by Penny Dee
I was grateful to have Honey with me because she calmed my tempest. Hearing those things about my brother cut me to the bone. Pain bit at my insides and rattled my nerves as I took a moment to prepare myself for what I was about to see. Honey slid her hand into mine, her fingers curling around my own as we stood outside my brother’s hospital room. But when I opened the door, not even she could prepare me for the sight of my brother lying on that hospital bed. With all those tubes coming out of him and those bandages covering his body. Agony tore through my chest like lightning.
As I approached the bed, Chance’s eyes opened behind the holes in the bandages covering his face. Yesterday they had started pulling him out of his sedation, but he wasn’t showing much response to any kind of prompts. Now recognition lifted the shadows in the blue eyes looking back at me.
“Well, fuck,” I said sitting down next to him.
In that moment, the next words out of my mouth seemed really important.
“You’re alive and I’m fucking grateful,” I said. I chose those words because they were so fucking true. I wasn’t going to sugarcoat this by telling him everything was going to be okay. Because it wouldn’t be. Not for a long while. “This is just going to take time. Do you understand me, brother?”
He blinked his blue eyes and it took everything I had in me not to let the emotion show on my face.
His eyes shifted to Honey behind me.
“Hey, stop perving at my girlfriend,” I joked, a small smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “Yeah, you heard right, brother, I have a girlfriend. I’m a one-woman man now. This is Honey.” She stepped forward and my brother looked up at her through his bandages, his eyes glittering over her. His lips moved, but nothing came out and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to say something or not. “And you’re going to be an uncle again.”
Chances eyes darted back to me and I couldn’t help the smile spreading across my lips.
“We’re having a baby,” I said proudly. “Can you believe it? Another Calley coming into the world, and this one is a girl, so we’d better brace ourselves. Remember how much trouble Chastity gave us when she was born. How she had us all wrapped around her pinky finger.” I smiled at the memory. “I really want you to be home when she arrives, okay? She’ll need her uncle. Do you understand me?”
His hands fisted at his sides, despite the bandages.
I noticed. So did Honey.
“I’m going to leave you two to catch up,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the cafeteria when you’re ready.” Her eyes met Chance’s vibrant gaze. “I’m looking forward to hanging out with you when you get home. Caleb reckons you’re a pretty good poker player. He told me you’re the best he’s ever seen, but I grew up in Vegas so I’m going to have to see about that. You can bring your best game, but I’ll still kick your ass. ”
A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. I was sure of it. But one blink and it was gone.
After Honey left, I sat back in the visitor’s chair. It was important to keep it casual. Not show the alarm I felt in my belly.
“She’s pretty amazing. Wait til you get to know her. You’ll love her. She fits in with the family, hell, Mom likes her, and apart from Indy she’s never liked any of the girls we’ve been with.”
Chance looked away. Not just with his eyes but his whole head. And for a brief moment I wondered if bringing Honey and telling him about the baby was the wrong thing to do. I’d thought hard about it before asking Honey to come along. I didn’t want to parade my happiness in front of my badly injured brother who may or may not have a chance at a normal life again. But I knew Chance better than anyone else in the world. He would want to see things for how they were. He wouldn’t want the sugar-coated reassurances or the cliché optimism. He kept things real.
“Are you okay, brother?” I asked. “Are you in pain?”
He turned his head and looked at me right in the eyes.
“No,” he rasped. “I feel fucking nothing.”
HONEY
Caleb didn’t say much when he met me at the cafeteria. Or during the cab ride back to the hotel. Once we were inside our room, he ran a shower and I left him to his peace and quiet so he could process his visit to his brother. But after he’d been in there a while, I gently tapped on the bathroom door and cautiously walked in. He was standing with his palms flat to the tiles with the water pouring over his broad shoulders, his head bent, his eyes closed. He looked up when I walked in and I knew he needed me. The look on his face. The torment in his eyes. He was in pain.
Our eyes met as I unbuttoned my dress and let it slip to the floor, and they remained firmly on one another as I crossed the marble tiles to the shower cubicle. Opening the door, I stepped in and as he raked his gaze up and down the length of me, lust and desire darkened the vibrant blueness of his tormented eyes.
His big hand reached up and cupped my jaw, pulling me to him and he kissed me with wet, commanding lips.
I dropped to my knees before him, kissing my way down his gloriously muscular body until I found his thick cock. He flinched when I slid my hand along the wide shaft and then trembled as I ran my wet tongue across the smooth, broad head. My name dropped from his lips as I took him into my mouth, my tongue and lips toying with the sensitive area behind the wide crest, his hands dragging through my damp hair as I caressed his balls with the cupped palm of my hand.
I knew what Caleb liked.
Knew what brought him to an orgasm quickly.
Knew what to do with my mouth and tongue to make him quiver.
His fingers gripped at my skull and his knees weakened, his balls tensing in my hand as I fucked him with my mouth, my tongue, and all the techniques I’d mastered with him over the last few months. He started to come, and his groan shook in the air inside the shower cubicle. But I didn’t stop, I kept sucking and loving his cock as he weakened against the shower wall and came in pulsating warm bursts across my tongue.
“Angel . . . ” he breathed.
He guided me to my feet and pulled me to him, gently caressing my face, his eyes still molten with heat as they searched my face.
Without a word he kissed me and the kiss was long and slow, his lips gentle but in charge. His body was warm and wet, his fingers tight on my jaw as his mouth moved sensually over mine.
When the fingers of his free hand slid between my thighs and found how aroused I was, he groaned into my mouth, his body shifting to allow him more access. I trembled against his fingers as they flittered over my clit and into the creaminess of my body. I gasped against his lips, my body lighting up with desire as he rubbed and teased the small nub of nerves. My knees grew weak. I wanted to come. But I wanted to come with him inside of me.
“Take me to the bed,” I moaned as he kissed his way along my jaw.
He turned off the water, and taking me by the hand stepped out of the shower and led me across the spacious bathroom. He lovingly toweled me off until my skin was only damp, delicately wiping me down until the last sparkle of water was gone. My heart pounded wildly in my chest and my breathing quickened, and I almost came when he brushed the towel over my aching clit.
I watched him with hungry eyes. His body was magnificent. Hard muscle and smooth flesh, his thickening cock growing between his legs.
“I want you so much,” I breathed with desperation. And he gave me a look of pure, unadulterated lust as he led me to the bed.
My belly was big now and it was harder to make love in certain positions, but Caleb only saw this as an opportunity to explore new ways to see what worked, what didn’t work, and what felt good. He was a gentle lover, reassuring and generous but fiercely commanding and wildly experimental. He had a strong sexual appetite and never failed to let me know how much he desired me. Sometimes he would just come up behind me and nuzzle into my throat and tell me how much I turned him on. Other times we would stand there kissing, and he would do things with his mouth and tongue that made me think I could come just from the way they moved over mine.
This was about me. But it was also about him trying to regain control over something, because in his head, the chaos was spinning wildly in the wind.
My body churned restlessly beneath him wanting to come but he was torturing me in the most delicious way, making me wait, bringing me to the edge but not letting me tumble over into the abyss.
“Please!” I begged, raking my fingers through his hair.
His stubble gently grazed my inner thighs as his tongue pressed against my clit until I was about to explode. And just when I thought I was going to burst, he would pull away and flitter his tongue over a less-sensitive area. I gripped the sheet beneath me and arched my back so my clit found his mouth again, and I gasped with the slight penetration of his tongue into me, mindless with pleasure, wild with need.
“Come for me, angel,” he finally moaned against my sensitive flesh. His tongue swirled and licked with the perfect amount of pressure and I unraveled against him. My sex quivered against his mouth as my orgasm possessed me. I breathed out a whimpered moan and dragged my fingers through his hair, lost in the sensation coursing though me.
But he wasn’t done with me yet. He spread my thighs wider and nuzzled into me again.
“Caleb . . . I can’t, no more, please. I need you inside me.” I was barely down from my cloud when he started at my flesh again and I trembled against his mouth with the beginnings of a new climax. My legs shook. My clit throbbed. And from nowhere, it burst across my body like falling embers. A cry made from raw pleasure tore out of me, and before my body could even adjust to the pleasure consuming it, he ran his big cock through the quaking flesh and thrust deep and hard into my body. The immediate fullness filled me with bliss. Feeling him push into me, feeling him thrusting, feeling him pull away and rub his wide, smooth head against my clit sent goosebumps prickling along my skin. He pulled out and the emptiness was immediate.
“Get up on your knees, baby,” he commanded.
I rose onto all fours and backed toward the end of the bed.
“Your ass is beautiful,” he moaned, rubbing his hands over my peachy curves.
In this position I felt more exposed to him, more open, all of me on display and begging to be fucked. Standing behind me, he rolled his cock up and down the length of my sex, teasing me, arousing me beyond definition before pushing himself slowly and purposely into me. His groan was saturated with desire and his fingers dug into the flesh of my ass as he began to rock into me.
My body was already ignited by two previous orgasms, but Caleb’s slow, controlled thrusts detonated a third, this one coming from somewhere deep inside. I arched my head back and cried out, inspiring Caleb to speed up, to chase his own climax. He grabbed my hips and drove into me, drawing my pleasure out as he pursued his, grinding against me and making me insane until he finally shuddered and rasped my name in pleasure.
He stilled and held me against him, and I could feel his cock pulsing into me as he filled me with cum.
When the gentle throbs stopped and our euphoria receded, he pulled out of me and guided me down onto the bed with him and wrapped his big arms around me. One hand slid down to my round belly, and even though I couldn’t see him, I felt him close his eyes and heard him exhale contently.
“Thank you,” he whispered into the back of my head.
“For what?” I asked after a pause.
His voice was thick. “For everything.”
We arrived back in Destiny the next day.
It had been a long trip back from Maryland, and by the time we pulled into our apartment complex, it was dark and I was exhausted.
Caleb dragged our suitcase behind him as we made our way across the parking lot and up the stairs. But halfway up the steps I stopped and glanced over my shoulder. Out of the blue I felt . . . watched.
Goosebumps prickled my skin.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asked, placing a hand on the small of my back.
I shivered.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, searching the shadows of the parking lot. I couldn’t see anything out there, but a cold unease trickled through my veins.
He looked concerned. “You sure?”
I nodded and started walking again. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
We continued up the stairs to the front door where there was a parcel sitting on the step.
“Have you been ordering more things online?” he asked.
In the last couple of weeks I’d received a few packages in the mail because buying online was sometimes a lot cheaper than buying in stores.
“Hey, this kid needs stuff,” I said, opening the door while he picked up the box.
Inside, I switched on the light and Caleb handed me the package. It didn’t weigh much for a box that took two hands to hold. I gave it a little shake trying to remember what I had recently purchased, and whatever was inside, rattled. There was no address label so I had no idea where it was from.
Grabbing the box cutter from a drawer in the kitchen, I sliced open the tape. But as I lifted the cardboard flaps, I gasped and stepped back in horror.
The box was full of decapitated doll heads.
CALEB
Fury ripped through me, unrestrained and ferocious. It was a violent throb in my head. Those doll heads made me want to go medieval on someone’s ass.
Honey sat on the couch, her head in her hands.
“We have to call the police.” She trembled.
“The police won’t be able to do anything.”
She raised her head. Through her tears, her eyes were sharp. “We’re calling the police.”
“This is someone’s idea of a sick joke.”
“Sick joke? Are you kidding me! It’s a threat, Caleb. Directed right at me and the baby.”
“We don’t know that. The box wasn’t addressed to anybody.”
“It’s my address.”
“No, it’s our address.” I sighed and rubbed my head, not sure how to approach the topic. “Listen, there’s something I haven’t told you.”
Her head shot up and her eyes darted to mine. “What?”
I looked for the words to explain the situation in the least creepiest way.
“I have this . . . I guess you’d call it a secret admirer. I have no idea who she is or what she thinks she’s doing.” Guilt rolled through me. I should’ve told her sooner about the gifts. But in the bigger picture, my secret admirer was the least of my priorities. And the gifts she’d sent had never been as sinister as this. “To be honest, I didn’t really give her much thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“I never though for a moment she would send something here. They always come to the studio.”
“You mean you’ve been sent stuff before?”
“Nothing like this.”
“What, a threat? Because let’s call this for what it is, Caleb.” She stood up and crossed the room to the big window overlooking the dark street. She was rattled and rubbed her belly as she stared out into the darkness. “What do they usually send?”
I stood behind her and ran my hands up her bare arms. “It started off innocent. A hip flask. A limited edition Easy Rider movie poster. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s.” I turned her to face me. “Never anything like this. It’s why I’ve never contacted the police. It’s some girl who has a crush on me. That’s all.”
She turned back to the window and folded her arms across her chest. “Yeah, well, your some girl has crossed the line. I’m calling the police.”
I nodded. As much as I wanted to handle this myself, I knew I could
n’t give Honey the peace of mind like involving the police would.
Sherriff Buckman turned up twenty minutes later.
“So take me back to the start. This secret admirer has been sending you stuff for how long?”
“About eight months.”
His eyes bounced between Honey and me. “So before you two got together?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay, tell me what was going on around you when you got the first gift.”
“What do you mean?”
“With these stalking cases there is usually a trigger. If it started before the two of you got together, then it’s not that. So think, what was happening?”
I tried to think of something but there was nothing significant going on when I first received the silver hip flask. It was about two weeks before I met Honey. And as I peeled back those months, I was reminded of how empty my life had been before I met her.
“I can’t think of anything.”
“And before the box of doll heads, the gifts were tame? You mentioned the hip flask, movie poster, and a bottle of liquor. Anything else?”
I glanced at Honey and then back at Buckman. Avoiding any mention of the worn lacy thong was impossible. I sighed, resigned to it. “A while ago, a pair of women’s underwear and a Polaroid arrived at the studio. Not long after that, a box of roses with their heads chopped off turned up on the doorstep of the studio addressed to me.”
Honey exhaled deeply. Buckman noticed too and then looked at me.
“What was on the Polaroid?”
It was my turn to exhale deeply. I should’ve dealt with this earlier. “It was a picture of a naked woman with her legs spread, her pu—vagina—exposed.”
“A vagina —” Honey stood up with a rush. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think anything of it.” I stood up, too. “Look, I don’t know who is doing this. In all honesty, I thought it was a club girl. Maybe someone like Tiffani. It didn’t seem like a big deal until right now when I came home to find someone had left a box of fucking doll heads on my fucking doorstep.”