Fuck. The thought of sliding my cock between her lips, seeing how deep she could take me, and then pushing it just a bit more…
I could almost come from that thought alone.
“Cai…” My name came out in a whine.
“Just a little longer,” I said as I went back to work.
My tongue traced around her entrance, then slipped inside. I’d let her come this time, I decided. Considering this was only her second sexual experience, she was accepting everything I’d asked her to do surprisingly well. I’d tied her up, and she hadn’t even blinked.
“Cai, not again. I can’t do it again.”
I could hear it in her voice, feel it in her body as I took her clit between my lips. She was reaching the point where she couldn’t take anything more. If I didn’t let her come this time, she’d use her safe word, and she’d never trust me like this again.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m going to let you come this time.”
“Thank you,” she practically sobbed. “Thank you. Thank you.”
She continued to repeat those two words over and over until they turned into a scream. Her thighs clamped down on either side of my head, her entire body arching off the bed, and I softened my touch, helping ease her back down. When she slumped back onto the bed, legs sprawled wide, I moved up to my knees.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice hoarse.
I slid my hands up her calves and back down again. She shivered, her skin still sensitive. “Thank you.”
She was still gasping, so the words came out in pants. “For what?”
My hands moved over her knees to her thighs. “For trusting me to take you there.”
She gave me a smile. “I’ve trusted you to save my life. After that, this was easy.”
I nodded, not wanting to think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t made the connection in time.
“Are you going to let me keep my promise?” She licked her lips.
“Later.” I leaned over her and brushed my lips across hers. “Trust me, I’m looking forward to teaching you all the wonderful things you can do with your mouth, but right now, unless you’ve changed your mind, I need to fuck you.”
She blinked, startled by my word choice.
“I don’t want to be soft and gentle, Addison,” I warned her. “I want to continue to show you how good this can be, but only if you–”
“Yes.” She tugged on her restraints. “Yes! No more waiting. Please, Cai. I can’t wait anymore. I’m not a patient person. I thought I was, but I’m not.”
I opened the condom wrapper and rolled it on as she talked. The next time we did this, I would order her to talk dirty. I had a feeling she’d be quite good at it.
“Are you going to untie me?” she asked as I moved closer.
I cupped her ass, lifting her up until we were lined up, and then I buried myself inside her with one quick thrust. She cried out, but I recognized it as pleasure, not pain. Still, I waited a moment before starting a fast, deep pace that drove me to the very end of her, her body accepting me as if I’d been made to be with her like this.
We were both too close for this to last long, no matter how much I might have wanted it to. I dropped her hips and leaned over her, her nipples hard pebbles against my chest. I rolled my hips, the base of my cock rubbing against her clit. I kept enough of my weight on my arms to keep from crushing her but stayed low enough that I could take her mouth as I drove us toward mutual release.
Then she was there, her body thrashing underneath me, mouth pulling away from mine, so she could yell my name again. She wrapped her legs around me, holding me inside her, tightening her quivering muscles until I came too.
I rolled to the side, tugging her hands free as I went so she could lay next to me, catching her breath too. She snuggled up against my side, and I wrapped my arm around her. We’d have to think about this later, I knew, but for right now, I was going to lay here and enjoy the moment for as long as it lasted.
Twenty-Two
Addison
Things could’ve been awkward after Cai and I had sex again, this time knowing who the other person was. But it, strangely, wasn’t. I woke up and he was in the shower, but when he came out, he smiled and said he’d call room service for breakfast while I showered.
And food was indeed waiting. A lot of it.
Now, I was in clean, if wrinkled, clothing, eating my third helping of waffles, while Cai sat across the table, working on his own breakfast. Neither one of us had said much of anything yet, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. More like we understood each other on a level that didn’t exist with anyone else.
I wasn’t entirely sure how I was supposed to feel about that.
“Why May?”
I looked up, confused by the question. “What?”
“At the club that night, you said to call you May. Why that name?”
I shrugged, feeling a blush creeping up my cheeks. “It’s my middle name.”
He laughed. “And here I’d been trying to figure out if it was your favorite month or if you were a Spiderman fan.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Aunt May. I never would’ve pegged you as a comic book nerd.”
He shrugged. “They were an easy escape for me.”
I wanted to pursue that train of thought, but I had a feeling it might be a little too serious for the moment. I didn’t want him thinking that I felt like I had some right to know personal details about him because we’d slept together.
I went with a question that I’d been thinking about for a while, and that I felt was a little more pertinent to our new level of intimacy.
“How did you get into BDSM?”
He was quiet for a moment, but I didn’t get the impression that he was angry, just thinking.
“I’ve always been a bit of a…control freak. I never did the relationship thing, but even in casual hook-ups, I wanted to be in charge. When I first moved to Atlanta, a woman I’d met took me to the club where you and I first had sex. I felt like I’d found a place where things finally made sense in an area of my life that hadn’t before. I understood the rules, the way things worked. It offered order whenever I needed it.”
I nodded as he spoke, his words explaining the way I’d been feeling since that night at the club. I wasn’t a submissive person by nature, but I found the idea of exerting control over someone else exhausting. I’d spent most of my life having to be the parent, the adult. Even if I hadn’t been taking care of other people, I had to take care of myself. With Cai, I’d let him take care of me, let him take charge.
And it had been…freeing.
“I do wonder though,” he said, “how much of what we are is formed by our experiences when we are young.”
I leaned closer. “What do you mean?”
“Do you ever look at your siblings and see all the ways you’re different and all the ways you’re the same?”
“Sometimes. Mostly how we’re different.”
He smiled. “Me too. I’ve always thought that the four of us boys couldn’t have been any more different. Growing up, that’s what everyone said all the time. How none of us were alike. We had nothing in common.”
I understood that.
“Until recently.”
“Your grandfather,” I murmured.
He nodded. “That too. But we’d always known that loving him was the only thing we had in common since the accident. When I went back to Boston, I already had in my head that this would be it. That I’d likely never see my brothers again until another funeral. Maybe a wedding.”
“What changed?” I asked.
“Before I flew home, the four of us had a conversation that revealed there was one other thing we had in common. BDSM.”
I made a face. “Wasn’t it weird, talking to your brothers about stuff like that?”
He shrugged. “It’s not like we talked about our favorite positions or anything like that. Just the…idea of it.”
“I think I’d rat
her go back to that shed without a suit than talk to my siblings about sex,” I said. “Just the thought of it…” I shuddered.
Cai stood and carried his plate back over to the food service cart. “I’m still waiting for a call about the company plane. Do you want to go do something today? It’s beautiful outside.”
“Outside might be nice,” I said. “Is there something you’d like to see?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to this part of Texas before. My brother lives in El Paso, but I’ve never been there either.”
From the way his shoulders suddenly tightened, I knew he hadn’t meant to say that last bit.
“Did you tell him you were nearby?” I already knew the answer but asked it anyway.
“I love my brothers, Addison, but one fifteen-minute talk about our mutual interest in particular sexual preferences didn’t make us close. We went our own ways a long time ago.”
I stood and crossed over to where he was, his back still to me. “I know it’s not my place, but they’re your family. You don’t have to let your grandfather’s death break you apart more than you are. You can let it be a second chance.”
He made a derisive sound. “You sound like my grandfather. He wanted us to make amends. Made it part of his will, in fact. If we want our inheritance, we must reconcile. And his lawyer is going to be the judge of whether or not we’ve done that.”
I told myself that it wasn’t my place to put a judgement on his family, but I couldn’t help but wonder how tough things must have been if his grandfather had felt the need to take such drastic measures. “Your brother that lives nearby, how do you get along with him? Compared to your other brothers, I mean.”
“Slade’s pretty easy to get along with,” he said. “He just never takes anything but work seriously.”
I took a chance and put my hand on his arm. “I think we’ve had enough seriousness since we’ve been here. Something, a little lighter sounds like it might be worth a shot.”
He didn’t answer, but I knew he was thinking about it. He might not have been aware of it, but I’d heard it in his voice. He didn’t want things with his brothers to stay the way they were. He wanted to make things right, and I was going to help him do just that.
Twenty-Three
Cai
How had I let her talk me into this? I was supposed to be the one in control, but somehow, Addison had convinced me that calling Slade was the best thing to do. I hadn’t really expected him to pick up the phone, but he had, and I found myself saying that I’d like to see him while I was in the area. To my surprise, he’d accepted, and that was how I now found myself walking into Tabla with Addison at my side.
She’d argued about coming, but then I’d pointed out that she was the only reason this dinner was happening. It’d taken me threatening to cancel if she didn’t come with me, but I’d finally gotten her to agree, under one condition. She wanted to buy something nice to wear.
Nice didn’t begin to cover it.
The dress was simple enough, but on her, it looked like something right off the runway. The deep, pine green complemented her coloring, and the long, flowing style made her look even taller than she already was. She’d gotten a pair of dressy sandals with enough of a heel to put her a few inches closer to my height, but that was where things ended. No jewelry and barely any makeup.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, not even when the hostess escorted us back to the table where my brother was waiting.
“Cai, it’s good to see you again.” Slade rose from his seat and held out a hand.
I shook it, resisting the urge to squeeze as his gaze shifted from me to Addison. He didn’t even try to hide the admiration in those damned baby blues of his.
“Slade, this is Addison Kilar. Addison, this is my little brother, Slade.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said politely.
I had to stop myself from touching her just to let Slade know where things stood, but she didn’t let the handshake linger. I pulled out her chair, smiling at the pleased expression on her face. Once we were all settled, Slade ordered a cheese plate and some pear thing. I had to admit, I was surprised that this was the place he’d chosen.
“The chef here is a friend of mine,” he answered my unspoken question. “I helped his daughter out of a tough spot last year.”
“Slade’s a DEA agent,” I explained to Addison.
“It seemed like a good way to put my army training to work,” he said easily. He brushed back his dark hair, leaning back in his chair with that casual grace that had always gotten him the attention of pretty much every straight woman around. Half the time, I didn’t think he was even aware of it, but tonight, I didn’t care.
I finally had something that was mine, and I wasn’t going to let my slick brother steal her from me.
I leaned closer to Addison, letting my arm brush against hers. “If you get tired, just say the word, and we’ll go back to the hotel. You shouldn’t get run down.”
She nodded, but the look she gave me said that she knew my comment had been meant for Slade as much as it was for her.
“Is something wrong?” Slade asked, his concern genuine enough that I couldn’t be annoyed by it without being a bastard.
“I work with Cai at the CDC,” she answered. “We were in Pecan Grove, and I was exposed to the infection there.”
She glanced at me, giving me a warm smile that I felt all the way down to my toes. She reached over and put her hand on mine. I curled my fingers around hers, the gesture so natural that I barely realized I was doing it until it was done.
“He found a cure and saved me, along with everyone else who’d been affected.” She turned her attention back to Slade but didn’t pull her hand away. “You guys must be so proud of everything he’s done.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Slade responded, “We are.”
“Now,” she continued with a smile, “what’s your favorite dish here?”
Food was an easy enough topic of conversation that I found myself able to start relaxing. I didn’t contribute much, but what I observed spoke volumes. I’d never taken the opportunity to watch my brother, and now that I was, what I realized surprised me.
Under that laid-back veneer was an edge almost as sharp as the one I felt in myself. Slade had always been the funny brother, the one who eased tensions between the rest of us, the diplomat and peacemaker. He’d been that way before our parents had died – or at least as much as a five-year-old could be – but I wondered now how much of him was a mask.
“Have you spoken with Jax?” I asked during a lull in a discussion regarding the pros and cons of winter weather.
Slade took a drink before answering, “Not since I left Boston. You?”
“Monday evening, actually.” I kept my tone casual. “I called him while I was waiting to see how everyone was going to respond to the treatment. I was having difficulty doing nothing.”
“You’ve never struck me as the impatient type,” Slade said. “Spending all those hours looking at bacteria and viruses, going over things hundreds of times.”
I couldn’t tell him that under normal circumstances, I was a patient person, but those hadn’t exactly been normal. He’d want to know why, and with Addison sitting right next to me, I couldn’t say it. Not when I was still trying to figure out what it all meant.
I shrugged and gave a half-assed answer. “Impatience can get the best of any of us.”
I felt Addison’s eyes on me but didn’t look at her. She was far too observant.
“What did he have to say?” Slade asked, stabbing a piece of duck with his fork.
“He’s building that club he talked to us about.”
Slade’s eyes darted toward Addison and back again.
“It’s okay,” I said. “She knows.”
I left the explanation at that. He could make of it what he wanted, and if part of that assumption was that Addison and I were intimately involved enough for her to know about t
hat, all for the better.
“Does that mean he got that woman to sell her bar?”
I shook my head. “You’re not going to believe this.”
* * *
I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed Slade’s stories. He’d always had a knack for spinning tales that were a hundred times more elaborate than what had actually happened, but they were so good that no one ever minded that they were exaggerated.
“How have you not gotten fired?” Addison asked, her voice breathless with laughter.
Slade gave her that charming, irascible grin that had made him one of the most popular guys in our school. “Technically, I wasn’t on the clock.”
“How have you not gotten arrested then?”
“He’s always been good at getting out of trouble,” I said wryly. “Remember that time you found a goat and set it loose in the school? What were you then, a junior? Senior? We thought for sure you were going to get arrested. Expelled at the very least. Instead, you got what, two weeks of detention?”
“A week,” he corrected and gave me a strange look. “I was a senior, which meant you and Jax were already gone. How did you know about that?”
“Just because Jax and I were in college didn’t mean we forgot about you and Blake.”
The look on Slade’s face said that was exactly what he’d thought had happened, and for the first time since I heard what Grandfather expected of us, I realized that he’d been right. Even though Slade and Blake had their own issues, Jax and I were the most responsible for what happened to us. We were the oldest, the ones our brothers should have been able to come to, but we’d let them down.
Slade looked away and the moment passed, but the smile he gave Addison didn’t look quite as real as it had before. I’d never seen it before, how Slade had used his charm and humor to placate and deflect, not just between family members, but also to keep his own thoughts and feelings hidden.
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