by Natalie Ann
“What?” She turned around after she all but fell out of her chair in surprise.
“There was no reason for you to leave your bed. You could have asked me to go.”
“No,” she said, rushing out. “I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to wake you, so I came down here to do some research.”
She looked so upset by the thought that he believed her, and wondered why he was so unsure of himself right now. It was new ground for him. He was used to being the laid-back one in any relationship, not the one doubting himself. “What are you working on?”
“Looking up anything I can on my father. I’m not getting anywhere though. I haven’t done anything in a couple of weeks and figured I better get back at it.”
“Do you have anything to go on other than his name and a postcard?”
“I have a picture, but I know it’s not him. It’s too modern of a picture and the two guys in it are really young, early twenties maybe. I just don’t know what it means.”
“Anything I can do to help you?” He wanted her to find what she was looking for.
“I don’t think so. You said you’re new to this area too, so I doubt you’ll recognize anything.”
“From what, the picture? Let me see it.”
“It’s just two guys on a boat. I think on a lake. I don’t even know what lake, or if it’s even a lake in New York. There is nothing but water and some trees in the background, not even any houses to try to find.”
“Doesn’t sound like you have much to work with.”
“No. It seems that way. There has to be something out there, though. I’m just not looking in the right spot.”
“Why aren’t you trying to find anything on your mother’s side of the family?”
He’d thought it was odd she wasn’t trying, but never found the time to actually broach it.
“I don’t have anything to go on there either. Montgomery is a pretty common name too. My mother’s name was Elizabeth, but she was called Libby. I know nothing at all about her family, not even where she was born or grew up, or where she lived before she moved to Florida. All I have is that chest in my room that my mother packed her stuff in when she left home.”
He’d noticed the chest in her room at the foot of her bed. It looked like something that had been handed down for generations, most likely handcrafted, and well made.
“Have you tried to look for other chests like that? I noticed it’s pretty unique. Maybe you should try that route. If you find out anything on your mother it might lead you to something on your father.”
“I never thought of that with the chest. It never occurred to me, really. I thought it was a common chest someone made.”
“It’s not. It’s pretty distinctive and well crafted. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a look at it. There might be something I’ll recognize on it to give an indication where it might have been made.”
“There’s not a tag or brand on it, Drew,” she said smiling at him.
“I didn’t think there would be, but years ago a lot of people put their initials or a common symbol or crest in woodwork. You only need to know where to look for it.”
“I’d appreciate it if you could look later. Come on, let’s go back to bed. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You didn’t. I rolled over and reached for you and found the bed cold. How long have you been down here?”
She looked at the clock on the wall. “About two hours.”
“You’ve got to be tired.” He pushed away from the doorway he was standing in and reached his hand for her. “Come, let’s go to bed and see if I can take your mind off of this.”
“Sure. Let me close this down.”
“What the hell?” he asked, gasping.
“What?” she said, turning sharply to him.
He walked forward and stared at the screen. “That’s Ben. Is that the picture of the two men you were talking about?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open. “Which one? Ben who? Oh my God, you know who they are.”
“The one on the right.” He pointed. “That’s Ben Harper. That’s Alec and Phil’s younger brother. I don’t know who the other guy is though.”
She brought her hands to eyes and rubbed them up and down. “I feel like such a fool. When I met Phil I thought he looked oddly familiar to me, but I assumed it was from a picture on their website that I’d seen before. But now I realize Ben looks like Phil quite a bit.”
“He looks more like Alec, but you haven’t met Alec. All the Harpers look alike. I can’t believe this. I have no idea how this is connected.”
“Do you think it is?”
“Jordyn, how could it not be? You have a letter from your mother telling you your father’s name and nothing else, right? There was nothing else in that letter?” he asked.
“Not any details about Tim, no. Just things that she wanted me to know about, but personal things in regard to her estate, nothing about anything important that would give me clues about her past or Tim.”
“But the small box you got from Tim’s landlord had this picture in it, right?”
“Yes. Along with the postcard from Saratoga. But I don’t know how Ben would have known my father, or why he would have Ben’s picture.”
“Maybe it’s not about Ben, but the other guy in the picture. Did you think of that?”
“No. I never really thought one way or the other. I was just trying to find something out. I thought they might be brothers; they look similar. They’re built similar with the same hair styles, the same happy smile around their mouth and eyes.”
“There is only one way to find out. It might be a relative of theirs. Can you email me that picture so I can send it to Brynn and see if she knows? At the very least, she’ll show it to Alec. Worst case, Brynn will call Ben and ask him. We’ll get you an answer shortly, for sure.”
“This seems too surreal. I can’t believe this. I’m going to finally find out something, anything that will lead me to finding out a part of my history.”
“See, you should have asked for my help weeks ago,” he said smiling at her, pulling her into his arms and hugging her.
She looked close to tears right now and he felt his heart knock hard in his chest. He wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy, sorrow, or if she was scared. Either way, he wanted to shield her from any hurt and protect her, help her find what she was looking for.
“I guess so. I’d rather go talk to them than send an email. Is that possible?”
“Sure. Alec’s mom normally cooks dinner on Sundays for the whole family. My father and I have been over plenty of times. We can go to Brynn’s in the morning and if Ben is coming for dinner, we can go see him.”
Any Better
“I can’t sleep. I should have stayed downstairs and worked,” Jordyn said after she and Drew climbed back in bed.
She’d never been one to lie in bed if her mind was racing; it always seemed counterproductive to her. The only other thing that ever calmed her mind was her quilt. The one her mom made her, but it was still boxed away from her move.
Surprisingly, she hadn’t needed to fetch it. Whether she was too distracted because of her relationship with Drew, or she was learning to cope on her own, she didn’t know.
“I can think of something else to take your mind off of it if you want,” he said.
That didn’t seem like a bad idea. She’d enjoyed what they did earlier in the night and wondered if she could experience it again, or if maybe it was a one-time thing from not having had sex in so long.
Rolling half onto his chest, she ran her finger around his abs, heard his intake of breath and cuddled in closer. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything you want,” he croaked out when her hand moved down lower on him.
“Can I be on top this time?”
Half laughing, half snorting—she really couldn’t tell—he said, “You don’t need to ask me that.”
“Really? How come?”
She
watched as he closed his eyes, possibly in pleasure since she had just wrapped her hand around him. “Just do what you want. No need to ask.”
“I’ve always wanted to be on top, but I thought I should ask first.”
“What?” He looked quite stunned. “You’ve never been on top before? Ever?”
Now she was feeling insecure. She tried to pull her hand back, but he reached forward and held her in place.
“No. Just because I’ve had sex before doesn’t mean I’ve got a lot of experience,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I’m sorry. But, Jordyn, that is one of the most common positions. You are seriously telling me that you’ve never been on top before.”
“Yes,” she mumbled. “I haven’t done anything other than what we did earlier. I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all. I wouldn’t mind teaching you or being your little test model either. Do your best to me,” he said, grinning.
“Honestly?” She’d never felt she could even broach this subject with another man before, but Drew made her feel like she could say or do anything with him.
He reached forward and pulled her head down by the back of her neck, their lips meeting and tasting, holding there, deepening the kiss and warming her up good. Relaxing her enough that she wasn’t feeling so self-conscious at the moment.
“Anything you want to do, just do it,” he said, nibbling at her lips some more.
He said she could, so why not? Why not be bold for once? Why not try to live a little?
In the last few weeks she’d felt more alive than she had most of her life. Whether it was Drew or her new lease on life she didn’t know, but she was going to continue with it.
Getting up on her knees, she pulled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor. Drew was still in his boxers, so she decided to help him out of them. If her face was flame red over her actions, she prayed he couldn’t tell with the darkness in the room anyway.
Straddling his waist with her knees now, she brought her hands to his chest and moved them around, feeling all of him, enjoying the touch of his skin and the rough contrast of the light hair on his chest.
Lowering her mouth, she started to place feather-like kisses around his nipples, running her tongue about, tasting him and nibbling, then biting when he started to moan.
She felt powerful in that moment. This big handsome man that she never imagined would look twice at her was now in her bed, naked, and she was having her way with him. She had to be dreaming.
“You’re doing a good job for someone who says she doesn’t have a lot of experience,” he rasped out.
Good to know. She was a fast learner, so she was going to continue on this path.
“I like how you feel. Parts of you are so soft and smooth.” She moved her hand down between his legs and gripped him tight. “And others so firm and hard.”
He grunted and she stopped, only to have him say, “Keep going.”
“I thought I hurt you.”
It sounded like he coughed, but she couldn’t be sure. “Hardly.”
So she continued stroking him and kissing his chest, rubbing her body along his. His hands moved up and started to caress her breasts, his fingertips brushing her nipples. She almost jumped back from the sensation of it; she was so sensitive at the moment and what he was doing felt so amazing.
She could continue to do this for hours, but her body was telling her she needed more, especially when he moved one hand down between her legs and started to caress her there as well. “Drew,” she said, gasping when he slid one finger inside of her.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do now.”
“Sure you do. Listen to your body, follow its lead.”
She could do that, but to do that she would need to think and she didn’t know if she could form a thought right now. She was too consumed with the touch and feel of Drew and everything he was doing to her, everything he was making her feel.
As if sensing her confusion and conflicting thoughts, he moved his hand away from her and started to reach over to the bedside table. She heard the wrapper, and then he gripped her hand and placed the condom in her palm.
“Put it on. I’m guessing you’ve never done that before either?”
“No,” she said, hedging.
“Then let’s have this be a night of a lot of firsts for you.”
He had no idea how many she’d had already. She opened the wrapper and then scooted down some more trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness. “I can’t see anything or what I’m doing.”
“Turn the light on. Then we can watch each other.” The husky quality of his voice seemed to vibrate off her body.
Okay, now why didn’t she think of that? Probably because it’d always been dark when she’d had sex before. She moved up and turned the small light on by her bed and looked at Drew lying there. His hair all tousled, a big smile on his face and passion in his eyes.
“You do something to me,” she whispered.
“The feeling is mutual,” he said so softly. Almost like he couldn’t believe the words were coming out of his mouth. Then again, she wasn’t sure she’d said them out loud herself.
She didn’t wait around to analyze it though. She had her courage and was going to continue on with it. Eying her target, she fit the condom over the tip of him and slowly rolled it down. “Am I being too rough?”
“Not at all.”
Her eyes moved up and locked on his again, the brown so deep it was drawing her in. Mesmerizing her, almost putting her in a trance. Once she was done, she hesitated, then without thought slid up some more, rising up on her knees.
As if he understood what was going on in her brain, he reached his hands forward and placed them on her hips, guiding her down slowly, letting her feel every bit of him at once as he filled her completely. Her head dropped back on her shoulders and she let out a little whimper. “I never knew it could feel like this.”
“It’s only the beginning,” he told her. “Do what feels good to you now.”
“It feels good just like this.”
He moved his hips up, then brought them back down and her eyes flew open, wide and focused. “Oh, that feels so much better.”
“You try it,” he said, encouraging her.
So she did. Up and down, a bit clumsy, she thought, but he didn’t seem to mind. With his hands still on her hips, he started to move her in a rhythm that was building her up and had her teetering on the edge of something so wonderful and so beautiful. She wanted to stay there, not fall, not jump off, not have it end. But it was building to the point she felt she was going to explode and then be sucked down into him.
He moved one hand between her legs, found the right spot and before she knew it she was cresting, then falling, and almost sobbing out his name as she rose up and down at a faster pace, trying to draw the ecstasy out, trying to have it continue on and on.
Somewhere in the faint distance of her brain she heard his groan, but she was already collapsing on his chest, her breath panting out and her eyes all but rolling in her head. “Wow.”
“I couldn’t have said it any better,” he whispered. It was the last thing she remembered before she drifted off to sleep.
***
“Shouldn’t you call first before we show up?”
Drew turned to see Jordyn pulling a sweatshirt over her head. They’d both fallen back into a blissful sleep after she brought him to a point he’d never thought he’d ever experience.
By the time they woke up it was past eight. He would’ve loved to have showered with her, but until they gutted her bathroom and made it more modern, enlarging the shower, there wasn’t room for the two of them. “They don’t care.”
“But I do. Please, can you let them know I’m coming with you? It’s too early, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s after nine right now. They’re both early risers and it’s not like Grace lets them sleep in.”
He’d seen her nervous before, but never like this. Never this unsure of her next move or having this amount of edginess. “I’ll send her a text; will that work?” He guessed it was the least he could do if it would relieve her mind.
“Yes.”
He grabbed his phone and sent off a quick message. While he waited for Brynn’s response, he finished getting dressed himself and pulled Jordyn forward for a hug.
“Relax. You’re going to learn something new soon. Are you afraid of what you will find out?”
She laid her head on his shoulder, the vulnerability of that movement tugging at him hard.
“I guess. It seems like all I get are dead ends and it feels weird to think I might find something out now.”
“For good or bad, at least it’s something you didn’t know a day ago. Take it a step at a time.” He heard his phone go off on the bedside table, picked it up and laughed. “We’re set. We just need to run to my house so I can change clothes and then stop for donuts.”
“Why donuts?” she asked frowning.
“It’s the price to pay for visiting Alec early on a Sunday morning.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go then. He sounds like it’s an intrusion.”
“Jordyn, trust me, it’s fine. Alec is really easygoing. There is no reason to be nervous. He just happens to have a sweet tooth and a weakness for donuts. Something Brynn won’t buy for him.”
“Oh,” she said, looking relieved. “Okay, that’s the least we can do then.”
***
“Hand over those donuts.”
Jordyn couldn’t stop staring at Alec Harper. Drew was right when he said Alec looked a lot like Ben. More than Phil did, even though Phil and Alec were twins. It was the smile around the eyes that gave it away more than anything.
Drew started to pass the box of donuts, but Brynn walked forward and intercepted them. “Where are your manners, Alec?” She turned and addressed Drew also. “You are no better. Introduce Jordyn first.”
Drew shrugged and grinned. “Sorry. I’m hungry too. We didn’t have time for breakfast.”