by M. S. Parker
14
Kaleb
I expected a lot of reactions from her, everything from apathy to outrage.
What I didn’t expect was for Piety to come over and take my hand, then lead me to the couch and tell me to sit. She sat down next to me and curled up against me. “I think it’s time you tell me what’s going on.”
“I just did.”
“No. You told me you had a sister who owes money to a dealer…that’s like saying Captain America is a movie about a soldier.”
It tugged a smile out of me. “You mean there’s more?” I tilted my head and smiled at her tiredly.
“Kaleb.”
Sighing, I dropped my head forward, pressing our brows together. “Okay.” Closing my eyes, I tried to figure out where to start. How did I wrap up the last decade of my life in a way that wouldn’t take hours or months to explain?
“Our parents died ten years ago. It was…rough.” Shaking my head, I stared off into nothing. Rough didn’t even describe it. “Before that, we were normal. So fucking normal, you’d almost get sick. Dad and Mom would dance around the house at night, and they’d laugh and tease each other…I used to act like I hated it but…” I shrugged, smiling a little. I didn’t let myself remember the good times enough. “It was good. They were good. We were good. They were killed in a car crash, and nothing’s been good since.”
I looked over at Piety. “We were sent to live with my dad’s uncle – he’s the only family we had left. He tried, but he never had kids, hadn’t wanted any, and he didn’t know what to do with us. Especially Camry. She cried a lot. Caused trouble. Started skipping school and by high school, she got into drugs and was already drinking…fuck.”
This was why I didn’t like to think about it. I felt like a failure. I hadn’t been able to help her. At all.
“Sometimes she hated even being around me, hated me, I think.”
“No.” Piety touched my cheek. “Why would she hate you?”
I looked at her. “Because I had them longer. She was only eleven when they died. I know it doesn’t make sense, but she was a kid. Nothing makes sense when you’re a kid who’s lost her parents.”
“But you’re her brother.”
“Fat lot of good I’ve done her.” I covered her hand and pressed a kiss to it. “Camry…well, hell. If Mom and Dad had still been alive, there’s no telling what she might have gone on to do. She was always smart. Even as much trouble as she got into, school was still easy for her. She even managed to get an international scholarship to go to college – over here. It was in Las Vegas. The University of Nevada.”
“It’s a pretty decent school.” Piety smiled, brushed at my hair. “You must have been proud.”
“I was.” It hadn’t lasted long. “I got worried fast. She had trouble after the first few months. Wasn’t fitting in well. I guess life away from home wasn’t everything she thought it would be. She ended up losing her scholarship, left school. Now…hell. I don’t know what kind of trouble she’s in, but I know she owes a shitload of money to a piece of shit drug dealer, and when I try to call, I can hardly ever get hold of her. The one time she does call…” I laughed, bitterness tearing at me.
Getting up, I paced over to the wide window that faced out over the panorama and stared outside.
“I talked to Samuel about helping us getting new visas to stay in the States,” I said quietly. “When I signed with Flames Down Under, I got a one year visa, but since I’m no longer in the show, I need to find another way to stay. I must…for Camry’s sake. She’s an addict. She needs help, more help than I can give her. I want to get her into some sort of program. I’ll find a job.”
She opened her mouth to ask a question, but I held up a hand.
“Not stripping either,” I assured her. “I was…am a good surfer, worked at a shop in Sydney, wanted to have my own place. I had this crazy idea I could get her debts settled, then we could find some place. In California, maybe, I don’t know. I could work at a surf store, maybe give lessons.” He shot me a quick smile. “Nobody surfs like an Aussie. Except maybe down in Hawaii. But it was an idea. I don’t know though. Nothing is going the way I planned.”
I heard her getting up and turned to look at her, uncertain what she was going to do. Turning around, I caught her arms just as she would have slid them around me.
“What are you doing?” I asked softly.
“Hugging you.” She gave me an easy smile. “You look like you need it.”
“I…” The words died in my throat as she slid her arms around me and tucked her head against my chest, snuggling in close.
“It will work out, Kaleb.”
I cupped the back of her head in my hand and breathed in the scent of her. I really, really wanted to believe that.
She smoothed her hands up and down my spine, and the worries continued to eat inside me. When she took my face in her hands and kissed me, offering the sweetest of distractions, I wasn’t about to refuse.
She tasted so good, felt so soft.
I caught the hem of the skirt she wore and pulled back, looking into her eyes as I dragged it up. She didn’t look away, not even when I slid my hand inside her panties and found her already wet, already ready for me.
“I want you now,” I said, the need slamming into me like it had been lying in wait.
“Then have me now,” she said, leaning in and kissing me. She bit my lower lip, and I groaned as it sent waves of heat blasting through every neuron in my body.
“Right now? Right here?” I asked, staring into her eyes.
“Right now. Right here. No roommate to bother us.” Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. “She’s gone…out doing things. Going to be gone…all day…oh…”
She clamped around the fingers I’d just slid through her damp folds, then up into her wet channel.
“That’s…convenient.” I twisted my wrist.
She rocked against me, her lashes fluttering. She slid a hand down and gripped my wrist, her mouth parting on a moan. She started to ride my hand, and I almost laughed, even as my dick began to pulse in heavy denial. I wanted to have her riding me like that.
But there was time.
Later.
She moved against me, demanding and hungry. I braced my free hand on the wall over her head, staring down, watching the two of us. When I circled my thumb around her clitoris, she shivered, a delicate reaction that started at her shoulders and went all the way down.
Her nipples went tight, and I wanted to catch each one and bite them.
But that would require moving, and I didn’t want to do that until–
“Kaleb!” She clenched around me and climaxed, hard and quick, her hips bucking against my hand.
I waited until she was done before I moved.
Then, as she sagged against the wall, looking insanely pleased with herself, I tore open my trousers, grabbed her hips and boosted her up. “Again.”
I thrust inside her, felt the mini tremors still going through her as she came, and I had to grit my teeth against the sensation because it just felt too damn good.
“You’re…fuck me, Piety, I think we’ll kill each other.”
She laughed weakly and clung to my shoulders. “But what a way to go.”
“Yeah.” Lashing everything down until I almost had myself under control, I eased away and looked into her eyes as I withdrew, then surged slowly back inside. “I love watching you. Love touching you.”
“I love having you touch me…” The words broke on a sigh, and she arched, clamping tight around me with a moan.
“Don’t…” I hissed out. “Don’t do that.”
“I can’t help it.” She shoved away from the wall, closing the distance I’d put between us and wrapped her arms around my neck. Then she started to move – she was riding me, again. All sleek muscle and hungry female, she used the strength of her thighs and hips to move herself up and down.
“Fuck.” I grabbed her ass, dragged her up, let her sink back down, d
riven by her weight. Then I did it again, grinding her against me.
She whimpered, and I heard another moan rip out of her.
Again.
Again.
“Please!” The word was weak, almost a scream, would have been if she’d had air.
Lurching forward a half step, I put her back against the wall and thrust. Deep, hard, over and over.
We came together and it was almost painful.
“I think we…really might kill each other,” Piety said, a few moments later, her breathing still ragged.
“Yeah. But as you said, what a way to go.”
15
Piety
“Are you nervous?”
Sliding on my earrings, I glanced into the mirror and met Astra’s gaze. I shrugged and said honestly, “Some, I guess. I mean, this whole thing rides on him not…”
I trailed off, because I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t say anything. My parents had been awful. The people around us later today would be just as bad, although they might not say anything outright. I just didn’t know. All I knew was that if I had people digging at me like that, I’d strike back.
“He won’t say anything,” Astra said, reading my mind in that annoying way of hers.
I stuck my tongue out.
“You’re so mature.” She clucked her tongue, then flopped back down on my bed to stare up at the ceiling. “He’s not going to. He’s just got that kind of…oomph to him. You can trust him. He’s the guy you call at two a.m. when you’ve got a flat. Even if you’re an hour away, he’d come help you out.”
“Yeah.” I had that kind of feeling from him too. Maybe that was part of why I was so nervous. Granted, this had been my idea – okay, mine and Astra’s – but he’d be the one to deal with some of the harsher things said by people. Sure, they might say things about me and my judgment, but I’d dealt with that plenty.
They wouldn’t be insulting his judgment.
They’d be insulting him, and what was worse, now I knew why he’d made the decisions he’d made.
Groaning, I rubbed my forehead.
“Next time I offer somebody a ludicrous amount of money to do something for me, tell me to ask them why they need it so badly first,” I told Astra, moving to sit next to her. After a moment’s debate, I flopped down flat right alongside her, and we lay there, studying the ceiling.
“You like him, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Closing my eyes, I blew out a breath. “I really, really like him.”
“Tell him.”
A knot settled in my throat, but I forced myself to ignore it. “No point. He has things to do back in Las Vegas, a life to get back to.”
“And you know this because…?”
Sitting up, I looked over at Astra and shrugged. “We’ve talked. Some. I…I think he kind of likes me too. But the things he’s got going on must come first. I don’t blame him. But it’s too complicated for a relationship.”
“If it’s the right relationship, nothing is too complicated.” She sat as well and hooked an arm around my shoulders, hugging me. “You seem awful happy with him, PS. You really wanna give that up?”
Covering her forearm with my hand, I leaned into her. “I’m not even ready to think about that yet. Besides, I can’t control the things in his life.”
Even though they weighed on me.
Even though Astra wasn’t entirely wrong.
There was a knock on the door, and I squeezed Astra’s arm. “Gotta go. That’s him.”
“Say hi to Mummy and Daddy for me.” She blew me a kiss and wagged her eyebrows.
“You sure you don’t want to come?” I picked up my purse from the foot of the bed and went to open the door. I smiled at Kaleb, then looked back, waiting.
“You’d have to get me even drunker than you two were before I’d consider going through one of your family reunions again. And I’d have to stay that drunk. All day. I’m pretty sure that’s not good for the liver.”
I laughed. “Probably not.”
She winked at me. “Toodles!”
“Toodles.” I made a face at her as I followed Kaleb through the door. Turning my attention to him, I asked, “Are you ready for this?”
“Are you?” He skimmed his fingers through my hair.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I gave him a brilliant smile and linked our hands. “Let’s do it.”
The madder my dad got and the more my mother clutched her pearls – she literally clutched her pearls – the easier it got. Sinking down on a padded chaise lounge next to my great aunt Agatha, I gestured to Kaleb. “Aunt Agatha, have you met my husband?”
She gave him a narrow look and a short nod. It was one of the politer receptions he’d gotten, but her attention on him didn’t last long. She was too interested in me.
Holding a cocktail in one hand and a book in the other, she studied me.
“Just what are you up to, Piety?” she asked.
“I’m introducing you to my husband,” I said innocently.
“Humph.” She took a lusty sip of the cocktail and put her book down. It was a romance, one featuring a bare-chested man with a woman bent over his arm, her boobs all but falling out of the dress. The sight of it made me grin. “Your husband. What’s his middle name?”
It caught me offguard, and I felt like an idiot – I didn’t know.
“What’s yours?” Kaleb asked, interrupting smoothly. He sat down on the chaise next to me and gave Agatha a mega-watt smile. “If I’d known Piety was holding out on me, I might have told her no.”
To my surprise, a laugh boomed out of Agatha. “She proposed to you?”
Some of the suspicion leaked from her eyes, and she sighed, reaching out to pat my knee. “Keep your secrets, Piety. I won’t blab. But it’s going to take more than this for them to leave you be.” She leaned back and settled more comfortably against the chaise. “It’s going to take you.”
I wasn’t even going to try to follow that line of thought, and she didn’t give me the chance. “Here,” she said, pushing her nearly empty cocktail into my hand. “Go refill me. I’m thirsty, and I want to admire the arm candy you brought.”
Wariness flooded me. “Aunt Agatha…”
“Oh, relax. None of them will bother him if he’s with me.” Aunt Agatha gave me a serene smile, then one final pat on my knee. “Go on now.”
Sighing, I went on.
As I made my way through the crowd of aunts, uncles, cousins, and various other relations, I told myself I didn’t need to hurry, that Aunt Agatha wouldn’t expose our secrets.
Then I wished I would have hurried, because I came face to face with one of the few cousins I would have done anything to avoid.
“Well, well, well.” Tabitha smiled at me. She was my father’s niece, and she looked far too like me, save for the hair. Hers was a bronzed sort of blonde, and the stylist she used teased out shades of gold and caramel. She was shorter and softer, a gentler reflection.
At least physically.
Inside, Tabitha was a piranha.
“How’s life for the newlywed?” She gave me a look of innocent curiosity. “I hear you married an exotic dancer. Does he still…perform?”
“Hi, Tabitha.” I chose to ignore her latter comment.
“You see, a friend of mine is getting married, and I’m in charge of the entertainment.” She took a step closer and gave me a devious smile before glancing toward where I’d left Kaleb with Aunt Agatha. “And he is certainly entertaining. Easy on the eyes.”
“Nice try,” I said. With a casual smile, I smoothed out a non-existent wrinkle in my dress. “But you and I know none of your friends are warm-blooded enough to enjoy a man of Kaleb’s talents. Snakes have no desire for such…fleshly desires. Unless you’re in a man-eating sort of mood.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She smiled, although her idea of a smile was just the slightest curl of her lips. Heaven forbid she do something that might lead to wrinkles. “A girl has to experiment every now and then.
You clearly have…and look at you. So, what do you say? Does he…hire out his services?”
She lingered long enough that we both knew she wasn’t talking about stripping.
But instead of sinking to her level, I stepped aside and gestured. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go ask? He’s right over there…talking to Aunt Agatha.”
The first few words were all she processed for a moment, and the cat’s smile came, brightening her eyes.
Then she heard…Aunt Agatha.
She sucked in a breath, stopped when she realized I was waiting for her reaction. “You left him with that old hag? Talk about a man-eater.”
“What’s the matter, honey? Jealous?” I asked. “Go on…go talk to him.”
She turned on a toothpick heel that sank into the ground and stalked off. We both knew she’d never do anything that might even resemble confronting somebody near Aunt Agatha. The woman was a lioness, and you had to have a spine to deal with her.
I managed to get Aunt Agatha’s drink – and one for me – without too much additional drama, and I got back to find her and Kaleb laughing as if they’d known each other for ages. It was enough to make me smile, and I turned Aunt Agatha’s drink over to her as I sat down next to him, leaning against him without thinking about it.
“Hmmm…” Aunt Agatha made a low noise as she sipped from her drink, one that had me sliding her a narrow look.
“What’s that for?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing.” She waved a hand at me and took another sip, looking rather…pleased with herself. “I just thought I had this whole mess figured out, and you just went and dashed it all to bits, that’s all.”
“What mess?” I took Kaleb’s hand, hoping nobody was around to hear. “We’re not a couple of specimens sitting on a slide in your lab, Aunt Agatha.” She’d worked for a biological research facility for years after her husband passed away, choosing science over pursuing a family. A rather strange idea for a woman of her time, she’d once told me.