“Crap. There goes my plans for nakey time with you later.”
Emery arched a blond eyebrow at him. “You’re still horny? Dude, you fucked me out for at least the rest of the day, and that’s hard to do.”
“No.” He pulled Emery into his arms. “I just wanted more nakey time with you. I always want more nakey time with you.”
“Ah. We can still do that when we get home. Don’t worry. Besides, you’ll finally get to meet my sister Olivia and her husband, Brad. They’re coming over for dinner tonight, too.”
Sean rinsed off again from where he’d hugged Emery and gotten soap all over him. “Do I have to go?” he grumbled.
“Oh, stop it. You know my dad and mom are cool about us.”
“Yeah, but what about your sisters?” At thirty-four, Emery was the oldest child of Louise and Joseph Nadel. Emery had three younger sisters and a brother ranging in age from twenty-three to thirty-two. Sean had briefly met Emery’s brother, Christopher, but hadn’t yet met Christopher’s wife or any of Emery’s sisters.
“It’ll be fine. They already know about you. I told them. Admit it. You’re just not used to big families.”
As an only child, Sean had no idea what it was like to have a big family. “You’ve got that right.” Sean stepped out of the shower to dry off while Emery finished. “I need my quiet time. You know that. I think I would have gone crazy being raised in a busy house.”
Emery laughed. “Who said I didn’t go crazy?”
Chapter Two
They pulled into the Nadels’ driveway a little after six that evening. Joseph and Louise Nadel lived in a spacious house in eastern Sarasota County that, by all rights, could be called a mansion.
Sean stared at the house. “Every time you bring me here,” Sean muttered from the passenger seat, “I feel like I should be taking my shoes off at the front door and wiping my bare feet on the mat before I go in.”
“Oh, stop it. You know they’re not picky like that.”
Joseph Nadel had made his fortune as a commercial real estate broker. He was lucky enough to retire before the housing bubble burst. Sean followed Emery up the walk to the front door.
Emery opened it without knocking first and stuck his head inside. “We’re here.”
“Come on in, boys. I’m back here,” Louise called from within the bowels of the house. They found her in the kitchen. She’d tamed her naturally dark blonde hair into a ponytail low on the back of her head. For fifty-five, she looked much younger, and her friendly brown eyes always seemed to hold good humor.
Emery leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Something smells good. What are we having?”
“Pot roast. Do me a favor, please. Your father’s puttering around in the backyard. He needs to come in and get cleaned up. Your sister will be here shortly.”
“Sure.” Emery headed out to do it, leaving Sean in the kitchen.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
She kindly smiled at him. “No, just keep me company. You’re still a nervous wreck around Joseph, aren’t you?”
Why not admit it? “Yeah.”
“If it means anything, he really does feel badly for how that all happened.”
“I know.” At first adamantly opposed to their mating, Joseph had tried to bribe Sean into leaving with a five hundred thousand dollar check. It took an attempt on Sean’s life by Erik, a spurned and jealous former lover of Emery’s, to bring Joseph around to accepting Sean into the family as well as into the Placida Pod. As the pod Alpha, by Joseph accepting Sean, everyone else did, too.
At least, they were supposed to. Sean still felt nervous around the man. Louise, however, had been immediately welcoming.
It didn’t hurt that they found out Sean’s mom, Helen, and Emery’s mom already knew each other from volunteering together at the local hospice house in Englewood.
“Oh, your mom gave me her keugel recipe. She said it’s one of your favorites.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I can suck down my weight in that.”
“Good. I was planning on making it this Saturday, before the hunt. We always have a family dinner ahead of time.”
He tried digesting that tidbit of information. “So why eat before the hunt?”
Oh, we expel a lot of energy. And that way if we don’t find any big schools of fish, we’re not ravenous. It’s just what we do as a family. Everyone has their own tradition before a hunt. It’s like a family party.”
She looked like she was going to say something else, but they heard the sliding glass door leading to the pool lanai open and shut. Emery and his father walked into the kitchen.
“Found him,” Emery said.
Joseph stuck out his hand to Sean, who shook with him. “Hey, Sean. Good to see you, son.” Joseph was fifty-nine, but like his wife looked younger than his years. He had the same intense grey eyes as his son, and black hair as of yet untouched by silver.
Louise wrinkled her nose. “Joseph Nadel, you go get a shower right now. Olivia and Brad will be here soon. I didn’t know you were going to get that dirty or I wouldn’t have let you go out in the yard.”
“I got busy weeding the back flowerbed.” He leaned in as if confiding in Sean. “Does Emery get on you like that?”
Sean couldn’t help but smile. “Not usually.”
“Good. Let me know if he does so I can smack him for you.” He left to get his shower.
“See?” Emery said. “He won’t bite you.” Then he added silently, “Although I will bite you all you like.”
Sean hoped his face didn’t turn too red.
* * * *
Both Olivia and Brad were dolphin shifters. Olivia had the same intense grey eyes as Joseph and Emery. Her long, naturally dark blonde hair fell below her shoulders. She moved with a poised grace that reminded Sean of a dolphin’s fluid motions in the water. Brad had wavy brown hair, green eyes, and stood a little shorter than Emery, but taller than Sean. Sean did find himself soon at ease with them. They lived over in West Palm Beach, but had taken several days off from work to come over to spend time with the Nadels and enjoy the hunt. The other two daughters, Reese and Laura, would arrive late Friday night to spend the weekend. Sean’s brother, Christopher, and his wife, Suzanne, lived in Punta Gorda. They had to work, but would take part in the hunt.
Halfway through dinner, Olivia glanced at Brad. Sean noticed Brad nodded to her. She grinned. “We have an announcement to make,” she said as she looked at her parents. “I’m pregnant. Twins. I’m due in February.”
Louise let out a happy squeal and jumped out of her chair to round the table and hug her daughter and son-in-law.
Joseph proudly smiled and shook hands with Brad. “That’s great news! I hope you’re planning on making the next full moon swim?”
“I don’t know if we can, Dad. We’ll try, but it depends if we can get the time off. We’ll be here for the superpod, if nothing else.”
Sean kept his mouth shut and ate while he listened to everyone’s excited discussion about the superpod gathering. It wasn’t until he realized no one was talking that he looked up.
Everyone was smiling at him. “What?”
Emery squeezed his shoulder. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to exclude you from the conversation.”
He offered up a smile he hoped looked genuine. “It’s okay. I know I’m the newbie.” Truth was, he felt overwhelmed. Not that he’d trade Emery for anything, but settling down with a hunky dolphin shifter wasn’t something he’d ever contemplated before it actually happened.
After dinner he insisted on helping Louise with the dishes and that Olivia join the other men in the living room. Louise gave him a kind smile.
“It’s really okay, Sean. Joseph fully accepts you into the family.”
“I know. It’s me, not you guys. I’m still coming to grips with the whole ‘my boyfriend’s a part-time dolphin’ thing.”
“I think Joseph envies you two. I know I do.”
“Why?”
Her smiled turned wistful, if not downright sad. “Like I told you, you boys have a mate-bond and we don’t.”
“But you got married.”
“Yes. It was an arranged marriage. If we hadn’t, there could have been a brutal battle between our pods.”
“Why?”
She returned her attention to the plate she was rinsing in the sink. Her voice dropped. “Because my uncle was a vicious asshole. He killed Joseph’s parents.”
Sean thought he couldn’t possibly have heard her right. “He did what?”
“He was a megalomaniacal shithead, to be quite blunt. He knew damn well he couldn’t take over the pod from my father. I have four older brothers, all of them Alphas. They would have easily beaten him had he tried to oust my father.”
She let out a sad sigh. “Unfortunately, he took Joseph’s parents by surprise during one of their full moon swims. He didn’t get away, however. He was captured by Joseph and others from the pod. At first, they rightfully thought it was an organized attack. When my parents convinced them that it wasn’t, that they weren’t involved and didn’t know anything about it, they offered to do anything to keep the peace. Including allowing my uncle to be killed.”
Sean felt ill. “So they did? Kill him, I mean?”
“Yes. But they also wanted equal vengeance, so to speak.”
“They wanted to kill someone innocent?”
That’s when she sadly smiled. “Not quite. They were not barbaric, but two lives were lost. The pod Alpha, no less. They wanted a pledge to ensure future peace. I volunteered to marry Joseph.”
Sean didn’t quite know how to feel about his father-in-law now. “But you didn’t love him.”
“No, I didn’t. Not at the time. But I found him very handsome. I was physically attracted to him. I still am. He treated me kindly. We did quickly come to love each other. He’s never held what my uncle did over my head.”
“Why would you volunteer to marry someone you didn’t even know?”
She stared out the window for a moment, apparently composing her thoughts. “I fell in love with a boy in college the year before. A human boy. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in love with me. I didn’t realize it at the time. He used me for sex. I was young and naïve and away from home for the first time. I learned a harsh lesson.”
“He broke your heart?”
She nodded before shrugging and looking at Sean. “As I’ve said, Joseph and I do love each other. He always hated that the first man I gave my heart to, a human, broke it. Joseph is a good man to the core of his soul. He loves his family and his pod fiercely. He takes his responsibilities very seriously. That was more than part of the reason he objected at first to you and Emery being together. And after seeing how my uncle nearly destroyed not only the Placida pod, but potentially his own home pod, had fighting broken out between them, he was desperate to do everything in his power to keep his Alpha line strong.”
They fell into a comfortable silence as they finished cleaning up the kitchen. Conflicted, Sean did understand more of the whys behind Joseph’s initial refusal to accept him. It also explained how Joseph could so easy switch his stance after Sean nearly died at Erik’s hands.
“Emery never told me any of that.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know.”
Sean blinked. “What?”
“None of the children know.”
“Why haven’t you guys told Emery all of this?”
“None of our children ever had a reason to know all the details before. I don’t know if Emery told you this or not, but we tend to not discuss private matters amongst each other. It’s considered socially unacceptable among our kind. We don’t air our dirty laundry. We’ve always had an inherent mistrust of outsiders because of our need to protect our secret. You put it all together, and it doesn’t lead our kind to many Jerry Springer moments, if you get my drift.”
“No, I still don’t get why all the secrecy amongst yourselves and this bullshit propriety nonsense. I saw dolphins getting it on with each other at that first full moon swim. That’s okay, but talking about it isn’t?”
She shrugged. “That’s normal behavior. Everyone knows it happens. It’s natural. We don’t go around selling tickets to it or talking about it. Does that make sense?”
“No, I still don’t get it.”
She seemed to collect her thoughts. “Have you ever been to a nudist colony, Sean?”
“No.”
“If you go to one, you don’t stare at others. You don’t make lewd comments. You don’t stand there talking about how great it is to be parading around naked. People just…are. That’s sort of the way dolphins are. Not the best analogy, I know, but it’s the only one I can think of.”
“So if you don’t go talking about it, why are we talking about it now, may I ask?”
“Because after Olivia and Brad go to bed, I want the four of us to sit down and talk about it. You and Emery, and me and Joseph. It’s time Emery knows the full story. I wanted you to know beforehand, so you can be there to support Emery instead of being shocked by it.” She dried her hands and laid one on his shoulder as she stared into his eyes. “You are a very strong man, whether or not you realize it. I’m glad my son has such a solid rock in his life.”
* * * *
Their talk with Emery’s parents wrapped up a little before midnight. Emery put up no resistance when Sean took the keys from him before they left the Nadels’ house. Not just because Emery had let his dad pour him two large bourbons, straight, and downed them with little hesitation, either. Emotionally, he felt obliterated. As if everything he had thought he’d known about his family was now in question.
He buckled his seat belt as Sean slid behind the wheel. “Are you okay?” Sean asked.
Emery shook his head.
Sean patted him on the thigh before starting the Mustang and shifting it into reverse to back out of his parents’ driveway.
He didn’t speak on the way home. He felt beyond grateful that Sean didn’t push him, verbally or mentally, to say what was on his mind. He didn’t know what was on his mind.
Yes, he’d heard rumors over the years, speculation here and there, but he’d never pursued the gossip about his parents. It was beneath him, for starters. As son of the pod’s Alpha, he understood people would want to talk smack about them from time to time simply to rile him, true or not. He had his own life to live, too busy to worry about bullshit from the past or chasing down rumors.
He’d also been raised to mind his own business.
When Sean turned into their driveway less than an hour later and shut the car off, Emery sat there, listening to the tick of the cooling engine. He finally turned to Sean. “Mom told you all that before, didn’t she? You didn’t act like you were shocked by any of it.”
“In the kitchen after dinner. I mean, I know she told us both after the accident that they didn’t have…whatever it is you and I have. A mate-bond like we have. But she told me about her uncle, what he did, and why their marriage was arranged, yes.”
Emery stared at his hands for a moment in the darkened car. Finally, he quietly said, “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave all this crazy mess behind you.”
The quickness and strength of Sean grabbing and squeezing his hand startled him. “Fuck that, dude. I love you, and you’re stuck with me. So her uncle was a douchebag. Big deal. Your parents love each other now. Isn’t that what matters? And considering your dad was a lot nicer to her than someone else might have been given the circumstances, I’d say that things turned out all right.”
Sean gripped Emery’s chin with his other hand and made him look him in the eye. “I. Love. You. We have the freaky mental thing going that’s cool as shit. We have a lot in common.” He smiled. “And your cock rolls my eyes back in my head. You aren’t getting rid of me. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. You’re part of my heart and soul. So quit thinking that stupid shit about me leaving right now.”
Emery hugged him and h
eld on, feeling the depth of the emotions swirling around him and threatening to drag him under like a whirlpool. “I love you so much. How’d I get so lucky?”
“Let’s go inside and I’ll show you one of the reasons,” Sean said with a playful grin.
They fell into bed a few minutes later, Sean taking the lead and pinning Emery on his back underneath him. He laced his fingers through Emery’s hands and held them over Emery’s head. “I’m going to make you forget about everything except how good we are together,” Sean whispered.
He started at Emery’s left earlobe, nibbling and nipping and kissing his way down his jaw, under his chin, up to his other ear.
Emery closed his eyes and softly moaned. His fingers tightened around Sean’s. Just being near his mate could drive all other thoughts and worries out of his mind, much less making love to him. Before Sean he wasn’t a monk, but he would have classified himself closer to the saint than the manslut end of the scale.
Now, he couldn’t even remember what any of his other lovers felt like. All he could think about, all he could feel, was Sean’s touch. The scent of the man filled his lungs, the taste of him haunted his every waking moment.
His mate.
Sean rose up on his arms a little and looked into Emery’s eyes. Emery felt he could lose himself in Sean’s sweet, mocha-brown gaze.
Slowly, teasingly, Sean lowered his mouth to Emery’s, drawing back every time he felt Emery try to lift his head to make contact sooner. When Sean’s lips closed on his, Emery’s mouth parted, inviting him in, wanting him.
Needing him.
The tip of Sean’s tongue traced his lips, pressing further in and flicking against his teeth, playing keep-away with Emery’s tongue when he tried to make contact.
Sean lifted his head. A sweet smile curled his lips. “I’m going to fuck you so good, baby,” he whispered. “Going to sling these gorgeous legs of yours over my shoulders and bury my cock all the way deep inside your ass. You want that?”
“Yeah,” Emery breathlessly whispered. Between their bodies, his cock throbbed nearly painfully at Sean’s words.