Arching my back slightly meant that the tip of his cock rubbed against the hard bundle of nerves that felt like it had its own pulse at that moment, making me moan loudly, and even with a hangover from hell and the injuries to my face, I felt my muscles tightening, preparing to come. As he pulled his hips back slightly and pushed forward so that the two areas rubbed together again, I teetered on the edge of the cliff, just about to go over…
“The noise came from in here. She must still be in bed, Hogan,” a voice sounded outside my room, and then the door opened and my mom poked her head around it. “She’s… oh shit,” she gasped, slamming the door behind her. “Why don’t we put the coffee on and wait for her in the living room? It’s such a beautiful morning, we should enjoy it.”
“What? But she’s moaning, Rissa, and Ellis said she was hurt yesterday. Move out the way,” Dad snapped, and I heard the sound of something moving against my door as the two of us stared at each other in horror.
“No, we’ll make coffee.”
“No, I want to see my daughter,” Dad argued, and then cursed when there was a thud. “What was that for? That was my bad knee, woman.”
Not missing a beat, Mom went for the tactic she’d devised over their thirty-three years of marriage. “Hey, do you remember the good old days when you could refer to them as left and right? Now, they’re the good knee and the bad knee.”
“What the fuck?” Raoul whispered, looking over his shoulder in their direction.
A question Dad asked himself. “What the fuck? Woman, let me get past to see my daughter.”
“Don’t you ‘woman’ me, Hogan Beauregard. I don’t care if you’re worried about our child, you say it again and you’ll have two bad knees, do I make myself clear?”
And with that she’d won the war, because their voices faded down the hallway in the direction of the living room. Just as we both relaxed and Raoul turned back to face me, the sound of heavy footsteps came running back toward us. It was followed by my door bursting open, and then my dad came running in with Mom on his back pinching his ear. “I told you to… Oh, hello, dear,” she smiled at me, and then waved at the man who was now frozen solid on top of me. “Hello, Raoul. How are you?”
Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head back toward them, and lifted up farther on his elbows. “I’m good, Mrs. Beauregard. Uh, Mr. Beauregard,” he nodded at Dad who was staring in shock at the bed, a dark blush starting to travel up his neck.
“I knew when you said that Ellis had been joking about y’all being together that you were hiding something. Honestly, honey, why would you want to hide him?” she asked with a huge smile on her face.
Eyes flicking between her, Dad, and Raoul, I tried to think of a response, but all that I could get out was, “Uh…”
See, my dad had hated every last one of my boyfriends. He’d glared at them, refused to let them stay in his house, told me within thirty seconds of meeting them that they were assholes, and on the occasions where any of them had been brave enough to kiss me in front of them he’d threatened to break limbs. It wasn’t just threats, it was vivid descriptions of how he was going to do it, and that had made them run. So, right now with it looking like Raoul wasn’t wearing anything under the sheets as he lay on top of me, and the fact that we were lying in my bed having obviously slept in it together last night, welp I was bracing for the explosion.
The only one of us who was apparently capable of talking at that moment was the one person who’d said the most so far, my mom. “We’ll go make the coffee, won’t we, Hogie? Turn us around and head to the kitchen, Mr. Belvedere!”
And then a miracle occurred. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the shock or if he was working up to an explosion, but Dad did just that, leaving the two of us staring at where they’d been.
“Did that just happen?” I groaned, covering my face with my hands and almost screaming when I pressed down too hard on my sore eye.
Two large, warm hands lifted them back up, and Raoul filled my vision. I’d expected him to mirror the emotions and thoughts going through my head, but instead he was grinning at me, his eyes shining as he fought not to laugh. “Sweetheart, I knew she was nutty before, but that was a hilarious new level of nuttiness.”
“Why are you laughing?” I hissed. “Are you crazy? That was the most embarrassing thing ever.”
“It was,” he agreed, his body starting to shake slightly. “But I wish I’d recorded it so I could appreciate it on a whole new level without worrying that your dad was going to kick my ass.”
“He still might,” I pointed out, nibbling on my bottom lip worriedly.
Leaning down, he pulled my lip out from between my teeth with his own, before pressing a kiss on it. “It was worth every second, baby,” he whispered, giving me another peck.
“Swear to the good man above, Rissa,” Dad yelled in the kitchen. “If they don’t get their asses through here in the next ten seconds, not even you can stop me from kicking his… Ow, cut it out.”
That’s when any control he had over his laughter snapped, and Raoul tipped his head back and burst out laughing as he carefully made his way out from under the sheets. It took me a while longer to do the same, partly because I was delaying the inevitable, but mainly because I was too busy watching him get dressed. One of my favorite parts was when he bent over to put his pants on with his back facing me, and I got to see his ass with only a thin layer of cotton over it. It was solid, it was muscular, and when he bent over fully, I got the perfect shot of his package, too.
Just as he looked over his shoulder and saw me watching him, Dad bellowed, “Two seconds!” totally ruining the moment.
Chapter Seven
Raoul
I’d met Rissa and Hogan on numerous occasions before now, but this one felt different. In fact, I hadn’t called them Mr. and Mrs. Beauregard since the first time I’d met them and they’d immediately insisted I call them by their first names. Right now, I didn’t know what to expect as I walked into the kitchen with Rose beside me, but I was ready to take on anything to keep her.
I needn’t have worried, because Rissa was ready and waiting. “Ah, there you are. Your father was just asking what was holding y’all back. Coffee?” She asked, pulling down cups and looking over her shoulder at us.
“Please,” I murmured, walking over to one of the chairs at the small table Rose had in her kitchen.
“Hey, you guys. You didn’t have to come all the way here,” Rose said, walking up and giving her dad a hug from behind. For a second, the glare he’d been giving me since I’d arrived softened, but then it returned full force when she moved away again.
“Course we’re gonna come,” he muttered, taking a sip of his coffee. “Heard you got hurt, and your mom insisted we make sure you were ok.”
“More like your daddy insisted. He lost his shit the second Ellis told him what had happened, and the next thing we were in the car headed here,” Rissa chuckled, placing creamer and sugar in front of me. I absolutely hated sugar or anything sweet in my coffee, so I reached for the creamer and added a dash to my cup. The stronger it was, the better I was. “Course, we didn’t realize when Ellis said that Raoul was looking after you, that he was looking after you,” she added, winking at me.
As soon as she said it, three things happened at once. The first thing was that Hogan let out a loud growl, his eyes narrowing as he glared at me. The second thing was that what she’s said made me shift in my chair, and I blushed for the first time since I was a kid. And third thing was Rose, who covered her face with her hands, forgetting again about the bruising, and yelping when she pressed too hard against it. How she could forget about it, I didn’t know, but she just kept on doing it.
The last thing snapped Hogan out of his death stare, though, and brought his attention onto his youngest child. The second he saw the full extent of the injury, he was up and out of his chair. “You,” he pointed at me, “take me to where the little asshole is. I’m going to k…”
; “Probably best not to say threats in front of a police officer, Hogan,” Rissa advised, coming over to rub his back. “And calm down. You know what the doctor said about your blood pressure.”
“It’s not that bad, Dad,” Rose said, trying to calm him down, too.
“Not that bad? Not that bad?” he repeated, shaking his head in disbelief. “Have you seen your damn eye? Actually, that’s a good point - can you even see out of it?”
Walking over to her daughter, Rissa cupped her hand under Rose’s chin and tipped her head to the side, giving her a better view of it. “Jesus, he really got you good, baby. Your poor beautiful face.”
“Rose has pressed charges, and the woman he was abusing is pressing charges, too,” I advised them, taking a sip of my coffee and breathing out in relief.
“The woman he was abusing? Ellis didn’t mention someone else was involved,” Rissa whispered, looking sadly at her daughter. “Is she ok?”
Looking over at Rose, I understood the pleading look in her eyes, and took control. “I’ll tell you the full story.”
* * *
Three hours later…
“I’m sorry,” Rose whispered out of the side of her mouth as we left the station, her parents leading the way back to the car.
What was she sorry for? More than likely the fact I’d been left with her parents while she went in to answer the questions DB had for her. Police work was a matter of procedure and red tape, and she might have written out her statement last night, but to make sure the asshole who’d hit her got the punishment he deserved, more questions had to be answered today.
Initially, I’d been in with DB while he went through my side of it all, but mine had only taken ten minutes, meaning that once he took Rose through, I’d been left with Rissa and Hogan for fifty-nine minutes… not that I’d counted every single one of them or anything. That didn’t sound so bad when you thought about where we were, but during that time I’d been grilled by Rissa, glared at by Hogan, and every last one of my colleagues had enjoyed every second of it. Well, aside from Rory, who’d decided I was next on her target list after DB got together with Tabby and she realized that was never going to change.
I wasn’t secretive, my life was an open book, but there was something about answering questions about myself for an hour that made me feel uncomfortable. “Heard it, did you?”
Glancing over her shoulder at us, Rissa smiled at her daughter. “Did you know that Raoul’s part Mexican and part English, Rose?”
She probably did, but instead she replied, “Is that so?”
“Yup, his mom’s parents came to the States from Santa Fe just after she was born, and his dad moved here with his company. The night he arrived he had jet lag, so he went to an all-night diner near his hotel,” she told her excitedly, like it was a romance book, “because he hadn’t found an apartment to live in yet, so he was staying at one. Which was really nice of his company, don’t you think?” It was a rhetorical question, because she didn’t wait for anyone to answer before continuing, “His mom was studying for her finals, so she was juicing on the Java, and they sat next to each other and got talking. Next thing you know, they’re getting married, and Raoul’s brother was born ten months later, Raoul eleven months after that – in the same year – and his sister was born three years after that. How beautiful is that? It was like fate that they were both at that diner in the middle of the night.”
I wasn’t sure what was so beautiful about the story, so maybe it was a female thing?
Stopping mid step, Rose stared at me in shock. “You were born within eleven months of your brother?”
It’s funny, this was a question I got asked a lot when people found out, and it had never made sense to me until they covered reproduction at school – then I got it. “Yeah, well, just over eleven months after he was born.”
“Were y’all born in the same year?”
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I took in the expression on her face, trying to figure out where she was going with this. “Garrett was born January fifth, I was born December twenty-third.”
Hearing this, her good eye opened widely. After applying ice this morning while I’d gone home to get showered and changed, the swelling in her eye had gone down slightly meaning she could open it a little bit, but it still wasn’t able to do what the good was currently doing. “You’re an Irish twin? Why didn’t I know this?”
“A what?”
“An Irish twin,” she repeated. “It’s when two kids are born within twelve months of each other, and usually people use the term if it’s in the same year, too. That’s so freaking cool!”
“I said the same thing,” Rissa crowed, leaving Hogan to come and join us, and she had. Although, she hadn’t used the phrase Irish twins. In fact, no one ever had, so this was the first time I’d ever heard it.
Looking at her mom, Rose said, “I’ve met Garrett once. He’s in the military and looks just like Raoul. I never knew they were born in the same year, though.” Turning back to me, she asked, “Hey, when’s he back next? Mom totally has to meet him. And Cat, is she coming to visit soon?”
For the first time since I’d woken up this morning, I was grateful for Hogan’s presence when he interrupted the excited females firing questions at me. “Can we get in the damned car already? I’m sure he’s very interesting, but I need air-con.”
The women turned and walked toward the car, leaving me with the fuming father of the woman I had every intention of making mine, not once stopping their conversation. Although they did stop asking me questions long enough for me to start the engine once we were all seated, so I guess that was something. I was aware of the heated gaze of the big man sitting beside me drilling into the side of my head throughout the whole journey, just like I’d been aware of it for the hour I’d been sitting with them while we’d waited for Rose. Apart from the odd answer to a question here and there, neither of us spoke, leaving them to talk between themselves until I parked up and cut the engine off.
And then Hogan had something to say. “Jesus Christ,” he boomed, turning to look at them in the back seat. “We get it already. Now, will you quit talking about him like he’s more interesting than the topic of ‘what came first – the chicken, or the egg’ and let’s get going.”
Both women stopped mid-sentence, staring wide-eyed at him while I looked out the side window, trying to pretend I wasn’t privy to the explosion. Was it awkward? Actually, it wasn’t – it was hilarious, and it took everything I had not to laugh. I could just feel the pressure building inside him as we drove, and every time Rissa repeated something else I’d told her, it would get worse. I also knew that one of the worst Beauregard family arguments had once centered on the chicken or egg question, and it had taken three months for them to come to an understanding after weeks of debates and smack downs. The fact he’d used this as his example was what had me biting my lip to stop the laughter coming out.
Leaning between our seats, Rissa reached out and rubbed his arm. “It’s ok, Hogie. You’re still our number one.”
“Gross,” Rose gagged. “And it was the egg.”
That snapped him out of his sulk. “It was the chicken.”
Sitting back again, Rissa sighed, “Shit.”
I had to agree, shit was pretty much how I’d describe it, too. And when Rose pulled out her phone to call Ellis, putting him on speakerphone for it, I resigned myself that I was stuck listening to it for at least another ten minutes and made myself comfortable.
Rose
The tension coming off my parents right now was hilarious. Mom liked to act like she wasn’t too involved in the chicken-egg debate, but she’d been the worst one out of all of us during debate gate.
“I thought we were going to have to call DB and Logan in for backup,” Raoul snickered as we walked toward Tana’s room.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’d had to call for help to break up a family debate, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. The one we’d just rehashed in the car w
asn’t actually our worst one, there were two that we didn’t ever talk about. The first rule of Beauregard fight club was – no one talks about whether or not a hot dog was technically a sandwich, or if muffins were in fact little single person cakes or not. Unfortunately, these ‘debates’ had happened on the same day between Ellis and myself, and my parents had walked in just as it got heated. This led to them weighing in on the argument, discovering they too disagreed with each other, and ended up with Ellis trying to stick my head in the toilet after I hit him with the toilet brush. My grandparents had come over to help us and they’d given their opinions on it… basically, it had become a whole family thing. Needless to say, family meals were quiet for the week that followed, and we’d been banned from discussing it again.
But I didn’t tell Raoul this. I liked the guy, asshole tendencies and all, so it was best not to reveal the true insanity of my family. So, I smiled at him like I was agreeing, and looked in front of me just in time to avoid hitting a gurney being pushed by two orderlies with someone on it. That someone ended up being someone we knew – Ren Townsend.
“Hey, man. Come here often?” he asked, trying to raise his arm in the air and groaning.
“A Townsend gets wheeled into a hospital… it’s like the beginning of a bad joke,” Raoul chuckled, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me into his side to avoid being hit by the gurney as they straightened it in the hallway.
“Yeah, imagine that,” a female snapped, walking up behind us. Turning around, I saw Ren’s wife Maya, who was covered in mud and glaring at her husband.
Ren’s face immediately went from pained to confused as he saw the state of her. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Well, let me see,” she tapped her chin with her finger. “I was on my way to meet my husband for lunch, see it’s our anniversary today, so I thought I’d surprise him.” Knowing full well this wasn’t going to go well when Ren winced, Raoul moved us closer to the wall as she continued. “He hadn’t even mentioned it this morning before he left for work, so I figured he was planning something. Anyway, on my way here, I got a phone call to tell me that the husband – we’ll refer to him as the Twooch, because he’s a twat and a chooch – in question had been in an accident at work. Apparently Twooch had been doing the limbo with the machine that lifts the car in the air,” she looked over at us, so I took a step behind Raoul, doing my best to hide. “That might be amusing, if it wasn’t for the fact he had two of his brothers operating the damn machine for him.”
Classy AF: Cheap Thrills Series Book 3 Page 7