I frowned. “Is that some shit Shawna said to you? Or maybe your mother ‘cause it sounds real scolding like.”
For a few seconds it was quiet, then we both burst into laughter.
“Yeah, whatever man,” he said still chuckling. “You know what I mean.”
Letting my head fall back on the headrest, I continued to laugh. “Yeah,” I said when I could catch my breath. “Yeah, you’re right. On some level, you’re right. I should’ve said something. At least about us dating. But you know we didn’t need your permission, right?”
He dragged a hand down his face. “Just like you know I would’ve never given you my permission. She’s my sister, man.”
“I know and I’d be doing the same thing if this was LeLe. I get it. But we’re here now. Dakota and I are married so I’m gonna be pulling up to Sunday dinner with my in-laws every week now.” I smiled because I like the sound of dinner with my in-laws. Which reminded me that I had to get Dakota out to meet Uncle Irv and Aunt Josie soon.
“Yeah, I guess. But you can’t be hoggin’ all the bread pudding. Acting like you’ve never had good desserts in your life,” he replied.
“You salty about that? I mean, that shit was good, and Mama Brenda said I could take as much as I want.”
His brow furrowed. “She told you to call her that?”
I nodded with a big grin. “And Shawna said that means we’re really family, so there you have it.”
We both chuckled again and for a few minutes in time it felt really good. I had family, had a biological brother and all of my brothers in ink, but Cade was different. I knew he was cool from the start, had seen that lingering darkness in his cat eyes. Now, we were brothers by marriage, and I was okay with that shit.
My phone buzzed, breaking through our laughter and I dug it out of my pocket again. “Speak.”
“Got her,” KC said. “Texting you the address now.”
My entire mood shifted, determination lacing my words. “On my way.”
Cade pressed the button to start the truck and at the same time asked, “Where we going?”
When I looked over at him it was to see him staring at me in question. “What? Somebody got a location? Is it about the judge?”
“Uh, no.” I debated whether I should tell him about what happened last night. We’d just gotten back to the place where we were cool. If I told him my ex ran up on Dakota, I might have to beat his ass out here on this dirt road. But this was Dakota’s brother. My brother-in-law now, I wasn’t going to keep shit that concerned his sister away from him. “It’s about Dakota.”
His eyebrows instantly went up.
“I’ll talk, you drive,” I said looking down at the message that had just come through my phone. “Sending you the address now.”
“Yeah, and you better start talkin’,” Cade said adamantly.
CHAPTER 19
ATLAS
“Down.”
She obeyed the command, going to her knees and crawling her naked body across the floor like a feline. All that golden skin over a toned body that looked damn good for a woman of a certain age. I licked my lips before they spread into a slow grin.
A cougar. That’s what she looked like slinking toward me; eyes focused on mine like I was her prey. To the world, considering our twenty-year age difference, that’s precisely what I was, what I had been since my twentieth birthday. As usual, the world had no fuckin’ clue.
Sitting with my legs spread, arms stretched over the back of the couch I held her gaze. Auntie August had some pretty ass eyes. They were always smiling at me like she was happy to see me. I used to be happy as hell to see her waiting in the schoolyard when I came out the back door. I loved when she picked me up because that meant we were going to her house which was significantly cleaner than the one-bedroom apartment I lived in with my mother. I was four when my mother moved us out of Aunt Maggie’s house. Aunt Maggie’splace was always hot like a damn furnace and smelled like pine-sol. Mama’s apartment smelled like weed.
Auntie August was really my godmother. And she was better than anyone else’s. That’s what I told those jealous ass kids in my class from elementary through middle school. Mama said she and Auntie August were like cousins since Auntie August’s grandmother lived next door to Aunt Maggie. My first memories of Auntie August picking me up from school were filled with the bomb ass car she drove and the soft seats. She let me ride in the front seat with that seatbelt pulled tight over my nine-year-old body. We always went for ice cream after school. I had vanilla and she had chocolate.
I was in the eighth grade when Auntie August pulled up at the corner of the middle school. I jogged to her car then watched her ass as she got out and walked around to the passenger side to get in. Grinning like I’d hit the lottery, I climbed into the driver’s side of her Benz and drove us to that same ice cream shop.
By the tenth grade my dick jumped each time Auntie August licked her chocolate ice cream from that cone.
For my twentieth birthday, Auntie August threw me a party at her boyfriend’s nightclub. While my friends got drunk and high, she took me into one of the back offices, locked the door and sucked my dick until I felt like I was floating without taking one hit of all the coke flowing freely outside.
