“Reece, if I can’t kill him you have to. Not a whole lot, just a little, just make him hurt,” Synclair growled as she fisted Reece’s shirt in what was certainly a painful grip for Reece. Yep, she had a good amount of his skin in that grip. Ouch!
“Will someone tell me what the heck Dalton did?” Matt asked again.
Synclair wiggled off Reece’s lap and he helped her stand, but held one hand firmly in his as she waddled up to me and looked me up and down. Dear Lord, help the child she carried, the little tyke would never get away with anythin’ with that creepy deathstare she had.
“This, Matt!” she hissed as she grabbed the collar of the shirt I was wearing and pulled it from me skin to reveal the very marks I was trying to hide. The fact that Dalton’s turleneck was so large made the neck part of it pull so far from me that everyone could see the marks didn’t stop at me neck.
“Um, it’s not his fault,” I muttered.
“What?” Synclair asked.
“I mean, we did, but we didn’t mean to. I mean, we meant to at the time, but then we woke up and realized what we did and we were sorry, because we didn’t even remember and… ugh, blame it on the bloody whiskey!” I shouted as I threw me hands up in frustration, absolutely mortified that I had just admitted to his whole family that Dalton and I had sex and didn’t even remember.
“You mean, he had,” Synclair looked over at Logan, who was staring at his aunt with avid interest, “pizza with you, and you weren’t in your right mind because you had too much soda?” Synclair asked and I just stared at her. I looked over at the young lad on Rachel’s lap and sighed.
"Ugh! Okay, it wasn’t how I imagined the first time I had… pizza… would be, but we both had too much… soda to drink,” I told her, using her words to prevent poor little Logan from an education that should still be years away.
“Mommy says soda is bad for you, it makes you sick and eats away at the inside of your tummy!” little Logan suddenly spoke from his seat on Rachel’s lap.
I looked over at the little boy, ignoring the snickers from Matt and Lucas, and smiled. “Sweetie, your Ma has the right of it, never ever drink soda, especially with a girl in a nightclub,” I warned him as I flopped down on the sofa next to me future brother-in-law.
“Please don’t kill him, Reece, it’s as much me own fault as it is his,” I told him as I laid me head back and closed me eyes.
"Men, come on, Hudson overboard, let’s go save the idiot before he drowns in his own bad choices,” Reece told his brothers. Once Lucas and Reece had made sure that Sara and Synclair were seated comfortably and Matt reminded the dark-haired woman that he had her passport in his pocket, they all sauntered out of the front door in what could only be called a collective Hudson male swag.
Dalton
“Fuuck!” I roared as my foot connected with a large rock that was buried deep in the grass I was trudging through. I should have stopped and put my shoes on, but once I let go off the ledge, I had grabbed them up and bolted. Synclair had looked at me like she was going to skin me alive and one glance from Camille told me that my perceptive future sister-in-law knew exactly what had gone on with Camille and I.
Throwing open the barn door, I collapsed on a stack of hay bales and threw one arm over my eyes. This was bad, this was like post-nuclear-war-and-everyone-turns-into-a-zombie bad. What? I’m a guy, you knew I had to throw a potential zombie apocalypse in there somewhere.
“Wow, when you fuck up, you really go all out, little brother,” I heard Lucas say from somewhere near the open barn door.
Not bothering to look in his direction, I threw up my middle finger and groaned.
“All I can say is take cover, bro, incoming from Reece in five seconds,” Matt warned as he slapped my arm off my face, causing me to jerk to a sitting postion.
“One thing, Dalton, I asked you to do one thing!” Reece roared as he slammed into the barn and kicked an empty pail that was near the door.
I looked at my older brother and winced. Normally Reece was the calmer one in the group, Lucas was the hard-ass, Matt was civilized one, I was the joker, and Rachel was the baby. We all had our resepctvie places in the family, and to see Reece’s green eyes boring into me like hot lasers was a little frightening. His chest was heaving and his face was flushed, like he was struggling to stay in control.
I put my hands up in surrender. “It wasn’t supposed to happen, we had too much to drink,” I explained. Matt snorted and Lucas snickered, even to me the "I was so drunk I didn’t know better" excuse sounded bad.
“So, you accidently slept with Synclair’s little cousin?” Reece sneered and I cringed at the way he said “little”, as if Camille was too young for me or something.
“She’s not that little, bro, she’s about Dalton’s age,” Matt reminded Reece, earning a glare from our older brother.
“We got drunk, it was an accident,” I repeated. My head was pounding, my feet were numb, and I wasn’t in the mood to get dressed down by my big brother like he just caught me sneaking in after curfew.
“You got drunk and your dick accidently fell into Camille’s virgin body?” Reece shot back.
Okay, now he was just sinking low; I already saw the damn stain on her sheets, I didn’t need to be reminded of what that meant.
“Shit, four… actually four… fuck me,” I grumbled, holding my head.
“What?” Lucas asked and, when I looked up, I realized my mumblings had been out loud.
“Four what, Dalt?” Matt asked, his obvious amusement making me want to punch his face in.
“Four, okay, I accidently took Camille’s sacred virginity four times,” I shouted, jumping up from the hay. As soon as I stood, I knew it was a mistake, because my stomach felt like it was going to revolt right then and there.
“I’m pretty sure she was only a virgin for the first time, Dalt, the other three times were just a bonus,” Matt chuckled.
“You took a virgin four times? Jesus, Dalt!" Reece yelled as he ran a hand through his hair.
Yeah, I grimaced too. I have no idea how sore Camille must be this morning, I can only hope I was gentle and didn’t get too carried away. I could be a very gentle lover, but I had a primal side too, and many women liked to be taken roughly - never painfully, but I’d had more than one woman want to be slammed into a headboard.
“Four, four times?” Lucas chimed in, shaking his head.
“Yes, four. Well, I think it was four,” I admitted and when all heads turned toward me, I wished I had kept my mouth shut.
“You think? You don’t know?” Reece asked in disbelief.
“Okay, I think it was four, there were four condom wrappers on her floor this morning, there may have been one more, but it was just peeking out from under her bed and I didn’t get a chance to examine it, okay! So definitely four, but possibly five!” I shouted.
Matt laughed. “My man!” He held out his fist to bump mine, but dropped it when Reece growled in his direction.
“So, let’s recap: after Synclair and I asked you not to sleep with her cousin, you got drunk, had sex four-maybe-five times based on the very accurate method of counting condom wrappers, and you didn’t mean it?” Reece asked me, and his voice had lost most of it’s anger.
I sat back down on the hay bale and my brothers took up spots on the other bales in the barn. I looked around and I was sure the tortured look on my face told them everything my mouth wasn’t.
“I just wanted to help her, man,” I began and then spent the next twenty minutes filling them in on everything that had happened since I’d arrived in Dublin.
“Whew! That’s a lot of shit for a few weeks, Dalton. So, do you love her?” Lucas asked, and I could see the concern clearly on his face.
“I don’t do love, Lucas, you know that. I like my freedom, I like casual sex, but she’s my best friend and now we’ve slept together, and I don’t know how to go back to being friends.”
“Maybe you can’t, maybe you have to go forward and see if
you're more than friends!” Matt offered.
I scrubbed my hands up and down my face and looked at Reece. “You know, Synclair is going to kill me. How do I even look at Camille in the face knowing what I took from her?” I groaned.
“Yeah, four-maybe-five times,” Matt chimed in.
“Not helping,” Lucas admonished and Matt stood up.
“Listen, my point is, drunk or not, you would never force a woman, Dalton, so Camille must have been on board with last night, whether you two remember it or not. Besides, my guess is Camille is the woman you were calling me about the other night and, if that’s the case, then you’re already done.” Matt sat back like he had just imparted some great ball of wisdom to me.
Shaking my head, I looked at Reece. “It’s not like that, I don’t want a relationship and she and I agreed love was not part of the deal.”
Reece and Lucas exchanged a weird look and then turned to me and smiled as one. “Was sex part of the deal?” Lucas asked as he picked hay off his Levis.
“No, you know it wasn’t, I just explained to you the deal we made and it worked: she’s affectionate, confident, and she doesn’t hide anymore, for all purposes, she worked past her intimacy issues and I got a female friend that I wasn’t hanging around just to bang,” I answered.
One raised eyebrow from Reece told me he wasn’t buying it. “Well, it seems that you both changed the deal you made when you slept together; do you like her any differently because you slept together?” Reece asked. I didn’t like where he was leading me.
“Gee, I don’t know, I only found out that we’d fucked about thirty minutes ago, Reece, but I don’t see why she and I just can’t pretend it didn’t happen? I mean, we don’t even remember sleeping together, so why should our friendship change?” I asked my slack-jawed brother.
“Why? Why?” Reece asked, his voice raising higher with each word. “Because you can’t go back, Dalton. I think it’s great that you helped her realize there was nothing wrong with her and I love the fact that you got to know a woman for more than just her vagina, but are you really going to stand there and tell me you have no feelings for her beyond friendship?” Reece stood with his hands on his hips and glared at me like I’d just tried to convince him that the sky was green or something.
“No, I. Do. Not. Love. Camille! Do I need to sky-write it? She’s not my type; she’s opinionated, arguementative, bossy, has no idea who she is, and is far too inexperienced for a lover like me. I felt sorry for her, I hated seeing the way that asshat Sean tried to convince her she was broken, I hated seeing how Walt walked all over her - it was pity, not love, Reece. I pitied her and had I not been so fucking drunk last night because of Irish social customs, I never would have fucked her. I’m sure even last night I fucked her out of pity. She probably begged me for it and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings! I gave her my body to use as she wanted so she could get comfortable and find a man who would love her, but that man is not me,” I shouted, ignoring Matt’s desperate gestures of a thumb going across his neck.
“So, while I am happy that you and Lucas found your happily ever afters, that’s just not how my story goes! I don’t want love, I don’t want marriage, I want freedom and variety, I don’t now, nor will I ever love her, she’s my friend and that’s it. When this wedding is over, I am going home, finishing up Syn and Sara’s resturant, and I am going to fuck my way through Carson City’s phone book, AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?" I shouted and the second I realized that my brothers were looking at something beyond where I was standing, my heart stopped.
Like in a horror movie when the victim turns in slow motion to finally face what’s been chasing them, I turned my body around and saw Camille standing in the doorway.
Her eyes were round and her face was so pale that even her lips were an ashy white. I didn’t know what to say... I had just been so pissed at my brothers; I was so tired of them walking around like love and marriage was the end all, be all. I wasn’t even sure if I meant half of what I had just ranted, but one look in those devastated blue eyes told me she’d heard every damn word.
“Camille,” I said softly, taking a step toward her. She just stood there, looking at me as if she was seeing me for the very first time and was horrified by what she saw. She had changed out of my shirt and was wearing a red off-the-shoulder sweater with a pair of black jeans. Her booted heels made her legs look long and sleek and her eye makeup made her blue eyes smolder. Whomever had done her hair had curled the ends and swept it all over one shoulder. In short, she looked hot!
“I wanted to give you yer shirt, it being so very cold out here and all,” she said. Her voice was polite and controlled and I hated it.
“Camille,” I repeated and reached out my hand to touch her face.
My action broke her out of her frozen state and she reared back, avoiding my touch like it repulsed her. She shook her head and I watched her become aware of my brothers staring at her.
“Here, you don’t want to catch yer death,” she spat at me, tossing me a t-shirt and sweater. She looked at my brothers and I could tell she was struggling not to let the tears gathered in her eyes fall.
“There’s some sandwiches and coffee in the kitchen for you when you want it. Synclair told me you were staying at the Inn downtown, and, um, Keela apparently drove me car home last night, so I retrieved yer wedding sets and put them on the table as well, so you and Lucas can take a look, Reece.” She smiled at Reece and Lucas and I could see her tremble slightly.
“Also,” she pushed forward, “Sara said you all brought yer tuxes, including Dalton’s, so it looks like everything is hammered out for Saturday.” She finished like every second was causing her pain.
No one answered her, no one moved, but I felt my brother’s glares without even looking at them.
Camille muttered something about getting back to the girls and turned to leave, and just then, I felt Matt smack me in the back of the head and when I turned to yell at him, his angry face mouthed the words, “Go, you asshole!"
Stumbling forward, I shouted, “Camille, wait,” and when she turned to me and stared expectantly at me, I found I had nothing to say. Say sorry, beg, crawl, grovel, tell her you didn’t mean it, tell her you're scared because you don’t know what you're feeling, tell her you’ve never had a relationship that lasted longer than throwing the condom away! TELL HER YOU LOVE HER!
The last thought jolted me and I stood ramrod straight, and her eyebrow raised as I started to break out into a cold sweat. I had more composure staring down Taliban insurgents than I did looking at the devastation I had caused Camille.
“The charming man has nothing to say? No pretty words to make it all better? Aye, Dalton, you’ve said enough, man. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. You can return home and work through your phonebook, knowing I will never tell anyone how human you almost are.” Her tone was flat and with a shake of her head she turned and disappeared into the house.
“Word of advice?” Reece asked, coming up behind me, he placed one hand on my shoulder and squeezed. All I could do was shrug as I stared after Camille.
“Don’t wait 15 years to pull your head of your ass,” he said, and his voice was full of regret as he referred to how long it had taken for him to go after Synclair.
“Don’t let the ghosts of the past or the fear of the future stop you from loving someone,” Lucas added, and normally I would retort with some remark about his fortune cookie comment, but I just didn’t have it in me.
“I suppose you have some wayward advice too, Matt?” I asked, feeling like I might as well get the Brady Bunch moment over with.
We all turned to Matt, who had shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels while he grinned. “If at first you don’t succeed, blackmail is a viable option,” he said, his grin faltering when we stared at him like he was joking. Only, I knew he wasn’t, I had remembered the phone call the other night; I wasn’t the only Hudson that was struggling with a woman here.
�
��Matt, tell me you didn’t blackmail that shy girl into coming to the wedding?” Reece groaned, looking at Matt and I like he wished he was an only child.
Matt grinned and his Hudson dimples deepend as he chuckled, “Okay, papa bear, I didn’t blackmail her,” he said, trying to regain his balance when Lucas shoved him hard.
“Well,” Lucas said as he rubbed his chin and at looked Reece, Matt and I, “it appears to be a genetic trait to really fuck up hard.” Reece nodded and Matt and I both grimaced. “But,” he added, “Hudsons also rally back and we always - always - get the girl.”
I let my head hang forward and sighed. “I don’t deserve the girl even I if I wanted her,” I said, still refusing to let them convince me that were was more to Camille and I than I thought.
“Blackmail, brother, always an option.” Matt chuckled as we started back toward the house.
“Seriously, Matt, we need to talk,” Lucas said from about three steps behind me.
Reaching the door, I hesitated before opening it; there was at least one woman on the other side of this door who had easy access to kitchen knives and a lot of reasons to use them, and I’m not even talking about Camille.
“Dead man walking,” Matt announced as he pushed me aside and flung open the kitchen door.
Three heads turned and glared as I followed Matt inside the small kitchen. A fourth head belonged to a dark-haired woman I had never seen before, who continued to eat her sandwich as if nothing was happening.
I knew I was in trouble when Synclair pushed herself out of her chair and glared at Reece, who had come in behind me. “He’s walking,” she observed, never even looking at me.
“Yes, he is, and he will continue to have use of his legs,” Reece answered calmy, moving past me to grab a sandwich from the tray in the center of the table.
Lucky Charms: A Hudson Family Series- Book 3- Dalton and Cami Page 26
