Bliss Brothers (Complete Series), page 32
“Because?”
“Because I want you.” I ball up my hands into fists at my side. “You feel solid. You feel dependable. And I know it’s all a lie.”
Driver’s at my side in an instant. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close. “How’s this for solid?”
The laugh that escapes me is also a strangled half-sob. “You have really solid abs. God. They’re so fucking solid.”
He puts two fingers under my chin, pulling gently upward so I have to look at him. “You’re pretty solid yourself. Almost too solid.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, you drive me crazy.” He sighs, his eyes warm, then hot. “And I still can’t resist you. Come on. Delight yourself with my abs a while, and then we can keep fighting.”
11
Driver
INSIDE THE BEDROOM, with the door closed tight and the lock flipped, Holiday strips off her clothes and dives onto the bed like it’s her only safe haven. Her cheeks are still red, gray eyes wide, but she’s not looking at me like she’s waiting for me to fight with her.
She’s looking at me like she’s ready.
Her lips are slightly parted and she watches with rapt attention as I tug my t-shirt over my head and drop it to the floor. T-shirt, then the shorts. I hook my thumbs into my boxers. “How much do you want this?”
She pouts up at me. “This isn’t a good time to tease me about my needs, Driver.”
“A minute ago, you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
“Yeah. And then you reminded me that your body is my favorite thing in the world.” Her voice is low and sultry and with any other woman, at any other point in my life, I’d have called it a day. Only with Holiday, it makes sense. “Your personal feelings toward me don’t affect how I feel about your abs.” She says it so seriously that I can’t help but laugh.
“I know what you mean. Lay down.”
“No. I want to see the boxers come off.”
I shove them down off my hips and step out of them.
Holiday nods. “Just as I suspected.”
“You are the worst.” I clamber onto the bed and press my lips to the side of her neck, drinking in the sigh she exhales. “Just the worst.”
“I know,” she whispers. “Give me the abs, Driver.”
“No.”
Her eyes fly open, and she stares at me from inches away. “What?”
“You need more than abs.” I tilt her back onto the bed until her head is on her pillow, and then, because I am a gentleman, I work my way down in increments of lingering kisses. Holiday rests her hands on my head, putting no pressure there, just running her fingers through my hair and following along as I map out a path between her breasts and down over the hard ridges of her ribs, covered in her soft skin. When I reach her hips, she bucks up toward me. “Oh, I don’t think so,” I warn. “People who keep secrets don’t get to be in charge.”
“I am in charge, though,” she murmurs. “In here, I’m in charge.”
“You’re going to have to give up that fantasy for the moment.”
“Why—oh.”
I’ve moved down between her legs and spread her thighs open wide to reveal the perfection that is her pussy. The pouting lips are creamy, tinged with pink, and she’s ready for me. I test that theory with one long lick between her legs.
Sweetness.
It’s so sweet, even though so much about this day has been jarring and more than a little bitter.
“This is so bad,” she whispers, her hips shuddering against the bed. “It’s bad.”
“You’re delicious.” I only surface long enough to tell her that, then I’m back down between her legs, opening her further with every stroke of my tongue.
“I shouldn’t fall for this. It’s—it’s dangerous.”
“Yes. I’m a very dangerous man.” That coaxes a shiver out of her.
“You like dangerous things.”
“I like you.” I more than like her. I tease her clit with my tongue. Once. Twice.
“Driver.”
Three times.
“Driver.”
Four.
“Driver, please.” I hold her hips down tight to the bed so she can’t go anywhere, and being pressed into the sheets like this makes her even wetter.
“Please?”
“Please, I need more of you.”
My cock pulses between my legs. I’ve been neglecting it in favor of Holiday’s body, and it’s been worth every minute, but I’m not going to make her beg for longer.
I climb up between her legs, our faces close, and she traces my lips with one finger. After a long moment she raises her head two inches, closes the gap, and kisses me—long and deep and hard. Holiday moans into my mouth.
“You like that, you dirty thing?” I can’t wait any longer, and neither can she. She bucks her hips up toward mine and if she feels anything like I do, her entire body is aching for contact. “You like tasting yourself on my mouth?”
“Yes.” The word is half agony, half hope, and I tilt my hips to line myself up with her opening.
“You like the way this feels?”
I press in half an inch into her slick heat.
“I love it,” she whispers. “I love...I love how you feel when you’re...when you’re fucking me. It keeps me from floating away.
“Then hold on tight.”
Holiday throws her arms around my neck and I slam into her, forcing a gasp from her lips. It’s like bottled lightning has been released straight into my bloodstream and if I was hungry for her before, now I’m ravenous. I sink my mouth into the side of her neck with a growl. She tightens around me, and then—only then—does it occur to me that we could really be living on the edge.
I force myself to stop, to hold still, and look her straight in the eye. “Are you sure about this?”
Holiday writhes beneath me, her hips dancing. “Yes. Driver, yes.”
“But what about...”
“The baby?”
She heaves in a breath, her breasts pressing against my chest.
“Tell me the truth.”
Holiday locks eyes with me. “I haven’t had an appointment yet to ask, but from what I’ve read online it’s completely safe to have sex during pregnancy.”
“What you’ve read online?”
“From legitimate sources. The Mayo Clinic,” she grits out. “I trust the Mayo Clinic. I really, really do.”
“The Mayo Clinic...”
“Please. I am begging you.” She takes my face in her hands. “Please do not make me talk about how much I trust the Mayo Clinic any more during sex.”
“But are you sure?” I insist one more time because I can feel it starting to break—that hard bubble of anger that’s been sitting behind my collarbone since I overheard Holiday with her friend this morning. “Are you absolutely sure? Should we go into town and have an appointment first?”
“Nobody takes appointments this early.” The sweet thing is still trying to fuck me, even though I’m holding still. From the concentration on her face she might actually be succeeding. “Nobody—wants to see me—until eight weeks at the earliest. Not—there—yet...”
“And nothing’s...you know, there are no warning signs...”
“Driver!”
“Okay, okay. I got it.” I lean down and take her jaw in one hand, putting enough pressure that she has to open her mouth and let me in. I’m rewarded for this with another shuddering moan.
Her hips work against mine so insistently that I turn us over, pulling Holiday into place, my cock still buried deep inside her. She throws her head back and digs her fingernails into my chest, the tiny spikes of pain twisting together with pleasure as she rocks herself back and forth, deeper and deeper and deeper.
How can I stay?
How can I walk away from this?
My entire soul is fractured, even as it warms to her again, and before I can think about it another second Holiday comes, pressing down hard on my hips, digging in.
“Do that again,” I tell her as she tries to catch her breath.
She opens her eyes. “Oh, I can’t. There’s no—there’s no possible way.”
“I beg to differ.”
“What—”
I catch her wrists in one hand and hold them between us. She could get away if she wanted to, but after a couple of experimental tugs against my grip, she looks me in the eye.
“Come for me again.”
I press my other thumb to her clit and she rolls her hips back.
One slow circle. Two. Three, four, five...
“I can’t,” she pants. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it...” It becomes a mantra, a chant, but her body betrays her. Her body responds to my touch, wants more of my touch, can’t get enough of my touch and I savor every moment that I’m inside her, feeling her grind and twist and tighten.
“You look so gorgeous like this.” Holiday opens her eyes.
“Like this?”
“Like always. Now come. I need it. Give me what I want.”
Four more slow, deliberate circles and she gives in.
As soon as I feel her go over the edge I release her wrists and draw her in close. I need her this close, feeling every breath she takes as I hurtle over into my own release. It obliterates every thought from my mind. Every tension—gone.
She’s sleeping next to me in the bed, tangled in the sheets, by the time they come creeping back in.
I trace the curve of her spine with a fingertip, then press the flat of my palm to the small of her back.
I want her.
But it still stings, how long she hid the baby from me. I was sleeping in her house.
What else is she going to hide?
12
Holiday
“HE’S HOT.”
“Sophie.”
“He is.”
We’re in our usual spots on the back deck, two days later, and I’ve been busy staring at the lake.
“I know. I’ve seen him.”
“You have romped with him.” Sophie lifts her drink off the side table and takes a sip through the straw. “Did you guys talk?”
“We’ve been talking.”
She waits, a long and meaningful pause. “I’m being very respectful of your boundaries.”
“You’re being a serial harasser.”
“I’ll back off.” Sophie takes another delicate sip of her drink. “But in exchange, we have to do something. I’m withering away out here on this deck.”
“The deck is nice.”
“Holiday, the deck is boring. The deck is clearly one of your private retreats, where you feel good, but you have a guest and I am crawling out of my skin just rattling around this cottage.”
“The cottage is huge and if you don’t want to rattle, you can always—”
“Walk down the beach to your baby daddy’s resort?”
“Oh, god.” My face must look hideous, because I’m going to be sick if she says baby daddy ever again. “Let’s…not put it that way.”
She clears her throat. “Excuse me. The resort belonging in part to the father of your baby.”
“We’re not guests over there, Soph. It would be weird.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her glaring. “Isn’t that exactly how you met him?”
“Yes, but—” I don’t even know where I’m going with it, so I let the sentence hang.
“Exactly. You’re nervous about running into the man you have a big, fat crush on.”
“Fine.” I stand up from the chair so quickly that it rocks on its legs, coming to rest with a dull thud against the wood of the deck. “Let’s go. Let’s go. Stand on up, Sophie, and let’s get out of this godforsaken place.”
“Yes.” She pumps her fist in the air and abandons her drink on the table. “We’re doing this.”
We stroll down the sand toward the Bliss Resort in a peaceful silence that lasts for about thirty seconds.
“What are you going to do, Hol?”
“About what?”
“About everything. About the baby. About New York?”
“If everything goes right, I’ll have a baby.” That’s the one thing I’ve been certain about since I made the frantic drive into Lakewood. It’s the right decision, and I know it down in my bones. What I don’t know is how I’m going to swing it. With a baby, I won’t be able to hide at home, coming out only to go to work. “As for the rest…”
“Why not get married?” Sophie is completely casual about this question, but I gape at her nonetheless.
“Married? We’re not—no. We’re not compatible at all.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Didn’t sound like that when you two were in the bedroom the other day.”
“Ew! Why were you listening?”
Sophie shakes her head. “I didn’t know what I was walking into when I came back from the grocery store. Otherwise, I’d have stayed far, far away.” She giggles. “I’ve heard worse. At least you two were having fun. Plenty of fun. In fact—”
“Stop. Stop. That is so…that is so gross.”
“It’s a human function,” Sophie says with a sniff. “As natural as breathing. Or pregnancy.”
“You’re going to make me throw up.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll stop. But seriously. I get the feeling you’re more compatible than you think.”
I dig my feet further into the sand with every step. “He likes to travel, Sophie. He likes to be away from home for weeks at a time. That’s not—that’s not something I want. For the baby,” I insist.
“Sure. For the baby.”
There’s another silence.
“What do you want for you, though?”
“I don’t think I’m the most important person in this equation anymore.”
We’ve crossed the other properties and moved onto the Bliss Resort, walking close to the shore. Bit by bit, the resort buildings come into view, and bit by bit, my heart beats faster.
“He doesn’t want to be around all this,” I tell Sophie in a rush, like we’re running out of time to talk. “How is he going to feel about a helpless baby?”
She opens her mouth to answer, but whatever she’s about to say is interrupted by a loud whoop echoing down over the beach. “What was that?”
“Somebody at the pool, probably.” It didn’t come from the direction of the people down at the lakeshore. Most of them are spread out on beach towels, baking in the sun.
“Ooh. Is it a nice pool?”
“It’s pretty nice.” Nice enough that I could fall asleep near by. “I bet you want to go up and see it.”
“Hell yes I do,” says Sophie, cutting across the sand in front of me to make a beeline for the resort building. I hurry after her, rushing up the low staircase and down the path. She only slows down when the pool gate comes into view. And beyond it—
“Oh my god,” she whispers. “I knew there were brothers, but…”
It’s a sight to behold.
Two of the Bliss Brothers—Beau, who I’ve seen on the beach hosting his parties, and Roman, stand on one side of the pool, whistles around their necks.
The pool is teeming with kids.
Kids, kids, and more kids. Kids everywhere.
“Round two!” shouts Roman, and the kids standing on the side of the pool line up, bodies vibrating with anticipation.
“What is this?” whispers Sophie.
“I have no idea.”
She opens the gate and goes in, holding it open until I’ve come through. We sit on the low wall surrounding the pool.
This is a scene. Sun shines brightly down on what must be twenty or thirty kids, their parents gathered in tight bunches under the umbrella tables.
Roman blows his whistle and a line of kids—eight of them, though once they’re in the pool it looks like a hundred—jump into the pool, each doing their own version of a cannonball. They dive underneath the water, coming up with pool toys that have…cloth tails on them in brilliant multicolored hues. They scramble back up onto the side of the pool and twist at them until they open, revealing coins.
Beau comes around the side of the pool once everybody’s out, tossing another batch of toys into the pool. He whips each one by the tail, letting it fly high and arc down onto the sparkling water.
And onto his brothers. Because there’s another man in the pool who looks exactly like Charlie…and Driver.
“Heads up!” Beau shouts, grinning. “Don’t get hit by one of my missiles.”
“Keep your missiles,” yells Driver. “You son of a—”
“Party!” yells Beau, and then he looks around to see if any of the parents heard. Instead, his eyes land on me. “Hey. You look like…” He cocks his head to the side. “You look like a certain description I’ve heard from one of my brothers of a woman who—”
Blood rushes to my cheeks, searing my skin. Do they all know? Is he going to say it out loud, right here in front of everyone?”
Beau snaps his fingers. “You’re Driver’s girl. He has been obsessed with you lately. Our brother’s on the verge of firing him for insubordination.” Beau laughs, then turns back toward the pool. “Hey, Driver. Your girl’s here.”
“My girl? What is this, the nineteen fifties?” Driver snarks, and then he looks past Beau to where I’m standing with Sophie.
His expression softens, his eyes light up, and my heart skips a beat.
“Holiday,” Driver calls, shaking water out of his hair.
“Round three!” Roman yells, and another group of kids lines up at the side of the pool. Roman waits, letting the anticipation gather, and then blows the whistle. The shrill echo hasn’t melted out of the air by the time the kids are in the water.
It’s a smaller group this time, with smaller kids, and one of them struggles with his goggles, jumping on tiptoe in the water while he tries to adjust them.
“Hey, bud,” Driver shouts. “I’ve got you.” On the other side of the pool, Charlie is keeping a close eye on a group of three who’ve gone under and are kicking for the surface, breaking out into the sun with the toys in their hands.
A glance in that direction is enough to me.
I can’t take my eyes off Driver, who has scooped the kid up onto the pool steps. He tugs the goggles off the kid’s head and deftly replaces them. “You ready to go?” he says, his voice rising above the noise.
