El stands at the door, gaze sliding between me and Mia with her nose stuck in the air. A fake smile etches on her lips as she steps inside. I see through it and muster a sheepish grin. “It’s time to cut the cake.”
I send Mia a curt nod and follow behind El. As soon as we are alone in the corridor, she spins to face me. Hands resting on her hips, her pupils dilate with anger. “Now you are flirting with the caregiver, huh?”
Her audacity irritates me more than her accusation. “What I do is none of your business.”
“It’s my business if you are doing it where my kids are.” Laughter trickles out of my lips. She has nerves.
“They are my kids too, El. I know what’s good for them.” I am so horny I will fuck a tree but if Mia had given herself up to me, I wouldn’t have touched her. It is one reason she is getting fired. I don’t want to find out if today is part of a bigger plan to seduce me. I fucked up my vows once, I won’t fuck it up again. “But I’m a man with needs.” Her lips twitch and mine curls in a sadistic smile. “And Mia is more than capable of satisfying those needs.”
Fury darkens her eyes, she raises a hand but drops it. “Have some respect for our girls downstairs.” Her lips twitch, my smirk grows bigger and she loses it. “Save the whoring for somewhere more private.”
My shoulder digs into the wall for support and my legs cross at the ankle. I flash her a grin at her failed attempt at an insult. If she intends to hurt me with her words, she has to go harder than this.
“Like you did before choosing to invite T?”
The light in her eyes dim and her expression cracks. My gaze sweeps over her and my mind chooses to highlight her beauty to me. Why does she have to look so pretty when upset? She used lip gloss again. And now I am left wondering if it tastes the same as the one from that night. Does she even miss me?
“The girls wanted him here,” she answers.
I fold my hands on my chest. “I don’t want him here.”
“It’s not your party.” A wave of tiredness rolls through me at her reply, she sighs and the fight leaves my body. We are not getting anywhere with this back and forth. I look at her. What if we were never meant to be together and I am grasping at straws? “I sent you the list of guests.” A mail among my piles of untouched emails. Brianna has become the most important thing to me. “If you didn’t want him here you would have said something earlier.”
My head dips in mockery but my focus is on her lips. She will look good on her knees, sucking me off until I release my pent up frustration.
“There is nothing I can do now,” she mutters.
Taking in my appearance, she moves closer and pokes my shoulder. “Brandon,” she whispers. My heart slams against my chest at her delicious mention of my name, at least it still functions around her. “Where’s your shirt?” I don’t get a chance to answer. She gasps. “Did you touch her?” I shake my head slowly. “Did she touch you?” I shrug.
Mia touched my nose but El doesn’t need to know that. I only owe my girls an explanation and they are not demanding one. Our relationship is tiring. I might have initiated the games in the past but I am tired of them.
“She touched you,” El states with a conviction that’s laughable. I offer her a tight smile, her eyes narrow with suspicion. She doesn’t get to ask me this when she shares casual touches with T all the time. Her gaze steels with a wicked resolve. I arch a brow. “You need to put on a shirt so we can cut the cake.”
“I don’t have a shirt,” I say, mostly to annoy her.
“You…” Another terse second passes before she forms a reply. Her hands tremble as she takes laboured breaths to keep herself in check. “You don’t have a shirt?” I nod again. “What happened to your shirt?”
“I gave it to Mia,” I lie and El almost explodes with rage. Her brows twitch uncontrollably, she clenches her fists at her sides. “I’m kidding.” There’s no trace of laughter in my voice, she eyes me with obvious disbelief and my lips widen in a faker smile. “It got stained when I was making a painting for Brianna.”
Her eyes soften, running over me with a much concerned look. “Is she okay?” I nod. “Are you okay?” My shoulders move carelessly in a shrug. If she cared, she wouldn’t have been spending most of today with T. “I can get you another shirt.”
The voice that answers her might have come from me but it sounds nothing like mine. “Okay.”
We travel down the corridor to her room—our former bedroom and my eyes sting badly. The walls are as I last remembered them from the video. Has she fucked herself to a picture of me?
Pictures of us cover one side of the wall, memories from that night assault me when my eyes lower to the bed. Murmuring to herself, she ransacks the wardrobe until she finds what she’s looking for. A white shirt she holds up to me.
Not my style but she’s irritated enough and I am no longer in the mood to annoy her. “Do you like it?”
No. “It will do.”
My discomfort doesn’t escape her. “I don’t have another one,” she says and we finally break eye contact.
“It’s fine.”
An air of awkwardness hangs over us and I push myself forward to retrieve the shirt. We are two familiar strangers. Two people who know so much about the other person that we can’t live with what we know.
A smile tugs at my lips as her fingers brush mine. Sparks shoot up my fingertips and she jerks back.
“I wasn’t flirting with the caregiver,” I say and pull the shirt over my head. The shirt smells like me but I can’t be too sure. El chews on her lips while I smoothen the wrinkles and blood rushes to my groin. If we hadn’t tried to work things out, I wouldn’t know what I was missing every time I looked at those sexy lips. Now, all I see when she does that innocent move is her mouth on my cock.
“You didn’t say anything about the guest list so I thought you were okay with T’s presence.”
Without telling her, she should know. I hate T.
I back her up against the wall. Her breath becomes shallow, eyes heavy but she doesn’t look away. I separate her legs with mine. Our fingers entwine above her head. Her breathing becomes as heavy as mine and my cock reacts to her sexy presence.
A glimpse of her skin on display and my body lights up. She is not showing cleavage, only her hot legs. I place a hand by the side of her head. “I’m horny.”
An inaudible gasp escapes her, my teeth graze her neck, her shoulder and she sucks in a sharp breath. My hand slides between her legs. She shudders. I tug on the tiny, elastic waistband of her panties and release it without notice. El whimpers. I don’t care if it hurts, I repeat it again and again until she grabs my hand. She was with T. She should be punished.
“It hurts,” she cries. Her eyes beg for mercy and my chest falls in defeat. What are we even doing?
“Take it off,” I order. Her hesitation irks me, my jaw ticks. If she didn’t want to be here, she would have left. She wants me too, not that fucker. “Now.”
El gives a shaky nod. I step back for her to pull off her panties. The stirring in my groins intensifies at the colour of her underwear. Red. The colour of sin. Does T also know the colour? I stretch my hand for it, she drops it on my palm and I sniff it. Amazing.
“You smell good,” I say. She swallows hard.
Caging her between the wall and my body, I spin her so her back is to my chest. “Hands on the wall.”
The words are barely out of my lips when her hands flattens against the wall. I bunch her gown to her waist, showing off her round ass to anyone who cares to see. Holding her hands above her head, I unbuckle my belt and my trousers fall to my knees.
“Did he touch you?” My dick slips into the crack of her butt. El shakes her head. “Use your words.”
“No.”
My lips hover above her ear, I plant a kiss behind her ear and she arches her back. Good girl.
“Do you want him to touch you?”
She shivers. “No.”
A moan slips from her lips when my dick slides an inch into her wetness. She’s always so ready for me. So fucking wet. She belongs to me. I squeeze her ass, knead the soft flesh and her moans turn frantic. Sliding my dick up and down her buttcrack, my fingers tease her entrance and her arms drop.
“Hands on the wall, El.” She complies. Her ass juts out in hopes of meeting my dick but I move out of her reach. “Do you want me to touch you?”
“Please.”
I slam into her. She doesn’t recover from my first thrust before I shove into her again. She squirms, cries out my name, screams and begs me to go easy but it fuels me to go harder. Rougher. I fuck her hard, as punishment for leaving me, for breaking her promises, for asking me to sell the shares to her.
Her body freezes, I feel her orgasm coming and withdraw. Squeezing her butt together, I spurt my cum all over her ass. The liquid trickles down her butt to her vagina and down her legs, I hurry to the bathroom and return with a towel to clean us up.
“Brandon,” El begs, knee joined together. Her body shakes as I spin her to face me. “You didn’t let me come.” Sweat breaks out on her forehead, she shivers in anticipation. I return her underwear to her and step back to arrange myself. She should do the same. We are done. “Brandon.” She throws her underwear at my feet. “Please don’t do this to me.”
Her eyes are hopeful for more, the whipped part of me takes over the dominant side and my resolve crumbles. I suck her fingers to her knuckles, then push them inside her to do the work. Her eyes roll to the back of her head and she grabs my shoulder.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper in her ear. Her body vibrates against mine. “Keep touching yourself, El. Pretend it’s me. Pretend it’s my fingers inside you.” She gasps on another moan and her face relaxes as she climbs her high. “Right there.” I peck a corner of her lips and slide an arm around her waist to keep her standing. El whimpers. “Don’t stop. Are you there?”
She shakes her head. “Almost.”
A half-smile tugs on my lips. “Keep going for me, baby.” I guide her with my words and the tempo of her breathing changes. When her eyes jerk open, I whisper, “Let go now, El. Come for me, baby.”
Seconds pass before she untangles herself from me. Silently, she adjusts her gown under my watchful gaze. I free her hair from its knot, massage her scalp and she lets out a breathy moan that warms my soul. The tip of my finger brushes her lips, she leans forward like she expects me to do more but I step away from her. I don’t want to push my luck.
“You look beautiful.” Still recovering from her orgasm, she only nods. “We should go down.”
Her head jerks shakily in agreement, I offer her a hand and she takes it. We walk down in silence, at the foot of the stairs, I ask, “If it was someone else who bought the shares, would you have asked them to resell the shares to you?” Her second of hesitation speaks more than her silence. Ava is not entirely right. As much as I might deny it, I care what El thinks of me. It matters what my wife thinks of me. “Do you see me?”
“What?”
I release her hand and grab her shoulders so she’s looking nowhere else but at me. Her heels lend her a few inches so her height is almost matching mine. Her shiny lips pucker. God. I want to kiss this woman.
“Do you see me?” She frowns. Her confusion is cute. On another day, I might have taken it as my cue to kiss her but one kiss won’t be enough. The tryst upstairs has cleared some of the cobwebs in my head. If we start touching now, I might not stop. We need to talk, not touch. “The man you swore to love with all his flaws and imperfections.” She squirms, my nails dig hard enough into her skin to leave bruises. “Just me, not the brother killer.”
A moan lodges in my throat when she cups my jaw and my whole body thrums at the contact. What is wrong with me? We fucked upstairs. I shouldn’t react this way to her. But at this rate, I am content with sharing a bed with her. No sex, nothing but her presence. Throw in a cuddle too. Have someone pamper me like I have been doing Brianna. Those moments alone with her, having one-sided conversation must be getting to me. I have become weak and emotional. I miss the collected Brandon.
I need me, not El. She doesn’t need me. T will always be a better man for her than I’ll ever be.
Her lips quirk. “I do. I see you, Brandon Stark.” She doesn’t avert her gaze when I scoff. She says this now but her actions speak otherwise. “I always do. I see my girls father. I see Bri’s daddy. I see you.”
Fuck. I don’t want to feel anything at her reply but my insides turn to mush and an emotion stirs inside me. I drop my hands from her shoulders. “Then why is selling the shares so important because I am the one who has them?” El opens her mouth without uttering a word. “I want Brianna to have it,” I confess.
“Mistoto!” my baby screams and launches herself into my arms.
I grab the little firecracker mid-air. My chest expands with pride at her wide-tooth grin and she pinches my cheeks. Rubbing my nose against Wyn’s, I murmur, “Happy birthday, baby. Where’s your sister?”
A voice yells, “Coooommmmmmiing.” And a figure rushes in our direction.
El carries Bren, our arms touch and I pretend not to hear her intake of breath. Wyn holds a wrinkled sheet above my head and Bren does the same over El’s. I raise a brow in silent enquiry. “Mistoetoe.”
“No. It’s Missletoe,” Bren corrects and they giggle.
El tugs on my shirt, her smile is happy but impatient. “We have to cut the cake. The guests are waiting.”
“Wait,” Bren cuts in, waving the sheet over our heads. “You have to kiss under the missletoe first.”
Wyn nods. I take one step and her arms tighten around my neck. “Daddy, wait. One kiss for Mummy.”
“Under the missletoe,” Bren finishes for her.
“Mistletoe,” El says.
Bren frowns. “That’s what I said.”
“That’s what my sister said,” Wyn adds.
El pries the paper from them, I chuckle at their attempt at a mistletoe. They even painted the ugly plant green. El spares me a wary look, I shrug. It is their birthday, I can’t deny them a kiss to their mother. We set the girls on the floor and El steps forward. I clench the railing for support as her lips press onto mine.
She is careful. No tongue, only lips as if she’s scared to go further. I palm her face and kiss her properly.
Her kiss is rejuvenating like water in a parched throat. I want more and I go for more. Kissing and tasting her lips, pushing my tongue inside to touch every corner of her mouth until she jumps back. She seeks refuge behind Bren, I rest my hands on Wyn’s shoulders and force my breathing under control. My mind replays the kiss, the softness of her lips and my heart beats so loud I am surprised none of them hears it.
“We really have to go and cut the cake.”