“Happy anniversary, minx,” he said as she opened the box and saw…
A necklace made out of stones?
Whatever it was, it was beautiful and she loved it because he’d made it for her. With a smile, she leaned up to kiss him, but he stepped back and focused his attention on the necklace.
“This white bead is from the old barn where you covered me in honey and feathers,” he said, drawing her attention back to the necklace. “This bead,” he said, pointing out a grey stone bead next, “is from the tree where I cut your hair off. This bead is from…”
He went on explaining where every stone had come from, pausing every now and then to smile, laugh or to reminisce about tales from their childhood. She listened as he went through each bead, growing more amazed by the minute. When he pointed out the bead from the orangery, she felt her bottom lip tremble. As he finished with the stone that he’d picked up outside their bedroom window on the night that she’d given birth to Jonathan, she found herself falling in love with her husband all over again.
“I love it,” she said, an understatement. It was the most beautiful, thoughtful gift that anyone had ever given her. It also made her realize just how much she meant to him.
“I’m glad,” he said, leaning in to kiss her, only this time she didn’t let him go.
“It’s my turn to give you your anniversary gift, Mr. Bradford.”
*-*-*-*
He was dying. There was no other explanation for it. His limbs weakly trembled as he dragged himself across the room. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d been so thirsty or hungry in his life. Several times over the last twenty-four hours he’d considered yelling for help, but he was beyond help. He knew that.
The cause of his destruction stirred behind him. He picked up the pitcher of water and chugged the lukewarm liquid. It did nothing to quench his thirst or ease his empty stomach.
“I think I’m dying,” he mumbled.
A weak laugh came from the bed. “I know I am,” Elizabeth said. “We have to stop…we have to…I need food…and water…..the baby, Robert,….think of the baby,” she implored weakly.
He took a deep breath. The baby needed food. His baby. He couldn’t help grinning. His minx was making him a father again, hopefully giving him a little girl to spoil this time. He hugged the pitcher to his chest and brought it over to her.
“Here. Drink this and I’ll get dressed and have Mrs. Brown send some food up.” He frowned as he looked at the door. “I wonder why they haven’t checked on us by now.”
“Probably because we scared them away,” she said as she took the pitcher from him. She almost dropped it. Her arms were so weak, but she couldn’t drink lying back this way. She got up on her knees with great difficulty. The only thing that mattered was the water. She didn’t care about being ladylike or anything else. She drank greedily, not caring about the water that spilled down her chin and down her chest and stomach. She was so thirsty. When she had her fill, she placed the now empty pitcher on the bed. Her eyes met Robert’s intense gaze and she knew that things were about to take a turn for the worse.
“Oh no,” she whimpered.
Robert stared at the water dripping down his wife’s breasts. He licked his lips. Every part of him save one was protesting the sight. He followed her frightened eyes downward. He was more than ready to go again. It felt like he hadn’t had her in years instead of minutes.
Elizabeth threw a pillow at him so she could scramble off the bed, desperate to make an escape. It was like that piece of his anatomy was in charge. He crawled after her. She didn’t bother with a nightgown or a wrap as she ran to the door and started pounding on it.
“Mrs. Brown!”
“Oh, thank the lord!” came Mrs. Brown’s worried voice from behind the door. “We were afraid you’d both perished.”
She looked back to see her husband trying to escape from the tangled sheets his foot got caught on.
“Mrs. Brown, listen I haven’t much time. Can you arrange for a large tray of food and drink to be delivered,” she looked over her shoulder to discover that Robert was close to getting free, “and water for a bath as well. Please!”
“Certainly,” Mrs. Brown said, sounding amused.
“Robert?” James suddenly said as he joined Mrs. Brown in the hall.
A soft growl behind her was the only answer he could manage. Elizabeth slowly turned around, plastering her back against the door. James knocked on the door. “Robert? Come down with me to the tavern, I’m bored. Robert?”
“I’m busy,” Robert answered in what sounded mostly like a snarl.
James’ answer was a pained sigh. “Come on, you’ve done your duty. Let’s go.”
A loud whimper escaped Elizabeth as he pounced on her. He was handsome, wicked and all hers. No matter how tired or weak she was at the moment he still had this strange affect on her body after all these years and in that moment, she wanted him more than anything.
“Robert?” James asked, sounding unsure.
Robert couldn’t answer at the moment. He was busy licking the water from Elizabeth’s skin. She was pinned tightly against the wall, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her legs around his waist.
In one quick move, he was sheathed inside her. He wrapped his arms around her, protecting her from the door as he thrust inside her. The door groaned its protests as its hinges and frame were put to the test. If the position hurt Elizabeth, she wasn’t saying.
Just the opposite, in fact.
She demanded him to move harder and faster. At that moment, Robert didn’t care that his brother and Mrs. Brown were standing outside the door or that he was on the verge of starvation. He only cared about her, about his minx. He slammed into her, once, twice, three times and then she began screaming his name and doing her best to milk him dry.
“Lucky bastard,” he thought he heard his brother mutter, but he didn’t really care as he lost himself in the woman that he loved.
“Happy anniversary, Mr. Bradford,” his minx said minutes later as she pushed him to the floor to give him his gift all over again, making him wonder if he should call another truce before they ended up killing each other.
Chapter 1
Present Day
“Oh, my God! Why won’t you leave?” Marybeth demanded, close to crying and not really caring as she pulled the pillow over her head, wondering why he wouldn’t just leave them alone.
“Are you hungry?” Uncle Jared asked from where he sat…
Between them.
On their bed.
At two in the morning.
“I’m hungry,” Uncle Jared muttered and she didn’t need to look up to know that he was pouting.
“Then go home and raid your own fucking kitchen!” Darrin snapped from the other side of the bed, sounding just as aggravated as she was.
Actually, he sounded kind of pissed. Not that she could actually blame him since Uncle Jared had chosen the perfect moment to saunter into their room, unannounced and apparently on a mission. Personally, she was just thankful that he’d chosen to show up after she’d stopped screaming Darrin’s name and begging him to fuck her harder.
“Not until after we have this talk,” Uncle Jared said, sounding determined and letting her know that this night from hell wasn’t going to end anytime soon.
Well, it really hadn’t been all that bad considering that Darrin had managed to make her scream his name at least three times before Uncle Jared had managed to barge in and put an end to their night. Darrin on the other hand probably wasn’t as understanding as she was since that she may have teased and tormented him to the brink of orgasm for over an hour. She’d just been on the verge of finally giving him what he wanted when Uncle Jared strolled into the room and threw a pair of shorts at Darrin’s head and tossed her one of Darrin’s shirts and a pair of his boxers before he granted them exactly thirty seconds to get dressed.
Knowing better than to argue and waste precious seconds, she’d quickly got dressed an
d dove under the covers, deciding that it was for the best that she pretend that the man that had always stepped up, prepared to kick her ass when she screwed up and was there for her when her father wasn’t hadn’t just walked in on her while she was on her hands and knees giving her husband a-
“So, why don’t we take this downstairs and get a bite to eat while we talk, hmm?” Uncle Jared suggested, sounding hopeful and making her cringe as she pulled the pillow tighter over her head and prayed that her burning cheeks didn’t set the bed on fire.
She was just about to see if it was humanly possible to burrow into the mattress when she heard the unmistakable sound of a pair of handcuffs clicking shut and a heavy sigh that she was all too familiar with. It was followed by a brief silence and another familiar sigh before Uncle Jared asked, “Really?”
“Really,” she heard Darrin say firmly as she felt the bed shift seconds before her pillow was taken from her and tossed aside.
Without a word, mostly because she was trying to avoid making eye contact with Uncle Jared, she wrapped her arms around Darrin’s shoulders as he picked her up, buried her face against his bare shoulder and tried to pretend that she was in her happy place.
“You can’t avoid this conversation forever,” Uncle Jared said, not really sounding all that angry that for someone that had just been handcuffed to the bed by his nephew.
“I’m willing to give it a shot,” Darrin drawled, tightening his hold around her as he headed for their bedroom door.
She kept her face buried against his chest as he carried her downstairs and into the living room, carefully avoiding the boxes that took up most of the space and made his way to the only available seat since the couch had been the first thing that they’d brought in. She had been the second. Darrin had carried her inside their new house, laid her down on the couch and told her to keep her ass there as the men in his family unloaded the boxes and stacked them around the house. That was two months ago and they were still unpacking the damn boxes and trying to get the house ready for their babies.
Their babies…
She still couldn’t believe that in a few months they were going to be parents. She thought this day would never come, but thanks to Zoe and Trevor, they were going to have a family of their own very soon.
Darrin chuckled as he sat down. “Thinking about the babies?”
“How did you know?” she asked, not bothering to lift her head, but instead simply closed her eyes as she relaxed in his arms.
“Because,” he said, pausing to kiss the top of her head with a smile of his own, “I can feel you smiling.”
“I can’t help it,” she admitted, turning her head so that she could press a kiss against his shoulder as she hugged him tighter, so unbelievably happy that she was actually tearing up.
That is, until she heard the long-suffering sigh.
“He’s down here, isn’t he?” she asked, closing her eyes in defeat as she pressed her forehead against his shoulder and accepted the inevitable.
They weren’t getting rid of Uncle Jared until he did what he’d come to do and unfortunately for her, she’d already heard this tale of Bradford bullshit a million times before thanks to the fact that she’d grown up with them.
“How’d you get the handcuffs off?” Darrin asked as he began to caress her arm and shoulder with his fingertips.
“Picked the lock,” Uncle Jared answered casually as though they were talking about the weather as she did her best to pretend that she was invisible.
“We already know the story,” Darrin for some reason decided to remind him when they both knew that there was nothing on this earth that was going to stop Uncle Jared from retelling this story.
“Then you’re not going on a honeymoon?” Uncle Jared asked in a challenging tone, practically daring Darrin to try and bullshit him.
“Once the babies arrive we won’t have a chance to go on a honeymoon,” Darrin said evenly, deciding that arguing with Uncle Jared was the way to go.
She sighed heavily as she settled in for the long haul, because if there was one thing that she knew about Bradfords, it was that they were all stubborn, especially the males.
But especially Uncle Jared.
“You’ll have plenty of volunteers to watch them when the time comes,” Uncle Jared shot back.
Darrin was quiet for a moment before he said, “The stories are bullshit.”
“You really think so?” Uncle Jared asked, sounding amused, which was not a good thing, because that meant that he would do everything he could to prolong the torture now just for shits and giggles.
“Yes,” Darrin said with absolutely no hesitation as she tried, and failed, to resist the urge to pinch the bastard to stop him from making this worse.
“Ow! What the hell?” the big baby snapped as she shifted on his lap, careful to keep her face averted since she’d decided that she’d probably die or mortification if she made eye contact with Uncle Jared ever again.
“You know what!” she hissed softly for his ears only, trying to get the stubborn bastard to stop before things got worse.
“It’s bullshit!” her husband snapped, obviously deciding that continuing arguing with his uncle at three in the morning when he had to be at work in three hours was an excellent idea.
“Is it really?” Uncle Jared asked with a hint of challenge in his voice, which of course prompted Darrin to snap, “It is!”
By this point she knew that it was a losing battle. So it was with a heavy heart, and her gaze shifted away from Uncle Jared, that she climbed off Darrin’s lap, “accidentally” stepping on his foot in the process, multiple times, and headed towards the kitchen, deciding that she might as well make breakfast.
She’d just decided to make pancakes when Uncle Jared said, “Once upon a time,” which was cut off with, “Oh, give me a fucking break,” from her husband.
“I’m trying to tell you a goddamn story here!”
“Then tell it and drop the bullshit!” Darrin said, finally accepting the fact that they weren’t getting rid of his uncle anytime soon.
“I will if you’d shut the hell up and let me get to it!”
“Then get to it!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
Rolling her eyes, she shook her head and sighed heavily as she reached for a large mixing bowl while she heard Uncle Jared theatrically clear his throat from the other room.
“As I was saying, Once upon a time…”
Chapter 2
The Start of Yet Another Bradford Tradition…
The First Honeymoon from Hell
Eleven months after the start of the first Bradford tradition:
The Bradford Wedding
“Shut up.”
“I’m bored,” James said with a long-suffering sigh as he picked up a wood shaving and began peeling layers off it.
“You could always help me,” Robert pointed out, chuckling when his brother leveled a horrified glare on him.
“And you could always finish this tomorrow and go with me into town for a drink tonight,” James suggested, which was the same suggestion that he’d made every night for the past six months even though he already knew that it was pointless.
“I can’t,” Robert said, leaning over and tilting his head to the side to make sure that the initials he’d carved on the top of the trunk were perfect.
“You really could,” James pointed out absently as he gazed around the candle lit workroom.
“I could,” Robert admitted with a smile as he stood up.
“But, you’re not going to,” James finished for him, shaking his head in disgust, because he really couldn’t understand why Robert would rather spend the night with his wife and children instead of in town, drinking, playing cards and flirting with every woman that looked his way.
“No,” he said, tilting his head to the other side as he ran his hand over the top of the trunk, making sure that the finish was