A Harem of One [The Moreland Brothers 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) (3 page)

Once he reached the intersection for the south wing, Marq decided to walk outside. The grounds were lavish at any time of day, but something about the blush of dawn lent a feel of childhood nostalgia to the beauty around him. Aimless wandering led him to the small studio he’d cobbled together his first movies in. At that time in his youth, they were regular movies, with a plot, screenplay, and extras. At best the movies were D-list. Not even straight to DVD, but they gave him the ability to understand the workings of film. It was much-needed experience that helped him make the best of shots, lighting, and his setting to this very day.

But with his first forays into film on his mind, he reminded himself that his last film wasn’t very good, and he nearly scrapped the entire thing. Not that it was Dakota’s fault. She was wonderful as always. But his performance was lacking. His heart wasn’t in it. His body barely was. He even faked coming after Dakota received her pleasure. His cock went soft, and the presence of her copious juices and condom aided in the deception. But when she left, he knew Dakota was adding two and two. Her expression said she had four as the answer, but she was willing to let the lie stand. When he watched the playback later, Marq saw fucking and nothing else. There was heat and two sexy people, but no spark. Tawdry and lewd, he’d been wearing blinders, and it was his brother’s fault that he was no longer satisfied with the status quo.

Three months ago, Charyn asked him for a favor, and it changed his life.

“Marq, I need your help.”

“Sure, what is it?” Marq would give Charyn anything he asked for. Especially after Charyn helped to free him from the guilt that sent him into self-imposed exile in Japan.

“I want you to film a movie for me.” Charyn’s grin let Marq know what he was asking for.

“You want me to make a movie with you and Makenzie? A flick?” Marq knew he rambled, but the shock kept him speaking until his thought expressed itself clumsily.

“Yes. Why does that shock you?”

“Well, I would have thought that you would prefer to keep Makenzie to yourself. I know you can barely hold back jealousy if I speak to her, let along watch you and her together in bed.”

“I want to give this to her. Watching our lovemaking in the mirror is good, but I think she would love seeing us on film even better.”

Marq thought about options for the film, mentally fluttered over settings and angles. “Where and when?”

“As soon as you can is fine. I want her in our bed for this.” Charyn sounded excited about the newest addition to his sexual tool kit.

Marq let his imagination fly and found several angles that would work well. He could use several cameras at different angles to get the fullest effect. One focused on the mirrored wall, one above the bed on a ceiling mount. He could do another on a tripod across from the bed. He could set it all up and let them activate it later. Then Marq planned to splice everything together and make the movie that way. And the extra tape would make the movie a good length, at least an hour. Or he could do vignettes, depending on how creative they were.

“You still here, Marq?” Charyn raised a brow slightly, emphasizing his query.

“Yes, I was just putting together a few ideas for the flick.”

“I could tell that.”

“I’m thinking I can set everything up in advance and collect the tape later on and construct the movie out of the footage.”

“Sounds fine to me. When will you set the cameras up?”

“Most likely tomorrow, after I check what each angle will do to the movie. I can have everything hanged and ready to go by Friday night.”

The angles he’d envisioned were perfect, as the playback attested to that Saturday afternoon. He’d given his brother a remote to activate the cameras when they were ready. Charyn gave him the all clear to pick the camcorders up the next morning. What he saw on the footage made him miserable. The pair made love for hours that night. There were three hours of nonstop, sweaty sex in numerous positions. Afterward, Charyn cared for his wife, massaging sore muscles and bathing her sex with his tongue. What made the footage so eye opening was the apparent emotion between the pair. The love they felt made the sex so hot, he carried a hard-on for the rest of the weekend. He was disgruntled with himself and the envy he felt while he worked on their film, and Marq didn’t make an attempt to meet any of his usual lovers for a while. Not for the last month at least, and that was the last time with Dakota where he didn’t come. But he’d brushed the rest of his stable off with stories of him being too busy with work to make time for sex. But in reality, he was obsessed with the lovemaking of his brother and sister-in-law.

He had never done that, made love to a woman. He simply fucked their brains out. Marq sucked at his back teeth as his jaw tightened and walked inside the tiny cottage on the backside of the grounds. When he opened the door, a cloud of pungent smoke wafted out and fresh air rolled in.

“Hi, Marques darling, come in.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Have some?” She was sitting on a chaise by the tiny window of the four-room house. Through the dim lighting filtered dimmer by smoke, Charlotte held out a fat joint. The smell let him know it was one of her hybrids, grown in a special green house on the property. His mom had two loves now that her husband had passed on. One was horticulture, the other horses.

Marques took the offered joint and puffed hard twice, sucking the taste of pineapple and haze into his chest. He hadn’t had any Mary Jane in a while and nearly choked on the strength of it. He held his own though and handed it back to her after sitting in a small chair next the lounge.

His eyes had adjusted well to the gloom and dim, and he saw his mother scrutinizing him. She was still amazingly beautiful, with long golden hair to her hips, and a face barely lined with wrinkles. Even in her late fifties, she had to fight men off with a stick. Charlotte claimed her agelessness came from smoking her special stash and good living. She never was one to lie about, even in the lap of luxury, so even now didn’t carry much spare fat on her body. Charlotte used to be a model but, after meeting his father, left a life of glamour for a simple one with her husband. They lived in an idyll together here at home and let the world pass them by, riding horses and making love.

His father, Jackson, was a plain man. In all aspects. He wasn’t handsome by any conventional standards, but his smile could stop traffic. He was tall and well built, and all his sons inherited their build and height from him.

Charlotte had retreated further into isolation after his passing five years ago. She rarely left the grounds. But with the wedding, she left her shell little by little. Charli took her skydiving, compared growing techniques, and Mom loved it. Makenzie showed her how to paint the beach at dawn, and Mother was actually pretty good at it. She had grown several types of flowers for the weddings, and with the added activity, she now seemed serene and happy to be alive and a part of the world. He was glad she seemed to be back to the land of the living.

Marq took the offered joint and hit it again, waiting for his mother to speak. She had something to say, and he knew she was concerned about him.

“Marques, are you all right?”

“Yes, I am, Mom.” No he wasn’t, but how did he explain the unexplainable?

“Marq, I don’t mean physically. It seems like something weighs heavily on your mind. I don’t know what, but you do.”

“It’s hard to explain. I want something more than what I have and don’t know how to get it.”

“That’s life, Marq. You have to take whatever you can get and grasp it with both hands. I think you know what you are looking for. It’s that you don’t want to admit it to yourself.”

“That’s deep, Mom.” Marq laughed at bit, more at himself than anything else. Mom was correct of course. He needed a lover, not a fuck buddy. Somebody that made his heart beat faster and his cock hard on sight. He wanted—love? Marq laughed at himself and watched Charlotte pin her long braid up into a chignon at her nape.

“I know you think I’m pontificating, and maybe I am. But I do know you are bored with endless meaningless sex. Marques, you were given much when many others were given little in life. It’s easy to succumb to ennui when you have everything life has to offer. You are handsome of face and form, rich beyond belief, and you were indulged by two loving parents. But for someone who is barely surviving, life presents them with numerous challenges and boredom is the least of their concerns. You can’t waste what has been given to you, and in order to feel more, you must give more. Of yourself. Share what you have been given with others.”

Marq understood what his mother meant. She was a philanthropist even today. The only thing she had left the house for was charity after his father’s passing. Whether it was as simple as chairing an event or donation of her time, Charlotte still found a way to give something of herself even as she gave to other people.

It wasn’t that Marq was selfish. He gave his fair share of money. But he didn’t give his time. Not the way his mother did. Charlotte found ways to make her donations personal and worthwhile, fitting the needs she saw around her. She was happiest when she fed a meal to the homeless or in times of disaster travel to give aid, although the last trip she’d made was to New Orleans after Katrina hit.

“How did you like the view from the red room this morning?” When the words left her mouth, he knew his meddling mother had done it again. She was the reason he encountered the sensual yogi this morning. How she did it, he had no idea, but Marq felt to his bones Charlotte was somehow responsible.

“It was beautiful, Mom. The dawn shows well in the space.” With his response, Charlotte laughed until tears came to her eyes.

“You have always hated that room since the renovations. But what the devil was I to do with all of the Japanese textiles and art you sent? Hence the red room was born…So you met Jamison this morning, I presume?”

“That was Jamison?” He never thought the girl had it in her. Nine times out of ten, she was hidden behind a curtain of hair. He could barely pick her out of a lineup, and if he was right when he did, it would be due to luck, not knowledge. Marq would have never thought she had that much grace in her soul, that verve for life. His surprise at the development showed him that people could sometimes surprise him, even after he pigeonholed them into stereotype and a neat little mental box.

“Yes, it was. She is capable of more depth than you could imagine. Very sensual and lithe, but she hides it well.”

“That couldn’t be truer. She seems rather…quaint.”

“Marques, you always turn a pretty phrase. But when I tell you she is a beautiful woman, believe me.”

His mother called a spade a spade. If she saw something of beauty in the woman, there was. But he wasn’t sure what. She had no self-confidence, and the lack of the simple ingredient made her into a wallflower. By the time Marq made his excuses with his mother, there was much fodder for his thoughts. All of them centered around the graceful yogi he watched give her sensuous shadow show behind a screen of rice paper and bamboo. All to serenade the dawn and him, even if she didn’t realize the latter was witness to her brazen glory.

Show Me Yours, and I’ll Show You Mine

Jamison finished her morning routine, and after taking a shower, she decided some breakfast was in order. Not any of the diet crap she’d subjected herself to either. It seemed that she had been having too many crappy shakes. Half the time she felt near starvation, and the rest of the time she felt high. Like she was short on oxygen. But she was tired of being “thick.” On a good day she was a twelve on the bottom and a ten up top. On a bad day, such as the PMS bloat? She didn’t even want to think about the embarrassment she felt the time she popped the button off her khaki slacks and had to wear her shirt untucked the rest of the work day.

But as today was going to be spent on the go, Jamie could reason to herself that the calories would get burned off. She wandered through the family estate, still agog at some of the art she passed. Most of the work she found was priceless. Others were unknowns. Despite the riches ensconced in the home, there was a lived in look. Like a small village could camp out and dance a genteel cotillion all night through the halls. In fact, she passed a framed collage created by Marques in grade school. Hanging amid notable artists, the child’s picture was framed with a blue ribbon, as if just as priceless as the Monet it hung next to. Seeing the stark hues of the picture made her think of winter in the north. Wild trees and void.

Turning away from the wall gallery, Jamie walked through the foyer to the kitchen. Usually Marta, the mansion’s head chef and housekeeper, would make breakfast buffet style. But today, she was working on the menu for the wedding with the catered help. Jamie decided to take a bagel with cream cheese and yogurt. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it would have to do. There was a ton of things to do today, and she still hadn’t packed back up. Or done her hair. As she placed the freshly sliced bagel in the toaster, her nipples drew taut and her skin prickled. Jamie felt eyes on her skin, eating the flesh from her bones.

Unable to resist the urge to look, she turned around, and Marques was behind her. He was so self-assured and damned sexy, Jamie felt her heart beat faster. His demeanor was wild and slightly untamed. His T-shirt clung to his frame, his hair dark and tousled. The haircut was a multipurpose one, right now a Mohawk of sorts, but would make a sleek preppy cut when combed right. His hair was the color of midnight. His eyes were similar to hot cocoa, dark and warm when she usually saw him. He was tall just like his brothers, maybe six three or so.