Raging Heart On: Friends to Lovers Romance (Lucas Brothers Book 2)

by Jordan Marie

  “That will never fit in my mouth,” I whisper, backing against the shower wall as he follows.

  “Are you saying you want to suck my cock, Buttercup?” he asks, moving his hand over his cock again. It’s then I realize that yep, I’ve once again said something out loud I didn’t mean for him to hear. I swallow and give him the one word that I can manage to get out because my breath is stalled in my chest. The one word that I have a feeling I’ll be telling White often.

  “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 22

  WHITE

  I don't know what changed between last night and this morning. I just know that I'm glad it did.

  I move into the shower, shutting the door behind me. Kayla doesn't make a move. She's still staring at my dick, and while that's great, there's only so much looking a man can handle.

  "Do you have a thing for showers, Buttercup?" I ask, reaching for the soap.

  "What? No," she says, finally looking at me. Her cheeks bloom with deep red color that has nothing to do with the heat of the water. I turn and move until my back is against the spray, forcing us to do a small dance so that Kayla moves in front of me. I'm not sure what's after this life. If there is a Heaven, I'm pretty sure hot water and a naked Kayla are involved. "It's just, well, morning showers wake me up."

  "I can understand that. I'm definitely up now," I tell her, looking down at my dick.

  "You're so corny," she says, but she smiles, and it helps erase that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look she had before.

  "Enough talk, woman. Wash me before I turn old and wrinkled up and destroy the manly image you have of me," I jokingly order her, handing her the soap.

  "Bossy much?" she sighs, but she starts lathering up her hands. Setting the soap on the shelf, she puts her hands on my neck and moves the lather slowly down my chest. Fuck. Having Kayla's hands on me is so much better than anything I've experienced before.

  "Don't stop doing this. I'll beg," I tell her, and I'm only half joking.

  "This is the real reason men are dogs. Scratch their belly and they're happy as larks."

  "I've never actually seen or at least never noticed a lark, so I can't answer. If you keep it up though, I can't guarantee I won't start humping your leg."

  "God, I thought I was, but you’re the freak. Is this sweet-talking the way you bag all your women?"

  "None of them mattered. The way I feel with you is special. You need to understand that."

  "White," she whispers, her hands going still. I cover them with my own.

  "It's special, Kayla. I like that it's different with you. I like that I can be myself and be comfortable. That doesn't happen. Well, I can't speak for you, but it never has for me."

  "It's new for me too, White, and when I can get past my nerves, I'm happy."

  "There's no need for you to be nervous, honey. You know me. I'd cut off my arm before I'd hurt you, Kayla. No matter what goes on with us, that will always remain the same."

  "Well, I mean, you've been my best friend forever, but there's just things you don't know," she says, avoiding looking me in the eyes.

  "Like what?" I ask, bringing her face back to mine and kissing her forehead. She brings out this protectiveness in me that I've never felt before.

  "I'm not very good at sex, White."

  "Kayla—"

  "I'm serious. I mean, there hasn't been that many men, so maybe it's something you get better with, like with practice or something. But the point is, I'm pretty sure I suck at it."

  I would laugh because the whole thought of this woman being poor at sex is laughable. Everything about her body screams sex, but that's beside the point. She's missing something very vital here, something that should have been explained to her before she ever had sex. Mom was never great at that, so maybe that's why. I suddenly want to wring the neck of the man who got to her first and didn't show her how truly amazing she is. Fuck, I'm even pissed at myself that I let someone else be that person. It doesn't matter because with each passing minute spent with Kayla, I know. It was only cemented in my brain last night with the taste of her on my tongue. She's it. She's that mythical creature out there I had heard about, but never experienced. Soulmate. She’s mine. I may have not been her first, but I damn sure will be her last. I'm not about to be stupid enough to let her get away now.

  "Honey, did you forget last night? You're amazing."

  "Well, yeah, but that was all you. I mean, I didn't really have to do anything other than let the shower wall hold me up and scare my neighbors, which I'm pretty sure I did last time," she mutters, her face heating even more and her bottom lip going between her teeth. Fuck. She's adorable.

  It hurts me though that she's so self-conscious. I’m going to have blue balls from the North Pole here, but I need to treat Kayla carefully. She deserves someone who takes their time with her and then some. I make a split-second decision, grabbing the soap and positioning us so that her back is to me.

  "What are you doing?" Kayla asks, looking around like I'm crazy.

  "I’m going to wash your back and neck," I tell her.

  "But I thought we were gonna… I mean, I had planned on giving you…"

  "I know what you were planning, and I want it. But I want more too. I know myself well enough to know I won’t stop with just you giving me head. Which would be great, except you don’t have condoms, and neither do I. You want us tested before we have sex. Now I could go back to my place and get some, but the truth is that I don’t want them between us.”

  “White…”

  “We have to get our tests done,” I finish her sentence. “I understand and I agree. So that means no sex of any kind this morning. I only have so much willpower and you’re tempting me beyond reason,” I tell her, letting my hands move over the delicate lines of her back and along her hips, loving the way they flare out. My attention is zeroed in on her ass, the curve, the angle, the smooth and creamy skin. She has no idea the plans I have for that ass. There’s no way I could tell her; they’d scare her to death. I’m starting to realize that Kayla is almost like a virgin.

  “What?”

  “You can’t suck my cock until I know that I can enjoy your body and prove to you just how good at sex you are—well, we are together. So until we get all that done, we bathe each other and that’s it.”

  "Oh. Wow. Okay. But, well…"

  "Each minute you argue means you are delaying the moment I finally get to sink inside of you.”

  “I guess I’ll hush, then…”

  “Good plan,” I tell her, snaking my hands around her and using my lathered hands to cover her breasts and pull her back into me. I can’t resist pinching the nipples and teasing her. My eyes close as her body quakes against me.

  “Oh,” she whispers.

  “Want me to make you come?” I ask in her ear. I may have to force myself to wait, but I could pleasure her again—and again.

  “If you can wait, I can too,” she says, her voice unsteady as she pulls away.

  “Maybe we can get into the clinic early,” I nearly groan, wondering if I’ve lost my mind.

  “Maybe it would be best if we just wash… ourselves?” Kayla suggests.

  She’s probably right. I let her have her way—grudgingly.

  We finish the shower in silence. All the while, I’m praying we can get things settled at the clinic quickly.

  CHAPTER 23

  KAYLA

  “Kayla! Is that you??”

  I hear the loud screeching voice and for a second I hide my face into White’s chest.

  “Who’s that?” he whispers, his voice vibrating through me like it always does.

  “That is my worst nightmare.”

  “Huh?”

  “Kayla! I knew that was you! Where have you been?”

  “Hey, Gladys,” I answer, turning around to face her. Against my will.

  Gladys works part-time at my school as a teacher’s aide. She probably would have gotten on full-time by now, except every teacher who has ever ha
d her in class, myself included, begs the principal to never bring her back. She’s a nice enough person. However, her annoying qualities are so numerous, you could grow old listing them. She’s loud, and this comes from me, a person who deals with small children all day long. They’re loud enough to wake the dead at times. Gladys is over-the-top loud. My classroom is at the end of a hallway and I swear I can hear Gladys in there with my door closed. That’s even if she’s on the other side of the school, or maybe out in the parking lot with every car there running. She’s that loud.

  Also, she has no filter. Zero. She makes Ida Sue’s off-the-wall comments seem tame at times. You can’t tell her that you don’t like someone. Why? Because she will march up to them and ask what they’ve done to make you dislike them. One of my coworkers made the mistake of telling her that one of the physical education teachers, Brian, had body odor. Gladys went and bought a mop bucket, filled it with soap, deodorant, shampoo, loofas, and washcloths, then gave it to him the next day and told him that all the teachers were avoiding him because he stunk. He quit his job that evening. She didn’t see why everyone was upset about it. In her mind, she had done him a favor. All that aside, Gladys is also the biggest gossip in the western hemisphere.

  That’s why seeing Gladys here is one of the things that nightmares are made of. And it’s a particularly bad nightmare because White and I are outside the family planning clinic, and by the time this conversation is done, and White and I walk back to the Riverwalk where makeshift booths are set up to celebrate fall, then stop and order a pumpkin spiced latte. Gladys will have called at least ten of the people I work with to tell them she saw me skipping work today when I was supposed to be sick, to tell them exactly where she saw me, to tell them who she saw me with, and perhaps worst of all, to tell them all that I’m knocked up. It won’t matter than I’m not, or even if I make it clear to her that I am in no way, shape, fashion or form standing before her with a bun in the oven. She won’t care.

  Shit.

  “I thought you were home sick today? I had to help the sub take care of your kids.”

  “I had a sinus infection, nothing major,” I tell her, my smile strained. I step away from White, hoping against hope that she won’t think that the two of us are a couple, when he pulls me back into him, his hand going possessively around my stomach. All hope of that is now thrown out the window.

  “Well, that’s good,” she says, but she’s already dismissed me from her mind. Now her eyes are looking White over—slowly, appraisingly. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “I doubt it. I don’t think we’ve ever met,” White notes easily. He’s not being overly friendly, either. Perhaps he’s picking up on the tension coursing through my body.

  “No. You look familiar. I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before. Maybe you’ve come to work and picked Kayla up there,” she says. I want to moan.

  “I don’t think so,” White responds, sounding bored. His hand is brushing against my stomach, almost as if he’s trying to comfort me. Yeah, I think it’s pretty safe to say he feels the tension in me. I watch as Gladys’s eyes move to White’s hand rubbing my stomach possessively, a stomach that is standing outside of the family planning clinic.

  I start to try and do damage control until I realize that I might have bigger issues.

  “No. I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere. Not with Kayla, though. I mean, I’ve met her fiancé Tommy, and you two look nothing alike. How is Tommy, Kayla?” she asks, her eyes sparkling with glee.

  God must be punishing me for taking birth control pills and keeping it from White. That’s all I can figure.

  “I’m sure he’s fine, Gladys. I haven’t spoken to him in a few days,” I tell her, and I have to force myself not to wince as White’s hands bite into my stomach.

  “You haven’t spoken to Tommy…” Gladys says, trailing off as she visibly seems to file away that juicy tidbit for later.

  “She hasn’t, and won’t. Tommy and Kayla aren’t together anymore, Gladys,” White growls, and it is a growl—one that makes me quiver in all the appropriate female areas.

  “Oh, that’s a shame,” Gladys says, and if she could sound any more pleased with herself, her hand would be tired from patting herself on the back. “What’s your relationship with Kayla, exactly?” she asks.

  Yeah, this is probably bad.

  “Gladys, it’s been nice seeing you, but I think I need to go home and rest. I have work tomorrow,” I say, but I needn’t have bothered. White and Gladys are both ignoring me.

  “Kayla is mine,” White says.

  That’s it. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t explain or deny any of the juicy conclusions that Gladys is quickly inventorying in her mind.

  “Yours?” she asks.

  “Mine.”

  “I’m his best friend,” I tell Gladys lamely, wishing the floor could swallow me up.

  “Best friend?” Gladys asks.

  “Among other even better things,” White says cryptically, keeping one hand on my waist and letting another rest on my shoulder, his fingers tangling in my hair as he kisses the top of my head.

  If I didn’t want to kill him right now, I’d be a melted puddle at his feet, but with each passing moment, Gladys is making her own conclusions and the result of that could be epically bad for my work life.

  “You’re that football star! The one who hurt his arm a while back!” she says, and I’m hoping I get lucky and she didn’t hear White’s reply.

  “That’s me.” This time, White sighs when he answers.

  My heart hurts for him. We haven’t talked about it, but I know he’s worried about ever playing again.

  “I had no idea that our Kayla had such big connections. She does like to keep secrets,” Gladys says as if I’m not even here. “How amazing it must be to be claimed by someone so virile and exciting!”

  Now I suddenly want to throat-punch her.

  “He means that he’s my brother,” I say stupidly. I swear, since the moment White kissed me, I’m pretty sure my brain is not firing on all cylinders.

  “Your brother!” Gladys cries, and before I can explain further, White interrupts me.

  “Sorry, Gladys, this has been nice, but I need to get Kayla home and in bed,” he growls, and from the tone of his voice, I think he might be a little pissed at me.

  “Oh, goodness.”

  Hell, if I’m not right there with her. The image of White getting me in bed flashes in my brain and burns out any other thoughts or brain cells that I might use to get me out of this mess I seem to find myself in.

  I’ve waved a goodbye and walked a good hundred feet back towards the food booths before my mouth becomes unfrozen and my tongue works enough to say anything.

  “You realize what she’s thinking, right?”

  “I’m not the one who told her we’re brother and sister.”

  “Well, she was thinking that we were—”

  “Sleeping together? Hate to break it to you, Buttercup, but she’d be right. Everyone will be thinking that soon and surprise—they’ll be right, too. Wasn’t that what getting the tests was all about?”

  “Well yeah, but I mean, I work with her. She’s a loud mouth—a nosy loud mouth.”

  “You don’t think the people you work with will realize you’re sleeping with me? Especially when you start showing?”

  “Showing?”

  “Women who get pregnant usually start to show that fact, Kayla.”

  “Well yeah, but we don’t need to worry about that right now,” I tell him, and guilt tangles with a feeling that almost feels like disappointment curling in my gut. My hand goes there in reaction. “So, there’s no reason to think about it. Besides, I’d rather not be the topic of conversation at the school’s watercooler.”

  “Why not? Are you ashamed of me?”

  “What? Of course not! It’s just that they all still think I’m with Tommy, and—”

  “Yeah, and I made sure that’s stopped. I don’t want o
ther people thinking you belong to anyone but me.”

  “White,” I whisper, butterflies in my stomach.

  “And I prefer that none of them are thinking I’m fucking my sister, so if you could stop saying I’m your damn brother every time I turn around, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I didn’t say that,” I deny, but we both know I just did.

  “You did just now, and you inferred it with Tommy’s mother. I don’t like it.”

  “Okay, White.”

  “I think you understand this, but let me make it clear, Kayla: The things I want from you, the things I’m going to demand of you, have nothing to do with me thinking of you as my sister.”

  “You’re right. I panicked. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “The things we are going to have together, those things have everything to do with me thinking of you as a woman. My woman.”

  “I won’t do it again,” I tell him. Right now I don’t give a damn what Gladys tells anyone where I work. White just called me his woman.

  His.

  CHAPTER 24

  WHITE

  "How in the bloody hell did I not know I was going to be a grandmother, White Hall?"

  I wince as I hold the phone from my ear and check the time. It's six in the morning and my eyes aren't focusing. Shit, I don't even remember picking up the phone.

  "I don't know, Mom. You have five grandkids counting the twins that CC and Gray are about to have. Maybe we should take you to the doctor."

  "Don't get smart with me, White. You explain why I have to read about it in the checkout line at the Quickie Mart."

  I pull myself up in bed with a wince when I move my bum arm the wrong way. The fucker is not healing back right. I don't care what they're saying. Every day the fear that I might not be able to play again digs a little deeper into my subconscious. I try to rub the sleep out of my eyes so I can deal with my mom. I have a feeling today is going to be one of those days.