I fed Mac the last spoonful of gruel and scattered goldfish across his tray. Then I leaned back in my chair and asked, “Can you keep a secret?”
“Depends on what it is and who I’m keeping it from,” Cole craftily replied.
His response made me laugh. “You’re so much like your brother that it isn’t even funny.”
“We don’t know if we’re brothers, yet.” His cautious tone broke my heart. He wanted it to be true, but from what I understood hope had let him down time and time again.
“Do you want Max to be your brother?”
He stared at me for the longest time before choking out the words, “I don’t let myself want anything anymore.” My eyes welled with tears as I watched him struggle to get ahold of his emotions. Once he had it together, he asked, “What’s the secret?”
“I’m pregnant.” His eyes widened in surprise, before narrowing in suspicion.
“Why are you keeping it from Max?”
“That’s a very good question,” a voice behind us said. Cole and I both froze. His eyes widened in surprise and I closed mine in resignation. After a moment’s pause, I opened them and looked over my shoulder to where Max was standing in the kitchen doorway. He had an indecipherable look on his face, which I was pretty sure did not bode well for me.
Mac screamed, “Daaaaaaadddddyyyyy. Cole’s eyes jerked from Max back to me. His face split into an impish grin.
“You are in trouuuuuble,” he mused. Then he held up his hands and asked Mac if he wanted to go watch cartoons.
“Toons!” Mac screamed. As Cole lifted Mac from his high chair, I gave him a dirty look and he had the nerve to laugh. I would bet my life on him being Max’s brother. Once they were out of earshot, I turned to face my husband.
“I was going to tell you–” I started to say.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“A few weeks.”
“We said no more lies, Ellison.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Not telling is the same thing as lying,” he chastised.
“Kind of like you told me how you got arrested yesterday afternoon, right?” I challenged.
“That’s different.”
“Only because it was you doing the omitting,” I snapped. Max always had to have it his way. Well, not this time.
“You are carrying our child inside of you. I’m the father of that child, and therefore, it’s my right to know. That is, unless you don’t want the baby.” His voice lowered to right above a whisper. “Is that it, Ellison? Do you not want our child?” Anger and hurt like I’d never felt poured through me, and I completely snapped.
“Fuck you,” I hissed. A look of shock appeared on his face. I stood from the table and pushed back the chair. “You’re the one who doesn’t want this baby. You’re the one who told me you may never want more children. What did you expect me to do, Max? Huh? How was I supposed to explain to my husband who doesn’t want more kids that somehow I was pregnant? While you stand there feeling smug in the knowledge that my lie was worse than yours, I’ve got three words for you. Go. Fuck. Yourself.” The entire time I’d been talking, I could feel the nausea creeping up my esophagus. I bolted for the bathroom as soon as I finished my diatribe.
Once I was done vomiting, I washed my face and brushed my teeth. Then I sat on the side of the tub and tried not to fall apart.
“I’ve spent the better part of two weeks wondering why you were hiding it from me,” Max said from the doorway.
“I didn’t set out to hide it from you. I just needed a moment to wrap my brain around it.”
“Babe, that was a long damn moment.”
“I knew you didn’t want to have more kids. I wasn’t sure how to handle it.”
“Look, I don’t want to upset you anymore than I already have, but in all honestly, I barely remember us having that conversation.” He dropped to one knee in front of me and gently placed his fingers under my chin. Once I was looking at him, he said, “I would be a crazy fool not to want more babies with you, Ellison McLellan.”
“Do you mean that?” I warily asked.
Leaning in, he placed a gentle kiss on my lips. Then he pulled back and said, “With all of my heart.”
“I love you,” I said through my tears. “I was so afraid you were going to be mad.” Max folded me into his arms and held me while I cried.
When I’d finished crying, he wiped the tears from my face. “I can’t say I’m not worried. And I can’t promise that I won’t be over protective, but I’m definitely not mad.” He planted another kiss on my lips, and asked, “Does this mean I can finally get laid now?” We both laughed. Suddenly, all of the tension I’d been feeling for the past few weeks was gone, and the reality of the situation hit home. Max and I were having another baby. Max stood. As I followed him into the bedroom, I realized what time it was.
“Did you decide to take off of work early?”
“No, I actually came home to show you this.” He pulled an envelope from his back pocket and handed it to me. My eyes snapped to his.
“The test results?” I whispered.
“Yup.”
Thrusting them back in his hands, I said, “I can’t look. Just tell me what it says.” He smiled and my heart hitched. “He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
“My half-brother, and yes, he is.”
“Oh my God!” I squealed. Max laughed when I tackle hugged him. “You’re going to have to talk to Sarah, and we’re going to need to tell Cole.” Then I pulled back and glared at him. “Why in the world were you arrested yesterday?”
With an exasperated sigh, he dropped to the foot of the bed and told me everything that had been happening lately. I just stood there in shock when he finished. How had I missed all of this?
“Were you really going to buy his place?” I finally asked.
“I don’t know. I would have figured something out.”
“So what happens next?”
“We see what comes back on the video feed.”
“And in the meantime?”
“I talk to Sarah and we decide how we want to handle this thing with Cole. Then I get in your pants,” he answered.
We both smiled. Life was definitely looking up.
* * *
Max – Thursday morning …
My sister sure could hold a mean grudge. For two days she’d been dodging my calls. Ellison was beside herself. She wanted to tell Cole and settle his living arrangements. Hell, I wanted to tell Cole, but that wasn’t going to happen until I talked it over with Sarah. I was on my way to LASH to find out what the camera revealed. Hopefully Cas would be there and he could tell me where to find my damn sister.
Instead of being greeted by a large potted plant when I entered the building, I was greeted by a nerdy looking guy sitting behind a large desk.
“Can I help you?” he asked. I scanned the room to make sure I was in the right place. The LASH logo on the wall let me know I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
“Who’re you?” I asked.
“Who are you looking for?” he replied. Not in the mood for games, I brushed past him and rounded the corner to the back offices.
“Excuse me, but you can’t do that!” His girly screech made me smile. All eyes turned to me as I walked into the room. The nerd scurried in after. “He wouldn’t stop!” he tattled to the room.
“That’s okay, Marty. We’ll take it from here,” Garrett told him.
“B-but you told me not to let anyone back here.” His whiny voice made my fingers twitch.
“Marty, this is Max,” Garrett calmly explained. Max is a partner in the firm.”
Marty’s mouth opened in a silent, “Oh.”
“That’s okay. It’s only your first day,” Garrett consoled. Without another word, Marty scurried back out of the room.
I waited until the door was firmly shut, before asking, “What the fuck was that?”
“That was Marty,” Cas said with a grin. Gage just shoo
k his head and laughed.
“He comes highly recommended, and I want all of you to give him a chance,” Garrett lectured. Tut’s snort of disgust pretty much summed up how everyone felt about LASH’s newest member.
“Let’s get this done, so I can get back to my bride,” Cas said. I shot him a dirty look and he winked at me. Smug fucker.
“Adam and I assembled a video clip for your viewing pleasure,” Bobby explained. He nodded to Adam, and Adam turned off the lights. A picture of the front of Garrison’s popped onto the wall. The camera managed not only to capture the front of the building, but also the entrance and the parking lot. A large truck with Garrison’s logo on the side pulled through the front gate and stopped at the side of the building. We watched the delivery guy load several boxes onto his dolly and walk them into the building. No less than five minutes later, he reappeared…with a dolly full of boxes.
“Did I miss something, or is that dolly supposed to be empty?” Gage asked.
“Watch,” Bobby instructed. The video skipped to later in the day. A second delivery truck pulled in with Garrison’s logo on the side. Just like the first truck, the delivery guy both came and went with a dolly full of boxes.
“What the hell?” I asked. Bobby hit pause on the video.
“As you can see by the video footage, every delivery is accompanied by a corresponding shipment going out,” Garrett summarized for us. “The questions are: What is going out and where is it going?” His eyes cut to Adam and Adam smiled.
“Adam and I will follow tomorrow’s delivery truck and let you know where it leads,” Garrett confirmed.
As the room disbursed, I pulled Cas aside, and asked, “Is she still pissed?”
“On a scale of one to ten, I’d say she was at an even five this morning,” Cas replied.
“The blood test confirmed Cole is definitely our brother. I need to tell her and get her help in figuring out where to go from here. Do you know where I can find her?”
“I do, and I know she doesn’t want to talk to you right now.” I dropped my eyes to the floor and took a deep breath.
“Look, man. You agreed with me that it was a bad idea to tell her before we received the blood test. The least you could do is to help me to make it right with her.” Cas pursed his lips. I bet Sarah wouldn’t be as crazy about him if he had no teeth.
“She’s at the house, but I want to be there when you talk to her.” Finally I was getting somewhere.
“Shall we?” I asked, waving my hand toward the door.
Sarah was sitting in the living room watching the television when we arrived. Her face lit up when she saw Cas and morphed into an angry scowl when she discovered me right behind him.
“Really?” she asked. It was hard for me to believe the little girl I’d practically raised was now a married woman. A part of me would always see her as that sweet, innocent angel who’d been dealt a shitty hand in life.
“What if he hadn’t been our brother, Sarah? What if he’d been some punk ass kid who was scamming us? There’s shit going down at MMG right now. For all I knew, he could have had something to do with it. There was no way in hell I was exposing you before getting the facts,” I told her.
Pressing her hand to her heart, she said, “He’s our brother?”
“He is.”
“Oh, Max, that poor boy. We had each other, but he’s had no one.”
“Well, he now has us. Are you over being pissed at me?”
“For now,” she smirked. “What are we going to do about Cole?” We spent the next hour talking about the best plan of action with respect to our little brother.
Instead of going back to the office, I decided to go home and tell Ellison about everything that had transpired in the past few hours.
I found my wife cleaning the kitchen. She had on a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on her hips, a fitted tank top, and no bra. It was the no bra part that had my cock standing at attention. Ellison had the most beautiful tits I’d ever seen, but pregnancy shot them into an entirely different dimension. Her areolas peered through the tank, as if begging me to touch them. I’d just had my lips on them last night, but it never seemed to be enough. I’d fucked up so many times with this woman, but she’d never given up on me. I was humbled by her love for me and our son. I was awestruck by her ability to accept Cole, a kid who’d waltzed into our lives less than two weeks ago claiming to be my brother, with open arms and an open heart. This woman was everything to me. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her and for my family. A smile spread across her gorgeous face when she noticed me standing there.
“Where’s Cole?” I asked.
“You just missed him. Piper picked him up and took him to lunch. Is everything okay?”
“And Mac?”
“He crashed out about ten minutes ago. The teething makes him tired.” She cocked her head, as if studying me. I took a step toward her and her eyes sparked with amusement. “I look like shit, Max.”
“You always look beautiful.” I took another step and her breath hitched with anticipation.
“But I smell,” she whined.
“Like something I want to taste,” I growled. My next step pinned her back against the counter. Pressing my face into the crook of her neck, I inhaled deeply. At the same time, I fisted my hand in the front of her tank. “Have you been wearing this shirt all morning?”
“No, I just put it on,” she breathily replied. Thank, fuck, I thought right before I ripped it from her body.
“Max, I liked that tank,” she complained.
“I do too, and so will my fourteen year old little brother.” Her eyes lit with understanding. Before she distracted me from my mission, I began playing with her nipples. She arched into my hand and groaned when I pinched them between my fingers. I wanted to go slow, to savor the moment, but knew that with Cole gone and Mac asleep upstairs, I was working on borrowed time. With that thought, I dropped my hands to Ellison’s hips and helped to divest her of her ugly pajama pants.
“I can’t believe I’m standing in our kitchen butt ass naked in the middle of the day,” she giggled. “Anyone could walk in.” The thought of someone walking in both turned me on and pissed me off at the same time. I ran my fingers up and down her slit and groaned in anticipation.
“You’re so damn wet.”
“Only for you,” she moaned.
As quickly as possible, I toed off my boots and stripped off my clothes. My tongue stroked from her collar bone to her ear, where I whispered, “I don’t want to rush this.”
“I just want you inside me,” she panted.
“Well, by all means, let me accommodate you, Mrs. McLellan.” I lifted her onto the countertop. “Wrap those gorgeous legs around me, baby.” Once she had her legs secured around my waist, I pulled her up to the edge, lined my cock up to her entrance, and pushed inside.
“God, Max, that feels so good,” she rasped. Placing my hands on her hips, I slowly pulled out and pushed back in. She dropped her head back onto her shoulders which gave me perfect access to those gorgeous tits. At the same time I sucked one into my mouth, I sped up my thrusts. The next thing I knew, my bearcat of a wife had her fingers in my hair and her heels against my ass, kicking me to go faster…or maybe it was harder. Whatever it was, I didn’t give a fuck. I was simply there to please. We ended up on the floor with me pounding into her like a madman, and her screaming like a cat in heat. It was fucking amazing. We both shouted our orgasms simultaneously before collapsing on the kitchen floor in laughter.
And that’s when we noticed Piper and Cole standing in the entry hall with mouths agape, staring at us as if we were monkeys in the zoo. Piper held up her purse.
“I –uh – just forgot this,” she stammered.
“Out!” I screamed, and they both scrambled out the door.
“Oh my God,” Ellison whispered.
Welcome to the family, I thought.
Chapter Fifteen
Dillon and Isabella
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Dillon
“Anyway, so Josselyn talked to Piper, and they came up with a plan to get Polly over to Harry’s place. I mean, how was I supposed to know that Harry was still hung up on Polly? He hasn’t mentioned her in over two months. I thought he was over her. Are you even listening to me?” It took me a minute to register that Kurt had stopped yammering long enough to ask me a question.
“What’s that?”
“You obviously need caffeine,” he grumpily stated.
“Sorry. I’ve been up since five this morning. I guess I’m just tired.” Truthfully, I was way beyond tired. I was fucking beat. I had no idea how hard this parenting shit could be. Milly was a dream child compared to Leo. Isabella hadn’t been the same since his birth, and I had no idea what to do about it. I needed to talk to someone, but Kurt was most definitely not the right person.
“I take it the little booger isn’t sleeping?” Kurt asked.
“The little booger likes my wife’s tits a little too much.” He laughed as if I was joking. In truth, I was dead serious. My son was slowly sucking the life out of my wife.
“Yeah, well, I’m ready to meet my daughter. Here we are.” Kurt pulled into the parking lot of prospective bar number fifteen on our list and parked. It didn’t look promising. A beat up sign read “The Bottle Top.”
“It looks small from the front and I can see wood rot from here,” I commented. I was beginning to think we were never going to find the right place.
The owner pulled up beside us. After introductions, we followed him inside. The place was much bigger on the inside. The floors were in decent shape, as was the actual bar. The rest needed some work.
“We’d have to repaint,” Kurt said. He wasn’t kidding. The walls were blood red and filthy.
“My wife chose the color,” the owner sheepishly explained. I left the two of them to discuss the merits of the color red while I inspected the rest of the room. It wasn’t until I stepped onto the back patio that I knew we’d found our place. The view of the lake was fucking amazing. The patio, however, was disgusting. Clearly the owner and his wife had no vision. Weather beaten tables were pushed so close together you could barely fit chairs around them.
The Last Call (MMG Book 5) Page 13