Brown Siblings - 01 Laid Bare (39 page)

He and Ben had decided to exorcise her of the day in the way they knew best, with a little bit of pain and a lot of pleasure. They’d help her lose herself in the sea of endorphins and serotonin and reinforce that they’d be there as her safety chute.

She looked so damned beautiful, her eyes now half-lidded and sex-blurred. Her skin an enticing shade of pink, still marked in places where the rope had held her tightest.

He continued to watch in the mirror as she turned and fell to her knees once more, drawing him and Ben hip to hip.

And then he had to look down as she brought their cocks close and licked and sucked each one and both at once as she could. The sensation of her tongue and hands as his cock slid along Ben’s nearly made Todd lose his mind.

Her eyes fluttered closed, her lashes fanning against the uppermost ridge of her cheeks. Drawn by need, Todd traced over the sweet hollow just below her shoulder, on her back. Nestled within a bower of ivy her brother had inked around it. The drawn pucker of the scar Charles Cabot had given her had faded, but the memories hadn’t. She had one more on her thigh and each time Todd saw them or touched them, he sent up a prayer of thanks that she was alive to bear them.

“Enough,” Todd said roughly, pulling back from the sweetness of her mouth. “I want to come inside you.”

Ben moaned. “I want to come in your mouth.”

“I know a way we can make that happen.” Todd sat on the bed, scooting back just a bit. Erin followed, knowing what he wanted.

She straddled him, her back to his front, and sank onto his cock, hard and fast instead of her usual slow, seductive way. Todd sucked in air and counted to a hundred to keep focus.

Ben hummed his satisfaction and stepped forward so she could take him in her mouth again and the three began to move. Thrust, suck, thrust, like a machine with three moving parts, until it became smooth and singular.

Ben knew he wouldn’t last long, not given the way she’d been after he tied her up. So pretty and vulnerable yet strong beyond imagination, Erin was the most precious thing he knew.

He loved being with her this way, as Todd was inside her, as they all shared one another. What a gift his life had become each and every day. It lessened the pain of the estrangement he now had with his father, gave him enough hope in human nature that he’d someday not have this gulf there.

He wondered at her, at the miracle she was, as he sifted his fingers through the softness of her hair. Hair that was currently chocolate brown. He’d simply accepted that she’d come home with a new hair color or a new piercing, even a new sex toy for them all to try.

Pleasure rushed from the soles of his feet and out his cock as she palmed his sac and played her middle finger against his perineum in just the right way to push him over the edge.

Then he knelt and kissed her as she ran her fingertip back and forth over his nipple with the ring.

Behind her, Todd groaned and she gasped into Ben’s mouth as he found her clit, squeezing it between his fingers and bringing her off right on the heels of Todd’s climax.

Todd pulled her up and off and they tugged her into the bathroom, where they’d laid out all the accessories she’d need for a long soak, and she blinked back tears as she hugged them both.

34

They all got up before dawn and trudged out to the waiting limos. Erin was grateful she didn’t have to drive as she tucked in, settling between Ben and Todd.

She wore a suit, as did the men. Brody had combed down his normally wild hair and Adrian looked stylish and handsome. Of course Ben and Todd were beyond handsome in their suits, but they wore
cop
like cologne and she took comfort in it.

The trip to the prison would take them east for about two hours, so she settled in for the drive.

No one spoke much, but they all glared at her until she drank her juice and ate a muffin. Then they forked over the coffee and she held on to it like a lifeline, trying not to think of what she would be facing.

That fateful day she’d had everything one moment and nothing the next. She wanted the parole board to know that. She’d brought a folder with pictures in it.

She was lost in thought until Ben sat up straighter and she looked out the window to see the industrial hulk of the prison walls.

Detective Emery was there and, to her surprise, he hugged her. “I’m glad you’re here. Listen, chances are he won’t get parole today. I want to repeat that. But you being here makes a difference. I know it’s hard, and I’m glad you have your husband and your family with you.” Jeremy came up with his parents and Emery said hello to them as well.

“Shall we?” Emery motioned and they moved through the gates into a holding area, where Erin’s bag was searched. She left her cell phone and most of her belongings behind before they moved through another set of fenced-off sidewalks to an outbuilding.

Her hands shook and nausea swamped her. She stumbled and Todd put an arm around her.

“Buck up. We’re here for you. You
will
make it through. Do this for Adele. Do it for yourself.” Todd kissed her cheek, and she nodded, numb.

“We’ll wait out here until they call us. There’s another hearing going on right now,” Emery explained. “This board is a good group. Due to the nature of what Cabot was convicted of, they’ll let you all speak. Erin should go first. Jeremy, you should sit with her and then speak right after. Then the uncles and grandparents. I’ll speak as well, and we have the psych report, which isn’t rosy.”

Erin nodded, in a daze, but clung to reality by her fingernails. She would do this, damn it.

The hallway smelled much like every other government building she’d ever been in. The scent settled in her nose and she knew when they got back to the hotel she’d need to shower for a long time to rid herself of it.

Finally they were called in and she stopped short when she caught sight of Charles Cabot sitting there in an ill-fitting suit. He hadn’t changed much since she saw him last, also in another ill-fitting suit on the last day of the trial.

His eyes lit up when he recognized her and Ben stepped into his line of sight without reacting otherwise.

“Hold on,” Jeremy said softly. “Don’t let him win. This is for her.” She nodded, jerkily, and they sat. She barely heard the board speak, but she did listen attentively when Cabot spoke about his remorse and how he’d found his calling and wanted to help troubled youth.

Brody forcibly unclenched her fists and handed her a handkerchief because her palms were bleeding where she’d dug her nails into the flesh. He’d help youth? How about by not killing them?

She heard her name and Ben squeezed her shoulder and Todd kissed her cheek as she and Jeremy got up to sit at a table facing the parole board.

She thanked them for allowing her to speak and then she began to place the pictures of Adele on the table, from ultrasound to the picture taken in the morgue. Her hands shook, but she kept going.

“This is Adele and she was my baby. Charles Cabot stole a life, a future filled with possibilities.

I won’t see her get on the bus to kindergarten. I won’t see her lose her first tooth. I won’t watch her graduate from high school and college. We won’t ever argue about curfew and how much lip gloss she can wear. I won’t see her marry and I’ll never hold her children. I gave birth to this person and she is not here now for
one
reason, and that’s Charles Cabot and his instability. His selfish lack of control cost my child her life and has made me look over my shoulder ever since.” And then she did the thing she needed to do, for herself. She looked Charles Cabot in the face, holding his attention long enough to let him know she would not let his attempt to get around the system this way go unchallenged.

Her eyes broke away and she went on, just speaking from her heart and careful not to look at Cabot again. She’d made her point, to herself and to him, and to look again would only give him what he wanted.

Jeremy spoke, and Erin heard the catch in his voice as he talked about what Adele’s birth had been like for him. How he’d taught her to swim and how her first word had been
no
. He spoke of how the attack had not only nearly killed Erin and ended the possibilities of Adele’s future, but how it had torn their relationship apart and kept Erin off stage.

Detective Emery spoke, and then Brody and Adrian, followed by Jeremy’s parents. The pictures of Adele stayed on the table until they were all finished speaking and the board dismissed them while they deliberated.

“I’ve won,” she said quietly to Ben.

“What do you mean?” He held her hand.

“No matter what they decide, I did it. I walked in there and I stood up for Adele. I looked him in the eye and let him know I wouldn’t let this pass. If they parole him, I will fight it. If they don’t, I’ll be back when they hear this again.”

Todd heard it and knelt in front of her. “I’m so proud of you. You kicked butt in there.”

“I couldn’t let him own any part of me anymore. He doesn’t get my fear. He can’t control me with it. That doesn’t mean I won’t be afraid; I can’t help it. But it means I can push it back and fight it off.”

“With our help.” Todd kissed her forehead and pushed to stand again.

He paced and Ben sat holding her hand. Jeremy excused himself for several minutes and came back red-eyed but more steady. Brody looked off into space and Adrian spoke quietly to Emery.

It wasn’t an exceptionally long wait before they were called back in and the parole board unanimously rejected Cabot’s request for parole and agreed to rehear the case in three years.

Erin exhaled, putting her head in her hands and swallowing back emotion. Standing straight, she held her back and head up high and thanked the board before walking out.

35

The night air was warm as the sunset rendered the grassy knoll on the hill facing the stage a riot of oranges and pinks.

Erin walked out with Adrian, and the sound of the crowd going wild at seeing her there bolstered her, fed her, made her smile.

She adjusted her strap and began to play, laying the beat, enticing Adrian’s voice to join, enticing his guitar to play with hers. And he did. The song caught her, and then another, until she’d given in and let it carry her. It had been a very long time, but it felt good and right that she be there.

Stage left, her family stood. Her mothers-in-law, Brody, those brothers-in-law who were still part of their lives. Most important, Todd and Ben watched her, smiling, understanding what it meant for her to be there.

She tipped her head back and looked into the sky, looked up at the stars and sent out thanks. She wasn’t that woman she’d been eleven years before, playing small clubs, having a hot affair with a cop who had big issues with his sexuality. She’d changed and there were still parts of her inside that were broken. She still jumped at loud noises and hated crowds. But the part where her music lived thrived and unfurled, filling the stage, freeing her in the way only that one thing could.

She had a past filled with bad things and a future filled with joy. In the balance, that was really all anyone could ask for.

Adrian broke off for the bridge and they fed off each other like they had for so many years before the darkness came. But it was there, like it had never left, and instead of tears, she only had laughter.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is solidly rooted in music. Erin is a musician, it’s how she views the world, it’s who she is. It marks time in her life. It’s about moments and tragedies and, in the end, it’s about rising above and surviving.

“Outshined”—Soundgarden

“Is There a Ghost”—Band of Horses

“Sunday Kind of Love”—Etta James

“Inside and Out”—Feist

“Creep”—Radiohead

“Gong”—Sigur Rós

“Saeglopur”—Sigur Rós

“Glosoli”—Sigur Rós

“Change”—Deftones

“Way of the Fist”—Five Finger Death Punch

“Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino Mix)”—Rob D.

“Untouchable Face”—Ani DiFranco

“Marrow”—Ani DiFranco

“Fountain”—PJ Harvey

“Victory”—PJ Harvey

“Sheela Na Gig”—PJ Harvey

“A Place Called Home”—PJ Harvey

“Open Your Eyes”—Guano Apes

“Run and Run”—The Psychedelic Furs

“Run”—Kittie

“Inside Job”—Pearl Jam

“Rearview Mirror”—Pearl Jam

“Blood”—Pearl Jam

“No Way”—Pearl Jam

“Lazy Eye”—Silversun Pickups

“Awakening”—The Damning Well

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