Page 55 of The Brotherhood

He stared at her, kneeling before the fireplace, his heart hammering with a million things. Fear, need, worry… biting hunger.

He hurried to her and before he could help unwrap her, she bear hugged him. “I’m sorry.”

Her tiny voice cut through him. “For what, Ma Cherie?” he whispered, holding her head to his chest.

“I know you needed space, but… I missed you.”

The ache in her voice broke him. He turned her face up and covered her mouth with a hungry kiss, his groan thick with every need only she could feed.

“I missed you too,” he swore, winded as he began yanking on her clothes. “Fuck, I need you,” he croaked, devouring her whimpers with another kiss.

He suddenly paused, stepping back. “How many layers do you have, Ma Cherie?” he blasted, helping her out of another.

“A lot! It’s freezing if you haven’t noticed.”

He suddenly caught something in her expression and paused. “What’s wrong?”

She flashed him a quick gaze, looking at the fire then hurrying to it, pulling the little stool close to it. “I’m cold, for one,” she muttered, shivering and reaching her hands toward the flames. “You should add more wood, I think.” She glanced around, briefly. “I heard this is your first house.”

Samuel eyed her for a few seconds, his pulse raging with all the wrong energy now. He tossed a couple more logs in the fire and reined in his fears when they tried to shove him off a cliff. She needed to tell him something, that was obvious. “What’s on your pretty mind, Ma Cherie?” he gently asked, sitting on the floor next to her and crossing his legs.

“Nothing, I—”

“Cherie,” he cut in softly, not able to handle that game.

A few seconds passed and she sighed lightly. She took many more seconds before finally whispering, “I can’t do this.”

Her words speared dread through his guts.

“Do what, angel?” he whispered, staring at the fire while every fear imaginable slowly encased his muscles, preparing to crush him.

She shot off the stool and he watched her pace with her arms folded tightly against her. Her anger brought him to his feet, and he caught her in mid-stride, forcing her to look at him. “What can’t you do, angel?”

She aimed her pretty face at him with her forehead in dire straits about it. “Anything!” she finally blurted. “I’m living in my own house like an unwanted guest! My son side-eyes me while climbing into the lap of another woman! And not just any woman, either, no, she’s a damn saint!”

She tore from his hold, and he let her pace again, relieved to fuck as she hit the gas on her venting rampage. “She don’t ever raise her voice, not a damn octave! She’s just sittin’ all composed, blinkin’ real slow like she’s too holy to experience a real emotion. And my son?” She snapped the question right athim. “That little boy looks at her like she put the damn sun in the sky! Follows her ‘round like she got honey in her shadow,” she said, walking her fingers in the air before whipping her pissed gaze on him. “He does every little thing she says without so much as a side-eye. He’s five, Samuel! You ever seen a five-year-old so obedient? It ain’t normal. She got that boy trained like a show dog! An’ if I tell him somethin’? Oh, he hesitates, he frowns, then there he go, lookin’ for her like he needs her permission to listen to his own mother!” she yelled, shooting her arms out at her sides before getting back to plowing rows of rage on his floor.

“She’s always there, floatin’ round like some damn guardian angel with the patience of Job, always calm, always ready with some gentle somethin’,” she muttered, her disgust tickling his cock for some reason. “And she don’t ever get mad,” she quickly informed with a side-eye. “She don’t ever snap while glidin’ her ass across the floor while the rest of us mortals gotta walk.”

Samuel’s insides jerked when she spun with her pointer finger on him, walking over. “And I see the way she looks at you,” she forced out between clenched teeth. “Real subtle with it, real proper, real respectful,” she literally spat. “But don’t think I don’t know what I’m seein’,” she assured, waving her head around while her eyes never budged from his. “She got the nerve to stand there all serene, all demure, like she ain’t sittin’ there lusting after my damn husband.”

The jealous fire in her eyes called up a vengeance in his cock that demanded punishment. And the only thing guilty was her perfect, thick ass and the way it shook when he fucked her. The way his white hand looked digging in to his silky mocha heaven.

Her fury finally saw what burned in his blood and it froze in its tracks. He removed his sweater in one move and beganworking on his pants as her eyes moved over the storm building right before her eyes. “Get your perfect ass out of those clothes, Ma Cherie,” he ordered as he kicked off his pants. “I wanna fuck you all night long.”

****

Spar hid his grin at how Scarlett’s gaze dashed off him when he walked into the Roost Room wearing his bayou-ball-hammocks. The budget boxers were an old pair of stretchy black thermals cut too short with his saw knife. Baptized by blood and sweat, washed clean in the good Lord’s rainwater. Today, they were a weapon posing as a covering for his ever-hard cock.

Scarlett was still catching her breath from their little hike from the boat. She wasfuckingpissed, just like he needed her. Hands on her hips, face flushed from anger and physical exertion. She had no idea how fucking good she looked like that—hot, flustered, alive.

She popped out a sharp laugh. “Training? Is that how you plan to cleanse the nun-whore?” She was unbuttoning her sin-proof sleeves on those virtue drapes she wore faithfully to their lessons. “Bring. It. On, you, bayou…bullhead.”

“Sure you don’t wanna free up some space?” he suggested with a nod.

“Oh, I’m sure you’d love that, yougorilla. I’ve faced far greater, far far scarier men in my days.” She bent over and pulled the backside of her long dress up between her legs and tucked it under her belt at the front, creating thosebillowingpant legs. Then she came straight onto the mat in that stance he’d taught her, ready to kick his ass.

Fuck, he was going to love this.

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