Graduation and Gifts (Untouchable Book 8)

by Heather Long

  I grinned. “And it’s fun to watch them go all alpha.”

  “That it is,” he admitted. “They aren’t even doing it to impress you. They really care how this comes out.”

  “You care,” I told him. “You like to win.”

  “So do you,” he began but paused when Archie glared at us.

  “You’re supposed to be paying attention,” he reminded us.

  “Oops,” I intoned with wide eyes. “We’re in trouble.”

  The playful tone was the right thing to do, because Archie grinned and shook his head. “Keep it up, babe, and I’ll get into this spanking thing you like.”

  Yeah, my pussy might have clenched at that threat. “Not sure that’s a deterrent,” I teased, but out of deference to seeing him smile, I focused on their plan. I had to admit, they had worked out a good one.

  And that ten-mile run earlier might not work out in my favor if I had to play bait, but that was what they wanted me to do. Lure out their players so Jake could take a higher position and knock them out. In the meantime, Coop would go with Archie to nail the red flag first. Ian would stay to defend our flag.

  We did have little headsets and radio control. I wanted to laugh at how serious they were, especially when we went with call signs, but I had to admit, there was a certain amount of thrill to this whole idea.

  For the next two hours, it was a blast. We weren’t the only one who went after the red team first. The green team had also gone after them. They were the team with the six members, and they took enough body shots—I managed to knock out one on my own, even with Jake covering me from above—that they were out of play. Archie snagged their flag in the melee and took out a green team member at the same time.

  But almost at once, our aggressive play turned defensive, because the green team came after us. Three of them moved together in a triangle pattern, and they nearly got me. I had taken four of the five hits needed to eliminate me from play.

  Jake fell back with me and took two hits meant for me, then we took out one of our assailants. Buying time for Archie and Coop, we went on the run and kept their team after them.

  Two on two, we were racking up the shots.

  I got eliminated just as Archie claimed their flag and the buzzer sounded through the whole place.

  Hot and sweaty afterward, the guys were still riding high on their victory. “My place tonight,” Archie announced. “Jeremy already picked up the cats, and we’re going to finish moving the last of your stuff out, babe.”

  It almost felt too soon, but we went back to my place long enough to shower and change. I packed up an overnight bag and my toiletries. All our cars were coming with us, which meant we were driving separately. The bed had been stripped down to the mattress, and there were new boxes.

  I would scold Jeremy and Archie later, but a part of me was truly grateful. Leaving the apartment was bittersweet. I’d grown up here. I had a lot of bad memories here.

  But I had good ones too. This year? This past year with them had been the best. This was where we’d become us, even if we’d had to go to Colorado to really sort it all out. This was where I’d slept with Jake and Coop the first times. Archie had told me he loved me for the first time in his Ferrari right outside. Coop and I had grown up here. It’d also been the site of an amazing birthday I was never going to forget. I met my father here for the first time.

  So many memories.

  The guys trickled out, and for once, they let me have a couple of minutes alone in the place. With the cats gone, the art off the walls, and everything packed, it held an element of emptiness I wasn’t expecting.

  As much as it had been my home, it wasn’t anymore.

  My home was out there waiting for me.

  Blowing out a breath, I turned off the lights and headed for the door.

  It was time to leave the apartment in the past and take the memories with me. Still, I hesitated at the backdoor and glanced at the kitchen one more time.

  It was one more goodbye in a couple weeks of goodbyes.

  I locked the door and headed to the parking lot, where my family waited next to their own vehicles.

  Joy invaded the bittersweet, and I grinned.

  “French toast for breakfast tomorrow?” I asked, and Archie grinned.

  “Like Jeremy would make you anything else.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Painting the Roses Red

  Coop

  Breakfast at Archie’s was everything you could want, right down to the fact the cats wandered through the dining room while we fell on the feast Jeremy prepared for all of us. None of them were on the table, though I’d caught Tiddles eyeing it with his tail thrashing like he just waited for the right moment to commit mischief. There was a huge platter with bacon and sausage at the center with stacks of pancakes and a special heated dish with French toast—which every single one of us knew better than to even approach until Frankie had hers.

  She’d already expressed appreciation while she sat, in her pajamas, in one of the highbacked chairs, knee up and cradling a fancy coffee that Jeremy had prepared right down to the whip cream. Her blissful sigh sent a ripple of laughter around the table. While this was hardly my first meal at Archie’s place, I had to admit, it was the warmest. Jake stretched over to serve himself up five pancakes, while Bubba did the same. Archie hadn’t touched any of the food, a cup of coffee in one hand and his phone in the other.

  While we didn’t know all the details of Frankie’s Great Adventure, which was what we’d dubbed this summer vacation plan of Arch’s, we did know today was launch day. We weren’t willing to let her linger a moment longer than necessary. The apartment was packed up and emptied. The movers had picked up some of my things for me while they emptied her apartment. From there, they went to Jake’s and then Bubba’s. All personal items were being shipped to New York ahead of us.

  Well, everything except some of the more important personal pieces. “Are you sure you don’t mind the cats running all over the house?” Frankie asked for like the tenth time since we arrived the night before to find that Tabby had claimed the formal living room while Tory had made herself at home in the kitchen and what I thought had to be Jeremy’s rooms.

  Tiddles? He pretty much swanned all over the house like he owned the place, and I’d already seen him head up the stairs via the railing. No way there wouldn’t be claw marks.

  “They’ll get cat hair everywhere…”

  “That’s what a vacuum is for, and I assure you, they’re fine. Mr. Archie already approved that they could go where they want. I have their toys and trees in the solarium, but for now, they seem to be enjoying themselves exploring. I promise it’s not an ounce of bother. Now, drink your coffee, Miss Frankie, and then eat. You’ve a busy day ahead of you.”

  Archie flicked a look up at him, but Jeremy ignored the warning in Archie’s expression. “My house is your house, and your house is the cats’ house, so the cats belong here, babe. Jeremy loves having them here. It gives him something to fuss over, so stop raining on his parade.”

  Well, that was one way to get Frankie to stop arguing about the cats. She made a face, and it was Jeremy’s turn to give Archie a look.

  Yep, never getting in between those two laser stares. Particularly not when there was food to eat. Instead, I slid my free hand over her foot and gave it a squeeze. The swift smile curling her lips righted everything, and detente was reached in the stare off as Jeremy nodded and Archie went back to taking over the world or whatever it was he was doing on the phone.

  “That producer is back with another offer,” Archie said, and Frankie froze with the bacon halfway to her lips. “I still think it’s a lowball, and no way are you giving up the rights to what you write. They can lease your music exclusively for a set period of time, but no direct sales. That’ll cut into long-term profitability for you.”

  “You mind if I read the offer now?” Bubba’s droll tone held not an ounce of hostility.

  “No, you should, but
forewarning—I think the guy’s a dick.”

  “You haven’t even met him,” Bubba pointed out as he lifted his own phone, one he’d been ignoring. We’d changed our plan the week before. Now all five of us were on the exact same one, our phones cued to the same cloud so we could save images, and all of it shuttered behind a firewall Archie insisted on building. My phone had all kinds of crap I wasn’t used to yet, and I didn’t really care about figuring out. Except you could play pool, something Jake and I had taken to doing on nights we were both working.

  “He writes like a dick,” Archie continued. “You shouldn’t have to do business with assholes.”

  “But he can do business with you,” Jake pointed out, and I rolled my eyes at his shit-eating grin. He just couldn’t help himself. Frankie still hadn’t eaten her bacon, so before any arguments could break out, I caught her hand and leaned forward to nibble the bacon right from her fingers, all the way down until I could lick her fingers clean.

  Hers wasn’t the only shocked grin thrown my way.

  “I’m telling him that we need time to review the offer,” Bubba said after pinning me with a look. “If he gets pushy after that, you can tell him to fuck off.”

  “Yes,” Archie said with a pleased little grin and a raised brow at me as he lifted his coffee cup.

  “Save me,” I whispered to Frankie before dragging her over to sit in my lap. She laughed, but I didn’t miss the promises of retribution in the eyes of my best friends. It was all good. No tables were injured in the path of this potential disagreement.

  Our leisurely breakfast ended with Jeremy frowning as Frankie carried her used dishes into the kitchen. Jake, Bubba, and I followed suit, because we knew better than to leave dirty dishes on the table. Archie’s long-suffering sigh as he joined us followed by Jeremy’s chuckle was a bit like winning the lottery.

  We were not allowed to do dishes. In fact, Jeremy chased us out with a firm reminder we needed to be ready to leave in ninety minutes. Jake half tackled me on the stairs as Frankie scooted ahead of us. Bubba just laughed as he circled round, but Archie moved with purpose.

  Dammit, I elbowed Jake. Now Frankie was gonna share her shower with Archie rather than me. Eh, I’d steal her away later. We’d crashed in Archie’s room and the one attached to it the night before. He’d gotten a bigger bed at some point, and I didn’t ask. It was just nice that there was room to share.

  But we each did actually have rooms with en suite bathrooms, so I ducked into mine, and the sound of running water had me grinning from ear to ear. I locked the door and tugged my shirt over my head. I hadn’t been in this room to do more than leave my clothes for the trip and my toiletries the night before.

  Since I damn well knew which rooms the guys had gone into, there was only one person who could be in my shower. I shucked shorts and boxers. Her pajamas sat primly on the counter, next to a stack of clean clothes for both of us. The clear shower door was foggy, but there was no mistaking who waited for me.

  “What did I do to get so lucky?”

  Her laughter was the only invitation I needed. “Do you need to do something to get lucky?”

  “Maybe.” I slid into the shower next to her, and when she turned and wrapped herself around me, I counted every lucky star I’d ever made a wish on that I got to hug her, hold her, kiss her… Even before the thought finished, she fisted my hair, and then I forgot to count those reasons as I sampled her lips.

  The sweet taste of maple, sugar, and cinnamon was a heady combo with the coffee she loved and the inescapable sweetness that was Frankie. “Fuck, I love you,” I murmured in between strokes of her lips on mine. I didn’t have to hear her response to know she loved me too.

  Frankie loving me had never been a question for me. I slid my hands down to her ass and lifted her. I wanted her face level with mine as her lips parted and her tongue dueled with mine. Her soft groan echoed through me as I rubbed my cock against the damp slickness of her pussy.

  This intimacy was what I’d longed for. The tease of her fingers as she reached between us had me groaning. I let go of her lips and lifted my head so I could watch her as she wrapped her fingers around my cock. In the beginning, those touches had always been tentative, a little hesitant. But they’d grown more assured and playful. Right now, she literally held my pleasure in her hands, and I could not have been happier.

  Touch me. Torture me. Tease me. Just let me be here with her.

  “You never have to earn my attention,” she whispered as the water pounded down on us and the steam kept rising. “I never want you to think I don’t love you as much as I love them.”

  Fuck. Before she could utter another protest, I pressed her up against the cold tile, aware of her hiss at the contact and the contraction of her nipples as they tightened. I was aware of everything where she was concerned. “I know you do,” I assured her in between biting kisses because she gripped my cock in her slippery hand and it was taking everything I had to not start thrusting to her palm. “I know you love me. I was teasing.”

  Lifting my head, I met her green-eyed stare head-on. The openness in her eyes, the way they sparkled when she smiled just as they were right now with the faint curing tilt of her lips, wrapped me up in an embrace that defied everything. Long before we’d been lovers, she’d loved me. Fuck knew, I’d loved her. “Good.” She accompanied that single syllable with stroking the head of my cock against her pussy, and I swallowed another moan. “I love to feel you too, you know.”

  “I know, I love that you can take me.” Sometimes I had to go slow, other times, she wouldn’t let me and would instead slam down on my dick until we both saw stars.

  The huskiness of her laughter deepened my smile. “Would you…”

  The hesitation in her voice had me sharpening my focus on her. Uncertainty flickered in her expression as she raked her teeth across her lower lip.

  “Would I pierce my dick for you?” Yeah, I hadn’t missed those conversations.

  “I don’t know,” she said with a wince. “Maybe? I wonder if there’s a way to test it. Not like I find a guy with…”

  One moment, she was stroking me, and the next, I pushed into her with force that left us both gasping. Impaled on my dick and pinned to the wall, Frankie stared at me with startled eyes. I kept one hand on her hip, bracing her against me, and the other I curved against her cheek.

  “The only guys you’re fucking are us,” I told her with way more force than necessary. Jealousy was an ugly thing, one I was well aware we had no business exercising around her. Frankie’s loyalty was not a question. In fact, a part of my brain registered the comment was just that—a comment. She’d started it out with the word not. And I wasn’t stupid, I could complete the rest of the thought.

  At the same time, my lizard brain engaged and possessiveness swarmed through me as I kept her gaze on me and flexed my hips as I pulled out and then pushed into the velvet grip of her pussy. The contracting walls fluttered over my cock and stroked me better than my hand ever could.

  A whimpering groan fell from her lips, and I grunted. Every stroke seemed to push her up on the wall, and then I’d drag her back down on my cock.

  “No one else,” I repeated. Yeah, apparently, I had some cave man in me, but Frankie just gripped my hair as she rubbed her breasts against my chest and tried to pull me closer with every thrust. “Are we clear on that?”

  “There never has been anyone else,” she protested.

  “And never will!” I ground my hips against hers, and there was a bit of a twist on the thrust that always made her eyes roll back as she huffed out a short cry. Yes, that was the spot, and I made it my personal mission to strike it with every push until I pulled that low keening cry from her we all loved so fucking much.

  Then her mouth was on mine, and we collided with a clash of teeth and tongue. It was as much a wrestling match as a deep, tongue twisting kiss. I dug my fingers into her hip and then back to the curve of her ass. She was dragging her nails down my back, and there w
ere no words necessary as we kissed, stroked, petted, and pounded together.

  I worked my hand down between us as she gasped between kisses. The thrusts were less about pulling out and more about straining and grinding to be closer to together. Every time I hit the right spot, she whimpered and dug her fingers into me harder, and I swore my dick was ready to explode, but I fought the urge.

  Frankie first.

  I grazed my fingers against her clit, and she jolted, yanking her mouth from mine as that sweet cry fell from her lips and every muscle in her pussy clamped down on me. Fuck, this was a feeling I would die for, this moment right here. The rest of the thought flowed into her as I came, and she held onto me or I held onto her or maybe we were just supporting each other as we shook and shuddered our way through release.

  For a long few moments, the only sounds in the bathroom was the running water and our heavy breaths.

  Finally, she said, “You know…”

  “Yeah,” I told her. “I do.” She didn’t need to finish the thought. She never needed it. “I didn’t…”

  “No,” she promised me before I’d fully verbalized that I needed to know I hadn’t hurt her in my eagerness. “You felt good.” When she lifted her head to rest against the tile wall and stare me, I lost myself in her eyes. “You know that…”

  She was curious about the piercing but not really asking? “I do,” I promised her. I brushed my knuckles against the back of her cheek. “You’re…”

  “Everything,” she said, completing the thought, and I grinned. This, more than anything else, these moments were the ones I lived for, when we were so connected, we might as well share one brain.

  “If we shared one brain, Coop,” she said with a teasing grin. “We’d have died of oxygen deprivation, considering how much blood that monster cock of yours needs.”

  “All the better to please you with.” Monster cock? Hell yes, I’d take it. She laughed, and my heart went lighter. “And if you want me to look at piercings, I will.” That wasn’t so hard. Not that the idea of putting something through my dick thrilled me. “If you are really interested.”