The Baby Pact, page 23
Macon drops my hand and meets them with open arms, receiving their tackling advance with the fortitude of a defensive linebacker. They all tumble to the ground laughing, Macon’s arms full of matched boy-children.
“Good god, you two have grown!” he declares, hauling a child up under each arm, swinging them around like rag dolls. The boys squeal with delight.
Macon swings in my direction. He shrugs one child in his grip and says, “This one is Joe. Joe. This is Eliza. Say hello.”
The little boy, all mussed honey colored hair and bright blue eyes looks up at me from his captive position in Macon’s grasp. He grins – a grin that should have a Sands’ trademark – and say’s, “Hello!” Then he giggles.
“Very pleased to meet you, Joe,” I say, tipping my head to him, grinning back.
We repeat the exercise for Jamie’s introduction, then Macon hauls the little buggers to their feet, sending them running around the yard.
By then, Beau and Robyn are stepping out of the SUV, stretching after a long drive, both of them giving me more than a passing look. Macon steps ahead and he and his brother share a bear hug.
I vaguely remember Beau from home, when we were kids. He’s five years older, and had already left to join the Army by the time Macon and I started high school and began dating. All I recall of him is that he was a lot older, a big, muscular soldier, and nothing like Macon.
Many years later I question the veracity of my memory. They could almost be twins, just like Jamie and Joe. Beau is an inch or two shorter than his younger brother, but pound-for-pound they are the same; both solidly constructed in the model of some Greek ideal of male beauty. Beau’s hair is the same whiskey colored knot of curls on top, cut short on the sides. His is salted with just a few strands of gray. Even his face — the color of his eyes, the basic arrangement of features, the square jaw and slight imperfection in the turn of his lip, is a near mirror image of Macon. They even walk the same, move the same. Their smirk and eye-roll are the same.
It is difficult to believe that the universe saw fit to make two of them.
“That’s just crazy,” I say right out loud, not intending to. “You’re clones.”
Both men look at me like I’m said something incomprehensible, but Robyn laughs, nodding. She walks forward to me, her hand out, then rethinks it and hugs me, still laughing.
“Yeah. They really are, in more ways than one,” she says. “Just wait till you see them get going. It’s better than Netflix.”
Macon steps back from his bro-hug and introduces us all. It’s awkward for only a few seconds, as Beau sizes me up.
He leans back, crossing his arms – just like Macon – and he breaks out in a wide, unguarded grin.
“You have grown up,” he says. “Last time I saw you, you were in eighth grade, with braces.” He assesses me, then glances back at Macon deliberately. “I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, I’m glad this little shit is finally trying to do right by you...”
“Beau!” Robyn exclaims, protesting. “You promised!”
He laughs and shakes his head as I feel myself blush ten shades of crimson.
Macon laughs too, slipping his arm around me, pulling me close to him.
“I’m just sayin’!” Beau keeps going. “It’s about goddamned time ya’ll got together.” He shakes his head, grinning. “I’m sure our mother is rolling in her god-damned grave at the thought of it. Nothing could make me happier.”
His mother? My mother! They’re probably sitting on a cloud up there together, sharing a bottle of wine, comparing notes, one-upping each other on how much they disapprove.
I can’t help but laugh out loud at the implication, much to everyone’s relief.
There is one glaring difference between Beau and Macon. Beau speaks his mind straight-away. Macon is more cautious, more calculating. His words are measured.
Beau gives me a big warm hug that lasts longer than seems entirely appropriate. When he pulls away, he still holds on to my shoulders, looking down on me earnestly.
“I’m really glad ya’ll found each other again,” he says. “You probably saved my brother’s life. You at least saved him from becoming another rich, drunk asshole. Too many of them in the world already.”
“Give it a rest, Shakespeare,” Robyn instructs him, stepping up, reclaiming her husband. “You’ll have to forgive him, he likes making speeches. He forgets — nobody cares what he thinks.”
She turns him toward the back of the SUV to get their things. Then she calls her children, insisting they come back at once to get sprayed with Deet so they don’t contract malaria or zika. They appear from the bushes, already dirty and scuffed, and stand like statues with faces squenched-up while she douses them with insecticide.
I like Robyn. She’s a five-foot, five-inch tall, black haired, gray-eyed, fireball of moral authority. Like her husband, she’s a straight-talker. I can tell by her manner she is not the product of a pampered up-bringing. She’s real, with no airs or pretense. She also appears, from everything I can detect upon first meeting, to be a woman completely contented with her life. She looks genuinely happy as she sends her two lovely little men back to the swamp to find their fate, wholly unsupervised.
“Hope they don’t get eaten by an alligator,” she mutters, half-smiling, tucking the bug spray into a pocket of her tote bag.
So I saved Macon? This revelation is fascinating. I’ll need to think on that, ponder how his brother arrived at that conclusion. From my perspective, he is the one doing all the saving.
Anna has lunch ready half an hour after everyone arrives. She always manages to out do herself, this time serving up locally harvested Oyster Po-boys on yeasty, homemade, beer bread buns. She provides white slaw and red, along with steaming fried onion rings and hush puppies. The term sandwich should not be applied to this meal, given how profoundly succulent it is to taste.
Robyn takes a second bite and her eyes roll back. “This is so good,” she says, mouth full. “Anna, you need to teach me how to make this. I swear to God...”
Anna laughs, accepting the compliment. “What? And put myself out of a job? Not likely.”
It’s obvious to me that these women know one another and have, over time, developed an easy camaraderie. Anna calls her ‘Robyn.’ She calls Macon’s brother ‘Beau.’ There’s non of the false formality there was with me when I first entered the scene. It’s easier between us now, especially since the movie night gathering, but it’s still not quite this easy.
Macon is oblivious to all of this. He’s blissfully woofing down his Po-boy, sucking up mouthfuls of slaw, noshing on sweet, buttery hush-puppies.
I’ll get there, I try to reassure myself. It just takes time.
At least Robyn isn’t looking at me like I’m an interloper, or worse – a gold digger – insinuating myself into their ordered, perfectly happy-as-it-is world. I catch Beau’s eye during lunch. He gives me a smile, Macon’s smile. They’re doing their best to make me feel like I belong here.
“After lunch I have something to show you guys,” Macon says to his nephews between mouthfuls of Po-boy. “Remember I told you about the ship I was working on? Well, she’s anchored just a mile away from here. You guys wanna ride out and have a look at her?”
Their eyes grow wide with wonder and anticipation.
They’re all in.
Two hours later we’re all aboard the Sweet Revenge with a pair of identical five year-olds climbing the rigging, hauling themselves up over the bow, hanging like monkeys over deep water. Macon is beaming, showing off this lovely vessel to his brother and sister-in-law, proudly detailing her features and amenities for them, just as he did for me this first time I came aboard her.
Today I feel like the Sweet Revenge and I are old friends. This is one place where I’m not an interloper. She’s Macon’s pride and joy, and her golden, highly polished deck is the first place Macon Sands kissed me – after almost ten years – setting this whole journey in motion.
Macon’s right. We do need a place of our own. A place like the Sweet Revenge but on dry ground.
Joe and Jamie have a lovely time exploring the ship, stem to stern, ballast to pilot house. Captain Standish gives them a lesson in chart reading and navigation, then sends them back to their parents, his patience worn thin.
“You monkeys have no business in the pilot house,” he admonishes in his thick Scottish accent, trying to sound gruff. “Be gone with ye.” His eyes smile.
They run away, finding a rope ladder, climbing twenty feet above the deck.
Later, after sunset, riding anchor in the flat brackish water at the mouth of the Edisto River, the boys have crashed and are below deck, watching the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. The two elder Sands boys, along with John Standish, are up near the bow, drinking Scotch straight, their feet propped up, talking about who knows what. Robyn and I lounge lazily in canvas chairs on the main deck with sweet wine coolers, taking in the cooling night air.
“I could get used to this,” she says, glazing. “Every time we come out here, it’s an escape. So much better than the real world of bills and school assemblies and schedules. This boat; it’s just the icing on the cake. Macon never does do anything small.”
She’s right. He doesn’t.
She turns to me, gripping her glass filled with sweet, pink liquid.
“How did you two manage to meet up again?”
I tell her about my best friend Danica. She listens to the whole story and nods as I tell it.
“Danica’s joining us tomorrow for Macon’s birthday,” I say. “You’ll get to meet her. My sister Bethany and her kids are coming too.”
I’m so nervous about all of this. Mixing up families, complicating things. It could all go sideways. Family dynamics are temperamental beasts.
“I remember Bethany from school,” Robyn says. “We didn’t hang out together, but small town, you know, everyone knows everyone.”
I know all too well.
“I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there,” Robyn admits. “It was such a judgy, cliquish little berg. The minute Beau got his orders and we knew where he was based, I packed a bag and bought a bus ticket. I was never so happy to see a 900 square foot apartment in my whole life. It was a cinder block quadraplex, base housing. Neighbors an arms length away, but it was ours. And we were the hell out of Lake City, South Carolina – finally.”
We go on like this for a long time, sipping our coolers and just talking about random stuff; Robyn talking mostly, as I’m too apprehensive about saying the wrong thing to say much at all. The end comes swiftly when Joe and Jamie emerge from below, cranky.
“Oh, it’s past your bedtimes,” Robyn says. “I’m a bad Mama, keeping you up late.”
The boys pour themselves over her, demanding affection.
One of them, I can’t tell which one because they look exactly alike, looks up at me from his crouching position at his mother’s feet. He bats his long eyelashes at me and says, without expression, “You’re pretty.”
My heart melts.
“That’s my little heartbreaker,” Robyn says, scruffing his hair.
His brother leans over to him and whispers something in his ear. A disagreement ensues, escalating quickly to shouts.
“You are not. I’m going to.”
“Nuh-unh! I will first.”
“Will not. I saw her first. Uncle Macon showed me to her first.”
“What are you too on about?” Robyn laughs, eyeing me with a mischievous grin.
“Joe says he’s gonna marry Eliza. But I’m going to first.”
“No. You. Are. Not,” booms a threatening voice from behind us, sneaking up. Macon slips his arm around me, resting his head on my shoulder, taking in his nephews with an amused expression. “I saw her first. I beat you both. I got dibs. You keep your grubby little paws off my girl.”
The twins erupt in cackling, high-pitched laughter, rolling on the floor, thoroughly satisfied with themselves.
Robyn shakes her head at her children, slugs the last of her wine, and says to Macon, “I need to get these two monsters home before they turn into wearwolves.”
After we get back to Balfour, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep beside Macon. Sleep like this has eluded me for years.
What the hell? I open my eyes. It’s barely light outside. What is that sound? Oh my God.
Macon, laying beside me, propped up on his elbow, is staring at me with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face I have ever seen.
The sounds coming from the next room, just on the other side of the wall, are anything but decent. Beau and Robyn, at this hour, going at it bigtime. It sounds like they’re enjoying themselves.
I stifle a giggle, then a burst of laughter. Macon shushes me, covering my mouth as he laughs out loud too.
“They do this every time – like Christening the house or something.” His eyes flash at me. “Do I sound like that when we do it?”
A little bit. I nod at him, biting my lip. “Yeah. Kinda. You do.”
“Jesus...”
For a split second he feigns embarrassment, but then he thinks better of it.
“Let’s give ‘em a run for their money,” he teases, his hand falling to my hip, tugging. “See who can last longer. They’ve been at it twenty minutes.”
Oh. Good. Lord. The competitiveness in him is entertaining. Juvenile, but entertaining none the less.
“Macon, there are children in the house,” I warn him.
“Yeah! Their children. How do you think they got them?” He runs his fingers over my hip bone tracing my skin up my belly, then to my breast, fingers falling to a nipple and gently rolling it, making me ache. “I think I need to make you moan like...”
“Oh, shit. Beau! Oh please don’t stop. I’m… I’m...” Robyn cries through the wall.
Beau’s pace has slowed.
“This is better than porn,” Macon whispers, still giggling. He lifts up over me, his strong arms flexing. As soon as he kisses me and I feel him stiffen, rubbing against me, all opposition to the idea of giving Robyn and Beau a run for their money quickly evaporates.
Once he’s inside me, once our bodies meld into one thing, I’m no longer aware of anything else – anyone else. Just us and our lovemaking.
“You feel so fucking good,” Macon half growls in my ear, nuzzling my neck, as he strokes in hard and then withdraws, slowly, teasing, letting my lips and clit trace every contour of his length.
He takes his time, building and building until I can feel him tense and force a breath out, then holding his chest tight, afraid to exhale. He pulls out, grabs my hips, and rolls on his back, drawing me on top of him.
“Drive slow,” he advises. “I’m too close.”
His eyes have gone dark, hooded with lust. His jaw is clenched. He grips my hips, his fingers drawing prints on my ass, as he moves with the rhythm I set.
I like being on top. I like seeing him, his beautiful body under mine. I like touching his skin and dipping down, tracing my tongue along the ripples of his flesh. I like the salty taste of his sweat.
“Fuck...” he moans, his head rolling back on the pillow.
I come faster when he’s on top. But I can control how I come when I am. I’m going for the long, drawn-out, slow burn. The orgasm that lasts forever, leaving me a quivering wreck when it finally subsides. There’s a certain pace, a precise depth, an angle that has to be met – and I find it.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” he snarls, his fingers digging into my ass cheeks.
I feel Macon’s cock swell inside me. I moan, long and low. Timing is everything.
The first pulses of my climax ripple from my deep with in me, shuddering against Macon’s cock, buried deep inside me.
I hear him whimper, trying to hold on.
“Oh yeah,” I hear myself breath as the wave peaks and then breaks, a flood of pleasure sweeping over me, rolling, crashing, my body gripping Macon’s length, sucking him in to me with shuddering vibrations. “Oh… oh… oh... God.”
“Fuck. Yeah. Fuck me… come on.”
In an instant Macon is up on his knees behind me, hauling my ass up, diving in to me, my hair wound in his fist, his other hand on my shoulder, drawing me back into his rough, hard thrusts. I cry out with each one; the combination of pain and all-absorbing pleasure too much to bear in silence.
He doesn’t last long like this. He comes hard, exploding inside me, shoving in, crying out with every milking thrust.
“Oh god baby… Oh god… oh fuck...”
He collapses on me breathless, rolling us both face down onto the soft bed, his hand never leaving my shoulder, his pulsing cock, still inside me.
“Oh god, Eliza,” he huffs onto the back of my neck. “I’m sorry… That was too rough...”
I like rough. I didn’t know it, but apparently I do.
My hand finds his hip, pressing firmly against his skin. “No. I like it like that.” I blush. I can’t help it.
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me into him, cradling me, breathing hot breath against my skin.
“I’m so glad you’re here, and you’re mine. You’re perfect. And I love you.” His voice sounds swept away, as if he’s in a dream.
“I love you too, sweetie,” I say, giving him a little squeeze. “Happy birthday.”
Chapter 24
Macon
Beau and Robyn beat us downstairs for breakfast — obviously, as Eliza and I won the early morning fucking contest. Eliza is still upstairs, stalling, embarrassed to show her face. I have no such scruples. They’ve never seen me in company with a woman. They’ve seen the paparazzi photos of countless nameless females; hook-ups who I would never have considered introducing to family.
I’m thrilled being heard having outrageously hot sex with Eliza Carver. I bursting with pride, showing her off. I can’t wait to see Beau’s expression.
I stroll into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee maker, grabbing a cup from a cabinet overhead. I pour a cup and turn, taking a sip.
Beau and Robyn are both staring at me while Joe and Jamie smack on pancakes, oblivious. Robyn’s lip is curled, wicked; her eyes narrowed with glee. Beau just shakes his head, forcing a straight face that can’t conceal his admiration.
“Good god, you two have grown!” he declares, hauling a child up under each arm, swinging them around like rag dolls. The boys squeal with delight.
Macon swings in my direction. He shrugs one child in his grip and says, “This one is Joe. Joe. This is Eliza. Say hello.”
The little boy, all mussed honey colored hair and bright blue eyes looks up at me from his captive position in Macon’s grasp. He grins – a grin that should have a Sands’ trademark – and say’s, “Hello!” Then he giggles.
“Very pleased to meet you, Joe,” I say, tipping my head to him, grinning back.
We repeat the exercise for Jamie’s introduction, then Macon hauls the little buggers to their feet, sending them running around the yard.
By then, Beau and Robyn are stepping out of the SUV, stretching after a long drive, both of them giving me more than a passing look. Macon steps ahead and he and his brother share a bear hug.
I vaguely remember Beau from home, when we were kids. He’s five years older, and had already left to join the Army by the time Macon and I started high school and began dating. All I recall of him is that he was a lot older, a big, muscular soldier, and nothing like Macon.
Many years later I question the veracity of my memory. They could almost be twins, just like Jamie and Joe. Beau is an inch or two shorter than his younger brother, but pound-for-pound they are the same; both solidly constructed in the model of some Greek ideal of male beauty. Beau’s hair is the same whiskey colored knot of curls on top, cut short on the sides. His is salted with just a few strands of gray. Even his face — the color of his eyes, the basic arrangement of features, the square jaw and slight imperfection in the turn of his lip, is a near mirror image of Macon. They even walk the same, move the same. Their smirk and eye-roll are the same.
It is difficult to believe that the universe saw fit to make two of them.
“That’s just crazy,” I say right out loud, not intending to. “You’re clones.”
Both men look at me like I’m said something incomprehensible, but Robyn laughs, nodding. She walks forward to me, her hand out, then rethinks it and hugs me, still laughing.
“Yeah. They really are, in more ways than one,” she says. “Just wait till you see them get going. It’s better than Netflix.”
Macon steps back from his bro-hug and introduces us all. It’s awkward for only a few seconds, as Beau sizes me up.
He leans back, crossing his arms – just like Macon – and he breaks out in a wide, unguarded grin.
“You have grown up,” he says. “Last time I saw you, you were in eighth grade, with braces.” He assesses me, then glances back at Macon deliberately. “I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, I’m glad this little shit is finally trying to do right by you...”
“Beau!” Robyn exclaims, protesting. “You promised!”
He laughs and shakes his head as I feel myself blush ten shades of crimson.
Macon laughs too, slipping his arm around me, pulling me close to him.
“I’m just sayin’!” Beau keeps going. “It’s about goddamned time ya’ll got together.” He shakes his head, grinning. “I’m sure our mother is rolling in her god-damned grave at the thought of it. Nothing could make me happier.”
His mother? My mother! They’re probably sitting on a cloud up there together, sharing a bottle of wine, comparing notes, one-upping each other on how much they disapprove.
I can’t help but laugh out loud at the implication, much to everyone’s relief.
There is one glaring difference between Beau and Macon. Beau speaks his mind straight-away. Macon is more cautious, more calculating. His words are measured.
Beau gives me a big warm hug that lasts longer than seems entirely appropriate. When he pulls away, he still holds on to my shoulders, looking down on me earnestly.
“I’m really glad ya’ll found each other again,” he says. “You probably saved my brother’s life. You at least saved him from becoming another rich, drunk asshole. Too many of them in the world already.”
“Give it a rest, Shakespeare,” Robyn instructs him, stepping up, reclaiming her husband. “You’ll have to forgive him, he likes making speeches. He forgets — nobody cares what he thinks.”
She turns him toward the back of the SUV to get their things. Then she calls her children, insisting they come back at once to get sprayed with Deet so they don’t contract malaria or zika. They appear from the bushes, already dirty and scuffed, and stand like statues with faces squenched-up while she douses them with insecticide.
I like Robyn. She’s a five-foot, five-inch tall, black haired, gray-eyed, fireball of moral authority. Like her husband, she’s a straight-talker. I can tell by her manner she is not the product of a pampered up-bringing. She’s real, with no airs or pretense. She also appears, from everything I can detect upon first meeting, to be a woman completely contented with her life. She looks genuinely happy as she sends her two lovely little men back to the swamp to find their fate, wholly unsupervised.
“Hope they don’t get eaten by an alligator,” she mutters, half-smiling, tucking the bug spray into a pocket of her tote bag.
So I saved Macon? This revelation is fascinating. I’ll need to think on that, ponder how his brother arrived at that conclusion. From my perspective, he is the one doing all the saving.
Anna has lunch ready half an hour after everyone arrives. She always manages to out do herself, this time serving up locally harvested Oyster Po-boys on yeasty, homemade, beer bread buns. She provides white slaw and red, along with steaming fried onion rings and hush puppies. The term sandwich should not be applied to this meal, given how profoundly succulent it is to taste.
Robyn takes a second bite and her eyes roll back. “This is so good,” she says, mouth full. “Anna, you need to teach me how to make this. I swear to God...”
Anna laughs, accepting the compliment. “What? And put myself out of a job? Not likely.”
It’s obvious to me that these women know one another and have, over time, developed an easy camaraderie. Anna calls her ‘Robyn.’ She calls Macon’s brother ‘Beau.’ There’s non of the false formality there was with me when I first entered the scene. It’s easier between us now, especially since the movie night gathering, but it’s still not quite this easy.
Macon is oblivious to all of this. He’s blissfully woofing down his Po-boy, sucking up mouthfuls of slaw, noshing on sweet, buttery hush-puppies.
I’ll get there, I try to reassure myself. It just takes time.
At least Robyn isn’t looking at me like I’m an interloper, or worse – a gold digger – insinuating myself into their ordered, perfectly happy-as-it-is world. I catch Beau’s eye during lunch. He gives me a smile, Macon’s smile. They’re doing their best to make me feel like I belong here.
“After lunch I have something to show you guys,” Macon says to his nephews between mouthfuls of Po-boy. “Remember I told you about the ship I was working on? Well, she’s anchored just a mile away from here. You guys wanna ride out and have a look at her?”
Their eyes grow wide with wonder and anticipation.
They’re all in.
Two hours later we’re all aboard the Sweet Revenge with a pair of identical five year-olds climbing the rigging, hauling themselves up over the bow, hanging like monkeys over deep water. Macon is beaming, showing off this lovely vessel to his brother and sister-in-law, proudly detailing her features and amenities for them, just as he did for me this first time I came aboard her.
Today I feel like the Sweet Revenge and I are old friends. This is one place where I’m not an interloper. She’s Macon’s pride and joy, and her golden, highly polished deck is the first place Macon Sands kissed me – after almost ten years – setting this whole journey in motion.
Macon’s right. We do need a place of our own. A place like the Sweet Revenge but on dry ground.
Joe and Jamie have a lovely time exploring the ship, stem to stern, ballast to pilot house. Captain Standish gives them a lesson in chart reading and navigation, then sends them back to their parents, his patience worn thin.
“You monkeys have no business in the pilot house,” he admonishes in his thick Scottish accent, trying to sound gruff. “Be gone with ye.” His eyes smile.
They run away, finding a rope ladder, climbing twenty feet above the deck.
Later, after sunset, riding anchor in the flat brackish water at the mouth of the Edisto River, the boys have crashed and are below deck, watching the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. The two elder Sands boys, along with John Standish, are up near the bow, drinking Scotch straight, their feet propped up, talking about who knows what. Robyn and I lounge lazily in canvas chairs on the main deck with sweet wine coolers, taking in the cooling night air.
“I could get used to this,” she says, glazing. “Every time we come out here, it’s an escape. So much better than the real world of bills and school assemblies and schedules. This boat; it’s just the icing on the cake. Macon never does do anything small.”
She’s right. He doesn’t.
She turns to me, gripping her glass filled with sweet, pink liquid.
“How did you two manage to meet up again?”
I tell her about my best friend Danica. She listens to the whole story and nods as I tell it.
“Danica’s joining us tomorrow for Macon’s birthday,” I say. “You’ll get to meet her. My sister Bethany and her kids are coming too.”
I’m so nervous about all of this. Mixing up families, complicating things. It could all go sideways. Family dynamics are temperamental beasts.
“I remember Bethany from school,” Robyn says. “We didn’t hang out together, but small town, you know, everyone knows everyone.”
I know all too well.
“I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there,” Robyn admits. “It was such a judgy, cliquish little berg. The minute Beau got his orders and we knew where he was based, I packed a bag and bought a bus ticket. I was never so happy to see a 900 square foot apartment in my whole life. It was a cinder block quadraplex, base housing. Neighbors an arms length away, but it was ours. And we were the hell out of Lake City, South Carolina – finally.”
We go on like this for a long time, sipping our coolers and just talking about random stuff; Robyn talking mostly, as I’m too apprehensive about saying the wrong thing to say much at all. The end comes swiftly when Joe and Jamie emerge from below, cranky.
“Oh, it’s past your bedtimes,” Robyn says. “I’m a bad Mama, keeping you up late.”
The boys pour themselves over her, demanding affection.
One of them, I can’t tell which one because they look exactly alike, looks up at me from his crouching position at his mother’s feet. He bats his long eyelashes at me and says, without expression, “You’re pretty.”
My heart melts.
“That’s my little heartbreaker,” Robyn says, scruffing his hair.
His brother leans over to him and whispers something in his ear. A disagreement ensues, escalating quickly to shouts.
“You are not. I’m going to.”
“Nuh-unh! I will first.”
“Will not. I saw her first. Uncle Macon showed me to her first.”
“What are you too on about?” Robyn laughs, eyeing me with a mischievous grin.
“Joe says he’s gonna marry Eliza. But I’m going to first.”
“No. You. Are. Not,” booms a threatening voice from behind us, sneaking up. Macon slips his arm around me, resting his head on my shoulder, taking in his nephews with an amused expression. “I saw her first. I beat you both. I got dibs. You keep your grubby little paws off my girl.”
The twins erupt in cackling, high-pitched laughter, rolling on the floor, thoroughly satisfied with themselves.
Robyn shakes her head at her children, slugs the last of her wine, and says to Macon, “I need to get these two monsters home before they turn into wearwolves.”
After we get back to Balfour, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep beside Macon. Sleep like this has eluded me for years.
What the hell? I open my eyes. It’s barely light outside. What is that sound? Oh my God.
Macon, laying beside me, propped up on his elbow, is staring at me with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face I have ever seen.
The sounds coming from the next room, just on the other side of the wall, are anything but decent. Beau and Robyn, at this hour, going at it bigtime. It sounds like they’re enjoying themselves.
I stifle a giggle, then a burst of laughter. Macon shushes me, covering my mouth as he laughs out loud too.
“They do this every time – like Christening the house or something.” His eyes flash at me. “Do I sound like that when we do it?”
A little bit. I nod at him, biting my lip. “Yeah. Kinda. You do.”
“Jesus...”
For a split second he feigns embarrassment, but then he thinks better of it.
“Let’s give ‘em a run for their money,” he teases, his hand falling to my hip, tugging. “See who can last longer. They’ve been at it twenty minutes.”
Oh. Good. Lord. The competitiveness in him is entertaining. Juvenile, but entertaining none the less.
“Macon, there are children in the house,” I warn him.
“Yeah! Their children. How do you think they got them?” He runs his fingers over my hip bone tracing my skin up my belly, then to my breast, fingers falling to a nipple and gently rolling it, making me ache. “I think I need to make you moan like...”
“Oh, shit. Beau! Oh please don’t stop. I’m… I’m...” Robyn cries through the wall.
Beau’s pace has slowed.
“This is better than porn,” Macon whispers, still giggling. He lifts up over me, his strong arms flexing. As soon as he kisses me and I feel him stiffen, rubbing against me, all opposition to the idea of giving Robyn and Beau a run for their money quickly evaporates.
Once he’s inside me, once our bodies meld into one thing, I’m no longer aware of anything else – anyone else. Just us and our lovemaking.
“You feel so fucking good,” Macon half growls in my ear, nuzzling my neck, as he strokes in hard and then withdraws, slowly, teasing, letting my lips and clit trace every contour of his length.
He takes his time, building and building until I can feel him tense and force a breath out, then holding his chest tight, afraid to exhale. He pulls out, grabs my hips, and rolls on his back, drawing me on top of him.
“Drive slow,” he advises. “I’m too close.”
His eyes have gone dark, hooded with lust. His jaw is clenched. He grips my hips, his fingers drawing prints on my ass, as he moves with the rhythm I set.
I like being on top. I like seeing him, his beautiful body under mine. I like touching his skin and dipping down, tracing my tongue along the ripples of his flesh. I like the salty taste of his sweat.
“Fuck...” he moans, his head rolling back on the pillow.
I come faster when he’s on top. But I can control how I come when I am. I’m going for the long, drawn-out, slow burn. The orgasm that lasts forever, leaving me a quivering wreck when it finally subsides. There’s a certain pace, a precise depth, an angle that has to be met – and I find it.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” he snarls, his fingers digging into my ass cheeks.
I feel Macon’s cock swell inside me. I moan, long and low. Timing is everything.
The first pulses of my climax ripple from my deep with in me, shuddering against Macon’s cock, buried deep inside me.
I hear him whimper, trying to hold on.
“Oh yeah,” I hear myself breath as the wave peaks and then breaks, a flood of pleasure sweeping over me, rolling, crashing, my body gripping Macon’s length, sucking him in to me with shuddering vibrations. “Oh… oh… oh... God.”
“Fuck. Yeah. Fuck me… come on.”
In an instant Macon is up on his knees behind me, hauling my ass up, diving in to me, my hair wound in his fist, his other hand on my shoulder, drawing me back into his rough, hard thrusts. I cry out with each one; the combination of pain and all-absorbing pleasure too much to bear in silence.
He doesn’t last long like this. He comes hard, exploding inside me, shoving in, crying out with every milking thrust.
“Oh god baby… Oh god… oh fuck...”
He collapses on me breathless, rolling us both face down onto the soft bed, his hand never leaving my shoulder, his pulsing cock, still inside me.
“Oh god, Eliza,” he huffs onto the back of my neck. “I’m sorry… That was too rough...”
I like rough. I didn’t know it, but apparently I do.
My hand finds his hip, pressing firmly against his skin. “No. I like it like that.” I blush. I can’t help it.
He wraps his arms around me, pulling me into him, cradling me, breathing hot breath against my skin.
“I’m so glad you’re here, and you’re mine. You’re perfect. And I love you.” His voice sounds swept away, as if he’s in a dream.
“I love you too, sweetie,” I say, giving him a little squeeze. “Happy birthday.”
Chapter 24
Macon
Beau and Robyn beat us downstairs for breakfast — obviously, as Eliza and I won the early morning fucking contest. Eliza is still upstairs, stalling, embarrassed to show her face. I have no such scruples. They’ve never seen me in company with a woman. They’ve seen the paparazzi photos of countless nameless females; hook-ups who I would never have considered introducing to family.
I’m thrilled being heard having outrageously hot sex with Eliza Carver. I bursting with pride, showing her off. I can’t wait to see Beau’s expression.
I stroll into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee maker, grabbing a cup from a cabinet overhead. I pour a cup and turn, taking a sip.
Beau and Robyn are both staring at me while Joe and Jamie smack on pancakes, oblivious. Robyn’s lip is curled, wicked; her eyes narrowed with glee. Beau just shakes his head, forcing a straight face that can’t conceal his admiration.
