I grab her waist and pin her against the door as I crush my lips against hers. She tastes like champagne. They must have been drinking at the banquet. I yank up the skirt of her dress and grind into her as her fingers clutch my hair.
“Take your panties off,” I whisper into her ear before I taste her neck.
She shakes her head and pushes my chest back. “No, it’s your birthday.”
She bites her lip as she looks up at me with that mischievous look that never fails to get her whatever she wants. She grabs the front of my shirt and pushes me backward toward the chaise next to the window overlooking the lake. I lie back and let her take charge as she unbuckles my belt and unfastens my pants. She smiles when my erection pops out and I hold my breath as I wait for it.
She lays a soft kiss on the tip and I clench my jaw. She loves me to tease me this way because she knows it drives me crazy. She takes me into her mouth and I suck in a sharp breath through my teeth. Her lips and her tongue are warm as she draws me in until I hit the back of her throat. I grab a handful of her hair and gently guide myself in and out of her, watching in awe as she swallows me.
The knock at the door startles us both and she lets out a strangled choking sound before I pull her head back.
“Fuck!” I shout as I struggle to zip up my pants over my hard-on. “Who is it?!”
Brina swipes her thumb across her lips as she springs to her feet and I reach for her dress to smooth down the back.
“Mr. Maxwell!” Myrna sounds panicked. “There’s a man in the kitchen!”
I scuttle around Brina to get to the door and yank it open. Myrna’s round face is pale and her black eyes are wide with fright as she hands Rhianne to me. Rhianne’s blue eyes are also wide as she picks up on Myrna’s terror. I brush her wispy, brown curls out of her face and kiss her forehead.
“Calm down, Myrna, it’s just a friend of Brina’s,” I say as I make my way down the stairs.
Rhianne grabs a handful of my hair and yanks it with her sticky little fingers. Like mother like daughter. I pull her hand away and give her fingers a playful bite that makes her giggle.
“Where’s Lucas?” I ask Myrna as I make it to the bottom of the curved staircase.
“Still sleeping. He was very tired from throwing a tantrum.”
I thought I’d have more trouble with a daughter, but last year Lucas gave new meaning to the terrible twos. This year, he created a new category of terror I like to refer to as the Tyrannical Threes. Brina spoils him too much and we all pay the price because she refuses to believe that giggling is an inappropriate reaction to a child’s tantrums. Rhianne, on the other hand, is my angel.
When we enter the kitchen, Brandon is sitting up straight in the barstool with his hands in his lap and a guilty look on his face. In other words, he looks like Lucas every time we enter the room.
I hand Rhianne to Myrna. “Can you please change her diaper and wake up Lucas before you get dinner started?”
She nods as she takes Rhianne then marches off toward the stairs.
I glare at Brandon for a second because he needs to know I don’t appreciate the havoc he’s brought to my house in the span of fifteen minutes. He scared the shit out of my kids’ nanny and interrupted my blowjob. I’m getting more pissed at him by the second.
Brina comes up behind me and threads her fingers through the hair on the back of my head. I know she’s doing it so I’ll relax, but it only pisses me off more because my dick is still hard.
I twist my head to get away from her hand and I hear her tsk. “How long have you been on the streets?” I ask the guy.
I’m not going to beat around the bush with him; he’s in my home on account of my wife’s hospitality, not mine.
His eyes harden as he looks me in the eye. “Three weeks. I was at Compass Center while the VA processed my disability claim, but they denied it a few weeks ago so I left.”
Brina gasps at this news. “Why would you leave Compass Center? That is such a great place. I’ll call Tracy in the morning and ask her to take you back.”
“No, you don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem, really. Tracy and I talk almost every day. She has been such a huge help to me with setting up the counseling program.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t go back. They kicked me out.”
Brina and her big heart. It’s this quality that attracted me to her and the same quality that nearly broke us up exactly four years ago. You’d think we’d both have learned something by now.
I nod toward the hallway as I grab Brina’s arm and she follows me. “I know you want to help this guy, but I don’t think we want him here. I can see the wheels turning in your head and I am not going to allow this guy to stay here. Understood?”
She frowns and for a moment she looks the way Lucas looks when he’s being chastised.
“Brina? Tell me you understand and you’re not going to offer this guy anything more than a meal?”
She stares at my chest for a moment before she speaks. “Fine, but he’s somebody’s son. Would you do that if it were Ryan? Ryan could have ended up like that. They cleared him for another tour even though he had PTSD. Guys like them just keep slipping through the cracks. You can pretend like you don’t care, but I know you do. That’s why you pulled me aside to tell me this instead of telling him outright.”
I look her in the eye and she doesn’t flinch. She’s right, as usual. “Fine. He can spend the night, but you’re taking him with you to the center tomorrow and you’re letting them find him a place to go. One night. Got it?”
She smiles and I can feel my resolve melting. This is not going to end well.
CHAPTER THREE
Brina
After the kids eat their dinner, I decide to give the kids a bath while Myrna makes her special pad Thai. I bathe Rhianne first because she’s a breeze. By the time I pull Lucas out of the tub, the skin on my hands is covered in tiny, red bite marks and I have a splitting headache from the screaming. He finally calms down once I have him dressed in his pajamas.
As always, I lie with him in “Mommy and Daddy’s bed” for a while to calm him even further. “What’s this?” I ask, pointing at the dinosaur on the front of his shirt.
“Dinosaur!” he shouts proudly.
“Very good, but what kind of dinosaur is it?” He shrugs and smiles because he knows. “Come on, honey, you can say it? What kind of dinosaur is this?”
He shakes his head and I pull him into a hug. He climbs on top of me and wraps his arms around my neck as he lays his head on my chest. I breathe in the scent of his hair and squeeze him tightly. I never thought I could love anyone more than I love Luke until this little monster came along.
Luke walks into the bedroom carrying Rhianne. Her chubby cheek is resting on his shoulder and her curls are still a bit damp at the ends, but she’s dead asleep. He nods toward the hallway and I sit up with Lucas so he’s sitting in my lap facing me.
“It’s time to go to bed. Can you make me a promise?”
“I don’t want to go to sleep.”
We made the mistake of allowing Lucas to sleep in our bed until he was ten months old. When we came back from our honeymoon, we broke him of this habit, but he still climbs out of his bed and sneaks into our bedroom to join us once or twice a week. Tonight is not a good night for that.
“I know, sweetie, but I want you to promise me that you’re going to stay in your bed tonight and if you need mommy or daddy you’re going to press the button to call us. Can you promise me that?”
Luke had a call system installed in the house in addition to the intercom system. If Lucas needs us, all he has to do is press a button on the side of his nightstand and an alarm will beep in our bedroom and a few other rooms in the house.
Lucas stares at my lips as he considers my question. I grab his soft little hands and kiss his fingers before I rise from the bed with him in my arms.
“I promise,” he whispers in my ear as he lays his h
ead on my shoulder.
I carry him into the hallway just in time to see Luke softly closing Rhianne’s bedroom door. He follows me into Lucas’s room and Lucas smiles like a clown at the sight of his daddy. I never get tired of watching Luke with the kids. The pure adoration that lights up their faces when they see him always melts my heart.
As we exit Lucas’s bedroom, a sense of dread perches inside me. It’s time to face Brandon and whatever gut-wrenching memories of my brother he feels the need to discuss. Luke threads his fingers through mine and squeezes my hand, but it doesn’t do anything to ease my anxiety.
I squeeze his hand and he looks down at me. “I have your birthday gift, but I’ll give it to you tomorrow. Is that okay?”
“Baby, I told you I don’t want anything but you for my birthday and I meant it. So let’s make this dinner quick.”
When we’re all seated at the dining table, with Luke and I at one end and Brandon at the other end, Myrna brings Luke’s bourbon and I sip white wine, but Brandon refuses the alcohol.
“I don’t drink. Haven’t drunk anything since I heard about Ryan.”
I set down my wine glass and begin twirling the fork in my plate of noodles. I can feel Luke staring at me and that familiar uneasiness settles into my limbs.
“Ryan didn’t like to talk about Afghanistan,” I say before I take another sip of wine. “I always felt like there was a part of him I never knew… will never know. Do you think you could share some of your favorite memories of him?”
Luke reaches under the table and squeezes my knee; a small gesture to show he’s proud of me. I have to keep myself from looking at him because I know it will only make this more difficult.
Brandon finishes the noodles he’s chewing on and puts down his fork. I can tell he’s trying really hard not to scarf down his food and it breaks my heart.
He takes a sip of water before he speaks. “There’s the time we were doing a security check in this village and this old guy kept following us around everywhere shouting shit in Dari, like we could understand. The fucker didn’t care that Ryan was holding a fucking M249, he just kept getting in his face.”
My chest tightens as I imagine what my brother must have felt being verbally attacked by a stranger for doing his job. Brandon may have known my brother at a time when he had to be tough, but I knew my brother when he cried over a breakup. He wasn’t always so strong and something like that would have killed him inside.
Brandon finishes his story about how Ryan calmed the guy down, though neither of them understood a word the other was speaking. When he’s finished, a heavy silence falls over the table.
I set my napkin on the table and stand. “I’m going to bed. Myrna will show you to the guest room. There’s a shower in there. Thanks for your company, Brandon.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you,” he says as I pass him on my way out of the dining room. “I just wish I would have come home when he did.”
I nod quickly and leave before the first tears roll down my face. Luke and I reach the bedroom and he immediately takes me into his arms. My face aches with the effort of holding in the flood of emotions. It’s not just the regret over the fact that I drove my brother to the building he jumped off of, it’s the fact that there is someone else in my house who actually understands this regret and I can’t even pull myself together long enough to have a conversation with him.
Luke cradles my face as he kisses my forehead. “I know what’s bothering you and I think you should go down there and talk to him. I’ll stay here and get some work done in case the kids wake up.”
“No, it’s your birthday. I want to spend it with you.”
He shakes his head adamantly. “I want you to go down there. I can’t make love to you when I know your mind is elsewhere. Go.”
“How did I get so damn lucky?”
He smiles the same dazzling smile that captured my heart the day I walked into his office four years ago. “It wasn’t luck. I tricked you into working for me.”
He kisses me tenderly and for a moment I’m lost in him, aching for more. He pulls away and lays a soft kiss on my cheekbone.
“Try not to take too long. It’s still my birthday for another three hours.”
I knock on the door to the guestroom and Brandon shouts, “Coming!” When he answers the door, he’s already showered and wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.
I’m speechless for a moment as I take in the definition of his chest and ab muscles then the burn scars covering his right hand all the way up his forearm. He switches hands so his left hand is holding up his towel and he tucks his right hand behind his back.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
“It’s cool. I’m used to it.”
He stands there waiting for me to tell him why I’m there when it dawns on me he doesn’t have any clean clothes to change into.
“Just stay right there. I’m going to get you something clean to change into.”
When I get to the bedroom, Luke is in the shower so I quickly sneak an unopened pack of boxers and an outfit then I make my way back down to the guest room. I present him with the stack of clothes and he cocks an eyebrow.
“Thanks, but I can’t accept that.”
“Yes, you can. Go ahead and change. I’ll ask Myrna to wash your other stuff and you can change back into that tomorrow if you want.”
He takes the clothes from me and goes into the guest bathroom to change. When he comes out I’m surprised at how normal he looks. Actually, even though Luke’s clothes hang a bit loose on him, he looks better than normal.
He tosses the towel onto a chair in the corner and ruffles his damp hair as he takes a seat on the edge of the bed.
“What happened to your hand?” I ask as I drop his towel onto the floor and take a seat in the chair.
“It happened a couple of months after Ryan left. They moved us further north and I’m pretty sure he knew that’s where he was going for his second tour.” He pauses for a moment as his eyes glaze over. “A fucking IED got us and the gas tank blew. I watched my buddy get burned alive.”
“I’m so sorry. I hope I haven’t upset you.”
He stares straight ahead without blinking and I recognize that look. It’s the same expression I saw on Ryan’s face almost every day for months before he took his life. He finally blinks and glances at me before he leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees.
“Do you ever get the feeling that Ryan knew something we didn’t know?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and take a deep breath. “All the time. He told me something a couple of days before he died. Luke is the only one who knows. I haven’t even told my parents.” I pause to gather my courage as he stares at his hand. “He told me that people are stupid to think that hope and faith are enough to get anyone through anything.”
We share our memories of Ryan for a while longer before it starts to become too much. Just thinking about my brother is exhausting. Talking about him is enough to dampen my mood for days. We say our goodnights and I trudge back to the bedroom, making sure to avoid looking at the picture of Ryan in the upstairs hallway.
CHAPTER FOUR
Luke
Brina walks into the bedroom looking a bit shell-shocked. I close my laptop and set it on the floor. “Are you okay?”
She nods as she walks toward the master bathroom. “I’ll be quick.”
Thirty minutes later the shower is still running so I go in to check on her. She’s sitting on the floor of the shower hugging her knees as the water runs over her back. I don’t even bother taking off my boxers before I step inside and crouch in front of her. The water is stingingly hot. When she looks up her eyes aren’t red or puffy as I’d expect; she’s just thinking. Brina can throw herself into a pit of despair simply by thinking too much.
She smiles weakly and I shake my head. “You don’t have to smile.” She locks her fingers around my neck and I kiss her forehead as I lift her up until she’s stan
ding. “
She slides her arms around my waist and we stand like this, holding each other, for a while before she pulls her head away from my chest. She slips her fingers under the waistband of my boxers and slides them down until they splash onto the floor of the shower. I get an instant erection, which presses against her belly as she wraps her arms around my waist again. I kiss the top of her head as I hold her tightly and I taste a bit of shampoo.
“Come here, baby,” I say as I turn her around so the water hits her back.
She leans her head back into the water and I massage her scalp until all the suds are gone. Her neck looks so enticing and I can’t resist as I lean in for a taste. Her hands slide over my head and clutch at my hair as she pulls my face up and crushes her lips against mine. She tastes clean with a hint of sweetness from the wine. I press my fingers into her soft flesh as I slide my hands down her back and over her ass. She hooks her arms around my neck as she prepares for me to lift her.
I grunt as she pushes off the floor and jumps up. I catch her around the waist as she wraps her legs around my hips. Pinning her against the wall, I’m suddenly ravenous for her. I rock my hips until I find her spot and slide into her. She gasps and I bite down softly on her shoulder to stifle a deep groan.
It should be illegal to feel this good.
I keep one hand firmly gripped under her thigh as I slide my other hand between her legs to find her clit. She sucks in a sharp breath and I know I’ve hit it. She digs her nails into me as I work slowly, sliding in and out of her and caressing her until her eyes begin to roll back. I thrust my tongue into her mouth as she begins to pant; ready to swallow her screams as I finish her off.
She writhes against me, squirming with pleasure as I plunge myself deep inside her. “Luke!” she whimpers and that’s all it takes.
I explode inside of her as she clasps her hands around the back of my head and presses her forehead hard against mine. Her body quivers as my legs and arms weaken. I hold on for as long as I can then plant a soft kiss on her lips before I let her down.