Learning to Drown (16 page)

I let out the breath I hadn't even
realized I'd been holding. Why was I not surprised that Lucas commanded trust
and respect.

"Thank you."

"Sure thing. I aim to
please." He winked in an almost ornery way that made me smile. "So
come on down and get fed and we'll discuss Matthew's lesson."

I couldn't help but wonder if
Matthew's lesson to learn was anything like my lesson to learn. Part of me, the
dirty desperate secret part of me, sure as hell hoped so.

Chapter 18

"I'm not doing this, Lucas. You
may be my brother and older, but it's only half and the half of you telling me
to do this is the half I disown." Matthew poured coffee, his lean jaw
tight with anger.

Why hadn't he just left, I wondered.
He has a submissive streak too, but only to his brother. Lucas had seemingly
given up the better part of his youth to care for his brother. Shared
everything- including the occasional woman it seemed, so there was loyalty
there. And the need to please. I dipped my head, sipping my own coffee.
Waiting.

"Then leave. No big deal. I
choose not to share Ember with you and now you can go."

Matthew stammered, obviously
unaccustomed to being told no at all. "But why? Why her? What's the big
deal about her? Is it because you rescued her? So what? Once upon a time you
rescued me and..." He trailed off. Maybe realizing he was being a brat,
maybe realizing that there was a correlation.

I did wonder why I was special, but I
cherished  it too. Bottom line, my insides, my gut, told me to do what Lucas
asked of me. If that meant I was shared, so be it. If I meant that was his, so
be it. And I wouldn't even turn it over and over and over in my head the way I
normally did. I would embrace it for what it was. I would not analyze. For me
that was huge.

"Learn your lesson. Get a taste
of what she feels, and you can stay." Lucas put his clean mug in the
dishwasher. His voice was soft, his eyes kind, his demeanor easy. This was a 
yes or no deal, no questions asked. Matthew would capitulate or he wouldn't.
Case closed.

"No." Matthew said, dumping
his coffee into the sink. He put the mug away, despite his anger and I found
that amusing. He gave Lucas a half assed salute, grabbed his car keys and
turned. "Hope she's worth it, bro." He grinned and went out the
kitchen door.

"I'm sorry if I had something to
do with this...upset." I said, sipping my coffee. Sugary and darkly sweet,
it was heaven.

"It's been a long time coming. I
think little brother needs to not have every little thing handed to him and
life shouldn't be so easy. He needs it. He needs to see what others go through
for him to be happy sometimes."

"Have you ever--" I cut
myself off. Maybe I should let it go.

Lucas sat, rested his chin on his hand
and watched me. His eyes tracked me like I was prey. I bet he was a phenomenal
hunter. I felt both threatened and protected in the same breath and the irony
wasn't lost on me despite being partially drunk on sex at the moment.
"Have I ever what, Ember? Go on. Don't stop now."

"Have you ever been on the other
side of the coin. Have you ever been the um..weak one?"

"The submissive?"

I nodded, looking quickly down at his
hands. They didn't twist or fret. They sat on the table, large and strong, marked
by scars and the passage of time and hard work.

"I have. But only to my father.
And that was a long, long time ago. And he was not a kind man. So my submission
was against my will and had nothing to do with sex. I was his son. I was his
possession. So I would bend to his will no matter what. At least that was how
he saw it."

My gaze went to the scar in his brow
and something in me went cold and sad for him. "I'm sorry. But you weren't
that way with Matthew. You changed that."

"Yes. And no, I guess. I think me
being so protective of him has given him that little taste of the cruel streak
our father had. And now I don't want..."

He stood and I started at his sudden
movement and the shriek of the wood chair legs on the kitchen floor.
"What?"

"I'm not sure I want to share
you. And if I do, it's on my terms. Completely. Not factoring him into the
equation, but operating completely and thoroughly selfishly. Fuck it. Once in a
while we are worthy of something just for ourselves."

He bent and kissed me on the lips. I
kissed him back. It was an entirely different kind of kiss. Soft and fragile,
tasting sweet on my lips. Like affection.

"Come to bed when you're done
that coffee. Come lay with me."

It didn't sound like a command. It
sounded like a request. It sounded like a plea. I nodded. "I will." I
drank my coffee slowly.

* * * *

I crawled into bed sure he was asleep.
It felt somehow odd to be lying down in his bed of my own accord. I wasn't
being carried or told or topped. I was just a woman crawling into the warm bed
of a handsome man in the dark of night. Nothing more.

"I wasn't sure you were coming. I
thought maybe you came to your senses and left," he said. His arm snaked
out, unseen but strong and pulled me into the warm curve of his body. I kissed
his bicep, snugly fitted with an affectionate, possessive ease around my neck.

"Just finishing my coffee and
absorbing. Marveling at the fact that I'm here."

"And considering the madness that
is me and my brother?" he laughed. When he turned to me, I felt serene. It
was a welcome feeling. Bizarre in context but one I embraced.

"No. Not so much. Marveling more
that it took me so long fit this oddly shaped puzzle piece about myself to fall
into place."

"But you knew." He parted my
thighs, running his fingers along my skin so that I shivered. There was
sweetness here. Not a power move, but a intimacy that made my heart ache a bit.

It was one thing to be dominated and
topped. It was another to be vulnerable. We were equal here. And that was
wonderful and unnerving. I opened my legs a bit more and he settled between my
thighs, pressing the length of his cock to the split of my nether lips. I
opened my mouth for his kiss, shook a little when he shoved his hands into my
hair and held my head still so he could kiss me deeper.

"I didn't know it all," I
said. "It was just a fucked up fantasy. Like being turned on by those
nasty kinky ads at the back of magazines," I confessed.

Lucas rocked against me, the friction
from his cock readying my body for him yet again. I didn't know it was possible
to take a man over and over and not tire, to always be open to him. Want him.
With Lucas, I wanted him always. Every time he looked at me. Every time I heard
his voice. Something in the most secret part of me responded to him like a sinner
to a confessor.

"Oh, dirty girl," he teased.
He moved a little faster, big hands moving from my messy mane of hair to hold
my wrists flush to the mattress. He pressed hard and I gasped, the air forced
out of my lungs even as his tongue forced past my lips. His hips banged
relentlessly to mine. My clit responding first with a sweet soreness, then with
a thumping pulse of arousal. That fast I was ready.

Lucas rolled to his back pulling me
with him. I sat atop him, my pussy flush to his belly, his cock brushing and
nudging the crack of my ass. "This time you're on top, love. I want you. I
want you to want me. And I want you in control."

"I can't top you," I
laughed, my face flushing with heat that I was grateful he couldn't see.

"I didn't say top me, Ember. I
just said, you're on top. I want to watch you."

"But you can't see me."

I felt him reach out and a small
orange glow lit by the bedside. A tiny lamp, antique and golden, giving off a
meager light through an antique frame. It didn't even illuminate his whole
face, it only gave it shadowy edges and plains lit by amber. "You look
golden now," he said.

I
felt
all golden. I pulled the
tee he had given me to sleep in over my head and dropped it off the edge of the
bed. His hands came up to find my breasts, cupping me. He rolled my nipples
between his strong fingers so that a tiny echoing tug of excitement sounded in
my throat. I rocked my wet hole to his cock and waited. I wanted to see his
hands on me before I was lost in the fucking. I wanted to hear the whisper of
his hands moving over my skin.

He stroked down my ribcage so that
goose bumps jumped up on my skin. His hand traveled the flat of my middle to
the small swell of my belly to my bare mound. He found me with his thumb,
pressing my clit so that my body warmed and trembled and began to move on its
own. I raised up, putting the head of his cock to me, sinking so slowly that
even I felt a bit mad and restless, but I wanted to be slow. I wanted to sink
into all of it. Not lost in the ties and the orders and the sharing of
brothers, but locked right here in this shallow golden light with him. Just him
and I. Me on top, him eager and hard and ready.

"Jesus, Ember," he groaned.
Lucas surge up under me a bit, forcing his cock home. Forcing into my cunt a
millimeter at a time so that I fell forward, my lips to his lips, my breasts to
his chest. Our hands tangled and I began to move, sliding him all the way in so
that I was full of him. By body full of his hardness, my mouth full of his
tongue, my soul full of whatever it was he was showing me. Impossible to
completely decipher yet, but so important. So wildly needed.

"I love you," I whispered,
and when he opened his mouth to answer me, I kissed it shut. "Don't answer
me," I said. "It makes no sense."

He didn't. Instead he moved up, up, up
into me over and over again. His forceful fingers pressed into my hips, pulling
me down. Anchoring me to him. Cunt to cock, pelvis to pelvis. I gripped his
hands to hold on. To not fly away. I moved in a slow sinuous dance until that
was wrong and then I threw my body forward again over his and moved faster.
Lucas locked his hands behind my back and moved harder into me. I was so close
and he said, "Ember, about what you said, I--"

I cried for a second then and blurted
a flurry of words "Please. If you care at all how I feel, let it go. Just
let me come. Don’t remember that I said that. It’s all too fast, I know."

Lucas moved faster, kissing me softly,
dark eyes locked to mine in the barely there glow of the antique lamp.
"Come on, then," he said. "Come for me."

I did. A damp heavenly release that
had me muttering under my breath. Words I couldn't hear myself or even feel on
my tongue. Some secret language of that perfect moment in time where I felt
understood. Completely.

Chapter 19

It was barely dawn, I felt Lucas roll
out of the bed. Watched him pad to the door and I heard Daisy grunt. Most
likely not too happy with the fact that the female in his bed wasn't her.
"Good girl," he said.

I flushed as if he were talking to me.
My body, now wired to react to his tone and his voice itself, warmed for him.
How swiftly I had gone from frustrated, orchestrating, bossy girlfriend of
Damien to easy, pliable submissive. Lucas's woman. Easy and pliable for him. I
shook my head. I knew Dawn would  give me the wedding job if I got back to her
soon. I would play this out and see where it went. I had time. I’d make time.

My secret fear was it was short
termed. I would be his toy for a week, he'd share me with his brother and toss 
me aside. Logically that made sense and it sent a spark of shame and anxiety
burning in my stomach. But my heart said that wasn't the case. My instinct and
that small quiet place in the center of me said that he felt more for me. The
same way I inexplicably felt more for him.

I sat up, hearing voices downstairs.
It was barely six and the light was a surreal cornflower blue making the air
look more like water than anything else. Daisy grunted again and I smiled.
Bitch. She still didn't like me and that was fine. I wasn't too keen on her,
either.

I could hear the deep mutterings of
men talking and I sat there, the white, smooth sheets draped around me. It was
an odd feeling not knowing what to do. Rising in the morning with no purpose
other than to find out what was in store for you today. Not waking up with an
alarm, a schedule, an agenda. I waited, listening to Daisy breathe, listening
to Lucas talking to someone. Listening and waiting.

Finally, I heard footsteps on the
steps. I expected the door to open, but it didn't. The shower in the hall, not
the master suite, kicked on and I heard Lucas whistling. A sound I had only
heard before when he was cooking.

Downstairs the cabinet slammed. The
one that had no stopper on it, so heavy wood smacked heavy wood with a bang.
Someone else was here. Were they going out on a job? Was I going with them for
that matter?

I lay back on Lucas's bed, stretched,
waited. He'd tell me what was what eventually. For now I'd wait. I studied the
window blinds as the sun climbed into the sky.

The sun was fully up and the white
walls were golden with sunlight when the door opened. Lucas sat and the bed
bowed under his weight. "I know you're faking it, September," he
whispered and I could hear the smile in his voice.