by Jo Raven
“Your point being?”
“That… that I want to talk to Merc. Is he there?”
Gigi sighs dramatically. “Seriously now? I call you like the best-ever sister I am to check on you and plead with you on my knees to forget about our half-brother, and you want to talk to Merc? I’m wounded.”
“No, you’re not, Gigi. Put him on. And…” I let the curtain drop, covering the window. “Thank you.”
She laughs. “Love you, sis. Here’s our pain in the ass little brother. Mercury Tyson! Ow.” There’s some more yelling, and something crashes, making me flinch.
“Tati,” he says breathlessly in the phone. “What’s up?”
“What’s going on over there? What just broke?”
“Oh, just… nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He laughs. “Ow. Gigi, stop it.”
I huff, shaking my head. Kids. “How you doing, Merc?”
“Same as I was when you left this morning. Lost in contemplation of life’s mysteries and pro—”
“Merc.”
“Okay, I just came back from classes. Seriously, what’s going on? Gigi said you wanted to talk to me. Are you okay? Is the baby—?”
“Fine, just…” I rub at my forehead and tell myself I shouldn’t get so annoyed that they ask all the time. “Just wanted to ask about that time you were in a jail cell with Ross.”
Silence comes from the other end of the line.
“Merc?”
He clears his throat. “Um, why are you asking? You do remember I beat Ross up, and that was why we ended up there in the first place, right? And then I beat him up again—”
“I know.”
A beat of silence goes by.
“I don’t regret it, you know,” he says, gravel in his voice. “Not for one second. He always was such an ass to all of us.”
“But you talked to him. You said so.” I consider how to ask him this. “Well, in between beating him up. You said you hung out with him, when we talked on the phone that day.”
“Shit, yeah, okay. We talked. So?”
“So what did you talk about?”
He hisses as if my question stings. “About shit. All sorts of stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Tati…” He sighs, capitulating. “About our families, okay? That’s what we talked about. Only thing we had in common, anyway, and even that… I mean, he talked about his dad a little. And I told him about Mom, and you. Just… just stuff. About our everyday lives, about shit going on at school…”
“What did he say about his dad?”
Another hiss. “What are you trying to do, Tati?”
I don’t know. I wish I did, I just know I can’t let this go, not yet. “Tell me.”
“Well, he didn’t come out and say it, not really, but his dad—our dad, Tati—is a motherfucker. He drinks, and hits whoever gets in his way, and you can bet your ass Ross was always in his way, living in the same house and all, growing up. What I kept thinking as he talked to me… you know what it was? That we were so lucky we never knew he was our dad, that he wasn’t living in our house. Damn lucky.”
I feel sick, but I’m not surprised. How could I be?
This is exactly what I expected to hear.
* * *
Matt leaves with Evan, and as planned Melissa and I sprawl on the sofa and watch cartoons, under a fort of small cushions and a blanket. It’s soothing, having her thin, warm body close to mine. It reminds me of my childhood when I’d do this exact same thing with Gigi and Merc, and pretend we were under siege from monsters, and eat Pop Tarts under the blanket.
Fun days.
Cole and Mary do it sometimes, too, but I’ve been so busy with classes and morning sickness these past months—morning sickness that wasn’t confined to mornings, sadly—that I haven’t been around them as much as I used to.
“Do you do this with your mom?” I ask Melissa when she turns away from the TV to grab another Pop Tart, her face smeared with chocolate.
“Mom is too busy.”
“What job does your mom do that keeps her so busy?”
“She’s a sales representative for a big company,” she says in her childish big-adult voice, her mouth full of Pop Tart. She licks her fingers.
I snicker. “I see. You love your mom, right? You miss her when she leaves you here with your Uncle Evan?”
“Yeah.” But her attention is back on the TV, and I lean back with a sigh.
I miss the kids. I know Matt must miss them like a limb of his own body. That he must have called home already to check up on them.
Just a few days and we’ll be back with them. But I want Melissa to be with her mom, I want Evan to be well and far from the garage, I want Ross to be far from Jasper and his temper, I want everything to be peaceful and nice and perfect.
God, could Gigi be right? Am I too emotional?
And is this what they mean about the nesting instinct of pregnancy? Isn’t it too early?
Jeez, Octavia…
* * *
This day seems endless, and yet it goes by so fast. Half-dozing on the couch for most of the afternoon surely plays a role, I think to myself as I watch Matt mow the grass in the garden. He’s already started sanding down the fence and has apparently also bought paint.
Evan seems a little more animated during dinner, and Melissa looks happier, too. But I’m falling asleep over my plate, and after Matt’s insistence, I leave him to clear the table, help Evan upstairs and put Melissa to bed.
Heading to the guest bedroom, I curl up in bed, thinking to rest a little, read the romance novel I brought with me. With final exams at college and feeling so wiped out every night, I haven’t gotten the chance to read what I like in a long while.
I wake up some time later to a warm breath on my neck, and something hard poking the small of my back, my body hot and tight with want.
“Matt?” I whisper, and he hums against my skin, his lips leaving a scorching trail behind as he drags them down, his hand sliding up to cup my breast through my nightgown.
“Want me to stop?” His teeth graze my shoulder, and I shiver.
“No.”
“You sure?” He squeezes my sensitive breast, and I groan, caught between pain and pleasure. “Tell me.”
“Don’t stop,” I breathe, rocking back against his hard on. “Please don’t.”
“Fuck, Tay…” His groan is muffled against my skin. He releases my boob, his hand traveling down, between my legs, lifting my gown and sliding inside my panties. “Can’t get enough of you. Ever.”
My throat closes at those quiet words, but he doesn’t give me a chance to recover. His finger slips into me, stroking, and the pleasure takes my breath away.
“Oh God…” I whisper, all too aware Evan and Melissa sleep at the other end of the landing, only the bathroom separating us. “I want you.”
“I’m yours,” he says, and strokes me harder, until I think I’m about to combust.
Then he drags his finger out, and I moan my protest, right before he rolls me onto my back and spreads my legs. “What are you…?”
He winks at me and gives my pussy a long, slow lick that has me trembling. “Been thinking about doing this to you all day,” he whispers, his breath against my wet opening making me twitch. “About tasting you, and making you come on my tongue.”
Holy crap, when he talks dirty to me it’s all I can do not to come on the spot. “Please…” The fog of sleep is cleared and gone, desire burning through my body like a fever. “I need…”
He doesn’t let me finish, find the words. He knows what I need.
He always has, ever since he opened himself to me and let those thick defenses fall. He looks formidable, rough around the edges, but inside he’s pure gold.
Placing his hands on my legs, he grins at me and goes to town, licking, sucking, using his tongue to drive me insane. I’m gripping the covers so hard my fingertips are going numb, and I’m trying to keep quiet as he brings me to the brink of orgasm again and
again, not letting me fall.
“Matt,” I hiss, arching off the bed as he fucks me with his tongue. “I’m going to… God!”
Pleasure bursts through me, bowing my back, sending fireworks bursting behind my eyelids. He drags the flat of his tongue upward, over my clit, and another wave rolls over me, inside me, making me moan out loud, my hips lifting.
Dimly I’m aware that he’s moving, straightening, then grabbing his cock and pushing into me.
“Need to be with you,” he whispers, groaning when he slides home, filling me up, sending aftershocks through my still shaking body. “To be inside you.”
“Yes. God, yes.” I’m panting. “Come inside me. Need to feel you.”
He mutters something I can’t make out and bends over me, lifting one of my legs around his hip, pushing deeper, making me gasp. He pulls out a little, shoves his cock back inside, his chest muscles clenching deliciously.
My husband is such eye-candy, I swear…
As he starts thrusting into me in earnest, his self-restraint fraying, as he braces his hands on either side of me and gives it to me, pounding into me until I don’t know where he ends and where I begin, when the pleasure crashes over us both and we gasp and writhe together on the mattress, it’s so perfect. He’s so beautiful when he loses control.
And then I finally realize what he’s been saying since the beginning.
“I love you,” he’s whispering, over and over. “Love you so much.”
“Right back at you,” I breathe, and draw his head down on my breasts and kiss his hair.
Chapter Seven
Matt
The clouds are heavy overhead, promising rain, and I want to finish painting the fence before it starts. The garden needs a major overhaul. The house needs painting, too, but I wonder if it’s worth fixing everything since Evan seems so set on moving.
But at least the physical labor keeps me busy and will ensure that he won’t get into trouble with his landlord for running this fucking place into the ground.
Movement out of the corner of my eye has me lowering the brush and turning around. It’s Octavia, walking down the path from the house in a long blue dress, a cardigan wrapped around her slim frame, her dark hair windblown.
She walks toward me, and I stare at her, caught in a spell. Damn, she’s so pretty. So bright she makes my fucking heart ache.
Then I remember last night, her pale body arching underneath me, her choked moans, and my dick thickens in my pants.
My girl. Mine.
“You decided to fix up the whole house?” She smiles, and I wait for her to reach me, to find me, like she did from the start. Nobody could see me, save me like she did, and the funny thing is that I feel she keeps doing it every day.
Saving me, again and again.
She shivers, and I lift my arm automatically, to let her burrow against my side, the brush dripping from my other hand into the cut grass. “Jeez. How can you not be cold?”
I glance down at my old hoodie and shrug. “I’m a hot-blooded man.”
“Ah-huh.” She lifts her grinning face up, and I kiss her parted lips. “No doubt about that.”
I tug her closer. “How is Evan?”
“Asleep. Dozing in front of the TV. Poor guy, I think he’s catching up on some much-needed rest.”
I hum in agreement. “And the girl?”
“Playing at his feet. She adores him. Looks like her mom isn’t around much. Too busy working.”
“Yeah?” Surprised, I draw back a bit to look at her face. “Evan told me her mom is jobless, so what keeps her so busy?”
Her slender brows wing up. “Melissa told me her mom works long hours for a company as a sales representative.”
“He said her mom is a junkie.”
Octavia’s blue eyes are round like saucers. “What’s going on here?”
Yeah, what the fuck?
We both turn to look at the house.
“I bet she was just repeating what her mom tells her,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” Octavia says, sounding as unconvinced as I feel.
I’m confronting Evan about it when he wakes up, that’s for sure. I never took Evan for a guy with many secrets. He’d seemed open and easy to read back when we lived here in Destiny and I worked by his side in Jasper’s Garage.
Octavia frowns, tilting her face up to me again. “I’ve been meaning to ask you… did you get a chance to talk to Mary before we left?”
“I tried.”
“She didn’t say much, I take it?”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“Could it be the baby? What if she’s jealous?”
“Dammit, you think so?” I look down at the brush I’m still holding, distracted. “She never seemed jealous of Cole, not even when they were younger. And we haven’t done anything different this time around.”
“You’re right. But the baby is a change, another change in our lives, their lives. They lost their mom, moved to St. Louis, then to Destiny, got me along for the ride and moved back to St. Louis. And then came this trip. It’s the first time we’ll be apart since I first entered their lives. Maybe she thinks I’m going to steal their father away from them?”
I turn to brush my lips over her hair. “Fuck. You really think it’s that?”
“Maybe. You could confront her, ask her directly.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want her to think any of this, to be sad. They’re our kids. I love them.”
And I love her. More than she can ever know. For loving my kids. For loving me.
“I know it. They know it, too.” I take a deep breath, drawing in her scent. “Maybe it’s nothing. I’ll talk to Mary again, as soon as we’re back. It’ll be all right.”
* * *
Fixing the house and garden takes longer than I’d expected. By the time I trudge back into the house to take a shower and wash off the paint and sweat, it’s midday. I wander back down to help with the cooking, and finding everyone half-asleep on the sofas, I make a strategic decision and order pizza.
Nobody ever died from eating take-out on occasion. That’s always been my motto, though when Octavia walked into our lives and started cooking home-made food for us, my kids breathed a sigh of relief. I swear I didn’t know kids could get fed up with pizza, but there you have it.
Waiting for the delivery, grinning at the sight of my pretty, pregnant wife sprawled on the sofa, Melissa tucked against her side, and Evan snoring on the armchair in front of the TV, I step outside.
The lawn is mowed, the fence repaired and painted, the house looks like new. I’m pretty damn pleased with my day’s results. And then I feel kinda guilty because I normally don’t have this kind of time to take care of our house back in St. Louis.
The guilt reminds me of the shop.
I speed-dial Kaden’s number and walk down the path to the garden, frowning at a weed that managed to escape the mower.
The line rings and rings, and then goes to voicemail. I hang up without leaving a message, my stomach knotting with familiar anxiety. I call again. And again. Then I call the shop directly, and still no reply.
Shit. I hate how panic makes my hands shake.
Breathe, I instruct myself. Fucking breathe, Matt. Kaden is fine. Hailey is fine.
Everyone is just fucking fine.
Next time I call, Kaden picks up. “Hansen Brothers Garage, how can I help you?” he all but yells into the phone, and his pissy, gruff voice relaxes the twisted knot inside me.
“Kade. Why the fuck weren’t you picking up the phone?”
“Matt?” He sounds out of breath, as if he’s been running. “The hell, man? I was busy. I’m alone here today, if you remember.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You know I had to come help Evan out.”
“I know. Shit, relax.” He lets out a long breath. “It’s just that you, or me, being away, is something that’s bound to happen, sooner or later. We have kids. There are emergencies.”
�
�And your point is?”
“I’ve told you many times, we need to hire another mechanic for the Mancave, someone experienced who can run the shop if anything happens.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen. Besides, I’m not sure we can afford one. And who would we hire?” I sink down on the steps of the porch, a headache starting behind my eyes. “Dammit, sometimes I feel that everything’s my responsibility.”
“Of course you feel that. Know why? Because you never let me make any decisions!” Kaden barks.
“The fuck.” I jerk at the anger in his voice. “But your headaches—"
“Dammit, Matt, I haven’t had any for more than a year now. I’m fine. I told you that plenty of times, if you’d only fucking listen.”
Shit, he’s right. He has told me many times over that he’s okay. And asked for more helping hands for Mancave. Why can’t I let go of a shred of control and let him take over once in a while? He’s my brother, and I’d trust him with my life. Why not our shop? Sure, I had the idea and put most of the capital into the venture, but so what?
“Do you have someone in mind?” I hear myself asking, and you couldn’t be more shocked than I am that I capitulated so easily. But hell, I think he’s right. “For help for the shop.”
He exhales, and it sounds like he’s trying not to laugh. “Seriously? If you’re serious, I’ll make you a list.”
“Tell you what.” I rub a hand over my mouth, over my beard. “Make that list, and as soon as I’m back in St. Louis, we’ll put our heads together and choose someone to hire. Satisfied?”
“You fucking kidding me?” He laughs outright, a happy sound that has me grinning. “Hell, yeah, I’m satisfied. That’s a good decision, man. You’ll see.”
Yeah, maybe. Never thought giving in would make Kaden be happy. Why can’t I give up more control? I have to try harder.
Thing is, hearing my brother’s laughter has loosened more than the knot in my chest. It’s shaken loose memories from our childhood, back when everything seemed to be made of green grass and blue skies, all play and joy, not a care in the world.
