by Deb Rotuno
“Should work,” he muttered, checking them all over. “Like a fucking charm, actually.” He smiled my way in pride. “Dude, hot water.”
Grinning, I squeezed his shoulder. “You’re a fucking hero among the women. You should know that now.”
He barked a light laugh, but it died quickly. “That’s me. A goddamn hero.”
Frowning at that, I sighed. “C’mon. We’ll walk the fences together and call it a night, all right?”
He nodded, and we left the basement to start our trek around the fence line. Derek stayed quiet as we walked, which was normal, but I knew something was bugging him.
“You don’t have to take that run, Derek,” I started, looking out into the woods along the west side of the property. “Joel and Ruby could handle it…or Sara and I.”
“Nah, man…I’m good. Aunt Dottie needs all this medical shit. She’s hoping for microscopes and medicines. I can handle it.”
“Then take one more with you,” I suggested. “Lexie is quick on her feet and stronger than she looks.”
“You would know,” he mumbled, and I stopped, staring at him through narrowed eyes as I leaned against one of the brick posts.
“Spill it, D.”
“Spill what?” he asked, starting to go on, but when I didn’t budge, he faced me with anger. “What, Jack?”
“What’s up with you? You’ve been taking every hunt and every run. And now…this shit. What exactly would I know about Lexie, other than the damn fact that she’s good on a scouting trip? What exactly are you too fucking chicken-shit to say to me?”
He glared at the ground, his nostrils flaring, but his hands balled up into fists at his side, and Sasha appeared from where she’d been snuffling in the grass to glare his way. “What happened on the way here, Jack?”
“I busted my ass to get here.”
“No, with Lexie…and you! What the fuck happened?”
“Not a goddamn thing, Derek. What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“Sara waited for you! She…and…and Lexie…”
My temper sparked hot and fast, and I was in his face. “Are you asking me if I cheated? On my wife, Derek? Have you lost your fucking mind? You damn well know how I feel about Sara. You’ve known me my whole damn life, cousin, so you wanna rethink that?”
He stood his ground, glaring me in the eye. “I…I’ve…heard things.”
“I bet you did. I heard things too, if you’ll remember. Want me to question you about my wife? If you’d been anyone else, I’d have…” My nostrils flared, my hands balling up at the truth of that. Derek’s only salvation with his feelings toward my wife while I was away was the fact that he was family, that he was blood, and that he’d kept that shit to himself.
“I know…and no!” Derek flinched but shook his head. Groaning, he rubbed his face roughly with both hands. “No! Shit, Jack… My head’s a fuckin’ mess!”
I watched him carefully, finally seeing it, and when I backed off, Sasha sat down in the grass beside us. “You like her…”
Derek rolled his eyes. “We’re not in high school, asshole.”
Laughing a little, I shrugged a shoulder. “You’re acting like it. All jealous and shit. It’s not about me with Lexie. I shut that shit down. I was fucking pushing my group to get here…to Sara, to Freddie! Not fucking around on the damn side. And to me it looks like I’ve been replaced—thank God—but you were kind of an ass in there.”
“She’s too young, doesn’t know what she wants,” Derek rambled, but I could see he was grasping at straws.
“She about punched the shit outta me for laughing at your broken nose, so I’m pretty sure she knows. Not that it’s stopped you. You’ve already…”
He grimaced, doubling over with a groan, only to stay squatted down on the ground. “I fucked up.”
I snorted. “Did you now?”
“I shouldn’t have, but she wanted…” He sighed deeply, toying with an arrow. “I’m too fucking old for this relationship shit.”
Smirking, I folded my arms across my chest again. “Well, that part’s true, but…” Laughing when he flipped me off, I went on. “What exactly did you hear about Lexie that has you this fucked up?”
“That she…felt something for you,” he mumbled under his breath. “Shit, this still sounds like high school.”
Grinning, I shook my head. “It does. Know why? ’Cause you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. When I found Lexie—when my group found Lexie—she was alone and scared and trapped in her bedroom. Her little sister and her mother had turned. She’d been stuck for almost two days. Ruby and I almost didn’t get to her in time, because a zeak—her own mother—grabbed her before we could fucking blink. Ruby just about cut off every hair from Lexie’s head to get the damn thing off her. All Lexie wanted was to get off that farm. Whatever she felt along the way was bullshit caused by everything going on—something you should understand. I didn’t feed it, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t have taken advantage of it.”
“I know,” he sighed deeply. “I know. I just…”
Huffing a deep breath through my nose, I debated on whether to call him out on this shit but decided that maybe he needed to hear it. “You know why you and Laurie argued all the damn time?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow at him. “Do you?” I raked a hand through my hair, shaking my head. “Damn, you two drove me nuts. Hell, you were fighting the day I met Sara at Shelly’s Bar.”
He snorted into a laugh but finally stood up. “That was par for us.”
“It was, because you dragged her along, Derek. You’d say you were gonna be there, and then you’d call to brush her off. You’d push away and pull back in. It was—”
“Stop. I know.”
“Well, it looks like you’re doing it again. Lexie is a good person, past misguided feelings aside. She’s strong and smart. But guess what, Derek… You can’t just blow her off here. The world has shrunk down to what you see around you.”
He gazed up at me. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Jesus,” I said, chuckling under my breath. “It’s not hard, man. It’s not. There’s obviously something between you. Pursue it, or let it go.”
I watched him sag in defeat. “You really didn’t…” When I stepped closer in warning, he held up his hands. “Okay, okay…no. I get it. I…” He sighed, his head falling back.
“Stop listening to those gossiping women…and Joel!” I snapped, pointing toward the lodge, which made him grin, and I knew I’d found my source of the rumor. “He’s worse than an old woman, and he was probably trying to get a rise out of you, which he’ll pay for when you take him on this run, I’m sure.” I laughed, shaking my head at my cousin’s evil, crooked smile. “Seriously, Derek. You say it sounds like high school, but… Do you like her? If the answer is yes, then…what the fuck is the problem?”
He frowned. “It was always so easy for you, Jack. You liked a girl, and you just…went with it. You could handle it with no problems.”
Laughing, I shrugged. “My parents aren’t exactly a bad example, D. They’ve been together since they were in basic. And Sara… There was no stopping me. I knew it the second she set that first beer down in front me. I just…knew.” Suddenly, the need to just wrap myself around my wife was almost breathtaking. She’d been it for me from the second I saw her step around the bar that night. The thought of being with someone else was disturbing to me, simply because she and I just…fit.
He smiled, nodding. “True.”
“If you don’t take Lexie on the run, take someone else. Ruby, maybe. But you need the extra person,” I told him, pointing a finger at him. “You wanted someone to team up with, so…here’s your opportunity.”
He nodded, and we started to walk again. The fences were clear, though I heard rustling in the woods outside the gate. Most likely we’d have some zeaks to clear out come morning, but for now, they were quiet and far enough away that we didn’t need to worry. What would be interesting to know was how those dea
d bastards would react when it snowed. They were enhanced and feral at night, even more so in the rain, but none of us knew what to expect come the first snowfall. And that would be soon.
I stepped back into the lodge with Sasha at my heel, shaking my head at Joel, but I stayed quiet. I had a feeling he’d get his once he left with Derek on this next run. Waving good night to everyone, I made my way up to the room, separating from Derek on the second floor. Sara had picked the suite on the third floor for us; it was one of two up there, with Olivia and the kids taking the other one at the other end of the hall.
The sound of laughter met my ears, and I leaned in the doorway of my son’s room, smirking toward the bed at a game of checkers that was heated and down to the wire, it seemed.
“King me,” Sara told him, and Freddie did so with a scowl on his face.
“You’re in trouble now, buddy,” I told him with a chuckle, and both looked my way, Sara with a grin and Freddie nodding slowly as he went back to studying the board.
I knew better than to even challenge the winner, because it wasn’t my best game. I had no patience for it, nor could I map out strategy as well as my wife. Freddie, however, was just as good as she was, and he proved it by jumping three of her pieces and asking to be kinged as well. This was where he was more like Sara than me. His mind was sharp, his thought processes meticulous and precise, just like her. He may have gotten most of my features, not to mention my stubbornness and protectiveness, but his mind, his loving nature, and his quiet demeanor were all Sara.
It came down to just a few pieces left on the board before they called a draw with grins and a toss of checker pieces at one another, and I honestly couldn’t love them more in that moment if I tried. It was a touch of old times, a bit of having to relive my trek across the country with Derek and his asshat way of dealing with Lexie, but for that one second, watching them laugh and tease, every fucking mile I’d traveled, every zeak I’d killed, and every sleepless night had been so very fucking worth it. For one moment, nothing had changed. Nothing existed outside that room—no virus, no impending snow, not even the struggle to keep food on the table.
Walking into his room as Sara put the board away on the nightstand, I kissed both their foreheads, lingering on Sara’s longer just to inhale the warm scent of her skin. Her brow wrinkled, but she stayed quiet as I settled covers around my son.
“No one won!” he argued playfully with Sara but then turned to me. “But do you wanna play me?”
“Tomorrow, Freddie. I promise,” I vowed. “Although, I don’t know why. You’ll just kick my butt!”
He grinned and nodded, falling back to the pillow as Sasha curled up on the foot of his bed, which had become her favorite place to sleep. “Maybe.”
Laughing softly, I pushed his familiar dark hair from his forehead. “I love you, kiddo,” I told him, looking to Sara. “Both of you.”
“Love you too, Dad,” he said through a great big yawn.
“Love you, baby,” Sara whispered against my cheek. “You okay?”
Nodding, I sighed. “Yup, just wanted you two to know.”
“We know,” Sara countered with a soft urge to her tone, and Freddie nodded in agreement.
“Good.” I huffed, shaking my head and raking a hand through my hair. “All I wanted was this,” I told them, gesturing between them. “That’s what kept me going. I just… You two need to know that. Okay?” They both nodded, but I kissed Freddie’s forehead again when another deep yawn overtook him. “Get some sleep.”
Bleary-eyed, he nodded as Sara gave him her own kisses, and then we left the room.
As soon as we were alone in our bedroom, Sara rounded on me. “What’s wrong, baby? Talk to me.”
I shook my head, pulling her to me gently with a hand on the back of her neck. My mouth met hers hungrily, devouring her, and she let me. She was dark eyed and breathing heavy when I finally pulled away.
“You…” I started, squeezing my eyes closed for a second to calm myself. “You know that…nothing happened between me and Lexie, right?”
“What? Of course, I do. What’s this…” She stopped, narrowing her eyes at me. “Derek… I’m gonna—”
I grinned, chuckling a little. “He’s just… I don’t know what he is,” I finally admitted. “Stubborn, for sure. Insecure too. But damn it…”
“You’d think that Derek being older and a blood relative would make him just as well-adjusted as you, but no.”
Chuckling, I shrugged. “He says he’s too old for this relationship shit, but…then he says Lexie is too young to know what she wants.”
Sara smirked. “They will figure it out, Jack. I get the feeling Lexie is strong enough to bop him in the head, if it comes down to it.”
“Probably. She should do it soon,” I grumped, rolling my eyes at Sara’s beautiful laugh.
She studied my face, her dark eyes warm and loving. “I trust you. You know that, right?” Nodding, I felt myself relax beneath her soft touch to my face. “Good. And you trust me?”
“With my life.”
She shrugged a shoulder, taking me by the hand. “Then anything outside of that is their problem, Jack. They’re obviously attracted to one another, and Lexie looks at him differently than she looked at you. She truly cares for him, so…they have to find their own way, baby. Not everyone understood us in the beginning—you being away on tour, the waiting, the letters and e-mails—but it worked for us. They have to find that too.”
“Or not.”
“Or not,” she agreed, shrugging again, but she pushed open the bathroom door. She turned around in front of me, reached for the zipper of my hoodie, and dragged it slowly down. “He accused you of cheating on me?” she asked softly, but I could see the hurt there.
“He heard rumors about Lexie,” I replied in a whisper, my face scowling at the mere thought. “Knowing Joel, he was doing it to tease him, but I think it backfired.”
Sara snorted, but there was no humor in it. She pushed my hoodie off at the same time she sighed deeply.
“He’s an idiot.” Her dark eyes met mine. “If you were cheating, then…when? Since you’ve been back, you’ve barely left our sides. And when you did, you were with him. I trust you when you say nothing happened on the way here, but your parents have already told me. Ruby even told me that nothing happened. Hell, I didn’t even ask, but they told me anyway. You know why he’s taking it so damn seriously?” she asked, but she didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Because he likes her, and she obviously likes him. The entire time I’ve known Derek, he’s never been jealous, but I don’t think he’s ever liked someone enough to be jealous. He wasn’t jealous when Laurie finally threw in the towel on him and moved on. He wasn’t even jealous when you and I were apart, Jack. He took my waiting for you in stride, which proves his feelings weren’t real for me. He’s an idiot if he pushes her away. She may be younger than him, but maybe she’ll keep him from growing into an old, crusty, cranky asshole. Though, I hope he pushes Joel into the lake just for starting trouble.”
Smirking at my angry, rambling, smart girl, I shrugged a shoulder, only to raise my arms when she tugged my T-shirt off over my head.
“You’re pretty when you’re pissed,” I whispered against her lips.
Her beautiful face cracked a smile. “Yeah, well…so are you.”
Chuckling, I rolled my eyes, but everything in me sparked when she reached for the shower knobs. Her eyes met mine when her hand tested the water.
“It’s hot.”
Two words had never held so much fucking power. They caused a brief pause between us, but I reached for her almost roughly. My hand threaded into her hair, yanking just enough to cause the moan I lived to bring out of her, and I devoured that shit with my mouth on hers.
“I’ve wanted you all fucking day,” I complained, pulling back and reaching for her shirt.
“What about…”
“Uh-uh,” I chided, shaking my head. “Whatever the fuck we start in here, we’re
finishing in there.” I jerked a thumb behind me, indicating the bedroom. Once she was bare and beautiful in front of me, I said, “Get in.”
I shed the rest of my clothes, following right behind her, but I couldn’t help the growl I let loose at the feel of the hot spray that hit my skin. Jesus, it had been well over half a year since I’d had a hot shower.
Bare, smooth, wet skin met mine, trapping my cock between us. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for her. We kissed like we’d never come up for air as the water cascaded over us. I drank the water from the soft skin of her neck, across her shoulders, and up behind her ear. Small fingers dug into my back, my hips, my ass, just to keep me close, but I had to stop her from reaching for me or I’d lose it before we even started. Soap was used, shampoo made us slick, but I couldn’t get enough of smiles and hums of pleasure. After another never-ending kiss as we rinsed under the spray, I turned us around, pressing her into the cold tile of the standup shower, grinning when she hissed at the shock of it, but I was already on my knees in front of her.
“You’d better hold on to something, Shortcake,” I warned her, not even bothering to wait before I lifted one of her legs to my shoulder. Her fingers threaded into my soaked hair and practically clawed at my shoulder to hold on, but I had a firm hand on her. I’d never let her fall. Not in a million fucking years.
Water and the pure flavor of her met my tongue as I licked her slowly, almost roughly. I’d never been so happy that her period was over. I lived to put my mouth on her pussy as I watched it cause her to shatter. It was addicting. It had been since the first time I’d ever tasted her…at the cabin on Clear Lake. I loved that she used me to make it feel better, that she lost control of herself when her hips would roll to press herself against my face. I loved even more that my grip to her ass made her groan out my name through gritted teeth.
“Mmm, I love that,” I grunted, my gaze locking with hers as I lightly raked my teeth over the sensitive skin, only to swirl my tongue around her clit. “Say my name like that again…”