Escalation Clause (44 page)

“No, God damn it. You guys are full of shit, you know it? What is this little chat about, for real?”

“Because,” his mother said, her face calm as usual. He wondered sometimes what it would take to actually rattle her. “You are moving away in a few months and are officially a man, according to the law. We have known this a long time Gabe and trust me when I say it’s not that it matters on the face of it.” She looked away, biting her lip.

“Gabriel, it’s simple. You deserve to know the truth. We were together, all three of us at one time because I….” His father gulped but instead of feeling bad about it, it made Gabe even madder. “Blake and I were together, lovers, partners, in a committed relationship, whatever you want to call it. This was in the days before same sex marriage was legal anywhere. And we wanted a baby. Because I was dying of cancer. Your mother,” he grabbed Lila’s hand. “She wanted to help us. But, what happened was we both fell in love with her.”

Gabe turned away from them, his brain refusing to take all of this on board. He closed his eyes against the memory of Lillian Grace, the amazing red-headed girl he was puppy dog sick in love with while at the same time aware of the physical attraction he harbored for some of the guys on his soccer team. Jesus Christ, no wonder he was conflicted, if he actually was the living breathing result of all this fucking chaos. “Cancer.” He said, his voice hoarse. “Really. A three-way? Seriously?”

“Yes, Gabe, but it was not just a sex three-way. I was dying and from the time you were born until…,” Rob’s voice faltered. Gabe faced him again. “For the first weeks of your life, I was in the hospital. The day Blake was killed in the accident, I was going home to die. But, instead he did, and they were able to use his lungs to give me a transplant.”

“Jesus, Dad, you’ve got to be making this up.”

“No, I’m not.”

“We assumed you were Rob’s biological son, because he had the…did the….” His mother’s voice broke. A tear slid down her cheek.

“You people are insane.” He backed up, needing to get the hell out of here before he put his fist through a wall in frustration. He loved his parents. Had gotten along with them so well he sometimes thought there was something wrong with him. His sister did all the fighting, now that his half-sister Maddie was away, finishing grad school in Wisconsin. Blair’s personality did nothing but clash with both of her parents’. But he’d never been so furious with two people he loved in his life. The pain in his chest intensified.

“We should have told you earlier, but thought we would wait until you were… you know.”

Rob put a hand on Lila’s then looked up at Gabe. “You were an amazing gift to us and still are. But when we found out that a man we both loved was your biological father it felt like an even bigger blessing. And made us love you even more, if that were possible.”

“Why did you bother finding out?” He ground out. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I…need to go.” He turned, stumbled over a chair and crashed out into the hall, blind with an anger he couldn’t even explain, his body buzzing with a need to get out, breath fresh air, but mostly to be the fuck away from his parents.

Blair dozed in front of the huge fire, comfortable, familiar noises of her parents playing cards with their friends and of the younger kids watching a movie oozing in and out of her ears. She startled when someone pulled a soft blanket up to her chin. She saw her friend Brandis’ bright blue eyes and tried to control her pounding heart when he winked at her then dropped into a big leather chair and let his little cousin Blake crawl into his lap. She rolled over, mad at herself, but no longer able to deny the strength of her feelings for the guy.

They’d literally grown up together, gone on countless vacations, and he was her beloved big brother’s best friend, although the two of them fought nearly as much as they didn’t. She could barely remember a time when she wasn’t with him, be it at holidays, up at the lake, or here, on their ski vacation with the whole gang. She sighed, but her body kept tingling, annoying the shit out of her. There was no reason for her to feel anything for him but familiar friendship. But lately, all she could do was blush every time he looked at her, joked or did his usual treating her like a little sister thing.

She must have gone back to sleep after an early morning run on the slopes and a late night before sneaking out with Gabe and Brandis for beers and a clandestine joint. They’d argued about some girl Brandis had just dumped with Gabe reminding him he was a shit head for doing that, and even more stupid because now he wouldn’t have a date to his senior prom. Brandis had scoffed, loudly and pulled Blair into his lap, patting her hair and threatening to take her to prom. She’d been utterly undone by it but that was nothing compared to the anger Gabe expressed when he yanked her up off Brandis’ very comfortable lap and put a finger in his friend’s face. “You touch her, Gordon, you are a fucking dead man. And you know I mean it so don’t even joke about it. Go inside,” he’d pushed her away. She’d gone, still speechless from the close contact with the guy she’d begun to obsess over in a thoroughly alarming fashion.

She sighed in her sleep, stretching out and still feeling his strong hands on her legs, her hair, his teasing, low throated rumble of a voice in her ear. “Blair!” She rolled over, imagining him calling her name. “Blair! Wake up. We gotta go find your brother.”

She sat up, breathing heavy. “Huh?” She rubbed her eyes. Brandis stood holding her parka and boots, already dressed to go outside. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He ran out, mad at your parents or something, and they asked me to go find him.”

“So what do you need me for?” She heard the petulance in her voice and hated it.

“Because, I want you to come with me.” His voice stayed low but compelled her in a way she could not credit. She stood, stuck her feet in the boots, pulling her hair up in a messy ponytail.

“Fine.” She stomped away from him, unwilling to meet his eyes, lest she turn beet red like a lobster. They walked in silence, the snow creaking under their boots, the full moon turning the landscape bright white, nearly blinding her as much as the sun. She had no idea what could have possibly happened to make her brother mad enough at her parents to run off. That was her job. She did nothing but fight with her mother but most especially her father. His heavy-handed bullshit attitude about everything from her dating, driving, various nose-thumbing facial piercings, all of it—just made her spitting mad every time he opened his mouth. Irrational she knew and some of it her own fault. But, that’s how it stood with them.

“Jesus,” Brandis grumbled, his hands stuck in his coat pockets. “Could he have picked a colder fucking night to have a temper tantrum and disappear?”

“You’re an ass.” She shoved into him, mad enough at her brother herself to feel comfortable, like her old self, around Brandis. He made a mock stumble, dropped to the ground.

“You don’t know your own strength.” He said, catching her square in the chest with a snowball. She shrieked when it hit her, sending ice-cold splatters up onto her face. She scooped up a handful and heaved it at him, aiming for his forehead, but missing and hitting his arm. “Ha! You suck,” he growled, as he scrambled out of sight, into a tree line. She stood, breathing heavy, then heard him come around behind her. Just as she was taking off he dumped god knows how much snow down the back of her coat and sweatshirt. The cold was shocking but worse than that was the moment his hands pushed her down to the snow and started rubbing snow into her face.

She screeched and spluttered. Rubbing her eyes and trying to shove him off her, she tensed up, realizing he was straddling her, his strong, NCAA division one football scholarship playing legs on either side of her hips. She glared at him. They were both breathing heavy. He narrowed his eyes, then jumped up off her as if she’d burned him. He backed away, his gaze bright and full of something she refused to acknowledge. He grunted when his back hit a tree, then shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. “C’mon,” he said, turning away from her. “I think I know where he’ll be.”

Blair got to her feet, wincing as she shook the snow out of her clothes and hair. He was so far ahead of her he’d faded to nearly nothing by the time she started after him. After a few minutes she got nervous, unable to see him or hear his footfalls anymore. “God damn you, Brandis. Cut it out. Where are you?”

“Right here,” he said, his voice so close she screamed, then flushed with surprise. He was to her left, and his hand was touching her face. She closed her eyes, giving in to all the absurd fantasy she’d had rolling around in her head for the last few months. His eyes shone in the dark. She didn’t move, or speak. His finger traced the outline of her lips. “Since when are you so pretty?”

She scoffed, started to step back. Being sappy was not something she was going to buy from him. No way. Brandis Gordon was a full on, larger than life, nearly six foot five inch football stud with a lineup of girls much older, more sophisticated than she. But he was in her space now, his hands gripping her arms, then cradling her face. “This is probably a really bad idea but…I want to kiss you Blair.”

She closed her eyes and tried to convince herself she was dreaming. The cold wind bit her skin, her muscles ached from the last few days’ worth of skiing and snowboarding reminding her she was very much awake. And every inch of her skin blazed. She shook, her teeth chattered, but he smiled and her entire life coalesced around one thing.

“Yes, Brandis. It is probably a very bad idea. But…oh.” She sighed when he slanted his lips over hers, stayed frozen like a loser. He was not the first boy who’d ever kissed her. She’d been going on dates, some illicit, some not, for over a year. But this moment, with the night sounds of a Northern Michigan ski resort filling her ears and the delicious taste of Brandis’ lips against hers, was the most amazing of her life.

Years later, after countless hours of happiness, agony, drama, jealousy, loneliness and joy in the arms of this very man she would always recall this flash of memory—the second his lips touched hers for the first time—as a life changer on many levels. She wrapped her arms around him, went up on her tip toes and opened her lips and heart to Brandis Gordon, and while at times she cursed fate for throwing him in her path so early in her life, this instant was a sublime mix of taste, feel, smell and mostly touch.

By the time they were gasping for breath, their hands clutching and tugging at each other’s layers of clothes she heard her brother’s voice. “God damn you, Gordon, get your fucking mitts off my sister. Now.”

The End

Mutual Release (Stewart Realty Book 7)
Coming Early 2013 to Sizzlin’ Books

“Adams!”

Evan rolled his eyes and turned, coming face to face with the one woman he dreaded, and whose deep blue eyes and long blond hair had turned him into a walking hard on for the entire god damned summer.  “Yes, can I help you?” He swallowed hard, biting back his body’s usual response to the tall, compelling, amazingly attractive woman who’d been his boss for the past six weeks.

“As a matter of fact you can.”  Sophia Harrison had her hands on her hips, her patent leather shoe-clad toe coming just short of tapping with impatience as she gazed at him. “I mean, if you actually plan to finish that fucking Yarrington file. Don’t want to put you out or anything.”

“Ms. Harrison I…”

“If another excuse is about to spill out of your pretty boy mouth, spare me,” She looked down at her watch. “I’m late for court.”

“If you’d just let me…”

She held up a hand. Evan tried very hard not to stare at how the dark blue suit jacket gaped giving him a clear view of the silky edge of a bra, or shirt, or something. “Stop talking.  You are no better than the last fresh from school kid I got in here. Jesus. How you actually got into law school is beyond me much less graduated, much less hired by my useless fucking partner.”

Evan’s entire body quivered with a combination of fury and pure, unadulterated horny. The woman was easily fifteen years his senior, but her sexy bossiness had kept him on edge for so long he could hardly remember a time when he didn’t masturbate to intense fantasies of her, naked but for those god damned high heeled shoes.  He took a breath, stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and kept silent.  She glared at him for a split second then turned on that amazing heel and stomped away, giving him an agonizingly perfect view of her ass, long legs, and thick, dark blonde hair. He clenched his fists and jaw at the same time. Christ he needed to get laid.

He returned his attention to the bullshit, secretarial filing job he’d been doing for the last month cursing himself for being such a lame horny shit head. He’d moved to Ann Arbor the summer after law school, leaving behind at least one girl he already missed. But it had to be done. This firm, specializing in patent law, had offered him nearly too-good an offer to turn down. He needed to make some dough, bad. And taking the job at Harrison and Winter meant a steady income.

But he was bored, antsy, needing an outlet, and one that was fairly specific.  He sat back and pondered his options.  There was a club downtown Detroit he knew of but hadn’t explored. Frankly, he wasn’t sure he was ready for that yet. The parties and clubs he’d been to his last year in Chicago had been eye opening. He’d discovered a fair bit about his psyche, sexually and otherwise that year. And the girl who’d obliged him by playing sub to his budding Dom had been cool. But he knew he had a long way to go still, to truly understand that side of himself.

‘Yo, Adams, let’s go.” She stood in front of him again. Evan dragged his eyes up the stunning line of her legs, hips and waist. She had her hair pulled back into a severe up-do and the fact that his palms itched to pull it free did not help the nervous energy coursing through him already.  He needed … something. But what his zinging nerve endings were telling him was a completely different message than what he was used to. She cocked her head at him, her eyes darkening as if she were reading his way too dirty mind. She took a step closer, entering a personal space bubble that would never pass the sexual harassment test. “Stop fucking me with your eyes little boy,” her gaze narrowed and his cock slammed against the back of his zipper. He gulped.  “I know what you think you want Evan Adams but what I might offer you one of these days is a world rocking you will never forget. But for now,” She stepped away, taking her intoxicating, lusty fragrance with her. “We are over due in court. Vamanos young man.”  She smacked his ass hard and sauntered away.