The Good Mistake (Hemsworth Brothers #3)

by Haleigh Lovell

  My thighs, his thighs glistened with my cum.

  “Edric.” I was panting hard, fighting to breathe. God. I was too tired to move, too tired to exist.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Now we gotta take another shower.”

  “Noooo.” He groaned in protest and smacked my ass.

  “Whaaaat?” I cried indignantly as he left to dispose of the condom. “Is this how you do me? You’re just gonna ejaculate and evacuate? Jizz and jet, as they say. I see now. I see how you operate. You just blow your load and then hit the damn road!”

  “Baby.” He returned with a warm washcloth and wiped me down between my legs. “This is all you.”

  “It’s yours, too.”

  “Nuh-uh.” The faint, sexy lift of his lips told me he was amused. “I wore a condom, so this is your vajizzle. Or your lady spray, as they say.”

  “Lady spray?” I pulled a face. “Are you from the eighteen hundreds?”

  “What do the millennials call it? Taco juice? Or do you prefer I call it your tilapia sauce? Actually, it looks more like cat puke. Hey, I know,” he said suddenly. “This is your moist, moist sploogette that I’m cleaning off.”

  Dear God, please make it stop.

  Laughing and cringe-convulsing at the same time, I hissed, “Sthaaaaappppppp. I hate you.”

  He was laughing, shoulders shaking. “I love you.”

  “Yes!” I shrieked passionately. “Yessssssssss! You know what this means, right?”

  “What?”

  “You lost the bet so you’re taking me to Vegas, baby.”

  “I am?”

  “You are.” I whooped with joy. “Celine Dion, here we come!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Edric

  “EDRIC!” LUCY STARED at me, a tiny smile flitting across her lips. “Why are you wearing church pants?”

  “What?” I retorted. “You want me to walk into Caesars Palace in my sweatpants? I’ll be happy to.”

  “God, no.” She snorted. “Nice tie, by the way. You look like a Mormon missionary.”

  “Elder Edric would like to share with you the sweet message of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” I said sagely. “I’m here to tell you that Jesus wants you for a sunbeam.”

  “No, thanks.” Lucy squirted some ketchup onto her plate and dipped a fried cheese curd into it.

  “Question,” I said. “What’s Celine Dion’s favorite condiment?”

  “It depends.” She pursed her lips, considering. “Do you consider maple syrup a condiment, a topping, or a sauce?”

  Leaning against the kitchen counter, I folded my arms and cut her a bemused look. “A topping,” I said.

  “See, I think it’s a condiment. Maple syrup is a supplemental food; you add it to food to enhance the flavor. Case in point: maple bacon, maple-glazed ham, maple sausage, maple vinaigrette dressing, maple baked beans.”

  “Maple baked beans?” I made a gagging noise. “Gross. Now are you gonna let me tell my joke or not?”

  “Go onnnnnnn.”

  “Her favorite condiment is Celine Dijon mustard.”

  Lucy froze as if a tranquilizer dart had shot her. When she finally regained control of her facial features, she said, “That is the worst dad joke I’ve ever heard.”

  “You think you can do better?”

  “Of course,” she said plainly. “What’s Celine Dion’s favorite vegetable?”

  “Too easy.” I picked a piece of invisible lint off my shirtsleeve and flicked it away. “Celerine Dion.”

  “Humph!” She frowned and tried again. “What do you say when Celine Dion’s in the toilet?”

  “Porcelain Dion?”

  “Nope!” she said. “Celine in-the-John.”

  I almost smiled. “Mine was better.”

  “No, mine.”

  “Hers was better.” Adelaide drifted into the kitchen as if carried by a whispery morning breeze. “I still can’t believe you’re going to see Celine perform tonight. Isn’t she ending her Vegas residency this year?”

  “She is,” I said. “And don’t get me started on the whole Vegas residency thing.”

  “I know, right?” Adelaide agreed. “Why do they call it that? It’s a series of concerts.”

  “Exactly.” I rolled my eyes. “And to my knowledge, none of those artists are resident physicians practicing medicine in a supervised setting.”

  “I don’t care what they call it.” Lucy’s voice was imbued with excitement. “I can’t wait to see my queen on stage tonight. Celine’s gonna slay. Slayyyyy.”

  “What time is your flight again?” Adelaide asked.

  “In about...” I checked my watch. “An hour and forty-five minutes.”

  “And you’ll be back—when?”

  “Early tomorrow morning. Five a.m. Lucy doesn’t want to be away from her man for too long.”

  “But you’ll be there.”

  “Her other man,” I said.

  “Oh.” A flicker of a smile crossed her face. “Gouda, her horse.”

  “Edric’s my main man, though.” Lucy suddenly lunged forward and tweaked my nipples. “Aren’t you now?”

  “Yo!” I swatted her hands away. “Leave my nips alone! Laughing emoji.”

  “Laughing emoji.” Lucy shrieked with laughter as we wrestled and played. “Laughing emoji. Laughing emoji. HUAAAAAAAAGH! HUAAAAAAAAGH AAAARGHCHOOO!”

  “Nice one,” I said. “And bless you.”

  “Thank you.” She sniffled. “I feel much better now.”

  Meanwhile, Adelaide was looking at us like we were adorable but not entirely there, the kind of look you gave to two feral bush children who were raised by dingoes.

  “Lucy likes to sneeze loud and proud,” I explained. “Don’t be alarmed if she sounds like she’s being murdered when she lets one out next time.”

  “I see,” Adelaide said pensively. “And why do you guys say ‘laughing emoji’ instead of just laughing?”

  “Inside joke,” Lucy supplied.

  “Ah.” A smile touched her lips. “You guys are the cutest. I’m totally buying you a blender for your wedding.”

  “Pssh.” Lucy waved her words aside. “We’re not getting married. We’re just having fun right now. Am I right, Edric?”

  “She’s right,” I said.

  “Hmm.” Adelaide was looking at us askance. “So you’re not planning to secretly elope in Vegas?”

  “Nah,” I said, swiping at a buzzing mosquito. “We’re just going to see Celine perform.”

  “Hey,” Adelaide cried. “Don’t kill that mosquito.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a symbol of your love story, or a metaphor if you will.”

  Now I was mighty confused. “Explain.”

  “Have you ever wondered how mosquitoes can fly in the rain?”

  “I have,” Lucy chimed in. “It’s crazy how they can soar through a downpour without getting pummeled by all that water.”

  “Exactly,” Adelaide said. “They’re so incredibly lightweight that you’d think they’d get squashed by the rain. And a single raindrop weighs about fifty times as much as a mosquito; it’s equivalent to a human getting hit by a truck. But these mosquitoes, they’re able to buzz away on their merry way.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “By not resisting the force.”

  “You mean they just ride the raindrops?”

  “Yes, actually. They’re like surfers, riding a wave they’ve been put on. Instead of resisting the rain, they kind of adhere to it and they survive that way.”

  “Fascinating,” Lucy mused aloud. “So mosquitoes fall together with the raindrops before they free themselves and fly off unharmed?”

  “Precisely,” Adelaide said. “By doing that, they minimize the force that gets applied to the raindrops.”

  Lucy and I exchanged a knowing look. “We’re just riding the wave we’ve been put on, baby.”

  Her mouth twitched, first in one corner, and then it curled into a grin made m
ore attractive by the fact that she tried to suppress it. “How lovely. Our love story is a mash-up of mosquitoes in the rain, an abscess on an armpit, an amputated foot, and clownfish.”

  I smiled broadly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Speaking of clownfish...” Adelaide walked over to the little fish tank sitting by the window and dropped a few fish flakes in there. “How many times should I be feeding them again?”

  “Just once more tonight.” Lucy stood in front of the tank and together they watched the tiny clownfish chasing one other through the corals. “Awwwee, look at my babies,” she gushed. “Edric and Edrica are getting along swimmingly. They look so happy, don’t they?”

  “They do,” Adelaide agreed with a smile.

  A beat passed.

  And then another.

  “Erm...” Adelaide hesitated before adding, “Why’d you name your baby clownfish after Edric?”

  Lucy turned slowly to face me, wearing a sweet and winsome expression on her face. “I lost a bet,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lucy

  “CALL ME SENTIMENTAL, but I had full-blown goose bumps watching Celine sing her heart out,” I said effusively before bursting into song. “Oncceeeeee morrreeeee, you ooooo-pen the doorrrrrr.”

  “After you.” Edric held the door open to let me pass. “Now will you stop singing?”

  “Okay,” I said breezily as we stepped out into the Vegas night.

  The bright lights in the big city cast everything in shades of silver and gold.

  A kind of destiny filled the air, especially striking after the Queen of Quebec’s powerful, lung-busting concert.

  Feeling exhilarated, I released my breath in a rush. “Should we hit the casinos before we head home?”

  “Why not? Vegas was built for two things—sinning and gambling.”

  I gave him a sly, knowing grin. “Let’s make some bad motherfucking decisions.”

  “Fine by me.” He laughed. “Let’s go to the Mirage. They’re one of the few that offer single and double-zero American roulette.”

  “Makes no difference to me,” I said. “I bet one number for thirty-five spins when I play roulette.”

  “What number is that?”

  “Four. It’s my magic number.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about it,” I said. “There are four cardinal directions, four points of the compass. And there are four fundamental elements. Earth. Fire. Water. Air. Also,” I added, “there are four cornerstones of the psyche.”

  “Which are?”

  “Thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation,” I stated. “So four is magic, I’m telling you.”

  “And you’re going to bet on it for thirty-five spins?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hmm.” His gaze narrowed in thought. “I think, feel, and sense, intuitively, that your plan is not a safe bet.”

  I brought a hand to his face, tracing the shape of his jawline with a light, tentative motion. “I’m not a safe bet.”

  He smiled, a sexy little curl of his lips. “I’ve never wanted a safe bet.”

  “Well, good,” I said with a coy inflection in my voice. “Because I’m a bit of a wild card. And I know I’m brash and bold and a loud sassafras, but I’ll always bring something new and exciting into your life.”

  “I know.” He held my gaze and I lost myself in his loving stare. “Fortune favors the bold. And with you, baby, I’ve hit the jackpot.”

  Emotion pinched sweetly in my chest. “And what about you?” I said. “What numbers are you betting on?”

  “The Fibonacci sequence.”

  “The what?”

  “If you look at nature, almost all flowers have a certain number of petals: three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, or fifty-five. The same for pinecones—they have either eight spirals from one side and thirteen from the other, or either five spirals from one side and eight from the other. Now are these numbers in nature the product of chance?”

  “No?” I said a little uncertainly.

  “You’re right. They’re not. They belong to the Fibonacci sequence: one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one and so on, where each number is obtained from the sum of the two preceding. And if these numbers are important in nature, why not try ’em out at the roulette table?”

  “Jesus, take the wheel.” I canted my head slightly and cracked a smile. “Who knew my man was such a math whiz? Baby, you’ve got brains and brawn.”

  Smiling, he tucked his arm through mine and we strolled down the sidewalk toward the Mirage. “Now the Fibonacci sequence is linked to another famous number—the golden mean.”

  As he prattled on, I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling.

  I loved the way his mind worked. He was such a wily fox, that one.

  He was incapable of being anyone but himself—a crusty, crabby man with over a million gripes to his name (like me).

  And while I had some gripes about him, like how he could run a joke into the ground, there was just so much that I loved about him.

  He was wholly authentic and just an all-round great guy with no ego, but all the confidence in the world (there is a difference).

  It was also an added bonus that he could make my vagina sing like Celine Dion.

  I couldn’t ask for more. Edric, simply put, was the real deal.

  And he had my heart—and my funny bone.

  We slowed and came to a stop at the front entrance of the Mirage. As promised, he handed over a thousand dollars in a stack of hundred-dollar bills. “Thank you,” I said. “These are the crispiest bills I’ve ever seen in my life. The last time I had a hundred-dollar bill in my possession, I origami-ed it into a pig.”

  His mouth twitched at the corners. “Of course you did.”

  We smiled silently at each other.

  In time, he said, “You ready?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Together, hand in hand, we walked into the casino, Edric in his church pants and me in a cocktail dress with a stoner hoodie tied around my waist (a gift from Edric, of course)... our lives laid before us like a wager.

  **Continue reading for an excerpt from The Slam (Hemsworth Brothers Book 1)

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  THE SLAM: A Romance

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  **Continue reading for an excerpt from The Slam (Hemsworth Brothers Book 1)

  Chapter One

  ENDER

  THE CLOCK ON MY NIGHTSTAND glowed: 12:45 A.M.

  Shifting my eyes over the messy bed, I sat up groggily and looked down at the woman beside me.

  Fuck. What the hell is her name? Lauren? Or is it Lacy?

  Scrubbing my face, I hesitated a moment then lifted the covers.

  Lacy, I thought as I stared at her sleeping form. She was naked except for a wispy lace bra, just two pale blue triangles covering her small, but n
icely rounded breasts.

  Definitely Lacy.

  Unable to resist, I reached for her breast, teasing the shadow of her nipple through the flimsy lace cup. Her nipple hardened instantly, poking greedily at my fingers.

  I smiled.

  Bracing my hands on either side of her, I lowered my head and drew on the pebbled nipple, suckling deep and hard until I felt her rosy bud stretch, pull, and elongate inside my mouth.

  “Mmm.” A breathless moan slipped past her lips. Her eyes were still closed and she began caressing her tits.

  I sat back and watched, loving the look of her swollen nipples and large areolas spilling out of her lace cups as she touched herself.

  My dark gaze traveled lower, burning at the hint of blonde curls visible through the lace thong.

  Desire tore through me as she nudged the thin material away, exposing her moist, pink flesh. As if by their own will, her fingers began moving over her clit, massaging the swollen bud.

  “Your pussy looks neglected.” My voice was thick, hoarse. “Let me lick it for you.”

  “Mmmm,” she moaned, arching her back as she touched herself. “Let me take care of you first.” As she fingered her clit, she extended her free hand and started stroking my shaft.

  My cock was already hard and heavy, the slit gleaming with a bead of semen.

  “Yeah.” Closing my eyes, I focused on the feel of her soft hands gliding up and down the length of my shaft. “Oh yeah, Lacy.” A deep groan scraped from my throat as she squeezed on the head.

  Abruptly, her hand stilled.

  “Lacy?” she demanded. “Who the hell is Lacy?”

  “Your bra... it’s lacy.”

  To her credit, she didn’t fall for my horseshit. “You don’t even know my name, do you?”