by Mia Malone
Boo suddenly raised his head, and I heard movement around the corner by the workshop.
“Gibson’s home,” I said. “Let me kick him back out again and then open that bottle of tequila after all?”
“Yeah. I think I need it,” she said with a grin.
“Hey babe, just picking some beer up,” Gibson called out and leaned around the corner. He was laughing, and I laughed back at his beautiful face. “Heading over to Mac’s, heating up the grill later. You wanna come?”
“We’re having tequila now. Maybe later,” I called back.
“Okay, babe,” he said. “Text me, yeah?”
“Will do,” I said and waved my phone at him.
He grinned at me and then he disappeared.
“Tequila,” I said. “And girl-talk.”
“As long as girl-talk does not involve graphics about my brother’s dick,” Jenny said, and we walked inside laughing.
***
Gibson
Neither of the men said a word until they’d reached Mac’s place, and they walked out on his back porch in silence. Gibson was holding his laughter back, but barely, and he knew Joke had a hard time too.
They’d been on their around the corner of the house when they’d heard Lee spell out to Jenny that the two of them had been playing with her and they’d all frozen. Paddy and Mac had listened with their mouths half open, but Gibson’s eyes had moved to share a grin with Joke.
Then he’d called out to Lee, they loaded the headboard and the cases of beer, and off they went. In silence.
Now they were on Mac’s porch, and he turned toward his friends.
“What?” he said with a shrug. “No big deal. We’re fine with it, Jenny was fine with it.”
“Yeah,” Joke said casually. “Fucking hot if you ask me which you can’t ‘cause I’m not sharing any details. Although I’d advise you to think again if my baby-sis gets any ideas about being fuck-buddies with either of you.”
“If you can be Gib’s fuck-buddy, then I can be Jen’s,” Mac retorted, but he did it grinning and wiggling his brows.
“Not happening, and that goes for you too,” Joke grunted and looked at Paddy.
“She called me a man-whore,” he said, and he did not sound happy about Jenny’s words.
Gibson burst out laughing but cut it off when he saw the look on Paddy’s face.
“It’s not as if she was entirely wrong, Pad,” he said.
“It’s not as if I fuck around a lot,” Paddy retorted angrily.
“No,” Gibson said slowly, sensing that this was somehow important to Paddy, but not getting it. The man wasn’t out there humping any female that moved, but he wasn’t a saint and had never pretended to be one so what was his fucking problem all of a sudden?
“Paddy, for fuck’s sake,” Mac said, clearly not understanding either. “When was the last time you slept with the same woman two times in a row, and I don’t mean the same night.”
“Any woman I do knows the score,” Paddy said.
“We know they do,” Gibson said. “You fuck however you want, I don’t care, but you can’t get all pissed off about what you heard when you don’t take the same woman to your bed twice. Hell, you don’t even take them to your bed. Their place, always.”
Paddy turned away, and a suspicion that he suddenly knew why this was a big deal to Paddy crept into Gibson’s mind. It wasn’t that he’d been called a man-whore. It was that Jenny had said it. What the –
“Don’t like the fucking expression, that’s all,” Paddy said and swung around with a grin.
Gibson grinned back immediately, but he knew his humor didn’t reach his eyes just as it didn’t reach Paddy’s.
Their gazes held for a split second and then Gibson said lazily, “You prefer the term gentleman caller?” He laughed at the look on Paddy’s face and added, “Or beau?”
He had no clue what Paddy’s deal was when it came to Jenny, but he’d have Paddy’s back. Always had, and always would.
“Paramour might be better?” Mac asked.
“Shut up,” Paddy said and added with a smirk, “There’s no label for all the excellence that is me.”
They laughed together again, and Mac started to pull off the cover from his enormous grill, but he stopped and turned to Gibson.
“What I wanna know is… if you were going to play, then why the hell did you ask Joke?”
“What?” Gibson chuckled.
“I would have taken one for the team,” Mac said.
He was grinning, so Gibson assumed he was joking. Or at least, he hoped he was.
“She likes my ass,” Paddy told him calmly and walked over to help Mac with the grill, although he did it grinning at Gibson. Or at his expense, at least. “I really think you should have considered all your options.”
“Snooze, and you lose,” Joke said calmly.
“Jesus. No one here is fucking my woman but me,” Gibson said exasperatedly, and somewhat loudly.
“Things must have changed a lot since I left if you have a need to tell the guys that, Gib,” a smooth voice said from the door, and they all turned.
Day was back.
Chapter Seventeen
Charlene
Jenny and I had a couple of shots, and she shared some of her secrets.
Then we had a few more, and I accidentally told her that her brother’s penis was gorgeous.
When she stopped asking for bleach to pour in her ears, we walked the short distance to Mac’s place and was met by a group of men who were laughing like idiots, but since we had some tequila in our blood, we jumped right in and laughed with them. When half a dozen Alvarezes and a few other friends joined the crowd, it went from a quiet barbecue to a party.
I was introduced to Day, which made me stumble, but I covered it up and blamed it on the tequila. As the evening passed, he stopped being the smoking hot young man on the poster I’d had in my bedroom as a teenager and became Day, one of the brothers.
Gibson pulled Jenny and me aside and shared that the criminal asshole who wanted him dead had been found with half a dozen bullets in his chest. He tried to make it sound like something a club had done out of the goodness of their hearts, and I smiled at him and told him that it was great news. We could discuss it for real another day when it was just the two of us.
Jenny listened in silence, and then she walked off without a word to pull Paddy away from the crowd, so I guessed she hadn’t been fooled either. They came back a few minutes later, and Jenny was laughing with the rest of us, but Paddy did not seem happy. He didn’t look angry either, and I wasn’t sure, but I think he looked… stunned.
Gibson carried me half the way home, just because I said I was tired, and I laughed at him, but he laughed right back and kept walking. He didn’t stop until we were in his bedroom I thought he would surely start up something wild and wicked, but he didn’t.
Instead, he made love to me slowly, touching me gently and murmuring soft words in a way he’d never done before. Then he slid inside and started moving, taking his time and building it slowly for both of us. When we came, we did it together, and I was watching his face through the waves, loving him with everything that I had in me.
Afterward, he rolled me into his side, and I leaned my cheek on his warm chest. He smelled like smoke from the grill, the outdoors and man, and I sighed.
“Are you happy, Lee?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” I told him.
Because I was.
I had found a place where I belonged, and a man I loved. I hadn’t expected it, and I couldn’t ask for more because there really wasn’t more to ask for.
“Are you happy, Gibson?” I asked back.
“Yeah,” he said, but added quietly, “I would be happier if you moved in with me.”
I smiled against him, and a few strands of his chest hair tickled my lips.
“I thought I already had,” I said.
I felt
his head moving, and then a strong hand pushed my chin up. Through the soft darkness, I saw the shape of him looking at me.
“Which one was it?” he asked on a sigh. “Joke?”
“Yup,” I said, but added, “And Paddy.”
He grunted.
“And Mac,” I murmured and arched my neck to kiss his jaw. “And Day.”
“Fucking morons.”
“Brothers,” I said. “Looking out for you. Worried you’d fuck it up.”
“Jesus,” he sighed. “What did you tell them?”
I chuckled and settled into him again.
“Gibson, I’m not stupid. There’s no need to turn the water off for three weeks to install a new bathroom, and then three more for the kitchen. And the thing with the driveway, that was just plain silly.”
He leaned over me to turn on a small bed-side lamp, and I smiled, but it faded away when I saw the look on his face. It was suddenly hard in a way I didn’t understand
“I love you, Lee,” he murmured. “Never expected something like you to happen, and I was good with that. Now that I have you, I’m not letting go. Not fucking ever.”
My smile came back then.
“I love you too, Gibson.”
“Do you want to move in with me?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
“As easy as that?” he said with a smile.
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he said, turned off the light and sank back in bed.
“I guess I’m not your fuck-buddy anymore,” I murmured and closed my eyes.
His chest moved a little with laughter, and my lips formed a smile as I relaxed into him.
Then I slid into sleep.
***
Gibson
He smiled when Lee’s breaths evened out against his chest and let his hand slide lazily over her arm. Then he kissed the top of her head and tightened his arm around her, knowing that he’d not lied to her before. He’d never let go. Not when he had happiness bundled up against his side in the form of a small woman he hadn’t expected to come into his life.
Then he pulled up the covers a little and let himself fall asleep too.
A reminder –
If you enjoyed Gibson’s story, please, please, please remember to support the series.
Put a short review of it wherever you can (The store you got it from, Goodreads, etc), tell your friends about this book, and keep reading (and pre-order)…
Thank you heaps and bunches for your support!
XOXO/Mia
Now I’ll let you flip the page to read the first part of Padraig…
The Brothers, Book 2 - PADRAIG
Four and Eight
He was the prettiest boy she’d ever seen.
His eyes looked like the chocolate her grandmother had put on her birthday cake and when he smiled, everything felt warm and safe in her belly. He was a big boy like her brother, but he always found time to sit with her when their families got together, and he listened when she told him stuff, like really listened as if it mattered. And when her puppy got run over by old man Thomas’ truck and they buried him in the garden, he held her hand and didn’t let go even when she cried.
He’d told her how to say his name, the real way. Not like the others who said it the hard way. He’d explained how it was supposed to be soft, like spun sugar on her tongue, and she liked spun sugar, but she liked saying his name even more.
Padraig.
Fourteen and Eighteen
They stood in a circle, five boys who were almost men, angry and hard faced. A tall, muscular man was grinning as he spun around slowly to watch the ones who surrounded him.
“You are twenty-two fucking years old you motherfucker,” a blond boy growled.
“Your mama knows you use words like that, Joke?”
“You can do whatever you want with any of the girls, but not with my sister.”
“I do whatever the fuck I want, Joke.”
“She’s fourteen,” a dark-haired boy with the face of an angel said in a voice that was calm but still vibrating with held back fury. “And she did not want you to push her up against the wall behind her grandmother’s restaurant.”
“Paddy Callaghan. You get enough girls, leave this one for me.”
“Gibson,” Paddy said quietly.
The order had been given, and a silver eyed boy stepped forward to face the man in the center.
“You think you can take me?”
“I know I can,” Gibson said calmly.
When the man was on the ground, bruised and bleeding, Gibson stepped back.
“I’m right here if you want more.”
“Fuck you,” the man grunted and spit out some blood.
“Leave my sister alone,” Joke said.
“Fuck you too.”
The dark-haired boy crouched and stared him calmly in the eye that wasn’t swollen shut.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’ll tell you who you’ll never touch ever again, and you will nod to assure me you understand our message.”
Their eyes held and the steely look in Paddy’s was unyielding. Relentless. Frightening.
“I gotcha, man.”
“Whoever you want.” Paddy leaned closer. “But you will never, not ever again touch…” He moved another few inches and kept his gaze firmly locked with the man’s.
“Jenny Tucker.”
Twenty-four and Twenty-eight
He was in a shed at the far end of his yard. Drunk off his ass and wondering how his whole world had turned into the nightmare he was living.
Oh, he’d smiled, and said all the right things. Bought a fucking wedding present, for Christ’s sake. Laughed with his friends. And swept back shot after fucking miserable shot until he’d stumbled out of the restaurant and walked away, unable to make his face smile one more time.
“Paddy,” a low, gravelly voice shouted. “You here?”
Gibson. He could talk to Gib. He’d find a way out of this hell. Gibson always had his back and he would this time too.
“He usually doesn’t usually drink this much,” a soft, breathy voice said.
Paddy sank back down. Fuck. He’d forgotten. There was no way out.
“Shit happens,” Gibson said. “Go on home now, Marybeth, and I’ll find him. Bring him back to my folk’s place and let him sleep it off there.”
“Thank you, Gibson.”
He heard them move away and didn’t call out. All he wanted was to close his eyes and never, not fucking ever wake up again.
“I hope I don’t have our baby tonight,” the woman said.
“You have a month to go yet.”
Padraig Callaghan sat up slowly and with a little difficulty. Rubbed his face with both hands and took a deep breath.
“Fuck,” he murmured.
He wasn’t going to give up after all because he’d always have that. Life fucking sucked but he’d have his daughter. He’d call her Annie, and maybe he didn’t have the one thing he’d always wanted, but he’d have her.
Thirty-four and Thirty-eight
“You never loved me,” he snarled, and she raised her bruised chin.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Fuck you,” he spat out.
“Leave now and I won’t tell my brother what kind of husband you’ve been.”
“Your fucking brother,” he muttered. “Never liked me. He and his precious friends can go to hell.”
“Goodbye, Martin,” she said and opened the door. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
When he’d left she sank down on the floor and rested her back against the door.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,” she mumbled, fighting in vain for control.
After a few seconds, she gave in and let the tears run helplessly down her cheeks, stinging like soft fire when they reached her split lip. She got up and saw the reflection of her face in the mirror. Today had been a lot worse th
an before, and one eye was swelling rapidly. The cut on her lip didn’t look bad but it would be visible. She’d always been able to hide it before, but that wasn’t an option this time. Joke would go ape-shit over what he’d see.
And they’d all know.
She’d have to go away for a while until she’d healed, and she didn’t know where. Martin had been bad, but he’d at least been someone, and twinge of loneliness burned through her soul. Then she straightened her back, knowing she would do what she always did. She’d clench her jaws and keep walking.
Without someone at her side.
Like she’d always done.
***
“You never loved me,” she said with tears in her voice.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Fuck you,” she spat out and he raised his brows.
Marybeth never used words like that.
“I’m leaving,” she whispered.
“You’re not taking Annie,” he told her.
There was no way he’d ever let go of his girl. She was the only thing in his life that was good, and she’d stay with him.
“Like I could ever take Ann from her precious daddy,” Marybeth said in that whining voice he’d disliked when they met and grown to hate over the years. “I’ll go to my parents, and we can talk about Ann visiting them later.”
He couldn’t help himself. She was a distant, uncaring mother who never gave his girl an ounce of love. He’d seen it for ten years, so he knew it and had tried to compensate for it by being the best father in the world for his Annie.
He still reared back when she showed so openly how little she cared for their beautiful girl.
“Goodbye, Marybeth,” he said and opened the door.
She walked away without even looking back and he sighed as he walked into the quiet, empty house.
Without someone at his side.
Finally. Thank fuck for that.
Chapter 1
