I should have given up my reckless hopes and left.
But my idiot brain melted when she bit her bottom lip.
Fuck.
“Yeah,” I heard myself say.
And it was worth it to see the elation in her eyes. The bigger than life smiles on both their faces.
“We need to tell Ames.” She declared, already pulling out of Eliah’s arms. “I’ll see you at supper?”
His face dropped and he skimmed her nose with his lips.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
With a final smile for him, she fixed all her attention on me.
“Ames is in the war room.”
I didn’t recall installing a war room, but I made no comment when she took my hand, right in front of Eliah, who only grinned at me.
She liked to talk. It didn’t bother me. I liked hearing her. There didn’t seem to be a topic she didn’t want to discuss, an event she didn’t want to share. She was trying to fill me in through the entire walk across the house, her sweet voice ringing along the corridors.
“Mrs. Pym says—”
I cut her off. “How is Mrs. Pym?”
Lenora glanced up at me. “Good. Mr. Pym had a stroke last year, but they both seem to be doing all right.”
I hadn’t known.
Cordelia Pym had been a trusted member of the Usher Family for years and I had no idea she’d gone through something so awful.
It only solidified the insistence that I needed to stay. That I couldn’t run anymore, and it had nothing to do with the pint-sized woman telling me about the incident with the stray cats Mr. Pym found in the garden shed.
Not entirely.
The rapid thump and thwack greeted us before we rounded the bend to the gym doors. The stench of sweat and cleaner swept into the corridor with the tug of the door.
Lenora slipped in before me, calling Ames’s name. The sound of leather striking leather ceased immediately, and I watched her hurry to my other son. The eldest. And watched himstumble back from the punching bag. He tore open the Velcro straps on the boxing gloves with his teeth, chucked them aside and scooped her up into his arms.
No hesitation.
Not even a second to register anything else, except the tiny creature swinging her arms around his neck. And she seemed oblivious to the sweat dripping down his face. Glistening across the hard, muscled expanse of his chest.
Eliah had been big and sturdy, but Ames was brute strength and solid lines. His damp strands were pulled back from his face by an elastic, but tendrils clung to his neck and temples.
Unlike Eliah, Ames didn’t hesitate kissing her like he’d already gone too long without her taste. His fingers fisted into her braid and he lifted her off her feet. Lenora sighed and all but melted into him.
“Finally. A worthy opponent. Have you come to challenge me to the throne?”
Lenora laughed against his mouth.
“I concede,” he went on, nibbling on her bottom lip. “And only ask to be your willing slave. Worship at your feet. Between your—”
“I have something for you,” she blurted, face an endearing scarlet.
Like his brother, Ames smirked. Eyebrow lifted. “Me, too.”
