Grin and Beard It (Winston Brothers #2)

by Penny Reid

  It was the licking, the tasting, the savoring. The idea of him devouring me, him being insatiable for me.

  “What about my family?” he asked suddenly.

  “What?” I panted, lost in my lusty thoughts.

  He shifted in his seat again, his hands opening and closing on the steering wheel. “You’ve met my siblings. What labels do you think we grew up with?”

  A moment was necessary for my brain to switch tracks, but when I did I saw that Jethro was frowning. His usual good-natured temperament had been eclipsed by something dark.

  My first instinct was to avoid the question and respond, I don’t know. Based on what I knew about Jethro—both from him and from others—his label likely hadn’t been a good one. It had been unkind, though perhaps well earned.

  I took too long to answer. His brow clouded with murky melancholy as his eyes darted to mine. “You can say it.”

  “I didn’t know you growing up.”

  “But you can guess.” Jethro gripped the steering wheel tighter and swallowed; his tone was hollow and quietly demanding as he insisted, “Guess. Please.”

  I pressed my lips together in a flat line, not wanting to add any more fuel to his fire of perpetual self-recrimination.

  So instead I said, “Jethro, labeling kids isn’t fair—it doesn’t matter if the label is good or bad. It puts them in a box and makes them feel like they have to live inside it.”

  We were quiet after that, my words hanging between us. He was considering them. As he pulled into the parking lot in front of Daisy’s, I was relieved to see his brow clear and a soft smile whisper over his features.

  But then he said, “Billy was the responsible one. Cletus was . . . well, he’s the odd one. Ashley was the beautiful one. Beau was the charmer. Duane was the quiet one. Roscoe was considered the overachiever, or something like that. And I was the disappointment.”

  My heart twisted. His words physically hurt me. He may have made bad decisions as a kid, as a teenager, but shaking off a label affixed during childhood was almost impossible.

  “You’re not a disappointment.” I grabbed his hand as soon as he parked, brought it to my lap and cradled it there. “Your family is so proud of you. Most people live up or down to the expectations set by their label. Very few people are able to transcend it.”

  “I know.” He gave me a charming shrug. Both his expression and words were laced with a healthy dose of self-confidence. “I turned it around.”

  Then he grinned a charming grin.

  My mouth parted with surprise and I marveled at this man. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “In one breath you’re so negative about yourself, and in the next you’re singing your own praises.” An astonished laugh tumbled from my lips.

  “I’m negative about who I used to be, Sienna. But not who I am now. I admit though, sometimes I don’t feel deserving of my own happiness.” He turned his hand in mine and threaded our fingers together, bringing my knuckles to his lips. He brushed soft kisses over the backs of my fingers, and when he spoke his words were introspective. “It’s frustrating, as you say, having the history of the label. I see it in people, the way they look at me, what they expect. They expect dishonesty. They expect me to be a joke.”

  I felt compelled to say, “People expect me to be a joke, too.”

  Jethro gave me a soft, sympathetic smile. “You are more than the jokes you told when you were five, or eight, or thirteen.”

  “And you are more than the mistakes of your youth. You are more than the label you’ve been assigned by people who might love you, but don’t really know who you are anymore.”

  His gaze captured mine, heated, and then dropped to my lips. “I suppose it’s part of why we seek out a partner. Why we’re driven to build a new family, pursue new friendships. There’s freedom in being a blank canvas to another person and having some control over what is painted on that canvas.”

  I studied him in the weighty silence, feeling a kinship that went beyond liking, or even extreme liking. It was a shared understanding that only comes from living through similar experiences.

  Jethro had been the disappointment.

  I’d been the clown.

  Individually we had become more.

  But together and with each other, we didn’t need to be our labels.

  We were free to just be ourselves.

  ***

  Coffee? Check.

  Doughnuts? Check.

  Alone with Jethro in my trailer with the door locked? DOUBLE CHECK!

  My call time wasn’t until 10:00 a.m., but Jethro had to check the traps before then. If any bears had been caught over the weekend, he needed to haul them out of the cove before midday, before the sun heated the prairie.

  Even so, we had at least an hour until he had to leave.

  I pushed the chairs out of the way, leaving just a small circular side table in the middle of the space and an expanse of unencumbered carpet. I placed two plates on the table and stood back to survey my work. Jethro lifted his eyebrows at me while I arranged the furniture. He stood off to one side, holding the doughnuts and his own coffee.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Setting the stage.”

  “For what?”

  “Be quiet. Let me think.” I studied the setup and decided it would have to do.

  I grabbed the box of doughnuts—he’d procured four, all with icing—and placed one on each plate. I set the remaining two still in the box on the kitchenette table.

  “Okay,” I grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the small table, motioning for him to sit on the carpet, “let’s have doughnuts.”

  He sat.

  Actually, he semi-lounged.

  Jethro placed his coffee on the small table and leaned back at an angle on one arm, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. My tummy fluttered with excitement as I sat on the floor next to him and picked up the frosted confection. I was going to smudge the corner of my mouth with frosting.

  And then he was going to lick it off.

  And then we were going to kiss.

  And then . . . good things after that. Hopefully including, but not limited to, rolling around and making out on the carpet like teenagers.

  Holding Jethro’s eyes with mine, which were heavily lidded and hot with interest, I took a small bite, careful to dab the side of my mouth with the frosting.

  But then something unexpected happened, and it startled me out of my sexy thoughts.

  The doughnut was insanely delicious.

  Insanely. Delicious.

  It was still warm from the oven, and yet it melted on my tongue. It was sweet, but tempered by a center filled with rich, smooth, bitter high-quality chocolate crème.

  Unable to help myself, I moaned, “Oh my God.”

  Jethro’s lips quirked to the side, his eyes on my mouth, and—right on cue—he leaned forward. “You have something just there.”

  I ignored him, swatting his hand away, and took another bite, speaking around a mouthful of heaven on earth. “Holy shit, this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

  Jethro rolled his lips between his teeth, his eyes bright with laughter, and watched me devour the doughnut.

  I continued to moan with each bite, licking and sucking my fingers until it was gone. Completely preoccupied, I didn’t notice the shift in his mood at first. I was just about to lick off the last of the crème when he caught my wrist, forcing my attention to him. My protest died on my lips as the weight and intensity of his gaze hit me all at once. He looked hungry.

  To be more precise, he looked ravenous.

  Jethro brought my finger to his lips and sucked it into his mouth, his tongue darting out to lick the junction between my index and middle finger. The light, slick touch sent unexpected trembles to my lower belly and pulled a soft whimper from the back of my throat.

  “As I was saying,” his darkened gaze drifted hotly from my eyes to my lips, and he
used my hand as leverage to tug me forward, “you have something . . .”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead he licked the corner of my mouth and then delved his tongue ardently between my lips, caressing mine hungrily. Jethro’s grip on me shifted. His arm came around my waist, supporting me, while my hands cupped his jaw.

  In a controlled and graceful movement, he rolled me onto my back, held himself above my body, and claimed my mouth. I felt his fingers on my thigh, sliding the hem of my skirt higher, skimming fingertips between my legs. Instinctively, I arched and strained, wanting to be touched, needing him to touch me.

  “Undo your shirt,” he ordered, pulling his mouth from mine and fastening it to my neck.

  “Why don’t you—?”

  “Because I’ll rip it off.”

  Well okay then.

  With eager fingers, I undid the buttons while he pressed his thigh between my legs, sliding against me. The rhythm was both intoxicating and frustrating. I felt empty, greedy for his skin.

  When I finished with my top I set to work on his buttons, but he batted my hands away, his mouth moving to the center of my breast, groaning as he sucked me through the black mesh of my bra and into his mouth. Mindlessly, my hips rocked, searching for friction, for his touch.

  I don’t know if it was the doughnut—food of the gods—or the sexy, sexy man above me, but I was already hovering on the edge of my orgasm.

  “Please,” I panted, grabbing his hand from where he drew light circles on my thigh, and pressing it to the front of my panties.

  His eyes blazed a trail from my breasts, over my exposed throat to my lips. He slipped his fingers into the lace waistband with achingly slow and measured movements, stroking a tight circle around my center while bending his head and licking my lips.

  “Please,” I said again, chasing his mouth as he withdrew, his teeth and tongue skillfully lavishing my jaw, neck, and shoulder with biting kisses.

  “You are so lovely,” he said, his voice a deep growl. “And these sounds you’re making . . .” He paused as though he were listening.

  I hadn’t realized, but I was making sounds: soft, impassioned hitches in my breathing.

  Our eyes clashed, his were darker than usual. “These desperate little moans, I’ll never get enough of them, never get enough of you.”

  I began to spiral, holding his wrist as I curved my body toward his expert touch, unable to control or stifle my cries of ecstasy.

  That’s right. Ecstasy.

  Pure, one million percent solid-gold ecstasy.

  He felt so good, I forgot how percentages worked.

  And he must’ve known what he was doing, because as soon as the first wave of ecstasy receded, he stroked me again, hitting all the right spots, faster and harder than before.

  I lost my mind a little after that, lost even more control of my response, lost my ability to temper the volume of my enthusiasm.

  In retrospect, I remembered grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, the sound of his name tumbling over and over from my lips, how his pants-clad leg slid against my bare thighs, how he captured my mouth at my peak and gave me a hot, crushing, devouring kiss.

  And then I was falling slowly, drifting on a cloud back to earth, being wrapped in his strong arms, gathered to his chest. He pressed his lips to my forehead in a cherishing kiss as I clung to him, feeling every inch claimed, though he was still fully clothed.

  Jethro holding me was ecstasy.

  That’s right. Ecstasy.

  That’s what it was.

  CHAPTER 24

  “As long as I could hear his voice, I was quite lost, quite blind, quite outside my own self.”

  ― Anaïs Nin

  ~Jethro~

  Holding Sienna was hard.

  No.

  Scratch that.

  I was hard while holding Sienna. Holding Sienna was heavenly.

  That’s better.

  I smoothed my hand up and down her back, down the silky skin of her lush thighs, and over her magnificently rounded backside, sadly still covered in lace panties. Her satin-soft curves beneath my fingers did very little to help the rigid situation south of my belt. But that’s all right. It fed a different addiction.

  Now that I’d touched her, watched and felt her come, I was mentally rearranging my schedule for the rest of my life. I was going to do this every day. Touching her now, after her gratifyingly loud and spectacularly animated release, calmed me even as it stoked a frenzied fire of need. I wanted to touch her everywhere. And for always.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked, snuggling closer and fitting her leg between mine. The action gave me more access to her thigh, specifically the innermost expanse of soft skin.

  “I’m probably going to be a very tactile boyfriend,” I said against her forehead, taking advantage of her new position by trailing the back of my knuckles between her legs.

  Her breath hitched.

  “How do you feel about public displays of affection?” I asked.

  Sienna responded on a whisper. “Are you talking about holding hands or something that could get us arrested?”

  “Someplace in between.”

  “Jethro, if you keep doing what you’re doing, I don’t care if it’s doggy style on the red carpet, just as long as it’s with you.”

  Well now, that conjured all kinds of pleasant images.

  I know it’s not polite to remark on the status of a lady’s panties, but my woman was wet and supple, swollen and aroused. My thoughts naturally shifted to how very satisfying the feel of her would be, right this minute, just as she was.

  Especially given the state of my head, right this minute.

  “Fuck,” I groaned.

  “Okay,” she said.

  I laughed.

  Removing my fingers, reluctantly, from between her legs, I grabbed a handful of her backside. “I’m going to kiss this.”

  She giggled and nipped at my neck. “You should. We should start every day with you kissing my ass—both figuratively and literally.”

  I laughed again, kissing her forehead and tightening my arm around her shoulders.

  But then she said, “I’m serious. This is me officially petitioning that you and I start sleeping together. How do we make that happen?”

  I tensed, because to say I liked the idea—a lot—would be an understatement. But I was trying to be careful with this thing between us.

  Clearing my throat, I proceeded with caution. “So, I build things. I work with wood.”

  “I’d like to work with your wood,” she mumbled, and I knew she was trying to make a joke. I heard vulnerability in the joke, the way she couldn’t quite meet my eyes. She was clearly nervous; perhaps feeling like she’d revealed too much with her official petition, been too forward.

  I leaned back so she could see me smile, but also so I could see her and gauge her reaction as I spoke. “As a carpenter I know for a fact, if you want something to last, you have to build it to last. If we wanted to establish something lasting, we can’t build our foundation on just the physical.”

  “You mean lust.”

  I smirked at the disappointment in her tone. “Yeah, I guess I do. Even if we have enough lust between us to build a city.”

  This earned me a quick smile, but she continued to press, “We don’t have to do anything, we could just sleep. Cuddle.”

  “What do you think the chances of us just sleeping would be? Because I don’t think they’re very good.”

  “I’m up for the challenge.”

  “I’m not.”

  Another quick, surprised grin claimed her features, revealing dimples and brightening her eyes. “So you find me irresistible?”

  I answered immediately, with blunt honesty, “Yes.”

  She grinned wider, then tried to wipe the excited happiness from her face and replace it with solemnity. “I believe in you, Jethro. I think you can resist. Don’t sell yourself short.” Now she was teasing.

  “You’re wrong.” I wa
sn’t teasing, and pressure was building at the base of my skull, because I was about to admit to something that might send her running.

  She continued to tease. “I sleep in footie pajamas. I own three pairs. No one is sexy in footie pajamas.”

  “Sienna—”

  “And I have a variety of green beauty masks I can wear to bed; I think one is even called repellant. Is smells like wet dog.”

  “I haven’t been with a woman in five years.”

  “And I-I,” she stuttered, stopped, and stared at me. Blinking and edging an inch away, Sienna’s lips parted and her eyes went wide. “What? What did you say?”

  “I haven’t been with anyone in five years.”

  “You mean you haven’t been in a relationship for five years?”

  I searched her expression as I spoke, looking for some sign as to how much of a big deal this would be for her. “Well, that’s true, too. I haven’t had a girl since high school, to be honest. But what I meant is I haven’t, uh, slept with anyone in over five years.”

  “Whoa! Whoa . . .” Her first whoa was an inhale, a gasp. And the second whoa was an exhale, a sigh.

  I watched her, keeping my gaze steady. Though her dark eyes were expressive, I was having a hard time getting a read on her thoughts.

  Abruptly, she removed her leg from between mine, pulled down her skirt to cover herself, and demanded, “But why? Why would you do that? Not only to yourself but to all the single ladies?”

  “Because I didn’t want to hurt anybody.” Propping myself up on my elbow, I cupped her cheek, pushing my fingers into her hair and caressing the smooth, gold skin of her neck. “I had a problem, treating women like they were disposable.”

  “Were you a sex addict?”

  I frowned at her question, having not considered that possibility before, but then dismissed it. “No. I don’t think so. I was addicted to the lifestyle, not one thing in particular. Though addicted might not be the right word. More like, it was all I knew. Using women had been part of the lifestyle of the club. When I left, I had to break all those patterns and habits. I stopped drinking, messing around, stealing cars, lying, cheating, conning. I went to school, to work, and kept my ass at home every night until new habits formed. Better habits. Until I trusted myself.”