Page 39

Thirty-Nine

Jade

I’ll meet you at the corner.

Henry is picking me up with Bodhi today, and we’re going to go to the Lakefront Trail to eat dinner and watch the sunset.

We’re picking you up. From your house.

Don’t you think that will seem suspicious?

I think you’re showing my son how photography works.

Okay, just text me then, and I’ll meet you outside.

No Jade, we’ll come to the door.

You’re being bossy again.

So, I should save my bossiness for the bedroom?

Don’t do that.

Do what?

Don’t get me all hot for your dick right before you’re picking me up… with your son.

Ah… you’re hot for my dick?

From my room on the second floor, I walk down the stairs to pack up my photography stuff I put in the basement when I first got back.

If you must know, I masturbated to visions of your dick last night.

With a vibrator or that King Kong sized dildo you showed me?

These texts are getting into dangerous territory.

Just my good ol’ trusty fingers.

Tell me you imagined they were mine.

I laugh as I reach the main floor. Reed and Mom glance at me from the television with expressions of interest as if they’re wondering who I’m texting that’s making me smile like a goon.

First, what did you do last night?

I head to the back of the house where the staircase to the basement is, happy for some seclusion.

Let’s just say your hand on my dick last night felt really fucking good.

Warm lava spreads through my veins, and my breasts grow heavy.

For me, it was your mouth on my tits.

God, my fantasies are becoming more and more detailed the longer and longer we go without having sex.

Tell me more…

My thumbs hover over the phone, and I wonder if we should be texting like this right before we see one another. The last thing I want is to be sexually frustrated for the rest of the day and not able to do anything about it.

“Who are you texting?” Waylon asks, looking over my shoulder.

The phone fumbles out of my grip and falls down the stairs to the basement, landing at Owen’s feet. Shit. It’s like slow motion as he bends down to pick it up.

“She’s all flushed.” Waylon weaves by me and rushes down the stairs. “Who is she messaging?”

“Henry,” they say at the same time.

“I swear to God, Owen.” I follow Waylon, slipping on the third step but recovering before I fall on my ass.

“So, you’re sexting someone?” Owen lifts the phone. I really hope my password protect is on. “Ew, at your age? Sexting? Come on, sis.”

I reach to grab the phone, but Owen holds it up over his head.

“It’s not like I’m Mom and Reed’s age.” I jump to get the phone, but I can’t reach it because they’re so tall.

The doorbell rings upstairs, and we all stop, wondering who it could be. There’s no way Henry got here that fast.

“Tell me there aren’t dirty pics too,” Waylon says.

“Just give it back.”

Footsteps sound above us, and I hear Mom and Reed talking to someone before the footsteps reach the stairs. I really need that phone back before whoever it is comes down here.

Someone barrels down the stairs, and we turn and see Bodhi standing there.

“Hi, guys,” he says.

Owen glances at me, and I raise my eyebrows.

“Bodzilla.” Owen tosses Bodhi the phone.

“No!” I shout.

Owen and Waylon laugh.

“Don’t let her get it, Bodhi,” Waylon taunts, and they jet off in different directions.

Bodhi drops the phone but picks it up. Surely my password protect has activated by now. He stares at my phone, and holy shit, I can’t imagine if he read one of those texts and asked about vibrators, dildos, and dick.

“Hey, Bodhi,” I say sweetly. “May I have my phone please?”

He looks at Owen then Waylon. Yeah, I’m not getting the phone.

“Throw it to me,” Waylon says, raising his hands.

Bodhi throws it to him. Shit, he does have a good arm because it sails past me to the other side of the couch and into Waylon’s hands.

“Killer throw, Bodzilla,” Owen says.

Bodhi looks as though he just got picked to be line leader at school.

I climb over the couch. “Give it back.”

“There’s something juicy on this. I’m wondering if we should use it as blackmail.” Waylon pretends to be thinking, tapping his lip with his finger.

“Waylon, I swear to God.” I jump on his back, reaching for the phone, but he tosses it to Owen, who runs across the room.

“Boys, give the phone back.”

Owen stops, and we all look toward the bottom of the stairs. Henry wears a half smirk/half smile. My savior.

I climb down from Waylon’s back, almost falling on my ass again. It’s slightly embarrassing to be fighting with my brothers at my age.

“Hey,” I say.

“Oh jeez, she’s all flushed again. Come on, Bodhi, Mom made some chocolate chip cookies.” Owen nods to the stairs, passing the phone to Henry.

“Can I have one?” Bodhi looks at Henry for permission.

“Sure.” He runs his hand through his son’s hair.

The three of them run up the stairs as if it’s a competition who can get there the fastest.

“Loosening the reins. Allowing him to have a cookie before dinner?” I ask, breaking the distance, hoping we can sneak in a kiss or two before any interruptions.

He must have the same thought because he meets me at the edge of the pool table, handing me my phone. “I would’ve said yes to a five-scoop ice cream sundae with every topping imaginable for a few minutes alone with you.” He cages me with his hips against the edge of the table.

“Oh.” Heat rises to my cheeks.

“Your texts just about killed me.” He leans in, and I don’t fight his lips meeting mine.

“Your authoritative voice when you were talking to my brothers did the same to me. It was hot.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Really?”

I nod. “Real daddy energy.”

He cringes and I chuckle.

“Please don’t.” Henry shakes his head.

“You don’t want me to call you daddy? Daddy Henry has a nice ring to it.” I press my body into his.

“Fuck, call me whatever you want as long as I can get a taste of you.” His voice is as rough as Lake Michigan before a storm.

I rise on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck, and meet his fervor with the same intensity. He doesn’t hold back—lips firm, tongue searching, hands roaming. When his hands slink down, grabbing my ass and pushing my core into his hardening length, it’s all I can do not to let him take me right on the table.

Footsteps above us running from the front room pull me out of my lust haze, and I push on his chest. “We need to stop.”

“One more taste,” he whispers, pressing his lips to mine again.

For another few minutes, I lose myself all over again. God, this man… he can kiss.

More footsteps. They sound as though they’re headed toward the back of the house and the basement stairs.

We need to stop, but it feels so damn good.

“Okay, really.” I push him away and unwind out of his hold, breaking free. “I have to get my camera stuff.”

“Come to an away game,” he says.

I stop midstride on my way to the cabinet without turning around. “What?”

“Come to an away game. Mack will have Bodhi. I have a game Friday. We’re playing Minnesota.”

I turn around to face him. I’m not passing up time with Henry. Especially alone time. “Okay.”

He walks toward me, his smile only growing. “I’ll take care of everything, and I’ll fly back with you Saturday.”

“Aren’t people going to ask questions?” I let him wrap me in his arms again because it feels too good to deny myself.

“They’ll think I’m doing what I should’ve been doing since you walked into that back room at Peeper’s Alley. Taking what I want.” He bends his head, and I place my hand over my mouth so he ends up kissing the back of my hand.

“Nope. We can’t start up again. I have to grab my camera stuff.” I turn around and open the cabinet.

“I don’t love that you’ve hidden it away,” he says.

“Well, I’m taking it out now.”

Footsteps sound down the stairs.

“Close your eyes, Bodhi, we can’t have you scarred for life,” Waylon says.

“Scarred?” Bodhi asks, either not knowing what that word means or not understanding the reference my idiotic brother is trying to convey.

“Nice, Waylon,” Henry says. “How’d it go last night?”

“We lost. Mostly because Owen couldn’t score.”

“Me? Lancaster was on me all night. I couldn’t get a puck by him.” Owen points at Waylon. “You let three goals in.”

Henry’s arms are crossed, and he’s now sitting on the edge of the couch with his legs out and crossed at his ankles. “Stop pointing fingers. You know the rules—you win as a team, and you lose as a team. Figure out where you didn’t contribute and try to fix it. But blaming other people isn’t going to make you better.”

The three of them talk hockey, Owen demonstrating the way a specific play went down while Henry listens and offers some advice on how to get away from the defense. I’m so busy admiring Henry interacting with my brothers that I don’t realize Bodhi has gravitated over to me.

“Is that your camera?” he asks.

Bodhi’s words remind me of what today is about. I’m eager to get him behind the lens and see what he sees. So I bend down. “Let’s get out of here. All this hockey talk, right? We have pictures to take.”

“Yeah.” His brown eyes light up.

I want to hug and squeeze him, but most of all, I kind of want to make him mine.

“See you, boys,” I say, taking Bodhi’s hand and swinging my camera bag over my shoulder, walking toward the stairs.

“You’re missing your driver,” Henry says, catching us at the bottom of the stairs. “See you Thursday,” he says to my brothers.

“Remember you have impressionable eyes and ears with you today,” Waylon shouts up the stairs.

I cannot wait to pay them back when they bring home a girl.

We say goodbye to Reed and Mom. Each of them looks at us a little suspiciously, but neither says anything. When I head out the front door and look down the stairs at the street, I see Henry’s old car from high school, all restored and now painted black, parked along the curb.

I glance at him, and he presses his hand to the small of my back. “Thought I junked her, huh?”

“I’d hoped not.”

“Nah, I couldn’t. Too many good memories in that back seat—hell everywhere, even the hood.”

As we walk down the stairs, Bodhi’s staring at us, but I can’t see his expression with the low-hanging sun.

Henry keeping his car and restoring it shouldn’t mean a thing, but there’s no way he drove that car without thinking of me, which tells me he’s always kept a piece of me with him. I really like that thought.