wandered into Emma’s and James’s kitchen to find two new giants sitting at the kitchen bar drinking coffee and eating bagels with cream cheese. Their enormous frames took up the space that would normally accommodate four average-size people, with big muscles bulging out of tight black T-shirts and matching shaved heads that bobbed and twitched as they chewed.
These must be the other brothers that Brock had mentioned. Was I not getting Heath today? Quetzalia would be disappointed.
“Good morning,” Emma chimed as she bounced down the stairs with a baby on her hip. James was hot on her trail, blowing raspberries on the belly of the other one. “Freya, have you met Rex and Chase? Brock and Heath’s brothers.”
Both bald heads popped up from their bagels and spun around to study me. From the back they could have been twins, but from the front they couldn’t have been more different. Though both men were equally attractive and intimidating, owning their baldness and appearing comfortable in their own skin.
The green-eyed Vin Diesel-looking one was the first to get up from his seat and shake my hand, his matching dimples looking as though someone had taken a nail-gun to his face. “Hi, I’m Rex.” He smiled, reminding me a lot of Heath at that moment, their big grins softening their otherwise alarming first impression. “I’ll be accompanying you to work today.”
“Like hell you will,” Heath growled, coming in from the garage. “I’m going to work with Freya today. She’s got a student who doesn’t speak any English, and I’m helping her translate stuff into Spanish.”
“What he’s saying is, he’s got a giant crush on Freya’s student and wants to go and put the moves on her again,” the older and more austere bald brother, who I was left to understand was Chase, pointed out. He took another bite of his bagel before coming over to shake my hand. More big hands the size of Christmas hams.
“No,” Heath protested, shooting Chase an irritated look as he wandered into the kitchen and opened the cupboard to grab a mug and pour himself some coffee, acting as if he belonged and did this every day. “I’m the only one of us who speaks decent Spanish, and Freya’s student needs help.”
Chase chuckled low in his throat, but it was so deep and raspy it sounded more like a Harley-Davidson coming to life. “Whatever you say, little brother.” Chase reminded me more of Brock, hard to ruffle and not overly generous with his smiles. He had a scruff along on his chin and a thin white scar that ran the length of his jaw all the way to his ear on the left side. His eyes were a deep midnight blue, like Heath’s, and his eyebrows were blond. Unlike Rex and Brock, who had dark brown brows that bobbed along their foreheads.
“I’m not tired. I’m going with Freya,” Heath stated again, reaching for the quarter of bagel that Rex hadn’t gotten to on his plate and popping it into his mouth with a cocky smirk.
Just then the front door slammed, and we all turned around to see Brock enter the house and come around the corner. The telltale leather jacket was still on, despite how hot the thermometer outside said it was already this morning. “Heath, why are you here? You’re off the clock,” he barked, nodding at his other brothers and James, who was busying himself with steeping Earl Grey tea for his wife and balancing a baby in his arms.
“So? I’m not tired. I’m going with Freya.” Heath lifted his chin at his big brother in challenge. “You’re off the clock too. Why are you here?”
Brock snorted, ignoring his youngest brother and accepting the coffee Emma handed him while taking the baby from her arms so she could start preparing breakfast for her little family. I’d already eaten and left Jake in the garage apartment, as he was busy checking emails and looking over something James had emailed him about a new project. But even without him, the big open-space kitchen felt incredibly small with so many people. The four bodyguard brothers were big not only in size but also presence, commanding and dominating with an aura of confidence and testosterone encircling each of them like a giant ball of energy, with each man having a slightly different color. Right now, Brock’s was definitely red.
James passed Heath the other baby so he could peel his wife a couple of hardboiled eggs and cut up her grapefruit.
Emma busied herself with James’s peanut butter toast.
They were so in sync.
I quietly noticed I wasn’t the only person in the room watching them in companionable action, in awe of how seamlessly they worked together and around one another. Then, as if in some cutesy movie, they both stood in the middle of the kitchen with plates in their hands and passed them to each other. James took his toast from his wife, and Emma took her breakfast from James. It was weird and wonderful, and I wanted it for myself more than anything.
“Hey!” Jake said, coming in through the door off the kitchen that led to the laundry room and garage. His eyes went wide as he took in all the bodies in the room. “Whoa, full house.”
He did a round of meet and greet with the other two brothers with firm and slightly challenging handshakes before falling in beside me and draping a casual but claim-staking arm around my shoulder.
“Ready to go?” Heath asked, glancing at me before turning his attention back to the baby in his arms and making googly faces.
“Yep!” I nodded. “Just need to run and grab my purse.” I took off back up to the apartment, my mind wandering to lunch and thinking that a fish taco might hit the spot. Jake was right, I wasn’t eating properly. I was skipping meals and it was wreaking havoc on my body. I couldn’t let the stress get to me. I needed to start taking better care of myself. I couldn’t leave that job solely to him.
Seconds later, purse in hand, I was on my way out the door when Jake caught me by the elbows and turned me around, pinning me against the wall. His mouth silenced my gasp as his tongue forced its way into my mouth. He tasted like mint and cinnamon, and I felt my knees turn to jelly as I melted into his hard frame. A whimper of need escaped me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my pelvis audaciously into his growing bulge.
“I … I have to go to work,” I panted, continuing to push into him as his lips traveled down my neck and over my collarbone. His hands deftly began to undo the buttons on my cream sleeveless blouse. “We can’t.”
“We can,” he breathed against my ear. “And you want to. I can tell. You’re wearing a skirt. Tell me you didn’t think it might be a possibility.” My eyes shut as his hand snaked its way down my body and into the front of my panties. “You’re already wet. Oh, Freya, I think you want this more than I do.”
I swallowed, nodding as I let my purse fall to the floor and dropped my hands to the front of his khaki shorts and made swift work of the zipper. “I think so too.” Without much more thought, I leapt up and wrapped my legs around his waist. Jake pulled my underwear to the side and pushed in, sinking deep and forcing a moan to spill from my parted lips.
“So wet … so tight.” He growled, hammering me against the wall, his hands kneading my butt cheeks. His mouth continued to roam across my neck and jaw.
“Oh God,” I mewled, my head banging loudly against the wall. “Yes! Harder … h-harder.” He snarled as he bent his knees and adjusted the angle, hitting that sweet spot inside me.
I shattered into a million pieces.
Bright spirals of color twinkled and flashed behind my eyes as the pleasure tore through me. Every muscle in my body clenched and then relaxed, squeezing Jake, never wanting to let him go. I felt him still and let out a deep and guttural growl as he pinned me against the wall and, like a vampire or some feral beast, claimed me as his own, sinking his teeth into my shoulder just as he found his release.
“Uh, sorry,” he said, a few moments later with no true remorse in his tone as he ran a finger delicately over the big red bite mark on my shoulder. “At least I didn’t break the skin.”
I gave him a sardonic look and adjusted my blouse before doing up the buttons. “You’re lucky my shirt covers it, you vampire, otherwise … ”
“Otherwise what?” He bobbed his eyebrows up and down and encircled my waist with his hands, pushing me back up against the wall. “You might ask me to do it again?”
I playfully pushed him away. “Yeah … something like that. Now I really have to go.”
A few minutes later, I joined Heath and the others back downstairs, hoping that my clothes weren’t too disheveled and my skin not too flushed that they’d be able to garner what I’d been up to. All the guys remained oblivious, thankfully, but it was Emma who shot me a knowing look and a sassy wink as Heath and I headed out the door. I simply shook my head, but the grin on my face gave it away, and she burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” James asked, trying to spoon-feed one of the twins in her high chair.
“I’ll tell you later,” I heard her say just as I closed the door.