The Call

by B. A. Cubbage

  When she dumps another stack of wood in the lessening pile next to me, I lean into her ear and whisper, “You’re killing me. We may have to leave early.”

  She smiles and clamps onto my ear with her teeth. “Mm even covered in sweat, you taste good. I can’t wait to taste the rest of you.”

  My groan is loud, like drawn-attention loud. Devon confirms it when he says, “Dude! Aunt Kathy is here. I’ll have her beat on you.”

  “Don’t hate the player, brah.” I put up a shaka hand.

  “I will throw a hammer at you, ‘brah.’ ” Damon says it without ever looking up from what he’s doing.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going to the john.” I head toward the house, adjusting myself along the way. This is going to be a long fucking day.

  The door opens and closes as I ascend the stairs. When I look to see who it is, Reagan’s smile greets me. “Would you like some help with that?”

  I fucking love her. “I would very much so like some help with this. I must warn you though, it’s a pretty high maintenance job. Do you think that you are up for the task?”

  She undoes the button on her shorts and parts them enough for me to see the neon-blue lace underneath. “I think I can handle it.”

  “Then, lead the way, my lady.” I lock the bathroom door behind us. “You know that they all know what we’re doing right?”

  “No they don’t. I threw them off with words like monthly, Aunt Flow, and girl business.” I have to roll my shoulders to shake that one off. “Oh calm yourself. I’m not actually on it.”

  My brows furrow. “Hold on a sec.” She stops pulling her shorts and panties down. “When was the last time that you had one?”

  “My birth control all but eliminates that from happening. I’ll get one every once in a while but I haven’t had one since I was dating Chris. Come on, stud. Pants off.”

  I’m more than good with that. I can’t believe it never occurred to me that I wasn’t put on hold once a month. Fuck, that can’t be good.

  Reagan pulls my attention back to her when she undoes my belt and zipper. Once she’s got my pants around my ankles I look her in the eyes. “How do you want to do this?”

  She wets her lips before she answers. “I’m a fan of you bending me over the vanity.”

  “Vanity it is then.” Grabbing her hips, I spin her around and push on her shoulders until she bends down. When I’m positioned at her core, I have to add, “Keep yourself quiet or I’ll stop.”

  She nods and I thrust into her. “Make it quick, Adonis.”

  She smiles at me in the mirror. Grabbing her hip in one hand and rolling circles over her clit with the other, I thrust in hard and all the way until I’m pushing her forward. “I love it when you’re already so close before I’m even inside of you.” She hums and crosses one leg over the other. “Fuck.”

  “Sh. Abraham, be quiet.” The change in pressure has me clenching my jaw so tight I think my teeth may shatter. Her eyes meet mine in the mirror and she bites that damned lip again.

  “Put your hand over mine.” She does. Moving my hand, I guide her to keep playing with herself, and then I lean down on her and put my hand at the front of her throat. She clenches around me. “Mm, you like that?”

  “Yes. God yes.” I grind into her harder but am mindful of how much pressure I’m putting on her windpipe. “Oh fuck. Abraham, I’m going.”

  “Go, angel. I’m right behind you.” I have to move my hand from her throat to her mouth as she climaxes around me, and sink my teeth over the shoulder strap of her beater to keep myself from groaning out my release.

  When the last of the ripples leaves her body, I lift my forehead from her back and find her eyes in the mirror. “I love you. How the hell did I get so lucky?”

  She smiles at me. “I love you too. And I have no idea. Maybe someone fudged the paperwork.” She yelps and then laughs when my hand connects with her bare ass.

  “Smartass.”

  “You love it.”

  God help me I do. I really fucking do. We pull our pants up after sorting ourselves out and head back out to the barn.

  When we get to the bottom step of the porch, I squat down a little. “Hop on, angel.” She does without hesitation.

  “You two are too damn cute.” Aunt Kathy says it.

  “We know.” I can hear the smile in Reagan’s voice.

  “All right, cocky, back to work.” She hops down and gets right back to moving wood in from the trucks. I go back to the second stall wall that I’ve worked on.

  »»•««

  “Wake up back there. I need you to hold on to me, woman.” Reagan and I are headed back to our house. It’s eleven at night and she’s barely keeping her body awake.

  “I’m up, I’m up. Just get our asses home.” Her voice comes through the speakers in my helmet. I speed up.

  “We’ve only got two minutes left. Look, you can see the neighborhood.” I point ahead of us. She lifts her head up to look and then puts it right back on my back. She definitely wore herself out.

  We pull into the drive and she gets off the bike at a sluggish rate. After our helmets are off, I lift her into my arms and head for the bedroom. The dogs follow us up the stairs.

  Once I lay her in the bed, I strip her down to her underwear and put her clothes in the hamper. I grab one of my dress shirts out of the closet and put it on the nightstand next to her side of the bed, strip down, and then crawl into bed behind her.

  Kissing her head, I whisper, “I love you, Twenty-Seven. Good night, sweet girl.” She snuggles farther into me and I’m lulled to sleep by the scent of her hair.

  Chapter Twelve

  Reagan

  When I wake, my muscles are screaming at me. The entirety of my bones ache. Yawning, I stretch, and then peek my head out of the blankets. The sun is brightly streaming through the windows. I look over to Abraham’s side of the bed and am not surprised to find it empty. Early riser.

  Grabbing my phone off of the nightstand, the clock reads eleven o’clock. I shoot up in bed. “Holy shit.” Why in the hell did he let me sleep in this late? Shit.

  The second I stand up the headache that comes with oversleeping takes over my brain. Damn it. After brushing my teeth and then relieving my bladder, I go in search of my Adonis.

  The house is quiet. Looking into the garage, I find Abraham’s car is gone. “That’s weird.” Maybe he left a note and I just missed it. I head back into the bedroom in search for said note on our pillows.

  Not only do I come up empty, but his phone is still sitting on the nightstand. “What the hell?” Dozer is following me around the house but Thor is nowhere to be found.

  The backyard is empty also. No note in the kitchen or bathroom either. Okay, now I’m starting to get a little worried. I grab my phone and dial Kate.

  “Hey, wife. What’s up?”

  “Hey, do you know where my wayward boyfriend ran off to without his cell phone?”

  “Abraham’s not at home? Did he maybe have court today and forgot to take the phone with him?”

  “He didn’t say anything last night. You really don’t know where he is?”

  “I really don’t. I’ll call Thing One and you call Thing Two.”

  “Okay. Let me know if you find him.”

  “Will do, wife.”

  I hang up and dial Damon. He answers on the third ring. “S’up, Reagan?”

  “Do you happen to know where Abraham is?”

  “No, hey Sam? Do you know where your brother is?” I can hear her give a faint ‘no’. “Sam doesn’t know either. He’s not at the house?”

  “Would I be calling you asking if you’ve seen him if he was at the house with me?”

  “How would I know that you’re at the house? For all I knew, you could have been out shopping and he didn’t pick up his phone when you called.”

  He’s such a smartass. “Okay fine. But he’s wasn’t here when I woke up, there’s no note, his car is gone, and his cell phone is still sitting on the n
ightstand by our bed.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe call Dev? He might be with him.”

  “Yeah, okay. Talk to you later.”

  I’m really starting to get worried. Kate hasn’t called me back yet so I start to dial Devon. Dozer starts barking when the garage door opens. Thor bursts through the door and heads straight to the backyard with Dozer on his heels.

  “Hey, sleepyhead. What time did you finally get out of bed?” I just stand there a second and stare at him. “What?”

  “You left your phone here.” My voice is calm and steady. I’m more so pissed off that, if it had been me that did this, I would be getting my ass handed to me right now. “No note, didn’t wake me to tell me that you were leaving. Just left. And no one knew where you were.”

  He sets a few bags down on the counter and comes over to me. His face is full of regretful guilt. “I’m sorry, sweet girl. I forgot to charge my phone last night. So when I woke up this morning, it was dead. I plugged it in and had a voice mail. I left right after that. I apologize for making you worry.

  “But I think that, once you know what I was up to, you’ll forgive me. Plus I bought a few things. And a lot of what I’ve done this morning needs your opinion before I can go any further.”

  “If I did what you just did, your teeth would shatter from clenching your jaw so hard.” He pulls back and looks me in the eyes.

  After a second he speaks. “You’re right. I would be furious if you did something as careless as I’ve done. However, I’ll not let you foul up my surprise with my hypocrisy. Now, do you want to know what I’ve been up to this morning or not? Wait, did you just wake up?”

  “Yes. To my careless boyfriend’s absence. Show me what you’re so proud of.”

  He smiles and walks over to the counter where he set a few bags. “I’ve still got stuff in the car, but you’ll get the gist.” He starts pulling red, white, and blue colored decorations out of the bags. then grabs a manila folder and holds it up. “I thought that we could have a Fourth of July party on the plantation.”

  “Your parents are having another party?”

  He shakes his head, adding to my confusion. “Well, I’m sure that they will be having their annual Independence Day bash, but no. We are having a Fourth of July/housewarming party at our new plantation.” He hands me the folder with a smile on his face. “Pick one.”

  “Pick one?”

  “Yes, pick one. I couldn’t decide between the three of them, so you will have the final vote.” The smile I have on my face actually hurts.

  Opening the folder, I pull out three listing with signing papers stapled to them. They are all within a mile of each other. The last one catches my eye. It’s two levels. The house itself might be wider than his parents’ house. It’s sky blue with huge white pillars in the front.

  There is a wraparound porch on both levels. A beautiful garden sits in the center of a loop for the driveway, and it has two staircases that descend from the upper deck.

  In the next photo for the house, it shows the back view. It has the same white pillars in the back as it does in the front, a bigger pool in the backyard than the one we have now, and a large white stone patio. There are hanging swings on both sides of the patio that face each other under the shade of the upper deck.

  The inside is even more breathtaking. The amount of natural light that shines through the windows and light up the room is fantastic. There are pale wood floors. The kitchen is the same stone as ours. The kitchen is huge. The sitting room has a nice bay window that has a padded bench seat. Perfect for reading. And there is a huge main bathroom on the other side of the staircase.

  The upstairs has three bedrooms, with a big carpeted room in the center that has double doors on both sides that lead to the upper wrap-around balcony. The spare rooms are spacious, wood floors, and have a bathroom connecting the two of them.

  The master bedroom is magnificent. Beautiful cherry wood floors. A wall of windows. A gigantic walk-in closet—seriously, I could rent it out to a gay couple and they’d be happy— but what I think is my new favorite room of all time is the master bathroom. “Oh my God it’s huge!”

  Abraham stands next to me and smiles. “I knew you’d like the bathroom the best. This wall of windows here? It looks out over a lake. All of these houses are around this lake. Apparently a family owned them all but decided to sell when they made the decision to move to Italy.”

  The bathroom has both a standing shower and a claw-foot bathtub. The vanity has two bowl sinks that are at least three feet apart from each other. “Abraham, I love it.”

  “I knew you would. Here.” He places a key in my hand with a blue ribbon tied into a bow on it.

  “I thought you couldn’t decide which one to get?”

  His smile makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I wanted you to have a choice. But I knew that you would pick this one. Which is good because, Devon is waiting for my say to close on this one, and Mickey is doing the same for this one. Damon’s plot of land is only a couple of miles from the lake.”

  “I don’t even know what to say.” Wrapping my arms around him, I smile and kiss him all over his face. “I love you so much. Oh my God! We have a plantation!”

  “Well we will, if you get that hot little ass of yours dressed and come to the realtors with me to sign the paperwork. I want your name to be on the deed as well as mine. I want this to be our house from start to finish. So go.” He sets me down and I fly up the stairs and into our bedroom.

  »»•««

  Abraham and I are sitting on one of the bench swings on the back porch, looking out over the lake. “This place is wonderful. I love it, Abraham.”

  Mickey and Kate’s house isn’t too far from us. With the shop being so popular that people travel from out of state to get Mickey’s ink in their skin, it wasn’t an issue for them to buy the house next to ours. It also doesn’t hurt that Mickey’s parents come from a little money as well as all of ours. His parents were as discreet as mine, and they also weren’t snobs like Abraham and Sam’s used to be. Devon is just around the lake bend. The houses are close enough that we could have a conversation with each other while on our decks by just raising our voices a little.

  He brings our interlaced hands up and kisses them. “So am I forgiven for my oversight this morning?”

  “Yes. You are forgiven. So Wednesday?”

  He nods. “Yup. We’ll help Mickey and Kate tomorrow and Tuesday. We’ll move Wednesday and Thursday. And then we will help Devon move in all day on Friday since we all have it off. If you don’t want to wait that long, we could grab a few essentials from the house tonight and stay here?”

  “Hmm, a romantic candlelit night with a bed made of blankets, pillows, and sheets on the floor of our soon-to-be bedroom all night? I’ll gladly take that option.”

  He smiles and stands up. “Okay well if that’s what we’re doing, let’s head back to the neighborhood and load up your Jeep and my car with some essentials. The sooner we get everything that we need, the sooner I can ravage you and break our new home in properly.”

  “Mm, let’s get on it.” We head through the house, locking the doors and setting the alarm behind us.

  »»•««

  Devon and Sara had the same idea we had—however scarring that is on me. But when we got back to our new house with the dogs and got everything unloaded, Abraham noticed they had lights on in the house.

  He called and confirmed our suspicions. He’s still talking to him when I say, “I could have lived my whole life without knowing that our sex brains were so much alike.” I say it loud enough that Devon hears it and responds.

  “Now I guess you know how Damon and I feel.” Abraham shudders at where his brain has ventured— I'm sure it went straight to Sam and my twin. “Okay, no more talk about siblings for the rest of the night. Otherwise this night won’t turn out the way that we’re both hoping that it will.” He hangs up.

  “Let’s go sit on the balcony and watch the sun set over the lake
.” He gestures his arm out for me to lead the way.

  When we walk out of the upstairs center sitting area, which we have both deemed the new gaming room, and onto the balcony, Abraham wraps his arms around me from behind and we watch the sky turn different shades of red and yellow. “I can’t wait to start a family with you here.”

  I lean my head back on his shoulder. “Me neither. Plus, with our siblings so close, our children will grow up with lifelong friends.”

  “I want our kids to have the same relationship that you and your brothers share. I don’t want them to turn out like my family.”

  “It’s all in how we raise them, Abraham. Our children will be great friends with each other and their cousins. Besides, you and Sam are close.”

  He kisses my cheek and hums in agreement. “Let’s go practice making babies.”

  My eyes light up when his hands clench around my hips. “Take me away, stud.”

  “With pleasure.” I’m lifted over his shoulder, and just before his feet cross the threshold, I hear Devon’s voice carry over the lake.

  “You better keep that shit inside! I’ll cross this lake!”

  I laugh and yell back, “If you weren’t so damned nosy, you wouldn’t have a problem! Keep those eyes on your side of the lake!” The other neighbors around this lake are probably throwing up for sale signs as we speak. If this keeps up, I give it a month before everyone packs up and gets the hell out of here, like this is ground zero for the apocalypse.

  Abraham shakes his head. “Fabulous. Living within eyesight of one of your brothers. What am I getting myself into?”

  “Again, you’re getting yourself into awesomeness.” My hand smacks his ass over his jeans. “Now onward, valiant steed! To the sex!”

  He lays me on the mound of blankets and pillows we’ve put together in the middle of the game room, and then closes the doors to the balcony. He lights the candles we’ve placed around the room. When he’s done, he strips down to his devastatingly gorgeous, tattooed, muscled birthday suit.