow as the in and out he was gliding into her body. She was so tight he almost lost his mind to keep it together long enough to get his girl off and her sexy little moans weren’t doing anything to help how he felt.
On top of the world.
At peace.
“But… I love you chasing me, Tait.”
He slid a hand around her belly, felt how she was quivering, he recognized the signs that she was close, so he increased his depth, and started to play his fingers between her legs.
“Don’t get cute with me,” he grinned and her head turned and it was Poppy who slammed her mouth on his. Hot kisses that pulsed the climaxes like a train out of both of them in under a minute and in the midst of their heavy breathing and Texas raining kisses over the side of her sated face, he told her clearly, “I’ll always come after you, baby. I didn’t find you now, to let you go so easily. You ready for the long haul with your old man?”
She giggled and flipped around to face him, taking his cheeks in her two hands. “Sweet boy, I’ve been ready for years, had to wait for you to catch me.”
Fucking A, this woman was a keeper.
He rolled on top of her, swallowed her breathy moan and felt like the man who owned the world when she widened her legs, took his revived cock in her hand and led him home.
She was beautiful and cute and she gave him something he’d lost and so much more. She was perfection in a crazy little goat mama package and he’d battle the world before he gave her back.
Their lips met.
Her nails got into his shoulders.
She cocked her hips and he grunted his pleasure.
“Ready for a wild ride, little girl?”
“Anytime, anywhere, sweetheart, until your gorgeous cock ruins me.” She demanded, smiling up at him and she wrecked him with her new dirty talk.
He fucked her like a devoted mad man and she moaned, grabbing onto him throughout as if she accepted that she could demand anything from him and get it.
She’d be right about that.
“Latch your candy pussy tight around me, baby. Show me how she loves me.”
“Oh…she does. I do. I love you. Oh, God. Oh, God…I can’t hold on, sweetheart.”
He pumped her harder, hands pressed up by her head so he could watch every flicker of pleasure she was experiencing. “Let go, get loud, I want three floors down to know who’s doing you.”
He drove in harder.
And she let go spectacularly loud while Texas went harder at her.
She whimpered, clinging to his back, using his shoulder for a biting post.
She was incredibly gorgeous, the pulse of it moved over him and he planted deep and stayed there while his hips bucked three times and then he emptied his pleasure into the woman who sneaked out his heart and stored it in her pocket.
When the pleasure finally left his body, he pressed his mouth to the skin on her neck, tasting her, smelling the remnants of her sultry perfume and something that was all his Poppy and their sex.
“Ah, fuck, little girl. You undo me, you know that?”
“I do? I mean, yeah, I do.” she grinned cheekily and he couldn’t help but smile back as he tapped kisses on her already kiss bitten lips.
He knew by now how much she loved his mouth but she loved his cock more. As soon as he got rid of the rubber, he’d get hard again and give her another round.
Being without her, even for a few hours felt like he’d poured agony into his gut, so he made sure to cup her face to get her dreamy eyes on his.
He had a point to put across to his woman.
“You don’t do that again.”
“I won’t.”
“I mean it, you don’t run out like that, if it’s an emergency, you find me first. Don’t care what it is, Poppy.”
Her head bobbed up and down, eyes sparkling mischief, “stuck to you like glue.”
He wandered his lips over her face, unhurried, savoring every inch of her. “Good girl.”
They lay tangled together for a while, talking q
uietly about his meeting with Mal.
“Will it be okay between you?”
“Only time will tell, baby.”
“I have an important question, Tait.”
He was already feeling wiped as he got her tucked in.
“Shoot.”
“Tell me you didn’t leave our babies home alone?”
His chest began to quake silently.
This girl. His girl.
Texas’ mouth split in a grin and then he started to laugh and didn’t stop even when his cute girl started poking him in the ribs because he knew absolutely now he’d gotten himself pussy-whipped and couldn’t rally himself to care. He fucking loved it, in fact.
“It’s not funny, Tait. What if Glenn Coco climbs out on the fire escape and runs away from home?”
“Just like his mom,” he went on laughing.
Then he went about loving his girl some more.
“Tait?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I promise you’ll never have another lonely Christmas again now that I’m here.”
Fuck, his girl unraveled him and put him back together again.
He didn’t know he’d been working his way to redeeming himself until she gave him a purpose for really living again.
He lost his cut and patch and that would sting him forever but when Texas looked at the bigger picture, he wasn’t unhappy like he was.
He’d bought his old lady, but she’d given him everything.
She’d brought him back.
And he was going to love her forever.
* * *
Weeks later – Valentine’s Day trip
The thud of her ass hitting the softly laid snow could be heard, she was sure, clean across the mountain as Tait doubled over with laughter as Poppy huffed and flung snow at him, it didn’t even remotely hit her mark.
He was too wily was her Tait.
Just as well that she chose to wear a Day-Glo pink padded snowsuit because it meant she didn’t feel a thing and she rolled to her knees. “You don’t play fair, Tait Hunt,” she accused and readjusted her double pom-pom wool hat as he approached and offered a hand. Grinning like a fool.
They were in Denver on a date weekend, staying at an exclusive chalet where they could ski (she skied, he watched her) and drink tons of hot cocoa but most of all they had sex in a hot tub and a massive bed.
