Alone (14 page)

Edward slowly stood too and stared at Conall’s hand now between my legs. “If she changes her mind and says I can touch her, you cannot interfere, deal?”

“Deal,” Conall agreed. I flinched and tried to hide it as a squirm. Conall walked out of the kitchen with me in front of his brother and we shared a look that said it all—he was trusting me with all of him tonight and that I wouldn’t break him.

I knew that I wouldn’t—I had absolutely no interest in Edward and I was doing this
for
Conall but it was still a huge leap of faith Conall was taking. And no matter how kinky and convoluted and somewhat fucked up this all was, it meant the world to me that he would put that much faith in me.

Minutes later we were naked on my bed, Conall draped over my back, both of us facing Edward who had found a folding chair from my closet and sat down.

“I love you so much,” my man whispered in my ear.

“I know.”

“Last chance.”

“Fuck me,” I moaned, shaking with nerves and playing it off as anticipation.

And did he ever. Edward behaved… Mostly. But he never touched me. That didn’t stop him from asking me to change my mind every so often. Half the time I ignored him, trying to get lost in the fun I was having with Conall. He was more annoying than anything, to be honest. The only time he got a real reaction from me was sometime during our second round.

“Can I come on her face?” Edward begged.

“No!”
Conall and I snarled at him together.

In between rounds, I sucked Conall off like porn star until my jaw hurt and I needed to be rehydrated for all the workout I was getting. Finally once the fourth marathon fuck was over, I had to call game.

“Let me clean off and I’ll walk you out,” I offered, staring at Edward, gesturing to all the cum on my body with a wicked smirk, noticing the odd look Conall was giving me. I slid off the bed and did my best not fall right back over. I took my time, trying to get my bearings back. When I was as good as I was going to get, I clipped up my hair and strolled out of the bathroom naked.

“Do you want your robe?” Conall asked, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s seen me naked all night, babe,” I chuckled, rolling my eyes. “I’ll be right back.
He’ll
be good.” I looped my arm with Edward’s so his brushed my breast and I saw lust flare in his eyes. We walked down the hall and then the stairs. It was by the door he made his move. He boxed me in with his arms and leaned in way too close.

I simply smiled at him, knowing it had been coming. “Edward, you promised.”

“I did. Give me permission, Nina. Let me take you from here and be mine. I will lavish you with attention and everything you have
ever
wanted.”

I moved my hands over his, and he took the weight of them, letting me position them. I placed one over my breast and the other between my legs. He moaned loudly. “You like?”

“Yes,” he hissed, leaning in to kiss me.

“Good because that is the
only
thing you will ever get from me. All I want is your brother. Now get out of my house and don’t ever ask me to leave him again. He is the best thing that ever happened to me and I am
his
. It
disgusts
me that you would even try to make a move on me when you know he loves me. I would never touch a man like that. All this, what you saw we have, will never,
ever
be yours.” I moved away, opened the door, shoved him out—giving him a wave and smiling at his shocked expression.

Right before I slammed it in his face.

Then I locked the door, trudged back up the stairs, and into my room, Conall standing there with questions in his eyes.

“I heard every word but I didn’t see any of it.”

“I let him feel up my boob and grope between my legs for a second before shoving him out the door. I wanted him to sample what you get the full package of when he wants and can’t have.”

“I love you.”

I raised an eyebrow, having half expected to have been in trouble. “I didn’t take it too far?”

“Yes, but I just love you more because you took it so far for
me
, not because you had fun doing it.”

“God
no
,” I gagged, shivering. “I want a shower because he touched me. He makes my skin crawl.” I realized how much I really,
really
wanted that and glanced at Conall. “Love me enough to shower me? I’m
exhausted
?”

“I love you enough to give you anything you’ve ever wanted right now,” he whispered as he closed the distance between us and hugged me tightly. I leaned into the embrace, snuggling up against him. “I cannot believe you did this for me.”

“I know what it’s like to have painful wounds from family too,” I admitted, kissing his chest. “I wanted to help.” He led me to the bathroom and turned on the shower, both of us waiting as it warmed up. “Maximum Steel Metallic Quad Cab.”

“What was that, my love?” he murmured as he kissed the back of my neck.

“My dream truck,” I mumbled, only half awake then. “Maximum Steel Metallic Quad Cab. You can get me the truck now. I think I earned it. I’m glad I did this, and I wanted to help you, but can we never, ever speak of this? It was really creepy and I’m not proud of what I did.”

“I know and we won’t. I just want you to know that’s why it meant so much to me.”

“Okay.”

I don’t even remember the shower. That was how tired I was after the night we had.

And I was pretty sure I realized then I was in love with Conall. A person didn’t do things like I had that night for people they weren’t in love with.

The next few months were the best of my life. Conall and I were a true, living together couple. No longer did I have a half clothes, half promo clothes, but now a half mine, half his closet.

Okay, like a third mine, mostly his. I was lower maintenance than him with all his pricey jackets and fashionable tastes.
But
he ended up buying me all new clothes of
my
normal style in my new size, plus ones for going out and conference that were actually stuff I would have gotten for myself if I ever would have shopped at the same places he did. The man had style, that was for sure. But we did share the same idea that flashy wasn’t what we liked.

I simply wasn’t a
jacket
person. More a snazzy sweater thing if the weather worked for it. But he got that. Honestly he was better at shopping than I was and it was a job I was more than willing to let him have.

I hired Susan full time and part time shared her with Conall. He didn’t really need someone all the time since he had a business manager for his investments, affairs, and yadda, yadda I didn’t fully understand. It worked for us and she was awesome. The only fight there was who paid her salary.

He won. But I was in charge of how much, how often on raises, bonuses, stipends for conferences, and whatnot because I found out
real
fast that the man was behind on the times and a dunce in that department. I wasn’t going to lose a talented, dependable employee because he was still trying to pay her based on the last century’s rates. It wasn’t that he wasn’t giving, he was just outdated.

He also bought me my truck and paid for utilities. I still took care of rent for the house, so that was fair. We ended up splitting the furniture for the front room somehow. I’m not sure really, but I ordered the couch I wanted and found a great bar so I bought it. He picked out a table and chairs and snatched them up, so yeah, it just happened that way.

And we ended up making the study into my promo room with a desk for Susan when she was working from the house. All in all we had a system. It
worked
for us and we were happy.

That didn’t stop Conall from hinting here and there that one day we would be moving to a bigger house that he wanted to build for me… Somewhere quiet without as many bugs and better internet so I would stop bitching about that. I agreed that someday I would consider it. But for now, I just finally finished un-fucking-packing so to shut it.

Amazingly enough, he did.

I received some flowers from Edward and cards asking to call him. I threw them away immediately in the big garbage outside, fibbing when Conall asked who had been at the door. He didn’t need to know. I wasn’t interested, and his brother was a sore subject. Besides, I wasn’t lying when I told him
nothing important.
Edward wasn’t important to me.

He was a snake. A really creepy snake who just happened to look like Conall and shared DNA with the man I loved.

Yes, I loved Conall. I’d long since realized that and told him.

Any man who got me over my fear of going back to conferences and book signings was totally, completely loveable. We had such a great time at the two we’d attended and my fans
adored
him. Seriously, they liked him better than me, which worked because I still had the ramble mouth blubbering blushing problem so it took a lot of the pressure off me. I couldn’t have gone without him.

And I hoped I never had to because it meant we were still together.

Plus he always took me on little side trip vacations and spoiled my ass rotten and I was
really
starting to get used to that kind of treatment. Yeah, poor, poor me. Signing in London and a three-day trip to Paris.

But
it also put a lot more pressure on me to keep up with my normal release schedule. So from the moment we got back from overseas and dealt with the jet lag, I’d spent the past two weeks practically
glued
to my desk finishing up one book, writing another, buried in edits I’d been neglecting, new ones coming in, blurbs, blog articles, excerpts, release spec sheets, and on, and on, and
on
.

Today was the first day I was about to break the surface of all of that, and Conall promised if I did by lunch, he was going to have a present for me.

Sure enough it was just after one and I was stretching out on the back deck with a smoke when he came looking for me. I’d heard him come in the house, smiling that he’d come to search me out.

“Where we at?” he inquired as his greeting. I loved that about him too. I didn’t find it overbearing, or pushy… We were a team. He was supportive. I never felt alone anymore, there was always a
we
or an
us
for everything going on. It was nice.

“All the edits are done and sent off,” I updated him, glancing at him and winking. “Books and blurbs. Taglines done. Cover requests sent. I need to finish the blog article for next week, but I’m over half done, and approved the spec sheet for next week’s release. That’s it. I do that and I can start on my next book and keep giving my editor around ten weeks from submission to release date on the calendar.”

“You amaze me.”

“You make me able to do it all and be happy,” I swore as I stood and put out my smoke. I closed the distance and threw my arms around him. “I love you, Conall.”

“I love you, my Nina,” he sighed, hugging me back. “I promised you a surprise.”

“Yes, that’s why I did it all,” I chuckled, smacking his ass as I pulled away. “What do you have? A new research project for us to play with?”

His jaw fell open as his eyes went wide. “How did you know?”

I shot him a wink. “I was circling stuff in that catalog that I wanted for that book I was thinking of—”

“No, not that kind of research,” he purred, taking my hand. I scrunched my eyebrows as he led me into the kitchen, closing the door behind us. It was fall now so we didn’t leave the doors open if we weren’t right there.

I almost tripped over my feet when I saw the young man standing in our kitchen. “Um, hi?” I shot Conall a look that clearly said
what the hell?

“Hi, I’m Zack,” the shy twentysomething guy greeted as he stepped closer and extended his hand. I let go of Conall’s and shook it. He was cute, about my height, lean, toned, short dark blond hair, light green eyes… Cute. I couldn’t think of another way to describe him.

“I’m Nina.”

“Yes, Mr. Brightmore has told me all about you, Ms. James.”

“And yet he’s told me nothing about you,” I chuckled, glancing at Conall again. “What’s going on?”

“You’ve made some assumptions about me, my Nina, and I’ve hinted and tried to discuss them a few times but you’re not the only one who has trouble discussing certain topics. I’ve been reading your books for years—”

“Right, you’ve told me that. What does that have to do with Zack?”

“Since you started writing.”

“I know that.”

“Nina, you’ve only been writing books like our relationship the past few.”

“No. The first one I ever wrote was like that. I’ve told you that.” I gave him a funny look and gestured to Zack again. Conall sighed and ran his hands over his hair, glancing at Zack as if asking for help maybe.

“But you didn’t publish it until then so he was reading the gay ones and liked them,” Zack chuckled and then pointed to his choker necklace. “I’m a sub between Doms. Mr. Brightmore has had dealings with a broker of subs and Doms before. He thought you might be open to the idea of having a research sub for a month since you write about two men you obviously wouldn’t hold the fact that he likes to play with men against him.”