I understood that.
“Until recently.”
“Your grandfather,” I murmured.
He nodded. “That too. But we’d always known that loving him was the only thing we had in common since the accident. When I went back to Boston, I already had in my head that this would be it. That I’d likely never see my brothers again until another funeral. Maybe a wedding.”
“What changed?” I asked.
“Before I flew home, the four of us had a conversation that revealed there was one other thing we had in common. BDSM.”
I made a face. “Wasn’t it weird, talking to your brothers about stuff like that?”
He shrugged. “It’s not like we talked about our favorite positions or anything like that. Just the…idea of it.”
“I think I’d rather go back to that shed without a suit than talk to my siblings about sex,” I said. “Just the thought of it…” I shuddered.
Cai stood and carried his plate back over to the food service cart. “I’m still waiting for a call about the company plane. Do you want to go do something today? It’s beautiful outside.”
“Outside might be nice,” I said. “Is there something you’d like to see?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to this part of Texas before. My brother lives in El Paso, but I’ve never been there either.”
From the way his shoulders suddenly tightened, I knew he hadn’t meant to say that last bit.
“Did you tell him you were nearby?” I already knew the answer but asked it anyway.
“I love my brothers, Addison, but one fifteen-minute talk about our mutual interest in particular sexual preferences didn’t make us close. We went our own ways a long time ago.”
I stood and crossed over to where he was, his back still to me. “I know it’s not my place, but they’re your family. You don’t have to let your grandfather’s death break you apart more than you are. You can let it be a second chance.”
He made a derisive sound. “You sound like my grandfather. He wanted us to make amends. Made it part of his will, in fact. If we want our inheritance, we must reconcile. And his lawyer is going to be the judge of whether or not we’ve done that.”
I told myself that it wasn’t my place to put a judgement on his family, but I couldn’t help but wonder how tough things must have been if his grandfather had felt the need to take such drastic measures. “Your brother that lives nearby, how do you get along with him? Compared to your other brothers, I mean.”
“Slade’s pretty easy to get along with,” he said. “He just never takes anything but work seriously.”
I took a chance and put my hand on his arm. “I think we’ve had enough seriousness since we’ve been here. Something, a little lighter sounds like it might be worth a shot.”
He didn’t answer, but I knew he was thinking about it. He might not have been aware of it, but I’d heard it in his voice. He didn’t want things with his brothers to stay the way they were. He wanted to make things right, and I was going to help him do just that.
Twenty-Three
Cai
How had I let her talk me into this? I was supposed to be the one in control, but somehow, Addison had convinced me that calling Slade was the best thing to do. I hadn’t really expected him to pick up the phone, but he had, and I found myself saying that I’d like to see him while I was in the area. To my surprise, he’d accepted, and that was how I now found myself walking into Tabla with Addison at my side.
She’d argued about coming, but then I’d pointed out that she was the only reason this dinner was happening. It’d taken me threatening to cancel if she didn’t come with me, but I’d finally gotten her to agree, under one condition. She wanted to buy something nice to wear.
Nice didn’t begin to cover it.
The dress was simple enough, but on her, it looked like something right off the runway. The deep, pine green complemented her coloring, and the long, flowing style made her look even taller than she already was. She’d gotten a pair of dressy sandals with enough of a heel to put her a few inches closer to my height, but that was where things ended. No jewelry and barely any makeup.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, not even when the hostess escorted us back to the table where my brother was waiting.
“Cai, it’s good to see you again.” Slade rose from his seat and held out a hand.
I shook it, resisting the urge to squeeze as his gaze shifted from me to Addison. He didn’t even try to hide the admiration in those damned baby blues of his.
“Slade, this is Addison Kilar. Addison, this is my little brother, Slade.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said politely.
I had to stop myself from touching her just to let Slade know where things stood, but she didn’t let the handshake linger. I pulled out her chair, smiling at the pleased expression on her face. Once we were all settled, Slade ordered a cheese plate and some pear thing. I had to admit, I was surprised that this was the place he’d chosen.
“The chef here is a friend of mine,” he answered my unspoken question. “I helped his daughter out of a tough spot last year.”
“Slade’s a DEA agent,” I explained to Addison.
“It seemed like a good way to put my army training to work,” he said easily. He brushed back his dark hair, leaning back in his chair with that casual grace that had always gotten him the attention of pretty much every straight woman around. Half the time, I didn’t think he was even aware of it, but tonight, I didn’t care.
I finally had something that was mine, and I wasn’t going to let my slick brother steal her from me.
I leaned closer to Addison, letting my arm brush against hers. “If you get tired, just say the word, and we’ll go back to the hotel. You shouldn’t get run down.”
She nodded, but the look she gave me said that she knew my comment had been meant for Slade as much as it was for her.
“Is something wrong?” Slade asked, his concern genuine enough that I couldn’t be annoyed by it without being a bastard.
“I work with Cai at the CDC,” she answered. “We were in Pecan Grove, and I was exposed to the infection there.”
She glanced at me, giving me a warm smile that I felt all the way down to my toes. She reached over and put her hand on mine. I curled my fingers around hers, the gesture so natural that I barely realized I was doing it until it was done.
“He found a cure and saved me, along with everyone else who’d been affected.” She turned her attention back to Slade but didn’t pull her hand away. “You guys must be so proud of everything he’s done.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Slade responded, “We are.”
“Now,” she continued with a smile, “what’s your favorite dish here?”
Food was an easy enough topic of conversation that I found myself able to start relaxing. I didn’t contribute much, but what I observed spoke volumes. I’d never taken the opportunity to watch my brother, and now that I was, what I realized surprised me.
Under that laid-back veneer was an edge almost as sharp as the one I felt in myself. Slade had always been the funny brother, the one who eased tensions between the rest of us, the diplomat and peacemaker. He’d been that way before our parents had died – or at least as much as a five-year-old could be – but I wondered now how much of him was a mask.
“Have you spoken with Jax?” I asked during a lull in a discussion regarding the pros and cons of winter weather.
Slade took a drink before answering, “Not since I left Boston. You?”
“Monday evening, actually.” I kept my tone casual. “I called him while I was waiting to see how everyone was going to respond to the treatment. I was having difficulty doing nothing.”
“You’ve never struck me as the impatient type,” Slade said. “Spending all those hours looking at bacteria and viruses, going over things hundreds of times.”
I couldn’t tell him that under normal circumstances, I was a patient p
erson, but those hadn’t exactly been normal. He’d want to know why, and with Addison sitting right next to me, I couldn’t say it. Not when I was still trying to figure out what it all meant.
I shrugged and gave a half-assed answer. “Impatience can get the best of any of us.”
I felt Addison’s eyes on me but didn’t look at her. She was far too observant.
“What did he have to say?” Slade asked, stabbing a piece of duck with his fork.
“He’s building that club he talked to us about.”
Slade’s eyes darted toward Addison and back again.
“It’s okay,” I said. “She knows.”
I left the explanation at that. He could make of it what he wanted, and if part of that assumption was that Addison and I were intimately involved enough for her to know about that, all for the better.
“Does that mean he got that woman to sell her bar?”
I shook my head. “You’re not going to believe this.”
I’d forgotten how much I’d enjoyed Slade’s stories. He’d always had a knack for spinning tales that were a hundred times more elaborate than what had actually happened, but they were so good that no one ever minded that they were exaggerated.
“How have you not gotten fired?” Addison asked, her voice breathless with laughter.
Slade gave her that charming, irascible grin that had made him one of the most popular guys in our school. “Technically, I wasn’t on the clock.”
“How have you not gotten arrested then?”
“He’s always been good at getting out of trouble,” I said wryly. “Remember that time you found a goat and set it loose in the school? What were you then, a junior? Senior? We thought for sure you were going to get arrested. Expelled at the very least. Instead, you got what, two weeks of detention?”
“A week,” he corrected and gave me a strange look. “I was a senior, which meant you and Jax were already gone. How did you know about that?”
“Just because Jax and I were in college didn’t mean we forgot about you and Blake.”
The look on Slade’s face said that was exactly what he’d thought had happened, and for the first time since I heard what Grandfather expected of us, I realized that he’d been right. Even though Slade and Blake had their own issues, Jax and I were the most responsible for what happened to us. We were the oldest, the ones our brothers should have been able to come to, but we’d let them down.
Slade looked away and the moment passed, but the smile he gave Addison didn’t look quite as real as it had before. I’d never seen it before, how Slade had used his charm and humor to placate and deflect, not just between family members, but also to keep his own thoughts and feelings hidden.
He steered the conversation away from family, and I let him. I wanted to know more about his life beyond the surface things that he’d shared in Boston, and not pressuring him about the past was the best way to do it. He wasn’t ready and forcing him to talk about those things would only push him away more.
As we said our goodbyes, and Addison and I rode back to the hotel, something registered so deeply within me that I knew it had to be true. That if I didn’t follow the path it showed me, I’d regret it.
I needed to make amends with my brothers, starting with Jax.
It seemed Grandfather would be able to dictate his will for me after all.
Twenty-Four
Addison
Cai was quiet on the way back to the hotel, and that in and of itself wasn’t necessarily unusual, but my gut told me that this was different. This had more to do with the handsome young man we’d left back in El Paso than it did with personality. I wanted to ask him about it, but despite everything that’d happened between us, I didn’t think we were at a point in our…whatever this was…for it to be okay for me to get involved.
I could, however, make sure that he knew I was here if he needed me.
As we walked into the lobby, a rather nervous-looking man approached. “Dr. Hunter, I’m glad I caught you.”
Even though he’d only spoken to Cai, I stopped as well.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes, sir.” He looked like he would’ve been wringing his hands if it wouldn’t have been unprofessional. “I’m afraid there’s a problem with your room.”
I’d completely forgotten that he’d booked his own room since he’d barely spent any time in it.
“A pipe burst. Your luggage, fortunately, wasn’t anywhere near it, but you won’t be able to stay there tonight.”
“As long as there wasn’t any damage to anything, there’s no problem,” Cai said. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I can move to another room for the night.”
“That’s just it, Dr. Hunter. We don’t have any additional rooms available. We usually keep two rooms reserved for emergencies, but one of those was also affected by the burst pipe, and the other was taken about an hour before the incident.”
This was something I could help him with. “It’s okay,” I said with a smile. “We can share a room.”
The man’s cheeks flushed, and I wondered how long he’d been working here. If he became that embarrassed when there was no reason for him to think I was anything other than a colleague offering some space on the floor or in a chair, he’d never be able to survive the moment when a sixty-year-old man came in with a twenty-five-year-old prostitute.
“She’s right,” Cai said quickly. “We can share. Do you have the things from my room?”
“Yes, sir. Would you like me to have them brought up to the young lady’s room?”
Cai shook his head. “I’ll take them.”
“Yes, sir.” He scurried off, looking, in my mind, very much like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.
“‘I’m late for a very important date,’” I murmured.
He gave me a funny look. “What was that?”
“Doesn’t he remind you of the White Rabbit?”
It took Cai a moment to get it, but when he did, he laughed, and I felt some of the tension in him ease. He brushed off the apologies the manager offered, giving the man a polite smile before taking his things and walking with me to the elevator.
When the doors closed, Cai glanced down at me. “I’ll call down for an extra pillow and blanket.”
I was genuinely surprised. “Why?”
“They’ll make the chair more comfortable.”
“You don’t have to sleep in the chair,” I said, hoping my voice sounded more casual to Cai than it did to me.
“Addison,” he said slowly, “what are you saying?”
I reached over and took his hand. “We’re going home tomorrow, and whatever this is between us…with work…with our separate lives…let’s give ourselves tonight. No thinking about the future, or what this means. Just tonight.”
For a moment, I thought he’d refuse, tell me that this had been a huge mistake. Then the doors opened, and he leaned down to brush a kiss across the top of my head.
“I’d like that very much.”
I let out a sigh of relief as I pulled the bobby pins out of my hair. My curls tended to get a little wild, but I’d wanted them to look a little sleeker than usual for our dinner, so I’d taken the time to pin them. Now, I shook them out, letting them tumble over my shoulders, then rubbed my fingers against my scalp.
“Why didn’t you wear your hair like that tonight?”
I gasped, my hand going to my chest. “You startled me.”
“Sorry,” Cai said with a smile. He came into the bathroom, stopping behind me. He met my eyes in the mirror. “You have beautiful hair.”
I flushed. “Thank you.”
He reached out and let a curl coil around his finger. “Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t wear it down.” He stepped closer. “Don’t misunderstand me. You were beautiful in that dress and with your hair, but I don’t think I would have liked it very much if Slade had gotten to see you like this.”
A thrill went through me at what he said, how he said it. He had a gre
at voice normally, but when we were like this, it dropped to something that felt like warm honey coating my skin…but without the uncomfortable stickiness.
“When you said that we could have tonight,” he continued, “I don’t want to make any assumption about what you meant.”
“Then let me make myself clear.” I leaned back against his chest. “I want whatever you’re willing to give me tonight.”
His eyes darkened, the intensity of those blue depths making my knees weak. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Little Red.”
He was one of the few people who could call me ‘little’ and not be ironic about it. I liked it.
I smiled at him as I reached over to the side zipper of my dress. I unzipped it without looking away from him, waiting until it was down all the way until I spoke again. “I know exactly what I’m asking for…Sir.”
He growled and grabbed my hair, yanking my head back and twisting it so he could claim my mouth. And that’s what it felt like. Claiming. His tongue sweeping between my lips to explore. Teeth biting my bottom lip, then the top, before pulling it into his mouth to soothe it with lips and tongue.
He wasn’t touching me anywhere except my hair and my mouth, but my body hummed nonetheless. It was a deep, thorough kiss, and by the time he broke contact, my breathing was ragged, and my panties were wet.
“Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”
“Fuck me,” I answered without any hesitation. “I want you to fuck me.”
He smiled, but it was a dangerous sort of smile. One to which I could easily become addicted.
“Oh, I’m going to do that.” He hooked his fingers under the straps of my dress. “Tell me more.”
Butterflies took flight in my stomach. I trusted him, but the thought of sharing fantasies, desires, that I’d never told anyone else about, made me more nervous than I’d ever been before.
He put his mouth next to my ear. “What is it that you’re holding back?” He slipped the straps off my shoulders and let the dress fall to the floor. “Tell me.”