Chapter Two
“Oh,God, baby, I’m gonna come so hard.” I groaned as I pumped my cock into the warm wet throat. “Ung, God so good. I’m almost there, baby, yeah, right there.” God, I hadn’t felt this good in months. I needed to get off in the worst way, and this was exactly what I needed. I was concentrating on the growing pressure in my balls and the tingling that was starting in my lower back when I heard a faint sound I couldn’t quite place. I shook it off and got back to getting there. But the sound was getting louder.
What the Hell is that?
The sound of a man’s loud voice echoed through my wet dream induced haze. “Asshole calling! There’s an asshole calling! Hurry up and answer the phone! There’s an asshole on the other end of the line!” I was suddenly back in reality and recognized the ringtone I had set for my brother. It was annoying as all hell but fairly accurate. He really could be an asshole most of the time. The present situation was a prime example. I removed my hand from my quickly deflating dick and reached for my phone. “Fuckinghell.” I yelled out to the empty loft as I finally shook off my dream and hit the screen to answer the call. I immediately lit into my baby brother since it was always better to have a strong offense. “Lachlan, I swear toGodthere better be blood or a family emergency for you to call me at the ass crack of dawn like this. I was enjoying the best dream I’ve had in months, and you ruined it before the money shot, asshole.”
All I got in response was hysterical laughter. See, asshole. “Connor Michael McDaniel, is that any way to speak to your favorite sibling on this very fine morning?”
Yep, Lachlan was a morning person, too. Asshole all around as far as I was concerned. “Lach, what do you want, you bloody arse? I didna get to bed until one in the morning, and now you’re callin’ me at six. What’s so important that it couldna wait until after noon?”
“Oh, Connor, I do so love getting you riled.” Lachlan was practically giddy, “Your accent really comes out when you’re all pissed and emotional. Dammit, why are you the only one that still has any Scottish brogue? Even if yours isn’t really noticeable unless you’re mad. What I wouldn’t give to be able to whip out that accent whenever I wanted. I’d get more action than even I could handle. Men and women would be falling at my feet.” He let out a heavy sigh like he was mourning his sad lot in life. “It’s so unfair the antisocial bear of the family got the sexy accent.”
Throughout all of this utter nonsense, I had reached the end of my very short fuse. “Lach, I swear, if you don’t tell me what the fuck you want, I’m gonna hang up on you in two-point-five seconds. Then I’m gonna call Mom and tell her all about the fascinatin’ conversation I had with you this mornin’ where you told me about fuckin’ your twink conquest all over the house last night. You are still house sittin’ for them, right? How long do you think it’ll take Mom to get you in her sights? I’d give it two, maybe three, minutes before she had you apologizin’ for things you’ve never even thought of doin’.” I had him by the balls now. No one ever wanted to be on Maeve Douglas’s bad side, especially her children.
“You wouldn’t dare! Connor, you know she’s still mad about that thing with Isobel last year.” He had a slight tremor in his voice. Playing with the sibs was always so much fun.
“Fuckin’ yes, I would dare. Just try me, brother mine.” I couldn’t help chuckling a little at his discomfort. He’d deprived me of my morning nut, and this was almost as satisfying.
“All right, fine, you big bully. I drew the short straw to call you and remind you that you’re meeting with the rep from the architecture firm this morning. We all know you’re not a morning person and you never keep an accurate calendar, so we decided someone needed to call and make sure you remembered. I didn’t know you’d be so mean about it though. Threatening me with Mom was low, even for you.”
I clicked my tongue at him. “Pouting doesn’t suit you, Lach. You know I always play for keeps.”
I had been sitting up in bed still trying to shake off my dream throughout this whole asinine conversation, but at the reminder of the meeting this morning, I heaved a heavy sigh and flopped back onto the mound of pillows. I scrubbed my left hand through my thick hair and then ran it down my face scraping my palm on the permanent scruff before finally digging my thumb and index fingers into my gritty eyes. Fuck, I had forgotten the meeting. Thank God Lachlan had called, or I would have been up shit creek. Hell if I would ever tell the bastard the truth though. I sifted through my fuzzy brain and picked out the pertinent pieces of information to make it sound like I wasn’t a complete idiot. “The architect meeting, right, it’s this morning at”—I paused and just grabbed a time out of my ass—“nine this morning. But I still don’t understand why we’re hiring outside help on this project? Why aren’t we using some of our in-house guys like we normally do on renovation jobs?”
“Right, you’re meeting him at nine”—I gave myself a mental high five for guessing right—“and he’s going to need to take some measurements first thing for the walk-in freezer and cooling units you want to have added. This is your baby, Connor, I know, but we need these guys to make it work. This is a historic building and has some importance to the community. As soon as we’d finalized the sale, we got a proposal from their firm, Going Coastal Designs, explaining their experience in renovating period architecture in the area and their knowledge of the historical preservation policies we’d be coming up against throughout the project.”
“Okay, I get it, but I hope they don’t try to take over or tell me what I can and can’t do with the project. I’m determined to build this into the pub I’ve always dreamed of having. I don’t want to have to deal with some pencil pusher telling me my ideas are shit.”
“Connor, quit borrowing trouble. Everything will be perfect. This is the whole reason you moved from Atlanta and hauled your ass to the lovely town of Fairpoint in the first place. Well, that and you were looking to make a fresh start.”
“Right, a fresh start. Is that what we’re calling it now? Not like I had much of a choice.” I said under my breath, but of course, Lachlan heard me.
“Of course you had a choice, Connor, and you made the smart one. It’s been nine months since the thing with Troy. You were still in the apartment you two shared, going through the motions. We were all so worried about you.”
I absolutely did not want to talk about this right now. “Lach, not now. I really don’t…”
“Conn, I know you don’t want to, but you need to put it behind you. It sucks that you were ready to commit and Troy wasn’t. It sucks even more that he had been cheating on you and left you for a new guy…”
“Guys,” I said softly, and my face heated with embarrassment. This was the part of the story no one but I knew. Lachlan was right, and I needed to move on. Part of that was facing my humiliation. “He actually left me for two guys, not one. Apparently, I wasn’t good enough, so he went out and found a committed couple that wanted to add him and make their perfect triad…throuple, or whatever the fuck it is.” This was where it got personal, “When he told me he was leaving, he actually told me that he had never been satisfied with just me. He had been staying with me as a stand-in dick or placeholder until he found someone, or several someones, to satisfy him. So, not only did he not want to commit, he actually never loved me in the first place. It was all just games and lies, Lach.” I looked out into the distance through my glass balcony doors and sniffed back the stinging in my nose, ignoring the unexpected moisture in my eyes.
This was the first time I had said all of this out loud, and it was affecting me more than I liked to admit. I had thought Troy was the one and had already bought a ring when he dropped his bombshell. He had been planning his escape from me for over a month before he told me. He gave two days’ notice before he moved out. Now it was over nine months later, and I was still letting his cruel words affect me.
“So, you see, Lach, I didn’t have much choice. I needed to get away from anything that might make me think about Troy and his happy, finally fucking fulfilled life.” Like a switch had been flipped, I was suddenly livid. I grabbed one of the pillows next to me and hurled it across the loft space knocking a lamp off the table by the sofa. The shattering glass seemed to resonate in my chest, and that place inside me full of pain and betrayal finally broke open revealing the anger I had bottled up for months. “Jesus Fucking Christ, Lach, why can’t I find a guy who likes me for me? Why do guys always want to play games and lie and cheat? God, I wish I could find someone who just wants to be mine, a part of my family and maybe start a family of our own. Why is that so much to ask?”
Lachlan was unusually quiet, then with a subdued voice, he replied, “I don’t know, Conn. I really don’t, but between you and me, that’s everything I want for my future, too. It’s not too much to ask, but maybe we’ve just been looking in the wrong places, or it’s not the right time yet. I know Dad’s dying made a bigger impact on you than it did us. You felt like you needed to be the man of the family and took all of that onto your little eight-year-old shoulders, but that was twenty-two years ago, Conn. Mom found Dean, and we had a great life after we moved to Atlanta. I know you think you failed somehow with Troy, but that wasn’t on you. You’ll find your perfect person eventually. And knowing you, you’ll fall in love at first sight. I just hope he’s not emotionally stunted. I love you, bro, but Troy was a user. I feel like I can finally be honest with you. I am so fucking glad that you got away from him.”
“Don’t hold back, Lach, tell me how you really feel.”
“Shit, Connor, I don’t have the answers, but you should just know you’re not alone. I want you to be happy, and I’m selfish because I want that for me, too. We all deserve to have our greatest wish and our happily ever afters.” I snorted at his choice of words, and he eventually joined in. I could feel my temper chill, leaving me oddly light-headed.
“Don’t laugh at me, Conn. You want it all, too, you just admitted it. You may be the tall dark badass protector of the family, but I know you’re also the closet romantic. How many romance novels do you have on your Kindle now? Over a hundred?”
I tried to deny it, “I use my e-reader for work books and magazines.”
He wouldn’t let me get away with it though. “Uh huh, no way, big bro, you called me out and threatened me with Mom. I call bullshit. You’re the biggest bear romantic I’ve ever met. I bet you even watched the meteor shower last week and wished on a star.”
“Well, actually, you rude bastard, if you must know, I did watch the meteor shower. I saw it from my new balcony off my loft. It was a great show by the way and if I did wish on a falling star, what’s it to you? Lots of people do that shit. It’s like the wishbone thing or dropping a coin in a fountain.”
