It's Holy Matrimony, Baby_The Casey Brothers Series

by Misti Murphy

  “That’s a horrible story,” he says, picking up the tabletop and slotting it onto the frame.

  “It really is.” I lean back on my hands and watch him. Wish he wasn’t wearing a shirt, even if it does stretch thin over his muscles as he moves. “But that’s the McClain history. Grandma married. Her first husband had an affair. Second husband died in a plane crash. She didn’t bother after that. My aunt dated a woman for two years. She didn’t believe in that “hocus pocus,” as she calls it. Turns out the love of her life is a serial killer who’s now spending the rest of her life on death row.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Crazy, right? My mother has a time limit on her relationships. In and out in eighteen months, but even so her judgement isn’t all that good.”

  “And your brother.” Nox lays on the floor beside me, his head under the coffee table while he adds more screws to the structure.

  “Couldn’t help himself. Fell hard. Whirlwind romance. Married six months in. They thought they could make it. I thought they would make it. We didn’t have a clue she had stage four cancer.” I take a breath. Nox must think I’m insane. Or my family is insane. “Curse or no curse, no one has worse luck than the McClains.”

  “That’s one hell of a list.” He wriggles out from under the coffee table.

  “Do you want to sign those papers now?”

  “Why would I want to do that?” he asks.

  “Because whether I want to admit it or not there’s a chance that something bad is going to happen if we don’t go our separate ways.”

  “You’re scared I’m going to be hurt?” He crouches in front of me, balancing on the balls of his feet.

  “No.” I drop my gaze away. It’s more of a self-preservation thing. Only I’m worried about him too, because I’m finding it hard to keep my guard up around him. The more time we spend together the more I want to stay here with him.

  He places a finger under my chin and lifts my face to his. “For better or worse, right? That includes oranges, broken tables, and curses.”

  “But what if it’s real?” It’s like Googling your symptoms. At first you have an uncomfortable itch, but by the time you’re finished with Google you’re convinced you’re dying even though rationally you know you’re not. It’s almost impossible to shake the doubt that every ache and pain you now realize you have doesn’t add up to the worst diagnosis.

  “Then we’ll face it together,” he says, giving me the impression that there is no other course of action in his mind. “But if there’s one thing I learned while I was rocking the world as Jase Hunt it was that luck, bad or good, is only a small part of the equation. We can believe in it, and there’s nothing wrong in admitting you do. But we can’t run our lives by it, yeah? Or you give it all the power.”

  “That’s why I believe in science and statistics,” I say. “They don’t lie.”

  “Are you sure about that? Seems to me that you’re hiding behind them, letting them run your life like this curse makes you want to run from me. Have a little more faith in yourself. In me. You married me for a reason, Beck. You saw something in me, didn’t you? Even though I have nothing to give you but my name. Maybe that’s all you needed. You’re not a McClain anymore. You’re my wife. You’re a Casey.” He smiles softly, and my heart flips in response. “Us Caseys are responsible for our own fate. Even if that means we fuck everything up.”

  I clasp his hand and cup it to my cheek. All the numbers and science in the world didn’t prepare me for Nox Casey. Or for the things he makes me feel. “Not everything.”

  “Is that right?” He strokes his thumb over my cheekbone. My skin hums everywhere he touches me.

  “Somehow you know exactly what to say and do when it comes to me.” Twisting my hand into the soft cotton of his shirt, I tug him closer so I can brush my lips over his. If only his confidence could rub off on me.

  He loses his balance with the sudden movement, toppling forward and taking me with him. I’m flat on my back underneath him. His knees cage me in at the hips as he braces himself with one hand on the seat of the couch. I’m caught in his stare while he hovers over me. Lost. Or maybe... found. Slowly he lowers his face to mine. An inch still between us, his breath caresses my skin and a dirty smirk plays on his lips. “Good to know I’m doing something right, Angel. If I can’t please my wife, then we have a problem.”

  “You please me.” God, how he does. I slide my hands under his shirt, along the tight grooves of muscle in his torso and the planes of his pecs. “Turn me on. Satisfy me. I can’t get enough of your hands on me. Your mouth on me. Your cock buried deep inside me.” I rub my thighs together. I can practically feel him, I want him so much. “I need you even now. Filling me up. Making me come.”

  “You’ve got me.” He groans as he crushes his lips against mine, strokes his tongue along mine. Deepens it. Demands I give in to the urgency that lies under the surface of his tenderness.

  Arousal rushes through me, causing a throb between my thighs. I’ve never wanted to be as close to another person as I do with Nox. Need eats me up. My hands roam his back, bunching his shirt up around his shoulders. He pulls back long enough to drag it over his head and drop it on the floor before we’re kissing again. One big hand cups my breast through my crop top and bra. He rolls the nipple between his fingers, and I hiss as I arch off the floor.

  Leaving a trail of kisses along my neck, he sucks at my breast. My clothing does nothing to stop the heat of his mouth. It radiates outward until my whole body is burning for him. “Please, Nox. I want to feel you.”

  “Going to give you what you want. But I want you naked first. Skin on skin.” Grabbing my top, he peels it from my body. My bra follows. Added to the pile of things that were in the way. He runs a trail with his fingers down my midriff, leaving goose bumps in his wake. “Nothing between us. Want your scent all over me like it was the first night we spent together. Your fingernails digging into my skin, leaving your mark on me.”

  I want that too. Need the impressions of his fingertips and his masculine smell still slightly sweet like oranges branded into my skin like a memory that can never be scrubbed away.

  His fingers shimmy under the waistband of my shorts, and I forget to breathe as he strums my clit before dragging the clothing down, along with my panties. He climbs to his feet while he pulls them down my legs, and I kick to get untangled before getting to my knees and reaching for the fly of his jeans. He helps me shove them down his hips, covering my hands with his own and pushing the thick material over his muscular ass and freeing his erection. A bead of pre-cum leaks from the tip of his cock and my mouth waters as I rub it over the fat crown. I wrap my hand around him and stroke several times.

  A moan escapes his parted lips as his eyes flutter shut. He’s breathtaking. His cock pulsing in my hand, thick and proud. His pre-cum lubricating my palm. I bow over it and take it in my mouth. Swallow around his girth and taste him. He’s spicy and a little bit salty on my tongue. Rocking back and forth, I run my lips up and down his length.

  “Damn,” he says staring down at me as he grips my head between his hands and thrusts into my mouth, hitting the back of my throat. “You have no idea how much I want to come in your pretty, wet mouth. How much I want to see you swallow me.”

  His words spur me on. A gush of wetness coats my thighs. I want to reach between my legs to ease the ache as he slides in and out of my mouth, becoming rougher each time. His breathing becomes the harsh tempo that our rhythm is set to. Cupping his balls, I roll them between my fingers while I tighten my lips around him.

  “Fuck,” he whispers through clenched teeth as his hips jerk to my face and hot salt spills across my tongue and down my throat. He slips from my mouth as I swallow his cum. His hands stroke my face, swipe the wetness from my lips, and grasp my chin. “Fuck, watching you do that was beautiful.”

  I climb to my feet and lick my lips as he fully sheds his jeans. Traces of his taste still linger, but he kisses me anyway as he moves t
o the couch. Lying down, he guides me on top of him until I’m straddling his shoulders.

  “My turn,” he says, his voice rough. Splaying a hand across my back, he tips me forward so that I have to brace myself against the arm of the couch as he slips lower between my thighs and rasps his tongue along my seam. “Going to make you sing for me while I eat this perfect pussy.”

  I death grip the couch as he takes his time licking, biting, and sucking at me. His mouth is so hot against my sensitive skin, his tongue circling my clit and diving into my entrance. It makes my world spin. I’m eager and aching and greedy for more. The pressure he creates inside me builds as he tongue fucks me closer and closer to the edge, until I’m panting, mewling for him the way he knew I would.

  I whimper, rocking against his face, and he grips my hips tight enough to leave marks as he holds me to his mouth and thrusts into me like he can’t get enough. And I can’t. I can’t get enough. I need more of him. I need him to fill me. I need his cock in me, his body close to mine. But he does this thing with his tongue that sets off fireworks in my blood and turns my vision dark. I cry out for him. Warble. Trill. A sound I didn’t know I could make bursts from my throat as I bow over him. My body explodes with pleasure and then comes back together. His grip on me eases but he continues to lick and suck at me. Until I have to pull away because it’s all too much.

  He sits up as I shuffle back. Then he grabs my waist and twists me so that I’m lying on my back on the couch. His erection is rigid and hot and bobbing against my thigh. “Need to be inside you now. Going to spread those sexy pins for me?”

  “Fuck me. Please. Need you too.” I spread my legs to cradle him and give him better access. His cock eagerly pushes at my entrance as he kisses me. I taste myself on his tongue and another flush of arousal sweeps through me.

  “Going to make you come all over my cock, Angel.” Balancing his weight on his elbows he pushes into me.

  The heat of him inside me, his cock pulsing, feels so good. He fills me up and the sensation is exactly what I’m desperate for. I cling to him, digging my nails into his back the way he told me he wanted me to. Would have anyway. Want to be with him like I’ve never wanted anything. He moves inside me, slow, measured strokes that brush against all my most sensitive places and leave me breathless. Each thrust hits deeper. There’s an intenseness to the way he moves, his muscles taut as he stares down at me. Like his goal is to penetrate so deep inside me, through the very fiber of my being, that I’ll never be able to break the connection between us. I’ve never felt anything this good, this right. The whole world falls away and goes black as my inner walls begin to spasm around him.

  “Fuck.” He rolls his hips as my orgasm swells through me like a wave, recedes, and rushes me once more. His cock jerks as his own climax hits, and his cum fills me in hot spurts. His muscles shake as his mouth lingers on mine, and I’m glad he’s quiet since all my defenses have deserted me.

  Climbing off the couch, he takes my hand and leads me toward the bedroom. His gaze strays to the coffee table as we walk around it. He makes this sound in his throat, an easy grin breaking on his face.

  “What?” I ask.

  He bites his lip as his attention falls on me. Grabbing my waist, he pulls me against him. His chest is hard against my back, expanding and shrinking with each breath. “I was thinking that this table probably won’t support our weight like the one in the hotel room in Vegas. Do you remember that, Angel? The way you looked on all fours while you stared at me over your shoulder and asked me to do filthy things to you was fucking beautiful.”

  “I-I remember.” My breath catches, and though we’ve just had sex another wave of arousal hits me as his big hands frame my ass. “Did we... go all the way?”

  His chest vibrates with a rough growl as he kisses my neck. “No. We didn’t have any lube, and as wet as you were and as much as you begged, I didn’t want to risk hurting you by going in dry.”

  “I begged?” And yet my body responds to the idea of feeling him everywhere, of surrendering every part of me to him in a way that makes it hard to imagine I didn’t.

  “Trust me. You were hard to say no to when all I wanted to do was mark every inch of your body as mine,” he tells me. “And I will, Angel. In time. When you’re ready to beg me again. When you decide you want to be mine as much as I hope you will.”

  I almost whimper at his words. Wanting to be with him isn’t the problem. The hollow chambers in my heart are starting to fill with him. The ache of them is slowly easing. But I can’t pretend the future doesn’t fill me with fear and that my past doesn’t remind me how this will end.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We’re in this together.

  For better or worse.

  NOX

  There are faint silvery lines on her skin. Thin faded scars that are barely noticeable under her tan, the way stretch marks might be. Several of them criss-cross high on the inside of her arm. Another small one runs an inch over her collarbone. At first I assumed that was what they were. Girl filled out nicely.

  I brush the hair back from her neck, and she shifts but doesn’t rouse from her post sex nap. There’s another scar buried about an inch from her hairline that I never would have noticed if she hadn’t gotten on her knees this morning. This one is more rigid and bumpy under my fingers. Raised on her scalp.

  “Mmm,” she says as her eyelids flutter open. “You’re still here.”

  “Nowhere else I’d rather be, Angel.” Don’t usually spend my down time in bed. Like to be busy. Have my brain occupied, and my hands moving. But she was so warm and small and soft in my arms while she napped, and Hollander was so damn heavy on my feet, that I couldn’t bring myself to move.

  Somehow I have to work out how to keep her. Find a way to convince her that this bad luck she believes in won’t touch us. I won’t let it.

  She winces as she becomes aware of my fingers in her hair. Can’t pull away fast enough for her not to realize I’ve noticed her scar. Rolling onto her back, she grabs my hand and holds it to the spot. “You want to know, don’t you?”

  “I’m curious,” I admit. “About everything to do with you. But I want you to want to tell me.”

  “I have no idea where to start. I’ve never shared this story with someone who wasn’t there.” She’s quiet for a few minutes. “I didn’t always believe in the McClain curse. About the time you were leaving stardom behind, my world was falling apart too. I think that’s why I didn’t make the connection between you and Jase. I was in love with your band like everyone else, but then you were gone, and I wanted to forget everything from that period in my life. But not because of you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I wasn’t. We didn’t know each other back then.” I stroke her temple. “But go on.”

  “Well, as a teenager I thought the curse was the kind of story parents made up to keep their kids from dating and doing other things.” Her gaze goes to my chest and then drops lower to where the sheet is tucked around my hips. “So I ignored it. I rebelled against it. I fell head over heels for a boy.” She shrugs as though it’s not a big deal that her heart wasn’t always so caged as it is now. “He was sweet to me. We dated for twenty-two months. I thought we’d be together forever as kids in high school often do. We were so dramatic back then. Or at least I was.”

  “You’re still a little dramatic.” I smirk at her.

  “Whatever.” She rolls her gaze to the roof. “Anyway, we were in love or at least I thought we were. We ended up at this birthday party. I can’t remember who it was for now. Some girl at school. He disappeared at one point, and after a while I went searching for him. He was sitting on the stairs to the floor above, talking with another girl.”

  “He broke your heart?”

  “No.” She palms her chest. “I mean yes, sort of. They weren’t aware I was watching. The girl threw herself at him, and I don’t know if he didn’t have time to tell her to back off or he didn’t care to.”

  “
You didn’t ask him? You didn’t want to know?” Can’t blame her if she didn’t. I almost didn’t confront Lena. Wanted to get out of there when I found her with her boss, but there was no way the woman was going to wear my mother’s ring and fuck some other guy. Still makes me bristle. Remembering seeing them like that. But not because she hurt me. More because I was blind to her behavior for far longer than I should have been. That was on me though. Didn’t want to face the truth. Wanted to believe in her because I couldn’t believe in myself.

  “I didn’t. Not at first. Seeing it was awful. It hurt a lot.” She takes a deep breath. “So I rushed down the stairs and out of the building. Called my mother to come pick me up. I was too preoccupied when I walked onto the road. I wasn’t paying attention. Did you know that in 2010 there were something like 4,280 pedestrian fatalities? And that when a car hits you while driving thirty miles per hour you only have a fifty-five percent chance of survival?”

  “You were hit by a car?” I ask. The way she retreats into facts tells me she still hurts when she thinks about it.

  “A Range Rover actually. Time really does slow down when you’re about to be taken out by a big black SUV.”

  “You’re fucking with me.”

  “No.” She exhales softly, gripping my wrists and wrapping my arms around her. “Not at all. You can ask Liv. Or I can give you my brother’s number and you can ask him. All I remember is glancing up from my phone at the sound of a horn and then flying with the impact. Woke up in the hospital a week and a half later with a very sore head. As well as a broken arm, ribs, collarbone, and pelvis.”