Around The World
Delores
After our very comfortable and tasty family dinner, I stand at the sink with Chess, my hands buried to the wrist in suds that are determined to out bubble the rest of my life’s problems. He’s whistling—always off-key, always cheerful—while drying plates at a breakneck pace.
I have a wet bowl in one hand and a dishtowel in the other, but every muscle in my body is screaming for the couch, or better yet, a coma.
My feet throb in the familiar post-pirouette rhythm of a long rehearsal after a summer without practicing, but I force myself to stay upright, anyway.
It is an oft-repeated rule in our house that if you help make the mess; you help erase the evidence.
Chess is adamant about it, mostly because if he wasn’t, we’d accidentally dump it on him.
Old habits, I suppose, from before I came into their lives, but I support my cheetah standing up for himself.
“Do you ever just… half-ass anything?” I ask playfully, flicking soap at him. “Everyone I’ve ever met does, except you, Chessie. You always strive for perfection, even in the littlest stuff, like the dishes. And you do it quietly, not for attention, so it feels like it’s important to you.”
He looks at me over his wire rims, smiling wide as the arch of the moon. “No, Angel, I do not. If I had to guess, I’d say that it’s because of where I grew up. I was sort of forced on them by the twins, and I wanted to earn my keep so they wouldn’t throw me to the jungle.”
I snort and pass him the bowl. “And now? Why do you still push yourself so hard?”
He shrugs, stacking the bowl with the others, while not missing a beat of his off-key hum. After a moment, he sighs as he wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know. It’s part of who I am now, I suppose. Mastering things gives me a sense of accomplishment—even internally—that makes me happy.”
The hallway reverberates with the slap-slap-slap of chicken socks—he changed them after his shower—and the dramatic whoosh of a huge, borrowed dress shirt trailing behind.
Fitz is like an incoming missile as he rushes towards us with his arms outstretched, hair doing its own weird version of jazz hands, and his mouth already open mid-yell.
Aubrey’s not happy about him stealing that shirt, by the way, but he let it go.
“Incoming,” he shouts, and before I have a chance to brace or otherwise defend my dignity, I am hoisted from behind in a blur of powerful arms. Suddenly, the floor is a lot closer than it should be as my legs are in the air and my face is hanging by my mate’s ass.
“Fitz!” I yelp, grabbing for the back of his hips to anchor myself in the suddenly upended world. “Put me down, you maniac—I’m exhausted and my feet are destroyed, and I have at least four more legitimate medical complaints. It’s not the time to play ‘eagle’, babe.”
He ignores every word, one arm balancing my ass with the kind of casual strength that would be menacing if it wasn’t one of my boyfriends. That’s when I’m carried out of the kitchen like a rolled-up carpet, only with more cursing and kicking.
Behind us, Chessie calls, “Be gentle with her, Fitzy. She’s sore, and we don’t want to make it worse.”
“She’ll be better than ever when we’re done,” Fitz yells back, and to me, he adds, “You smell delicious, Baby Girl. A little dish soap, a lot of sass, and a pinch of bunny panic. I’m excited as fuck.”
I protest, but my brain is short-circuiting on a mixture of adrenaline and lust. “I am not a sack of potatoes, you know. I am a… delicate flower, and you are going to bruise me and then Felix will murder you and use your bones for protein shakes.”
Not true in the slightest, but I’m trying to play on his squishy spots.
Fitz cackles as he takes the corner to the hall at speed, barely slowing even as my fists beat at his back in a mock threat. “Felix knows what I planned, and you are not delicate—you’re the toughest snack in the whole fucking vending machine, according to the big guy.”
I can’t help it—I laugh and the sound bounces off the walls.
My complaints keep coming, but they lose their edge as I relax into the absurdity of his behavior.
I trust these men, and Fitz has been on my side from the moment we first met.
Why fight whatever the crazy ass has planned?
It’s always fun, and I could use some relaxation.
“For the record,” I say, trying to sound stern, “I have to get up at five am, I won’t get a lunch break, and my body is a freaking mess from today. If you don’t put me down right this second—”
He kicks open the door to my room, and the force of it ricochets my words back at me.
“—I will… sue, and Farley will—oh my god, you’re going to break shit, Fitz! Rennie will lose his mind.”
My mate sets me down and spins me so I’m facing him, grinning like a tiger that has eaten all the canaries and would do it again. “Because you, Baby Girl, need urgent and aggressive relaxation therapy, and I am the handsome, yet unlicensed professional body rubber on duty.”
“That is not a real thing, and if you start anything involving tickling, I swear I will—”
But it’s too late because he leans in, nose to nose, and says, “You’re not escaping me until you’re a puddle of zero stress and have had as many orgasms as you can take before you finally pass out. Now be a good little bunny and say ‘yes, Fitzy’, so I can get the room ready and then work on you.”
I snort, which he immediately kisses off my lips. For one sweet moment, there’s no exhaustion, no soreness, just a perfect, hot, Fitz-shaped barrier between me and the rest of the world.
“Okay,” I breathe out, barely a whisper, “but what about everyone else?”
He flashes his wolfish grin. “They’re coming once I have you good and ready. Had to replace you in the kitchen, or Chessie would pout.”
Giving him a smile of surrender, I whisper, “Yes, Fitzy. I agree to let you guys take my mind off everything in the world but you.”
He bops my nose and beams crazily. “Good girl! Now get your cute little tail to the bed.”
I listen, letting him run the show as I flop onto my bed and the springs answer with a shriek so obscene I blush.
Fitz runs over and bounces the mattress twice for good measure, then plants a final, triumphant smacking kiss on my lips.
Winking, he bounds over to the other side of the room where Jinx is perched like a judgmental fuzzball, her tail wrapped tight and eyes slitted with the purest feline indifference.
She stares at Fitz as if she’s daring the much bigger feline to come bother her.
Fitz points at her, and then points at the door. “You can’t be here for this, little sis. This is top-secret, five-alarm, naughty bunny-only content.”
Jinx doesn’t move, so my tiger shrugs and scoops the sand cat up with all the respect of a high priest handling a relic. He sets the cat down, tsking softly. “Sorry, little dude. I owe you a treat, probably, but it’s time for big kitty games and you’re not invited.”
After that, Fitz closes the door with a soft click and leans against it for a beat with his eyes locked on mine. The cocky, feral grin on his face would make the devil jealous, and my body definitely responds to it, despite how tired I am.
I prop myself up on my elbows, heart already sprinting in my chest. “Big kitty games, huh? Should I be worried?”
He waggles his brows. “Only if you’re afraid of pleasure, Baby Girl.”
I roll my eyes at his antics, but I’m smiling, and he sees it.
That’s all the permission he needs to continue.
First, he dims the lights with a slap at the switch, and my room shifts from hospital-bright to a soft, golden glow.
Then he’s at his ‘play’ trunk, flipping the lid like it’s a treasure chest in a video game.
He hums as he roots around—something slow and dirty, like Barry White—and sets things aside one by one.
I watch as he pulls out a bottle of massage oil, and then a jar of some kind of…
is that edible body glitter? Then he lays out a set of candles and one of the giant bottles of lube he ordered last year.
Only now, I’m pretty sure it’s not a joke, and I’m in big trouble.
He doesn’t rush as he continues his tasks.
Fitz is manic when he’s hacking, but when he’s in this I’m-in-control-and-you’ll-love-every-second mode, he’s so deliberate it’s almost unnerving.
Once he has what he needs, he walks over to line the bottles up on the nightstand before he arranges the candles in a careful arc around the bedroom.
I drop the sarcasm as my mouth goes a little dry. “That’s a lot of… equipment… for a last-minute plan, Fitzy,”
He holds up the massage oil, gives it a swirl, and the golden liquid rolls in slow motion. “Get naked and comfortable, and ask fewer questions,” he growls softly.
I don’t bother pretending to protest—there’s not a single cell in my body that doesn’t want to find out what comes next.
His grin is so smug as he looks at me that I can’t help it—I roll onto my back and wiggle out of my clothes.
I’m left in a sports bra and a pair of boy shorts that are infinitely less constricting than my usual lingerie, but aren’t remotely sexy.
I frown as I lie back, feeling dumb as the tiger holds up the oil with a hungry grin.
“Stop,” I gasp, hands covering my face as I flush. “You look like you’re presenting the Ark of the Covenant and I am the chosen one. I’m wearing ridiculous shit because I didn’t expect this tonight. It’s embarrassing.”
“Never,” he says, “and you’re about to be melted in a completely different way, Baby Girl.”
He places the bottle on the nightstand with the precision of a bomb technician, and then swings back to the trunk for more supplies.
He hums the Indiana Jones theme this time, giving his ass a dramatic little wiggle every time he bends over.
I’m not supposed to think this is sexy, but my body disagrees violently.
Even when he’s being over-the-top silly as fuck, this man is hotter than hell and so fucking perfect.
Once he’s found the lighter, he walks around until he lights the last candle. That’s when he turns to see me on the bed and pauses, ogling me again with such open hunger that I can’t even muster a smartass comeback. Instead, I fold my arms under my chest and wait.
Climbing onto the bed, he prowls up the mattress with exaggerated slowness.
“You know what I love most about you?” he says, his voice low and jagged.
“It’s not the way you look, even though you are literally a goddess.
It’s the way you never fake anything, ever.
If you’re happy, you show it. If you’re sad, you show it.
If you’re mad at me, you make a list, in color-coded Sharpie.
Even when I’m off the deep end and bouncing like a rubber ball, you take me seriously, Baby Girl.
No matter what, you never ever treat me like I’m a problem, which even my twin can’t say. ”
“That’s because I know you’re always doing the best you can for the people you love. You have an enormous heart, Fitzgerald Khan, and even though sometimes you’re nutty, that’s what counts. Everything else is just whipped cream on the sundae, you know?”
He beams and then hooks his fingers under the waistband of my shorts to tug them down an inch. “The best massages are naked as a jaybird. Are you good with that? Remember the word?”
“Beetlejuice,” I say, and he pulls the shorts down in slow motion. His eyes never leave mine, not even when he has to pull them over my butt in two tugs. Tossing them over his shoulder, the tiger runs his hands up my thighs. I’m shivering, but not from cold.
This is gonna kill me; I can feel it in my bones.
Fitz bends over me, his hair falling in a cloud around my face, and bites the strap of my bra, dragging it down with his teeth.
“I love you, Delores Drew,” he says softly.
“And we’re gonna get rid of all these assholes so our family can live a tumultuous, yet extremely horny life wherever we land after you graduate.
They will not win because you are the most important thing in the world to five stubborn jackasses who don’t get told ‘no’ very often. ”
My lungs tighten with emotion. “You are a disaster on wheels, Fitzy, but I love you anyway. In fact, I probably love you more because of it.”
He frees the bra, tosses it aside, and then pours a thin line of oil onto my stomach.
I hiss at the initial chill, but his hands are so warm and sure that the sensation turns into molten heat almost instantly.
He rubs in slow, patient circles, then moves down to my thighs.
“I’m going to keep you so relaxed you’ll forget what stress feels like,” he says.
“Then the others can join us so we can make you scream until you pass out.”
I believe him. There’s no sarcasm left in my tank—just awe, and a kind of peace I haven’t felt since Rockland threw her fit the other day.
He kisses my hip, then moves lower, his mouth and hands painting away every single ache.
The sound I make isn’t even human, but I don’t care.
Somewhere in the candle-lit haze, I feel myself floating, all the tension and pain draining away.
Fitz’s words echo in my ear, soft and certain. “Tonight is going to wipe away every bad thing from the day until you sleep like an adorable little bunny.”
How can I say no to that?