by Elle Thorpe
He chuckled as he ran his nose up my neck. “Yeah, she did.” He kissed the spot just below my ear. “So pack a bag for tonight.”
His demands held all sorts of promises that made my skin pebble into goosebumps. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. No pj’s, though.”
I tilted my head to one side, giving him better access to my neck. His kisses turned openmouthed, sucking and nipping at my skin, shooting little arrows of pleasure through the rest of my body. “I might get cold without them.”
His mouth trailed lower again, his head dipping to kiss the swell of my breasts. “I’ll keep you warm.”
I snorted on a laugh. “Corny.”
He glanced up at me. “Corny?”
“Totally. Is that really the best you got?” I was taunting him, and I knew it.
His fingers came to my back, and he unsnapped my bra in a fraction of second. In the next, he had it off me, his mouth on my nipple.
I hissed at the warm, wet touch of him, running my fingers through his hair as he sucked me through his teeth.
“You want me to show you exactly how I’ll keep you warm then?” he murmured.
I shrugged like I couldn’t care less. But we both knew I really did.
His hands skated down my bare back and over my ass before he picked me up. I wrapped my legs tight around his waist and let him walk me back to the door. My back pressed into the wood, and Dom caged me in with his big body, his pelvis against my core, his chest to my chest. He cupped my face with one hand, using his body to keep me up, and found my mouth with his.
I moaned into his kiss, letting his tongue muffle the sound. Hopefully everyone was still outside anyway, and nobody had noticed we’d gone. Because I couldn’t get enough of him. He’d been holding out on me all week, stopping us every time we got close to having sex, and instead swapping positions so he could make me come with his mouth or his hand.
If I hadn’t already seen it in its hard, perfect splendor, I would have assumed he was hiding a tiny mushroom dick or that it had some sort of weird shape to it that he was ashamed of.
He ground on me now, reminding me there was nothing he needed to hide. His dick was fucking perfect, and all I wanted was for him to finally use it on me. I’d had more orgasms in the last week than I’d had in the last year. But Dom seemed hell-bent on slowing us down, every time I wanted to speed things up.
“I want you,” I whispered, and he groaned in response.
He kissed me hard, like he always did, trying to distract me, but I wasn’t having it. Not this time. I put my feet down on the floor so I could create a little space between us, and pulled the drawstring on his shorts, loosening them enough that I could slip my hand inside and stroke his erection.
He bit down on my shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough that it sent pleasure rocketing straight to my core. Precum beaded on the tip of him, and I stroked it down his shaft, aching for him to be inside me.
I jerked him until his hips moved, and he lost himself to the moment, yanking his shorts down the entire way and thrusting into my hand.
“Want you, too,” he finally murmured. “Fuck, Summer. I want you so bad.”
That was all it took for the two of us to go scrambling for my shorts, me popping the button and yanking at the zipper while he tried to shove the fabric down my legs.
“Hurry,” I moaned. “Dom, please.”
My core ached so bad, and I was desperate for the sort of relief only he could give me.
Both of us ignored the loud rumble of my mother’s four-wheel-drive returning, kissing hard, a clash of lips and tongues and wandering hands. He pinched my clit, and I cried out at the sensation, needing him to do that, and so much more, all over again.
The door slammed downstairs, and a new round of excited chatter started up, but neither of us stopped. I yanked his shirt up, desperate to see him and not wanting our first time to be anything but skin to skin. I sucked one of his nipples, rolling my tongue over it as his dick slid between my legs, gliding through my arousal and brushing over my clit. He nudged at my entrance with his thick, blunt head, and I clutched him harder, sinking my fingernails into the firm muscles of his shoulders.
“God, Dom. Please!” I could tell by the full body tremble that he wanted this as badly as I did. I was sure neither of us had the willpower to stop this time.
“Condom?” Dom asked.
I froze and stared up at him in horror. “You don’t have one?”
“Not on me. Don’t you have one in here somewhere?”
I panted out a breath, my core clenching over nothing, mourning the fact it wasn’t filled with his amazing-looking dick. “I saw the gigantic box in your bathroom and assumed we were good. I wasn’t expecting…” I gestured around the room. “My sister’s bedrooms are right across the hall. I wasn’t planning on doing this here.” I dropped my head to his chest, breathing hard. “Kill me now.”
He chuckled, though I knew from the throbbing of his dick still hard between my legs, that he was in as much pain as I was.
“I’d rather make you come than kill you,” he laughed. Then he gripped my face and tilted it up.
He took in my disappointment, and then he leaned in and kissed me more softly than he ever had. “Hey. I need you to know something.”
“What?” I grumped, hating myself for not being prepared. Served me right for leaving birth control up to him. It wasn’t his responsibility alone.
“We are going to have sex, Summer. Not right now, because I respect you too much to do that without protection.” His lips drifted from mine, to my ear. “But I am going to fuck you. I’m going to fuck you all over my cabin, all over this ranch, and probably a million other spots. There’s no rush when it comes to you and me. I’m not going anywhere. You hear that?”
I heard it. And my stupid overinflated heart gave a gigantic thump of approval.
“Okay?” he asked, peering into my eyes.
“Okay,” I whispered, not trusting myself to say anymore, for fear all the feelings swirling around me might come spewing out.
“Now can I make you come?”
I grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He dropped to his knees, and his mouth was mere inches from where I wanted him most, when footsteps echoed on the stairs.
Both of us froze when they stopped outside my door. I widened my eyes and held one finger to my lips. Which was stupid really because what did I think Dom was going to do? Yell out, “Hey, go away, I’m about to go down on Summer’s pussy like it’s an ice cream melting in the sunshine!” I stifled a laugh at the thought, and Dom gave me a confused look.
I just shook my head.
“Summer?” my mother asked through the closed door.
“Uh, yes?”
There was laughter in her voice. “Do you think you could come down? Dom’s surprise just arrived.”
“Yes, sure. I’ll be right down.”
Awkward, I mouthed to Dom, pulling him up off the floor. The orgasm would have to wait.
“Oh, and Dom?”
I clapped a hand over my mouth, trying to stop the mortified laughter from pouring out.
“Yes, Mrs. Hunt?”
I slapped his chest, but he just shrugged.
“I’m really glad you’re keeping my daughter happy, but these walls are really thin, and neither of you are as quiet as you think you are.”
Oh. My. God.
“Duly noted, ma’am.”
Mom’s footsteps mixed with her laughter as she walked away.
Dom and I both sniggered while we got dressed again, and we walked down the stairs together, holding hands. At the back door, he went to let go, but that feeling I’d had up in my bedroom, the one of my heart cracking open just that little bit more still stayed with me. I pulled his hand back and linked his fingers between mine.
He glanced down in surprise. “Everyone is out there,” he murmured. “We go out there like this, and there’s no taking it back.”
&n
bsp; “I know.”
“You sure?”
I reached up and kissed his cheek. “Never been more sure of anything.”
It was like I’d handed him a Christmas gift he’d been dying for all year. We stepped outside, and a little part of me expected some sort of fanfare. For everyone to stop and look at us, and notice that we were together.
It didn’t come. Everybody was too busy greeting the new arrival, who had to have come in with my mother. I peered at the middle-aged dark-haired woman talking to Felix for a moment longer than I should have, before I realized who it was. It wasn’t that her face wasn’t familiar. It was just that it was out of place here.
I squeezed Dom’s fingers. “Oh my God, Dom. Your mom!”
He peered in the direction I was pointing and did a double take, his grin widening. “Holy shit!” Dragging me along with him, he made a beeline for her, pushing through the crowd. We reached her just in time to hear her ask Felix how he knew Dominic.
We both stopped dead as Felix replied with a huge smile, “He’s my brother.”
24
DOMINIC
The shock that punched across Mom’s face was twofold. Once from the bomb Felix dropped. And then again, a split second later, when she spotted me.
I let go of Summer’s hand to pull my mother into a hug. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She hugged me, but when she pulled back, her gaze bounced from me to Felix and back again.
I cleared my throat. “Felix, this is my mom.”
He smiled at her but quickly turned to me. “Sorry, man. I had no idea.”
“You found your birth family?” Mom asked quietly.
Felix shoved his hands in his pockets. “Uh, sorry. Should I go?”
But my mother snapped herself out of it and shook her head. “Of course not. I’m sorry, I’m being so rude. I just wasn’t expecting… I didn’t know…”
Guilt swamped me like a dark, damp blanket. All the good feelings that had been coursing through my body disappeared into the steamy afternoon air. “Mom…”
She blinked a few times and plastered a smile on her face. Then she hugged me again. “It’s okay. You just caught me by surprise.”
Felix and Summer were both awkward as fuck, and I made eyes at Summer, who seemed to know exactly what I needed without me saying a word. She linked her arm through Felix’s and announced that she needed a drink and he was coming with her.
He seemed relieved to make his escape, though he shot me another apologetic look over his shoulder.
It wasn’t his fault. Hell, I’d introduced him to Frost as my brother, so of course he’d just assumed that it was okay to introduce himself that way. I wanted to call him my brother. I wanted to tell everyone about him, including my family. I just hadn’t gotten there yet.
It was me I was angry at. I could see the hurt in my mother’s expression, even though she tried to hide it. She had to have known this day would come eventually. She’d told me many a time that I was always free to search for my birth family.
But I’d always known deep in my heart that it would hurt her to do so. Here was the proof. I’d found them, and even though I’d tried to keep my two worlds separate, I should have always known they’d collide.
“Do you want to go somewhere and talk?” I asked her.
“I’d like that.”
I put my arm around her shoulders, steering her toward my cabin. I made idle conversation along the way, pointing out the bull training rings, and the barn, even though she’d been coming out to the Hunts’ ranch since before I was even born. She probably knew this place better than I did, and yet she smiled and nodded and asked a question or two as we walked, like she’d never been here before and was just visiting her son at work for the first time.
“Where’s Dad? He didn’t come?”
She shook her head. “He really wanted to. But he hasn’t been feeling well lately.
“Is he okay?”
She faltered for a second. “He’s just a bit tired. I left your brothers at home to make sure he rests. He keeps trying to get outside to work. I’ve practically had to chain him to the couch and force him to take a break.”
I sighed. “That’s my fault for just up and leaving you guys in the lurch.”
“It’s nothing to do with you, Dom. It’s just a case of bad luck. The ranch work will still be there when your father is feeling better. Nothing is so urgent that the man can’t take a few days off. Not that he listens when I tell him that.” She sounded annoyed, but it was with the same soft smile she always wore when she spoke about my father. The two of them had such a perfect marriage. They argued from time to time, but never about anything important. At the end of the day, they were each other’s biggest supporters. Their relationship was one to be envied.
When we got to my cabin, instinctively, we both sat on the wooden steps, side by side.
“Do you remember where we were, when we told you you were adopted?” she asked, shifting her weight on the hard wood.
I looked down at the steps beneath my boots. “Same position, but at home. I’d just come back from school. I must have been about seven.”
“Eight. It had seemed like the perfect age in my head. You weren’t a baby anymore, but you weren’t old enough that you could really get up and run away or leave in a teenage funk. Your dad and I had debated over it for years. He wanted to wait until you were older, but all I could think about was if we told you when you were big enough to drive, or operate machinery, that you’d run off, and we might never see you again.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have done that.”
She patted my knee. “No, I know. You were always such a sensible, smart kid. You took the news like a champion, and it would have been the same no matter how old you were, I’m sure of it. You were like that with everything. Always more mature than you should have been. Always more responsible.”
“Eldest child thing, I guess. Someone has to be the responsible one when you’ve got Theo and Spencer around.”
She smiled at that. “Isn’t that the truth? But I was always grateful for how mature you were. I think maybe I took it for granted. So when you acted like you didn’t need to know your birth family, I let myself believe it was true. That’s on me, Dom. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? I’m the one who went behind your back like a coward. Then ran across the other side of the country when it didn’t work out the way it had in my little boy dreams. Hardly mature at all.” I kicked the dirt with the toe of my boot.
“Ah. Well, that explains some things. Your father and I thought there must have been a woman involved.”
I bit my lip, hiding a smile. “Well, there is now. But there wasn’t then. I came here to lick my wounds.”
Mom’s eyes sparkled. “And you met someone?”
I chuckled. “Actually, I met her a long time ago.” I nodded across the way to where Summer was standing at the very edge of the party, watching us while she pretended to eat.
“Summer?”
I grinned at her. “Yeah, Summer.”
“Addie told me she got rid of that horrible boyfriend of hers, but I never in a million years thought that the two of you…” She squealed and hugged me again. “I’m so happy. When you and your brothers were younger, and we’d bring you here while you were all still in diapers, Addie and I would watch her girls with my boys, and we’d plan which of you would get married. I always sort of thought it would be Lennon and Theo.”
I shrugged. “Still time for that, I guess.”
“I’m really happy it’s you and Summer. Not that I’m saying you two are getting married…”
I didn’t say anything.
Her eyes widened. “Dominic Aaron West. Why do you look so smug when I mention you and Summer and married in the same sentence?”
I chuckled and shushed her. “Stop. I’m not marrying anyone just yet. But…”
“Holy hell, there’s a but. Wait till I tell Addie.”
I el
bowed her. “I was just going to say, but I wouldn’t rule it out. I like her, Mom. A lot.”
My mom’s expression softened into a smile. “There’s a lot about her to like.”
“I like it here, too,” I admitted. “I’m sorry for the way I left, but…” I hated that I was about to hurt her. “I don’t think I’m coming back.”
She bit her lip and nodded, gazing out across the field at Summer. “You love her.”
I raised one shoulder. “I don’t know. But I do know that I could love her. In time.”
“Does she love you back? She was with that other boy for a long time, Dom. I love Summer and her sisters like my own daughters. But you’re my son. I don’t want to see your heart broken.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what she feels exactly. But I can wait. I’ve waited five years. I can wait that long again if I have to.”
Mom smiled softly. “That girl hasn’t stopped staring over here since we sat down.”
“She’s worried about me.”
“Or she loves you, too, even if she hasn’t come right out and said it.”
The corner of my mouth lifted at that thought. But it was something I wanted to tuck away for myself and consider when I was alone. “Sorry to spring Felix on you.”
Mom waved her hand around, dismissing my concerns. “I know you think you can’t talk to me about your birth family. But I’ve always known you would look them up one day. It’s only natural that you want to know where you came from. Tell me about him.”
Man, I loved her. She was such an amazing woman. I was so bloody lucky to have been chosen by her. “He lives a couple of hours from here. Works on a ranch, too.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So you’ve got things in common then?”
“Lots.”
She smiled. “I’m happy for you. What about the rest of your family?”
I shook my head. “Don’t want to know me. Or him by the sounds of it.”
A mixture of emotions crossed her face, but the one that settled was anger. “They don’t know what they’re missing out on.”
I grinned. “You have to say that. You’re my mom.”