Phoenix Burning

by Maitland, Kaitlin

  He pushed as far as he could go, claiming her body until he bottomed out against her G-spot. She arched her back and he slid farther, until they were locked together.

  Backing out of her sweetness was not an option. He didn’t want to lose the closeness. Instead, Alex began thrusting against her. He flexed his hips and felt her depths welcome him over and over again. She grew wetter, hotter, her moans making his balls clench tight.

  The scent of sex filled the room. He wanted to watch her expression, but his eyes slid shut as stars burst before him. At that moment he could have believed their hearts were beating in unison. He gripped her hips with his sweat-slicked hands. She began to quiver around him, the tight walls of her channel growing liquid.

  “Fuck, Alex, I’m coming!”

  She hadn’t needed to tell him, but the words pushed him over the edge. Emory melted around him as Alex’s cock throbbed its release. Warmth spilt from his body into hers, their scent intensifying until there was nothing else in Alex’s world.

  Spent and sated, he collapsed to the bed beside Emory. “Perfect for each other, just like I said.”

  She turned her head and met his gaze. “I think I might need a little more convincing.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Why can’t they make real roads out here, Chris?” Fox cursed as the road took another abrupt ninety-degree turn to nowhere.

  Braced against the rear passenger door, Alex tightened his arm around Emory. She’d been sleeping for over an hour, snuggled against him in the small backseat of Fox’s SUV.

  “I told you I’d drive.” Chris’s voice never wavered from its mild tone.

  “Are you kidding? You drive like an old woman. We’d never get there.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen your aunt?” Alex asked the question primarily to distract the men from the ongoing argument about driving habits.

  “Emory and I stayed with her briefly after our father threw us out of the house.” Chris rubbed a hand down his face. “Since then I’ve kept in touch via letters.”

  “Snail mail, can you imagine?” Fox shot Alex a cheeky grin in the rearview mirror. “The old lady doesn’t even have a computer.”

  “Things are pretty old school down here.” Chris’s response was given automatically, as if his mind were far away.

  Alex gazed at the scenery. It was breathtakingly beautiful in a wild, untamed way that reminded him strongly of the pixie sleeping by his side. He could picture her in a place like this, growing a garden, tending her flowers, and raising a house full of kids.

  Was he ready for that kind of thing? He’d taken the first step, admitting to himself and Emory that he wanted to be with one person. What about the rest of it? What if she got pregnant? Could he be a father?

  He thought of his father, a man he’d not given a second thought to since his passing. Alex’s folks had been the hands-off type. They’d let him do his own thing, something they’d both mentioned repeatedly when it came time to join the army. He’d had nothing else to do, so he’d joined up. His father had been proud. Alex remembered that, but beyond that tenuous bond, there had never been much of a relationship.

  If he was going to settle down and have a family, Alex wanted more than he’d had growing up. He wanted his kids to be self-sufficient, sure, but he didn’t want them to get stuck in the apathetic rut that had been his stock and trade since high school.

  Rolling green meadows gave way to thickly wooded hills. Fox slowed the SUV. When a dirt track opened up to the left, he swung the vehicle onto the gravelly surface. He was grumbling something about GPS and modern technology beneath his breath when they drove up to a rambling Victorian-style home painted bright purple with pink and yellow accents.

  Fox shut off the engine. “Look at that, a touch of San Francisco right here in Deliverance.”

  “Don’t start, Foxy. I really can’t take it.” Chris gave his lover a hard look.

  “Baby, relax. I’m just trying to make you laugh. I can behave myself, as you well know.” Fox cupped Chris’s cheek. “I’m here for you. I’m not going to make this worse than it already is…for either of you.”

  “I know. I do. You’ve been my rock. When we get home, I’m going to marry you.” Chris leaned forward and gave his partner a gentle kiss. “I’m sorry I made you wait this long.”

  To his credit, Fox didn’t burst into song, which is what it looked like he wanted to do. He grabbed his lover close and hugged him as tightly as the center console would allow.

  “Did that just happen?” Emory’s sleepy voice drew Alex’s attention from the drama playing out in the front seat.

  Alex pushed a stray strand of curly hair away from her face. “It would appear you and Foxy need to go shop for wedding dresses, if that’s what you mean.”

  Fox swung around and pegged him with a stare. “Dresses? Like more than one? As in you’re going to marry our Emory?”

  Was he absolutely nuts? Emory’s expression said she wondered the same thing, but Alex had suddenly never been surer of anything in his life. “If she’ll have me. Although I didn’t intend to put her on the spot like that with all this insanity going on.”

  “Can’t think of a better time.” Emory dragged his head down to hers and kissed him full on the lips.

  She tasted sweet and fresh and familiar. Everything he’d ever looked for without even knowing it. He pulled back far enough to search her face. “Are you saying yes?”

  “Yes. As long as you promise to keep kissing me like that.”

  He did it again just to prove he meant what he said.

  Emory’s head was spinning like a top. Fox and Chris were getting married. She and Alex were getting married. Hell, she was marrying a guy she’d met less than a week ago. If someone had ever told her that would happen, she’d have said they were full of crap. A week ago she wouldn’t have believed it possible for her to keep the darkness at bay long enough to have sex with a guy, let alone fall in love with one.

  She was still reeling when the four of them mounted Aunt Maude’s front steps. It was Chris who knocked on the screen door. The thing was hanging crooked on its hinges, the springs creaking every time Chris’s hand struck it.

  “Did you call ahead?” Fox whispered.

  “I tried, but she never picked up.”

  “Did you leave a message?”

  “No machine.”

  Fox swung around to look at Emory and Alex. “Who doesn’t have voice mail in this day and age?”

  “Shut up, Foxy.” Chris nudged him, and Fox promptly snapped his mouth closed.

  Alex was a calm presence beside her. Emory was so thankful he’d come with them. Somehow things didn’t seem so scary with his confidence to bolster her. If he was apprehensive about meeting her aunt, he didn’t show one ounce of it.

  “Christopher? Is that you?”

  A tiny woman was peeking around the far left corner of the house. Chris turned away from the door and held his hands out, presumably to show he had no ill intentions.

  “Good Lord above, it is you!” Aunt Maude stepped into full view and Fox gasped. The lady was toting a 12-gauge shotgun in her hands. “Just look at you, all fancy and well-to-do.”

  Maude shared her sister Liza’s slight build and dark complexion. The hair tethered in a long braid, once the same shiny black as Emory’s, was shot through with gray. Chris waited until their aunt set the shotgun aside to give her a hug.

  “You come for your mama’s funeral, I expect?” Maude brushed her gnarled hand against Chris’s cheek. “You’re a good boy.”

  “I brought Emory with me.” Chris finally found his voice.

  It had been so long since Emory had seen her aunt. Maude looked so much like Emory’s mother. Like Chris and Emory, Liza and Maude had been twins. It was hard to imagine that one was dead and one was not.

  “Why you hiding back there, sweet girl?” Maude peered around Fox and Alex. “These boys are taking care of you, hmm?”

  She hadn’t realiz
ed it, but they had been. Feeling tight with pent-up emotion, Emory stepped away from Alex toward her aunt. The little woman drew her close, folding her into a hug that smelled of freshly turned earth from the garden and the herbs she grew there. She smelled like Emory’s mother.

  Without warning, the tears came.

  “Hush, sweet girl. Your mama’s gone on to a better place. Somewhere that bastard can’t hurt her anymore.” Maude smoothed her hands through Emory’s tangled hair. The touch was soothing, reminding Emory of a mother she thought she’d forgotten.

  Alex wavered back and forth between feeling included or left out of the conversation in Aunt Maude’s warm kitchen. Yellow-and-white checked curtains hung in the window. The last of the evening light filtered through the glass. Plants filled the room’s corners, and a stenciled border of dancing farm animals decorated the walls. Though he’d never been inside the house before, it held the same homey quality that marked Emory’s apartment. He wondered if it was a trait specific to the women of their family, one of about a million things that made Emory perfect for him.

  There was an almost surrealistic quality to what was happening to him. If anyone had told him two weeks ago that he’d be sitting in a kitchen listening to a retelling of years of intense family drama and a history of abuse, contemplating the fact that he was about to marry into this legacy, he’d have told them to fuck off. Alex didn’t do commitments, and he certainly didn’t hang around to solve family problems.

  Funny thing was, it didn’t bother him. The idea of settling down with Emory was appealing in every way. She hadn’t just changed all the rules. She was the exception.

  “When did she get sick?” Chris asked.

  Aunt Maude poured tea from a quaint red china teapot into five cups. “She didn’t say anything at first, but I could tell nearly two years ago that something was wrong.”

  Chris’s face was tight. “Did he never take her to the doctor?”

  “Your daddy was never one for medicine, Christopher. You know that.”

  Emory methodically stirred her tea. “He always said that God would heal, or not, and if the person died, it was because they harbored sin.”

  “Don’t you try and take this on yourself, Emmy Lou.” Her aunt wagged a finger in her face.

  Alex hid a smile. He could easily picture his little pixie as an Emmy Lou with scraped knees and a gap-toothed smile, but the name hardly covered the sex goddess who shared his bed. As if guessing the direction of his thoughts, she glanced at him sideways from beneath her lowered lashes. Despite the situation, his cock stirred at the provocative look.

  Chris sighed heavily, and Fox reached over to rub his shoulder. “So where is the ceremony?”

  Maude seemed utterly unaffected by the obvious affection between her nephew and Fox. “He’s holding the funeral service at that demon church of his, but they’ll do the burying at the public cemetery in Aubrey Hollow.”

  “I think I’m going to skip the service.” Chris glanced at Emory. “What about you, baby sister?”

  “I don’t mind going to the cemetery but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I set foot inside that church building again. Unless I’ve got a torch handy, of course.” Emory’s mouth was set in a grim line.

  “Your daddy didn’t think you’d come.” Maude looked delighted that they’d proved him wrong.

  Emory wrinkled her nose. “When did you last talk to him?”

  The older woman sipped her tea. “I saw him at the hospital. Your mama called me from her room, and I drove up to stay with her until she passed. He refused to go to the hospital with her, even at the end. He spent his days doing God’s work. Said God would heal her if he wanted, and let her die if she deserved it.”

  “I’m glad you were with her, that she wasn’t alone.” Chris’s voice broke over the words.

  Fox scooted his chair closer and wrapped his arms around Emory’s twin. The obvious love between the two reinforced everything Alex felt about Emory. He’d been so uncomfortable with Connor and Jessa’s tangible connection. It had made him feel inadequate. Now that he’d discovered something so precious of his own, a tangible expression of love was only a reaffirmation that he was the luckiest man alive.

  Emory’s hand found its way into Alex’s, and he gave her a squeeze to let her know he was there. A moment later she left her chair to sit in his lap. Wide-eyed, she watched her twin try to bring himself back under control. Alex cuddled her tiny form close and inhaled deeply of her light floral fragrance. The familiarity was a balm to them both.

  “It blesses me to see the both of you have found mates,” Maude said. “With all of the hurt you experienced when you were young, I often wondered.”

  Chris seemed to find a shred of his composure. “It never bothered you that I was gay. Why?”

  “Your mama once told me that God made you like he intended. We both knew you had to live your life as you were made to do.”

  Emory knew the precise moment her aunt’s words sank deep into her twin’s psyche. Chris visibly relaxed in Fox’s embrace. That final piece, the knowledge that his mother had accepted his life choices, meant everything to her brother. Her heart sang with the knowledge that they’d both beaten back the past.

  Warm and vital, Alex held her as if he never wanted to let go. Emory rubbed her cheek lightly against his T-shirt, idly wishing she could take it off and feel him beside her skin to skin.

  “Your mama told your daddy how she felt about that too, Chris. Turned that evil bastard’s piety right back around and tossed it neatly in his face. My Liza could always turn a phrase.” Maude’s dark eyes were sad. “She never meant for you two to suffer like you did. She just didn’t want to raise you to be monsters.”

  Emory had never fully appreciated her mother’s balancing act until that moment. The woman had stood like a shield between her children and their father. She had tread a line so thin she was constantly trying to readjust. She’d taught them what they needed to survive, without allowing them to be sucked into a creed that would have left them no better than a man who preached hatred from the pulpit twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday.

  “I suspect the lot of you are all worn out.” Maude stood and stretched. “Now, I have some rules here in my house about young lovers.”

  Emory exchanged a look of surprise with her twin. Where was this going?

  “I don’t hold with courting couples spending the night together without some kind of promise between them. It just makes things too complicated by half. Don’t you think?”

  Emory couldn’t resist nudging Alex in the ribs with her elbow.

  “We’re engaged,” Fox announced happily. “Chris and I are going to marry as soon as we get home. And these two” —he jabbed a thumb in their direction— “are also engaged, though they haven’t set a date just yet.”

  “Well then, I suspect ya’ll will be just fine up there without me chaperoning.” Maude clapped her hands together. “You boys can take the bedroom at the top of the stairs to the right. Emory and Alex can have the one to the left. Just keep it down up there. An old lady needs her beauty rest.”

  Emory managed to wait until her aunt’s bedroom door had snicked shut before covering her mouth against the giggles threatening to burst forth. Foxy did the same, the both of them suppressing peals of laughter that were a result of the stress as much as the situation.

  “I think I’m relieved we don’t require chaperoning,” Alex drawled.

  Chris chuckled. “Me too. As much as I appreciate your looks, Alex, I don’t relish the thought of sharing a bed with you.”

  Fox stopped laughing. “Damn straight.”

  “I think you mean, I’m straight,” Alex quipped.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need a shower.” Fox stood up.

  Alex nudged Emory to her feet. “And I need to call Gabriel. We’re expecting a shipment of hard liquor, and I need to tell him where it goes. Last time I let him handle a delivery solo, we ‘lost’ three cases of top-she
lf vodka.”

  Emory’s heart gave a little lurch when Alex pressed an affectionate kiss to her brow. “Don’t stay away too long,” she said.

  He gave her a heart-stopping grin on his way out the door. “I’m not sure I’d make it more than a few minutes.”

  Chris waited until the front door closed behind Alex. “With all of the family drama, I haven’t even had a chance to process this thing between you and Alex.”

  “And now that you have?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” Chris looked pensive. “It’s hard to reconcile that guy with the one I’ve seen tending bar at the Phoenix for the last several years.”

  “Alex has his own share of issues. I think the reason this relationship works is that our baggage just kind of fits together.” She laughed, reminded of the twisted path that had led to this moment. “He’s taught me to let go, Chris. I never thought I’d be able to do that, but he’s changed how I think about things, about the past.”

  Chris reached over and tugged a loose curl. “Then you belong with him.”

  “God knows I’d never make it through this without Alex’s support.”

  “I know what you mean, Emmy Lou. I’m not sure either of us would’ve had the balls to come back down here and face that bastard until now.”

  She knew her twin was right, but Emory couldn’t help but worry that facing her father was going to push her courage past its limits.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The drive through their tiny hometown was beyond surreal. Scrunched into the backseat between Fox and Alex, Emory tried not to dwell on the unpleasant memories. The town was only four blocks long and three blocks wide. The paved main street wound its way past a squat municipal building that functioned as the local sheriff’s office, post office, and meeting place of the village council. There was a grocery, a gas station, and a barbershop all built from the same dull brown stone, with faded lettering on their weathered signs.