“And so do you. You do for him easily; do for yourself every one in a while too. Come on. Let’s go shopping. You need to look nice too.”
It was useless to resist them. When any of the three ganged up on the fourth it was a lost cause.
“All right. But I don’t need three bathing suits.”
Daisy grinned. “I know of some great secondhand places. I think you need some pretty dresses and some of those après-ski things.”
As her friends took over the planning, she set about eating again, happy to be there with her lovely drink and the fabulous food as her friends spoke all around her.
Her phone rang, the silly ringtone Adrian had somehow put on his number sang out. Worried, she excused herself and picked up.
“Is everything all right?”
Adrian’s laugh assured her it was. “Of course it is, English. I was just calling to discuss a little something with you.”
“Mm-hmm. And what would that be?”
“I’d like to buy Miles some clothes. We’re out with Brody and Rennie right now and it occurs to me he’ll need clothes for the upcoming trip. So in the spirit of not making you mad and living up to my promise, can I, please, huh?”
Incorrigible. But he was right. And, she was making an effort to let him do for Miles. It made Adrian feel better and it didn’t hurt the boy to have new clothes either.
“I was just discussing this with friends. Yes, yes. Go on. Thank you, and do not let yourself get gulled. It’s okay to tell him no sometimes.”
“I already told him no when he wanted to buy a shirt with a naked woman on it. Great shirt, but you’d kick my ass. I know how to protect myself.”
She smiled. Thank heavens he couldn’t see her or the way he turned her to mush.
“I planned to get him a parka, you know, for Whistler. And . . . a snowboard.”
She must have made a disapproving sound because he interrupted the denial she planned to make.
“Look, we’ve all got them up there. He won’t. I go up there several times every winter. He needs one and it’s stupid to rent one at the slopes or a ski shop.”
Jules had really worked hard on Gillian and the issue of money between her and Adrian. Her friend had made very good, albeit totally blunt points, and Gillian was trying very hard.
He was asking her, which he’d also been working on. And he had the money and it was for something useful.
“All right. Have fun then. Give my boy a kiss for me.”
She heard the grin in his voice. “You got it. And one for me too?” “Cheeky.”
“That’s me. All cheek.”
“This is more true than you know, Mister Brown.”
He lowered his voice. “You know what that does to me. Now who’s the rogue?”
She laughed, delighted by him and this playful thing they had.
“I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. By the way, I picked up Psycho and A Nightmare on Elm Street for our viewing pleasure.”
She blushed that he knew her so well. “The original, right?”
“Of course! Miles and I are doing a Resident Evil marathon tonight. We’ll miss you.”
“That was offsides!” She loved zombie movies with an insane level of glee.
“I know. But how else can I lure you over to my house tonight? You have a key and the gate code. Come to me, English. I miss you in my bed.”
“It’s been two days.”
“And then you go being prim and you know my perspective on that. Two days ago I fucked you from behind. Remember that. Your hair wrapped around my fist.”
The words were quiet. Meant for her only, and they filled her with that slow punch of longing only he ever seemed to create. And fill.
“Have a lovely dinner with your friends. And then come to me. I’ll be up late. Tell me you’ll come.”
“I don’t know. Will I?”
He laughed. “Oh yes. As many times as I can manage.”
“I might be by later. I want to be here for a while yet. I’ve not seen my friends a lot lately and Mary’s made an Indian food menu to die for. Also I’ve promised an excursion tomorrow before I was to meet you and Miles.”
“I’ll take you however I can get you. Be with your friends. I’ll be here either way.”
Yes, she was getting the feeling that was a very true statement indeed.
“That must have been some conversation,” Jules murmured when she came back to the table.
“Stop that, you.”
“Thought so.”
“He’s out and wanted to kit Miles up for the trips. He asked first.”
“Our boy is learning after all. And you said?”
“I agreed. He did ask and Miles does need it and he is Miles’s dad.”
“Good girl.”
Adrian knew she’d come to him. Heard the assent in her voice when he spoke with her earlier that evening. And still when he saw the panel light up indicating someone was entering the front gate, relief flooded through him.
When she came to him like this it did something to him.
He and Miles were watching the second Resident Evil movie still, so she’d be able to catch Extinction with them.
“Your mum is here,” he murmured to Miles, who turned with a smile.
“Cool! She can catch the next movie from the start. Though we’ve seen it a few dozen times.”
“I’m going to see if she needs help with her bag.”
Miles rolled his eyes. “I know you two are together. You want to kiss her. It’s all right with me.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Why not? She thinks I don’t know how much she does for me because I’m only thirteen, but I see it. I want her to be happy and find someone she loves. And it’s good that it’s you. She and I already had a talk about you. You know she worries more than she needs to.”
“Loves? Do you think?”
Miles laughed. “Dude, I thought you were all cool-hand rock star and stuff.”
“Your mother makes me nervous. In a good way,” he amended quickly.
“She doesn’t bring men around. She doesn’t date much. She lets you get away with stuff she’d shoot someone else in the face over.”
“Christ, she’s going to kill me when she hears you say that. Stop with the shooting-in-the-face references.”
Miles laughed and Adrian realized he’d been playing with his dad the way Brody had with him and hell, the way he had with Brody. “I got it from one of the Mummy movies. So you know it’s her fault anyway.”
Adrian choked back a laugh. “Fine. I’m going to get your mum alone so I can kiss her and be mushy. I’ll be back in a few. Don’t start without us.”
“Done.”
He headed up the stairs and heard her key in the front door. She came in looking perfectly cool and elegant with her hair tied back, wearing a bright red sweater and gray pants. Her scent hit him when he got close. Just a small hint of flowers and spice.
“You made it.” He swooped in and kissed her soundly.
She licked her lips, enjoying one last bit of him and undoing him in the process. “I did. I even brought you and Miles some leftovers.” She held up a bag that he took from her hands.
“Your son told me he knew we were together and he was fine with it.”
She blinked up at him. “He told me the same thing. That boy of ours is a smart one.”
“Come on. You’re just in time for Extinction. Let’s bring back some food and drinks for Miles. Will you sleep in my room tonight?” He surprised himself by asking, and then realized how much he wanted it.
“Your bed is a lot bigger than the one in the guest room. Though I should warn you I do have to meet my friends at ten for shopping. They believe I need three swimsuits for our trip.” She rolled her eyes and followed him into the kitchen were she began to make plates for both him and Miles.
“I should have mentioned this on Thanksgiving, but I really do love seeing you in my house. In my kitchen.” Something about her presence
there, the way she made the room the heart of the house when they were staying over, always pleased him.
She blushed as she worked on the plates and he put away the excess as she was done.
“I like being in your house.” She turned after putting the plate down, sliding her arms around his waist and getting close. “I like being with you.”
“You do something to me. More than one thing. A whole lot of them. Be here with me all the time.” He kissed her and she kissed him back, rising up on her toes to reach him.
“I hate being away from you both. You two could live here, you know. We can convert your room to a home office.”
She breathed deep. “I hate being away from you too. As does Miles. But you see us several times a week, including every weekend. Moving isn’t an easy thing. My friends live on Bainbridge. I’ve built a life there. Miles has room to play and run and practice with his friends in the garage. If we moved here, he’d lose that.”
“He could start a new band. You can take the ferry to see your friends and you have friends here too now. Erin and everyone already like you. I could wake up every day with my two favorite people with me under one roof.”
“That last line saved you, son.” Her eyes narrowed and he took a step back because she was pissed off. “Who do you fink you are?”
“Fink? Is that a Britishism?”
Her narrowed gaze went wide and he realized, too late, that she had said think and her accent had thickened.
“I didn’t mean to offend you with that.”
“Do you think you can just plug me and Miles into your life and all will be well?”
While she’d said think extra clearly, the rest slid back into her Newham as Miles had called it after the area she’d grown up in back in England.
Miles skidded into the kitchen and looked from his mother to his father and chuckled. “You’re in big trouble, mate. When she starts sounding like an episode of EastEnders I usually just run for it. Protect your junk.” And with that, he turned and bolted from the room.
“I don’t think that at all. Come on, you know I’m just saying that you have a life here too if you want it.” Jesus, he wanted her to move in to his house and she was mad at him for how he phrased something?
“Let me ask you a question, Mister Brown. In my place, if I said please come live with me and Miles and don’t worry about missing Erin and the bunch, you can take the ferry to visit your old life. Don’t worry about your friends, you already have a friendship with Cal and Ryan—you tell me how you’d feel.”
“That’s not what I meant, or even what I said.”
“When I lost my gran I was a mess.” She stepped back and leaned against the center island. “She was everything to me. The only real mother I’d ever had. She’d been such a huge part of my life, of Miles’s life, that when she died the only thing I could manage to do was cry.”
He wanted to touch her, but knew if he moved, he’d break the spell, so he remained, just listening to her.
“I never heard a thing from my mother or sister. So I made the arrangements. Or I should say I put it all into motion because my gran was a very organized woman and she had everything she wanted outlined and even paid for. And on the day of the memorial service Jules showed up in my gran’s car to get me and Miles. She knew I needed it. Cal had taken it to the shop and gotten it detailed. It was Jules’s plum thumbprint cookies we had to eat with our coffee and tea. They were Gran’s favorite.” She looked up and met Adrian’s gaze.
“That’s just one example, but these people are as important to me as your sister and brother are to you. I’m flattered and touched and very tempted by your invitation to live under the same roof. But I have a life already and I’ve never seen being with a man as a way to simply stop what I was before he came along. I want to live with you, not through you.”
He took a deep breath. He got it. Understood how she could see what he said the way she did, and perhaps she wasn’t entirely wrong that he’d sort of expected her to blend in with everyone as closely as Elise had, or Ella.
“I just hate that you hold back.”
“How do I do that?”
“I want us to hang out with my family more. Don’t you want to go out with my sister?”
“I’ve arranged a lunch on Sunday to have your family and friends meet mine, if you recall. I don’t think it’s a crime for me to like my friends. I love your sister, she’s a lovely woman and I enjoy time with her, as I do Elise and Ella and everyone else.”
“I just . . . it feels to me that you like them better.”
“Well, of course I do!” She began to pace, muttering. Her reserve had melted away entirely. “I never lose my temper with other people this often,” she tossed back over her shoulder as she continued to pace. “I like the people in your circle. But I have friends too and it’s absolutely ridiculous for you to expect me to like people I’ve known for four months more than I do people I’ve known for twelve and thirteen years.”
He wasn’t used to fighting with women this way. With the people he’d been with before, if he discovered something that would have made him mad enough to argue over, he just would have moved on.
But as they stood there in his kitchen arguing, he realized he only bickered and fought like this with people he knew and trusted most. With Erin and Brody. With Cope. He wasn’t worried this would be the end between the two of them. His assumption was that they’d fight and work it out.
Huh.
“I just realized something. Would you like to hear it?”
She turned and made an on-with-it movement with her finger and he made the herculean effort not to snort.
“I fight with you.”
“Because you’re a particularly vexing man who is very attached to getting his way.”
He smiled despite his annoyance.
“Yes, I admit that. I only fight like this with people I love. What does that say that we’ve been like this since the first time we met?”
“Are you trying to defuse a fight with this romantic stuff?”
“It just occurred to me. Answer the question.” He’d just told her he loved her, damn it. He wanted her to face that.
“I think it’s probably true that I love you too. And quite honestly you’re too vexing for any other woman with a weak constitution to handle, so I must take this on myself. You know, for the good of the world and all.”
He swooped down and kissed her again, this time backing her against his fridge.
“Miles will be waiting. There’s food and he left it in here,” she whispered into his mouth as he slid a hand down the back of her pants to cup her ass.
He groaned.
“Welcome to parenthood.”
After the last movie they’d both tucked Miles in and headed to his room. She was nervous, which was new for her when it came to Adrian.
She did love him. More than was wise, and not without a hard fight against it. God, how many times had she watched her mother lose herself in yet another man? The way Adrian made her feel had been the first time in her life that she’d understood her mother.
And it stood to reason that since her mother was a featherheaded slapper and each man she’d fallen for was as big a loser as she was, what Gillian felt for Adrian was far deeper.
Because Adrian’s greatest allure was that he was a man who believed in fidelity and commitment. Which seemed funny, given that he was a rock star and all, but he was. A good, strong man who was more than worthy of her love and the return of that fidelity.
He saw through her. Which was exciting. Flattering that he hadn’t run screaming. She wanted to believe everything he said and made her feel.
In the dark, the pale light of the moon outside giving enough light not to trip, his hands found her first, pulling at her clothes, getting her naked. She writhed against him as his mouth was everywhere his hands weren’t.
He brought her to the rug, kissing down the line of her spine. The rustling at her back alerted her that he’d
been undressing too, but even so, when he stretched against her, skin to skin, the feel of it made her suck in her breath.
She kept her eyes closed as he laid hot, openmouthed kisses across her shoulders.
“Head down, ass up,” he growled into her ear as he pulled her up the way he wanted. “I’m going to fuck you right here.” His fingertips wet from her pussy trailed over her asshole.
She shivered at the darkly sensual promise.
She waited for him as he briefly left her and then returned.
“We good?”
Her answer may have been different before the warm flow of lube over her hole and then the slick fingertip on her clit.
“Mmmmph,” she managed to say in assent as he worked her clit with one hand and stretched her out with the other.
“I want every part of you,” he said, voice taut as he stroked the head of his cock against her, the cool of the condom against the slippery warmth of her body.
She wanted him to have it just then, even as the burn of entrance rode that line between pleasure and pain.
Being fucked this way stole her wits. In that act, in the time he began to fuck her and keep her pleasured and open with his fingers on her clit and the occasional slide back to her cunt to fuck her there as he fucked her ass—in that he dominated her fully. In body, in heart and in mind.
She was utterly his, which is why it worked for her when the only other time she’d done this, it had been uncomfortable and not very exciting. Like something you agreed to because it was a birthday or an anniversary.
Each time he dragged nearly all the way out of her ass, a guttural sound came from her lips as her fingers sought purchase in the carpet. Each time he slid back inside, firing nerve endings she’d not known she had, he won his way deeper past her defenses.
She felt the throb of his cock, the frantic beat of his pulse.
His fingers on her clit got a little clumsy but kept their rhythm. Relentless until she exploded, the inner muscles of her cunt grasping at nothing, body writhing around each invasion he made with the thrust of his cock.
His groan as she came echoed through her body, and it wasn’t a breath more until he pressed in deep one last time and she felt the jerk of his cock, knowing he came.