Chapter Five #2
At long last, we arrived at the solarium. The harsh glare of sun reflected off the gleaming marble, blinding me. Distracting me from when she released my hand and disappeared inside.
“Eliah,” she was calling from somewhere ahead.
I followed, allowing my eyes time to adjust.
The space that once held sturdy chairs and dozens of tables was cluttered with canvas. Each one in varying degrees of completion. Antique tables splattered with paint. Plastic across stone floors.
I lost Lenora through the maze of winding portraits. The most stunning depictions of peace, calm. Hills and mountains. Sprawling valleys. Endless oceans. All captured with delicate strokes so fine, I swear they could have been photos blown to full size.
“Here!” a man shouts back. “I’m nearly done. Come see.”
A grown man with a gruff cadence. And my illusion that my sons were still children vanishes when I round a corner and find Lenora with a giant.
Tall, broad with a head full of dark wisps falling around a chiseled face. He was clad in paint ruined jeans and a gray T-shirt that strained across his torso.
But my eyes were locked on the arms he had banded around Lenora’s middle. She was pulled back against his chest. Both facing a portrait of a sandy beach at sunset. Blue waters kissing the skyline. He had his chin on her shoulder, face turned into the side of her neck.
Intimate.
“Oh, this is perfect,” Lenora cried. “It’s gorgeous. Definitely my favorite.”
The man chuckled and nuzzled her jaw. “You say that all the time.”
She grinned and tipped her face to his. “Because they all are.”
For that single heartbeat, I was an intruder. I had no business witnessing the way he stared into her eyes like she was his only reason for living. I had no business feeling my gut twist and knot when she brushed the side of his handsome face with her fingertips.
“I have something for you.”
His eyebrow lifted, teasing. Dirty. “Yeah?”
I don’t miss the hand that drifted upwards off her stomach towards her breast.
Lenora giggled and smacked his hand. “Stop that. It’s a person.”
The lifted eyebrow was no longer suggestive but curious when he followed her gaze to where I stood. Disgruntled. Sour. Hating myself for both.
Eliah’s face — my face in every line right down to the silver eyes and dark hair — broke into a wide smile.
“Dad?” His hold never slipped off Lenora. Not even when he stood, a palm wet with blue paint extending to me. He realized his mistake and swiped it across his thigh instead. Embedding his jeans with a fresh stain. “You’re home.”
I gesture with a nod to the artwork. “You do all these?”
A faint, pink tinge darkened his cheeks. “I’m still learning.”
“He’s amazing,” Lenora declared for him. “I keep telling him he should sell some.”
Eliah scowled lovingly down into her tilted face. “You keep stealing them, you little thief.”
Unabashed, Lenora smirked — so much like her father my stomach hurt. “Those are my finder fees.”
I think for a panicked second he was going to kiss her, but he seemed to remember me and stopped himself.
“Are you staying?” he asked.
Lenora’s head turned to me, expression far too hopeful.
I should have said no.
I should have given up my reckless hopes and left.
But my idiot brain melted when she bit her bottom lip.
Fuck.
“Yeah,” I heard myself say.
And it was worth it to see the elation in her eyes. The bigger than life smiles on both their faces.
“We need to tell Ames.” She declared, already pulling out of Eliah’s arms. “I’ll see you at supper?”
His face dropped and he skimmed her nose with his lips.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
With a final smile for him, she fixed all her attention on me.
“Ames is in the war room.”
I didn’t recall installing a war room, but I made no comment when she took my hand, right in front of Eliah, who only grinned at me.
She liked to talk. It didn’t bother me. I liked hearing her. There didn’t seem to be a topic she didn’t want to discuss, an event she didn’t want to share. She was trying to fill me in through the entire walk across the house, her sweet voice ringing along the corridors.
“Mrs. Pym says—”
I cut her off. “How is Mrs. Pym?”
Lenora glanced up at me. “Good. Mr. Pym had a stroke last year, but they both seem to be doing all right.”
I hadn’t known.
Cordelia Pym had been a trusted member of the Usher Family for years and I had no idea she’d gone through something so awful.
It only solidified the insistence that I needed to stay. That I couldn’t run anymore, and it had nothing to do with the pint-sized woman telling me about the incident with the stray cats Mr. Pym found in the garden shed.
Not entirely.
The rapid thump and thwack greeted us before we rounded the bend to the gym doors. The stench of sweat and cleaner swept into the corridor with the tug of the door.
Lenora slipped in before me, calling Ames’s name.
The sound of leather striking leather ceased immediately, and I watched her hurry to my other son.
The eldest. And watched him stumble back from the punching bag.
He tore open the Velcro straps on the boxing gloves with his teeth, chucked them aside and scooped her up into his arms.
No hesitation.
Not even a second to register anything else, except the tiny creature swinging her arms around his neck. And she seemed oblivious to the sweat dripping down his face. Glistening across the hard, muscled expanse of his chest.
Eliah had been big and sturdy, but Ames was brute strength and solid lines. His damp strands were pulled back from his face by an elastic, but tendrils clung to his neck and temples.
Unlike Eliah, Ames didn’t hesitate kissing her like he’d already gone too long without her taste. His fingers fisted into her braid and he lifted her off her feet. Lenora sighed and all but melted into him.
“Finally. A worthy opponent. Have you come to challenge me to the throne?”
Lenora laughed against his mouth.
“I concede,” he went on, nibbling on her bottom lip. “And only ask to be your willing slave. Worship at your feet. Between your—”
“I have something for you,” she blurted, face an endearing scarlet.
Like his brother, Ames smirked. Eyebrow lifted. “Me, too.”
The color of her complexion under the sharp lights would have been hilarious, if I wasn’t regretting my decision to stay.
“A person!” she hissed, swatting his shoulder playfully.
It was only then that he realized they weren’t alone. I probably could have made my presence known sooner, but seeing them without filters, without reservation had given me a clear picture of just what I was in for.
They were no longer children and, in my absence, had forged a relationship I didn’t know how to comprehend, nor had a right to question. It was clear in the solid set of Ames’s face as he gingerly set Lenora down.
“Father.”
No warm greeting.
No smiles.
Unlike his brother, Ames had cut himself from me. I wasn’t upset. His reaction was exactly what I deserved.
“Are you staying?”
“He is!” Lenora exclaimed for me, face lit with delight.
But I only saw her lips still wet and swollen from my son’s. I had to tear my gaze away only to find the other man watching me. Hot and observant. The arm around Lenora’s middle tightened with a possessive warning I understood completely.
She is mine, it said.
“I plan to,” I answered.
If I thought that would appease him, it never showed. His head cocked once like he was waiting for the but in my statement. When it didn’t come, he turned his attention to Lenora.
“You weren’t wearing your hat.”
The smile slipped from her face into a sulky pout. “I hate it. I like the sun on my face.”
A finger skimmed the peeling skin on her nose. “I warned you what would happen if you didn’t take care of yourself.”
“I was only out there a minute,” she argued.
The same big hand dropped to her throat, and he pulled her in for a harder, claiming kiss.
“You know the punishment,” he growled against her mouth. “Go upstairs.”
I didn’t understand the context, but I fully comprehend the implication and my damn cock twitched in my pants. It panged with a reminder that I hadn’t been with anyone in months and the image of Lenora taking her punishment like a good girl…
I shouldn’t.
I was her godfather. In the eyes of the church and God, my very thoughts were blasphemous. I made an oath to her parents and the holy church to protect her, not fantasize the type of punishment she was in for.
Still, it was unavoidable when she slipped past me, pausing only briefly to meet my eye and murmur, “Welcome home, Uncle Marcus.”
Then, she was gone and I was left with the lingering scent of her mixing with the sour stench of sweat.
“You shouldn’t lie to her.” With a disgusted glance at me, Ames moved to retrieve the gloves he’d tossed aside. “We both know you’re going to leave. You’re just setting her up for disappointment.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” I lied.
Ames grunted, but the disbelief was clear in the single sound. The gloves were tossed onto a bench and he started towards me. I thought for a moment, he was going to hit me, but he stalked past without a word, leaving me alone with thoughts of Lenora upstairs, waiting for him.