by M. L. Briers
That wasn’t going to save him. The thought shot through Flynn’s head a moment before he launched himself from the top of the stairs towards his brother, and Summer whooped and ran to get a better look as arms and legs tangled and punches were traded.
“I’ve got ten on Abe drawing first blood.” Corrine chuckled as she eyed the brother’s with glee.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’ll see that bet and raise you a black eye for Abe for another ten.”Summer shot back and then bit her tongue. What was she doing siding with Flynn, wasn’t he the enemy here?
“Taken and taken.”Corrine held her hand out and Summer shook it in a gentlewoman’s bet. With a broad smile and her eyes back on her mate, she thought his mother just might be a little bit of fun. Her mother would never have bet on anything. Her mother would never have stood there with her own fists jabbing at the air as she watched two grown men slugging it out.
“Can’t see any blood…” Summer bobbed and weaved her head to get a better look, but the whole fight was being waged in the semi darkness of the outside with only the backlight from the windows of the house to light the entertainment.
“Boys!” Corrine shouted in a tone that said mother written all over it, and the pair of them separated and turned towards her. Fists tightly clenched at their sides, as their mother inspected them. “Well Abe’s got that black eye, but I can’t see any… oh wait Flynn’s got a small cut above his left eyebrow.” Corrine informed her and Summer chuckled.
“But Abe’s got one just on his lip…”Summer informed her and Corrine turned to her impressed.
“Good eye.” She looked back to her sons. “Who drew first blood?”
Abe and Flynn looked at each other frowning. “Why?” Flynn growled and Corrine shrugged her shoulders.
“We just had a little wager going on.” Corrine motioned towards Summer and his mates eyes shot up to look at the stars, the picture of innocence.
“And who did my mate bet on?”Flynn took a couple of steps forwards, eating up the ground between them.
“You of course, knucklehead.” His mother rolled her eyes and patted Summers arm in sympathy, bringing her eyes down and her attention back towards her. “He can be slow, but be patient with him, he gets there eventually.” She assured her and Summer couldn’t help but giggle until she heard Flynn’s growl.
“Don’t growl at your mother, it’s rude.”Summer turned her nose up at him as Corrine linked her arm around Summer’s and turned them towards the house.
“Thank you dear. Now let’s go have a nice cup of something hot while those two clean up.”
Flynn went to growl again in disapproval, until he realised that Summer was walking straight towards the house and in through the front door without the slightest bit of trepidation, and he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face.
“Not so pissed at me now are you?” Abe slapped him on the back as he walked past him, climbed the steps in a few easy strides and followed the women inside.
“Not so much.” Flynn chuckled and shook his head.
Summer sat at the kitchen counter and watched Corrine effortlessly float from one side of the kitchen to the other. Having already deposited a steaming mug of hot coffee between Summer’s hands, which was warming her frozen digits nicely, the older woman was now on a quest to tempt her guest with a variety of foods, and variety there was. Summer would hate to see the kind of bill that this kitchen managed to produce on a weekly basis.
“Everybody likes cheese and grapes…”Corrine gave her a playful look, but Summer shook her head, adamant that she couldn’t be tempted.
“I’m still almost full from the burger I grabbed earlier…”Summer declared as Corrine held up an apple in a last ditch attempt to feed her new daughter.
“Almost full, isn’t full…”Corrine offered softly as Flynn did the manly thing of straddling the kitchen stool.
“You’ll have to forgive my mother, she’d used to feeding Lycan’s…”Flynn gave his mother a look that told her to stop now.
“And I guess Lycan’s eat a lot, judging by how full the cupboards are.”Summer looked down into the depth of her coffee and raised her brows. Not to mention the freezer, the refrigerator and the sides which were stacked with an array of breakfast cereals. They could feed a large army or a small village and not dent their supplies.
“The kitchen is the hub of a Lycan home.” Corrine smiled and bit her lip. She’d nearly said and the bedroom is the soul, but she could see how skittish her new daughter was and she didn’t want to throw a spanner in the works.
“The nursery is the heart.” Abe offered as he walked through the open plan doorway and frowned at the growl that Flynn offered him.
‘What now? It’s poetic.’ Abe growled back, using the link between them.
“You don’t think so?” Summer raised a brow at Flynn as his head snapped around towards her.
“Is that a trick question?”Flynn was slightly nervous about spooking her.
“How could that be a trick question? He said the nursery is the heart and you growled…” Summer raised her shoulders and spanned her hands in front of her looking for his reply.
“I do think so.”
“So why’d you growl?”Summer tossed back at him and Flynn took a long moment to consider his answer.
“I didn’t think that was an appropriate conversation for now.” Flynn offered, thinking he’d sidestepped that one nicely.
“Because?”Summer asked and Flynn wanted to head butt his brother. It would bring him a moment of relief, if only a moment.
“Because you’re not comfortable here yet.”Flynn watched her narrowed her eyes and consider his response. It took a while. His eyes flicked to his mother’s, the amusement there made him want to plant his fist in Abe’s face, because he couldn’t hit his mother.
“Hmm.” Summer’s answer when it finally came was something of a letdown for him. It was like waiting for the lottery numbers and finding you didn’t have one.
“Hmm?” He repeated, knowing he should have let it drop. He’d sidestepped the damn question, then come up with an appropriate response and all she said was hmm…
“I don’t see what me being comfortable or not has to do with your brother’s rather sweet comment.” Summer questioned him with her eyes and his head snapped around towards Abe as he grinned like an idiot.
“What are you smiling at?” Flynn demanded and Abe’s eyes twinkled.
“Summer thinks what I said was sweet.”Abe crowed and Flynn growled again, lower and meaner in his chest.
“It was very sweet. I see that your brother got the nice gene while you got the… Alpha gene.”Summer rolled her eyes and looked away from him.
Flynn definitely wanted to put his fist in his brother’s face, but he felt that might have been a little obvious.
“I can be sweet…”Flynn was desperately trying to think of something to be sweet about, and he came up empty. He wasn’t the heart and flowers kind of wolf that his brother had somehow just turned into in front of his damn mate. Which his mate was right, was probably why he was the alpha.
“So what’s the bedroom?” Summer asked, maybe she’d get to the root of what kind of a wolf lover this man was going to be…
‘Soul.’ His mother offered as she turned away and stared daggers at Abe to make sure he didn’t answer for him.
“The soul of the house.” Flynn kept it casual and saw Summer’s eyes narrow again before she turned them up towards him.
“Hmm.” Summer answered and Flynn wanted to kick something. He flicked his eyes towards Abe and resisted the temptation.
“Hmm?”He certainly wanted a better response than hmm to the answer that he’d given her. Summer’s brows lifted slowly and her mouth did a thing that was a grimace and a half smile all in one fluid motion.
“Just hmm.” She informed him, turning her attention back to her coffee as he frowned in frustration.
Summer considered his answer. The bedroom was the
soul, that didn’t sound like whips and chains territory, but she could be wrong. It had been known, and she wasn’t about to hedge her bets sitting in the kitchen with his mother and his brother looking on.
“You don’t want to elaborate on hmm?”Flynn asked and Corrine couldn’t help but cover her smile with the back of her hand at watching her big alpha male son doing proverbial back flips for him mate.
Abe wasn’t so subtle, he sniggered like a female. Until Flynn dark glare caught him and he coughed into his hand and bit down on his own damn tongue until the pain of it silenced his need to laugh.
“Nope.” Summer gave a little shrug of her shoulders as she evaded his prompting for a real answer.
“No brownie points for the alpha.” Abe’s glee was evident, and Flynn jumped up and moved fast, grabbing his brother by the shirt at his chest and marching him backwards out of the kitchen as Abe chuckled and held up his hands. “No brother.” He chuckled as Summer looked from them to Corrine.
“What happened?”She leaned in and whispered, and Corrine couldn’t help the small chuckle that left her lips.
“You favoured his brother over your mate and Abe rubbed it in.” Corrine informed her and Summer winced.
“Round two?”Summer asked as the front door opened and slammed shut.
“Round two.” Corrine agreed.
Summer took a moment to consider what she had inadvertently done.
“Ten on Abe getting another black eye?” Summer offered hopefully and Corrine shrugged.
“I think he’s going to get that and more.”
Both brothers looked as if they had fought off a horde of rampaging demons when they finally walked back through the door, bringing the icy chill with them from the outside.
Abe had cuts and bruises, including two black eyes, although one was already fading, and his clothes were fit for the bin, and Flynn hadn’t fared much better. He only had the one black eye, but he was walking with a limp, and wearing half of a top, most of the bottom half had been ripped completely off.
Both brothers grinned at Summer as they walked back into the house, as she sat on the sofa flicking through endless channels of programmes that she had already viewed. The remote control hung loosely in her hand as her eyes saw more of the tight muscled abs and sprinkle of hair that disappeared down into the low riding waistband of his jeans, and she couldn’t help but lick her lips.
Yep, the urge to run her tongue over his hard, toned stomach was still very much in existence and her libido was firing on all cylinders. Flynn’s eyes locked on her. The sight of her eyes practically devouring his body was good enough to have him hard in what felt like a heartbeat, but when she licked her lips he could have taken damn Viagra. Mr Woody was definitely able to hammer nails into wood right now.
“Something you need, Summer?” Flynn asked, stopping just in front of the television screen and giving her the full on effect of his body for her viewing pleasure. He couldn’t help the rush of amusement that swept through him, but he could damn well hide it from her.
Summer jolted back to awareness with the sound of his voice, deep and totally seductive as he stared down at her. She didn’t want to do it, she liked where her eyes were at that precise moment in time, but she managed to drag them up to his battered face anyway. And the shock of the beating he had taken washed through her.
“Wow, are you ok?” She was halfway up from her seat when he grinned at her.
“I’m fine…” And then he remembered his bruising, and saw the way her eyes were taking in him, cataloguing his injuries and the way her eyes flared, her protective gene had kicked in and he liked it.
“But you’re…”Summer was hovering between up and down, unsure what to do next. The urge to help him was overwhelming and yet she was trying to stay as far away from him as she could.
“Oh, these will heal…” Then the proverbial light bulb turned on above his head. “As painful as they are. Faster if they were tended too, but…”He shrugged and dropped his head low on his neck as he turned away towards the kitchen. He could use a beer…
“I can do that…” She almost bit her damn tongue off. Why the hell did she volunteer? Tending his wounds would just bring him closer to her, in more ways than one.
But the way Flynn’s head turned towards her and his eyes lit up with hope and happiness almost gutted her right there in the middle of the damn living room. Did he think she was that much of a shrew that she wouldn’t tend his injuries?
“If you could…” He was really laying it on thick and Abe sighed, shaking his head and rolling his eyes in one go.
‘Do not say a word brother or so help me I will skin you alive and feed you to the damn crows.’ Flynn growled out across the link and Abe backed off slowly towards the stairs.
‘Poor little injured pup, let your mate tend your wounds now, deary.’ Abe chuckled and heard his alpha growl back with so much menace that he took the stairs three at a time just in case the desire to start world war three over took Flynn’s desire for his mate’s attention.
“Of course I could. Do you have any medical supplies?”Summer started towards him as he motioned towards the kitchen, and saw Flynn flinch, he hated the damn sting of the antiseptic that they had in the house. Not that Lycan’s needed it, but his mother had brought it just to torture them when they were younger.
“Does it hurt that much?” Summer asked mistaking his desire not to feel like he had been stung by a wasps nest full of the irritating little bugs, for actually physical pain for which he had a very high threshold.
“Abe does get a little carried away sometimes. It’s fine, really. I don’t think antiseptic is needed, just a little water…”From the guilty look in his eyes Summer finally cottoned on to the fact that he was milking it for all it was worth.
“Oh well I could use an old Fae remedy, all natural, stops the blood flow really well.”
“And knowing the Fae it’s probably edible.”Flynn smiled, then winced for added effect, and then smiled again. Yep, he had his little mate exactly where he wanted her…
“What the hell did you do?” Flynn jumped up from the stool and tried to scrape the honey mixture gloop from the shoulder wound as he tried to blow on the damn scraps in his skin to cool it down. Damn, but he would take the antiseptic any day of the week over this torture. It felt as if she’d put a blowtorch on his skin.
“It’s all natural…” She informed him innocently.
“Natural paint stripper.” He growled out as he grabbed a towel and thrust it under the cold water tap.
“No, you big baby…” Summer heard him growl again as he tried to get the goo from his skin.
“Baby?”
“It’s just a little honey, which is a natural healer, and some hot sauce…”Summer heard rather than saw his head snap around towards her.
“Hot sauce? Are you insane?”He growled again. His skin was still on fire and he couldn’t seem to get the burning to stop.
“Extra strength hot sauce…” Summer offered innocently and he shook his head.
“Why would you put hot sauce in a healing mixture?”
“The jalapeno peppers promote healing too. They are a natural source of…”
“Pain.”Flynn growled and Summer couldn’t help but bite down on her lip as the desire to chuckle was almost too much to bear.
Flynn stared down at her. He could sense her amusement. Sense her guilt, and her deceit. The damn woman had tricked him.
“Well a little pain, but…”
“You have a mean streak in you…”Flynn growled, and Summer shrugged her shoulders.
“And you were deceitful, trying to play to my sympathies…”She offered up to him. Taking the towel from his hand and brushing over the surface of the wound. “Told you it would stop the bleeding.”Flynn had to drag his eyes down to the wound, and then he couldn’t take his eyes from her fingers as they lightly brushed around the angry red wound.
Every stroke of her fingertips against his shoulder could hav
e been a stroke against the hardness in his jeans as it twitched, echoing her touch.
Summer felt the connection with him and knew she needed a moments grace to collect her thoughts. “Sit down and I’ll clean the rest of your wounds.”
Flynn dragged his eyes back up to her face. There was no deceit, no more guilt, but there was desire in her eyes as she stared up at him, and that realisation was like a jolt in the pit of his stomach.
“No more hot sauce?”He hitched one eyebrow at her and saw the amusement flicker in her eyes and over her lips.
“Promise.”
The only way Flynn could move away from her right then was by telling himself that she was going to be right next to him again. Touching him, seeing to his wounds, even if they had started healing on their own the very moment he’d received them, it couldn’t hurt to have her clean them up.
He saddled the kitchen stool and watched her at the sink. He could feel her trepidation, sense her unease, and yet there was an overriding feeling of protectiveness that had come over her since the hot sauce incident. It was much the same feeling she’d had when she first saw his wounds, and he liked it, damn, but he liked it a lot.
When she came towards him every muscle in his body twitched, one more than others, and he denied the urge he had to shift his hardness around in his jeans until it felt a little more comfortable, because he knew it wasn’t going to feel any better being cooped up, no matter what he did, and he didn’t want to make her skittish again.
Summer circled the broadness of his back like a cat stalking its prey. One predator to another, only they both wanted different things here. He wanted her as his mate and she was wondering how long she could keep him at arm’s length.
Gripping the towel tighter in her hands, she circled in front of him and found herself in the unfortunate position of having to step in between his legs. And what that movement cost her in self control that man would never know.