He glanced down and saw the number. Great. His mother. There was no way he could ignore her call. She would end up calling his Aunt Joey, and that wasn’t a complication he needed. He was hoping to hold off the Santini matriarch as long as he could.
“Mama, I just got here.”
“I was worried.”
“I am thirty-two years old. I think I can get to places without you worrying by now.”
“A mother is never going to quit worrying about stuff like that. If you were a parent, you would know this.”
He sighed and got out of the car. “I just got here and I haven’t even settled in. Can you give me the ‘I need grandchildren in my life’ speech tomorrow?”
She ignored the question and rolled right on. “What hotel are you staying at? Is it near the campus?”
This was dicey. He could never lie to his mother. Actually, he found it difficult to lie to any woman. Elena had figured it out when they were younger and used it against him. His mother could always detect when he was lying—even over the phone. He’d had an accident while he’d been deployed to Iraq, and the moment he told his mother he was fine, that nothing bad had happened, she had known. It was kind of eerie the way she could tell things like that.
“Yes, it’s close to the campus.”
There. He didn’t lie. Kaitlin did live near the campus. He was so busy congratulating himself, that he didn’t realize he’d slipped up until it was too late.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Dammit. His mother should have worked for the CIA. “I am telling you everything.”
“No. You are not.”
He could come up with another lie, but like before, she would know. There was no getting out of it. He leaned against the hood of his car.
“I am staying with a friend.”
There was a beat of silence. “A female friend.”
Dammit. “Yes. Kaitlin Fitzpatrick. I ran into her when I was in New Orleans.”
“You met this woman in New Orleans and now you are staying with her?”
He heard the condemnation in her voice. “No. I knew her in college.”
“Ah. Well, that is good you have a friend in the area.”
His mother sounded a little too easily appeased, which made him suspicious.
His suspicions got the better of him.
“Did you talk to Carlos?”
“I always talk to Carlos. I talk to all of you. In fact, we’re at his ranch right now.”
That immediately caught his attention. “Why? There isn’t anything wrong, is there?”
“No. We just wanted to see how it was operating. We have not been here since he bought it.”
He released a breath he did not know he had been holding. His brother hadn’t showed signs of extreme PTSD, but Brando still worried. Of course, now that he knew Carlos was doing all right, he wasn’t above diverting his mother’s attention.
“How’s Tia?”
“She’s a very nice young lady. Very talented.”
Brando might regret it, but he decided to throw his twin under the bus. He did not need his mother meddling with Kaitlin. He would get Kaitlin to agree to a commitment before he unleashed his family on her.
“I thought it was interesting that he never told us about her.”
Another pause.
“Yes, that is interesting. You say he never said anything to you about her?”
“Well, he did when I stopped by on my way out here. He said she didn’t listen to him. When I met her, she said he was too controlling.”
“Is that a fact? Well, that is a bit of information he kept from us.”
Carlos was going to kill him, that was for sure, but he saw no way around it.
“I had the idea he was a little interested in her.”
“Hmm, well I will have to pay attention. You need to call Joey. She will want you to come over for dinner I am sure. Vince is back from a deployment, so I know he would love to see you too.”
His mother still thought of them as kids, always. She probably thought they would go down to the arcade and play games on Saturday afternoon.
“I’ll call her tomorrow after I check in on campus. I could definitely do with some of her lasagna.”
“I’ll let you go. Call me tomorrow so I can hear about your new adventure.”
He smiled. His mother always saw each move as an adventure. She would get excited and made the entire family join in.
“I will.”
“Te amo, Brando.”
“Te amo, Mama.”
He hung up and studied Kaitlin’s house. It was a cute little colonial with a pretty garden filled with bright, happy flowers. When he pictured a house for Kaitlin, this was pretty close to what he expected. He walked up the path to Kaitlin’s front door with a smile. It had been a long five days of travel, but it was worth it to get here.
Ringing the doorbell, he had a sudden case of the nerves. Maybe he should have checked into a hotel for at least one night. Had he been too pushy? He had no time to change his mind. The door swung open.
Instead of Kaitlin, a very large man stood on the other side. He frowned at Brando. It was easy to tell the man was not happy to see him.
“Who the hell are you?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kaitlin closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten. Then did it again. She was going to kill her oldest brother. The moment Kaitlin heard Aeden’s rude question she knew Brando had arrived. Dammit. She had been trying her best to get rid of her brother, but he had refused to budge. It was like he had some kind of weird intuition when it came to his younger siblings. He would just pop up and cause problems. He’d been there complaining that she should move back to Baltimore. She’d been so aggravated by him, she had been ready to agree when someone had knocked on the door.
“Aeden Michael Fitzpatrick, what do you think you’re doing?”
He looked back over his shoulder at her. “There’s a stranger here.”
“And so you ask who the hell he is?”
He shrugged in that annoying way he had. Other people found it funny, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only sibling who found it irritating. He was always doing things like this.
“I dunno. He’s a stranger and I could care less if I was rude.”
She settled her hands on her hips. “Do you want me to call Mom and tell her just how rudely you answered my door?”
He said nothing to that. Of course he didn’t. While all her brothers might like to strut around like they owned the room, they were all deathly afraid of their mother.
“Move,” she ordered.
His frown turned dark and with one last nasty look out the door, he did as she ordered. As soon as he did, she could see Brando. Her heart sighed at the sight of him. Lord, he was even prettier than he had been in New Orleans. His hair was definitely shorter and not as curly. He had a little five-o’clock shadow on his jaw, and he looked tired from the trip. It had been a long month waiting for him to make it there. Now, though, she didn’t know what to say.
She waited to see if he spoke first, but he looked content to stand there and stare at her. “Hi.”
His lips curved. “Hi.”
“Sorry about my brother. He’s always this rude.”
“No problem. Remember, I come from a big family too.”
She nodded and they kept staring at each other.
“Are you going to let him in, or just stare at him?” Aeden asked from the kitchen.
She was going to kill her brother. Slowly, painfully…but he was going to die. She would use this situation—and so many others—as examples. She was sure younger sisters around the world would support his murder.
She shut her eyes as her face flamed. When she opened them, she found Brando smiling.
“Come on in.”
She stepped back and he walked past her. She could smell his cologne and that dark, masculine scent she associa
ted with Brando. Only Brando.
“Brando Santini, this is my brother Aeden Fitzpatrick, who was just leaving.”
“I was not,” he said as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the kitchen counter.
Killing was too good. Although, it would take more planning to hide the body. She would just castrate him. “Yes, you were. Remember, you had a date.”
Aeden shrugged without taking his gaze off Brando. “She can wait.”
“And, he is a pig,” she said.
Brando nodded in Aeden’s direction with about as much warmth as Aeden was showing him. Dammit, he wasn’t going to leave. He would have a stare down for hours. Declan, one of her other brothers, had always said that Aeden could stare at anything for hours. He was going to be a big pain in the ass. As usual.
“How was your drive?” she asked as she led Brando into the living room.
“Pretty good. I thought I would never make it through DC traffic. I regret not hitting seventeen off of sixty-six to avoid it.”
She smiled as she motioned to the couch. Brando waited for her to sit before he did. She sat down on the opposite end of the couch.
“Yeah, it gets insane at times. That’s why I love being here. Granted, the traffic is still a pain, but it isn’t as bad as Baltimore or DC.”
Aeden apparently decided to invite himself into the conversation. He sat on the chair. She was surprised he didn’t sit between them. She was going to have to invest more time in watching Discovery ID to get pointers about covering up a murder.
“How do you two know each other?” he asked in his older brother voice. She was going to have to come up with something to get rid of him.
“College,” she said, trying to ignore him.
“And you’re stationed here?”
Great. The interrogation was going to be extensive if she didn’t get Aeden out of her house.
“No,” Brando said with a smile.
Kaitlin had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Her brother was not happy with that answer. He could usually intimidate men she dated, but Kaitlin had a feeling that Brando would be the exception to the rule. Still, he needed to leave. If he didn’t, she would never get her hands on Brando. That was the most important thing.
“You know that Wendy was going to go by Declan’s tonight,” she said nonchalantly.
That grabbed her brother’s attention. His gaze moved to her, and he narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“She has forty-eight hours off in a row, so she’s going to stop by. I think she said something about that new guy you have at the house.”
She did not feel the least bit guilty throwing her friend under the bus. Besides, Wendy always wanted to know about the new guys at the stationhouse where her brother worked. Kaitlin was pretty sure it was to irritate her brother.
His frown turned darker. Oh, she loved getting the best of Aeden.
“Which one?”
“I’m not sure. She said something about a sexy redhead, and that she wanted to get to know him better.”
Aeden was definitely torn. Her brother and Wendy had a love/hate relationship. She knew that both of them were attracted to each other, but neither of them would act on it. Wendy would make her pay for it later, but there was one thing that would get Aeden out of her house, and that was to keep men away from Wendy.
“What the hell is she doing that for?”
Kaitlin shrugged. “She said she was bored.”
With a growl, Aeden stood and grabbed his keys off the stand. “I’ll be calling later.”
“I’ll be ignoring you.”
He hesitated. “I don’t feel right leaving you.”
“You’re being obnoxious. Go away or I’ll tell Mom who really owned the Playboys she found in the basement.”
He snarled and finally opened the door, stepped out, then slammed the door behind him. At last, they were alone. She released a breath and counted back from ten.
“There’s a red head in the house?”
“The firehouse where he works, but I don’t know that they have one. I made it up.”
He chuckled. “Are they involved?”
“No. They just…their relationship is hard to explain. Anyway, I am really sorry about the way he behaved.”
He shook his head. “I understand being overprotective. We have one girl in our family too.”
“And you all try and tell her what to do.”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“Does it work?”
He gave her that crooked smile of his. “She’s a fighter pilot. What do you think?”
She laughed. “Are you hungry?”
The moment she said the words, his eyes darkened. “Sort of.”
She licked her lips. He leaned over and kissed her. Kaitlin had been so worried everything would be weird now, but it wasn’t. It was as if they had never been apart.
He slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss. With frantic movements, he urged her back on the couch. Before she knew what he was doing, he stood, pulled off her jeans and panties as she worked on her shirt and bra. When she was finally naked, he looked at her much the same way he had that night in New Orleans.
“What?”
“I just can’t believe I’m here and I’ve gotten this lucky.”
She opened her mouth and no sound came out. He chuckled as he tugged off his shirt. She leaned forward to unbutton and unzip his jeans. When she did, she pushed them down a little bit. His erection jutted out from his body. Without hesitation, she took him into her mouth, enjoying the salty sweet taste of him. As she was starting to get into it, he pulled her away with a grown.
“Don’t. I have a hair trigger where you’re concerned.”
He pulled out his wallet, and grabbed a condom. They slid it on together. He sat down on the couch, and pulled her over. With ease, she straddled him, then took him inside of her. God, it felt good to be connected to him this way, to feel the way he filled her up.
She started to move, enjoying the way he pulled in a quick breath as she swiveled her hips.
“Damn,” he muttered as he took one of nipples into his mouth. She felt the graze of his teeth, then his tongue.
She started to move faster, trying to reach the pinnacle. But she became frustrated. He must have sensed it. Without stopping his teasing, he moved his hand between them and slipped his finger over the tiny bundle of nerves. Something so wonderful exploded within her and she felt her flying over into an abyss of pleasure.
Then, he did pull away. He took her hips into his hands as he started thrusting up. Faster, harder. She bent her head as he moved his mouth to hers. It was hot, wet and carnal. His tongue swept past her lips to tangle with hers. He pulled away again, thrusting up into her one last time and shouting her name as he held her still.
She looked at him, his head bent back, the veins in his neck straining, and she kissed him there. Moved her tongue over his Adam’s apple.
He finally relaxed and slid his arms around her. He kissed her chin.
“That was fantastic.”
She smiled.
“But if we do round two, I think we should do it on my bed. Much more comfortable up there.”
He laughed. “Sounds good.”
CHAPTER NINE
Several hours later, Brando woke up and looked down. Her hand was on his chest, her head on his shoulder. He knew that he could happily spend all day in bed with her like this. Santinis always knew to find happiness in those simple moments. It struck him then that he had finally arrived home. Since entering the military, he had never felt at home wherever he was stationed. He would take the time to get to know the area and enjoy the local customs. Until tonight, he had not ever felt like he was in the place where he was supposed to be.
He kissed the top of Kaitlin’s head. It wasn’t College Park that did it. It was the woman. She was his home.
Now, most men he knew would freak out, but he was a Sa
ntini. He was too busy formulating a campaign to win her heart. She had been hurt by Glen. He hadn’t pushed her, but he knew that a woman like Kaitlin didn’t walk away from her commitments. So, although it would drive him insane, he would go slowly.
“I bet you’re famished.”
He smiled as he traced her delicate spine down to her cute ass. “I am in fact.”
She chuckled. “Not that kind of hunger.”
For a few moments, he said nothing. He skimmed his fingers over her ass. Yep, he was happy to stay like this for hours. Unfortunately, she slipped away and rose from the bed. Still, it did give him a good look at her. It was dark in the room, but he could make out the outline of her curves. He had always thought her beautiful. Now that he had seen the whole package, he was convinced that God had made her just for him.
“Stop.”
“Stop what?” he asked as she pulled on her panties.
“Stop staring. It makes me self-conscious.”
He smiled. “I can’t.”
He reached out and grazed the back of his knuckle against her nipple. She batted it away.
“If you start that up again, we might just expire from lack of food.”
Knowing he had lost the battle, he rose out of bed and stretched his hands over his head. When he turned around, he realized Kaitlin’s gaze had been focused on his ass.
Her face turned the most adorable shade of pink.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
He walked over to her and cupped her face. “You can look all you want. I plan on looking my fair share too.”
He brushed his mouth over hers and forced himself to move away from her. She was right. They both needed to eat. “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded and he could feel her gaze on his back as he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. He closed his eyes and tried this best to get his heartbeat under control. The woman was going to be the death of him, that was for sure. Every little thing she did got to him. She had been a tiger in the bed, but the way she blushed told him that she wasn’t that experienced.
He sighed. He needed to quit mooning over her and get down to work. The sooner she understood what he wanted, the easier it would be to convince her over to his side.
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