by Mary Martel
“What’s going on?” Abel asked me in a guttural voice. “Where did Addison go? Ariel, tell me what in the fuck is going on. Right now.”
He looked agitated, upset and angry all at the same time. And he usually never talked to me like that.
“He told me he was coming back,” I whispered in a broken voice.
“Come here, Ariel,” Abel ordered.
He held his arms open to me and I ran into them. I crawled into his lap and he wrapped his arms around me.
One of his arms rested low around my hips, above my butt. His other hand ran up and down my spine, in a soothing gesture.
His forehead rested against mine and he murmured, “If he said he was coming back then he will come back. Have some faith. My twin isn’t a liar. If he said he’d do something, then he will come through.”
I nodded my head against his, letting him know that I believed him. No one knew his brother better than he did, if Abel said Addison would be coming back then I believed him.
With me still seated in his lap, he scooted back until his back met with the headboard.
He shifted around, grabbing hold of my thighs and moved me where he wanted me to be. I ended up facing him with my legs on the outside of his, straddling him. My chest was mere inches from his own.
This had not been what I was expecting. He’d taken advantage of the situation, not that I blamed him. I couldn’t blame him; the twins were playful and had no problem being touchy feely. I couldn’t harp on him for being who he was.
“Thank you,” he murmured appreciatively. “Thank you for going after my brother and trying to stop him. I feel like he needed that from you. Like he needed you to reach out to him, to let him know you actually cared about whether or not he left. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with you, you’re very closed off and sometimes I think that gets to him. But, don’t worry, he’ll come back to us. Please, don’t worry. And, stop looking so sad.”
Don’t worry.
Easy for him to say.
I worried about everything. Every stupid, little thing.
I snuggled into him, pressing my front to his. Abel was so easy to be around that I felt comfortable touching him.
“What do you want to do today?” He asked me.
I had no idea and didn’t think I was going to figure it out while sitting on his lap like this. I couldn’t think.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled.
“Do you have a hair dryer?” He asked me.
I nodded my head against his.
“Will you go and get it and a hair brush for me?”
I lowered my arms and scooted back, off of his lap. I swung my legs down off of the bed and stood up.
I found the hair dryer in the linen closet in the bathroom. I had to untangle it from a whole mess of cords that were connected to a hair straightener and a curling iron. It was a frustrating mess and I almost gave up on it, but I got my hair dryer free. I felt like throwing my arms up in the air in victory. I did no such thing because Abel could see me from his spot on the bed and I didn’t want him to think I was a crazy loon. The hair brush I found on the counter. Both I brought back into the bedroom and held up for his inspection.
He crawled off of the bed and took the hair dryer from me. He plugged it in in the outlet by the window seat and sat down.
“If you sit on the floor in front of me I will dry your hair and brush it out for you.”
I stupidly hadn’t put two and two together when he’d asked me to get the brush and the hair dryer. What else was he going to do with them?
He spread his legs and I hesitantly moved to sit on the floor in between them. I sat up straight, forcing myself to sit still. With gentle strokes, he ran the brush through my hair. Over and over again. Then he turned the blow dryer on and got down to drying my hair. Half way through someone knocked on the door.
I popped up and sprinted across the carpet, nervous about Addison’s return. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Addison stood there with his hand raised, ready to knock again. He had a book bag in his other hand.
“What was that noise?” He asked me.
“Hair dryer,” I explained.
He grinned at me. “I leave you alone in your bedroom with my twin and you decided to do your hair. I bet he loved that.”
“Actually,” I told him, “it was his idea.”
He chuckled. “He’s losing his touch.”
I shook my head and moved out of the doorway, letting him inside. Once the door was shut and locked, I moved back to where Abel was sitting and plopped back down on the floor in between his legs.
As soon as I had my butt on the carpet, Abel turned on the hair dryer and got back to work.
Addison sat down on the floor by my legs and unzipped the black back pack he had in his hands. He dug through it and pulled out a coloring book. Next came a box of crayons and then a metal tin with colored pencils in it.
“What are you doing?” I asked curiously. Had he really gone home to get a coloring book and crayons? That was absurd.
“We, Ariel girl,” he said. “It’s what we are doing. You wanted to hang out and spend time together. We’re going to do it while coloring. I got some sweet adult coloring books off of Amazon. One of them has got swear words in it. I’ve got an Alice In Wonderland one. A doodle one with weird animals in it. I love to color, it’s relaxing. And, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, girl, but you really need to relax.”
The blow dryer shut off and Abel tapped me on the shoulder with the hair brush. “You’re all done now.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, at a loss for words. They’d both robbed me of speech. One wanted to play with my hair while the other wanted to color with me.
I picked a picture out of the swearing book. Coloring in naughty words? Sure, why not. I figured I could maybe give it to Quinton later, he seemed fond of swear words. I used them as well, but I tried to keep them in my head where people wouldn’t judge me for using them.
Addison colored in a picture of a fox and Abel colored a picture of wild flowers. It was cute, ridiculous and probably one of the best afternoons I had had in a very long time.
Chapter Eleven
“Where are we going?” I asked as we turned onto a dirt road. We weren’t far from home and I had no idea where we were going.
It hadn’t occurred to me to ask Quinton where we were going when he’d asked me if I wanted to go for a ride with him and he hadn’t talked the entire drive.
He also didn’t bother answering my question as we came to a stop in front of a cute little cottage.
The only thing around was trees. Trees, trees, and more trees.
The square, two-story home had a washed out stone front. There were two windows on either side of the front door and both had weathered flower boxes overflowing with some type of hanging vines. The shudders around the windows were painted black as was the front door. The chimney sitting atop the cottage had smoke billowing out of it, giving it a charming look. The over grown plants and the black paint on the door and shudders, not so much.
A stone walkway lead up to the house. There was another one off of it that lead around the side of the house, where it disappeared from view. It probably lead to the back yard.
The front yard wasn’t much to look at. The grass was cut short. The dirt driveway, which I thought had been a road, ended in a huge circle that met the grass and the stone pathway that ran to the cottage.
Overall, it was cute, if a little isolated. I half expected Snow White and her dwarfs to come walking out the front door.
“Quinton?” I asked softly while looking around, taking in the scenery. “Who lives here?”
“Dash,” he said without looking at me.
Both my eyebrows shot up as my head whipped around to stare at him.
Why would he bring me here? Dash was not one of my favorite people. Outside of spying on him in the clearing, the last time I’d seen him had been the day my mother died, and I distinctly remembered him
calling me a stupid girl. I think that had been the nicest thing he’d said about me. Well, he did say I had a sweet ass. I was not impressed.
I asked a better question. “Why are we here?” I’m afraid it came out snottier than I had intended. If he’d shared our destination with me I never would have gotten in the damn car with him in the first place. And he knew it.
Quinton shut the car off and turned to face me. For the first time, I noticed he hadn’t bothered to put his seat belt on. I frowned at him, bothered by this knowledge. I needed Quinton in my life. What I didn’t need was for him to end up a mangled mess if he got into an accident and flew through the windshield, all because he was careless and didn’t take the time to buckle his seat belt.
His face lost all seriousness when he caught sight of my frown. His eyebrows drew together, and he looked confused.
“What’s the matter with you?” He asked.
He wanted to know what was the matter with me? How much time did he think we had? The list was long.
I sighed and said, “You’re not wearing your seat belt.”
He blinked before his lips curled up in a smug smirk. “Look at you,” he taunted, “all cute and caring. You give a shit about me. Already. That bond’s only gonna get stronger. First, you’re concerned for my safety. What’s next, are you gonna wash my dirty socks and scrub my back in the shower?”
My face burned, and I knew it would be an unattractive shade of red. What I wanted to do next was strangle him with the seat belt I had earlier wanted him to put on.
Wash his dirty socks? Please. Wasn’t Julian his little man servant? He could wash Quinton’s dirty clothes. I wasn’t even going to think about a naked Quinton in the shower. At least not while I was around him. I was surely embarrassed enough as it was. I did not need to ever think about a naked Quinton. That would be bad. I’d probably end up cross eyed if I did… Right?
Shit.
I unclicked the seat belt and reached for the door handle. My intent was to escape the vision of a naked Quinton with droplets of water gliding down his body. The problem was, this vision only existed in my mind. How does one escape their own mind?
Quinton gently grabbed ahold of my left arm, the arm closest to him, stopping me from trying to open the door.
His face was suddenly back to serious. I liked amused better.
“Dash is a moody bastard,” he said. I blinked, having forgotten that we were sitting parked in front of Dash’s cute cottage. “Always has been, as far as I can remember.”
I wasn’t sure I needed to know anything more than I already knew about Dash. And I didn’t know why Quint was sharing.
“He has room for you,” he rushed out. “You need to live with one of us. You’re uncomfortable with staying at the house right now and I get it, I do. I don’t like it, but I get it. Julian and Damien live together but their house is out. It’s too small for another person because it’s only got two bedrooms. That leaves us with Dash and, thankfully, he’s got room for you. And, he also doesn’t mind you staying here with him.”
I opened my mouth to protest or maybe shout at him, he saw and hurried to get out the rest.
“You’ve got a room at the house. It’s yours and will be waiting for you, whenever you’re ready. All the guys have rooms at the house, so it’s not a big deal that you do too. I’m gonna be honest with you, Ariel. I want you to live with me. I want your permanent home to be with me, wherever I am. I get why you don’t want to stay there right now, but I’m hoping this arrangement with Dash doesn’t take too long.”
I sat there staring at him with my mouth hanging open. He was crazy if he thought he could just move me in with Dash without asking me if I even wanted to live there in the first place.
I did not want to live with Dash. I didn’t want to be homeless, either. And, I really, really did not want to live at the house with Quinton and the guys. I needed to come to terms with my mother’s death before I could live there. What choice did I really have?
I sighed heavily and sat back in the seat.
“He hates me,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to live with someone who hated me, I’d already done that for most of my life.
Quinton let go of my arm. He placed his warm hand on top of my thigh and his fingers curled in.
“He doesn’t hate you, baby,” He said. “I told you, he’s moody. He’s lived a life of heartbreak and that leaves a mark on a person. His dad died when he was a little boy and his mother made yours seem sweet in comparison. After his dad died, his mother moved them here, to this cottage, to live with her mother. She wasn’t very nice either. He grew up with a woman who told him on a daily basis he should have been aborted. Then, he had a grandmother who beat the shit out of him. She’d whip him, trying to get the evil thing inside of him out. They both died when he was in his late teens, but he put up with their bullshit until then. It did something to him, warped the way he see’s women. He goes through women like they are disposable and he sleeps around a lot. He once had four girlfriends at the same time, none of them knew about each other and they didn’t get the chance to figure it out because he didn’t keep them around for longer than a month. He fucks them and when he’s had enough of them, he moves on to the next one.” Quinton paused to draw in a deep breath. “He can’t do that with you even if he wanted to. You’re different, special. You’re one of us and he’d never hurt you. He’s worried you’re going to be the one doing the hurting and he’s scared to death of you.”
I didn’t want to care. I tried to harden my heart against feeling anything. I failed. Miserably. I, too, had suffered at the hands of a hideous person who was supposed to love and care for me. My heart bled a little for Dash, it couldn’t not.
Though, none of this made him any less of a dick.
“Why did you tell me this, Quinton?” I asked quietly. I felt like it hadn’t been his place to share even part of Dash’s story with me.
Quinton grinned at me. “I can see your heart in your eyes, you’re that easy to read now. No way are you not going to give him even half a chance after hearing that. I’m not opposed to guilting you into giving me what I want. And, make no mistake, Ariel, I want you to give Dash a chance. In time, I want you to give them all a chance. They want it too. We all do. Even if some of them are going to fight it, deep down they want it, want you, they won’t be able to help themselves.”
I shook my head. He didn’t have to tell me what he was capable of, I already knew.
I’d give Dash a chance, maybe. But I would make no promises.
They were all insane, especially Quinton. He had the hots for me, clearly, and yet he wanted me to have romantic relationships with his nephew and all their friends.
That wasn’t going to happen. At least, not today it wasn’t.
“So,” I cleared my throat. “We’re here to what? Check out my potentially new home?”
“Yeah,” he grunted as he opened his door and climbed out of the car.
He was annoyed.
I think it bothered him that I never responded aloud when someone brought up the sharing bit. I wished it would stop coming up in conversation, and I didn’t respond because I didn’t think he would really enjoy hearing what I had to say on the matter.
He moved around the front of the car to come around to my side, so he could open the door for me. I shoved the door open and quickly scrambled to my feet. I wasn’t entirely helpless.
He pursed his lips, unhappy with me.
I bit my lip hard, so I wouldn’t laugh at him. He wouldn’t like me laughing at him.
He turned his back on me and casually strolled up the stone pathway. He wore the same black, scuffed up cowboy boots I’d seen him wear recently. Dark, blue jeans were tucked into the boots. A light gray belt had been slipped through the belt loops on his jeans. His outfit had been topped off by his usual long-sleeved button up shirt. This one was a rich forest green and he had the sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows. The color went well with his tanned skin and dark eye
s.
Quinton knocked on the door as I made it to his side. There was no doorbell in sight.
I stood there nervously while we waited for Dash to open up the door.
I had no idea what lay behind the black door. The only expectations I had weren’t good ones.
Chapter Twelve
It took Quinton banging on the door a few more times with his fist for Dash to open the door. The longer it took, the more nervous I became. Finally, when the door opened, I had my hands clenched together in front of me and my palms had started to sweat.
I felt like an actress, auditioning for a part in a movie I wasn’t sure would either make or break my career. Time to quit my day job.
The door opened inwards and Dash filled the empty space. His shockingly bright red hair and beard were the first thing I noticed about him. His beard had grown fuller, longer since I had seen him last.
I noticed his eyes second and I did not linger on them in my perusal of him. His eyes were light gray and best described as haunted. The depth of the horrors he’d lived through shined bright at the surface, for all to see. His eyes told me he had plenty of demons, and they wrestled on the daily.
I wondered if he recognized the horrors in my eyes as similar to the ones shining so brightly in his own. Could he tell I had demons as well when he looked at me?
I didn’t think he looked at me long enough to notice.
His outfit surprised me because I felt like I should have noticed it before all else.
He stood barefoot with his pale, naked legs practically glowing in the sunlight. He wore what looked to be a woman’s robe that was black and looked like silk. The sleeves were so long they hid his hands from view. The robe was short, stopping mid-thigh, leaving an obscene amount of skin on display.
Was this how he normally greeted company? I hoped not. The chances of me living here with him for even a small portion of time were becoming slimmer by the second.