“Oh please.” Alec joined them. “Tell them, Ma, how I helped you all the time when I was little. It was the others who caused you so much mental anguish.”
“Yeah, this one right here.” Sandy put her son in an awkward, pretend headlock, which had Cass laughing since Alec clearly stood several inches taller than his mother. “So neat and orderly.”
“That’s a good thing.” Alec escaped his mother’s hold and hugged her. “I was the good son.”
“You were a snot who was obsessive about neatness,” Mack corrected. He said to Cass, “If you touched anything of his, he’d steal your toy cars and refused to tell you where he hid them. James would lecture you. Xavier would beat on you.”
“That’s my man, a brute,” Sasha said with humor.
“But Alec would ‘clean’ your room and hide all your stuff. So traumatic. I still have nightmares,” Mack ended as he stood next to Cass, not touching her but showing everyone they’d come together.
She had to give it to him. Mack had been doing pretty well about not beating his chest and toting Cass around by her hair. She grinned, the ridiculous image amusing.
“What’s so funny?” he whispered when everyone started harping on Alec’s fascination with cleanliness.
“Oh, nothing.”
“Tell me.” He drew closer, his arm on the counter behind her. Almost hugging, but not quite.
As much as Cass liked their relationship free of labels and possessive standards, she admitted to liking him so close. Would he kiss her in front of everyone? Would she mind if he did?
She was about to answer him when she noticed Xavier frowning at them.
She raised a brow, but his brother’s expression didn’t change. If anything, it grew darker the longer he looked at Mack.
Cass didn’t like it. Before she could say anything, Dean called them back over because the game had started again. Everyone but Mack and Cass gravitated into the living room.
“Okay, you two. Shoo. I need to get organized.” Sandy paused. “Ah, Jimmy, there you are. Come help me.”
“Sure thing. What do you need?”
Mack drew Cass with him toward the dining area, still in full view of the kitchen and living room.
“Geez. How big is this space? It’s like the size of my whole house, and it’s just their first floor.” Cass looked around her.
“And that’s not including the office, bathroom, laundry room, and master suite down the hall.”
“Great. Now I really feel like a peon.”
She felt someone looking at her and glanced toward the living area to see Xavier glaring before he turned back to the TV, cheering with the group at the action onscreen.
Cass glared at the back of Xavier’s fat head and murmured, “If your brother keeps looking at me like that, I’m going to punch him in the throat.” She hadn’t expected Mack’s loud laugh. “Shh.”
“Sorry. That’s something I’d pay to see.” He leaned closer to whisper, “How do multiple orgasms all night long sound as payment?”
She blushed. “Mack. Not here.”
He grinned, the tension that seemed to grip him the moment they’d stepped foot in his parents’ house gone, at least for the moment. “Don’t worry, Cass. I won’t get all possessive with you, even though I really want to kiss you.”
She did it for him, a quick though loving kiss that told him she cared. Then, feeling embarrassed for putting them on display, she said gruffly, “Now will that shut you up?”
He zipped his lips, then ruined it by laughing. “How about ifIpunch him in the throat? What will you give me?”
“Dinner!” Sandy called out.
Saved from trying to come up with an answer, Cass discreetly patted him on the ass.
“Hey.” He grinned. “Save that for later.”
