Gas or Ass (15 page)

“I think you hooked her, Lee.” Caine laughed.

I sought out Colt. He shook with laughter. “Hooked her? Look at those eyes. And her cheeks are glowing.” He pinched one cheek and winked. Very big brother-ish. I recalled how well Lee knew Dale and appreciated Colt’s caution.

“Reckon we gotta keep her now.” Caine jumped over the side of the truck and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks, old man.”

I rode in the Mustang with Colt, still vibrating with excitement. He motioned Caine abreast of the Mustang at the end of the dirt drive. “Gotta get gas.” He huffed and cut me a look. “I know they wanna go somewhere and eat, but Macy stocked the fridge, right? I’m more interested in getting reimbursed for the gas back at the house.”

***

W
hen we walked through the door, a phone was ringing. It wasn’t my ringtone. Colt and Caine both glanced at their phones and shrugged. I followed the sound through the house, but it stopped before I figured out where it came from.

Caine called out the choices for dinner, standing in the open refrigerator door for so long, my mother would’ve scolded. We settled on a casserole. I’d just put the dish in the oven when the ringing started again.

I dashed through the den and down the hall. If neither of the guys knew about it, I figured it had to come from Mom and Dale’s room. I flipped on the light. A gift-wrapped box rested in the center of the king-size bed. The ringing ceased again, but I spied my name on the card.

I blinked back tears when I unwrapped a phone identical to Caroline’s. What disturbed me was how many missed calls were logged. Racing to the den, I explained to the guys the need for them to be quiet, then doubled back to my bedroom.

“Shelby?” I heard the tears in Mom’s voice.

“I’m fine. Calm down. Took me forever to find the package. Every time I got close, you’d hang up. I was starting to think I was hearing things.” I tried to laugh off her concern. “And I was listening to music with my headphones, I think, when you started calling.”

“Oh, baby,” she sobbed. “Where are your brothers?”

“Uh, they poked around under the hood of one of those old cars out back. Now we’re waiting for the chicken casserole to heat up.” She’d never know how much I’d left out in between.

“Such a horrible birthday. And it’s an important one. Shelby, I’ll never forgive myself for this.” She burst into tears, giving me the choice of consoling her or staying quiet and trying to pretend my birthday was about me after all, and not an event she usually went all out for to make herself feel better about her bad choices.

The weight of being the daughter of a single mother never felt so heavy as it did right then. Kids with two parents didn’t have a clue. Everything in her life centered around that moment she’d made the choice to keep me. The weight of the unspoken contract she’d foisted on me dragged me to the floor. I was supposed to be worth all the things she’d given up since. I’d been good, not because being a good student and not a promiscuous, troubled teen was some virtue I aspired to, but to keep her from feeling any regret about keeping me.

All the birthday parties of the past danced in my mind as I leaned against the side of my bed, poorly-attended events where she always wore that faraway look that I thought meant she was thinking about how much better her life would’ve been if she’d made a different choice. Some kids say it’s an unselfish decision, to be raised by a single mom. I’d say the opposite. It’s the most selfish thing in the world, to have a baby at sixteen, then spend the next eighteen years in a delicate dance with poverty, all the while forcing me to validate a decision that had always been out of my hands.

The rage I’d suppressed for the last week flared to life.

“I’m fine, really. But you tell Dale, we’re buying crab legs that’d make an elephant jealous.”

I took a selfie after I got her off the phone. Or rather, after Dale got her off the phone by taking it out of her hand and giving me a list of stuff he wanted his sons to do. “Happy birthday, Shelby.” I sensed my mother had moved away when he lowered his voice. “Get out of your room, hon. Go find some trouble. Now, I know you’re new in town and don’t know where to look, but Colt, in particular, makes a damn good tour guide. I told those boys not to ignore you, but you gotta meet ‘em halfway, sweetheart.”

While I figured out how to set the image as my screen saver, I made a decision. I was done living just to excuse my own existence.

T
o my surprise, Caine cleared the dirty plates and forks off the bar. While I watched, he rinsed them in the sink and stuck them in the dishwasher. “Uh, Dale said something about getting started on the Barracuda this week?”

He nodded, but darted a look over his shoulder and raised his brows. Hands came down on my shoulders and I realized he’d been looking at Colt.

“Wow, the ‘Cuda?” Colt drove his thumbs into the tense muscles in my neck. “Dad won that car in race a couple of years back.” His laugh made me relax more than the massage. “Some dude with more money than sense ran his mouth at the track one night. When he said he’d race for the title to that car, Dad just about dragged me out of the ’69 Shelby and burned that guy’s ass. Him and his 2012 Mustang were still in spittin’ distance of the start line when Dad hit fourth gear. How often have we begged to fix it up, you reckon?”

Caine shrugged, slamming the dishwasher door upright. “Buncha times.”

“That damn car’s worth a fortune,” Colt continued. “That body style ‘Cuda only had a two-year production run, from 1970 to 1971, and they only made eleven convertibles with the Hemi engine.”

As usual, the jargon meant nothing to me. I seized on one word. “It’s a convertible?”

Caine crossed the small kitchen. Leaning his elbows on the bar, he ducked down so I could see him underneath the cabinets that hung overhead. “See, now, that’s a woman for you. The very thing that makes that car so damn valuable is it’s one big drawback, far as I’m concerned. All that air, swirlin’ into the back seat? Just adds drag.”

I batted my lashes and grinned like a monkey eating an orange. “It’s a convertible.”

He lifted his hand to cup my cheek. Stroking my face with a thumb so calloused, it felt like sandpaper, he smiled. “It’s a convertible. A purple convertible, at that. Someone I know sure seems fond of that color.”

I felt stupid for the burst of warmth I experienced because he’d happened to note the preponderance of grape-colored things I owned while he’d lugged them into a trailer.

“Time to pay the piper, Shelby.” Colt’s announcement caused Caine to pull away. My palms turned slick, making me lose my grip on Colt’s hand when I followed him into the den. He shoved the coffee table aside and sprawled on the sofa.

“Caine, take her clothes off.”

Caine moved in behind me. His hands snagged on the silky knit when he slid his palms down my hips and gripped the hem of my cotton shift.

My panties still lay in the student parking lot, so Colt’s hungry gaze met no barrier when his brother whipped the dress over my head. Caine brought his hands to my breasts. I knew by then that Caine didn’t seduce, he wrung sensations from my body. The hard pinch he gave my nipples made me whimper. My heartbeat echoed in my clit, and I’d swear that Colt heard the sound, because he dropped his eyes to focus on the spot.

“Spread your legs,” Colt commanded. I forced my feet apart, with some help from Caine’s nudging boot.

He spread me beyond my center of balance, forcing me to lean against his chest. Colt straightened and bent forward. He slid a finger through my folds. Withdrawing, he held the gleaming fingertip up. “Already wet? That’s my good little slut.”

“Condoms,” I managed to say.

Colt slid open a drawer in the front of the coffee table, exposing a box of Trojans.

Instead of feeling grateful he was prepared to protect me, I felt a stab of jealousy, wondering why they were in such a convenient spot, and noting the box had been opened.

But he swept the stupid twinge away by unfastening his jeans. His cock wasn’t hard and it didn’t look so massive and powerful now. Just a bundle of soft tissue, really. Nothing to tear my life apart, nor my body.

While he lounged on the couch, slowly stroking his cock to attention, Caine punished my nipples. His cock was fully hard and pressed against my bare buttocks, but my eyes were fastened on Colt.

Even when Caine pressed his lips to the side of my neck, my body processed them as Colt’s lips. Veins stood out around his shaft now, peeking between his fingers. The lamp turned the hair on his chest and groin into threads of gold. I swallowed hard, realizing that his cock was thicker than my wrist. I tried to decide if there was any way I could take all of him without ripping in two.

Colt slipped the wet fingertip into me, thrusting hard and fast, but not deep. “Makes our baby sister wet when we touch her, Caine.”

“I hear that.” I doubted Caine meant he’d heard Colt’s words, given the small, squishing sounds Colt’s finger made. My cheeks heated, but my body heated more. “Such a dirty girl.” His lips were at my ear and his voice seemed hoarse. He dropped a hand to massage my clit in his demanding way. I never felt the loss, because Colt replaced his fingers on my nipple with his own.

“Show Colt how much you wish that was his cock.”

“Goddamn,” Colt muttered when I tightened around his finger.

“Who needs to be fucked?” Caine demanded.

“I do.” But I didn’t. What they were doing was fine, thank you very much.

“C’mere.” Colt slid back and patted the cushion on either side of his thighs. Caine dropped his hands. Every cell in my body hummed as I climbed onto Colt’s lap, placing my knees beside his hips. He swept his hands up my spine, tugging me against his chest. My heart did something stupid when he pressed his lips to mine, but I was helpless to stop the feeling that swept though me. I reveled in the soft velvet of his tongue, in the width and hardness of his chest, in the way he drove his fingers through my hair and held me still, so he could take control.

I couldn’t stop thinking that their kisses weren’t anything like the fumbling, tentative sort of kiss I’d grown to loathe. This was a kiss from a man who knew what he was doing and it turned me to quivering jelly, a mindless amoeba, waiting to be taken.

His cock was a throbbing rod against my belly. I both feared the moment he’d slide it inside me, and at the same time, longed to get that moment of truth behind me. This thing between us was about sex and speed, nothing else. I couldn’t drive fast enough to hold him to me that way, and I knew better than to think he’d fall for me.

Except, I hadn’t expected his kisses to be so damn tender. That illogical organ inside my chest went haywire every time he pulled away to stare into my eyes, only to nip my lips until they stung and delve inside my mouth again. I’d expected him to rush through this part, eager to get to the main event, but Colt kissed me like we had the rest of our lives to reach the next step.

That was my excuse for the stupid thing I did next, anyway. Because Colt kissed me like a lover, I gave him my heart. He didn’t have to know, I reasoned, in the odd moments when he gave me time to breathe. I’d just love him in secret.

I knew love wasn’t something I could start and stop, that the emotion wouldn’t respond to logic, or just be one of the things I didn’t take with me to college, but I figured someone had to be the first guy to break my heart, and right then, it was okay with me if that guy was Colt.

Lost in the tumble of emotions and snatches of thought, I forgot about Caine, until I heard something rip and looked over my shoulder to see him peeling a condom out of the packet. I gave Colt a pleading look.

“Baby girl, it’s killing me that it has to be this way.” Colt cradled my face and stared into my eyes. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll hurt you. This is how I’m gonna protect you, okay? Caine’ll stretch you out a bit, and hopefully, then you can take me.”

He shoved a hand between our bodies, breaking the seal formed by our sweat. He found my opening, wet his fingertip, and withdrew. He cut a look at Caine, and I felt that brother back off, until Colt’s expert caresses had me writhing so hard, I no longer cared whose cock went into me, as long as someone’s did.

Caine moved close again, leaning over me as I knelt. I was resting my butt on Colt’s lap, but Caine gripped my hips and made me lift.

“Stay right there,” Caine ordered. Holding the position, I kept my eyes on Colt’s as Caine breeched my entrance and surged forward. Because Caine reached around me to grip the back of the sofa, I felt only the hand between my thighs and the one raking my hair out of my eyes—Colt’s hands.

Colt even moved his hips, thrusting in time with Caine’s efforts. With his forearm between us, I no longer felt his cock against my belly. In a leap of imagination only a stupid girl in love for the first time could make, the one inside me became his.

“God, look at those eyes,” Colt murmured. “So fuckin’ sexy to watch that innocence fade and see the eyes of a woman lookin’ back at me. I want to see your eyes when you come all over Caine’s cock.” His finger picked up speed, and between that touch, and the hard cock thrusting into me, I was flying.