Something Worth Fighting For
Greta
“YOU’RE REALLY GOOD.”
“I don’t suck.”
“No. Really. You’re really good.”
“Thanks, man.”
I stood beside Hix just outside the gates of Raider Field, watching a just-showered-after-the-game Shaw lift a hand and smack Andy on the biceps.
I’d just watch the Raiders lose (unfortunately).
But I’d done it with my brother sitting on one side of me, Hix on the other, Mamie wedged in between me and Hix.
This happening part of the game.
The rest of it, she’d wedged herself between me and Andy and they got in a competition to chatter each other’s ears off, a competition that ran four ways with Maple and Snow.
It was a little bit of a surprise that Mamie hung with her father (and Andy and me) when her mother, uncles, aunts and grandparents were sitting in those same bleachers not too far away.
But we’d barely sat down before she was jumping down the seats to give her dad a hug, me a hug (which was sweet) and then shoot Andy a huge smile and cry, “Is this your brother, Greta?”
That started it and it didn’t end. Lou had come with the girls and they sat on the bench behind us, so I got to chat with her and Andy got to hold court with Mamie and Maple (Snow took off with some of her friends).
He’d loved every second of it.
So had I.
I just hoped he remembered it.
For me, it was a night I’d never forget.
“Your dad’s the sheriff,” Andy informed Shaw, and I tensed, not thinking Shaw would be strange about Andy telling him something he very well knew for reasons he probably couldn’t fathom, just understanding sometimes talking to Andy could be awkward until you got to know him and understood how he expressed things.
I didn’t have to worry.
Shaw just smiled big and said, “Yeah, bud.”
“He arrested my mother,” Andy shared.
Shaw’s smile faltered, he looked to his dad but looked back to Andy when he kept talking.
“It was awesome.”
“Right,” Shaw muttered, fully regaining his smile but Andy lost his attention when Wendy (Shaw’s girlfriend was one of my clients, I now saw) walked up.
He lifted an arm her way and she slid under it so it was around her shoulders.
“Hey, babe,” he said. “This is Andy, Greta’s brother. Andy, this is my girl, Wendy.”
“Hey,” she said shyly to Andy.
“Hey,” Andy greeted Wendy.
I studied Shaw and his girl.
Wendy was a good kid and I’d always thought she was pretty. Lots of ash-blonde hair she begged her mother to let me highlight (her mother hadn’t yet given in but I hoped she would soon because it would be fabulous). She was long, slender, but not tall, just average height, so since Shaw was tall, she fit right into his side like she was meant to be there.
Very nice.
“Hey, Mr. Drake. Hey, Miss Greta,” she called to us.
“Wendy,” Hix replied from where we were standing five feet away, with me in the same hold as Shaw had Wendy.
“Hey, honey,” I called in return.
“You gonna go get pizza?” Andy asked them and both Shaw and Wendy looked to him.
Shaw shuffled his feet a bit before he answered, “Yeah, Andy, do you wanna . . . uh . . . come with us? We can, well . . . take you back home after.”
It seemed Wendy snuggled closer to Shaw when he offered that.
As for me, I did the same into his father but only so I wouldn’t melt into a pool of gratitude that Hix’s boy was such a good guy.
“Aren’t you, um . . . goin’ on a date?” Andy asked in confusion.
“Uh . . . yeah,” Shaw answered.
“Then you don’t want me there.” Andy twisted at the waist and threw a hand Hix and my way. “Anyway, Ta-Ta and Hix gotta take me home so they can go on their date.”
I loved my brother.
But we so did.
“Right,” Shaw replied through a grin.
“We’ll go to pizza some other time when you aren’t on a date so Ta-Ta and Hix can have another date,” Andy told him.
“Yeah, man, that’d be awesome,” Shaw said, still grinning.
“Cool,” Andy muttered.
“We should all probably get going,” I called. “Shaw’s undoubtedly hungry after that game and it’s getting late.”
“Yeah,” Andy agreed, looking my way and then turning to Shaw and Wendy. “You did good tonight, sorry you didn’t win.” His attention turned to Wendy. “Cool to meet you.”
“Cool to meet you too, Andy,” she said.
“Thanks, bro,” Shaw said. “See you later.” But with that, he went on, “Uh . . . Sunday? That’s your, uh . . . day with Greta. So, um . . .” He glanced Hix and my way before he looked back to Andy. “Well, she’s with us on Sundays now so we get you too. Right?”
I didn’t know the Drakes had claimed my Sundays.
But since I liked the Sunday I’d had with the Drakes, and they wanted Andy too (or at least Shaw did, but I seriously doubted Hix would argue), that worked for me.
Just as long as it worked for Andy.
It did and I knew that when my brother shot Shaw a bright smile. “Yeah. Yeah. Sunday.” He moved toward Hix and me but did it still aimed toward Shaw and Wendy. “Have fun.”
“Thanks, you too,” Shaw replied.
“’Bye, Andy,” Wendy said.
Hix’s arm around my shoulders tightened as he turned us while we called our goodbyes to his son and his girl, and Andy fell into step beside us as we walked toward his Bronco.
There weren’t many people left hanging around after the game. We’d said goodbye to Lou and the girls before Shaw came out and Mamie had taken off with her mother, who made it clear she was taking pains to ignore the fact that Hix and I existed, and she did this by leaving and not hanging to tell her son his team might have lost, but he’d done a good job.
That said, her parents both came right up to Hix, her dad shaking his hand and introducing himself and his wife to me in a surprisingly friendly way (though, I knew Hope’s mom, Marie, she was a client of Lou’s).
Marie gave Hix a brief hug before she smiled hesitantly at me and they both took off after Hope. Hope’s brothers and their families didn’t do the same, though one of the brothers gave Hix a wave, and both wives did (one, Jessie, was my client and she hadn’t stopped being that even with all that was happening, the other one, Molly, was Lou’s client and she’d been in two Thursdays ago so clearly they also weren’t holding grudges, which was a relief).
I found all of that interesting.
I didn’t pay it much mind because I found it concerning that Mamie stuck by our sides until the very last minute, trudged to her mother only when called as they were leaving, and she did this like she was dead ballerina walking.
Also concerning was the fact that Corinne popped by once during the game to give her father a pointedly dutiful hug and kiss, her greeting of me and meeting of Andy vast degrees warmer than the chill she gave her dad. I noticed she hung with friends most of the game, and left with them, but that didn’t mean she didn’t spend a whole quarter of the game sitting beside her mother and her family.
The dis to Hix was not veiled just as Mamie’s dis to her mother wasn’t either.
Yes, this was all concerning.
But these were the only things that dimmed the brilliance of the night, having Andy with us, but mostly having Hix make a statement to the entire town that he was with me. When the opportunity was afforded him, he did it with his arm thrown around my shoulders, holding my hand, dipping down to touch his mouth to mine. And he did it in a way no one could be in any question, what with Andy and Mamie with us, Corinne dropping by, Lou and Maple sitting close, and in the end, Shaw, that we were to the point we weren’t together, we were together—merging families.
And although I was concerned about both Mamie and Corinne, I loved all that so much that the dim of that barely shadowed the brilliance of the rest.
Making things better, we were only T minus the trip to Sunnydown and back before I could connect with my man in the way I’d been wanting to connect with my man since the second he actually, officially became my man.
When we hit the Bronco Hix opened my door for me, and I caught Andy’s big smile that he did as my brother climbed into the back seat.
I settled in and was grabbing the seatbelt while Hix was closing the door, and that was when I caught the soft look on his face as he stared at my ass sitting in his passenger seat.
And that was when I knew.
Andy sitting in Hix’s Bronco.
Me sitting there.
Andy being invited to Junk Sunday.
T minus less than an hour before I had Hixon Drake naked.
Yes, that was when I knew.
I knew this was it.
Having this, building it, keeping it . . .
I’d fight for it.
Finally, I’d found something to fight for.
Mom could pull her shit, and I’d battle her to the death.
Hope could pull her shit, and I’d go head to head to keep hold on my man, his kids, the promise of the life he was offering.
I’d take any lick they could offer, and if it meant having Hixon, I’d keep on ticking.
Hixon had barely closed the door after he’d folded himself in the driver’s seat when Andy asked, “Are you comin’ with Ta-Ta to get me on Sunday?”
Hix’s eyes slid to me, his mouth twitching, his hand turning the key in the ignition, as he replied, “Yeah, bud. You up for early? We do donuts in the morning.”
“Heck yeah!” Andy cried.
I felt my lips curl up as I looked out the windshield, the ignition caught and Hix slid her in reverse, thinking, yes.
Oh yes.
I’d finally found it.
Something worth fighting for.
And if I had to, I was going to fight for it.
Because I was falling in love with complicated.
Hix’s head dropped so he could bury his face in my neck and I felt his heavy breathing against my skin just as I felt the weight and warmth of his body pressed to mine, his cock buried deep, fingers of one of my hands in his hair, the fingers of the other one laced in his, my legs curled around the backs of his thighs.
He’d just come.
He’d taken me there a few minutes before.
It had been like the first time. Fast and desperate, then slow and gentle and sweet. Kissing, nuzzling, touching, tasting, gliding, connecting like we had all the time in the world.
And like we’d have just that.
For the rest of our lives.
Hix’s breath started to come easy and his mouth started to work my skin where he murmured, “You good?”
I’d never been better.
“Yes.”
“Your nose?”
“It’s fine, baby.”
He lifted his face out of my neck and looked into my eyes before he touched his mouth to mine, to the tip of my nose, and then he slid his hand from where he had it curled around the back of my neck down to where his thumb came out and he stroked the side of my breast.
“Good night?” he whispered.
Yes, it had been good.
More than good.
I slid my hand from his hair to his cheek and whispered back, “No, Hixon, it was great.”
His blue eyes registered that, openly gave me just how much it meant to him, before he dropped his head and kissed me, deep and wet and beautiful. All through it his fingers threaded through mine, as they’d been since the moment he’d slid inside me, squeezed.
He ended the kiss, his eyes roamed my face then he raised them to look over my head before he looked again at me.
“We neglected your headboard.”
I grinned at him. “It’s not going anywhere.”
His return grin gave me a shiver when he replied, “Nope.”
His face disappeared into my neck again where he slid his lips up from the junction of my shoulder to my ear, sliding his cock out as he did, and he said, “Sucks, but I gotta get back to the apartment early tomorrow, sweetheart.” He again lifted his head and looked at me. “Shaw and I have packed approximately three boxes in the last week. We don’t have a lot but I gotta get him outta bed and we gotta get some more shit boxed up. We have the unit until the end of the month but the sooner I can close the door on that place forever, the happier I’ll be.”
This made me frown, because in the last week when he wasn’t working or with his kids, he’d been with me and it hadn’t occurred to me once to go to him and help him get ready to move.
“I’m sorry, Hix, I didn’t think. We should have been packing last night, not making out on my couch.”
At that, he didn’t grin but smiled huge like I was hilarious.
“Babe, if you think I mind rollin’ out of your bed at oh dark thirty to start a day of packing boxes and lugging crap because I made the decision to make out with you on your couch and not pack boxes last night, you’d be wrong.”
I smiled back. “I see.”
“And tomorrow’s gonna suck because moving sucks, but after tomorrow I’m gonna have my kids in a good place that’s two blocks from you and that is not gonna suck.”
I kept smiling. “I hear that.”
He was still smiling too. “So what I’m sayin’ is, I gotta deal with this condom and then we gotta settle in because I need some shuteye, seein’ as I’m not twenty-three anymore and I can’t go all night with a woman and roll outta bed and spend all day doin’ somethin’ physical without it kicking my ass.”
I was enjoying gliding my free hand along the skin of his back, holding him anchored to me with my legs around his thighs and also still smiling when I asked, “When you were twenty-three, could you go all night with a woman?”
He looked to the pillow over my head and muttered, “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this.”
I wrapped my arm around him and gave him a squeeze with it as well as my legs as I teased, “I thought tops for a guy was three times in one night . . . maybe.”
He looked down at me, brows raised. “You read that in some woman’s magazine?”
I quit smiling and stared at him.
Then I asked, this time seriously, “When you were twenty-three, could you go all night with a woman?”
“Greta—” he started hesitantly.
“No, really, I wanna know,” I told him.
“I didn’t have half a dozen people showin’ at my house tomorrow at eight with only three boxes for them to move, I could go all night tonight.”
I felt my eyes get wide right before they narrowed.
He was full of it.
“That’s impossible,” I declared.
He grinned. “And that sounded like a challenge.”
“No, Hix, it’s physically impossible.”
He dipped his grinning face close. “No, baby. See, the key is, to go all night, I gotta make it so you got your mind on other things so the last thing on your mind is counting how many times anything happens for me.”
My body experienced another shiver as I whispered, “Oh.”
“Though I didn’t know that when I was twenty-three, so to answer your question, yes. That three times is bullshit. But since then I learned how to play it so I can have all the fun doin’ a lot of the work but not all of the work, if you catch my meaning.”
I was still whispering when I replied, “I totally catch your meaning.”
He touched the tip of his nose to mine before he continued, “You want me to have a go at doin’ all the work, I’m up for that challenge too.” He pulled half an inch away. “Just not the night before I gotta wedge that couch out the door of my apartment without sending it flying over the side of my stairs.”
“I wondered how you got it in there,” I shared.
“Brute force and a promise to God I wouldn’t say ‘fuck’ for at least a week.”
I started shaking under his big body with my laughter. “Did you keep your promise?”
“Barely.”
I lifted up, brushed my lips against his and dropped back. “Go, darlin’, so you can come back and we can get some sleep.”
“All right, baby,” he murmured, returned my lip brush then rolled off.
I turned out one of the lights on the nightstand before he came back and Hix turned off the other one before he slid back in beside me and curled me into him.
Once there, I curled in deeper.
“Hix,” I called into the dark.
“Yeah?”
“I love it that you made a son who would ask my brother to go with him and his date to eat pizza.”
His arm around me pulled me even closer and I felt him do a slight curl before his lips touched the top of my head.
He settled back in before he murmured, “I do too.”
I turned my head, rubbing the point of my chin into his chest before I put my lips to it and whispered, “And I love it when you hold my hand when you’re moving inside me.”
His hand slid up my back, over my shoulder, so he could use the backs of his knuckles to stroke my cheek. “I’m glad, Greta, ’cause I love doin’ that too.”
I tilted my head back, rested my chin on his chest and looked at his shadowed face. “And I love it that your self-imposed, unnecessary ban on sex due to my broken nose, a ban you also imposed on me, is finally over.”
“Greta?”
“Yes?”
“You’re cute, you’re funny and you’re sweet, but you need to shut your mouth and go to sleep.”
Since he sounded like he was smiling when he said that, I grinned through the dark, turned my head and rested my cheek to his chest.
He kept stroking my face for a while before he moved his hand to curl it around my waist and hold me tucked to his side.
I loved other things about that night, about Hix, about his kids.
But I’d tell them to him later.
Right then, naked with my man naked at my side, I fell asleep.
I was on my hands and knees, naked, scurrying to the side of the bed in order to get in a better position to attack with the intent to win because this had gone on way longer than I expected and something had to give, when Hix’s fingers locked around my ankle.
He pulled it, which meant he pulled my knee out from under me. The other knee went as his hand left my ankle, both went to my hips, and he whipped me on my belly perpendicular on the bed, him between my spread legs.
He then yanked up my hips, putting me back on my knees.
And at this maneuver (not the first time it happened that session, but much stronger than all the others), the walls of my pussy convulsed.
I flipped my hair around so I could look over shoulder at him and they convulsed again when I saw the dark, hungry expression on his face as he stared down at my ass.
Right.
Naked bed wrestling with Hix was over.
It was time to get down to business.
“Fuck me,” I whispered and his eyes sliced to mine. “Fuck me, Hix. Hurry.”
One of his hands left my hip and dove between my legs, scoring a path of electricity from clit to nipples that made my hips jerk and would have made my mouth protest that was all he gave me, no matter how good it was, if he didn’t lean away and I didn’t hear the drawer of his nightstand opening.
I ground into his hand and he fingered me as I watched him tear into the condom packet with his teeth.
God.
That was hot.
“Baby, hurry,” I breathed, rocking against the magic of his fingers.
His gaze came back to burn into mine as I felt him shift closer, his movements, the promise of what was about to come making the insides of my thighs quiver as I tried to brace.
And then he was there. The tip of him at my opening.
He removed his hand, both went to my hips, and I reared back as he thrust in.
I tossed my head, feeling my hair drifting over sensitive skin, as I moaned low, “Yes.”
He curled over me, mounting me, one hand cupping my breast, fingers pulling at my nipple, the other arm slashing across my upper chest, fingers curling around my shoulder, hauling me back into his drives.
God, he was good at this.
“Yes,” I whimpered it this time, moving with him, meeting his thrusts, the noises of our flesh slapping together sounding in the room mingled with his quiet grunts, my muffled mews.
My whole body quaked when his teeth sunk into my shoulder blade and he growled, “Who won?”
He wasn’t serious.
“Just fuck me,” I begged.
He pulled out so I only had the head.
I twisted my neck to spear him with my gaze. “Don’t stop.”
“Who won, Greta?”
“Fuck me, Hix.”
He tugged hard on my nipple, grinned a grin that should be illegal it was so damned sexy, and repeated, “Who won, gum drop?”
I was going to kill him.
After he finished fucking me, of course.
“I want your cock back,” I demanded, and him being a man who liked using his cock the way he’d been using it, I didn’t think I’d have to say it twice.
“You’ll get it, you declare me bed wrestling champion of the millennium.”
All right.
Someone shoot me for waking Hixon Drake early on the Sunday morning after he’d moved into a new house and throwing down the gauntlet in a tease that I’d take him in the bed wrestling championship of the millennium, seeing as I thought I could take him considering he’d gotten up early the morning before, made love to me before he left at six thirty and then he’d been engaged in the strenuous activity of moving all day.
I had some moves in my arsenal. They mostly involved my hands, fingers, lips, tongue and teeth, but not strength, though I could be fast and I’d only stood on my feet for hours then unpacked boxes the day before.
I thought I was good to go.
Problem was, Hix was all that plus strong, and clearly moving hadn’t taken anything out of him.
Not a thing.
But he’d just taken something out of me and I wanted it back.
“You,” I bit out.
“Me what?” he pushed, still grinning that fucking grin that just made me want him back inside even more.
I tried to press back.
He moved with me and thus withheld.
“Hix!” I snapped.
“Me what?” he pressed.
I gave in. “You win.”
“Which makes me what?”
I glared at him.
His fingers rolled my nipple.
My eyes slid nearly closed as my legs trembled.
“Which makes me what, baby?” he coaxed, gentle and sweet.
The gentle and sweet did it for me.
That and I wanted his cock and was in the mood to say just about anything to get it.
I opened my eyes. “It makes you the bed wrestling champion of the millennium.”
Slowly, making my eyes go hooded again, but I still caught his grin melting to something that was even hotter, he slid back in as he murmured, “That’s right, sweetheart, now take your fucking from the champ.”
I felt his lips draw the curve of my shoulder blade and whispered, “Yes,” as I commenced taking my fucking from the champ.
He kept me anchored with his arm across my chest but moved his hand from my breast to between my legs where he played with me as he fucked me. He did this unrelentingly, and amazingly, until I pressed my forehead into the mattress, reared back, my fingers fisted in his sheets. My cry was stifled when the force Hix was building between my legs exploded and tore through me, making me shudder uncontrollably under him.
I kept doing it as his arm around my chest left me and he pushed me to my belly in the bed with his hips, his cock planted inside. He braced his weight into his forearm beside me, his finger on his other hand still working at my clit, his mouth at my ear as he pounded me into the bed.
Oh my God.
How could I be coming and I was going to start coming again?
“Give it to me again,” he growled.
“Yes,” I gasped and pushed out, “Yes, baby.”
“Dig your ass up, I want more, Greta,” he ordered roughly.
I did and he might have gotten more, but I did too.
Oh yeah, I was going to come again.
“Hixon,” I whispered.
“Fuck yeah, Greta,” he rumbled.
My body started trembling, I whimpered, “Ohmigod,” and bucked under his weight, my head slamming back so far it hit Hix’s shoulder, and the second blistered through me, leaving me shuddering beneath him through the jolts as I kept taking his thrusts.
His finger left my clit so he could wrap his arm around my belly and hold me steady to take him before he slammed in and again, and again, and again, pressing his forehead into the side of my neck and grunting through his orgasm, each sound he made slithering over the skin of my back and ass, crazy-delicious.
His climax sounded awesome.
But both of mine had felt better.
I caught my breath and he caught his before he kissed my neck, slid a hand up my side, over my shoulder and up to tangle in my hair. He pulled it out of the way and nuzzled all of the back of my neck, flexing his hips into my ass, his still-hard cock inside me, and all this felt really freaking good, so I shivered under him.
He did this silently and I took it silently for a long time before he slid out, gliding his lips down my spine as he did.
They swept the small of my back to my ass before they disappeared and he murmured, “Be right back.”
I felt him leave the bed but not leave me until he closed my legs and caught them at the knees, shifting them, and me, to the side, bending my legs up. I then watched as he leaned in, brushing his lips along the top of my hip before his eyes caught mine. He grinned a grin that wasn’t wickedly sexy, just sweet, before he pushed up and away. I then kept watching as he disappeared into his bathroom.
I curled my knees up higher, and after some of the cloud of great sex coasted away, I took stock of a fact I’d taken stock of before I started my bed wrestling demise. This being that Hix’s master was at the front of the house (like mine) and Shaw’s bedroom was at the back of the basement, it was early, so as I suspected prior to foolishly instigating the bed wrestling championship of the millennium, we should be good in the sense there was no way Shaw could have heard anything.
Hix came back, strolling casually in his earth-shatteringly awesome nakedness, with his fabulous chest that had a smattering of dark hair that was thicker between his pecs, thinner but far more than a sprinkle outward from that. It climbed up but disappeared just under his collarbone and narrowed entirely in a thin but not dense line down his midriff and stomach.
He had boxed abs but they weren’t cut, just lightly defined.
He also had thick, dark-furred thighs and great calves.
All of that was amazing.
But his cock was perfection. Perhaps slightly over average length, more than slightly over average in breadth, the formation was where it was at. It was absolutely flawless.
And watching it come my way, still somewhat hard, attached to the rest of all that was Hix, I was getting turned on again.
Yeesh.
I forced my attention to his face, caught a look at his expression, and felt my eyes get squinty as he entered the bed, doing it claiming my space and me, forcing my knee then my thigh over his hip as he forced his knee between my legs and pulled the rest of me into his body.
He rolled slightly into me, giving me some of his weight, and commenced doing verbally what his face had been doing inaudibly.
Gloating.
“I think I’ve decided my nickname should be ‘champ.’”
“Don’t be an annoying winner,” I shot back.
A grin curled his lips. “Don’t be a poor loser.” He looked to my mouth, up and over my hair then leaned slightly away to look down at my body before his eyes came back to mine. “Though, not sure how you could be, you comin’ that hard twice, doin’ it after begging me to fuck you.”
“I didn’t beg,” I bit out.
He pressed into me again and dipped his face to mine. “You totally begged.”
“Did not.”
“You so did.”
Whatever.
“And I didn’t come that hard,” I lied (again).
He started chuckling and kept gloating, “You bucked so hard when I was fucking you into the bed, you nearly bucked me off.”
I turned my eyes to the mattress, muttering, “Now you’re being a dick.”
He shoved his face in my neck and murmured, “You like my dick.”
Yeah, I did.
Though I wasn’t giving him that.
“Now you’re being an ass.”
He nipped my ear.
I didn’t quite fight back the shiver that caused, and I definitely didn’t fight back the irritation it caused when I felt him smile against the side of my neck before he challenged, “You wanna try to take my ass, we’ll have the bed wrestling match of the millennium part two, which, by the way, sweetheart, you’ll totally lose that too, which means I get to slide up your ass.”
I shivered again.
Hix chuckled again before he slid the tip of his tongue down my neck.
I moved my hands to press against his chest, and I’ll admit (only to myself), I did it feebly and not only because I didn’t have the strength to put more oomph behind it, but because he smelled good just being Hix in the morning, but also being Hix after sex in the morning. Not to mention he felt good and he was all warm and strong and goddamned Hix.
“I like this,” he whispered into my skin.
“Yes. You’re making it very clear you like winning.”
He pulled his face out of my neck to look at me and said, “Yeah, baby. I like that. I like the kind of trophy I got to claim winning. But I also like that you’re a really shitty loser.”
“I’m not a shitty loser,” I retorted.
“You’re totally pouting.”
I felt my mouth form into a (deeper) pout. “I’m not pouting.”
“Totally are.”
“Hix—”
He cut me off by going in for a hard press of his lips against mine and then he pulled back.
And after that, with no warning, he changed my entire world.
“You’re gorgeous. You’re funny. You’re loving and kind and hardworking. You like to take care of me and I like that you do. You listen. You give honestly. You make great breakfasts. You’re fantastic with my kids. We’re combustible in bed. I love making love to you. I love fucking you. But you’re a shit loser and that’s awesome because I was beginning to get a complex thinking I’d found the perfect woman and I’d never live up to that.”
My insides had seized but he just gave me a big smile and kept talking.
“Good to know you got at least one flaw.” His big smile got huge as he finished, “Two, seein’ as you suck at wrestling.”
“You think I’m perfect?” I whispered.
“Thought,” he corrected. “You suck at wrestling, remember?”
I stared at him and the beautiful, teasing light in his pool-blue eyes shimmered away and became a tender, attentive light.
“Greta? Sweetheart?” he called.
“She can’t have you,” I blurted.
The tender, attentive light flickered out as his brows drew together and a perplexed look took over.
“What?”
“She can’t have you,” I repeated. It was stronger this time and included me scratching my nails through the hair at his pecs like I could latch on to him through the sinews in his flesh.
He leaned into me and I bore more of his weight as he brought his face closer to mine.
I knew he got me when he said, “Baby, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Okay,” I stated curtly, fighting trembling for another reason as emotion started to take control of me. “But if she tries, if she makes a play, I’ll fight her and I’ll keep fighting and I won’t let her win.” When I noticed the intensity of his stare, I tried to take the intensity that was just plain me down about a dozen notches. “Like I just let you do.”
He brought his face even closer before he declared, “You didn’t let me win.”
I opened my mouth.
“Shut it, Greta.”
I shut my mouth and then it was me staring at him.
Because he was looking at me like no one had ever looked at me.
“You’re not gonna have to fight anything,” he proclaimed.
“If she—”
“Greta, sweetheart, quiet.”
I went quiet.
Hix didn’t.
“It’s you. It was you from the first time you sat your ass across from me at that table at the Dew and you know it. I knew it. It freaked me and I bailed, that’s how strong your pull was. All the shit I jacked up between us was because I couldn’t deal. I couldn’t adjust that fast to being given a shot at something so fucking beautiful when my life had turned to such shit. I couldn’t believe in it. I wouldn’t let myself believe. But in the end I didn’t have to do dick because you turned out to be just as beautiful as you are and I had no choice but to let you make me believe.”
Holy hell.
My bottom lip started quivering.
Holy hell.
“Ohmigod, you’re gonna make me start crying.”
His gaze grew soft on me. “You can’t start crying, gum drop. You gotta get your ass up, showered and in my Bronc so we can go get your brother, some donuts, wake my boy and commence Junk Sunday.”
Junk Sunday.
With Andy and Shaw.
And Hix.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered.
That didn’t get me a soft look.
His face went harsh as his lips bit out, “Jesus, fuck.”
Oh no.
Shit, no.
“Okay, I . . . okay, I get it. Too soon. It’s way too—” I started to backtrack but was cut off when Hix totally leaned into me, giving me all his weight at the same time running a hand down the inside of my thigh that had been at his hip, pushing it open so his hips fell through when he got me on my back.
“Shut up,” he growled while moving into me. “After you gave me that, I gotta fuck you again, do it quick, find a way to make you come again after I just got two hard ones outta you and do that in time that we don’t make your brother worry or delay Junk Sunday and make my boy ticked.”
His face disappeared in my neck as his hand delved between my legs, I gasped, but I also moved my hands to catch his head on either side and pull it up.
“Hixon—” I tried to start again but that was as far as I got.
“Yes,” he clipped confusingly.
And then, joyously, he kept speaking.
“It started for me the second your eyes moved through that room and you looked right at me and didn’t stop lookin’ at me while you sang ‘At Last.’ You were singing those words to me but I was feelin’ those words about you, Greta. So yes. Fuck yes. Get that look off your face, baby, because it’s not too soon. It’s where we are. So it’s just right.”
I stared up at him.
He stared down at me.
My eyes started to get wet.
He saw it because he again bit out, “Jesus, fuck.”
And in the worst timing in history, his cell on the nightstand rang.
Both our eyes went to it and he repeated an even more terse, “Jesus, fuck,” before he looked again to me and said, “My job, I gotta—”
“Get it, honey,” I whispered.
He bent to touch his mouth swiftly to mine, but when he reached to the phone, he pulled me with him so we were diagonal on the bed with me still mostly under him when he caught sight of the screen.
My body strung tight as I watched his face turn to stone.
I forced my gaze to his phone and saw the back of it, his thumb moving on the front and he put it to his ear.
“I swear to Christ, Hope, if this isn’t about one of the—”
My body had strung tighter at the name he spoke only for it to threaten to snap when I caught the look that hit his face before he rolled off me, knifing up to sitting, but yanking me up with him and plastering me with his arm around me to his side.
“How long?” he asked and there was barely time to take a breath before he went on, “Okay, I know, of course you don’t know.” He was now speaking in a calming tone, doing it taking his feet at the side of the bed and hauling me up with him. “You call your dad?” he inquired. “Okay, right. Get off with me, Hope, call him. Her girlfriends’ parents. Madam DuBois. Anyone you can think of she’d go to. I’m goin’ out to look for her.” A pause while he pulled me to his closet, my heart racing at listening to his words and what they might mean. “Yeah, now. Goin’ out now, Hope. You hear anything, you call me, okay?”
We were in his walk-in closet. I flipped the light switch on and went right back to him, pressing into him, one arm around him, one hand at his chest.
“Yeah. I’ll do the same,” he said. “We’ll find her.”
“Oh God,” I mouthed, no sound coming out but it was like Hix felt it because he looked down at me.
“Right. Yeah. Gotta go look so lettin’ you go. Okay?” He paused. “Okay. Later, Hope.”
He listened for a split second then took his phone from his ear.
“Hope was gonna surprise the girls with a shopping trip today, takin’ ’em to Scottsbluff. She went in to tell Mamie she had to get up and get ready and Mamie wasn’t in her bed. She woke Corinne. Mamie isn’t anywhere in the house. They looked everywhere, she’s nowhere. Gone.” He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and finished, “I gotta get on the road and find my girl.”
“Oh God, Hix, of course, yes,” I replied, rushing to the back of the closet where there were some as-yet-unpacked suitcases and boxes filled with clothes, dropping down to my knees in front of one to unzip it and flip it open.
That was as far as I got. I didn’t even get a look in to see if any of his jeans were there before he wrapped his fingers around my biceps and pulled me up and around to face him.
“Get dressed, sweetheart. I need you to get dressed. I can find some clothes.”
Of course, I was naked.
I was so stupid.
I needed to get dressed.
I nodded and ran out to the bedroom where he’d dumped the bag I’d brought over with me yesterday.
I had panties and bra on with my jeans up but undone when the doorbell rang.
I stilled in buttoning my fly and looked to the bedroom door, but then my eyes flew to the closet as Hix tore out of it wearing jeans, a thermal in his fisted hand, his phone in the other.
He sprinted out the door and I wasted only the time it took to bend and tag my top before I took off after him.
I was pulling the top down at the same time hiking my jeans up because they were still undone and sliding down my hips when I raced down the stairs to see Hix pull open the front door.
“Daddy,” I heard and I halted on a sway, nearly slipping off the stair four steps from the bottom but not caring if I went down, my relief at hearing Mamie’s voice was so intense.
“Jesus, Mamie, Jesus, baby,” he rumbled and squatted.
Coming right back up, he carried her in, holding her tight to him, leaving the door open behind him.
I quickly did up my jeans and then hurried to the door to close it as he pushed his girl’s face into his neck, still holding his thermal so her face was hidden from me, and he swayed her in his arms, muttering, “Jesus, God, baby. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Her voice came muffled against his skin, and then I heard a sob and her arms locked around him but she pushed her head back to look at her dad’s face before she wailed, “I can’t be there anymore! I wanna live here with you! I wanna live with you and Shaw. I wanna live with you, Daddy. You and Shaw and you . . . and . . . and . . . you!”
After that, she shoved her own face in her father’s neck and her slender, not-so-little-but-still-little girl’s body bucked in his arms as she burst into loud, body-wracking sobs.
I moved into Hix’s line of sight in an attempt to assess his state of mind only for him to catch my gaze and reach out with the hand he had still holding his phone.
“Call Hope,” he mouthed.
I moved immediately to take his phone and he wrapped his arm back around his girl, moving to the couch and swinging out her legs as he sat in it with her in his lap.
She burrowed deeper, still bawling.
I’d taken his phone but my heart was hammering in my chest at the idea of calling Hope.
But she had to know, immediately, that her daughter was safe.
I looked down at the phone and started to rush out of the room toward the kitchen.
“Fourteen, nine, three,” he called, and I looked back over my shoulder at him, nodded and then hurried into the kitchen, touching Hixon’s code into the screen.
I went to recent calls, saw Hope at the top and touched her name.
I put it to my ear, it rang once, and she answered saying, “I called Dad. He’s coming into town. I’m making calls to her friends. Corinne’s helping me. I—”
“Hope, I’m so sorry to interrupt you but you’ve got Greta and you need to know that Mamie’s here. She’s with her dad. She’s all right. I don’t know what’s happening but she rang the doorbell before Hix had the chance to go out to look for her, but she’s here. She’s fine. She’s safe. She’s with her dad.”
“She’s there?” Hope asked for confirmation.
“She’s here. She’s fine and she’s here.”
She wasn’t fine. She was bawling and asking to live with her dad but at least she was safe and healthy and the people who needed to know where she was knew where she was.
“She’s there, honey. She’s at your dad’s,” I heard Hope say, probably to Corinne, her relief running so deep, it dribbled out of the phone into my ear.
I drew in a breath.
“I’ll . . . I-I’ll . . .” Hope started but said no more.
Okay, crisis over and I had Hix’s ex on the phone.
Now what?
“I, um . . . why don’t I get him to call you after he calms her down?” I suggested.
Wrong thing to say.
“Calms her down?” Hope asked.
“Well, she’s wound up about something, and Hix was intent on you knowing she was safe so he just gave me his phone and I gave them privacy and came into the kitchen to call you.”
“You’re in Hix’s kitchen at seven thirty on a Sunday morning?”
Without thinking, I looked around Hix’s kickass kitchen that beat even my awesome kitchen by a mile.
First, it was bigger. It also had a showstopper recessed ceiling over the island that had been set in old, tamped tin. There was a copper hood over the stove. The many cupboards had different finishes, a mix of cream, distressed green and dark wood. The upper cabinets that had windows also had arched panes that were amazing. Further, there was a copper sink that had a faucet that looked kind of like an old-fashioned well pump. The floors were immaculately refinished wood. And the pièce de résistance was a recessed pantry that had latticework screen doors covering it that I’d give my eyeteeth for.
It was sublime.
The minute I saw it (and his porch, which was also a lot like mine, but wider and longer and it had a porch swing) I totally hoped the people who owned it adored Florida and never stepped foot in Nebraska again.
What it also had was a drawer microwave in the island in the middle, that microwave was the only thing in the room currently that had a clock on it that was programmed and I couldn’t see it from where I stood so I had no idea what time it was.
But seven thirty sounded about right.
That said, in all that was happening, I had no idea why Hope would ask that question.
Then it hit me, and I might know why, but I still didn’t.
I walked to the island and put my hand to it, saying, “Hope, why don’t you let—?”
“My son is in that house,” she declared.
“I’ll get Hix to—”
“Unless he’s at a sleepover. Is he at a sleepover?”
“Hope, please, if you’d let me—”
“I cannot fucking believe you,” she hissed, her voice lowered like she was hiding what she was saying, likely from Corinne. “I cannot fucking believe him. But you, you’re a woman. People say you raised that brother of yours. You know better.”
“I—”
I said no more that time because the phone was no longer to my ear.
I whirled around and watched Hix put it to his.
He had his thermal on.
And he had a face filled with thunder.
Oh man.
“I asked Greta to phone you and tell you Mamie’s okay and I can only guess why that conversation lasted longer than it needed to but I’m too pissed to get into that now. Mamie’s here. Mamie’s fine. She’s upset and she needs some time,” he declared into the phone and kept right on talking. “I’ll call you when it’s cool for you to come and get her. But before that, my girl, her brother and I need to have a chat. Then I’ll need to have a chat with you. But I’ll let you know when we’re ready for you to come and do that.”
He listened for a second. I watched him do it and his face didn’t clear while he did.
Crap.
“No, you won’t come now. I told you, I’d call you . . .” he trailed off, his eyes flashed, he scored them through me and I felt my own eyes get big at the fiery look in his. I bit my lip and he clipped into the phone, “Listen to me, Hope. She’s done with your shit and she wants to move in with me. I do not think that’s right. And all our kids have got to get where we’re all at and get on the path to movin’ on. Now she’s at an age she needs her mother. But if you keep fuckin’ with me and shovelin’ your shit my way, I swear to fuck, I’ll file for full custody of all of them and I’ll use every goddamn dollar you wanted me to use for that fucking ring you wanted so damned bad to get them. Are you hearing me?”
He didn’t listen for very long before he continued.
“We’re not talkin’ about that fucked-up shit now, Hope, and far’s I’m concerned, we’re not talkin’ about it ever. Yes, I know. I’ve known for a while. It’s done. I’ve moved on. You need to pull your head outta your ass and move on too. Now, I’ll phone when we’re ready for you.” He took in a sharp breath and finished, “Later.”
With that, he rang off and stood there, completely still, staring at his phone like it was taking a superhuman effort not to hurtle it across the room.
“Baby,” I whispered.
His eyes cut up to my face.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“Hope?” he asked incredulously.
“Mamie,” I answered.
He no longer looked incredulous but still, his mouth got tight before he said, “She knows about her mom wanting that ring. She hears her mom bitchin’ to her friends about me. About you. Talkin’ trash about you and Lou and Bill, Lou havin’ a foul mouth and Bill bein’ a drunk and both of them bein’ bad influences she doesn’t want around her kids. And about me movin’ into this house, sayin’ I did it because it’s close to you. And she’s done with her shit. She misses what we had. She’s too young to understand all that’s going on. It’s too much for her. And it’s simpler with me. It’s more peaceful. It’s not ugly. It’s not negative and pissed off and bitchy. And she can’t wrap her head around that ring. So she’s pissed and she’s hurt and the hurt is makin’ her more pissed. So no. She’s not okay.”
“Okay,” I said softly, moving into him.
He didn’t hesitate to slide an arm around me, so I did the same to him with both of mine.
“I gotta get back to her and I also gotta wake up Shaw,” he told me.
I nodded. “I’ll go get Andy and we’ll do something else—”
“No you won’t.”
I stared up at him.
“Will he freak, comin’ here, bein’ involved in a drama?” he asked.
“Um, did you block out the two times you met my mom?”
He stared at me back then his lips twitched and I felt some of the tension ebb from his body.
“If we need privacy, you guys can go somewhere, unpack some shit, sit on the porch, go out and get some food, whatever excuse you gotta make to make it cool with Andy,” he said. “But with all the shit that just went down, I did not forget what happened in my bed right before it did so you’re a part of this now, Greta. So is Andy. That means you need to swing with this. If he’s got it in him and it doesn’t harm him, he needs to swing with it. And my kids need to see that you and him aren’t going anywhere.”
“Oh crap, you’re gonna make me cry again,” I warned, pressing closer to him.
His hold tightened on me and he murmured, “We got even less time for that shit now.”
“Right, yeah, of course,” I muttered, drawing in breath to pull myself together.
“She’s gonna start her period soon.”
I stopped pulling myself together as I felt my head twitch at his comment.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Corinne started at her age. She’s gonna start developing. She’ll need to go out and buy bras and shit. I can deal with that. You’re around, you can help me deal with that. Corinne can help her deal with that. But she should do that with her mother.”
I slid a hand around to press it to his chest and agreed, “Yeah.”
“Hope needs to get her head out of her ass.”
I nodded and repeated, “Yes.”
He held my eyes for long moments before he blew out a breath.
Then he stated, “I promised Andy I’d go with you to get him. I need to get Shaw up, have a word with him so he’s with the program then talk to him and Mamie, and then we’ll head out.”
“I can go get Andy while you look after your kids, Hix.”
“I promised him I’d come with you.”
“He’ll understand.”
He shook his head. “I’m not breaking the first promise I made to your brother, Greta. Big shit is happening here but that’s important. I need him to know he can trust me and through that he can trust me with you, and I don’t know how he processes things. Something little you think he’ll understand might mean more to him than either of us know so I gotta handle that with care. It’s forty minutes. You and Andy and Shaw can go out and grab donuts when we get back while I look after Mamie and we’ll take it from there.”
I was totally not listening.
I was stuck on, I’m not breaking the first promise I made to your brother, Greta. With a little bit of dealing with, Something little you think he’ll understand might mean more to him than either of us know so I gotta handle that with care.
So he had to give me a little shake and ask, “Greta, babe, you with me?”
I nodded.
Because I absolutely was.
More than he knew and I suspected he knew I was definitely with him.
He nodded back and ordered, “You get a quick shower while I deal with my kids. Then call Andy and let him know we’ll be there soon and give him whatever heads up you gotta give him so he knows what he’s walking into. I’ll shower while you do whatever else you gotta do and then we’ll go. We got a plan?”
“We have a plan,” I said quietly.
“Good,” he muttered, bent to me, touched his mouth to mine and then moved us directly out of the kitchen.
I broke plan just a hint by checking in with Mamie, giving her a hug, assuring her it was all right and I wasn’t mad she freaked her dad and me out, and then promising donuts were coming soon.
The last part didn’t work as well as I’d hoped but it did get me a sliver of a smile.
After that, I went about instituting our plan.
It was in his shower, Hix’s words hit me.
But with all the shit that just went down, I did not forget what happened in my bed right before it did so you’re a part of this now, Greta. So is Andy. That means you need to swing with this. If he’s got it in him and it doesn’t harm him, he needs to swing with it. And my kids need to see that you and him aren’t going anywhere.
I was worried about Mamie.
I was worried for Hix because he had a lot on his plate.
But for the life of me, as I showered, I couldn’t stop smiling.