Chapter 28

“Is everything okay?” I say into my phone after answering my driver’s call.

I hear him take a deep breath. “I’m not sure, sir. Mrs. James just left her mother’s house, and she seemed quite upset.”

“Did she say what happened?”

“She said she was fine, but then she … She needed a hug, sir.”

I roll my neck and clench my free hand into a fist. I can guarantee her reaction had something to do with her asshole brother. “Bring her to me.”

“She said she wants to go home, sir.”

“You can get her here faster than I can get home to her. Bring her to me.”

“Of course, sir.”

I end the call and look up to find my dad and brothers staring at me. “Mel just left her mother’s house upset. I told Teddy to bring her here.”

My dad offers me a reassuring nod. “I’ll set another place for dinner.”

Elijah frowns. “Did he say what happened? Is she okay?”

I shake my head. “Teddy didn’t know. She didn’t say, and I know better than to push her on it. There’s some weird dynamic there that I need to get to the bottom of.”

Mason shivers. “Her brother gives me the fucking creeps.”

“He’s a dick,” Elijah adds.

“Well, she’ll be okay here with her new family,” Dad adds, his gray eyes shining. “Maybe you should both stay over?” I don’t miss the plea in his tone. He must be really lonely in this big old house without my mom and us kids. I get now why he’s so desperate for grandchildren, and my heart aches for everything he lost when our mom died.

Stepping away, I dial Mel’s number, and she answers after a few rings. “Hey, corazón, my dad and brothers are giving me shit for not bringing you here today. They miss you. We haven’t eaten yet, so I asked Teddy to bring you here.”

“Oh. I was gonna go home and have a nice long bath. I’m kind of beat.”

“You can soak in the tub here. We’ll stay over and watch one of those cheesy movies you like in bed. I’ll make sure you’re back in time for work tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. That sounds nice.” I can almost hear the smile on her face, and after I hang up, I spend a long moment thinking about how nice it will be to have a family dinner with my wife by my side.

“Wow!” Mel gasps when she walks into the bathroom. “That is a huge tub.”

“Seems like a shame for one person to sit in it alone.”

She folds her arms over her chest and smirks. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping your dad with dinner?”

“Nah.” I dismiss that with a wave. Elijah and Mason can handle it. “Tonight I’m only here to serve you, milady.” I check the temperature of the water. Satisfied that it’s exactly right, I shake the bubbles from my hand and turn off the faucet. “Your bath is ready.”

“It looks incredible.” A smile spreads across her beautiful face. She pulls off her sweater and tosses it onto the floor, and her bra quickly follows. After shimmying out of her jeans and panties, she adds them to the pile.

“Yeah, fucking incredible,” I agree, my eyes roaming over every perfect inch of her naked body.

Her cheeks flush pink. She presses her lips together and shakes her head.

“You can’t give me a sexy striptease and then shake your head at me for admiring the end result, corazón.”

She laughs. “That was not a striptease.”

“Looked like one to me. Now get your sexy ass in this tub.”

She sashays over to me, kisses me on the lips, then climbs into the hot bubbly water. Lying back, she rests her head on the edge and closes her eyes. “Oh, this is so good.”

After pulling off my own clothes and tossing them into the pile with hers, I climb in with her. She scoots forward without me asking, allowing me to slide in behind her. I wrap my arms around her and pull her back against my chest.

“Oh, now this feels even better,” she says with a contented sigh.

I gather her hair in my fist and drape it over her shoulder before pressing a kiss on her temple. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She sinks deeper into the water. “Did Tedward call you when I left my mom’s house today?”

“He did.”

“Traitor.”

I dip my head and kiss her neck. “Part of his job is to take care of you, Mrs. James. What happened?”

“Just my brother being an asshole. I don’t think I’ll be going back there for a while.”

Tension creeps into my muscles, and I band my arms tighter around her. “What did he do?”

“Nothing specific. He’s just an asshole.”

I have no idea why she’s being so evasive, but I’m a patient man. “What about your mom? What did she say when he was being an asshole?”

“Nothing. She never does.”

I rest my chin on the top of her head. “Has he always been an asshole to you?”

She spins around and straddles me. “Can we please stop talking about my brother?” She palms my already semihard cock, and it stiffens further in her grip. “I mean we’re in this incredible tub. We’re naked. You’re hard.”

“I’m always hard around you, corazón.”

Her bright green eyes fix on mine, and I want to unpack the sadness in them, but she’s closed off to me right now. She shifts her hips and lines my crown up with her pussy.

“I know exactly what you’re doing, Spitfire.”

She flutters her eyelashes. “And what’s that, Ice?”

“You’re trying to distract me so I’ll stop asking questions you don’t want to answer.”

“And is it working?” she purrs, squeezing my shaft in her hand and making my eyes roll back in my head.

I bite down on my lip so hard I draw blood. “You know it is.”

“I want you, Ice.”

A growl rolls in my throat. “You’ve got me.”

She sinks onto my cock, allowing me to fill her tight pussy inch by exquisite inch. I grab onto her hips, sinking my fingers into her flesh. She throws her head back and moans while her silky heat grips me tight. I swear I’m going to lose myself in this woman.

I hiss out a breath. “You’re so fucking tight.”

“You feel so good inside me, Nate. I …” She sucks in a ragged breath. “Nobody has ever made me feel like this.”

I bite down on the soft skin of her neck. “And nobody ever will, corazón. You’re mine.” I pull her down and thrust my hips at the same time, bottoming out inside her and making her cry out a strangled moan. “I’m going to fill your greedy cunt with my cum and then I’m going to eat it out of you.”

“Holy shit!” Her inner walls ripple around me, milking my cock with hungry squeezes.

I roll her over me, rubbing her clit against my skin until she’s mewling like my feral little spitfire. Her pussy grips my cock with a series of tight squeezes that has heat searing in my balls and fire burning my thighs. I hold her still and drive into her, causing water to splash out of the tub in waves.

My climax bursts out of me, and I sink my teeth into her skin as I pump every drop of my release into her wet heat. When she’s teetering on the precipice, I pull her off me and set her on the edge of the tub, spreading her legs so I can feast on her dripping center. The taste of our release coats my tongue, making my heart pound in my chest. “Fuck. We taste so good, corazón.”

“Nate,” she whimpers, threading her fingers in my hair and riding my face. I flick her swollen clit with my tongue, and she comes apart for me, shaking so hard I have to work to hold her in place.

Lying back in the tub, I pull her to straddle me again and slide my tongue into her mouth, letting her taste how good we are together.

“I love dinner with your family.” She lets out a contented sigh. “Can we do this more often?”

I press a soft kiss on her head while tracing my fingertips up and down her spine. She lies on top of me, naked and thoroughly fucked for the second time tonight. “We’ll do it as often as we can, corazón.”

She hums and presses her cheek into my chest.

“Now tell me what the deal is between you and your brother.”

She tenses in my arms, but I only hold her tighter. “What do you mean?”

“You’re always on edge around him. You bristle when he comes near you. Do I need to kill him?”

She pokes me in the ribs. “No!”

I give her another tender kiss. “So tell me.”

She wriggles. “He’s just not a nice guy.”

“Yeah, I’m going to need more than that, Spitfire.”

She lifts her head and stares into my eyes. “You really want to know?”

I arch an eyebrow at her. “You think I would’ve endured that awful movie about cheerleaders if I didn’t want to talk to you after?”

She presses her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh and then rests her head back on my chest. “He was always a bit of an asshole, but I never saw him much when I was a kid. He was always out with his friends. Then after Dad was killed—” She sucks in a shaky breath. “He said it was my fault. No, he convinced me it was my fault.”

Anger vibrates through my entire body. “He did what?”

She shifts, and I allow her to roll onto her side and turn to face her. “We were all supposed to be at the beach that weekend, but my best friend Hayley was having a pool party for her thirteenth birthday. I begged and pleaded to stay home so I could go, but my mom said no. I threw an almighty tantrum.” A tear leaks from the corner of her eye. “And Dad said I didn’t deserve to go to the beach or the party, so we both stayed home. But the next day, Dad let me go to the party. I realized he scolded me for show and had always been on my side about the party thing. I swear he was always so understanding of teenage girl drama.” A sad smile flickers over her face. “But if we had been at the beach like we were supposed to be, he never would have been home when those men tried to rob us. He’d still be alive.”

I wipe the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs and cradle her face in my hands. “Jesus, Mel. You must know that doesn’t make it your fault.”

She sniffs. “But if I hadn’t acted like a spoiled brat—”

Jesus. I could murder that prick with my bare hands for making her carry this guilt around all these years. “You were thirteen years old. Acting out is what you’re supposed to do.”

“I know that, but … I don’t know, Bryce made me believe it, you know? He’s used it against me my whole life. And the truth is if it wasn’t for me … If we’d all gone along with Bryce’s plan to go to the beach that weekend, my dad wouldn’t be dead.”

A spark of suspicion ignites. “It was his idea to go?”

“Yeah, he was so mad when Dad decided to stay home with me. He even tried to convince me to tell him that I changed my mind, but I was desperate to go to that party.”

I band my arms around her and pull her closer. “And today?”

“He was just his usual asshole self. I doubt he could go a whole day without saying something cruel to me.”

“Would you like me to have a word with him?” And by a word, I mean I’ll break his jaw.

“God, no. Please don’t. I’m fine, and I won’t be seeing him for a while. I’d much rather spend time with your family.”

“Your family too now, Spitfire.”

She smiles, and Jesus fuck, it melts me. She calls me Ice, but all I feel is fire in my veins when I’m with her.