“I get it,” Callie says. “I can see how out of hand they’d get with it. Those tabloids get nasty.”
I shrug. “It’s why we’re spending so much more time here than in the city. We just don’t want to be a part of the drama and judgement. If it’s one thing the past few months have taught us, it’s who we can trust. And those are the people we want to surround ourselves with.”
Cora’s eyes are shinning. “It’s great that your parents are coming. I would have loved to be in the room when you told your dad.”
The tips of my ears burn with a rush of blood as my body remembers just how nervous I was. “Oh my God, telling him wasn’t even the worst part. It was all the questions.”
Both sisters tip back their heads with laughter, delightfully amused with my awkward discomfort at the memory. Callie gets her bearings first. “Tell me again how he put it... So, do they... rotate.”
“Do they fill out a rotation schedule each month?” I correct, still mortified.
Cora wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “Your father is officially my favorite dad ever.”
Pulling a tray of miniature cherry pies from the third oven, Callie smiles. “These are looking good,” she says, eyeing the bubbling filling and golden crusts.
Hopping back into action, Cora heads to the fridge to get out the next set of ingredients. “What’s next on the list?”
“Nope,” her sister says, shaking her head while grabbing her Mimosa from the counter. “We’re at a good place to pause with the cooking for a bit. I want the tour Emma promised.”
I seize hold of my drink as well and lift it up. “Let’s do it!”
The sisters follow me toward the exit that leads into the sleeping wing. Wing. I never would have imagined in all my life that I would live in a house so large that the various segments could be referred to as wings.
Pausing at the counter where the makings for our Mimosas have been set out, I ask, “Anyone need a drink refill before we head out? This may take a while.”
Cora dips a little more orange juice and champagne into her glass. “So, how does this work? Like, you all have your own chambers? Like a castle?”
“It’s big enough to be one,” Callie agrees.
I open the door, leading them into a wide hall. “It’s a bit of a honeycomb design. I never would have thought Daniel would make such a great architect, but I guess it makes sense. He’s brilliant at visualizing how to make all the pieces of something fit together in harmony. Let me show you.” I pause at the first ornate, heavy wooden door. “Here, this is Gunner and Trigg’s room.”
Swinging the door open, Cora walks in, mouth agape. “Wow. This is huge. They still share?”
Callie strides in after her. “Oh my God, is that a bunk bed?”
I shake my head with a grin. My boys. “King-sized mattresses, but yes,” I confess. “Gunner designed it, himself, and I was a little surprised, but Trigg was all for it. I honestly think it’s on purpose, so they can pretend they’ve never grown up.”
“Why’s there a motorcycle in the room?” Cora asks.
“It’s an arcade game. Don’t ask.” I walk on, pointing to my right. “The rest of our bedrooms are that way, but straight forward...” I open the door which leads further into the house, displaying another hall.
“It just keeps going, doesn’t it?” Cora says.
“Yup. Over there is Gunner’s gym — it’s the gym we all use, though. Daniel has a room for all his collections that way.” I bend and point to the left.
“Collectibles?” Callie asks. “Like, baseball cards?”
“Actually, yeah, he does have some of those. But mostly antiques. He’s fascinated with historical artifacts from daily life — like thousand-year-old pens and the first handmade combs.”
I open the nearest door in the hall. “This is one of my favorite rooms, Trigg’s new Zen Den.”
I flick on a few switches, and the room lights up and a waterfall trickles to life on the far wall. Callie and Cora both stride in, looking around the room — from the simple bamboo flooring with yoga mats laid out to the real patch of grass Trigg had installed in front of the fountain.
“This is gorgeous!” Callie exclaims.
Cora bends to feel the texture of the grass. “Oh, wow. This isn’t astroturf.”
“No, it isn’t.” I confirm. “Trigg wants to put in an entire meditation garden outside in the spring, but this is going to be our indoor space. I come in here a lot to relax.”
“Speaking of needing to relax,” Callie says. “Did Jax rebuild his studio. You know? After he trashed it.”
I wince, still remembering how devastated I was upon seeing the havoc Jax had reeked on his art studio in his penthouse. Several of the pieces I’d fondly admired while he was in the process of creating them had been either shattered to pieces or torn to shreds.
There was pain and regret in his eyes when he stood next to me, surveying the destruction. I’d asked him if he would start again on some of my favorite pieces that were almost finished before the Artopocolypse, as we’re now referring to the unfortunate event, but Jax declined. He’d said our new beginning was his new beginning as well, and whatever he created anew would be far better than anything he could have made before.
“It’s actually right through here, come on.” I point at the door on the south side of the room, and the girls follow me. “It’s much bigger than the studio in the penthouse was. For good reason, too. We’ve been doing a lot together, all of us getting into spending time exploring one another’s hobbies, and each of the guys has some little project going in here. Jude took the most convincing, but he’s actually pretty good at landscapes.”
“Jude?” Cora asks with surprise. “Jude paints?”
I swing open the door and move straight for his acrylic on canvas. “What do you think?”
Callie tilts her head at the winter scene of pine trees and mountains. “No shit. That’s actually pretty good.”
“Jax has been helping him with his technique,” I explain. “Took a while for Jude to take direction from his brother, but they work together really well once they get in the groove.”
Even though I’m talking about their art projects, my mind flashes to my favorite collaboration of the twins, a much more private hobby they practice with me — one they’ve absolutely mastered, working together in perfect unison to accomplish their goals. I draw in a breath and try to return my focus to the topic at hand.
“This has to be Gunner.” Cora stands next to a massive, wall-sized canvas decorated with a sweeping panoramic of little stick figure comic characters engaged in a variety of motorsports related activities.
“Yep, sure is.” I move to stand next to her, finger on chin to appraise the masterpiece. “That’s Gunner’s interpretation of the progress of mankind.”
Callie stifles a smile before responding, “The progress of mankind began with a unicycle?”
There’s no hiding my smile as I answer her. “If you’re a giant-sized man-child, yes. But he actually has some clever reasons he picked each item to symbolize major events — you’ll have to get him to tell you about it sometime.”
“I never saw Jax’s studio at the penthouse — he was so private about.” Cora walks toward Jax’s most recent oil painting. “His work is stunning, but are you sure he’d be okay with us being in here?”
I run a hand over the large slab of stone which is slowly being transformed into a rather racy Grecian style statue of two men and one woman — their forms taking on subtle similarities to himself, Gunner, and me. “Actually, he’s the one who invited me to bring you ladies in on a tour. He’s opening up almost as much as Jude is these days.”
“What about him?” Callie asks. “What’s Jude’s hobby room?”
“He’s outfitted it for when he needs to take in the hard cases from the rescue organizations.” I explain.
Callie nods. “That sounds like Jude. He’s a tenderheart underneath it all. Just don’t ever tell
him I said that,” she laughs.
I smile at her as we head for the door leading even further into our home. “Next up is the Inner Sanctum.”
Cora furrows her eyebrows. “The Inner Sanctum?”
“The new unofficial Pentabyte headquarters.”
I lead the sisters out of Jax’s studio and into another of the honeycomb style halls. Unlike the rest of the rooms we’ve been in, where each room was designed for privacy or seclusion in order to provide quiet focus, this hall opens into a massive, glass insulated, two story office space.
The main floor houses our lab — with new projects in the research and development phase spread out over the open floor plan. Computers, consoles, monitors, robotics, even 3D and augmented reality devices litter the space in an absolute glory of organized chaos. On the far end of the room, a sweeping staircase leads to all of our individual offices, which look down the foyer to the main room below. Sometimes, it takes every one of the guys to get me out of this place. I love it. It feeds every addiction I’ve ever had — well, almost every addiction.
There’s a few spaces I won’t be sharing with the sisters. Our playroom for one, which Jude and Jax have masterfully designed. It’s stocked with clever equipment and more elicit toys than I’d even dreamed existed. A shiver runs through me just thinking of our time in there. It’s definitely a delicious little secret I won’t be sharing.
And then there’s the Nest — our nickname for the communal suite upstairs. It’s the true heart of our new home, and the place we spend the most time outside of the Inner Sanctum. It contains the gorgeous bathroom we designed and decorated together, and our bedroom, complete with a custom bed Daniel commissioned, ensuring we have a sleeping space that fits all six of us. Although our individual bedrooms reflect our individual personalities, the truth is, they rarely get used. Turns out, Gunner isn’t the only one who likes sleeping in a cuddle pile.
“This place is beautiful,” Cora says, looking around our office space.
Callie approaches the closest array of exposed motherboards and circuits. “And you have a lot of shit.”
“Just more yeast,” I say.
Cora crooks one side of her mouth in a half smile. “With the cooking analogies again?”
I take a good look around, still in awe of the fact that I am now board member number six at the Pentabyte conference table. “All I need is cheeseburgers, coffee, and this place.”
Callie holds a finger in the air. “And five guys to go to bed with every night. Don’t forget that part.”
“I’ll never forget that part — it’s the best part of all of this.” I know Callie was just teasing lightheartedly, but the words come out of me solemnly. The guys mean everything to me, and I’ll never take any of this for granted. Not for a single moment. I wake up every day, full of gratitude and amazement at the life I’m so blessed with.
I move back to the door, ready to take the sisters to the space they’ll really love, and beckon them with a grin. “But, I don’t think our office is the most interesting part of the tour for you ladies. Let me take you over to the spa.”
16
Daniel
Emma’s camisole doesn’t fall low enough to cover her midriff, and it’s hard to decide whether to fix my eyes there or on the way her rear end moves in those skimpy pajama shorts.
I knew I was going to be awake before all the guys since I’m taking the lead on getting us fitted for our tuxes, but I had forgotten Emma and her bridal party are being fitted today, too. So, I was surprised to see her show up in the kitchen, all sexy pajamas and ruffled hair, looking to get in on some of the coffee I was brewing. It didn’t take long for an innocent hand on my chest as she reached past me to grab a coffee cup to turn into something entirely different. It’s become a game of ours since we’ve moved into the new house — which room Emma wants to inaugurate next.
That smoldering smile of hers lit up her face before she took me by the hand, and now we’re moving upstairs. She uses her palm to push open a door at her left and ushers me into one of our large, communal spaces.
Emma drops my hand and spins with arms outstretched. “This place is so beautiful. Every morning, I wake up feeling like a princess with her own castle — and five devilishly handsome princes.”
I smile, taking a look around the main bath of the house — built for six. We all had a bit of input on this one. Trigg got his heated marble underfoot and had all the lighting set on a dimmer switch. Gunner picked out a luxury, outdoor Jacuzzi that could fit us all and had it retrofitted to flow seamlessly with the indoor décor. Jude picked out all the linens, including the matching robes hanging along the wall in a neat row, shocking all of us that he had a preference over the thread count of the towels and the stitching of the monograms on each robe. Emma selected the countertops and matched all the colors to a palette scheme, and I combed through to make sure that every knob and fixture was exquisite.
And Jax, well, he designed the focal point of the room — a huge swath of tiny one-inch shimmering tiles, beginning with deep sea blues on the floor, morphing into light turquoise tiles near the ceiling, wrapped in a half-circle of glass block, with enough showerheads suspended overhead to bathe a herd of rhinos. The effect is mesmerizing, like we’re stepping inside one of those big ocean waves the pros surf through during competitions.
Despite her sexy bedhead hair and the little yawns she’s doing as she stretches, I can tell Emma’s already jittery, and the coffee hasn’t even taken effect yet. She’s been taking everything in stride, but I know planning an event of this magnitude has to be stressful.
I move to the shower’s control panel, turning several of the showerheads on and setting the water to a soothing temperature. I want to get Emma in there and do whatever I can to help her ease some of that tension.
“Have you ever been fitted for a dress before?” I ask.
She wraps her arms around me from behind, resting her chin on my shoulder, watching as I adjust which showerheads are active. “No. That seamstress you took me to for my new work suits was the first time ever been measured like that. I mean, my boobs, yeah, during bra fittings. But that’s it.”
Her hands run up to my bare chest, and I place mine on hers, holding them there, relinquishing any attention I was giving the controls. My silk boxers are quickly becoming damp with the steam pouring out of the semi-open shower. “They’re the finest tailors in the city. Most anywhere, really. You will be pampered, love. This isn’t just about being fitted for a dress. They know how much this day means.”
Emma lays her head against my back and nuzzles my shoulder blade. “I could do with some pampering. You guys are wearing me out, in the best ways possible,” she says, her voice full of contentment.
“Then let me begin with a proper morning treatment.” I release her hands from my chest and turn to face her, stepping backward into the shower.
A sexy smile is on her lips, but she asks, “Do we have time? The appointment starts at seven.”
The water hits my shoulders and neck as I reach for her, pulling her in with me. “That’s just when they open, love. The appointment is booked for the entire day, no other clients. Today is all about you. They can wait.”
Steam swirls around her clothing as Emma presses her lips together then parts them and works her tongue over them in that way that drives me wild. Her pajama shorts are damp now, sticking to that beautiful ass of hers, and then her top gets wet as I pull her closer to the spray of water, watching as her nipples become outlined by the soaked fabric. My cock pulls at the clinging, wet silk between my legs as Emma joins me beneath a single showerhead. She leans into me, her lips exploring mine. My hands find the hem of her shirt, and I pull up, unraveling the wet camisole from her skin.
We part to make way for its removal, and I bring in a sharp intake of breath as the water flows down Emma’s breasts, down her stomach, and toward her pussy. Emma takes the opportunity to pull at the waistband of my boxers. I stiffen completely as she goes t
o her knees before me, tugging the clinging silk down my legs. Her palms smooth back up my thighs, and her mouth opens as she reaches the tip of my cock, but I growl and seize her wrists.
I pull her up and bring her lips to mine once more. When I lift from our kiss I tell her, “Today is about you, love.”
Without seeing it, I feel the smile on her lips. “You keep saying that.”
“And I always will. Every day is about you. Nothing will change that, so get used to it.”
She kisses me deeply as her hands rub my stiff cock. “I like this new pet name you have for me. Love.”
“It feels appropriate. Sums up how I feel about you.”
I dip my thumbs into the waistband of her shorts, and Emma helps me pull them down until she can step out of them. As soon as they’re on the tile floor of the shower, she moves back into my arms, her bare skin sliding along mine. She lets out a satisfied moan, her hands in my hair, holding my lips to hers. My erection presses against her, trapped between us, and it takes every ounce of self-control within me to take her by the shoulders and spin her away from me.
Emma’s cute groan of disappointment is short-lived once I pour lavender shampoo into my palm and work the crème into her hair. Sweet sighs escape her now as I massage her scalp. I let the water wash away the suds, running my fingers through her hair, gently removing her nighttime tangles.
Emma backs into me, her hands searching behind her for my thighs. She works her hips, rubbing that luscious ass along my cock, tempting me like the sexy vixen she is. I’ve half a mind to leave all the pampering to the staff at the bridal shop and instead take the opportunity to give her personal treatment of another kind.
But I meant what I said. Today, always, it’s about her. I retrieve her bar of jasmine and mint scented soap, working some into one of the plush washcloths Jude had picked for us all. I start up high at the back of her neck, working over one of her shoulders as my mind shifts gears. There’s something I want to tell her, but I’m almost afraid to say it.
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