by Ashe Barker
Fraze stands up. “Well, that saves a lot of time and bother.” He opens the French window and steps out onto the terrace beyond.
Stuart and I follow him.
“You wait here,” instructs Fraze. “I’ll try and make him see reason.”
Stuart and I watch in silence as Fraze crosses the expanse of lawn. Stuart speaks first, and he puts into words what I’ve been thinking.
“I just don’t understand why no one ever mentioned any of this to him. It’s been an open secret all the time I’ve known the family, and it’s not as though anyone is actually bothered.”
“Yes, I know. I get that, but still, I’m not sure why he’s so pissed off. And who’s he angry with?”
“His mother, I imagine. But he’s likely to extend that little circle once he realises that everyone else was in the picture and he wasn’t. That they’ve known for years.”
“Oh, God, yes.”
Fraze reaches Declan, and even at this distance we can hear raised voices. Declan’s doing most of the shouting, but I can’t pick out what he’s saying. Suddenly Declan swings a punch. He must have taken Fraze by surprise because he staggers back, his hands upraised as though to ward off further attacks. Declan pursues him and swings again, though this time Fraze is ready and ducks. He manages to dodge the next blow, too, but eventually Declan’s determined efforts to knock his brother out cold bear fruit and he lands one to his jaw. I have to assume Fraze has had enough of playing nicely and he retaliates. In moments, the pair are swinging punches and rolling across the lawn.
There’s a shrill scream. It’s me. I sprint over the damp grass, yelling at them to stop. They’re going to kill each other, I’m sure of it. Stuart is behind me. We both come to a shuddering halt beside the furious mass of fists, feet, grunts, and Celtic obscenities.
“Stop,” I plead. “Please stop.”
Tears are streaming across my face as I try to grab first Fraze’s jacket, then Declan’s T shirt. Stuart, too, does his best, but there’s no separating them. Blood pours from Fraze’s nose, and Declan’s right eye is almost closed. For want of something better to do, I fall to my knees, wailing.
Fraze somehow manages to land a punch to Declan’s solar plexus. He curls up, winded, and Fraze takes advantage of the brief respite to roll away from him. He staggers to his feet.
“Shit. I’m sure he broke my nose…”
Declan’s only response is a raucous wheezing as he struggles to catch his breath.
I crawl to where he is still rolling on the ground. “Are you all right?”
“He fucking doesn’t deserve to be,” growls Fraze. “What the fuck was that all about?”
Declan turns his head, his face a mask of fury, of pain and hurt. “You knew.” He manages to grind out the words between gasping for air. “You all fucking knew. All those years… I could have…could have…”
Suddenly, without warning, Declan surges to his feet and lunges at Fraze again. Fraze is quicker, though, and has the advantage of already being upright and of being able to breathe. Even so, Declan isn’t giving up. I leap up off the grass and without thinking slither between them.
“Ellie, stay out of the way.” Fraze tries to move me aside, out of range of any flying fists.
“No. If you’re going to fight you’ll have to trample over me first.”
“Ellie, get out of the way,” warns Declan, advancing with murder in his eyes.
“Not a chance.” I stand my ground. “I love you. Both of you. You’re no good to me without each other, and if you love me like you say you do, you’ll find a way to get past this. You have to. Please…”
“Ellie…” Declan’s tone is low.
His Dom voice will usually bring me instantly to my knees, but I’m not having it, not this time. Even if they both spank me every day for a month I’m not standing aside to let them kill each other.
“Please,” I beg. “Please, Sir. For me…”
Declan hesitates, his features harsh. His dark eyes flash, but not only in anger. There’s something else, something more. Something familiar.
“Holy fuck, girl,” he growls. “Come here.”
I rush into his open arms, and they fold around me. I cling to him, to his neck. He winces when I stroke his bruised cheekbone. Fraze is at my back, his arms also around me, and around Declan, too. Declan stiffens, but he allows it. For long moments the three of us stand there on the lawn at Hathersmuir holding each other upright.
“I’m sorry.” Fraze’s voice is cracking. “I should have told you, should have said something…”
“I’m not sorry I punched you. I hope your nose is broken, you bastard.”
“Well, technically…” begins Fraze but wisely shuts up at the loud throat clearing from Stuart.
“Quite so,” offers Stuart from somewhere off to my left. “I think we’ve given the staff ample entertainment for one afternoon. Perhaps we might all go inside now and discuss this like civilised people. With any luck, Mrs McBride’s tea could still be warm…”
Chapter Eleven
“For years I didn’t trust him.” Declan sits in the morning room, a cold cup of Mrs McBride’s tea before him. He leans forward, his elbows on his thighs and his head down. “I was just the kid of one of his servants, an outsider. I was a hanger-on, but he kept on giving me stuff.”
“We noticed,” offers Fraze.
Declan bestows a baleful glare on his brother. “He gave you anything you wanted, too. For long enough I assumed I was one of those things, a friend for his precious son and heir, someone for you to play with, a companion. I got cynical, decided to milk the situation, however fucked up it was.”
Fraze narrows his eyes. “There was nothing fucked up about it. My father—our father— loved all his children and treated them equally. That included you.”
Declan groans. “I can see that now. Sort of. But all the time I was growing up here I thought of him as something of a joke, generous to a fault, but someone I could manipulate. Christ, if I’d known I would have…” He lets his words trail away. “There were times I used to let myself imagine that he was my father, too, but that was just too fantastic, too weird.”
“You never said…”
Declan gives a mirthless laugh. “Do you blame me? How would that have sounded? Pathetic or what?”
Fraze doesn’t answer. He looks almost as miserable as Declan. For several seconds we sit in silence, Stuart and I making bewildered, helpless eye contact.
Declan gets to his feet. “I loved him. Under all the stupid laddish bravado, I did love him but I never told him that.”
“He never said it either, did he?” Fraze remains seated, still dabbing at his nose, though the bleeding has stopped now. “But he showed it, every day. For my father, actions spoke louder than words.”
“But I never—”
“He knew. He was never one for talking much, but he would have known.”
“We could have been close.”
“You were close to him, just as I was.”
“And me,” Miranda interrupts from the doorway. She enters the room and examines first Fraze’s battered features then Declan’s. “I see you discussed the matter rationally, then? Like two adults?” She pauses, glances suspiciously at me. “Unless…they weren’t fighting over you, were they?”
“No!” We all three answer at once.
She eyes her brothers, then me. “Okay, so…?”
“It was his fault,” begins Fraze.
Miranda’s response is a disparaging and distinctly unladylike snort. Both her brothers opt to remain silent.
“How is Allannah?” Stuart valiantly attempts to change the subject.
“Worried sick.” She fixes her gaze on Declan. “She knows you were upset about what she told you, that you went charging off. That’s why I came back, to tell you that you need to go back there and let her see that you’re all right. I take it you are all right?”
“I’m getting there,” is his grudging response. “I
suppose you were in on this little family secret, too?”
“I was, and I can see how that has hurt you. We were wrong. We avoided the issue because it was too awkward, too delicate, and in the process we forgot that you had a right to know. For that, I apologise.”
Declan stares at her. I get the impression he didn’t expect an apology. I nudge Fraze.
“Yes. Right. I’m sorry, too.”
Declan peers at him as though he has sprouted an extra head. “Oh, for fuck’s sake… Stop being so humble, both of you. It doesn’t suit you at all.”
“We’ll stop being humble if you stop sulking.” Miranda checks the temperature of the teapot before pouring herself a cup.
“I’m not bloody sulking. This is massive. I’ve a right to be more than a bit pissed off.”
Fraze opens his mouth to speak, but it’s Stuart who gets in first. “Fair point. No one’s arguing with you about that. But they’ve apologised. I will, too, if it helps. But then you have to let it go. We have to move on.”
“What are you talking about? Why the fuck would I—?”
“Because this is your family.” Stuart swings his arm to encompass all of us. “They always have been and that’s what families do.”
Miranda moves across the drawing room to kiss her husband’s cheek, then she turns to face Declan again. “This is something we need to talk about, as a family. And we will, in the weeks and months to come. I daresay we all have questions, things we want to say. We should have done it earlier, but what’s done is done. You were always stuck with us, Declan, and now you know why.” Normally Miranda’s imperious bossiness might grate, but her matter of fact attitude is exactly what’s required here. She fixes her attention on Declan. “So, are you going back to the hospital or not? Wilson’s outside with the car.”
He sighs. “Yes, I suppose I should…”
“Go clean yourself up first,” I suggest. “There’s not much we can do about that black eye, but a shower and some fresh clothes would help. You really don’t want to scare your poor mother into a relapse.”
“No. And don’t you go yelling at her, either,” says Fraze. “She’s still very fragile, and we won’t have you upsetting her. I haven’t entirely given up hope that I might be able to lure her back here…”
Declan mutters something suitably obscene and stalks from the room.
“When do you need to get back to London?”
Fraze and I are alone in the formal dining room at Hathersmuir. We are seated at one end of a table that could easily accommodate fifty, though Fraze assures me he can’t recall ever seeing that many guests assembled here. We are given to understand that Miranda is considering corporate hospitality as another source of revenue for the estate, and I see no reason to doubt her business sense, though Fraze appears less than impressed. I’ve realised by now though that Declan was right, Fraze will always criticise and his sister will always listen to what he has to say, ignore him if she chooses, and do what she thinks is best. They understand each other, and the arrangement works well for them.
I cradle my cooling coffee cup in both hands. “I’m expected back at the lab. If not tomorrow, then the day after…”
“Me, too. I have meetings I prefer not to postpone if I can help it. I’m thinking of flying back tomorrow afternoon, depending on how Allannah is, obviously.”
“What about Declan?”
Fraze shrugs. “He can probably skip a couple of training sessions. I doubt he’ll want to leave here until he’s sure she’s going to be okay. They were always close. I’m not sure when his next match is. Saturday probably.”
“It’s only Wednesday. He has a bit of time still…”
Fraze glances at the ornate clock on the mantelpiece, which shows the hour to be just before midnight.
“Is it still Wednesday? Only just.” He stands and places his empty cup on the massive sideboard running the length of the room. “Dec’ll probably spend the night at the hospital. I’m heading off to bed. What about you?”
I set my cup next to his. “I suppose so. Miranda expects me to use Declan’s apartment. I think she had fresh sheets put on the bed.”
He gives me his sexy, lop-sided grin. “I see no point in that. Do you?”
“No, but—”
“If Dec comes back he’ll know where to look for you. For us.”
“What about Miranda?”
“I doubt she’ll come looking for you.”
“You know what I mean. She’s wondering who… Which of you…”
“She’ll figure it out, and if she doesn’t, Stuart will explain.”
“Stuart knows?” I hadn’t realised
Fraze takes my hand and tugs me out into the first-floor hallway. “He doesn’t say much, but there’s not much gets past our Stuart. Haven’t you worked that out yet?”
I’m still processing that snippet as Fraze propels me up another flight of stairs to the second floor. He and Declan share the east wing—Declan’s flat is one floor up from Fraze’s. Miranda and her family live in the west wing, and the central façade is the area open to the public or used for formal occasions.
Fraze’s apartment is spacious and elegant, though not as comfortable as the flat in Edinburgh or his house in Hatfield. It lacks much in the way of personal items. There are none of the books he likes to keep around him, his sports equipment, his home entertainment. This is not the place where he lives, and he makes no attempt to conceal that.
He shrugs. “Sorry. At least the heating’s been on a while…”
“It’s fine.” And it is fine, by any standards. But it just isn’t him.
Fraze is already undressing. He kicks off his shoes, then loses the shirt, still the same one he wore when he flew back from the U.S. and now decidedly crumpled. He balls it up and flings it into a basket, followed by his suit pants and his socks. In just his boxers, he ambles into the adjoining bathroom. Soon I hear the sound of the toilet flushing followed by running water. I peel off my own sweatshirt, jeans, and underwear, and drop them into the basket with Fraze’s discarded clothing. I’m not sure where my overnight bag ended up, probably in Declan’s apartment, but I’m sure I’ll find it tomorrow. Nude, I follow Fraze into the bathroom.
Our eyes meet in the mirror.
He smiles at me. “Christ, you’re beautiful.”
“You, too, Sir.”
He turns, grasps me by the waist, and lifts me up onto the expanse of pearl-coloured marble which surrounds the sink unit. The counter top is cold against my bare flesh, but I don’t care. I need this. We need this. I lean back on the tiles behind me while Fraze spreads my legs wide and drops to his knees.
He peels back my already damp folds to expose my clit and hardens his tongue to prod it. He flicks the tip, and I tangle my fingers in his hair to pull him closer, urge him on, beg for more. He shifts, then licks me from my arse right to my clit again. He takes the sensitive bud between his lips and applies suction. I am close to orgasm, already writhing and squirming on the cold surface. I gasp his name, then wail when he suddenly releases me and straightens.
“In the shower,” he rasps, shoving his boxers to the floor.
I enter the cubicle, and he hits the control. At once I am doused in cool but rapidly warming water which comes at me from all directions. Fraze follows me in, grabs the shower head from the bracket above me, and adjusts the flow of water through it. The spray is narrowed from the soft sprinkle of droplets to a hard, narrow stream of fast-rushing water. He grasps my leg by the knee and lifts it, opening me. I lean on the smooth, cool wall and try to stifle my cry of pleasure/pain when he angles the torrent of water right at my clit.
There is no preamble, no lead in. The rush of sensation overwhelms me. My leg holding my weight starts to buckle, but Fraze leans forward, pinning me to the tiles in order to continue the relentless assault. I scream, the sound muffled by his shoulder when I shatter. The orgasm is swift and powerful, leaving me gasping under the warm cascade until my senses return.
/> Fraze lifts me again, and this time I wrap my legs around his waist. I manage to lock my ankles in the small of his back before he drives his cock deep into me. I clench hard, needing him, craving the sense of fullness, of belonging. I want him inside me, moving, taking, reminding me that I am his.
That I am theirs. These friends, now brothers. They share me, and I belong to both.
“He’ll be back. Soon.” It’s as though Fraze hears my thoughts. “He has to come back.”
He fucks he hard, his strokes long and deep. I quiver, my arousal swift to peak again, and I wrap myself around him.
“I know,” I whisper, moments before we come together.
“Dec? You all right? How’s Allanah?”
Fraze’s concerned tone rouses me from sleep. I crack open one eye. I am lying beside Fraze in his huge bed, my head resting on his chest. The room is pitch black, and my hair is still damp from the shower. We haven’t been asleep for long, it’s still the middle of the night. I wince when Fraze reaches for the bedside lamp and turns it on.
Declan is seated on the padded ottoman across the room, his shoulders slumped. His elbows rest on his thighs, his hands dangle between his knees. He eyes the pair of us, though without any rancour or recrimination.
“Is your mum all right,” I ask, shoving myself up onto my elbow and pushing the tangled hair from my face.
“Yeah, she’s good. Sleeping now.”
“You should get some sleep, too,” I suggest. “You look knackered.”
He manages a twisted smile. “Thanks. I went upstairs, and you weren’t there, so…”
“Shall I come with you now?” I start to get out of bed, but Fraze grabs my elbow.
“I’ve a better idea. Why don’t you join us, bro?” He gestures to the space on the other side of where I’m lying. “Plenty of room.”
“Here?” Declan waves his arm to the room at large. “We’ve never—”
“Then it’s time we fucking started.” Fraze drapes his arm around my shoulders. “I’m not having our Ellie wearing out my ancestral carpet traipsing from my room to yours and back again. Get in.”
