He backed me out of the nursery, closing the door behind us before pressing me against the wall outside. His hips held me in place while his hands traced down my body, his lips still on my neck. “I could eat you up, Angel.”
A mewl-like sound left me as I leaned my head back against the wall, letting him drive me crazy with his lips and hands. I didn’t have time for this, but there wasn’t a force in the world that would make me stop him. I craved his hands on me every second of the day. I constantly felt like I was starving for him. Our sex life was still as hot as it had been from the first time he’d kissed me. The flame hadn’t died out or even dimmed over the years. I suspected we’d still be this hot for each other when we were too old to remember our own names.
Drake kissed his way up my neck, across my jaw and finally reached my lips. He teased my mouth open with his tongue, his hands sliding between me and the wall and cupping my ass. “I love you,” he breathed against my lips.
My fingers stroked through his hair, pulling him closer. “I love you, too.”
His hands contracted on my ass and he lowered his head until his forehead was pressed against my chest. “Don’t ever stop. Promise me.”
Concern for him pushed its way into my desire-fogged head. I tightened my hold on his hair but he wouldn’t lift his head. What the hell is going on with him? I couldn’t help wondering what was going through his head. “Dray, I’ll love you until my last breath. Haven’t I convinced you of that yet?”
He lifted his head and gave me that forced smile that had been on his face all too often lately. “Yeah, Angel. You’ve more than convinced me. I just need the promise every now and then.”
I cupped his jaw, my thumb rubbing over his chin as I tried to read him, but he was blocking me out. “I promise that I will never stop loving you. Ever.” I pushed up onto my tip-toes and brushed my lips over his. “I love you, I need you, I want you. Always.”
A hiss left his lips and he lifted me into his arms. My legs went around his waist, my arms around his neck. I felt his cock flex against my pussy and he took two steps toward our bedroom.
The doorbell ringing stopped him in his tracks and I silently cursed whichever family member that had arrived. Drake’s fingers tightened on me and a deep chuckle rumbled out of him. “Figures.”
I pressed my head against his chest, disappointment flooding through me just as harshly as the need that was still burning through my entire body. “People suck.”
“No, they don’t.” I felt his lips on the top of my head. The doorbell rang again and he reluctantly set me on my feet. “I’ll get that while you go change. Your panties are soaked, babe.”
I leaned weakly against him. “It’s your fault.”
His laugh was deeper this time, making my panties that much wetter. “I’m not complaining, Angel. I’m definitely not complaining.”
Chapter Three
Drake
My stomach was full of the delicious meal Angel had worked so hard to prepare and I was ready for everyone to leave. That wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon. My overly full house was likely to stay that way until midnight. My sisters and bandbrothers along with their families were all having a good time, none of them seeming to notice that I was itching to push them all out the door.
Cole, Devlin, Harris, Nik, Shane, and Jesse were scattered around my family room watching football and trying not to fall into a food coma after consuming the huge-ass turkey Angel had spent all day cooking. The kids were scattered out through the house, either playing or watching movies in the girls’ rooms.
I walked into the kitchen, knowing I was about to enter the women’s lair and that they would be talking about the one thing they were always talking about these days: Lucy and Harris’s wedding. As soon as I walked into the room, all talking stopped and every eye snapped to me. So with irritation at being interrupted, some with relief.
My eyes zeroed in on Angel first. She looked tired, but she was smiling. She loved this time of year, being with all our family and just celebrating being together. I loved it for her, but she had no clue that this time of year had become the time of year I hated the most. The weeks between Thanksgiving all the way up until Christmas Eve—our wedding anniversary—were a living hell for me.
I didn’t want her to think about why my head wasn’t on straight. Didn’t want to give her a reason to think about what had been constantly on my mind for days and was slowly driving me insane. I didn’t want to chance her remembering what day was coming, didn’t want to remind her that the anniversary of where we’d lost each other for so many months was coming up.
She never seemed to pay it any attention. To her it was just the day before Layla and Jesse had gotten married in Vegas.
Putting a smile on my face, I crossed to the kitchen table where she was sitting between Lucy and Layla and dropped a kiss on top of her head. “More planning?” I grumbled as I caught a glance at all the notebooks, catalogues and an endless supply of shit that looked useless and meaningless to me.
“Of course more planning,” Natalie said with a laugh, her irritation fading somewhat. “It’s not every day my son gets married. We want this thing to be perfect.”
I put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, felt how tense she was, and shot Natalie a cool glare that she either didn’t see or ignored. My eyes went around the table where everyone had obviously been sitting for a while since the kitchen was spotless. Everyone but Harper, Jenna, and Angel seemed to be blind to the fact that Lucy was stressed to the max. A huge wedding hadn’t been her idea. Layla, Natalie and Emmie had gotten it into their heads that this wedding needed to be the event of the year and come March I had little doubt that it would be.
But how stable would Lucy be by then?
She struggled every day with her urge to cut. I knew because I was one of the first people she called when those urges got to be too much. In the months since she and Harris had set the date for their wedding she’d called me more often than she called her sister, which was an almost everyday thing. I dropped whatever I was doing every time I saw her name pop up on my phone. I’d drive into the city and we’d talk for hours until her urge to harm herself passed and she felt like she could breathe again.
Lucy had gotten good at not letting her stress show over the years. That was why it had taken so long for any of us to realize she was hurting herself. If Harris hadn’t discovered the evidence of it, we might still be in the dark and she would still be cutting herself to find relief from all the things that constantly swirled around in her head. She had gotten good at it, but I’d gotten better at reading her.
Layla, Natalie and Emmie were so lost in making this damn wedding perfect that they were blind to the fact that it was destroying what little hold Lucy had on her need to pick up a blade and bleed so she could breathe again. I wanted to grab them and shake some sense into them.
Lucy covered my hand still on her shoulder with her own and gave it a squeeze, halting the blast that was about to leave my mouth at the three women. “I feel like I’m about to pop after all that food my sister stuffed me with today. Let’s go for a walk.”
Lana jumped to her feet, her smile brilliant but forced. I pulled her close as Lucy went to get her coat. I kissed her forehead, then her ear. “Talk to them. Make them open their fucking eyes,” I whispered.
She nodded. “I got this. You got her?”
I nodded and stepped back, shooting the other women a killing glare that no one but Jenna and Harper saw and grinned at, and then I followed after Lucy. She was already by the door, with her coat zipped up by the time I reached her. I grabbed a hoodie out of the closet by the door and pulled it over my head, then opened the door for her.
As soon as we were outside I dropped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. The wind was blowing, whipping our hair everywhere, but I didn’t pay it much attention as we walked down the street. We were both quiet for a few blocks before she stopped and sucked in a deep br
eath.
I stood there, feeling helpless, as she moved away and started pacing back and forth in front of me. After a long moment she let out a humorless laugh. “I didn’t think getting married would be this complicated. When he asked me to marry him, I didn’t think past the fact that I was going to become Mrs. Harris Cutter and spend the rest of my life with the boy who has always been my best friend. Then Mom and Natalie started planning and it felt like I was suddenly invisible. I should have put my foot down then, but they were so happy and their joy took me hostage.”
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” I assured her. “Vegas was good enough for your parents and Harris’s. It’s a short plane ride, sweetheart.”
She pushed her curls back from her beautiful face, a face that was pale and drawn. “I think about that every damn day, Drake. I want to just grab Harris and run away and come back a week later married, and they probably wouldn’t even notice we were gone.”
“So do it.”
Her dark eyes lost the frustration and became sad, which was like a punch to the gut. I’d loved and watched over this girl who was now a woman since she was six years old. Now she was almost twenty and yet all I saw was that sweet little girl whose favorite word had been ‘awesome’ and her biggest fear had been whether or not she could get the stories she was so talented at creating perfect. A thousand lifetimes had happened between then and now. She’d lived through a hundred different nightmares. I would have given anything to wipe those nightmares from her mind and replace them with happier memories.
“This wedding means a lot to them,” she told me with a slight quiver in her voice. “And if I’m honest, it means a lot to me too. I’ve bonded with my mother and Nat over the last few months. I feel like I’m the bridge that is connecting the Thorntons and the Cutters, and part of me loves that.”
“Lucy, you can be that bridge regardless of if you have a huge-ass wedding or if you have something much smaller. It’s not the size of the wedding that matters in the long run, sweetheart. It’s that you’ll be married to Harris. That’s all that will ever matter.” I caught her arms when she bit into her bottom lip so hard I knew she was going to draw blood. I knew drawing blood was what she wanted to do, that just that small pain would ground her. “Have you talked to Harris about this?”
She released the hold she had on her lip and shook her head, looking away. “He knows something has been bothering me, but I haven’t told him what. All he has to do is nod or shake his head about a few little decisions. He likes that Natalie is making our wedding such a big deal. She’s happy and that makes him happy. And he deserves to be happy, Dray.”
“Who do you think he wants to be happier? You or Natalie?” She sighed but didn’t say anything. “You, Lucy. He wants you to be happy. That boy loves you with every breath in his body. He’d do anything in the world to make you smile at him. Tell him.”
Her shoulders drooped and after only a slight hesitation she finally nodded her head. “Okay. You’re right. I’ll talk to him tonight.” She wrapped her arms around my waist, giving me a tight squeeze. “Thank you for being my sanity so much these past few months.”
I hugged her back. Dropping a kiss on top of her curly head, I kept one arm around her as we continued our walk. We’d walked another block before she spoke again. “I’ll be here by ten next Sunday.”
I tensed but nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks for helping me with this, Lu.” I frowned at nothing in the distance, trying to stop my mind from going down the road that it was hell-bent on traveling lately.
Lucy was going to watch the girls at my house while I took Lana away for a few days. It had been hard deciding who to get to watch my girls. Ideally I would have picked Layla and Jesse but they were going to Paris for two weeks to celebrate their wedding anniversary. For me, their wedding day was a kind of an anniversary too. One I didn’t want to remember, yet at the same time, there were parts I was dying to remember.
I only hoped my plan worked and that the shit that had been keeping me from sleeping lately would disappear, or at least give me just enough peace to make this time of year easier for me.
Chapter Four
Drake
By the time we got back to the house, Lucy was feeling better. After we’d talked about my plans for her sister, we’d started talking about Lucy’s writing. She was working on a book in her spare time and when she talked about it she seemed to glow. The same thing happened when she talked about Harris. As we started up the walkway to the front door, she was smiling and all the tension was gone from her for the moment.
As I reached for the door to open it for her, it swung inward and Harris stood there with concern etched into his face. “You disappeared on me, sweetness.” His eyes went from her to me then back to her. “Everything okay?”
Some of her earlier tension returned, but I gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze to encourage her. She sighed, gave me another hug, then stepped forward. “Can we go home?”
“Sure, let me just tell—”
She shook her head and tugged on his hand. “No. We can call them later.” She leaned against him, pressing her forehead to his chest. “Please? I want to talk to you.”
Harris swallowed hard, his arms going around her and holding on like she was his lifeline. “Yeah, sweetness. Let’s go.” He shot me another look and I felt sorry for him when I saw the terror in his aquamarine eyes. That look asked me a million different things and I didn’t have a ready answer for him. Lucy had to be the one to tell him what was going on and let him show her that I was right, that the wedding part didn’t matter in the end.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to help him, he grabbed his coat out of the closet and pulled Lucy toward his car that was parked out on the street at the end of my driveway. “Bye, Drake,” Lucy called over her shoulder. “Tell my dad I love him.”
“Bye, Lu. Love you.”
“Love you!” she called as Harris opened the passenger door and waited for her to get in before closing it for her.
I stood there, waved when they pulled away, then went inside. As I walked by the family room I saw that a few of the guys had actually fallen asleep, and I grinned at Nik’s and Cole’s snoring. Jesse was still cognitive—barely—as was Devlin. “Your kids left,” I told them both. “They said they would call you later and Lucy said she loves you, Jess.”
The two men stood, frowns wrinkling their brows. “Why did they leave?” Devlin asked as he stretched the kinks out of his long body.
I grimaced and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I doubted these two knew just how crazy their wives had gotten with the wedding plans. “Lucy needed to talk to Harris. I’m sure they will tell you tomorrow if anything is wrong.”
Jesse’s ever changing dark eyes narrowed on me. “If anything is wrong? Meaning there is. What’s going on with my baby, Dray?” he demanded, his massive arms crossing his chest as he gave me an almost menacing glare.
I shrugged. “Maybe you should talk to your wives about the wedding they are so hell-bent on making into a circus? Lucy’s struggling with the pressure from it.”
“Motherfucking hell,” Jesse said with a growl and rubbed his hands over his smoothly bald head. “I should have known something like this would happen. I told Layla…” He broke off and headed for the door. “Layla!”
Devlin followed him. “Hell. Nat!”
I shot a glance at my father-in-law, brother, and bandbrother still sound asleep in front of the TV. Blowing out a tired breath, I followed after my two brothers-in-law. By the time I got to the kitchen, it was to find all the women looking crestfallen. Jesse was glairing down at his wife, while Devlin did the same with his own.
Angel was standing by the sink, a mug of coffee in her hands as she watched everyone with damp eyes. Jenna and Harper sat at the kitchen table looking uncomfortable yet too intrigued to leave the others to the obvious argument that must have been going on. Layla looked pale, her eyes slightly bloodshot fro
m crying, and Natalie didn’t look much better.
“I thought you said Lucy was enjoying planning this wedding?”
Layla wiped at an errant tear that spilled free. “I thought she was.”
“You thought?” he growled in a low voice. “You thought, but you didn’t really know? Did you stop to think for two seconds that all this would set her back?”
“We all thought she was enjoying it, Jesse,” Emmie said, trying to defend Layla, but there was a quiver in her voice and when I looked at her I saw that there were tears and shame glittering in her eyes.
Jesse turned his hard gaze on the woman who had always been more sister than friend to us all. “Not one of you noticed that this was putting pressure on her?”
“We got carried away,” Natalie whispered. “I was so excited about giving them both the perfect day, but I guess it became more about what I wanted for them. I’m sorry I didn’t realize what this was doing to Lucy. She never said…”
“She shouldn’t have to. You should have had your eyes open,” Devlin told her in a harsh voice, but he pulled his wife into his arms and rocked her against him. “Whatever you three have been doing, it stops now.”
“Does Lu even want this big of a wedding? Or is she just agreeing because it’s easier?” Jesse demanded, his anger slower to cool because Lucy was his baby girl. I could understand why he would be so upset. If it had been any one of my girls, I would be off-the-walls pissed.
Layla sucked in a shuddery breath. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Jesse turned away from her, paced to the other side of the room as if he needed space from her and the two other women. “Then maybe you should stop saying you’re sorry and find out. Her wedding is supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life. Not some three-ring circus that makes her feel like she can’t fucking breathe.”