Between Brothers: The Sacred Brotherhood Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  I sighed and it must have been too heavy, because Blue jolted awake. He looked down at me and I looked up at him, his hand automatically coming up and leaving a light caress alongside my face. I pushed up and leaned forward, putting my mouth to his. He held me, hand holding my face, tucking my hair behind my ear while our tongues danced, sliding against one another expressing everything that needed to be said without forming words.

  His hands flowed down my body, over my breasts until he could reach the hem of my cami. I straddled his hips, painfully aware of the thin layers of cloth between us, rubbing myself up and down his hard length.

  “Oh, Jesus, Hayley…”

  “I want you.”

  “No condom.”

  I groaned and whimpered and he lifted my top off over my head and I raised my arms so he could do it. He sat up, arms around me, crushing us together below the waistline. His mouth taking one of my nipples into his mouth. I half moaned, half gasped. A throaty thing that sounded like some goddess of passion and not me.

  His hands delved below the waistband of the sleep shorts, squeezing my ass and I seriously, seriously, thought I was going to die if I didn’t get him inside me in some kind of way.

  “Off, I need these off and I’m gonna need you to sit on my face.”

  “What!?” I asked laughing.

  “I’m not kidding, get it all off and let me lick that pussy.”

  I wasn’t a complete stranger to oral sex, I’d just never heard it phrased that way before. I knelt up and pushed the sleep shorts down, sitting my bare ass onto the mattress to get them off the rest of the way. Blue skimmed them down my legs and let them drop, and before I could get back to my knees, had his boxers shoved down far enough that his cock sprang free.

  “Turn around,” he ordered and I did, staying up on my knees, he slid down so his face was between my thighs. He pulled me down and licked a long wet line from my clit to my opening where he plunged his tongue inside.

  “Oh, god!” I cried and put my hands down to the bed between his knees. I adjusted myself accordingly and took the head of his dick, salty with his precum, into my mouth.

  He worked me, and I worked him and we did the next best thing by making love to each other with our mouths. I sucked and licked along his length and he spread me with his hands, lapping at every exposed bit of me.

  I loved it. It felt amazing lying draped the length of his body while his lips and tongue wrought magic. I moaned around him in my mouth and he sucked in a breath, which is how I discovered that the added vibrations pleased him. I hadn’t thought of that before, but then again, none of my other lovers caused me to moan like that with them in my mouth so I guess there was that.

  I was careful, taking him deep into my throat without gagging. If I concentrated it and held my jaw just so, I wouldn’t choke, but it was easier said than done with how he drove me to distraction. He slid a finger then two inside me, but didn’t thrust them back and forth, or in and out. Rather it was as if he were looking for something and I jerked, twitching when he found it.

  I pulled him from my mouth with a soft pop and groaned, and he exploited that place inside me and my clit with his tongue and all I could do was massage him with my hand, jerking him off while the pleasure built, and built, and built.

  I cried out, body jolting against my will as pleasure swept through me in ever increasing crashing waves. He was so much better at this than I was…

  “Oh god, Blue!”

  He held me to his chest with an arm around me and worked me until I begged for him to stop and all I could do was lay limp and panting.

  I came back to myself and resumed working on him until I could achieve the very same reaction from him and it was so worth it to do so.

  I so needed to buy and keep some condoms up here to avoid this problem in the future, however, as a work-around, this hadn’t ended badly for us. Unfortunately, there was still plenty of time for that to happen, the whole ending badly part, and it could be as soon as the next day. It all depended on Duracell.

  That was a scary thought.

  Chapter 20

  Duracell

  It was an ambush, but I had to hand it to them, it was pretty much perfectly choreographed and executed. Actually, I had to hand it to Blue. He’s the only one that knew that Hayley getting her way and me looking any kind of penitent would be the only thing to save me from having my ass beat. The club caught wind of how I treated her and there was no telling what they’d do but Hayley was a hell of a lot more likable than me so…

  Still, it wasn’t my fault she’d gotten all butt-hurt the night before when I’d told her to get the sappy shit elsewhere. That that was Blue’s dog and pony show, not mine. I kind of figured I was in for it when I’d gone to Blue’s room for a round two and neither of them had been there.

  Blue had sent me some angry fucking text messages last night which I’d gotten when I got back to my room after discovering they weren’t in his and those led to me standing here sucking it up and finally taking one for the team. I mean, he was right, it’d been a while since I had.

  "Why do I have to say it? You see it in my eyes, you feel it in my kiss, what does it matter if I say it out loud or not?" I argued, pouring on the charm.

  She sighed, her shoulders dropping, eyes full of wounded emotion, "Because sometimes we just need to hear it..."

  By ‘we’ I assumed she meant women in general and so I contemplated her, mulling it over for a full minute before I sighed and gave in, "Fine, I'm sorry, okay?"

  She didn’t look like she believed me, and Blue knew I was full of shit, but that wasn’t the part that mattered. What mattered was making her believe, making her feel loved or cherished and while I couldn’t give her that, I could give her my respect. It was downright fucking ballsy of her to call me out like that. I’d killed motherfuckers for less.

  She looked up at me and I could see something else in her eyes, that even though she didn’t believe… she had the willingness to believe going on. I was totally capable of lying to her and if the compromise was going to get me out of another uncomfortable ambush like this one, I could get on board.

  “I mean it, Hayley… I didn’t think about it and it was an asshole thing for me to do. I fucking hate apologizing, even when I know I was wrong but that’s not an excuse. Not when it comes to you. I’m sorry, I mean it.”

  Chew that fucking crow any harder and I’d fucking choke to death on it. She nodded finally and let me kiss her again and god, I hoped this was the end of it but knowing me, and knowing Blue… probably not, dammit.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “Blue told me about your past, but I guess it’s just not the same as hearing it and seeing it for myself,” I said. I wasn’t about to take the full blame here. She could eat some of this, too.

  She didn’t look happy, but she handled it with grace by nodding and saying, “You’re right, I’m sorry… I have a really hard time talking about it but that’s really no excuse. I should have communicated with you.

  I nodded, “That’s all this is, I think… a miscommunication.” The fuck it was, but whatever. Hayley getting on board and believing it would save my ass this time but it wasn’t a card I could always play.

  “I can agree with that,” she said gently and I hugged her a little tighter, rubbing her back which seemed to please Blue, so it looked like I’d figured out the winning combination. With the way they both looked, it didn’t seem like they got a fuck of a lot of sleep the night before so I went with it and declared, “I think we just need a lazy Saturday.”

  “Yeah?” she asked and I nodded.

  “Why don’t we all just crawl back in bed and get some more sleep, then maybe watch a couple of movies or something. It’s cold as fuck out there anyways and there really ain’t shit else to do.

  Hayley smiled up at me and nodded, “I like that idea. Blue?”

  “Sounds great, actually.”

  “I’ll even let you pick the movies.”


  Hayley laughed and said, “You might be surprised.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, I like action movies.”

  “No, shit?”

  “I’m a daddy’s girl, what can I say?”

  Hallelujah for one thing. At least I wouldn’t be sitting there with my fucking dick in my hand completely bored off my ass watching some trashy chick flick.

  Chapter 21

  Blue

  “You know that she’s not stupid, right?” I asked him and he looked up at me. I shut the door and crossed my arms, sighing.

  We’d just kissed Hayley goodbye and sent her back to her place for the night so that she could spend the next day working on her window. I’d seen the drawing she’d come up with and it was stellar. She’d started to cut and piece the glass together, too and I envied her talent.

  “Whatever, she bought it.”

  “No, she didn’t Cell, you said it but you need to show it.”

  “Man, what do you want me to do?” he demanded and he was getting a bit hot.

  “Would it have killed you to fucking hold her for ten goddamned minutes after you fucked her last night!? For fucks sakes, man, she’s human like the rest of us out here and needs more human interaction.”

  “That’s what you’re for!”

  “I thought you wanted this. I thought you wanted a woman for us. One that would help you carry off being more normal. If you want anything you have to work for it, you know that!” I snarled.

  He glared at me, nostrils flaring, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You too far gone on her?” He demanded.

  “You’re goddamn right I am,” I growled.

  “Seriously, you’d throw down with me over pussy?”

  “No, Cell, I’d throw down with you over Hayley, and the fact you can’t see the fucking difference here tells me that you might just be too far gone inside your own fuckin’ head to ever blend in.”

  I opened up the door and went out, slamming it shut behind me. I stormed up the hall to my own room and went in, shutting and locking the door behind me, fucking missing her and wishing this would fucking work. If Cell could just stop being a dick for one goddamn minute and grab onto what was right in front of him, even his miserable fucking ass could be happy.

  I dropped onto the edge of my bed and picked up my phone off the bedside table. I checked the text messages, waiting for Hayley’s message that she’d gotten home okay. A little pissed I couldn’t keep her with me.

  I couldn’t get enough of her. Laying on the couch with her draped over my chest watching James Bond flicks all day had been heaven. Having my best friend and my other lover there watching with us and seemingly actually enjoying himself had been even better. I still couldn’t let what he’d done go, though. Something needed to be said and I’d said my piece.

  Like always, it would be up to Cell on whether he acted on it.

  My phone pinged in my hand and I looked at it.

  Little One: Home Safe. Miss u.

  I smiled and laid back on the bed, missing her keenly.

  Me: Miss u too.

  Little One: Come to Thanksgiving with me and dad.

  Me: What about Cell?

  Little One: He’s ur best friend.

  Me: You sure?

  Little One: Yes. I want to spend the holiday with the ones I love.

  Me: I’ll talk to Cell

  Little One: Thank u

  Me: U bet.

  Chapter 22

  Hayley

  I was nervous. Glad that it was Thursday, glad that any moment Blue and Cell would be riding up to my back door, but terribly, terribly nervous. What if dinner didn’t turn out? What if my dad caught on I was seeing the both of them and not just Blue? What if Cell was a raging dill weed? My mind just kept on with what if, what if, what if, as I moved around the kitchen, fixing appetizers to set on the table.

  Thanksgiving was the one day a year that my dad was barred from the kitchen. It was his day to relax, watch his football to his heart’s content and for me to get my hands dirty. It’d been my mom’s day to cook, and for the three years between fifteen and eighteen, we’d had Thanksgiving in a restaurant. The Thanksgiving after my eighteenth birthday, though, I insisted on doing it all myself from my mother’s recipes with no help from my dad.

  I set a tray onto the dining room table with carrot sticks, baby corn, celery, marinated mushrooms, and two kinds of olives. She used to always have trays of good stuff to munch on while we waited on the bird. I smiled at the back of my dad’s head as he lounged in his recliner and cried ‘come on!’ at the TV.

  That first Thanksgiving I’d cooked without help had pretty much been a disaster. I hadn’t pulled the bag of innards out of the bird and the stuffing? We just won’t talk about how big of a train wreck it all ended up being. We ended up in a restaurant that year too, and my dad? The next year it had been a team effort; he had trained me right and it’d been my show ever since.

  I went back into the kitchen and washed up some of the things that I had used so far. The house was old, without a dishwasher, and with no real way to put a dishwasher in it, so in this house we were the dishwashers. I put the pots and utensils in the drain board and just as I finished drying my hands and went to pick the first thing up to dry it, I heard motorcycles rumbling down the street in front of the house.

  “That yer friends, pumpkin?” My dad called from the recliner.

  “I think so,” I called back. I listened to them rumble down the drive and smiled. “I know so,” I called and my dad huffed a laugh without turning around.

  I went to the back door after the bikes were turned off and opened it up to Blue coming up the back steps, a light of excitement in his eyes.

  “Hey, little one,” he murmured and bent down to give me a kiss. A quick, chaste press of lips. I stepped aside and he went into the house and Cell stopped in front of me.

  “Hey, darlin’,” he said and winked, bending to give me a friendly peck on the cheek. His eyes, however, told a different story. One that made me blush.

  He handed me a bottle of wine and said, “We didn’t want to come empty handed.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  He slipped past me into the house and I shut the door on the cold swirling into the house. Blue was shaking my dad’s hand who was up out of the recliner. Cell stepped up and shook his hand after Blue and I went and set the bottle on the table.

  “Sure appreciate you letting me come along with Blue.”

  “Aw, well, no one should spend Thanksgiving alone,” my dad said. I smiled over at them and let them talk, wandering back into the kitchen to finish what I started. Keeping an ear out and shamelessly eavesdropping.

  “You boys like football?” my dad asked.

  “I’m more pro ball than college ball, myself.” Cell answered.

  “Aw yeah?”

  “Yeah, favorite team is the Pats.”

  “Oh, well, we can’t all be perfect,” my dad said dryly.

  A light touch at my lower back startled me and I looked up into Blue’s smiling eyes. He asked me, “Can I help?” and I wasn’t about to turn down his offer.

  “Sure, dry these and I’ll get started on the salad.”

  He plucked the dishtowel from my hands and picked up the next plate while I went to the fridge and pulled out the ingredients I would need and for a time it was the picture of domestic bliss. Blue helped me in the kitchen while Cell and my dad watched football and everything was perfect.

  When dinner was ready, we all sat down at the table. Grace was said as was custom at my mother’s table, and even though she was gone my father and I had carried that particular tradition on. It wasn’t until about five or six bites of food that my father lobbed a grenade into the conversation.

  “So, Joe… Paul… just curious, but have either of you done any time?”

  I nearly choked on my bite of turkey. “Oh, my god, Dad! Who asks that!?”

  “A man should know just who’s keeping his daughter’s company
,” my dad said defensively.

  “Yes,” Blue answered quietly and didn’t look proud, Cell on the other hand…

  “We went in together for the same stupid shit,” Cell said. He looked almost angry, affronted that my dad would even bring it up and my heart sank.

  “And what stupid shit would that be?” My father sounded less than impressed but a little angry himself. I set down my fork and put my face in my hand, flaming with embarrassment.

  “Illegal weapons charge, first offense…” Blue said honestly.

  “How long?”

  “Five years each,” Cell answered. “We did our time, paid our debt, now we just want to be left alone, go do our jobs, and come home.”

  “Hayley, did you know about this?”

  “Yes,” I answered and shook my head, ready to cry.

  “Well,” my dad said unhappily, “thank you for being honest with me.”

  “I know you don’t like it sir – ”

  “Of course I don’t like it,” my dad snapped. “She’s my little girl, my only child. Would you like it if you were sitting here instead of there?”

  “Probably not,” Cell admitted.

  “Dad, stop!” I cried. “Oh, my god! I’m not twelve.”

  “You’re my daughter, Hayley. I have a right to worry when a couple of Sacred Hearts come through my door for dinner.”

  “They’re nice people, Dad.”

  “That’s not our reputation, though,” Blue said softly.

  My dad frowned and said, “What he said.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Jesus Dad, what would Mom say?” That made him frown harder. He shook his head and sighed.

  “I apologize,” he said to the two men. “I’m out of line, Hayley’s right, just when it comes to my little girl’s safety I get a little crazy. She’s right, though. My wife would be all kinds of mad she saw me treating guests this way.”

  “Believe me, sir… Your daughter couldn’t be safer with us. I care about her very much and anyone that would try to hurt her would have a lot to answer for.” Blue said.