Selby’s encouraging return email to my news didn’t hurt matters, either. She’d sent a picture of she and Alex looking insanely relaxed in their T-shirts, shorts and sunglasses standing in front of the Duomo in Florence, both giving me their thumbs-up and the caption, We are so happy for you! Yes!!! I’d forwarded the email on to Dean since it was such a fun shot.
Their reaction was a far cry from what I’d started to fear I’d get from Ryan. I hadn’t managed to tell him yet, because outside the shows he was gearing up for, he seemed content to disappear with his local friends. I’d sort of known that could happen, but it felt weird considering he was staying close by at Selby’s house. I’d tried not to let it bug me and focused on planning things out with Dean, but on Thursday, I got antsy. There were two weekends before Dean’s two-and-a-half-week stint in L.A., and we’d opted to get going—even booking piano movers for my Astin-Weight console the second weekend—so it felt like I needed to tell him. Surprise, I’m already partway moved into my boyfriend’s house wasn’t how I wanted to drop the news on my brother.
When I got home that night, I typed out a text and sent it his way.
Hey. Would love to talk. You around?
I set my phone on the kitchen counter and commenced my mission to finish packing up the bulk of my kitchen. I’d decided that its contents, along with a chunk of my clothes, would be a good start to take over to Dean’s on the weekend. That way, I could head to work straight from our place in the mornings and get used to the commute over Highway 92. I managed to fill up two boxes of glasses and mugs before Ryan texted back.
Slammed with rehearsal. First show tomorrow!
I frowned, though I was excited for him. Yay, I typed. I thought about the weekend ahead before I tried to pin Ryan down. Dean was spending the night tomorrow so we could tote my kitchen stuff over Saturday morning, but I figured I could get away for dinner. I needed to talk to Ryan. Badly. I sent, What about dinner Saturday night?
Sure!
Cool. With that resolved, I took a breath and wished him well.
Thanks, kid. See you Saturday. PS Working on tix for you.
Sweet! I sent. I hated not telling him yet, but I didn’t want to do it over the phone. Not after his bizarre behavior the times he’d interacted with Dean.
I sighed and opened another cupboard to pack up the dishes inside, but my phone rang with a text tone. The message was from Dean, and I muttered, “Speak of the devil.”
At work but sending love. How about we escape for dinner tomorrow night before our move-a-thon?
Apparently I’d be going out to dinner all weekend, but that was the nature of moving. I tapped out my response. Brilliant. Good luck over there.
You too. Can’t wait to move you in, sexy.
That made two of us.
* * *
Around one Saturday afternoon, Dean paused to scratch his head. He wore a comical expression as he eyed the boxes surrounding us. “How do you have so many kitchen things? You don’t cook that much.”
I laughed and dropped the last small box I’d carried onto a stack of three others. The sun pouring in through the panoramic window that lined the front of the house lit up the bounty of them, and after I weaved around the stack between us, I circled my arms around his waist. “Considering I go to Selby’s so much, it is kind of weird, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes, it definitely is.” A wry grin took over his mouth. Dean wrapped his arms over mine to hold me close, and then we stood there for a moment in our sweaty, dusty T-shirts and jeans. He’d arrived at my house perky and pristine last night, but after a few rounds before we’d gone to sleep, no shower, and then the lug of all my boxes that morning, his mussed-up hair matched the disaster of my ponytail that’d slipped low on my head with the work we’d done.
“Crap. What am I going to do if I’m not having dinner at Selby’s all the time?” I kissed his neck. He smelled like he’d worked hard all day, but under it was his sexy, natural scent, and I ran my fingers up into his hair to stroke the damp edge along the back of his neck. “Are you going to cook for me?”
“I will. But you’ll cook sometimes, too.”
I leaned back with a wary smile. “I’m not sure that’s in our best interests.”
Dean slid his fingertips down my hips and laced his fingers with mine. His lips grazed my cheek and mouth while he spread our hands out to the sides, then tucked them behind my back. “Good try, Maya, but you’re not getting out of it.”
“Shucks.”
Dean chuckled. “Speaking of cooking...I’m starving. What about you?”
I’d been so focused, I’d spaced out on the fact that my stomach had been rumbling, but I agreed.
“How’s takeout?”
“Sure. I’ll probably end up getting Chinese with Ryan tonight. It’s one of his faves, so how about pizza?”
Dean didn’t respond for a second, planting a last kiss on my cheek before he stepped away. “That’s right. I forgot about that.”
“That I’m meeting Ryan?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. No biggie. Pizza’s good.” He headed off across the house to wherever he’d left his phone, and I rested a hand on my hip. Ryan had been distant, but Dean had managed to stay mum anytime I’d brought him up. Other than the questions he’d fired off at the wedding, I still didn’t have a clue what Ryan had said to him, and Dean’s silence on the matter wasn’t helping anything.
“Is that okay?” I called.
“What?”
“Me meeting Ryan for dinner.”
I heard Dean’s huffed-out laugh from across the house. “Of course. You’re your own woman, Maya, and he’s your brother.” He peered around the corner, his phone in hand and held midair with a surprised expression on his face.
“I know. I meant—”
“It’s fine,” he said, lifting the phone to his ear. “How’s combination?”
I chomped down on my lip, then said, “Sure. But no olives.”
“Right. That’s right.” Dean focused on the phone. “Hi. I’d like to order delivery, please.” I dipped into one of the boxes as he reentered the room, running a hand across my waist while he placed the order and then started filling the sink with soapy water. “Twenty-five minutes. Nice. Thanks!” He set the phone on the window ledge and turned back to me. “How about we wash those dishes before food gets here?”
“Great.” He’d moved along from the topic, but I hadn’t. I tossed aside newspaper from its wrap around my plates and carried the set to the countertop beside the sink. Dean sank them into the water to give them a light wash, and I took my place next to him to rinse and dry once he handed them over. After the second plate made its way to the drain rack, I asked, “Do you want to come with me?”
Dean paused. “To dinner?”
“Yeah.”
His no came so fast that I frowned. “You spend some time with your brother.” He refocused on my plates. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. What the hell had gone on between them?
“Is this about what went down at the wedding?”
“Maya, let’s not get into this, okay?”
“But I don’t understand—”
“Hey.” Dean dropped the plate he’d held into the water and pivoted to take my wrists, placing a soft kiss on my forehead. “Have dinner with your brother. I think me there adds unnecessary tension, and more so if you’re telling him about this,” he said, gesturing around the house and at my boxes. “I think that’ll come better from you alone.”
I grumbled, and Dean pulled me closer. He guided my damp hands onto his sides and slipped his fingers up my back, into my hair. The darkness in his eyes frustrated me. I didn’t like the feel of him avoiding sharing whatever the hell had happened, but all this had begun with Ryan acting standoffish. Maybe it would be best to start there.
Dean tilted his mouth to my ear, lightly kissing it before he pressed his palms flat against my shoulder blades to hold me tight. “Enough of this. I want to show you something.”
I tilted my head back to catch the smile forming on his lips. “What is it?”
“Good stuff. Want to see?”
“Okay.” His enthusiasm led me off the counter and behind him in a slow cross of the room. We were headed toward the stairs, which surprised me. When he peered back, it was hard to miss the look in his eyes that promised something he’d been brewing in that naughty head of his. My heart pounded as we mounted the stairwell, and curiosity churned within me. “What’ve you got up your sleeve, mister?”
“You’ll see.” The wink Dean sent me calmed my thoughts. Everything about this decision felt right, pleasant and good, and I wanted to celebrate it. I loved the fact that we could do so many things together now that we’d be living together. “Coming?”
I nodded as we turned at the landing. I’d expected him to take me to the bedroom, but he tugged me toward the guest room instead. The room remained mostly unused since Dean didn’t often have people beyond his brothers over, and even then, their crash-overs were rare. We hadn’t talked much about the space beyond swapping out beds, and once we entered, I peeked around. The sun streaming through the window cast an orange-red glow over the white comforter on the canopy bed and tinted the blue-painted walls. But the bed wasn’t our destination, because Dean led me over to the antique chest of drawers and centered me in front of it before stepping behind my back to press his face into my hair.
“Look.” He reached around me to pull open the top drawer, the move revealing a number of our toys organized inside. To the left lay the leather cuffs we used often, and beside them, a new pair of metal shackles and a strap contraption I didn’t recognize that made me gasp. On the right, he’d arranged the flogger and a couple of types of lube we’d tried, plus the vibrator we’d bought together to stay at his place months before. I was still eyeing the new things when he pushed the drawer in and opened the second one, filled to the brim with coils of different-colored rope.
“All our things,” I whispered.
“And a few new ones, to get us started.” Dean left the second drawer open and kissed the side of my neck, curving a hand around my waist to rest it on my stomach. I felt the subtle firming of his cock on my ass as he brushed his mouth against my ear. “I haven’t done much shopping yet because I want to do it with you, but I was thinking, what if we made this a play room of sorts? It wouldn’t be the only room we’d play in, but it could house all our things...”
I spun in his arms. “You are a naughty, naughty man, Dean Sova.” I swayed my head while he crept his hands down over my ass to squeeze me tight.
“I’ll take that as a yes?”
“Do.” My pulse kicked up speed, and I leaned up to kiss his mouth. Dean held on to me while our tongues danced and our inhalations came deeper through our noses—but then he pulled away, coaxing me on with that wicked mind of his once more.
“I’ve had an idea or two I’m still working out, but with your bed in here, we’ll have that incredible headboard,” he said, referring to the wrought-iron bars and filigrees that formed the headboard of my bed. “And there’s a lot of wall space. I can get creative, design some things.”
I growled. “Oh my God. Really?”
“Uh-huh.” Dean cupped his hands under my ass to start nudging me sideways, such a devious look on his face. He backed me toward the bare wall, and when we were almost to it, he rushed forward. The slam of my body against it brought a gulp of air from me.
“Ohh. Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” Dean’s face grew serious. He took both my hands in one of his and guided them up, pinching my wrists against the wall. The move ramped up the burst of my pulse, as did the tease of his pointer finger down my cheek, neck and chest before he popped open the button of my jeans. “Do you think you can handle it, Maya?”
“You?”
“Us,” he said, his voice growing huskier. “All the time. Every day. Think of how much I can play with you, living together. I can rile you up whenever I want, make you come at any point in any day.”
I was turned on by the press of his body to mine and the way he held up my hands, the curl of his other fingers under the waistband of my panties spinning my brain in circles so big I hardly registered the sound of the doorbell. Dean backed away, a wicked grin on his face. “Where are you going?” I wheezed.
“Doorbell.”
“What?”
Dean pointed in the direction of the front door. “Pizza’s here.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope,” he said. “Let’s have lunch, shall we?”
He’d already left the room before I gathered my breath, and though I couldn’t deny the charge running through me, I also couldn’t ignore the empty pit of my stomach.
I shook my head and headed after him.
* * *
“What’s going on with you? Something you’re holding back there, kid?” Ryan gazed at me over the rim of his green tea, and with the multiple rings he’d worn out, the cluster of silver and onyx lining the back of his hand reflected the pendant lamp above the restaurant table.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, though my repeated rearrangement of the silverware and chopsticks since we’d sat down, ordered and chatted about nothing of depth for the last fifteen minutes had likely been my tell. That, and the healthy rosiness I suspected had permeated my cheeks from the earlier temptation with Dean in our soon-to-be playroom. I was shout-off-the-rooftop, bounce-in-my-seat, ready-to-squeal-repeatedly kind of excited over this move-in thing—but sitting across from Ryan, whom I didn’t understand over the whole Dean matter, I should probably rein it in at least a little to fill him in.
“Call it brotherly wisdom.”
I chuckled before resting my teacup on the table. “Okay. I have news.”
Ryan’s eyebrows furrowed. “Shoot.”
I straightened up. There was no point in cushioning the news—I was happy. This was good. I said, “All right. So...you’ve been busy. I’ve been busy. This is kind of late coming, but Dean and I decided to move in together.”
I’d expected Ryan to be surprised, but the chomp down on his cheek wasn’t what I’d call great. He proceeded to fake a smile while he set his cup back on the table, and between the sound of it hitting the Formica as hard as it did and the frown in his eyes, it was a pretty good giveaway of his disdain. I drew back in my seat before he said, “I guess that’s cool,” in a tone that was anything but cool.
“Well, shit. Tell me how you really feel, why don’t you?” I snapped.
Ryan became even more invested in twirling his cup on the table surface. He met my eyes wearing that expression I remembered well from high school, in the days he used to get stupidly fired up about some shithead boyfriend he wanted to lecture me over. But he didn’t do that. He merely lifted his shoulders and said, “Kind of fast, don’t you think?”
I don’t know why my hackles went up so fast, but I lashed out. “Uh, says the guy who moved across country for a cheater groupie he’d been dating for, what, five months?” Ryan flinched. “Sorry, maybe that was harsh.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He glanced around at the other patrons in the restaurant, then back at me. “I’m just looking out for you.”
“Why? I don’t need you to.” This was stupid. The high from my day with Dean was rapidly getting suffocated by the absurdity of whatever the fuck was going on with Ryan, and I leaned in. “For Christ’s sake, I’m thirty-three years old! We’ve been together over a year. I’m there or he’s at my place almost every weekend, and we’re always trying to cram in dates in between. That’s irrelevant, anyway. We’re in love. I’m happy! He’s... God. I can’t even explain how happy he makes me. And I can’t believ
e I’m explaining myself to you—”
“Okay. All right, fine. I get it.” The rain cloud passing over him was taking its sweet time floating away, and we hovered there in an uncomfortable silence. Ryan was dear to me, and I wanted a favorable opinion from him, but this was my life. It irked me that he was being this weird over Dean.
A heavy exhalation breezed past my lips and I peeked around, but the memory of what I’d seen at the reception nipped at me. “Are you going to tell me what you said to him last week?”
“When?”
“At the wedding?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Not if we’re going to drop it. You don’t want my advice, right? So it doesn’t matter.”
He glared at me and I spotted our waitress emerging from the kitchen, our orders of moo shu pork, chow mein and a double order of egg rolls steaming and smelling delicious. After she set them on our table and we thanked her, she wandered off.
“Looks good,” Ryan said.
“Yep.” Another uncomfortable silence followed while we doled food onto our plates, and I decided maybe he was right. Maybe the best route truly was changing the subject. He could be as pissy as he wanted; I was doing what made me happy. I gnawed off the end of an egg roll, and after I swallowed, I said, “You want to tell me about your gig? Did it go well?”
“For the most part. I think I lined up another one, too.”
“That’s awesome.”
While I listened to his tale about meeting with a manager of another club who asked him about his style and potential covers, I couldn’t shake my disappointment in the first real wall I’d ever felt looming a million miles high between my brother and me.
* * *
Over the next few days, I bounced between work, packing and attempting to hang with my brother on the nights he wasn’t with his own friends or off playing another gig. I’d offered him a key to my place for when he was done housesitting at Selby and Alex’s, since after the weekend, I’d only be back to the condo to pick things up and clean. Ryan had taken it with a shrug and no comment, and we’d left it at that.
The Reward Page 10