A Forever Kind of Family

by Brenda Harlen

  For my new mommy on her first Mother’s Day. Love, Oliver. xoxo.

  She looked from the message to Ryan. “Crayon?”

  “He doesn’t yet have the dexterity to hold a pen,” he explained.

  “If you really wanted me to believe that Oliver wrote the card, you should have spelled one or two words incorrectly.”

  “Okay—I helped with the front. But he wrote on the back.”

  She turned the card over to discover there was a blue scribble on the reverse side. “That does look slightly more age appropriate,” she agreed.

  “Since you’ve been reading that book, you think you’re an expert on everything, don’t you?” Ryan teased.

  “Even before I read that book, I wouldn’t have believed that a child could correctly print words he isn’t even able to pronounce clearly.” She picked up the little boy and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for the pretty flowers, Oliver.”

  “Pi-ty,” he said again.

  “If you don’t believe he wrote the card, you probably don’t believe he drove himself to the flower shop,” Ryan said. “So shouldn’t I get a thank-you, too?”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  His brows lifted. “What about a kiss for me?”

  She took a step closer and let her gaze settle on his lips.

  Then she chickened out and kissed his cheek. He looked disappointed but not really surprised.

  They spent a quiet evening together. Ryan and Oliver played with his blocks while Harper divided her attention between the pages of What to Expect and the movie 27 Dresses on television, not able to focus on either, because she was thinking about Melissa. Not her tragic death but her philosophy for life: carpe diem.

  “You’ve been quiet since we got back,” Ryan commented later, after Oliver was settled into bed. “Are you still thinking about Melissa?”

  She nodded, wishing that she could be fearless like her friend and reach out for what she wanted.

  And why couldn’t she?

  Ryan had told her that the next move was hers—why shouldn’t she make it?

  She rose up on her toes to brush her lips against his. “This is my move.”

  Then she took his hand and led him into her bedroom.

  * * *

  He followed willingly. Even eagerly. And his eyes darkened with unmistakable desire when she tugged his shirt out of his pants and slid her hands beneath it.

  His lips skimmed down the column of her throat, making electricity hum just beneath the surface of her skin, currents that zipped through her blood and arrowed straight to her core. She’d told him over and over again that she didn’t want this—had told herself the same thing. But her response to his lightest touch proved to both of them that she was a liar.

  He nibbled on her earlobe, then sucked it gently into his mouth, and her knees actually trembled.

  “Ryan...”

  “If you’ve changed your mind and decided you don’t want this, say it now, Harper—loud and clear—before we go any further.”

  But it had already gone further. His hand had found its way to her breast, and though he was stroking his thumb over the peaked nipple through the multiple layers of her blouse, camisole and bra, she felt scorched by his touch, as if there was no barrier between his hand and her flesh.

  His mouth skimmed across her jaw. “Yes or no?”

  Her breath shuddered out. “Yes.”

  She felt the curve of his lips as his mouth continued to tease her with soft, fleeting kisses. “Yes—what?”

  “Yes, I want you.”

  He traced the outline of her lips with his tongue. “There will be no walking away in the morning,” he warned her. “Not this time.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s going to get messy.”

  “I hope so.”

  He chuckled against her lips. “Emotionally, too.”

  She wasn’t quite on board with that. “We’re friends now—and we both love Oliver, so we’ll figure it out.”

  “We’re friends,” he confirmed. “And we’re going to be lovers.”

  “Then maybe you should stop talking and start doing.”

  “Doing what?” He’d already unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it off her shoulders now. “What is it, exactly, that you want me to do?”

  She felt the heat fill her cheeks. “To stop talking.”

  He lifted the camisole over her head, discarded it, then reached for the fastening of the bra at her back but paused. “I want to know what you want, what you like.”

  “I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  He was sure that he could, too. But he wasn’t going to make it easy this time—for either of them.

  He needed to hear her say that she wanted him—he needed to know that her desire was at least half of his own. He needed to know that he could control her body, because when he was with her, he no longer controlled his own. When he was with her, he could think of nothing but her, want no one but her.

  The wanting didn’t bother him—it was the intensity of it, the urgency and desperation. Never had he wanted a woman so much; never had want come so perilously close to need. Making her lose control allowed him to feel as if he had a little of his own back.

  His fingers skimmed up her back to the tops of her shoulders, hooked in the straps of her bra and tugged them down her arms. Then he lowered his head and kissed the tops of her breasts, his lips brushing over them in a teasing caress that promised more. So much more.

  “Tell me,” he said again.

  “That,” she admitted. “I love when you do that.”

  “Kiss your breasts?”

  She nodded.

  “Say it, Harper.” He nudged the lacy cups of her bra down a little farther, exposing more creamy skin.

  “I love when you kiss my breasts.”

  His lips brushed over the curves again, dipping toward the edge of her areola, then withdrawing again. He felt the tension in her, knew what she wanted, what she didn’t want to ask for. “Just like that?” he asked. “Is that what you meant? Or do you like when I lick—” his tongue flicked over one peak “—and suck—” he shifted his attention and pulled the other one deep into his mouth “—your nipples?”

  She moaned softly.

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  “I like—oh...I like...that.”

  She was aroused. He could hear it in the tempo of her breathing, see it in the way her breasts rose and fell with each shallow breath. He could feel it in the thunderous pounding of her heart beneath his lips, a frantic rhythm that matched his own.

  He unclasped her bra now, fully releasing her breasts from the lacy cups. She gasped as the cool air hit her skin, as her already-peaked nipples tightened further.

  She was so incredibly beautiful. And nervous. He wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he didn’t doubt that it was true. He swirled his tongue around one of the rosy peaks, then the other.

  She gasped again. “Yes,” she told him. “Like that.”

  He drew the nipple into his mouth, tugging gently on it with his teeth, and she arched beneath him. “And that?”

  “Yes,” she agreed breathlessly.

  He continued to tease the aroused flesh with his lips and his tongue while he worked her skirt over her hips. The lacy bikini panties she wore matched the already-discarded bra, so he sent them in the same direction. Then she was completely naked beneath him, bared to his gaze. Her skin was soft and fragrant, so sweetly and tantalizingly feminine.

  He lifted his mouth from her breast, blew softly on the wet tip. She moaned softly. “Ryan.”

  “Tell me what you want,” he reminded her.

  “You,” she said. “I want you.”

  His lips moved down her body, kissing and nibbling the warm, silky flesh. She was passionate and responsive, and when she wrapped herself around him, she felt darn close to perfect.

  The one night they’d spent together continued to haunt him. They’d both been a little drunk and
desperately eager as they finally succumbed to the attraction that had been simmering between them for more than two years already, and as spectacular as it had been in his memory, he’d started to wonder if it had been less so for her.

  He wasn’t at all drunk tonight, and he was determined to ensure that this experience wasn’t just memorable but truly unforgettable. He spread her legs wide and lowered his head between them. He heard her breath catch in her throat, felt the tension in the muscles of her thighs beneath his hands.

  “Do you like that?”

  “You can’t tell?”

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  “I like when you touch me there...kiss me there.”

  He suspected it would push her way beyond her comfort zone to ask her to clarify “there.” Instead he said, “Tell me you want more.”

  She sighed. “I want...more.”

  So he gave her more.

  And he took more.

  He nibbled and licked and savored. He made her back arch and her breath catch and her body collapse. And then he drove her up again, taking her to the pinnacle of pleasure, letting her hover there while he protected both of them and finally buried himself in the wet haven between her thighs.

  Harper rose up to wrap herself around him, her fingernails digging into his shoulders, her ankles locking around his waist. They’d both wanted, and fought against, exactly this—for too long. Now they were united in their desire and their purpose, and she met him thrust for thrust in a fast and frantic race to the finish.

  * * *

  “I thought maybe I’d fooled myself into thinking that the lovemaking we shared the night of Melissa and Darren’s wedding was more spectacular than it was,” Harper admitted to him later, when they were both sprawled naked and exhausted across her bed. “I was wrong.”

  “Told you,” Ryan said, just a little smugly.

  “That night was the most incredible experience of my life.”

  “Until tonight, you mean.”

  She smiled. “Until tonight.”

  “So why did you say that first night was a mistake?” he asked her.

  “Because I was afraid that you would think it was.”

  “I don’t think I said or did anything to give you that impression.”

  “You didn’t,” she agreed. “But I didn’t have—still don’t have—a lot of experience with relationships. And my parents’ on-again, off-again marriage wasn’t any kind of example. And when I woke up the next morning, I didn’t know what to expect from you—or what you expected from me.”

  “You said it was a mistake anticipating that I might think it was?”

  She nodded. “Melissa always accused me of sabotaging my own relationships to ensure that I had control over when they ended. Because the only thing I was ever sure of was that they would end.

  “That’s one of the reasons this is so scary to me,” she admitted. “Because no matter what happens between us, our connection to Oliver means that neither of us can walk away.”

  “I don’t want to walk away,” he told her.

  “Not right at this minute,” she allowed.

  “Because I’m exactly where I want to be.”

  “Naked in my bed?”

  “With you,” he clarified.

  * * *

  Harper woke up in the middle of the night and found herself alone.

  More surprising than that fact was the realization she was disappointed to be alone, that she wanted Ryan to be with her still.

  She wondered where he’d gone—and why. Had she scared him off with her talk about relationships? Had she assumed too much?

  She’d seized the day—but not without some trepidation. Making love with Ryan had been a big step for her, and she knew it wasn’t just possible but likely that he would break her heart. Because, the example of his family aside, Harper knew better than to believe in happy endings.

  But she wasn’t going to worry about the future, what might or might not happen between them. She was only going to enjoy being with him now. Or she would, except for the fact that the bed beside her was empty.

  And then she saw him in the doorway. He stood there for a moment, as if undecided whether or not to cross the threshold, whether to stay or go.

  She held her breath, waiting.

  He stepped into the room.

  “Is Oliver okay?” she asked quietly.

  “Yeah. He was fussing a little, but he settled right down again.” He sat on the edge of the mattress. “Are you okay?”

  She shouldn’t have been surprised that he would ask, that he would worry. Over the past two months, they’d spent a lot of time together and got to know one another better. She might even go so far as to say that they’d become friends, and she didn’t doubt that he cared about her the same way she cared about him.

  “Actually,” she finally said in response to his question, “I was just thinking that it’s a little chilly in here.”

  “Do you want me to turn off the AC?”

  “No, I want you to slide under the covers and warm me up.”

  His lips curved into that slow sexy smile that never failed to make her heart sigh. “That I can do.”

  And then his lips were on hers, his hands were stroking over her body, and she sighed in blissful pleasure.

  “I was a little worried that it might be awkward,” he admitted to her now.

  “The act or afterward?”

  “Afterward.”

  “Why did you think it might be?”

  “Because we’ve been here before,” he reminded her.

  “Everything was different then.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Four years ago, I didn’t know you very well, and what I did know about you, I wasn’t sure I liked.”

  He quirked a brow. “So how did we end up in bed together?”

  “I blame the champagne,” she told him. “That—and your very hot body.”

  “I never would have guessed that you were so shallow,” he said, but he sounded more amused than offended.

  “Apparently I am. Or was.”

  “You don’t think my body’s so hot anymore?”

  “I know there’s more to you than a hot body now.”

  “You do, huh?”

  She nodded as she slid her palms up his torso, gliding over the ridges of his abdomen, caressing the smooth pectorals. “I know you’re not just educated but smart—smarter than most people realize.” Smarter than she’d realized, until recently. “That you’re not just strong but gentle.” And she’d had no idea how appealing that combination could be. “You’re also warm and funny and kind and caring.”

  “Apparently I’m quite a catch,” he mused.

  “As if you’d ever let yourself be caught.”

  “I might,” he told her. “By the right woman.”

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe because you always gave the impression that you were looking for a good time, not a long time.”

  “I probably was,” he acknowledged.

  “What changed?”

  “Oliver.” He smiled. “Who would have figured that I’d be the first of my brothers to have a child—or at least the responsibility for one?”

  “Darren obviously had faith that you were up to the challenge.”

  “I’ve always liked kids,” he admitted. “They just weren’t anywhere on my radar until Oliver landed in my lap.”

  “Not mine, either.”

  “And yet we’re doing pretty good as a family.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Do you doubt it?”

  “Some days,” she admitted.

  “Why?”

  “I guess because I’m not really sure what a family should be. I know my own isn’t ideal. Not even close.”

  “And you think mine is?”

  “Maybe not ideal,” she acknowledged. But she’d spent enough time with them to see that they were committed n
ot just to the idea of family but to one another. When any of them needed anything, the relatives descended en masse to help out. As was evidenced by the freezer still full of casseroles and an extensive waiting list of aunts and cousins who wanted to babysit Oliver. “But they’re wonderful.”

  “They think you’re pretty wonderful, too—although my mother worries that you’re a little on the skinny side.”

  “Skinny?”

  He nodded.

  “What do you think?”

  “You’re soft and warm and naked, which makes you just about perfect in my book.”

  Chapter Eleven

  As soon as she stepped through the door, Harper was greeted by a series of high, sharp barks—the universal language of puppies—accompanied by the scrabble of little nails racing across the ceramic tile.

  Oliver was right on the heels of the canine, jumping up and down and saying, “Woof. Woof. Woof.”

  The furry bundle skidded to a sliding stop at her feet and looked up at her with big brown eyes that would melt a colder heart than hers. But she didn’t pick it up—or even reach down to pat the silky little head. She kept her fingers wrapped firmly around the strap of her briefcase and looked at Ryan, who had followed the puppy and toddler into the room, and said, “No.”

  He offered her a sheepish grin. “It’s not what you think.”

  “There isn’t a puppy at my feet?”

  “Woof. Woof. Woof,” Oliver said again.

  “Two puppies,” she amended.

  “The furry one belongs to Braden,” Ryan told her.

  She exhaled a little at that. “Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why she’s here instead of at your brother’s house,” she said, assuming on the basis of the pink collar studded with rhinestones that the puppy was female.

  “She’s an anniversary present for Dana, but their anniversary isn’t until the end of next week, so Braden asked if we could keep her until then. I know I should have checked with you first,” he hastened to say. “But...well, Coco looked at me with those eyes, and I just couldn’t say no.”

  “Cocoa? It’s apt, if not very original.”

  “Not C-O-C-O-A but C-O-C-O,” he explained. “Like the designer.”

  “That’s a little more original,” she agreed. “But if their anniversary isn’t until the end of next week, why didn’t Braden wait until then to get a puppy?”