by J. M. Stone
My breath was coming in pants, and my hands were shaking. The little bell on the door chimed as Floyd walked in, and when he saw my pale face and my white-knuckled grip on the phone, he dropped the files in his hands and rushed around the counter to yank the phone out of my hand.
“This is Floyd Grim, and I suggest you find another attorney to call. Do not call my secretary again.” He slammed the phone down and turned to me, patting my back and asking if I was okay.
I nodded and he glanced at me worriedly before scooping up his files and taking them back to his office.
The rest of the day passed without incident until I slipped and mentioned it at dinner that night.
“What? What the fuck are you talking about, Emma?” Luke yelled.
“You should have said something earlier, babe,” Jackson interjected.
I turned my eyes to Brandon, asking silently for him to help me. He glared at me before turning away, refusing to look at me.
“Look, I’ve never had a problem like this before, and it’s not been an issue until a couple weeks ago when he called and told me about the…” I broke off, realizing that Luke’s face was blood red and all three of them looked ready to blow.
I winced when Luke growled at me, “Told you about the what, Emma? How long? Tell me how long this has been going on, that you decided wasn’t important enough to mention. How long!” he bellowed the last words and I flinched, jerking back in my chair.
I blinked up at him, not afraid of him, but more afraid of what he would say. I swallowed audibly, and sent Jackson a grateful glance when he put his hand on my knee, squeezing gently in reassurance. “A while, I guess,” I said softly. “I was getting hang up calls a lot, and I thought I had mentioned those to you. Anyway, he…he called a couple weeks ago and told me that the rose I found on my car was from him.”
“Fucking hell!” Luke exploded, shoving away from the table and slamming outside.
I started to follow him but stopped when Jackson put his hand back on me to keep me still. He nodded to Brandon who stood and went after Luke. As he passed my chair, he hesitated and lightly touched my shoulder before going out the door.
I looked over at Jackson with tears brimming in my eyes. “Jacks…”
“I know, babe. But he loves you and you just told him basically that someone is threatening you. He’s not going to take that lightly. None of us are. We all love you, Emma.” He raised his hand when my eyes widened and continued, “In different ways. You know that, babe. Sure we did…what we did, but we all know that was a one time thing. Luke and I made that deal years ago. Brandon looks at you like the sister he’s never had, and you definitely dealt us a blow tonight. Don’t keep stuff like that from us. Okay?”
I nodded, wiping my eyes and turning to see Luke and Brandon walk back through the door. Without a word, Luke came over to me, jerked me out of my chair and into his arms, and held me so tightly I couldn’t breath. I patted his shoulder awkwardly and he loosened his grip, moving back to look me in the face.
“Don’t hide stuff from me, Emma. I love you so much, the thought of something happening to you, or even just scaring you…it drives me insane. Okay?”
“I’m sorry, Luke. I’ll tell you everything, I promise, and won’t keep anything from you. You do have to understand that I never really was keeping this from you. I just didn’t think to tell you.”
He nodded and let me go. We all sat back down at the table and I told them everything, every detail about the phone calls and the recorder device that my boss had gotten me. We talked a bit longer and then headed to bed. Luke held me and made love to me like I would break, until I finally rolled him over and started riding him, plunging myself down onto his hardness over and over again until he gripped my hips and began thrusting up to meet my hips.
I arched myself back over him, leaning back and bracing my hands on his thighs behind me. My hair brushed his knees and calves and I heard him groan and growl at the dual sensations. I looked down the line of my body to that place where we joined and watched him disappear into me again and again before letting my eyes find his face. I felt my inner muscles clench around him when I noticed his hot gaze locked on that spot, lost in the sight of his hard, thick length impaling the soft, bare, pink folds of my sex.
I shifted my weight a bit, bringing one of my hands around and sliding it down my body until my fingers dipped into my cleft, finding and circling my clit. The sight of my fingers playing there made Luke wild and he let loose a yell as he slammed into me, spasming inside me over and over again as the combination of his release and my fingers brought me, making him jerk and twitch as my muscles clamped around him, milking his hard flesh.
I collapsed forward onto his chest and his arms came around me, holding me tightly to him as he murmured into my hair, “I love you, Emma.”
I nuzzled his throat and whispered back, “I love you, too, Lucas.” His chest rumbled beneath me as he chuckled at the use of his given name.
Luke shifted and rolled until we were on our sides, facing each other, our legs tangled together, and the waning hardness of him still buried deep inside me. He kissed my lips gently and we drifted off to sleep.
I woke up the next morning with the alarm, surprised to see that neither of us had moved in the night. Even more surprising, Luke’s then not-so-hard length was still inside me, but was rapidly becoming his oh-so-very-hard length. I looked at Luke’s face, seeing his gorgeous eyes blink sleepily open and a grin spread across his face.
I rushed in to work twenty minutes late to see Floyd standing over my desk with a worried expression on his face.
“Sorry, Floyd! I got held up a little this morning.” I smiled at him, hoping he wouldn’t be mad for me being late.
He smiled and shook his head at me, telling me it was fine before it was business as usual. I had just a week to go before I got to take off for Christmas break, but we had a lot to get done before then. The phones were ringing off the hook and poor Floyd was booked solid with court appearances and client meetings.
Two hours shy of closing time, the phone rang and I smiled when I heard Mrs. Allen’s crackly voice on the other end.
“Emma? Honey, is that you?”
“Yes, Mrs. Allen, how are you? I haven’t heard from you in a while, so I assume everything has been going well? How’s Fluffers?”
“Oh, honey, I’ve been okay until now. Fluffers went missing again, but that stupid old fart Doc brought him back to me. Do you know what he did, Emma? He SHAVED poor Fluffers! And I think he bleached him or something cause he’s not grey anymore, he’s WHITE! He doesn’t even look like my cat anymore, but its him. Do I need to bring him out to you so you can see him?”
“Er, um…no, Mrs. Allen, that wont be necessary.” She continued before I could say another word.
“I can take pictures and bring them to you, dear, that way you have the evidence when you get that lovely Mr. Grim to sue the ever loving pants off Doc, that no good bastard. Fluffers just had a couple burrs in his coat that I was fixin’ to get out. There was no need to torture the poor boy!”
“Mrs. Allen, if he had burrs in his fur, then Doc was doing a good thing by shaving Fluffers. That way he doesn’t get matted worse, and besides, I thought Fluffers was a white cat? You can’t sue him for those things, since he was helping you. Okay?”
“Well, okay, dear. If you’re sure…” Mrs. Allen sounded doubtful, but I didn’t give her time to come up with anything else.
“I’m sure, Mrs. Allen. You have a nice day and a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year if I don’t talk to you before then, okay? Bye-bye!”
I laughed as I hung up the phone and turned back to the trial brief I was typing. About thirty minutes before closing time, Jackson walked into the office, stopping at the counter in front of me.
“Hey, babe,” he said, smiling down at me.
“Hey, Jacks! What are you doing here?”
“Luke’s got a late appointment again and didn’t want you walkin
g out by yourself. So I said I’d pick you up. Plus, I need your opinion on something.”
“Okay, I just have to finish up a couple things and then we can go.” I turned back to my computer and finished up in record time. I hopped up and grabbed my coat and purse and we walked outside. He grabbed my keys out of my hand and locked the door behind us before herding me into his car.
Instead of going to Skin Deep like I figured we would, we headed home. When we got inside, he motioned to the kitchen table and I went and sat down, waiting patiently for him to join me. He pulled something out of a tube he had leaned up against the corner of the living room and spread it out over the table.
I gasped when I looked over the blueprint he had laid out, my eyes racing over every detail. “Is this for your house that you’re building next door?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I just had a couple things I wanted a woman’s perspective on.”
I teased him a bit, winking and asking, “Shouldn’t you be asking Allie then?”
He grinned at me and said, “She’ll get to voice her opinion eventually, especially if she’s gonna live there one day.”
I raised my eyebrows at him, asking silently for more information. After a minute he complied.
“Well, I know we talked before about Allie, but I just…I really like her, Emma. But there’s Brandon and I don’t know exactly where he fits in with everything.” He shook his head.
“I think things will work themselves out. Just be patient, Jacks. So! What did you want my opinion on?” I rubbed my hands together in glee, excited to be able to get to help actually design a house that was going to be built.
We sat there for a while, throwing ideas back and forth, and at one point during a slightly heated conversation, he had come up behind me at the table, leaning over my shoulder and pointing at the blueprints. We both looked up at the door when it opened and Luke and Brandon walked in. I smiled at them, and Luke quirked his brow at Jackson leaning over me, his hand braced on my shoulder. I glanced up at Jackson and laughed when he waggled his brows at Luke before patting my shoulder and moving back so I could get up.
I went to Luke, raising my lips for his kiss as he smiled and said, “Jacks, you ass! You tryin’ to get fresh with my woman?”
I laughed even harder when Jackson replied, “Hell yeah, I am! She’s too good for you, needs someone macho like me!”
I rolled my eyes at their banter and reached around to snatch the pizza boxes out of Brandon’s hands that I hadn’t noticed until now. He’d been trying to maneuver around Luke and sneak away with dinner.
“Hey!” he whined. “That’s my dinner!”
Luke turned around and smacked him upside the back of the head, muttering, “Greedy pig,” before we all headed in to the living room to eat and watch some TV.
My cell phone chimed in my purse sitting on the counter and I got up off the couch, gathering up used paper plates, napkins, and discarded pizza crusts and carrying it all to the kitchen. I threw away all the trash and fed poor slobbering Doug the pizza crusts before I grabbed my cell and went back to sit with Luke. I slid my finger across the screen to open the home page of my phone to see that it was a text that had come through. I opened it.
Hey, its your favorite brother. Got a sec?
I laughed before replying, You’re my only brother, jerk off. What’s up?
Well, remember how you said that I couldn’t have a party at your house?
I groaned, knowing that this was probably gonna be bad. Yeah, I remember. But you didn’t listen, right?
Not exactly? You’ll get over it but I do have to tell you that I sent the carpet cleaner people over to clean the carpet where this chick Exorcist-ed the living room. I even paid for it myself. Just FYI. Later.
I sighed and called Leah, who picked up immediately and started talking before I could.
“I know that you said he couldn’t have the party and I told him no but then he came over and we were hanging out and he asked if his buddy could come and I said yes but my friend wanted to come hang because he was here and then it snowballed and the stupid bitch drank three bottles of red wine and Exorcist-ed the living room-”
“Leah!” I shouted, trying to get her to shut up. “Breathe for a second, geez. Calland texted me. Did the stain come out of the carpet?”
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Did anything get broken?” I asked.
“Ahh…nope? I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Its over and done with so…just be responsible.”
“Okay, Emma!”
I got off the phone with her and Luke reached over, snagging my phone so he could see the texts from my brother. He sniggered and passed the phone to the other guys before I jumped up and snatched it back. I swear, they’re like little kids.
Chapter 19
“Luke, I promise, there’s nothing for you to do, so don’t bother coming down here, okay? I’ll just see you when you pick me up from work. I love you.”
I hung up the phone and turned to the officer that had come back into my office at work. He handed me a report, which I laid on my desk with the other three already there.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Jensen, but beyond the reports there’s nothing else for us to do. No one knows who he is and he’s obviously masked his number so its not showing up on the Caller ID. You’ve done well with recording the conversations and I would watch it because it sounds like he’s escalating. Just call if you need anything, okay ma‘am?”
I nodded and thanked the officer again, smiling as he left the office. As soon as he cleared the door, my face fell. It was the week before Christmas and Creepy had decided to step up his game. He’s called me almost everyday, but today, not to mention the past three days, he’s become increasingly more agitated and vulgar on the phone. I’d made reports every time and was keeping a file on it. Floyd was going insane with worry, and I think he would have sent me away if I hadn’t talked him out of it.
As it was, the only reason I got to finish out the week was because next week was Christmas and the office would be closed. I just had to make it through Tuesday at noon, which is when we’d close the office. I’d get Wednesday (Christmas Eve), Thursday (Christmas), and Friday off next week, and then the complete following week, returning to work on the fifth of January.
I think we were all hoping that the time away would make him get bored and leave me the hell alone. It was driving me nuts that I had no idea who this guy was and how the hell he knew me, although every time I heard his voice it felt like something was niggling the back of my mind, something that I just couldn’t put my finger on. Luke was about five seconds away from locking me up in a tower somewhere and Brandon and Jackson were totally on his side.
Luke and I had gotten into an argument last night because he found out that I hadn’t told my family anything, and he assumed that I hadn’t told Allie. Noah was the only one who’d known, other than Allie, who’d already been threatened with death if she told, and I’d sworn him to secrecy. The only reason he knew was because the guys at the station knew I was his sister-in-law and had told him about everything. Luke had blown his top and actually called every single member of my family at quarter after eleven last night to tell them. My parents were pissed off at me, Leah had sobbed like I had died, Jenna had mother-henned me to death (Yes, apparently its even possible to do over the phone), but the one that got to me the most was Calland, who shockingly had been so sweet, asking if I was okay. Of course then he threatened, and I quote, ‘to castrate the mother fucker who decided to fuck with his sister.’
I managed to get by with promising to tell Allie today, and that’s only because she was coming out to the house tonight. God knows what he’d have done if he knew she already knew. I’d then tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to shift the focus from me by asking Brandon and Jackson point blank about what was going on with Allie. They’d steadfastly refused to take the bait, remaining stoic and brooding about my situation.
Oh, well. I sighed and pi
cked up the pad of paper that I had stashed in my desk drawer. I’d made a list of gifts that I wanted to get everyone and had been marking them off as I found them. I only had three more people to buy for, and go figure, they were the ones I lived with. I had a few ideas about Luke and Brandon, but was completely at a loss at what to get Jackson. I’d even gone so far as to ask him, which was no help. Of course, teasing him that I was going to get him Allie in a big red bow didn’t help my cause.
Mom was easy; I’d gotten her a gift card to use to buy books for her Kindle and stashed it in the pocket of an oversized hoodie sweatshirt with her favorite NFL team on it. I’d also gotten her an adorable yellow lab figurine that looked just like Doug who, even though she refused to let him spend the night again unless he’d been people food free for at least two days prior, was still her favorite four legged grandchild.
Dad was pretty easy, too. There was a new war game that had come out and he’d wanted it to play on his Xbox 360 with all his buddies. I know, I know, he’s a little old for that, right? Well, my brother had gotten him hooked and far be it for me to tell him any different. I’d also gotten him a new tshirt that said, ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves,’ which, believe it or not, he’d said to us quite often growing up.
Calland had gotten the same game as I got Dad so they could play together, and I’d found Leah a really cute outfit and a pair of earrings that she’d been gushing over. Jenna and Noah were probably the easiest. I’d only had to print up a coupon book on the computer with vouchers for babysitting and a gift card to their favorite restaurant. The kids were spoiled by everyone, and I was no different, which is why I’d already bought them at least six gifts each.
I’d found Allie a few funky scarves that I knew she’d turn into a skirt, as well as a gorgeous silver necklace with a teardrop shaped black onyx and diamond accent pendant. Hell, I’d even bought Doug a few new squeaky toys, bones, and new collar!
I’d hidden all the presents in the cupboards above the washer and dryer in the laundry room because, since I’d moved in, no one but me has touched the laundry. Gee, how’d I get so lucky? I just needed to get the last few things as well as some wrapping paper and gift tags so I could get everything wrapped. That’s always been my favorite thing at Christmas, besides getting presents. I loved to pull everything out and stack it around me and blare Christmas music while I wrapped everything at once.