Page 17

17

OPHELIA

I n the warm softness of our bed, Augie molded himself around me from behind, pulling me close so there was no space between his chest and my back. His hand trailed over my bare skin, tickling across my hip and the flat planes of my belly before reaching higher to cover my breast.

I pressed my ass back against him, teasing him, letting him know I was awake too.

He groaned, his morning erection finding its way between my thighs. “Have I told you today how much I love waking up with you in my bed every morning?”

I stretched sleepily. “You’ve only been awake thirty seconds.”

“Seems like too long to not have told you.”

“You just love that I sleep naked.”

He squeezed my breast appreciatively. “No denying that.”

The squeeze turned into a caress, one that had me reaching between my thighs to rub my clit while he played with my nipple.

Augie’s lips found my neck, and he kissed my favorite, sensitive spot, sucking and nipping at it while he tweaked my nipple into a stiff peak that was just begging for more.

It didn’t matter that we’d been doing this every morning for five years. My body had never had its fill of him, and I’d never felt so desired in my entire life. I reached farther between my legs, grasping his cock that was searching for my entrance and guided it to where we both needed it.

He slid inside me smoothly, my body always so ready for him.

God, he felt good. This was how I was woken up every morning, and I’d never reached a point where I didn’t want it. I was just as needy for him as he was for me. We might argue about him leaving toothpaste in the bathroom sink, or me leaving half-empty coffee mugs all over the house, but in bed, we’d always been one-hundred-percent compatible.

His hand slid down my thigh to my knee, and he lifted it up and back to rest on his leg while he fucked me from behind, slowly, giving us time to both wake up. The new position gave him better access to my clit, and he took over that job, covering my fingers with his, then brushing them aside as he picked up on the rhythm I’d started.

I reached my arm back for him, twisting just my top half enough that I could drag his mouth down onto mine without breaking the connection of our lower halves. He kissed me deep, neither of us giving a shit about morning breath, the need for each other always outweighing anything else.

I got lost in him, just like I always did, his tongue and his lips taking me to some other place where nothing existed but the two of us.

“I fucking love you, Lia,” he murmured.

“I love you too,” I whispered back, kissing him harder. I would never have enough of this man, no matter how long we lived, no matter how many times a day we had sex. I’d never loved anyone the way I loved him.

I was also sure no other woman on the planet was as satisfied in bed. The orgasm he’d been nudging me toward swirled in my lower belly, sending delicious tingles of pleasure through every limb until I was a puddle in his arms.

“Need you to come,” he said against my lips. “Want to feel that pussy tight around me.” He switched our positions, rolling onto me so I was face down on the mattress. He lifted my hips so my ass was in the air.

His palm smacked across my behind, and I jumped at the contact, turning around to glare at him.

He sniggered. “Don’t pretend you didn’t love it.”

“I did, but warn a girl next time! It’s six in the morning, Aug. Bit early for kink, don’t you think?”

He smacked me again. “Never too early for kink.”

I couldn’t help the moan that slipped from my lips.

He pulled out, taking a second to bury his fingers in my pussy, coating them in my arousal before his cock was back, plunging into me.

His slicked-up fingers moved to my behind, not spanking me again, but spreading my cheeks so he could finger fuck my ass while he pumped his cock inside me.

I moaned loudly into the pillow, so damn grateful we had no kids or roommates, and that we both worked odd hours so morning anal in the middle of the week could be a thing.

He felt so good. After this long together, he knew exactly what I liked, exactly how to take me from zero to screaming in the shortest amount of time possible, even if he did usually prefer to take his time edging me.

We really didn’t have time for that today though.

“Make me come,” I bossily demanded. “Stop teasing me.”

He chuckled darkly. “Your brother won’t care if we’re late.”

I groaned. “Please don’t talk about my brother when I’m this close to an orgasm. Do you want it to shrivel up and die?”

He flipped me to my back so his face was all I could see, his body hovering over me, supporting his weight on his forearms either side of me.

He had the best biceps. I swear I just wanted to twist my head and lick one of them.

Which I probably would have if he hadn’t lowered his head to kiss me so deep my head spun and all other thoughts poofed right out of my brain.

My brother wasn’t mentioned again.

I wrapped my legs around Augie, and he settled back, right into our regular rhythm of slow, deep thrusts that gradually picked up the pace as we both neared our climaxes. We moved with the practiced unison of a couple who’d done this a lot, and for a long time. He knew all my spots. All my angles. And I knew his.

I moaned his name, my telltale cue I was going to come.

He slammed home hard and fast, grinding his pubic bone right on my clit and spreading me wide with the thick base of his cock, my pussy greedy for every inch of him.

He wasn’t gentle, because I didn’t need or want him to be. We were primal, an incessant need driving us on that came to a crest, both of us falling over the edge at the same time which didn’t always happen, but I loved when it did. “Augie!”

My name on his lips was just as loud. My fingernails dug into the tawny, muscled skin of his back, and we moved together, riding each other out until neither of us could take it another second and we fell into a sticky, wet, pleasurable heap of arms and legs.

I pressed my lips against his shoulder, just breathing in his scent, still as grateful and in love with him as the first time we’d uttered those words to each other so many years before.

He rolled off me eventually, lying beside me while we caught our breath, but his fingers twined around mine. I stroked the back of his hand with my thumb, my eyes closed, while I enjoyed every inch of my body that was so damn pleased with him.

“We should get up,” I said eventually. “Bliss is expecting us.”

“Bliss probably has a houseful of visitors. She won’t notice if we aren’t there.”

I punched him half-heartedly. “Don’t you want to meet your new nephew?”

We’d been traveling when my brother’s partner had gone into labor and delivered their third baby. A boy this time, which was a surprise since their two older kids were girls. It evened up mine and Augie’s nephew/niece tally a little, with three nieces and now two nephews. Besides Vincent’s three, Banjo, Augie’s brother, had a boy and a girl now as well.

Augie rolled off the bed and onto his feet, walking around our bedroom looking for fresh clothes while he was bare-ass naked.

Which I was not complaining about at all, since the view was sweet.

He pulled a shirt from the chest of drawers. “You feeling okay about the new baby?”

I twisted onto my side, watching him. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

He shrugged. “Just checking in and making sure we’re still good on the no-kids front. Neither of us are exactly getting any younger here, so if you wanted to change your mind…”

I shook my head. “I don’t. But if you need to talk about it…”

He leaned over to kiss me. “Nope. I’m still on board with the no-kids plan. No changes of heart from me. I was really just checking to see if your ovaries were aching at the thought of a cute bundle of baby.”

“Only a tiny twinge, but pretty sure that might have actually been my stomach and probably more to do with that possibly dodgy seafood linguine you made last night.”

He made a face. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Wasn’t that good though, either.”

He chuckled. “We’ll ask for doggie bags from this lunch today to bring home for dinner. Maybe your brother will take pity on us starving fools who can’t cook.”

“Better hope it’s Vincent in charge today then. Because if it’s Scythe, we’re going to be more likely to be fed stale crackers he found in the back of the cabinet and a package of wasabi left over from their last Japanese takeout.”

My brother had DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, once known as a split personality. His alter, Scythe, was pretty much the complete opposite of Vincent, the more dominant but much quieter, though no-less-psychotic personality. Vincent wasn’t an awful cook. Scythe was too unpredictable to trust with flames and knives.

Augie put himself in the shower, and I joined him, even though that added another fifteen minutes when he pushed me up against the tiled bathroom wall and fucked me again. We finally got clean and dressed and were only a few minutes late by the time we drove from our modest place in Saint View, across town to the much fancier Providence, where my brother lived in one of our parents’ properties with his family.

They were an unconventional unit by anyone’s standards, with four adults making up the one relationship. War opened the door when we knocked, Nash only a few steps behind. Their two-year-old, Mila, flailed around like a fish out of water in his arms while he tried to comb her hair.

War grinned. “Welcome to the madness.”

I leaned in and kissed my brother-in-law’s cheek, then held my arms out to their now middle child. “Mila Fawn!” My stomach always clenched a bit at using my niece’s middle name, but it made me happy at the same time, that she was a reminder of the sister we’d lost. “Are you giving your daddy a hard time?”

She giggled and gave me the wide, cheeky smile I loved so much. It was full of cute tiny baby teeth and came complete with a scrunched-up nose and eyes.

In short, she was fucking adorable.

She reached chubby arms to me, making my heart squeeze, even though I knew she probably would have reached for any random stranger who might have saved her from getting her hair brushed. But I took her from Nash’s arms and smothered her in aunty kisses until she was giggling and squealing.

Nash handed the brush over, and I winked at him. “Got it in the bag.”

He laughed as he shook Augie’s hand. “I’m sure you do. I swear it’s only me she doesn’t like doing her hair.”

I tossed Mila into the air. “That’s because your daddies don’t know how to do the cute hairstyles, isn’t it?”

Augie raised an eyebrow at me. “But you do? Because you’re so girly?”

I made a face at him. Though he wasn’t entirely wrong.

We’d both watched more than one hair-braiding tutorial while the girls were sleeping over at our place, and out of the two of us, Augie was definitely better. I had a sneaking suspicion he’d been practicing on the nights he danced at the strip club. I’d definitely seen Eve rocking a braid the last time I’d been there, and now I was a little suspicious of it as Augie took Mila from me and kissed her chubby cheek.

“So where’s my new nephew?” I asked War.

He led the way past the formal living room they never used, and into the back of the huge house. This was where they were a family, with the older kids’ toys strewn about on the floor, and their artwork on the refrigerator. There were bottles loaded into a sterilizer and half-empty cereal bowls still sat on the kitchen table.

A large living area beyond it had a huge couch and a big-screen TV, and beyond that were glass doors that opened up into a spacious backyard, where the girls rode their bikes and kicked balls and played in the treehouse.

A very long time ago, Vincent, Fawn, and I had lived here with our parents. But it had never felt like a home the way it did now.

In the middle of all the chaos, curled up on the couch, was Bliss, a tiny baby cradled in her arms.

My ovaries really did give a twinge but not in a way that made me want one of my own. Augie and I had agreed a long time ago we didn’t want any, and though we regularly checked in with each other to make sure we hadn’t changed our minds, like this morning, I knew in my heart that neither of us wanted to be parents.

We were healing from our combined traumas, more and more each day, but neither of us felt the desire to procreate.

We wanted this. To be aunt and uncle and to have children in our lives who we would love with all our hearts.

But then to go home to our quiet house and fuck on the kitchen table at three in the afternoon just because we could. Or go to work without the guilt of leaving a child behind. Or take off and go traveling for two months, like we had recently, which was why we were only just meeting the baby now that he was a month old.

My brother stood from the couch when he noticed me, and as soon as he smiled, I knew which of his alters was in charge. Vincent was gentle and kind and a bit awkward. Scythe was loud and brash and generally unhinged. I loved both equally, but it truly was like having two brothers you never got to see in the same room at the same time because they were actually that different.

I pulled him into a hug, even though he wasn’t big on them. “Congratulations, little brother.”

He pulled back. “Thank you.” He glanced back at Bliss and the baby, and the others all crowding around her as she introduced the tiny blob to Augie.

I went to join them, but Vincent caught my arm. “Ophelia, wait.”

I cringed internally at the tone in his voice but turned back because it was one I didn’t hear often anymore. Not since he’d retired from the family business.

“What’s happened? Is it Dad? Mom? Jesus, what have they done now?” I cracked my neck, trying to loosen the tension that always crept in whenever my parents’ names were mentioned.

And I’d been so relaxed after a morning of orgasms.

You could always count on my parents to wreck a good mood, even when they weren’t in the room.

But he shook his head. “No, it’s not them.”

He glanced back at his family and then jerked his head for me to follow him. Dread grew with every step. I followed him into the bathroom on the bottom floor of their mansion, and he closed the door behind us, then leaned back on it while I took up a seat on the edge of a bathtub that was filled with rubber ducks and had bathtub crayon drawings all over the side.

He cleared his throat. “It’s Zane.”

I blinked. That had been the last thing I’d expected him to say. “Zane Sinclair? Eddie’s brother?”

“Yes. The tracker we have on his truck is reporting some irregularities.”

I was well used to Vincent’s more formal manner of speaking, but it took my brain a second to catch up. “What do you mean? Is it not working anymore?” I shrugged. “I don’t even know if it’s worth trekking all the way out there to replace it this time, V. Tracking him in the hopes he’d lead us to wherever Eddie has been hiding all these years hasn’t exactly gotten us anywhere—”

“His truck has been at an unknown location for days.”

I paused. “Not one of his friends’ places?”

“He doesn’t have any friends.”

That was true. Vincent and I had been tracking Zane for years, watching his movements, noting the places he went and who he spent his time with, all with the single-minded hope he’d lead us to his brother.

Who I would then gut slowly and painfully, making sure he stayed alive long enough to feel hours or even weeks of pain before I let Vincent or Scythe run a blade through his throat.

We’d spent years trying to track down leads on Eddie, but he was smart. He’d gone completely off grid.

Or he was dead in a dumpster somewhere.

I hoped not though, because I didn’t care how long it took, or how much therapy I did, there was no erasing the woman my parents had raised me to be.

And though I might have been the aunty who stayed in on Saturday nights, braiding little girls’ hair badly, there would always be a part of me that craved revenge for what Eddie had done to my sister.

He’d taken so much from her. She would have been obsessed with Vincent’s kids. My title as favorite aunt would have been lost in a heartbeat, the moment Lexa and Mila set eyes on my sweet, Disney princess-ish younger sister.

The gaping wound inside me her death had caused ripped open again at just the thought of getting my hands on her killer.

But I needed to think logically. Vincent, though he was the quieter of my brother’s personalities, was no less bloodthirsty than Scythe. Though they were claiming they were retired from the family hit man business, I’d seen the longing in my brother’s eyes the past year or so.

The bloodlust could only be kept at bay for so long, and he’d been fighting it for five years now.

I eyed him. “You good?”

He nodded quickly. “Yes.” But his voice sounded tight.

“You think Eddie could be out there?”

Vincent’s jaw went rigid. “It’s the childhood home of their mother. We looked into it when Eddie first went on the run and found no one there.”

“So it’s probably nothing. We both know that after this long with no word on his whereabouts, Eddie is probably dead, picked off by some gangbanger he ran his mouth to.”

Vincent cracked his knuckles. “Yes. You’re right. That most likely is the explanation.”

“So you don’t want to go out there?”

A muscle in his eye twitched.

The darkness in him I’d gotten used to when we were younger dropped over his eyes like a veil. It wasn’t the same as when he swapped with Scythe.

It was like the darkness held both of them in its grip, and even though they fought it, it never quite let them go.

I grinned. “Let me go cuddle that baby for ten minutes. Then get your knife.” I crossed the room and elbowed him, not scared of his darkness because I had more than enough of my own as well. “We’ll have to drive all night, but it’s been too long since we had a brother-sister stabfest.”