It's Holy Matrimony, Baby_The Casey Brothers Series

by Misti Murphy

  I cover his hand with my own and squeeze it. My chest crushes tight as I wait. There was a lot of speculation in the dark days after Midnight Echo disbanded. Conjecture. I caught some of it. Drugs. Violence. A suicide attempt. An image of Jase Hunt falling from the stage flashes through my mind. His guitar slung loosely around his almost emaciated body. Eyes closed, hair fluttering around his face. It was televised, a short clip of one of their final concerts. Showmanship? Or did he black out? Was he on the verge of a break down? Or was it a regular stage dive gone wrong?

  Do I want the truth? “You don’t need to tell me. If it’s too hard. Too personal.”

  “No. I want to tell you. I need to. You’re my wife and I...”

  I don’t correct him. Can’t. Not now.

  “I want to be open with you.”

  “Okay.” I say, and I mean it. He can talk to me and this won’t go any further. Whatever this pain is he can let go with me. If that’s what he needs. Because despite my best efforts I already care about him. Too much. More than the physical makeup of our attraction should dictate.

  “I developed an addiction problem. You have to understand, we were catapulted into the public awareness. Fame, money came so easily. Women threw themselves at us.” He glances at me and there is pure agony drawn on his features. It’s like he’s recalling a nightmare.

  “You were like gods. You especially. Your voice.”

  “Yeah.” He exhales heavily. “But we weren’t. We were just four guys trying to make it in the music industry. Trying to create music we loved and not let down our fans. Even with my dad being who he was we were kept away from the stage. We knew what that lifestyle could be like, but we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. Not really. And the pressure was so great.”

  “I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for you.”

  “Hard. Really fucking hard. Started taking drugs to take the edge off a little. Nothing too crazy. The guys were doing it too. We were just having fun. I wish...” He snorts, and it’s not a nice sound, filled with self-loathing as he smacks the side of his fist into the steering wheel, causing it to shudder.

  “You weren’t the first,” I say, unsure whether to fill the void.

  “Maybe not. But it got worse. I was taking uppers to get on stage. Downers to bring me off the high. Alcohol and sleeping pills. A little something for the after parties. Something to put me in the mood. Spent all the money I made and then some. And then the music dried up. I couldn’t write anymore. Could barely play. The boys tried to keep it together, but...” He shakes his head, his hair flapping around his face. “By that point I was so far into it. The music abandoning me... it felt like death. Once they realized how deep in the shit I was... I was killing myself. I wanted to.” His voice breaks. It’s so bleak. So lost, like he must have been at the time. Not like the man I’m beginning to know. “And I was this close to probably taking someone with me...”

  He takes a breath and goes back to staring out the window. I wait for him to speak again, simply gripping onto his hand as though I can bring him back from the dark places in his head.

  “They found me. Code and Jasper. I don’t remember.” The grooves in his forehead deepen and his shoulders tense up as though he’s straining to find the details. He crumples in on himself, exhaustion etched onto his features. “But it was bad. Shook them up real bad. Enough that they told my family everything. Woke up to my dad hovering over me in the hospital. Next stop was rehab. Took me a long time to get right after that. They called it quits, and I had to agree. Wasn’t anything else to do.”

  Didn’t he ever want to go back to it? And now he doesn’t even pick up an instrument, but he teaches. Is that because he misses it despite how much he tries to convince himself he doesn’t? “Do you—”

  “No,” he says. “Never. Sometimes I drink. Nothing much. A few beers. But I got clean. Put that life behind me. I won’t go back. I can’t go back. I’m not that guy anymore. I’m not him. Not Jase Hunt. I avoid dangerous situations, triggers. I have a support network.”

  “Your family?”

  “All of them keeping an eye on their screw up of an older brother? Yeah, they sure are.”

  “And now me too.” At least for the moment. I undo my seat belt. “If what I’ve done has made it harder for you...”

  He reaches across and pulls me into his lap. The steering wheel is hard in the small of my back. His big hands are gentle in their grip on my hips. “You think I can’t handle you? Don’t want to deal with what you’re throwing my way? Don’t want to know what has you all in a lather? Because I can, and I will, and I want to. If you’ll let me.”

  He has such a pull on me. This must have been what it was like from the very first moment we met, and not because I was under the influence. I catch a glimpse of a memory, something new, and he’s looking at me the same way. Holding onto my hips the same way. And he’s telling me that there’s still a thirty percent chance for us, and that’s more than enough for him to know what he wants. And...

  I wanted it too. Wanted him. Wanted to stop hiding behind numbers and curses and believe that this instant connection I felt deep in my soul could be real. If I ran with it. If I let it consume me. If I let him consume me.

  I drop my gaze to his chest, my hair falling forward over my face. Letting my guard down makes me vulnerable and I’m not sure I’m strong enough. Already things are changing. I’m not the girl with stars in her eyes and hope in her heart, but I look at him and I want to believe in things that aren’t factually real.

  His fingers slide into my hair, stroking it back from my face and fastening at my nape. Tugging until I can’t help being trapped in his stare. “You wanna let me, Angel?”

  It’s all I want.

  “Your eyes say yes, but I’m going to have to hear it from your pretty lips.” There’s heat in the clear blue of his gaze as he brushes his thumb from my cupids bow to the center of my bottom lip. It darkens them and the desire in them is a physical reaction inside me. One I can’t ignore. One that has me nodding and my voice slamming out breathlessly. “Yes.”

  We crash together, his hold on my hair stinging my eyes as he thrusts his tongue into my mouth. I race to meet him with my own. Melding my body against his hard chest, I feel him thicken beneath me. A rough moan drags over my skin as he tilts my head to the side and kisses his way up my neck. I shiver with pleasure and my insides clench. Heat pools between my thighs as I grow wet for him. Wetter.

  He reaches down next to the seat, and we’re sliding back, the steering wheel no longer digging into my back. I rise up on my knees so I can reach between us to undo his pants. The cabin is only yards away, but the urgency is too great.

  He’s commando when I reach into his jeans and wrap my hand around his erection. No boxer briefs in the way. Pre-cum leaks from the head of his cock, making my hand slippery as I pull him out and stroke him. My fingers barely wrap around his girth, and he pulses in my grip.

  “Angel, you might want to sit on him because he’s ready to burst at the idea of fucking you again.” Both his hands cup my neck, and the words he whispers in my ear in that raw voice hikes up my need to have him buried inside me.

  “Wouldn’t want to keep him waiting,” I whisper as I dig my hands under my skirt.

  His fingers join mine, ripping apart my panties, getting rid of the barrier between us. Brushing across my clit, flicking it gently so that I moan. “I’d wait. You know I’d wait if you needed me to. If you need me on my knees first. Or—”

  I put my fingers over his lips as I take his cock in my other hand and press it to my entrance, sink down on it with such a wanton moan I almost can’t believe the noise comes from me. This man affects me in a way I never saw coming. Not ever. There’s no chemical equation that can add up to this kind of intensity.

  “Christ.” He cusses under his breath as both hands land on my hips and hold me down. His hot length impaled, he breathes harshly. I squirm against his tight hold. I’m so n
eedy. On a razor’s edge. I need movement to ease the ache that’s building.

  I lose it when he moves inside me. Gripping my hips, he kisses me while he guides me up and down his hard cock. The world falls away, and it’s just him and me and how insanely good it feels while he’s thrusting into me like he’s trying to get as close to me as possible. It’s just us. Our harsh breaths and feral kisses. My needy whine that grows more high-pitched every time he strokes my most sensitive spots. His rough groans in my ear take me higher. Pushes me to the edge of an orgasm that tosses me from the stage this man puts me on. My inner walls spasm around him, my whole body clenches. Bright lights burst behind my lids like fireworks into darkness.

  “Goddamn,” he says through gritted teeth as he shudders underneath me. He thrusts into me hard, his dick jumping and jerking inside me while he comes.

  He crushes me to his chest, both arms holding me against him as though I might run. I don’t have the energy. Or the interest. My brain is an addict overdosing on happy chemicals. His hands are stroking my hair and his chest is thumping under my hands. “Thirty percent.”

  “Sorry?” he whispers.

  “Thirty percent. That’s what you said. Then I found the ring and somehow you made thirty percent seem like it could be enough.”

  “Hmm.” His lips curve against my hair. “Did it? That why you asked me to marry you?”

  “Well, it might also have been the champagne and the tequila and the many cocktails, but I think so.”

  He exhales long and deep. “Does it still seem like enough?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. Wish I did. Wish I could say that it was. But the odds aren’t in our favor. They’re not good. And I have worse odds than most. But Nox doesn’t seem to care. He’s more optimistic than I am. More stubborn too probably. So maybe...

  “All you have to do is stay. We’ll work the rest out.”

  “I’m staying.” I look up at him. I am. I was anyway. But this is different. I’m staying because he wants me to. I’m staying because I can’t imagine walking away of my own free will.

  “Good.” He kisses me.

  A minute later he smirks, his eyes twinkling with some entertaining thought. “Does this mean you’re going to put my cabin back the way I like it?”

  “Mmm.” I pluck at my skirt as I climb off his knee and out of the truck. The fabric is twisted and rumpled, and I flatten it out with my palms. “Will you sign the divorce papers? I can stay without us being married.”

  “Heck no.”

  “Then no. Not yet.” I cringe. I should give him back his things. But I can’t shake the sensation in the pit of my stomach that this will all go badly. That I’ll be forced to walk away because that’s how relationships go for McClains. And I need a backup plan. A bargaining chip. “Just in case.”

  He laughs. His whole chest shakes with it as he pulls me close to him. Our bodies flush against each other. His hand cups one side of my neck. “Okay. I’m going to prove you wrong. But if that’s how you need to play it for now I can live with your furniture. You’re buying the groceries though.”

  “But—”

  “It’s only fair that we share everything. As husband and wife.” He drops his mouth over mine silencing any chance I have of responding. “Like you said earlier about rearranging the cabin.”

  “Fair enough,” I answer, all of a sudden shy. This warmth in my chest... it’s new. Different. In a good way. It might even, for the first time in a long time, be hope. “As long as you tell me why you have an orange grove when you clearly can’t stand them.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Commitment is falling for the girl of your dreams.

  In a split second. In a heartbeat.

  For the first time. For the second time.

  And over and over again.

  NOX

  Hollander races to me the moment I walk in the door. He winds around my legs, his massive body leaning into me while he trills a welcome I haven’t had since Beck moved in about three weeks ago. Crouching, I sink my hands into his fur and scratch behind his ears and under his chin. “Hey there, stranger. Thought you’d switched sides.”

  With a chirp he stands up and butts his striped head against my jaw.

  “It’s okay. You’re forgiven.” I stroke my hands down his sides. “I like her too, bud.”

  Standing up, I glance around the cabin, which is less messy than usual, while I put my keys and phone down in the kitchen. There are still a couple of coffee cups next to her laptop on the counter, but I’m getting used to it. Besides it hurts nothing to be easy about the coffee rings marring the shiny white surface. “Where is our girl anyway?”

  “Meow.” Hollander traipses off toward the bedroom. He glances back at the door to make sure I’m following and then disappears inside.

  Shouldn’t be surprised she’s sleeping. Girl likes her afternoon naps. Because she’s a night owl. I can’t keep up with her. Don’t even try. I have to wake up early to work, and she stays up late to write her articles. We’re polar opposite in the way we live, but I remember what it was like to always be on the move. To work when the whim took me. To sleep when the sun came up. Don’t miss it. Any of it. Can’t go back to bleeding my soul onto papers and into strings and out of my vocal chords, even if my chest hurts like a piece of me is missing. Even if words form in the back of my mind and my fingers almost move of their own volition. Something that hasn’t happened to me in so long that it didn’t seem possible anymore. But my goals are different now. My plans changed. It’s better this way.

  Beck’s not in the bedroom. Movement catches my eye from the windows. Out in the grove people are milling around. There are a heap of them. Twenty or so people are tramping over my property. All these people give me a gut ache and imaginary ants crawl under my skin. They shouldn’t be here. This is my personal space, and I don’t like having people I don’t want aware of my personal life in it. What are they doing in the valley? What the hell is going on?

  Hollander meows and rubs up against the glass, moving back and forth as though he’s desperate to join them. Or at least to find Beck. She must be down there too. Have to find her and work out what the hell she’s up to now. If this is another one of her bright ideas to get me to wave the white flag on this marriage she’s got another thing coming. Turning away from the window, I march through the cabin and down to the grove.

  At the first row of trees I pass a couple leaving. They’re carrying a hessian bag full of oranges between them. Up ahead more people are picking fruit off my trees. West, who is standing on a ladder, grins and waves from a spot further down. It takes me a few minutes before I catch sight of Beck talking to a couple of women who are holding plastic shopping bags filled with oranges. A few of West’s friends are raking up some of the fat dimpled balls that are split open on the ground.

  Beck laughs at something one of the women says. With a smile she brushes her hair back behind her ear as she continues to chat. I lean against the trunk of a tree, meaning only to take in the view for a minute. She’s like sunlight, all lit up from within when she smiles. Then that smile turns on me. Her gaze is sweet and peppered with awareness, and my chest resonates with it. Melts the irritability right out of me.

  The two women walk away as I make my way to Beck. She glances down and then back at me as we meet in the wide middle of the grove. More people stroll around us toward where a dozen cars are parked. “I hope you don’t mind,” she says.

  “All these people.” I nod at one of the guys who frequents Mayhem as he raises a hand in hello. The creeping electrical buzz under my skin disappears. “Did you invite them? Did you ask them to come pick oranges?”

  “I put some flyers up.” She steps closer.

  “You should have let me handle it,” I say.

  “You already have too much on your plate. I’ve counted the hours you work each day.” She places her hand on my arm and looks up at me. “I don’t know why you work so much. But I can tell that you’re exhaust
ed. And these stupid trees, whatever your reason for hating them is, were something I could help with. I wanted to do something to help.”

  I thrust my hands in my pockets, my thumbs through the belt loops on my pants. Otherwise I’m going to touch her. It might be innocent. Quasi innocent. But with her neck craned and a full glimpse of her creamy tits pushing at her tank top, it might not. It’s hard to remember that there are people here when she’s almost acting like we’re in this together. Like we’re a team. And I get this glimpse of what it would be like if our team was to last. If I could convince her this curse she puts so much stock in isn’t real, and that our marriage is. Her sweet body in my arms, her belly starting to round under my palms. Hollander curled up around her enormous belly as it grows bigger. The first of our children in my arms. Christ, I want to run with this pretty little fantasy, but there are too many other things I need to accomplish first. “So you asked people to come and help?”

  “No.” She bites her lip and reaches into the pocket of her shorts to pull out a tattered envelope that’s creased down the middle. “Actually, I asked them to pay to pick the oranges they wanted. I put it on the internet and Liv helped me put up a few flyers around town this morning. And then I asked West and his friends to help with cleaning up the rest.”

  “You made money out of this...” I glance around at the trees, some of them bare of fruit. Others are still being picked over.

  “Uh-huh. And I paid West and his buddies already.” She thrusts the envelope into my hand. “This is what’s left.”

  I draw it out of her hand slowly, unfold it and open the tab. A stack of small bills fills the inside. It’s not a huge amount, but it’s huge to me. I stuff it into my back pocket. “I can’t believe you did this. Last year I couldn’t find anyone willing to buy the damn fruit. I had to pay them to take it away. The year before I had to hire a truck to get rid of the rotten things.”

  “Oh. Also I made a deal with a couple of the grocers to take what’s left when we’re done here today. I hope that’s okay.”