Chapter 12
HOLY SHITBALLS. WHAT the hell just happened? The Universe thought the combo of threatened deportation, a quickie wedding to fix it and a surprise marriage reveal to everyone we knew wasn’t quite enough? Oh and my husband’s secret European noble family. Now we had to add my screwed up dysfunctional family to the mix. All for a perfect crap stew.
Yum, yum. Ugh.
Mike seemed bummed there was no beer in the fridge. I interrupted Lucas before he could offer to go pick up a six-pack at the nearest liquor store. And much to my relief, neither of them pushed the issue. Derek had no reaction at all, which gave me a spark of hope despite my overarching skepticism.
“Hey, cool cactus.” My brother observed, nodding at Cocky in the middle of the table. Watching the irritation slide across Lucas’s face was the one highlight of the evening.
To say I had no appetite was an understatement—for crap stew or for the pizza we ordered to feed our new unexpected guests. It all sat like a rock in my stomach and I said very little during dinner.
I studied my brother while he was engaged in talking to the other two men. He seemed like the same old Derek. Fun and sweet and talkative. He could be a great guy when his mountain of baggage wasn’t weighing him—and everyone who loved him—down.
Nobody looking at him right now, with his relaxed attitude and his smiles would know that he could also be the most selfish human being on the planet. And everyone around him who loved him waited for the much-promised but never-delivered change.
I blinked, still stung that it was him and not Mum or Dad who had come or reached out in any other way. If they’d found out my address, then they could just as easily get my phone number or email. They could have contacted me directly. Instead, they’d sent Derek and a junk food care package.
And that hurt, too. They were consumed with their work, obviously. And those fancy embossed letters I kept getting from the expensive lawyers in Vancouver were no doubt the reason why. That old wave of bitterness deep down reminded me that this was Derek’s fault, too.
And there was no doubt that his visit was related to those legal troubles and all the reasons I’d ditched that bullshit in the first place. Yeah that was me, Katya the Brave who fled her homeland rather than stand up for herself.
But as Lucas had said, this visit was only for a little while. I could survive anything for a little while, couldn’t I? Hell, I’d been secretly married to the grumpiest man on earth for almost seven months now. That had to be some proof that I could go the distance!
I set our guests up in the empty room just off the kitchen, the would-be formal dining room that Lucas had never decorated. It had hardwood floors and echoing, empty white walls. I gave them Lucas’s air mattresses but played dumb about any type of hand pump, though I’d seen one in the storage closet right beside them. Oh well. They’d just have to blow them up with their own lung air.
My brother had the good sense to keep his mouth shut about it, though his friend Mike groused loudly. I gave zero fucks about what he thought. He’d always been public enemy number one and best-friend’s-little-sister-tormentor extraordinaire.
Dumping the pile of folded sheets and blankets that Lucas had also offered up into a pile, I heaved a sigh. The guys looked up from their phones as I mumbled, “If you need anything else, there are towels in the linen closet.”
“You have a nice house here, sis. Did you two just buy it?”
I shook my head. “Lucas has lived here for a few years. I just moved in when we got married.”
“That was fast.” Mike set aside his phone. I darted a sharp gaze at him, then turned away. Who really cared what this dickweed had to say? Not me. Nor did I ask him to clarify. He continued in spite of the dirty look I’d thrown him, peering up at me. “You two getting married, I mean. Like… why not just live together for a while first? What was the reason to rush getting married?”
Needling shit. He was always doing stuff like this. As if to add insult to the injury of Derek showing up unexpectedly at my door, he’d brought Mike with him. He and Derek had been tight since the early days of middle school. I blamed a lot of Derek’s issues on Mike’s bad influence but would my parents ever listen and intervene? Never.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mike, are you upset that I’m no longer available? How was I to know you’ve been carrying a torch for me all these years?” That vague reference to the time he’d had the nerve to ask me out. He’d been gross enough to act entitled to dating me, given all the time he’d spent hanging out with my family. I was just sixteen and of course I’d never even come close to thinking of Mike that way. And predictably, his treatment had gotten even worse after I’d shot him down.
Mike laughed. “Wow, kitty’s got some sharp claws. Hopefully you only use those to scratch down your hubby’s back.”
I ignored him, went to the closet, pulled out a few pillows and instead of dumping them on the pile of bedding, I pelted them at Mike instead. Aimed right for his stupid meat head. He snarled a cunt at me under his breath when one hit him square in the face and I smiled widely, pleased with myself.
“Leave her alone, man, jeez.” Derek finally looked up from his phone to snap at his friend. Thanks for stepping up for me, big bro. I gritted my teeth.
“Yeah, so tomorrow morning Lucas and I are out of here by half past seven to go to work. I’m going to need you to vacate the house. You can go do all your touristy things. Not gonna lie, though, it’s spendy to be a tourist here. A one-day ticket to Disneyland alone costs half your soul. And with the exchange rate, it’s even more in Canadian dollars. Just sayin’.”
I gave Derek side eye, strongly suspecting that Mum and Dad had bankrolled this trip on top of everything else. Great. Aiding and abetting someone to leave the country with their money. Jumping parole to do so. So typical of them. All of them.
Derek smiled. “Well you know I hate early mornings but we’ll deal. Too bad you can’t come with us to Disneyland. Mum gave me money to buy you two tickets. You can’t get time off anytime soon?” I just shook my head. I probably could but I didn’t want to. In response, he shrugged. “Well I’ll leave the money so maybe you two can go on your own sometime.”
I shook my head. “Thanks but it’s okay. I doubt we’ll be able to make it there anytime soon.”
His gaze dropped, and he nodded. “That’s too bad. You should definitely take some time to enjoy life once in a while. Good night, sis. Sleep well.”
I turned to the door. Mike spoke up then, talking to Derek but clearly meaning for me to overhear. “Maybe we can hit a weed dispensary tomorrow. We’ll need it after a night sleeping on the floor. That is if the lovebirds don’t keep us up all night with their loud screwing.”
I didn’t turn around or make any other indication that I’d heard him. Nothing that might give him even the teeniest iota of satisfaction. It was tough because I wanted to kick the tool in the face. His ugly mug was right at runner-height, after all. He’d always been such a pain in my ass, perpetually egging Derek on in some new plot to terrorize me.
I quickly stopped into my guest room and grabbed my nightie and my clothes for the next day. Using the key Lucas had given me, I locked the room so they wouldn’t end up snooping in there and asking questions. Then I removed all the toiletries from the nearby washroom to put in Lucas’s.
When I got to the master bedroom, Lucas’s door was ajar, but the room was empty except for Max who lazily gazed up at me from his night bed. I slipped in quietly and obliged him with a few belly scratches. Noticing the washroom door was shut, I laid my stuff on the bed. Then I patiently waited for my turn, but he seemed to be taking half an eon in there. He did warn me he liked to shower at night.
But what else was taking up all this time if it wasn’t the longest shower ever in the history of showers? Was he dressing? Shaving? Plucking each of his whiskers out one at a time with tweezers? Counting the tiles on the floor? What?
Suddenly I pictured him with nothing but a towel draped around his waist, hard muscular chest coated with steam and maybe a few droplets of water. Even if he was taking forever in there, I mentally took advantage. Lying on the bed, I stared at the ceiling and indulged myself in a nice little visualization. His delicious arms, biceps rippling as he reached up to shave. I wondered if he had dimples in his back at the base of his spine. Did he still work out regularly or was that fit form just from having been athletic when he was younger?
In spite of this pleasant turn of my thoughts, I still seethed about Mike’s shitty remark about the loud sex. He wanted loud sex to keep him up all night? I was more than happy to oblige, even if just for his benefit. Getting up, I went to the bedroom door, cracked it open a bit and began fake moaning loudly à la Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally. “Oh baby, give it to me!” I practically wailed. I tried rattling the headboard but it wouldn’t budge—solid wood antique and probably made from ancient redwood trees.
I tried pounding on the wall. No luck… it being an old house meant that the walls were solid plaster. No sound carried between the walls. At all.
So I went back to the door to holler some more. “Oh, oh, oh! Yeah, baby. Harder!” And I added in an unearthly howl for good measure before shutting the door.
Silence except for the complaint of old hinges. I spun and there was Lucas in the washroom doorway. He clutched the doorknob as if it was the handle to a knight’s shield brandished to protect himself from some unseen onslaught. His eyes were wider than normal.
My face flamed hot, and I blinked, scrambling to explain. “I, uh. Well, they… Mike, uh….”
His eyebrows went up, and he nodded expectantly, waiting for me to spit it out.
I blew out a huff and gestured stiffly toward the washroom. “Are you done in there?”
He stepped into the room wearing dark blue cotton pajamas. They were creased and looked stiff, as if they’d just been ripped out of the package. Like his grandma had gifted them to him for Christmas and he’d promptly dropped them in an empty drawer because…. Because he usually slept naked, or something.
He looked hotter than I’d ever expected any guy to look in cotton pajamas. There was something so… clean and honorable and upright about him normally. The pajamas just added to that image. But there’d been nothing clean and wholesome about what his mouth had done to me the night before as I was sprawled across his piano, his eyes like super-heated coals. I swallowed.
He motioned to the empty washroom. “All yours.”
I didn’t have much to do besides wash my face and change my clothes. I’d shower in the morning, like usual. But upon returning to the bedroom, I suddenly fathomed how small a queen-sized bed could be. Especially when sharing it with a handsome non sex-partner. In addition to a whole heaping of unrealized sexual tension.
I hovered at the edge of the bed, and he glanced up from the e-book on his tablet.
“Uh, so how should we do this?” I cleared my throat. “Like, um head to toe? Or me above the covers and you underneath? Or—”
He blinked and rolled his eyes. “Just get in. I’ll try to control my urges.”
I clenched my jaw, wondering if I could control mine.
As I’d come to expect from Lucas, the quality of his bed linens were freshly cleaned and top notch. Probably billion thread count premium organic Tunisian cotton hand-picked and woven by virgins. They did feel heavenly against my skin. I slid in, then rolled over on my side to face him. Propping my head up on my hand, I studied his profile for a moment as he fiddled with his tablet.
As if he felt my stare, his head pivoted, and he fixed his dark, unwavering gaze on me.
Our eyes locked and the air seemed to thicken between us. I studied the dark fringe of lashes around his eyes as his gaze roamed my face, settling on my mouth.
I swallowed. He swallowed. The silence stretched on.
The lighting on his face changed as his tablet clicked off and still we stared at each other, haunted by the ghosts of unfinished business from last night. Although business would be the last word in the world that I’d choose to describe the goings on the previous night.
No… no…
I’d felt him everywhere. Suddenly an ache tightened between my thighs, in my stomach, down to my core. Everything inside me heated from the memory of how good he’d made me feel. And how much I wanted him to do it again.
And how much I’d like to do the same to him.
Clearly it had freaked him the hell out, given his brusque freeze-out at work today.
Nevertheless, I wavered where I lay, leaning forward, just slightly, as if pushed by a stiff wind. And that bit of movement, right there, broke the spell. Immediately he sat up and turned to set his tablet on the nightstand.
And with a gruff “Good night,” he clicked off the bedside lamp and turned his back to me. I lay there, not knowing exactly what to think, blinking into the darkness. In minutes, he was inhaling and exhaling slowly with the peaceful rhythm of slumber.
With a sigh, I flopped onto my back and stared up at the ceiling for hours. It would be a miracle if I could sleep tonight with all that had gone on. The thoughts, they were racing and jumping from subject to subject. All the past anxieties had now combined with the existing energy and tension that I’d hoped Lucas would help me release.
I couldn’t get Derek’s sudden appearance at my doorstep out of my head. After almost two years of hearing nothing from any of my immediate family members. Suddenly him, of all people, showed up at my door as if no time had passed at all. As if I hadn’t packed up my bags in the middle of the night and taken off without saying goodbye.
This trip of his wasn’t just some pleasure trip to see the sites of Hollywood, visit famous beaches and stroll around amusement parks. Something was afoot. Almost certainly it would include some kind of pressure for me to return to Canada and all the unfinished business they felt I’d left behind. That was a given.
No way in hell.
Nothing worked… not rolling from side to side, not adjusting a pillow, not getting up to use the washroom—and almost stepping on a sleeping dog in the dark. I lay there for hours, sleepless, thoughts racing like stock cars winding their ways up hairpin turns and high cliff roads. Suddenly I wished I could just give up and go blow off some steam while gaming. But I’d have to walk by the dining room and who knew what those two idiots were getting up to in there. Had to maintain the illusion that we were happily snoozing away, spooning tightly after some mind-blowing marital sex.
God, I could use some sex right now, marital, semi-acrobatic, or even boring missionary-style. I wasn’t picky at this point.
Instead, I calmed myself while listening to the regular pace of his breathing and staring at the shadows that the neighbor’s pool reflected on the window. I almost felt comforted. Like I wasn’t in this alone.
But maybe that was all just illusion.
Nevertheless, my eyes finally closed just after four in the morning.