“Yeah, and I can’t stand it. I lived with her a few weeks, remember? I’ve cried more in my life than she has, but I heard her every night. So if you two want to keep skirting the issue, fine. But I can’t keep watching my big sister slowly die.” Holt glanced around behind us. “What does it take to get a drink around here?”
He shoved out of his chair and went straight to the bar.
“You’re all right,” I said, the two Dixon men blinking at me with the same surprise I felt. I should stay out of this, yet I couldn’t help myself.
“I agree.” Trish backed me up, and I gave her a grateful smile.
“This isn’t the time or place to dredge it up,” Mr. Dixon said with a sigh. He looked toward the restrooms and clenched his fist around the stem of his wine glass. “It kills me to see my little girl hurting.”
“Wonder where she learned to keep it all in?” There was no malice in Holt’s tone as he dropped back into his seat.
He slid a glass of red wine toward me and took a long pull from his beer.
“If she doesn’t come back soon, we’re all gonna have to go get her out of that bathroom,” Andrew said, looking like he was ready to do just that.
“Here she comes.” Trish pointed her head behind me.
Neither Marlow nor Patrick appeared particularly happy as they returned to the table. She plunked back down in her seat and gave us all a glare to keep our mouths shut. Everyone except Holt. She refused to look at him.
“This wasn’t the place to bring him up,” Holt said.
The look she fired at him was nothing short of lethal. “Then why are you doing it again?”
“Because I love you.”
She fisted her napkin in her lap, her pain palpable. “I love you too.” The words were spoken through gritted teeth, but the truth was in them.
“How’s the makeup line going?” Mr. Dixon leaned forward and looked at me.
I shifted in my seat, surprised and pleased by his interest in me. I’d always felt invisible with my own family. We’d been lucky if we sat down at the holidays. Both of my parents had high-ranking government jobs and that was all they cared about. I'd have given anything for this kind of attention.
“Pretty good. I’m still learning, trying to find my footing.”
“The women at Paths can’t get enough. And I can’t keep the lip gloss in stock on my truck.” Trish beamed at me.
“Have you formed a company yet?” Patrick popped a piece of a garlic knot into his mouth. “I know a good lawyer to set you up.” He winked at me.
“I thought that was a Dixon move.” I winked back.
He shrugged. “Guess it is.”
My breath caught at the implication. I wasn’t a Dixon. And neither was he.
“No, I haven’t even thought of it. It’s just a hobby,” I brushed off.
“Don’t do that.” Holt gripped my thigh.
“What?”
“Diminish your business. Maybe it’s small now, but you’re going places.” His expression was so open and honest, I had to look away. I craved his confidence in me, but it was too much.
“Want me to give out samples to the women at church?”
All eyes went to Marlow.
“You go to church?” Andrew asked incredulously.
“Sometimes.” She stole the remains of a garlic knot off Patrick’s bread plate.
We all stared at her like we’d never seen her before.
“I’d like to go with you.” Mr. Dixon gave his daughter a soft smile.
“Sure. I’ll let you know.”
“I’ll come too.”
Now everyone looked at Holt like he was a stranger.
“Might as well text the memo,” Andrew said.
“Leave me out of it.” Patrick held up both of his hands.
“You scared you might disintegrate if you set foot inside a church?” Marlow cut her eyes over to him before she polished off the rest of her bread.
“I can’t rule it out as a possibility.”
Holt snorted. “Anyone ever notice how we end up in the strangest conversations at Sunday dinner?”
A server delivered mozzarella sticks, bruschetta, and stuffed mushrooms to the table.
“Considering you’ve missed most of them in the last decade, I don’t think you’re an authority in that arena.” Marlow scooped a few mushrooms onto her plate as she delivered the dig. She lifted her gaze to Holt. “What did you and Celia talk about at your Sunday dinners?”
Holt tensed beside me. Who is Celia? And why does she elicit this reaction from Holt?
“Marlow.” Mr. Dixon’s searing tone cut across the table. All movement ceased.
“Oh, he can bring up—” She swallowed hard, unable to finish her sentence.
“Tit for tat is not how this family operates,” their father scolded.
“No, we just go straight in for the kill.” Marlow held up her wineglass to a passing waitress.
“Actually, avoidance is what we do best.” Andrew dunked a mozzarella stick into marinara sauce.
“Enough,” Mr. Dixon admonished.
An uncomfortable silence enveloped the table. Trish and I exchanged helpless looks, uncertain what to do or say.
Holt drained his beer and immediately began to peel the edge of the label. He concentrated on the bottle and left his plate of appetizers untouched.
I moved my hand to his thigh before I thought better of it. It pained me to see him so upset, but I didn’t know if he wanted my comfort.
* * *
The remainder of the meal didn’t get any better. Awkward silence stifled my appetite. No one was really eating. Mostly we pushed food around on our plates. But I'd take that any day over no family dinner at all.
Mr. Dixon settled the bill and stood. “I want this stuff cleared up by next Sunday at dinner.”
Marlow tossed her napkin on the table. “I don’t know if we’re coming.”
Hurt flashed in her father’s eyes. He bent to pick up Blake and cradled him to his chest. Mr. Dixon simply nodded once.
“Why do you do that?” Holt glared at Marlow. “This is the only thing Dad wants from us and you can’t give him a couple hours of your time.”
“I’m not the one who ran away to Wyoming. You’re really not in a position to lecture me.” She slung her bag onto her shoulder.
“Just because you’re miserable doesn’t mean you have to make the rest of us that way,” he said, his voice rising.
She shoved in her chair and rounded the table, prying her now crying son from Mr. Dixon’s arms. “If it weren’t for you, we’d have had a mother at all these Sunday dinners you missed.”
Whoa. That was unbelievably harsh.
Holt recoiled.
“Marlow.” Andrew had been mostly silent, letting his siblings argue, but I’d never heard such a severe tone.
“Why don’t you say what you really mean?” Holt asked as if his brother hadn’t interjected.
“What? That it’s your fault Mom left us. Or that you should have stayed on the other side of the country. Because I could go with either.”
“That’s enough,” Mr. Dixon hissed, stepping between the two of them.
Holt’s fists clenched at his sides as he glowered at his sister. Hurt and anger radiated from him, but he held his tongue.
I touched his arm, and he flinched. “Let’s go,” I said softly.
For a moment, he didn’t move. I gripped his bicep and gently tugged. Holt relented and stormed toward the door without a word to anyone else. I gave Trish a look over my shoulder, conveying we’d talk later. She nodded once, her hands knotted in front of her.
“You okay?” As soon as I said the words, I wanted to take them back.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Holt asked stiffly.
His strides were long and quick. I struggled to keep up, somehow holding on as he led me down the street.
“A lot of awful things were said back there.”
“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
>
Chapter Eleven
Holt
Baker wanted to push.
I felt it.
Yet somehow she kept from doing it. I was too pissed off to fully appreciate that.
I unlocked the door to the apartment, held it open for her, and shut it with a satisfying slam. The one beer I’d had at dinner didn’t even scratch the surface of my need. I went straight to the fridge and pulled out two bottles.
I untwisted the cap, offering it to Baker. Reluctantly, she accepted. I opened my own and downed half of it in one swallow.
She stared at me as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Whatever it is you want to say, now’s not the time,” I warned.
She bristled before she straightened. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here. If you don’t, I’m here too.”
I flashed a saccharine smile across the kitchen at her. “You know what I want? A long, hot shower. If you want to join me, I won’t lock the door.”
Her lips parted, a satisfying little gasp of air escaping. She didn’t bother to remind me that I still hadn’t repaired the door and it couldn’t lock. I polished off my beer and set the empty bottle on the counter. My eyes dared her to follow me before I shoved off the cool granite.
As I moved down the hall, I shed my shirt. Damn my sister. She’d be the first to admit she was a bitch, but this was a new low. I’d never once doubted our relationship. Now?
I didn’t know where we went from here. Sure, we fought like all siblings. We’d both said things we didn’t mean before. But I’d never seen today coming. She’d never attacked so viciously. Why now after all these years?
I pushed my jeans and boxers off my hips. Her words were on replay in my head, and even as I dipped my head under the lukewarm spray of the shower, I couldn’t turn them off.
“Goddammit.” I pounded my fist on the wall.
Anger had made me lose my mind. I never should have said those things to Baker. Hell, it was the truth. I wanted her wet, naked body in this shower with me. Needed to hear her scream my name until my sister’s voice was muted.
Instead, I was stuck in a perpetual hell where Marlow had confirmed my worst fears. What my father would never admit.
They all blamed me for my mother’s departure.
I hadn’t been able to stay in Wyoming, but I shouldn’t have come back here. Where I wasn’t wanted.
I wasn’t wanted there, either. Celia and I hadn’t had Sunday dinners. We’d done Saturday nights with our best friend Cameron. Grilling out. Beers on the tailgate by the creek. It had all been perfect. And Marlow knew what had happened, even if I’d never talked about how I felt. For her to use that against me . . . in front of Baker? For the first time ever, the stirrings of loathing for my sister swirled. It was an emotion I was all too familiar with.
I braced both hands on the wall in front of me and let the spray rain down on my back. My breaths were harsh as I pulled air in and pushed it out of my lungs.
A soft thud of the shower door made me stiffen. She stepped behind me. The water splashing on the tiled floor was the only sound.
I sensed her movement and closed my eyes.
“If you don’t want me to touch you, then get out now, Easy,” I ground out through clenched teeth.
Her fingers splayed on my back, and I hissed at the contact. Fire blazed up my spine. I was torn between reaching behind me and holding her hands in place and throwing them off of me. She shouldn’t do this to me now. Not in the state I was in.
Her lips drifted up my back, and I pressed my hands into the wall so hard I was certain I’d crack the stone. I fought the urge to turn, pin her against the wall, and fuck her senseless. Through the haze of anger, my desperation to see what her next move would be won out.
She peppered soft, tender kisses on my skin as her hands explored. They cascaded over my sides, around to my abdomen, up my chest. She was everywhere at once, too much and yet not enough.
Her body pressed into mine, and I groaned when her teeth grazed the back of my neck. She wrenched me closer. Hard beads of her nipples surrounded by soft flesh pushed into my back. The woman was trying to kill me, my restraint already dead.
Her hands skated down my stomach. I grabbed her wrists just before she reached my dick, holding her in place. She gasped, and I exhaled heavily.
“Are you sure about this? Because once I start, I won’t stop. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not—”
“Yes.” She emphasized the point by kissing my shoulder.
“I want to see you.” My voice sounded gruff to my own ears.
I released my hold on her, and she eased around, squeezing between me and the wall. Her eyes were clear as she looked up at me. I forgot everything else for a minute.
“I’m sorry and I’m not sorry about the other day. The shower. I didn’t have the right, but damn it woman.”
“Do I seem mad?” Her hands drifted up my chest and locked around the back of my neck.
“I don’t normally do that.” I couldn’t find the proper words to explain.
One corner of her mouth curved up. “I’m glad to hear that.”
My lips mirrored hers, an overwhelming feeling of something came over me. I dropped my forehead to hers. “I need you. So goddamn much.”
The confession tumbled out, and I had no desire to take it back. Just being close to her . . . it was more than I’d ever had.
I tried to hold on to the remaining thread of my control.
It snapped.
My mouth crash-landed on hers. She tasted like her lip gloss, honey and sugar and perfection. I caged her in with my body as she pulled me closer at the same time.
Her whimper had my already hard dick stiffening between us. I rocked against her as I captured her mouth. Or hell, the truth was, she captured me.
Everything inside of me swelled as she clung to me like she couldn’t get enough. Her tongue fought to get to mine. Her hands held me like she’d never let me go.
I couldn’t stand not touching her a second longer. My fingers stroked her hair with a reverence I didn’t know I was capable of. As my mouth ravaged hers, my hands memorized every inch of her that they touched. She shivered as they skimmed her sides, down her hips. This woman, enigma that she was, deserved to be worshipped. Like Trish, she’d probably overcome something far from trivial to end up at Paths. I wanted to be the man to help her . . . whatever she needed. I was more than happy to be the man to do it.
I feathered kisses along her jaw, nipped at the column of her neck. She leaned her head back against the wall, yielding to my touch.
“So pretty,” I murmured against her skin.
I bent, sucking a nipple between my teeth and flicking it with my tongue. Her breasts were heavy in my hands. I kneaded them as I licked and grazed. My name fell from her lips, and I loved it.
Her fingers tangled in my hair, urging me south even as she held me against her chest. She wanted everything, and I was going to give it to her.
I tilted my hips and nearly came undone as my hard length slid through her slick folds. “Feel what you do to me, Easy?”
She grabbed my wrist and pressed my hand against her sex. “Feel what you do to me?”
I’d planned to take my time, but as soon as my fingers touched her smooth skin, I couldn’t. I ran my index finger up her slit, and her knees buckled. I caught her by the hip, and she gripped my shoulders.
Her clit was swollen. The hiss of pleasure as I circled it nearly sent me over the edge. I slid my finger through her folds, teased the tight entrance to her sex, and pushed inside.
“Holt.”
Hips bucked. Fingernails dug into my back. That beautiful face relaxed in ecstasy.
Because of me.
I crooked my finger, pressing against the rough flesh of her inner walls. An intense cry pierced the air. Her lips parted, and I couldn’t resist a taste. I kissed the edge of her mouth as I slid my finger out of her and slowly pushed it back in.
Her body melted
into me as I pumped, adding a second digit to her tight pussy. Those bright green gems glazed over as I drew her closer to the edge.
I dropped to my knees without missing a beat. Her clit throbbed as I sucked it between my lips. She tensed before all her energy released on a low moan.
Baker trembled. I withdrew my fingers and extended them toward her face. “Suck.”
Her eyes widened, but she clasped my wrist in her delicate hands and lowered her head. She darted her tongue out and flicked it over the tip of my finger.
I buried my face against her wet heat, though I kept my eyes locked on hers. She popped my finger in her mouth. I slipped my tongue inside of her. My first taste of her had my dick so hard I thought I’d come all over myself.
Easy sucked on my finger and my dick wept in protest. The urge to bury myself deep inside of her became almost impossible to ignore, but I forced myself to focus on her. She’d come by my mouth before we left this shower.
She chanted my name. I’d never heard a sweeter sound. Never tasted anything better. I’d been addicted before I ever touched her. Now, she owned me.
“How?” The question was a breathy rasp. Her eyelids were leaded as she watched me in fascination.
I didn’t stop to answer, fueled by the twinge of pain in my scalp where she fisted my hair. I licked her from ass to clit before delving back into her.
“Falling,” she whispered as she came on my tongue.
I lapped until my face was coated in her, and it still wasn’t enough. My fingers dug into the flesh of her ass, holding her to me. She lifted her hips, begging me for more with her body.
I kissed her sex until her orgasm receded. She sagged, her weight on me for support. My lips trailed up her stomach, her sternum, her neck, until I reached her mouth. I claimed it, and she yielded.
I cupped her face and tenderly touched my lips to hers. “So perfect.”
Her mouth curved into a satisfied smile. “Is that what you planned when you stormed into my shower?”
“I may have thought about it once or twice.” I winked, and she snickered.
Making her come had nearly made me forget about my cock, but when she laughed, I quickly remembered.
Trust Me: A Roommates To Lovers Romance Novel (Free Book 2) Page 7