“Are you okay?” I eyed Brad as he rolled his head from side to side as if trying to stretch out a kink.
“Yeah.” He rinsed our coffee cups, leaving them upside down on the drain board. “I just have a crick in my neck.” He glanced sideways at me, smiling faintly. “And no, I’m not blaming you.”
I felt surprisingly well after our impromptu nap on the couch. Of course, I’d awoken with my head pillowed against Jen’s shoulder, which may have had something to do with it. “Do you want me to give you a massage? Or a massage?” I raised an eyebrow. Jen had left half an hour before to go to the library—the real one this time—which meant we had the house to ourselves. I’d vacuumed while Brad was showering, and put a load of towels on the line, so I could relax without feeling guilty. And I knew exactly how I wanted to relax.
“Actually, I’m thinking I might get changed and head home,” Brad replied with a sigh. “See if the nursing home has called.”
Shame clenched at my gut, and I rounded the bench to give him a hug. Here I was, thinking about sex when he’d just been told his grandfather might never wake after all. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t make my grandfather crash his car all those years ago.” Brad’s breath tickled my ear as he drew me close.
“For being insensitive. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re not.” He rested his cheek against my hair and I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the spicy scent of his aftershave. “Maybe he’d prefer it this way,” Brad continued. “I don’t know that he’d even want to wake up, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. Brad suspected his grandfather’s crash had been deliberate, a grisly attempt to join his wife after she’d passed away. I’d seen Mum struggle with Ollie’s absence. How would she have reacted if he’d been executed rather than imprisoned? I swallowed the lump in my throat, shoving the thought away. “That has to hurt.”
“It did at first, but I’m used to it now. Anyway, maybe there … there might have been some change. Maybe Leander’s wrong?”
“Maybe.” I winced as I heard the dubious tone in my voice. Way to go, Melaina. Thankfully, Brad didn’t ask me to elaborate on my thoughts. I didn’t want to have to tell him what Leander had said: that his grandfather’s dreams had been hollowed out. The phrase made me think of the crumpled, sad skin of a kiwi fruit after the flesh had been eaten. Brad didn’t need that mental image.
Keeping his arms around my waist, Brad took half a step back, leaning against the sink. A wan smile crept onto his face. “So Leander has a crush on you,” he teased.
My stomach swooped. “What? No!”
“He does. I’d bet a pile of money on it.”
“Are you thinking of the way he treated you before?” I asked. Brad nodded, and I wrinkled my nose. “I’ve known him since I was a kid. He’s just overprotective. He doesn’t think anyone is good enough for me. It’s nothing personal.”
Brad tipped his head to the side, looking down at me. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“I … yes?” I did, didn’t it? But several memories flooded my mind: Leander, coming to my rescue on more than one occasion. Him fighting blights for me. Fighting Ikelos for me. His offhanded comments about me being special, or remarkable. “Maybe?” My cheeks felt hot as I stared back at Brad.
“Now she gets it,” he said, his smile growing bigger. “I saw the way he looked at you today, Melaina. That’s not brotherly affection.”
“Even if you’re right, it doesn’t matter.” My words tumbled over one another in their rush to be spoken. “I’m with you.”
“I know,” he said easily, kissing the tip of my nose.
The light tone brought me up short. “It doesn’t bother you?” I frowned at him. “You’re not jealous?”
He shrugged, the gesture tightening his hands around my waist. “Why would I be jealous? He’s in Erebus, I’m here, and never the twain shall meet, Jen’s dream notwithstanding. And I can’t see that ever happening again.”
“But I can spend time with him when you’re not there…”
“I know. But I trust you.” He laughed, a soft, self-depreciating sound. “I went through a jealous phase when I was in my teens, but I’m not that insecure little boy anymore. Besides, Leander might get to spend time with you in here—” he tapped my temple lightly “—but I get to spend it with you in the real world, where it matters.” His hand dropped to my shoulder and then slid down the length of my arm. Goosebumps rose in its wake.
“That’s a very mature perspective,” I murmured, my gaze dropping from his eyes to his lips, so soft and dusky red.
“I am nothing if not mature.” His fingers tightened, one on my wrist and the other on my other hip.
“And I do prefer my men tangible.”
“Do you now?” he rumbled, his pupils dilating. Warmth blossomed in my belly at the want in that look. “That’s reassuring.”
“I know, right?” I leaned into him, kissing him lightly. “I know you said you wanted to go,” I murmured against his lips. They were as soft as they looked.
“I did…”
“I can’t tempt you to stay a little longer?” I kissed from the corner of his mouth back in a line to his ear. “Even fifteen minutes?” I whispered, before catching the lobe between my teeth.
He gasped a laugh, drawing me tight against his chest. “Fifteen minutes? Give me more credit than that.”
“Is that a yes?” I mumbled.
“You know I’m powerless to resist you.”
Our lips crashed together, tongues tangling in a sinuous dance. Desire flared in me, brighter than the late afternoon sun haloing Brad’s hair, filling the warm brown strands with flecks of gold. My hands ran down his sides, seeking the smoothness of his skin through his T-shirt and pyjama pants. A questing finger found the elastic of boxer shorts underneath. It was too much to hope he’d gone commando under the circumstances … but still, this was much, much better than jeans.
Brad seemed to feel the same way if the low growl in his throat was any indication. Although my T-shirt fell past my waist, my yoga pants didn’t leave a lot to the imagination—not when questing hands were involved.
A sudden thought brought me up short with a disappointed gasp.
“What is it?” Brad pulled back to regard me. His lips were swollen from my kisses, which made me want to taste them all over again.
“We ran out of condoms, remember?” I groaned, thumping my head against his chest. Maybe he could run to the store? Did he have time?
He laughed; I felt the sound as a vibration through my forehead as much as I heard it with my ears. “I’ve got a spare in my wallet.”
“I love you,” I said, kissing him again.
We stumbled together out to the lounge and Brad knocked his phone and keys aside in his haste to grab his wallet. I shifted from foot to foot as he dropped several receipts onto the coffee table, but after what seemed to my horny mind like an eternity he brandished the foil wrapper, holding it up like a trophy.
“Good job,” I breathed, reaching for him again. Together we fell onto the couch, cushions tumbling aside. I stripped Brad’s T-shirt off even as I straddled him, balling the fabric and tossing it to the floor. His hands reached for my shirt but I swatted them aside, leaning to run my tongue from the side of his throat down to one of his now-bared nipples.
He groaned and I felt him through the layers of fabric—his pants, my shirt. He was hard as rock where he pressed against my stomach. I nibbled and teased his nipple until it stood proud before turning my attention to the other one. He took advantage of my distraction to slide a hand up the back of my shirt, unclasping my bra, pressing the small of my back down so I lay flush along his body. I wriggled against him and he flexed his hips in return. “I want you so badly,” he said, his voice low and husky.
His nipple caught between my teeth, I peered up at his face, expecting to see his eyes closed. But he was studying me with a half-lidded gaze. “Do you now?” I murmured, shifting so I could reach my hands into the waistband of his pants, working both them and his boxers off. His shaft sprang free of the fabric and he lay, completely naked, on my couch. The thought of taking this to the bedroom crossed my mind, but that seemed impossibly far away, and the idea of having him right here drove me almost wild with a naughty thrill of anticipation. Not the bedroom. I shook off the loose bra and shirt, and Brad sat upright to help me with my pants. I would have moved back onto him but he held me away with his hands on my hips, running his gaze along the length of me. Maybe I should have felt self-conscious, but the desire burning in his eyes lifted me up, made me feel like a goddess.
“Lie back.” He steered me so it was my turn to recline, my butt hanging slightly over the edge of the couch cushion. He shoved the coffee table so it sat against the television unit, out of the way, and knelt between my thighs, licking his lips, a slow and deliberate gesture that banished the vague sense of awkwardness I felt at my position. “I want you to scream for me,” he whispered, before lowering himself down to taste me.
I gasped, eyes closing as I lost myself to the sensation of his strong, hot mouth pressing against me, one of his hands running along the inside of my thigh before joining his tongue in a probing dance.
I was already slick and hot with want, and the climax came swiftly—almost too swiftly—smashing into me. Distantly, I felt my toes curl into the carpet, my fingers into the cushion beside me. Through my eyelashes, I saw that Brad’s eyes were once again fixed on my face, drinking in my expression. When the paroxysm of pleasure began to fade, I expected him to pull away … but he stayed where he was, continuing to make gentle movements against my oversensitive core that left me writhing. “Brad,” I gasped.
He lifted his face slightly away, though his fingers stayed where they were, pulsing inside me. “Yes?” he asked innocently, his lips so close to me that even his breath made me quiver. “Is there something you’d like?”
“I…” His tongue darted out again, pressing against me firmly, making me squirm. “Oh god, yes.” Again he lapped against me, sending tendrils of intense pleasure shooting through me, starbursts exploding from a firework. “Brad!”
He took one final taste, heavy satisfaction in his expression, and knelt, retrieving the condom from where it had tumbled to the floor. I watched, still caught up in a blissful aftermath of pleasure that left me floating, as he donned it and shuffled between my thighs. I arched my back towards him, but he rubbed himself against the outside of me with a wicked glint in his eye. “Tell me you want me.”
“If you don’t take me, I’m giving you nightmares for a week,” I growled, reaching out to bury my hands in his hair, trying to draw him down onto me. Into me. “Right now!”
“That’ll do,” he said with a laugh, his hands lifting my hips, angling them just so. Then he drove inside me, burying himself in a quick thrust all the way to the hilt. I moaned, unashamed, as he filled me, waiting there for a brief moment before drawing back and slamming into me again. And again.
Sometimes our lovemaking was gentle, sweet. This wasn’t one of those times. This was raw, filled with hot, urgent need, and a fleeting part of me wondered, as I dug my fingers into his back and bit at his throat, whether a part of Brad was jealous of Leander after all? Whether this was him claiming me, out here in this world where Leander could never go? If it was, I didn’t care. Brad was mine as much as I was his.
As if to prove the point to myself, I pushed him back, steering him down until he lay on the carpet, and straddled him again, riding him, driving him into me until another orgasm shuddered through me and I did scream, a hoarse animal sound. Brad clenched me in a grip hard enough to bruise, thrusting upwards into my quivering body until I felt him vibrate and tremble with his own orgasm.
I collapsed against him, sweaty and tingling.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “That was intense.”
“Why?” I replied, kissing his throat. A hickey was already starting to blossom there. “Did I do something?”
He laughed breathlessly at the question, possibly remembering the first time he’d said the same thing to me in similar circumstances, and drew my head down to rest on his shoulder. His heart raced in his chest, and his hands brushed along my ribs as I fought to slow my own racing pulse. “I love you too,” Brad murmured in my ear.
I lifted my chin to study his face, remembering my blurted declaration of love when he’d told me about the condom. It wasn’t the first time I’d told him how I felt, or that he’d told me, but declarations of love between us were still new enough that the words sent a happy thrill through me. “You better,” I said. My grin was lazy as I rolled off him onto the carpet. My knee smacked into the coffee table. Ugh. Maybe we should have gone up to the bedroom after all.
“Or you’ll give me nightmares for a week?” he said with a laugh, pushing himself to his feet and turning away to remove the condom.
“Damn straight.” I admired his departing backside as I groped for my bra and shirt.
It wasn’t until I was pulling on my yoga pants that I saw it, through the blinds. A metallic blue sedan, parked under the tree across the street.
Nelson’s car.