Give and Take

by Lee Kilraine

  He nibbled along my collarbone and kissed my breasts. I loved every touch, but I craved more.

  “Wyatt? This is unbelievably erotic, but you gave me a peek at dirty-talking-Wyatt last time we were in bed, and I think…I’d like…what I’m saying is…”

  He moved his hand down, pressing against my mound, sliding a finger inside me and stroking deep while his thumb made small circles on my clit. And I couldn’t think, let alone talk. I coiled up tighter and tighter, every nerve ending getting ready to shatter. I almost cried when he stopped.

  But he did. He pulled his hot mouth from my nipple, pushing himself up on one arm to gaze down at me. Thank God he kept his other hand right where it was, dragging my body closer and closer to heaven. His smile, though, slid into wicked and sexy territory, and his dirty blond hair looked wild, tousled by my desperate fingers.

  “You want me to talk dirty to you?” he asked, his hot eyes roaming my face, my lips, and down to my breasts, making my nipples tight. His thumb pressed firmly on my clit, taking my breath away.

  I was so close my body was vibrating on the edge of a precipice, barely balancing while waves of pleasure spread out from his magic hands.

  “No. I’m not giving you my filthy words. You’re so fucking hot you’ve got me thinking things I never should. I think about your soft lips wrapped around my cock. I think about bending you over my desk at work and sucking your nipples in my mouth until I have you screaming. I’ve had dreams of going down on you and staying down there for hours. But mostly, I want to fuck you. I want to slide my cock hard into your heat, over and over, until you’re shuddering under me. I want to hear you scream my name as you come.”

  Wyatt leaned down and bit my bottom lip while he stroked his thumb once more, the lightest touch, and I came. I threw my arms around his shoulders as a shudder ran through my body. “Wyatt!”

  He leaned back to stare down at me, looking almost as satisfied as my body felt. I was a puddle. I was warm honey. I was a limp rag doll. I was probably smiling like an idiot.

  “You okay?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Damn, it finally happened. Rhia Hollis is speechless.”

  I was.

  Wyatt reached over to grab a condom from the night table before kneeling on the bed, his knees straddling my hips. He ripped the foil packet, slid the condom down his hard length, and looked at me with his heated gaze.

  “Now, you can have my filthy words and my cock.”

  Oh my. Dirty talking Wyatt had me melting even more.

  “I’m going to take you hard. I’m not stopping until you come again. Yes, Rhia?” He settled the tip of his shaft at my entrance, and I wanted him hard in me. “Give me a sign, babe.”

  I scraped my nails over his chest and bit my lip.

  “Fuck. I’m taking that as a yes.”

  I managed a nod, and he slid in hard and perfect, filling me and sending waves of pleasure shooting through me. “You want to pick a safe word?”

  I licked my lips. “Don’t need one.”

  “Fuck me.”

  Chapter 18

  Wyatt

  “Can I ask you a question?” Rhia asked me softly.

  “Ask away,” I said. I lay stretched out next to Rhia in her bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling, as we tried to recover our breaths.

  “You mentioned to me once that you owe your brothers, and that’s why you’re so driven. What do you owe them for?” The bed dipped as she rolled over to face me. I felt the heat of her gaze on me. “I mean, I’m the youngest kid in my family, but I don’t feel like I owe my siblings for anything.”

  “Ha! Having met your family that doesn’t surprise me.” Yeah, she didn’t win the family lottery any more than I did—just bad in a different way. And sure, maybe I was dodging the question. It wasn’t something I liked to think about, let alone share. I hadn’t talked about my childhood with anyone. Until Rhia.

  “Why do you owe them, Wyatt?” She whispered so softly it snuck in through the door I had slammed shut and boarded up long ago.

  “Why do I owe them? They saved my life. I never knew my mom. She took off when I was two. That left us with Dad. When he was sober, he was a mean, abusive son of a bitch. When he was drunk, he was worse. My brothers protected me. They diverted his attention when he decided it was my turn. They threw themselves in front of me and took beatings that should have been mine. For seven years, we got shuffled between our old man when he was sober and the foster system when he wasn’t.”

  “Oh, God, Wyatt. I’m so sorry. No child should have to live like that.”

  “Agreed.” But what I didn’t say was that, yes, my brothers and I had had a crap life to start, but we had each other. Because of my brothers, I always had a sense of belonging and love. That felt like what Rhia was missing in her family. I’d only been around them once, but they managed to make her the outsider. I felt true anger every time I thought of it. She fought so hard to find her way into her own family—to belong. “But thanks to my brothers, I had it easiest.”

  “What happened after seven years? You would have been what? Nine?” Rhia’s hand stroked my chest.

  I liked the feel of her soft hand on my skin. It soothed me and made it a bit easier to go back into those memories. “Old man up and left. Said we weren’t worth the hassle. It was one of the best and worst times in my life. The best because we were all glad to see him go. For four months we were the happiest boys in the world.”

  “Four months?”

  “Yep. Thanks mostly to Beck and Ash, we were able to keep our dad leaving a secret for four glorious months. Beck was sixteen and Ash fifteen. They made sure we got to school every day with clean clothes and a lunch, so no teachers would notice anything different. Hell, we’d raised ourselves all along. We loved every minute of every day of those six months.”

  “Who turned you in?”

  “I did.” “What?”

  “Not intentionally. I was nine and wanted to go on a field trip like the rest of my class. Dad never used to let us go. I forged his signature and got caught. Ruined the whole thing. I fucked up.”

  “You were nine.”

  “Still my fault. We got sucked back into the foster system and split up again. For good. We’d have been better off if they’d left us alone. But again, I was the lucky one. My foster parents were a nice elderly couple. Some of my brothers weren’t so lucky.”

  Rhia sifted her fingers through my hair and leaned up, placing a kiss on my jaw. “How long were you with your foster family?”

  “Almost six years. And that is way too much about me.” I rolled toward Rhia, running my hand down her arm, along her waist to rest on the luscious curve of her hip. “My turn to ask you a question.”

  “Ask me anything. My life is an open book.”

  “That’s exactly what I want to ask you about. Your book. Why do you only write for thirty minutes every day? Why not more?” I searched her eyes, looking to see if there was something she was hiding. Because I’d read her book. And it was good. Better than good, and I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t spend more time writing when she obviously enjoyed it.

  “Why do you keep harping on this? I already told you. It’s just writing. It’s not important.” She turned her face away and up at the ceiling, pulling in a deep breath and releasing it. “Scribbling. Goofing off really. A way to relax and recharge my creative well so I can put it into my planning business.”

  “It looks like it matters a great deal to you. You wouldn’t do it every day if you didn’t enjoy it.”

  Her head shook side to side. “I exercise three days a week, and I hate exercise. I do it because if I don’t I can’t eat dessert. I love dessert, Wyatt. Some days, the only thing that keeps me going is the slice of coconut custard pie I’ve got waiting in my fridge.”

  “I’m not sure I’m b
uying that.” Not when I had a vivid memory at the sheer pleasure on her face every morning when she thought I wasn’t paying attention as she wrote. “Have you ever thought of doing something with your writing?”

  “Like what exactly? Everyone knows it’s next to impossible to make a living writing stories.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “It would be easier to tell you who hasn’t told me. Everyone has told me. My parents. My grandfather. My aunts and uncles. My high school English teacher. My English Lit professors in college. The man at my local coffee shop who says he’s written eleven books, and has enough rejections to wallpaper his whole place.”

  “What if they’re wrong? All of them.”

  “Everyone is not wrong. And maybe they are. Maybe what they’re getting at is it’s a hard way to make a living. Very few people can do it full-time and make enough money to live on. It’s not a comfortable life.”

  “You don’t strike me as someone who wants comfortable.”

  “I’m not even sure what that means. Sure, I hang out in ratty sweats and my bunny slippers all the time, but I like to eat on a regular basis. I’m sort of addicted to it.”

  I’d seen her in her ratty sweats and bunny slippers, and she was fucking adorable in them.

  “What I mean is you’re a risk taker. You haven’t been afraid to blaze your own path rather than follow in the footsteps of your family—even with all the pressure they’ve put on you.”

  “To be honest, sometimes that path you think I’m blazing feels a lot more like I’m wandering around in circles. Lost.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s part of life. Totally normal.”

  “Not in my family it isn’t.”

  “Doesn’t mean you aren’t normal. Besides, look at how you bounce back from failure, ready to try again. You’re willing to be honest with yourself—which isn’t easy or comfortable to do. Do you know how many people stay in jobs they don’t like or aren’t good at because they’re too afraid to try something new?”

  I squeezed her hip, pulling her closer.

  “I wish you could see your face after you finish writing each day. My God, Rhia, you look so happy. And satisfied. In fact, you look a lot like after we make love. I don’t get why you keep forcing yourself to get your event planning business off the ground when you should be writing.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. What I should be doing is making smart, practical choices about my future. Which I’m doing. Writing is a whimsy. It’s pie in the sky. And like I said, very few people have enough talent to make any money at writing fiction, let alone enough to live on.”

  “How do you know you aren’t one of those people?”

  “Because I’m not that smart! You’ve met my family—they’re brilliant. Me? I’m passionate and enthusiastic, but that’s not enough to make it as a writer.”

  “Why do you sell yourself short? You’re smart in different ways. Holy crap, I’ve talked with your family. They might top the IQ charts, but they aren’t that great with people. Not like you are. And, I don’t know, but I like people with a little bit of emotion. Your family may be book smart, but you’re an emotional Mensa compared to them. Hell, compared to most people.”

  “I’m not sure what your point is. What are you saying?” Rhia sat up, dragging the deep purple quilt from her bed and tucking it around her.

  “I’m saying maybe it’s time to stop letting your family define who you are.”

  “Like you?”

  “My family doesn’t try to force me into a career I don’t love.”

  “That’s true. They don’t. You do it for them.”

  That had me sitting up. Hell, I got out of bed and dragged on my briefs and searched for my jeans. “What are you talking about?”

  “Why do you want to be an architect?”

  “I enjoy it. In fact, I love what I do.” I didn’t look into Rhia’s eyes on account I was still searching the room for where my jeans had landed when I’d tossed them. I found them on the floor on the other side of the bed. Yanking them on, I narrowed my gaze on Rhia. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A commonsense question. Are you sure you love architecture?”

  “Absolutely. Plus, I’m excellent at it.”

  “I bet you are. But I’d also bet money you don’t love it. I don’t think it’s what feeds your soul, Wyatt.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “No, pretty sure it isn’t.”

  “Then since you know more about me than I apparently know about myself… Tell me, Rhia, what does feed my soul if not architecture?”

  “Woodworking.”

  “I—” Fuck. I had no comeback for that. No argument. I did love woodworking. Very much. I ran my hand around the back of my neck and sank down on the edge of the bed.

  Rhia sat down next to me, wrapped up in the quilt, her hip bumping softly against mine.

  “Aren’t we a pair?” She nudged my shoulder with hers, and let out a self-depreciating laugh. “Although, so what, right? Lots of people don’t get to do what they really want. Very few people get to do what they’re truly passionate about.”

  “Right. That doesn’t make our jobs or our goals any less worthy.” But when I closed my eyes, I could see Rhia’s face excited and happy after she finished writing and tapping her stack of pages together. I knew that feeling. I did. I felt exactly that satisfaction and pleasure while I worked on a new piece of furniture. When I savored the feel of a smooth, solid piece of wood in my hands and knew instinctively what to craft it into.

  The weeks I didn’t make it to the woodshop, my life felt just a little off. I’d always chalked it up to missing my time to decompress. But what if it wasn’t just that? What if even once we had Hope and Ryker back in our lives, I still had this empty, unfulfilled feeling in my chest? Was Rhia right? Hell, even if Rhia was right about me, that didn’t mean I needed or even wanted to act on it.

  I didn’t. Because I couldn’t worry about me until my brothers were all settled and happy. Which meant helping get Six Brothers Construction on solid financial ground. We’d made great progress in the past year, but I would be able to save SBC thousands of dollars each year. So the reality was I didn’t have time for all this navel-gazing.

  “You’re right, Rhia. And I’m sorry for getting on your case. There’s nothing wrong with our goals. The world needs good event planners and architects.”

  “Exactly. If we need more passion and satisfaction, we’ll find it in each other.” She smiled up at me. “In fact, what do you say to another round right now?”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice.” I picked her up, tossed her onto the bed, and joined her. There was no shortage of passion and satisfaction for the next hour.

  Chapter 19

  Rhia

  “Wyatt Thorne, you just completed the fifth test of your ARE exam. What are you going to do?” I held my fake microphone in front of Wyatt’s mouth as we walked up the sidewalk to my parents’ house. Sweet, sexy Wyatt was just nerdy enough not to know the standard sports-hero response.

  “Umm…go to Sunday dinner at my fake pregnant girlfriend’s parents’ house?”

  “I swear, Wyatt, you don’t have to be here. No friend should have to take on my family more than once.”

  “I hear you, but honestly, your Aunt Ada’s cheesecake was darn good, and I’m hoping she made another one.”

  “My Aunt Ada’s cheesecake tastes like sour goat milk, so try another one, buddy.”

  “Fine. I’m here because of the fact that you told me your mother doesn’t believe we’re dating, and the last thing I want is for the phone calls and potential Mr. Rhia Hollis’s to start piling up in the office again.”

  “That I believe. And it’s the last thing I want, so I’ll act like I want to lick you all over, and you look at me the way you look at a
Frank Lloyd Wright building.”

  “Deal. But I’m telling you right now if your family pulls any of that passive/aggressive put-down-disguised-as-a-backhanded-compliment shit on you, I’m shutting that down.”

  “God, I love you Thorne brothers. It beats ‘I’ll expose him to botulism’ or ‘I’ll rearrange his DNA.’”

  “Wait, what?” His big, warm hand grabbed mine, stopping us one step into the foyer. “Your family does that?”

  I shook my head and stretched up to plant a reassuring kiss on his gorgeous mouth. “No, not for a while. I think.”

  He wrapped his palm around the nape of my neck and pulled me in close. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Totally kidding.” I couldn’t stop my smile.

  “I’m spanking you later. Naked.”

  “You, me, or both of us?” Like that was a threat. Ha! “Okay, show time.”

  “Rhia! It’s about time you and Wayne arrived.”

  “It’s Wyatt, Dr. Hollis,” Wyatt said. “It’s my fault we’re late. We passed a pancaked possum in the road, and I insisted we stop for it.”

  “Goodness, whatever for?” my mother asked.

  “Dinner.” Wyatt winked at my mom, making her face go stiff. “Makes a great stew.”

  My family’s faces showed the gamut of reactions from wide, blinking eyes to open mouthed “O”s while I barely kept a straight face myself. Wyatt Thorne had just told his third joke in my presence, and I loved it.

  “Come on down to sit with the adults, Warner, so we can all get to know you better.” My father managed a polite yet condescending smile that said he’d already judged him and found him lacking. Welcome to the club, Wyatt. Nice to have company.

  “It’s Wyatt. Would you prefer I call you Richard or Dad, sir?” Just like Wyatt, nice even when my family couldn’t bother to get his name right.

  “Dr. Hollis will be fine.” Dad frowned as he took a slab of meatloaf from the passing platter before handing it down to Wyatt. “Rhia, have you talked with your Uncle Monty?”

  “Dad—” I clenched my jaws together to avoid saying something I’d regret later. “I love Uncle Monty, but like I told you last time this came up, that’s not going to happen.”