“He doesn’t want me,” I repeated the information more bluntly. “We aren’t looking for the same things. I don’t want a casual fuck-buddy, and he doesn’t want to talk to me.”
I had a moment to regret my word choice, but then I saw that Jax was smiling. “He can positively be an ass.”
“That he can,” I agreed. “So, you see why none of what you’ve told me matters?”
“I think that’s why it matters more than ever,” he said, his voice softening. He reached out and put his hand on my arm. “Just tell me one thing. Are you in love with him?”
I thought about denying it, especially since it was a question I’d worked very hard to keep from asking myself. I also thought about telling him that it was none of his damn business. Except Jax had come to me because he was concerned about Blake, and he’d told me something that had to be painful to even think about. I owed him something in return. I couldn’t give him what he wanted, but I could give him the truth.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I love him.”
Twenty-Seven
Blake
I scowled at the food the retreat had provided, but not because it was bad. The pancakes were great, the fruit fresh, the bacon crisp. There was plenty of it. After everything that had gone on before, this should have been the best thing to happen all weekend. But I could barely taste it.
After I’d gone back to my room last night, none of my brothers had come after me. Not surprising. After all the shit I’d put out there, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me either. Cai and Slade had both been at the table when I finally came out of my room, and they’d given me polite enough greetings, but they hadn’t tried to talk to me about any of it. They’d also ignored my question about where Jax was. I hadn’t cared enough to ask it again.
I wondered how long they’d want to stay now that I’d finally said all those things. Maybe it was a good thing I’d blown up. Now they knew how I felt and that there wasn’t anything to fix between us. They could go back to Boston, and I could go back to my life. We wouldn’t have to see each other again. I’d talk to Miss K and let her know that they’d done what Grandfather had wanted. No need for them to get fucked over because I wanted nothing to do with them.
Finally, I pushed my plate aside and picked up a plum from the bowl. Apples, oranges, bananas – hell, even pears – I understood. Who bought plums for guests?
I leaned back in my chair and tossed the plum into the air. Cai and Slade ignored me, their attention on their phones. Judging by the idiotic expressions on their faces, they were texting their women. Girlfriends? I supposed that was a more PC term.
I remembered Slade’s high school girlfriend, Lizann. I’d always thought she was pretty. Then they’d broken up while Slade was in basic training, and that had solidified my decision not to date.
The suite’s door opened, but I ignored it. Once the others started talking again, I’d–
A hand darted out and caught the plum before I did.
“Hey! That’s mine.” I glared up at Jax.
“Mature response,” he said dryly. “But after how you’ve behaved this weekend, not surprising.”
“Bite me,” I snapped. “I never said I wanted to do this, so don’t blame me for getting pissed at you.”
“I’m not talking about what you said to us. We deserved that.” He sat down next to me, and the other guys put away their phones. “I meant how you’ve been treating Brea.”
Heat flushed my face. “That’s more of, not your damn business.”
“It is when her employee goes off on me for ruining the date she’d set Brea up on. By the time I was able to convince Lamb that I wasn’t the one she was pissed at, I’d learned that Brea went home last night and called Lamb this morning to cover the shop here. Apparently, Brea also apologized to Lamb for ‘some asshole acting like he had the right to butt into my life.’”
He held out the plum, and I took it, but I didn’t throw it again. I probably would’ve thrown it at his head if I had.
“You need to fix things with her,” he said. “Trust me. I almost lost Syll because I was an idiot. Remember? You saw how torn up I was.”
“We’ve all fucked up,” Slade said, “but trust me when I say that if it’s real, it’s worth fighting for.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. “We went on one date and fucked a couple times. That’s it.”
“If that’s all it was, why were you so worked up when she was out with that other guy?” Cai asked.
I glared at him. It figured. Cai rarely spoke, and one of the few times he did, it was to side against me. “All right. She’s hot. Great in bed. I wanted another go. You guys know how it is.”
“I know the only woman I’d be jealous of is one I cared about,” Slade pointed out.
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We’re done.”
I pushed back from the table and stood. I didn’t know where I was going, but I wanted to be away from this conversation.
“You need to fix it,” Jax said.
“I don’t want to fix it, Jax.” I turned to face him. “Don’t you get that? All I wanted from her was sex. Sure, it would’ve been nice to fuck her again, but it’s no big deal.”
“Do you really believe the shit that’s coming out of your mouth?” Slade asked, shaking his head. He pushed some dark hair away from his face. “I mean, I guess someone who didn’t know you might think you were being honest, but I know better.”
“Obviously, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” I tossed the plum into the air and caught it, hoping the gesture came off as casual as I’d intended. “Because there’s nothing for me to lie about. Brea and I are done.”
“Then I’ll go downstairs and tell Lamb that her nephew should give Brea a call, ask her out on another date.”
I put down the fruit. I knew what Jax was doing. He was trying to get a rise out of me to prove his point, but it wasn’t going to work. Because he was wrong. I didn’t care. She could do whatever she wanted, go out with whoever she wanted. Touch and kiss and fuck…
My hands tightened into fists.
“Yeah, that looks like you don’t want her,” Slade said, raising an eyebrow. “I think you’re good to go, Jax.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “It shouldn’t take me too long.”
My self-control lasted until he got halfway to the door. “Wait.”
“Yes?” He gave me a knowing look. “Is there something you want?”
“Fuck you.” I flicked up my middle finger.
“I think you’d rather fuck Brea,” Slade said. “But to do that, you need to apologize for being an asshat.”
“Says the king of asshats.”
He gave me the same salute I’d given Jax.
“He’s right,” Cai said. “If you care that much about Brea, you need to fix things with her, or you’re going to regret it.”
He was right. They were all right. I didn’t want Brea going out with that guy or any guy who wasn’t me.
Dammit.
She meant something to me. I’d known it all along, but there was a huge difference between knowing it and admitting it.
“Blake, go.” Jax stuck his hands in his pockets. “Take all the time you need. We can talk more when you get back.”
Just because I was going to talk to Brea didn’t mean I was ready to discuss shit with my brothers, but that was a conversation for another time. I had to get to Brea and tell her I was an idiot.
Like she didn’t already know.
Twenty-Eight
Brea
One positive thing that had come out of what happened was that I’d managed to completely clean and organize the store. I’d also put together tins of tea until I’d run out of ingredients.
That had been twenty minutes ago, and now I didn’t have anything else to do. Case in point, I’d been cleaning the same spot for the past five minutes. When the bell over my door rang, I turned, relieved to have someone to
distract me. I would’ve been happy with anyone at that moment.
A church group coming in to ask me if I wanted to give up my Wiccan ways.
A new mom wanting to know if I had something to help her baby sleep and then offering to show me hundreds of pictures of said baby sleeping.
The hot recluse I’d fucked more than once and had inadvertently fallen in love with–
Shit.
“Blake?”
Shit! Seriously? Shit!
What the fuck was he doing here?!
“Before you tell me that I’m an asshole and I need to get out, please let me say what I came here to say.”
I’d had a million things I’d wanted to say to him, a thousand different ways I’d imagined this conversation going, but I couldn’t think of one. He looked as ragged as I felt, and someplace deep inside me, I hoped it was because of me. He’d managed a complete sentence without yelling at me, so I supposed that was him trying. I might as well hear him out.
“Go ahead,” I said. He locked the door and then started toward me, but I didn’t walk around the counter to meet him. I needed to keep something between us until he’d finished.
At least we didn’t have an audience here. No matter how this went, we’d be able to have a complete conversation. We’d get to the end of it, one way or the other. While my stomach twisted at the thought of what it could mean if things went badly, another part of me just wanted it all to be over. I just wanted it to be a clean break.
When I was nine years old, my parents and I had gone skiing. I’d insisted that I’d known what I was doing, but they’d made me take the bunny slopes. I’d been furious, and I hadn’t really understood why. It hadn’t really been about wanting to ski on the bigger slopes. It’d been more about the fact that I hadn’t wanted anyone telling me what I could or couldn’t do. Not even my parents.
Of course, that’d meant I’d had to sneak away and try one of the bigger slopes. I’d managed just fine until some bigger kid had skied into me, knocking me into a bunch of trees. I broke my tibia and fibula, but the doctor said it could’ve been much worse. At least it had been a clean break. Those always healed the best.
“I was an asshole.”
I folded my arms. An extra bit of protection. “Go on.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “You were getting too close, too far under my skin. Not in a bad way. Or at least what wouldn’t have been a bad way if I wasn’t such a closed-off prick.”
That was more honest than he’d been about anything other than wanting to fuck me.
“Your brother came to see me,” I said.
“I know.”
I’d guessed as much, but I knew I needed to give him something honest if I wanted him to be honest with me.
“Jax told me that he told you about what happened to my parents and sister.”
He looked away, but I didn’t call him on it. I couldn’t imagine how painful all of that had been, still was. No matter how annoyed I could get with my parents or our untraditional family, I couldn’t imagine living without them. Especially losing them at a young age…the thought alone made me want to walk around the counter and hug him.
“You should have heard it from me.”
That surprised me. “I wasn’t expecting you to tell me something so personal after such a short time.”
“If I’d told you anything personal at all, it wouldn’t even be an issue.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not good with words. Never have been. And I’m definitely not good with talking about my emotions or anything real.” He turned his eyes toward me, his expression earnest. “I don’t want to lose you, Brea. It took my brothers calling me on my bullshit to admit that I’d made the wrong choice when you gave me the ultimatum.”
I could feel my heart pounding faster with every word. This was what I’d wanted from him. Something real. Something that told me I wasn’t in this alone.
“I can’t promise that I’m going to be an open book from here on out, but I can promise that I’ll be honest and that I will do my best to let you in.” He reached across the counter, his hand open in invitation.
“Can I ask you something?” He started to pull his hand back, but I grabbed it. “Please.”
He nodded, his fingers curling around mine.
“I have no problem taking things slow,” I began, “but I need to know if you see this going somewhere. If it’s never going to be more than casual, I need to know now, cut things off before I get any more involved.”
His eyes warmed. “How involved are you now?”
I had two choices here, I knew. I could be vague and possibly save myself some embarrassment, or I could put it all out there and hope that him being here meant he felt the same.
I took a calming breath that didn’t really do much in the way of calming me, and then I took the leap.
“I’ve fallen in love with you, you idiot.” I managed a watery smile. “So, I’m in pretty deep.”
He smiled, his entire face lighting up. “I am too.” He came around the counter, his grip on my hand tightening. “In deep. Falling in love. All of it.”
We both moved into each other, our bodies colliding even as our mouths came together. His urgency mirrored mine, desire burning through me, around me. I almost unzipped him right there, but if this was going to be our new beginning, I wanted us to do it right.
Not that I intended to send him away, so I didn’t repeat the sex before a date thing. I wasn’t that patient. No, we were just going to go somewhere more comfortable first.
“You do realize how completely unfair this is, right?” I asked as I scowled up at Blake. My question didn’t do anything but make that stupid, smug grin of his grow. He’d used socks to tie my arms above my head since I didn’t have ties or belts, and it should have been ridiculous, but it wasn’t.
I tugged at the restraints, and his gaze dropped, eyes darkening at the way my struggles made my breasts jiggle. He was still dressed, the bastard, but I was completely naked, my body alive and humming from the attention he’d given it while getting me into this position.
“Haven’t you heard?” he asked. “Life’s not fair.”
“Jerk,” I muttered.
He laughed, and the sound turned my insides to mush. “Patience.”
I wanted to point out that he was the last person who should be chastising me for lack of self-control, but he was taking off his shirt, and I got distracted. I was only human, after all, and he was all hard muscle and lickable skin. My eyes traced the defined lines down to his belly button, then followed his hands as he removed his pants. Deep v-grooves at his hips and a trail of dark hair pointed straight to a long, thick cock. It curved up toward his flat stomach, and I caught my breath as he wrapped a hand around it.
“See something you like?” he teased.
“Everything.”
And I meant it. Not just his Adonis-like body, but the way he let me see how much he wanted me, the warmth in his eyes, the smiling and teasing and laughing. It made sense to me, that he’d expose his feelings here first. We’d been great together physically from moment one.
He slowly fisted his cock, running his thumb over the head to gather the moisture beaded there. My hands opened and closed, wanting something to touch, to dig my nails into. I squirmed as a rush of arousal made me wetter, then pressed my thighs together to try and give myself some relief.
“Brea.” My name held a warning. “You don’t get off until I say you can.”
I lifted my chin defiantly and continued moving my legs. In one quick move, Blake’s hands were on my ankles, and he was yanking my legs apart. I gave an undignified squawk, and that earned a chuckle, but there was no mercy in that sound. He was going to make me pay for disobeying him, and damn if that thought didn’t turn me on even more.
He leaned down, bracing himself on the ankles he still held and gave me a long, slow lick that made me cry out.
“I think you deserve to be punished for that,” he said as he straightened. “Wha
t do you think?”
Thoughts of spankings and whippings danced through my head, but I didn’t have anything here he could use for that. Unless he decided to get creative, and I wouldn’t have put that past him.
“Where are your toys?”
My face grew hot. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed about my sexuality, but I’d never had someone be that blunt about it before. The guys I’d been with in the past had known I had a vibrator since I didn’t exactly hide it, but it hadn’t been something we’d used together. Not like Blake and I had before.
“In the top drawer of the bedside table,” I said. “But I only have the one.”
“We’ll do some shopping together sometime,” he said. “Do you have any clothespins?”
“Bathroom,” I answered automatically, even as I puzzled through the request. “Bottom drawer under the sink. There’s some rope in there too. I hang up my ‘delicates.’”
He laughed again. “You couldn’t have remembered the rope before I used socks?”
Despite how badly I wanted him right now, I couldn’t help but join in the laughter. “I wasn’t exactly thinking laundry when you said you wanted to tie me up.”
He walked out of my bedroom, giving me a mouth-watering view of his perfect, tight ass. I tried my best to not be shallow, but Blake had the most magnificent body. The things I wanted to do to it…
“These will do.” He came back into the bedroom with two plain clothespins. “I think we’ll start with just a couple minutes. Don’t want to damage anything.”
I had a pretty good idea of what he intended to do with those things, but that didn’t calm the butterflies in my stomach much. He climbed on the bed, settling between my legs. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I hadn’t closed them, but little things like that didn’t matter when he was leaning over me and taking one of my nipples between his lips.
He didn’t ease me into it, immediately sucking hard on the sensitive flesh. My body jerked, back arching, but he put a hand on my waist, holding me in place. His teeth worried at my nipple, holding on just a bit too tight, pulling on it. I cursed at the sharp jolt of pain that went through me but didn’t ask him to stop. Finally, when my nipple was tight and hard, he raised his head.