She gave me a long, searching look. “I thought you didn’t do romantic relationships.”
“So did I.” I leaned forward and brushed my lips across hers. “But I think the truth was, I was really just waiting for you.”
Her face lit up, and I knew what I’d said had addressed whatever doubts she’d been mulling over.
“If I can get my internship transferred to Boston, I’ll go with you,” she said.
“And if you can’t?”
“I guess we’ll have to try the long-distance thing.”
Fuck that. I’d call in every favor owed to me if that’s what it took. I’d worked my ass off my whole life, never settling for anything less than the best, and I’d be damned if I didn’t do the same to ensure that Addison was by my side.
Thirty-Four
Cai
“You really think he’s in love?” I asked as I tried to figure out where I wanted to sit.
Being home again was…strange. Especially since not much had changed. The only concession I could see to Jax’s presence was the abundance of electronics. Grandfather had always been old school. No gaming systems, no cell phones, no tablets. The only reason he’d conceded to a computer had been when he’d realized we needed one for school.
“I think he sounded exactly like you did when you called me about Addison,” Jax said.
He bypassed the old leather chair that had always been Grandfather’s and sat in a chair I didn’t recognize. It fit with the décor but was newer. I finally settled at the near end of the couch, an eerie sense of déjà vu coming over me as I remembered sitting in this exact seat hundreds of times through my childhood and adolescence.
A short, curvy brunette waltzed into the room and leaned down to give Jax a brief kiss. “Your brother now thinks he’s quite the expert on love.”
He reached up and caught the back of her neck, pulling her back down for a deeper kiss that left her flushed and flustered.
“Tell Gilly I said that if she convinces you to buy more of that lingerie I like, she can buy herself some shoes on me.”
Syll darted a look at me, embarrassment staining her cheeks red. “That’s a dangerous bargain,” she said. “You know how she loves her shoes.”
Jax grinned, gripping his fiancée’s hip possessively. “I do, but I love you in that lace and silk even more.”
“I need to go,” Syll said softly. She leaned forward and kissed him again. “And you need to talk to your brother.”
It could have been an innocuous comment, stating the obvious, but something in her tone had me shifting in my seat. When Jax asked me to come over, I’d assumed he wanted to talk about my move, but now I wondered if there was something more behind it.
“It was nice to meet you, Cai,” Syll said as she walked away. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.”
“Good to meet you too,” I said. As she disappeared, I turned back to Jax. “She’s great.”
He gave me an easy smile that I hadn’t seen on his face since before our parents and sister died. I made a mental note to thank Syll for making this possible. If it hadn’t been for her, I didn’t doubt that Jax would’ve stayed the way he’d always been, hiring lawyers to try to get around Grandfather’s stipulations rather than being willing to try to patch things between us.
“How did things go yesterday?” Jax asked, sipping his glass of scotch.
Highland Park, I assumed. It had been Grandfather’s favorite.
“Really well,” I answered. “Dr. Fenster isn’t happy that I requested a transfer, but he talked to his contacts here and got things moving. He gave me a great recommendation too. The meeting went well. Dr. Harmon said he’d give me the official confirmation by Monday afternoon, but unofficially, the transfer has gone through.”
“That’s great,” Jax said sincerely. “And Addison?”
Just the mention of her was enough to make me smile. “She’s coming with me. I hadn’t been certain I could get her internship transferred, but once I explained how her thesis and my own work were closely related, Dr. Harmon agreed to make room for her up here.”
“I look forward to meeting her,” Jax said.
“I think she and Syll are going to get along. They’ll bond over having to take care of us.”
He laughed and nodded. “That sounds about right.” He took another drink from his glass. “If you need any help finding a place, let me know.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.” Then I added, “I’m just glad my lease is up at the end of the month.”
“What about your girl?” he asked. “Are you two looking for separate places, or together?”
I held my glass between both hands and stared down into the amber liquid. “I want to ask her to live with me,” I admitted, “but I think it’s too fast.”
“Cai, you’re talking to the man who proposed to a woman after knowing her for a month. And most of that month, she was pissed at me.”
My mouth lifted in a partial smile. “Good point.”
“Do you know where you’re going to stay if you don’t have a place before you start work up here?” he asked. “Because you’re both welcome to stay here. I’ve cleaned out most of Grandfather’s things from the floor he used. It has its own private entrance, and we put in a kitchenette in one of the rooms.”
I swallowed hard, touched by the surprising offer. “Thank you. I’ll probably take you up on that.”
Jax drained his glass, his expression becoming serious. This was it, my gut told me, the real reason he asked me to stop by before I returned to Atlanta. He stood and walked over to the curio in the corner. He took something out of the middle drawer and brought it over to me.
“I received this in the mail three weeks ago.” He returned to his seat.
I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a painful squeeze. Grandfather had left Jax a letter. Why, then, hadn’t I gotten one?
I took the letter out of the envelope and began to read, hoping for an answer to my question.
Jax,
Upon the event of my death…
The longer I read, the more I wished this was some awful joke. But I knew that neither Jax nor Grandfather had that sort of sense of humor. When I finished it, I slumped back in the chair and looked up at my brother.
“What the hell?”
Jax nodded, his expression grim. “That was pretty much my reaction too.”
“He hired a PI because he thought the car accident wasn’t an accident.” I felt like I needed to repeat it, as if it would make a difference.
“Bartholomew Constantine,” Jax said. “I’ve talked to him.”
I had hundreds of questions, and the one that popped out surprised me. “It’s been twenty-four years. He’s still around?”
“He’d just opened his business when Grandfather hired him,” Jax explained. “He’s in his fifties now, and he’s got a thriving practice. Nothing dicey in his past, nearly one hundred percent client satisfaction, and the few complaints I could find seemed like petty things.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with Grandfather’s suspicions,” I said. “He clearly didn’t find enough evidence to convince Grandfather that he was wrong.”
Jax was silent for a moment, his hands clasped in front of him, his posture tense. His eyes met mine, and they burned with an intensity I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“The thing is, Cai, after talking to Constantine, I don’t think Grandfather was wrong at all. I think someone killed our family.”
Thirty-Five
Addison
If someone had told me two months ago that by mid-March, I’d be in Boston with Dr. Cai Hunter, who was not only my supervisor but also my lover, and that we’d moved to allow him to reconcile with his billionaire brother…just thinking about how insane that sounded made my head hurt.
I wondered how long it would take me to get used to the surreal world that was now my life. When Cai had asked me to go with him to Boston, all my common sense told me that saying y
es would be the stupidest decision I’d ever make, but I hadn’t listened, because what I felt for Cai defied common sense.
I’d spent a few days with my stomach in knots while Cai worked things out for not only his transfer but mine – as well as telling his soon-to-be new bosses about our relationship. But one thing I’d learned about Cai was that when he had his mind set on something, no one could stop him.
The fact that we were here, with our new jobs officially starting Monday morning and our relationship out in the open, was a testament to his persistence.
We’d just said goodnight to Jax and Syll after a wonderful dinner, and were now on ‘our’ floor, which was larger than both my apartment in Atlanta and the apartment where I’d been raised in Minnesota. I couldn’t imagine having grown up in this house, with so much room, even with having three siblings. Cai said not much had changed, except on this floor, a kitchenette, and a door had been added to make it more like a separate apartment. It made it a little less awkward to share the house with Jax and Syll.
“Everything all right with Dorly?” Cai asked as he toed off his shoes. “I’m guessing that’s who texted you during dinner.”
“She’s fine,” I said as I took off my shoes and stretched my arms above my head. My joints popped pleasantly. “Just freaking out about Codie moving in tomorrow.”
“Didn’t Codie stay at the apartment most nights anyway?”
I nodded. “Dorly said she’s glad me leaving gave her the kick in the ass she needed to finally ask Codie to move in, but she’s nervous. She’s never lived with anyone before. Roommates, yeah, but not with someone she loved.”
Cai turned toward me, and the heat in his eyes kicked my pulse up a notch. We’d gotten here yesterday, but with everything we’d been doing, we hadn’t done anything more than kiss or exchange innocent touches like holding hands. One would think after having gone most off my life without sex, it’d be easy to go a few days.
Not so much.
“Go stand by the balcony doors.”
I did as I was told, turning away from him when he twirled his finger, giving me a silent command. I watched his reflection in the glass, my heart skipping and tripping as anticipation danced across my nerves. It was times like this I wondered if this was how it felt to be an addict craving a fix.
“Spread your legs.”
He stood behind me, the heat from his body flowing over my skin, enveloping me. He unzipped my dress, easing it off my body with a slow, sensual caress. It dropped to the floor, and I kicked it aside without taking my eyes off his reflection.
He didn’t say a word as he reached down between my legs and moved my panties to one side. I gasped as he slid a finger inside me, twisting and curling it until it rubbed my g-spot.
“Ahh…” A shaky breath escaped.
“Do you like that, Little Red?”
“Yes, yes, yes…”
He added a second finger, pumping them both into me hard and fast. I swayed forward and put out my hands, catching myself on the glass.
“What do you want?” His voice was a quiet rumble, full of the promise of sex. “Tell me.”
“I want to come,” I said immediately.
“What do you want me to do to you?” he clarified.
“Make me come,” I said. “Fingers, mouth, cock, I don’t care. I need to come so badly. I need you to take me out of my head, make me forget about everything else. I just want to think about you and how you make me feel and not have to worry about work or finding a place to live or…”
My run of words disappeared into a yelp as Cai sunk his teeth into my ass. He hadn’t broken skin, but he hadn’t been gentle either. It was exactly what I needed though. The shock of it jerked me out of my head and took me to that lovely place where I didn’t have to think or plan but could simply let go and give Cai control over all of me.
I cried out as a finger invaded my ass, the burn sudden, providing the spark I needed to reach my first climax of the night. He worked both of his hands, using those long, skilled fingers of his to push me from one orgasm into a second without pause.
When he finally removed his fingers, my knees buckled. He caught me around the waist and swung me up into his arms. He carried me into the bedroom we’d claimed and laid me on the bed. My body was still limp as he rolled me onto my side and pulled my knees up to my chest.
I was vaguely aware of him removing his clothes, but it wasn’t until I felt the tip of his cock nudging at my pussy that I completely came back to the present. He leaned over me, one arm under my knees to keep my body folded in half, and he nipped my earlobe.
“We’re going to work that ass open soon, Little Red,” he promised.
Before I could respond, he snapped his hips forward, sending my muscles into convulsions as they struggled to adapt to a position they didn’t understand. I started to wail, but Cai’s hand quickly covered my mouth.
“Shh, Little Red. Don’t want Jax and Syll running up here, thinking you’re in trouble.”
As he drove into me, his body colliding with mine over and over, I didn’t care about Jax and Syll. In fact, I was confident that if they did see us, they’d completely understand why I was making those sounds. This position made me tighter than usual, and Cai was far from small. Still, I wouldn’t trade the pain-edged pleasure for anything.
Time melted away, and all I knew was the feel of sweat-slicked skin slipping and muscles straining and oh my fucking –
“Cai!!” I screamed against his hand as my vision went white.
“Not yet,” he said through gritted teeth.
I could feel the tension in him, everything taut and ready to snap, but he didn’t falter. He was in perfect control as he sent me from brilliant light to a graying darkness, my brain shutting down as it found itself incapable of processing anything more.
When I came to, I was still curled on my side, and he was softening inside me. His cock slipped out as he lay down behind me, wrapping his body around mine. I kissed his arm, too exhausted to reach anything else.
“I love you,” he said as he smoothed curls back from my face.
“I love you too.”
I’d never imagined saying those words or having them said back to me, but now I couldn’t imagine living without them. Not for the sake of the words alone, but because of who said them.
“You know,” he said slowly, “I’ve been thinking. It doesn’t make sense for us to try to find two different places to live.”
I turned my head, so I could see his face. “What are you saying, Cai?”
He rested his forehead on mine. “I want to fall asleep like this and wake up together. I want us to eat our meals and go to work together.”
I tried not to feel too much hope. “I think I’m going to need you to spell this out so there’s no misunderstanding.”
“I want you to move in with me,” he said without any hesitation. “Or, more accurately, I want us to find a place together. I know it’s fast, but you’ve seen Jax and Syll, and they’re engaged after just one month. You and I are just as well-matched as they are, if not better. We’ve shared space before, plus we do it at work too.”
This was crazy, but so was every other part of our lives that had brought us together. It was that, as much as anything else, that made me smile. “Yes.”
“Yes?” His face lit up with a huge smile.
I nodded, rolling over so that we were facing each other. I pressed my mouth to his, a quick, heated kiss. “Yes, Cai. I want to live with you. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. We belong together.”
He slid his hands down to grasp my ass and yank me tight against him. “Damn right we do.”
Our decision didn’t mean everything would magically work itself out, or that the tension between the brothers would resolve itself, but it did mean that we wouldn’t be facing any of it alone, and that was more than good enough for me.
The Hunter Brothers continues in Slade’s story, His Hunger. CLICK HERE to learn more.
&n
bsp; Also by M. S. Parker
His Obsession
His Control
His Hunger
Big O’s
Rescued by the Woodsman
Sex Coach
The Billionaire’s Muse
Bound
One Night Only
Damage Control
Take Me, Sir
Make Me Yours
The Billionaire’s Sub
The Billionaire’s Mistress
Con Man Box Set
HERO Box Set
A Legal Affair Box Set
The Client
Indecent Encounter
Dom X Box Set
Unlawful Attraction Box Set
Chasing Perfection Box Set
Blindfold Box Set
Club Prive Box Set
The Pleasure Series Box Set
Exotic Desires Box Set
Pure Lust Box Set
Casual Encounter Box Set
Sinful Desires Box Set
Twisted Affair Box Set
Serving HIM Box Set
About the Author
M. S. Parker is a USA Today Bestselling author and the author of over fifty spicy romance series and novels.
Living part-time in Las Vegas, part-time on Maui, she enjoys sitting by the pool with her laptop writing her next spicy romance.
Growing up all she wanted to be was a dancer, actor and author. So far only the latter has come true but M. S. Parker hasn’t retired her dancing shoes just yet. She is still waiting for the call to appear on Dancing With The Stars.
When M. S. isn't writing, she can usually be found reading– oops, scratch that! She is always writing.
For more information:
www.msparker.com
[email protected] Acknowledgments
First, I would like to thank all of my readers. Without you, my books would not exist. I truly appreciate each and every one of you.