Page 85 of Brother to Brother

Without a single backwards glance, we left this whole damn nightmare behind.

Chapter 36

Archer

The party was in full swing back at the club and Rev and Mandy had been kind enough to take Noah for the night so that I could try to destress my wife. She hadn’t wanted to let him go, which I got, but I’d explained to her that one night wasn’t going to kill her and that she needed a rest.

We were sitting around a fire out back, Melody sharing one of the lounge chairs with me, laying on me, staring at the flames, a blanket over the both of us. She had lemonade in a glass on the ground next to us, but I had a beer perched on my knee. I sort of felt bad I couldn’t get her drunk.

Summer had hung on into fall and it felt like it wasfinallystarting to wind down, the night air holding that crisp edge to it, hence why Dani had laid a blanket over the both of us. I’d nodded my appreciation and had murmured thanks for the both of us, but Mel just wasn’t here with me. A million miles away with her thoughts, which hey, let’s face it. That was okay.

“What ‘cha thinking about,” I asked her and she roused a bit, her hands caressing her stomach, her baby bump starting to show but not really, probably more wishful thinking on my part.

“What do you want to name it if it’s a boy?” she asked me, her voice holding that dreamy quality.

“Well, I kind of would have liked to name my first boy after Grind, but you took care of that for me.” I kissed her hair and she swallowed hard.

“I don’t like the name David,” she murmured.

“I don’t either, I always kind of liked the name Chandler for a first name.”

“Chandler…” she murmured, hypnotized by the flames, “Chandler,” she murmured again and closed her eyes.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I like it,” she said, “It fits, I mean, he did bring us together.”

“Yeah?”

“I named Noah, you should name your first son, especially if itisa son.”

I snorted and took a drink of my beer, “Noahismy first son, Mel. Always will be.”

She dragged herself up so she could look at me, searching my face, “You really do love him as your own, no difference, don’t you?”

“No difference,” I agreed.

She pulled herself up so she could straddle my hips, both of us still in our court clothes which was slightly awkward, and she kissed me. I set my beer down on the cinderblock next to the chair where her alcohol-free lemonade sat, getting watered down by its melting ice. I let my hands gently frame her face as I teased the seam of her lips with my tongue. She opened her mouth to me, plunging her tongue past my lips and I moaned slightly.

I loved how her lush, soft curves molded into my body, how she melted against me, boneless, liquid and graceful. She whimpered into my mouth and I swallowed the small sound. I felt my cock stir between us in the fancy slacks I wore.

Melody adjusted herself, rubbing her body along mine and setting me on fire with a desire to be with her. The light from the flickering fire pit didn’t help me one damn bit with that. I wrapped my arms around her and let the warmth spread from my crotch, through the rest of my body.

“My room?” I asked her and she answered me without stopping her kiss.

“Mm-hmm,” she moaned past my lips and I hauled her up my body, sitting up with her in my arms.

“Hold onto me, Baby,” I uttered and she moved her mouth to the side of my neck, kissing me, lightly, flicking her tongue over the spot in the side of my neck that gave me shivers.

I made quick strides across the grass and the asphalt track to the outbuilding that housed my club room. I took one of my hands off of the taut globe of Mel’s ass just long enough to twist the knob and kick the door open before plunging into the room and it’s blueish, deep shadows.

I didn’t need to switch on a light when I held the light of my life in my arms. This woman,god, this woman who was so tolerant and giving. This woman who was so fucking brave to marry my cantankerous ass, when by all rights she could have laughed in my face for even suggesting such a thing.

I’m glad she didn’t. I’m glad her crazy at the time matched my crazy so well. I’m glad she saw the same wisdom in it that I did, and that she held on and went through with it. I kissed her again, lying over the top of her across my bed while she deftly unbuttoned my shirt and jerked the wife beater under it out of my pants.

My hands were a match for hers, popping buttons free of their holes onherblouse, shoving her camisole she wore underneath it up out of my way so I could get skin on skin. I paused only long enough to pull my shirt off the rest of the way for her, peeling the cotton back off my shoulders and down my arms. Ripping the tank off over my head and tossing it carelessly aside in the deep gloom.

“I want you,” she breathed.

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