Hangovers and Holidays (Untouchable Book 5)

by Heather Long

  “You’re not going to screw this up,” Archie said, nipping my ear, and the warm and somewhat warning looks I got from the other three added to the weight of his statement. “If anyone does that, it’ll be us.”

  “No one is screwing it up,” Jake said, then cracked his knuckles.

  “Or you’ll what?” Coop asked drily. “Beat the shit out of us?”

  “Damn straight.” Jake nodded once. “Pretty basic. We work this out. We worked too long and hard to get here, so we keep right on working.”

  “That’s almost poetic,” Ian told him. “I should put that in a song.”

  Jake just lifted his middle finger, and we all laughed.

  New Year’s Day was spent alternately packing—Archie was having most of it shipped back to us, but some things none of us wanted to wait on—and just spending the time together. I baked, because I really hadn’t since we’d been there, and I wanted to make cupcakes. That night though, after the food had been eaten and a movie had been watched, I slipped away with Archie as the rest went to beat on each other in one last gaming session. The car would be getting us early.

  In the room still filled with roses, though some had been consolidated, Archie pulled me over to the bed and wrapped his arms around me. The soft kiss he feathered over my lips had me sighing as he tugged off my clothes. I helped him pull them free before I went to work on stripping him, but after we were naked, it was just about curling around each other.

  “Thank you for letting me spoil you the last couple of weeks, babe,” he whispered against my ear before pressing a kiss behind it, and I chuckled.

  “That should be me thanking you.” I sighed as he traced patterns against my shoulder with his thumb. “I would have said no if you’d asked me before doing all of this.” Guilt nibbled at me over this admission. “I’d have worried about the expense—which doesn’t mean I’m still not—but I would have also worried about the cats, the time away, and…”

  He pressed his finger to my lips. “I know, babe. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Sometimes, it’s just easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I want to spoil you with everything. You needed this trip.”

  “You needed it, too,” I murmured, scooting to lay more firmly over him, and he balanced me easily as my legs tucked on either side of his and my breasts crushed against his chest. It was comforting and erotic in equal measures. He stirred against me, but it wasn’t about turning each other on, not right now. I traced a finger along his jaw.

  Spreading his palm against my ass, he smiled. “Yes, I did. I needed this time with you. We all needed the time to figure this out. And if I haven’t made it perfectly clear to you yet, babe, I’m in. For all of it. The five of us work, and I don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks about it. The only people who are important are in this lodge.”

  He trailed his fingers up to my shoulder. It didn’t sting anymore. Yet the lightness of his touch sent goosebumps rippling over my skin, and my nipples pebbled.

  “We do,” I admitted slowly. “But it still scares the hell out of me. So much could go wrong…”

  “And so much has and can go right,” he said, his tone firm. That caressing hand on my back began running up and down my spine in a petting motion. “Are you happy, babe? Right now?”

  “Yes.” No hesitation in my answer.

  “And you’re scared you’re not going to be when we go back?”

  When we went back… “Maddy. Eddie. School. The stuff with Mitch. Sharon. There are so many things that we have to deal with…”

  “Fuck Maddy and Edward,” Archie said, and I couldn’t help but smile at the disgust in his voice. “Grandpa is working on dealing with Edward. Wittaker and I can hold Maddy off to get you to eighteen. We cut them off. They aren’t us, and we don’t need them.” He trailed his fingers up to my hair and began to brush it away from my face. “I mean it, Frankie. We don’t need them, and we’re not giving them an ounce of control over us.”

  I sighed, then nuzzled a kiss to his jaw.

  “As for the rest? We’ll deal with it as it comes. I don’t care about anyone else, and if they give you a hard time, you let us know. We’ll take care of it.”

  “What are you going to do?” I teased. “Send Jake to beat them up?”

  “I won’t have to send him,” he said, his tone almost smug. “Or have you not noticed that Jake is very much hit first and ask questions later where you’re concerned?”

  I laughed softly and then kissed him. It was a slow press of my lips to his. He wrapped his hand around my nape as we dueled with our tongues. There was no hurry in the kiss, more a savoring. Chocolate lingered on his tongue from our earlier dessert. I carded my fingers through his hair as he rolled us so he was on top. The kiss remained leisurely as he stroked his hands over me.

  No hurry pushed us, it was all about tasting and kissing. When I nibbled away from his lips, he would drag me back for another kiss that took my breath away, each one deepening in intensity. When I snaked a hand between us to stroke his dick, he let out a huff of laughter before sucking on my lower lip and spearing his fingers into me.

  Fuck, I hadn’t even felt his hand on my hip. I shifted to kiss down his jaw and he let me until I started to squirm off his fingers. Then he pinned me back to the bed, and between us, we lined him up and he pushed into me as he braced a hand against the bed. Hooking my legs around his hips, we both sighed as he sank all the way to the hilt.

  There was something different about the way he touched me tonight. Light caresses interspersed with tight grips as he adjusted our position. The possessiveness in his kiss demanded an answer. A rush, then a slow. It was like we were dancing, but he only let me take the lead so far before he took it back.

  Every stroke and touch eddied me higher, and I swore tears sparked in my eyes as my vision whited out. We kept edging toward orgasm, only to slow down again and work our way back up. Instead of being frustrated or teased, I felt…loved.

  A smile would turn his lips as our mouths met, like he couldn’t help but smile, and when we tumbled over the edge, it was as natural as breathing. The harsh shout pulled from his throat buoyed me higher if possible, and the rush as we collapsed together, panting, left me shaken. He rained little kisses down on my face and interlaced our fingers together as he cradled me closer.

  This.

  This was what I never wanted to lose.

  “We’re not leaving anything important behind,” he murmured after a while as if in answer to that earlier thought I hadn’t spoken aloud. “We’re all still going to be together. No matter what I have to do to make sure of it.”

  “Hey,” I soothed. “What we have to do.”

  This wasn’t all on him.

  Another curve of his lips as he brushed them against my forehead. “We. I like the sound of that.”

  I did, too. “Boyfriends,” I said slowly.

  “Yep. You’re not getting rid of us now, babe.” He rubbed my shoulder. “Regrets?”

  “Only that it took so long.”

  “It took as long as it needed to,” he whispered. “It’s always been you since the day I met you, Frankie. I’ve always been yours. Now you’re mine, too.”

  Eyes closing despite my best attempts, I burrowed into him, and his arms tightened. We weren’t leaving anything behind when we went home. Nothing important, sure. Didn’t mean I was eager to leave. But I couldn’t fight against the exhaustion swarming me, so I let the sound of his heart and his steady breathing lull me to sleep.

  Thankfully, we didn’t have a flight at crack of ass so there was time for coffee and last-minute rushing to search for anything we might have forgotten. Archie urged us not to worry, the staff would send anything missed on down. Then again, he checked that I had my charm bracelet and necklace on while Jake checked my ring. My new charms were safely tucked away in my backpack. We’d get them put on the bracelet at home.

  “Did I stick my tablet in your stuff?” Coop asked, and I gave him a blank look.


  “You’ve been sticking a lot of your tabs in her stuff,” Jake said with a wicked grin, and I rolled my eyes, even as I flushed—just a little.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Coop said. “Fuck off with that. You snuck into her shower and locked the damn door.”

  I tried to hide my laughter with a cough, but Ian and Archie weren’t so kind. “He didn’t sneak into her shower,” Archie countered. “He snatched her right out of the bed.”

  “You snooze, you lose,” was all Jake said before winking at me.

  Terrible boys.

  All of them.

  “I don’t know,” I told Coop, bringing us back around to the topic at hand. “Did you check my backpack?” They had all stuffed different things in there for the flight here because they’d done all the packing. Not that I’d seen Coop with his tablet the whole trip.

  He brushed a kiss to my hair before he went to grab it where it sat by the door with our other suitcases. We seemed to have a lot more to take back than we’d brought, but I was with Ian. I was not leaving my new guitar here. We’d managed a couple of fingering lessons that tended to get distracted for other things.

  “Got it,” Coop called as he pulled it out of the front pocket. “Why do you have mail in here?”

  I glanced over to see him holding a stack of envelopes. I frowned. I’d forgotten those were even in there. “Just put them back. I have to open them and figure out what they are later. Maddy was ignoring the mail, and I don’t know if those are bills or not. I can wait to figure it out.”

  “Want me to take care of it?” Coop offered.

  I made a face. “Later. We have an hour. I just want all of us to be right here together. We can deal with that when we get home.”

  He nodded once, but he stuffed the letters into his backpack instead of mine and ignored my look with a playful smirk. Tablet in hand, he rejoined us, and I leaned my head on his shoulder as he tabbed through his screen, looking for apps to play on the flight.

  Jake, Archie, and Ian were arguing over some game, and it took me a while to sort out they were talking about an actual team sport and not a video game. At that, I tuned out and just savored having all of them there. I wanted every single last minute down to the last drop.

  When the car showed up, I let out a little sigh, and Archie grinned at me.

  “We’ll be back, babe. I promise.”

  I believed him, but it still made leaving bittersweet.

  As the car pulled away, I twisted in the seat to watch the lodge disappear behind us.

  Reality left a lot to be desired, unless we could make what we’d had the last few weeks our reality at home.

  A worthy goal, right?

  Jeremy awaited us at the apartment when we got there. The guys carried all of our stuff inside, even Coop, who could have taken his stuff back to his place.

  Even better, the cats were waiting for me. Tiddles was hilarious as he raced toward me meowing. It was like getting chewed out. Tory and Tabby both rushed out to see me and then promptly ignored me. Tiddles didn’t bother with that, he rubbed all over me until I picked him up and cradled him.

  The guys were filling Jeremy in on the trip as he poured coffee for us, and despite the obvious cleaning my apartment had undergone while we were gone, I wasn’t prepared for the bed waiting in my room.

  “Archie!”

  His laughter robbed my tone of any threat.

  “Surprise!”

  It was huge, and it filled the room, but there was some space on either side of it. My dresser had been moved into the closet to create a walkway, and I didn’t want to think about the fact that Jeremy had arranged this in our absence.

  Even more, the closet had been organized and space created where the guys each had a spot for their clothes.

  “Too much?” Archie asked from the doorway. He stood there alone, and the worry in his expression pulled at me. It hit me that I hadn’t said anything after his surprise comment.

  “Yes,” I told him truthfully. “And no.” I liked that they had a space here. “If you’re mine, then you need a place here, too, right?”

  His eyes warmed, and his smile grew. “Damn straight.”

  “Thank fuck,” Jake said in a rush from the hall, and I laughed. The guys stuck their heads around the doorframe to look at me like a masculine totem pole of beauty and sex appeal.

  “Would now be a good time to suggest you check out the other bedroom?” Coop asked. No one called it Maddy’s anymore.

  “Am I going to hate it?” Somehow, I doubted it.

  “Well,” Jake said, and he eyed Ian, who then looked to Coop, before all three of them looked at Archie and grinned. “If you do…”

  “…we blame Archie,” the others finished in tandem with him.

  Archie just snorted and held out his hand to me. “You’re not going to hate it.”

  It really was a good thing I loved them.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Second First Day

  “Frankie,” Coop called. “We’re going to be late.”

  “No, we’re not,” I yelled, digging under the bed for where my shoes got kicked when Jake and Coop started stripping me last night. They had a habit of clearing the floor, and this bed was huge, so I had to do some serious wiggling to reach my shoes.

  “Nice ass,” Jake said from somewhere behind me. “Keep that up, and we really will be late to school.”

  “No,” Coop argued. “We won’t. She is not having a freak out on our first day back about missing anything. Hands to yourself, Benton.”

  “Killjoy,” Jake grunted. “C’mon, I can practically feel her on my dick as she moves like that.”

  I groaned. “Get out, you teases.”

  Male laughter filled the room, as did the sounds of wrestling as Coop dragged Jake out. After hooking my sneakers, I dragged them out and then sat back against the bed to put my shoes on. Tiddles eyed me from his favorite perch, and his tail twitched. They seemed no worse for wear from my absence, but why should they? They’d been spoiled rotten.

  I bet they were just waiting for me to go away again so they could hang with Jeremy. But when I gave him a scratch under his chin, he purred his approval. Keys in hand, I snagged my backpack and then double-checked that my wallet was where it belonged. I’d repacked it the night before.

  The bed was rumpled, the pillows askew, and there was no mistaking that we’d all thoroughly christened my new bed over the weekend. Everything else was spotless, well, except for the luggage that hadn’t made its way back to the guys’ places.

  They really were moving some of their stuff in so they could stay whenever and for however long they wanted.

  As much as it surprised me, I couldn’t find a single complaint within me on that topic. I liked having them here.

  “You get lost in here?” Coop asked from the doorway, his tone teasing but his eyes soft.

  “Nope,” I told him, following him into the hallway. The door to the other bedroom was open, and the pair of queen beds filled the room, along with more of the guys’ things. Whoever wasn’t sleeping with me had a bed they could use. It was warmer and cozier in there than it had ever been. The new carpet in the place was also softer. “I know exactly where I am.” I made it as far as the doorway with my backpack before he lifted it off my shoulder with two fingers.

  I drained the last of my coffee before rinsing out my cup, and then we were off. Archie and Ian were already outside. It was cold and overcast, but Ian was taking his bike and I’d dressed in a warmer sweater and pulled a coat on, because I was riding on it with him.

  The guys could take their own cars, but they rode with Jake instead. We were all coming back here tonight to sort out the beginning of our last semester.

  “It’s cold,” Ian warned me as he checked my jacket and then looped the scarf so that it tucked in.

  “Compared to Colorado? It’s practically balmy.” It was in the fifties. “I’ll be fine and don’t make me wait. Please?”

  I’d been dying to get b
ack on the bike. If my wrist was up to skiing, then I was damn well up to the bike.

  He chuckled.

  “You be really fucking careful with her,” Jake warned from where he stood by his yellow SUV.

  “Really careful,” Archie stressed.

  “Leave off, guys, he’s gonna drive like a little old man.” Coop winked at me.

  I grinned as Ian tugged the helmet onto my head and then did up the strap. Only then did he straddle the bike and get it started. I hopped on behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. The vibration of the bike rumbled through me. The smile on my face almost hurt as he walked us backward. Jake had already pulled out, but I could see all three of them staring at us.

  “He’s going to follow us,” Ian said over his shoulder.

  I laughed. “I know.”

  Then we were off, and yeah, it was windy and a little cold, but it was perfect. Traffic was too heavy to really race along the roads, but I just soaked in the feeling of holding onto him, his hard abs flexing beneath my fingers and the strength in his back where I pressed against him.

  The guys were right behind us, as promised, until they diverted to get the coffee. It was so weird to pull in and look at the school. It seemed…smaller somehow.

  “Last semester, Angel,” Ian said as I climbed off the bike. “You ready?”

  A giddiness swarmed through me. Maybe that was it.

  “Yeah,” I said slowly and pulled off the helmet. “Four and half more months, and we are out of here.”

  He glanced at the school, then at me as we turned to head over to Jake’s spot to store the helmets and grab our backpacks.

  The guys weren’t quite there yet, but I reached for Ian’s hand as we walked and he clasped mine easily. Slanting a look down at me, he raised his eyebrows. “This is pretty close to a PDA,” he reminded me.

  It was. That was true.