8. Joel
Chapter eight
Joel
Despite being the middle of summer, a cold winter chill descends on our house.
After grilling me all the way home on the drive last night, Tracey stiffly accepted my apology, and yet when we woke up this morning, she ignored me with an icy determination.
And it seems she’s not done punishing me, even though I’m home from work.
Of course, I’ve been busy all day, breaking my back in narrow manhole spaces and roof cavities, trying to finish this stupid job that should’ve been done by now. But I just had to discover a set of unearthed lines installed half a century ago. That’s why I hate renovations.
And right now, my relationship looks like a renovation. Like hard work.
Tracey aggressively cooks a stir fry as I come out of the shower and park myself on the couch.
“Do you need a hand with dinner?” I ask.
She ignores me.
I shake my head and flip on the TV. Yeah, I made a mistake, but I apologized, and even sent flowers this morning, so what more do I need to do? I’m right here, trying to help and make things right, but we can’t fix things when she stonewalls me.
Maybe I just need to keep trying, to be more understanding of her needs. “How was your day, Tracey?”
She slams her spatula on the bench, making me twitch. “Fine.”
The word all men dread hearing from a woman’s mouth. I swallow down a groan.
“Fine? Doesn’t sound like it.”
“You’ve been home ten minutes and you’re already trying to pick a fight?”
Irritation worms its way up my throat. She’s not the only one who’s got emotions—her anger has its own intensity, like a different kind of alpha vibe that sets me on edge. But instinct tells me if I voice my frustrations, this situation will get a whole lot worse.
I hold up my hands in surrender. “How’s the Freeman house going?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Had fifteen people through the open house, but no offers yet. Everyone’s holding out to see if the interest rates rise.”
“Tough economy,” I muse. “I wouldn’t want to be buying right now, either.”
“You’re not my type of client anyway.”
What does that mean?
I don’t like trying to guess at the insinuation behind her word. Maybe I’m not as wealthy as her regular clients, or she wouldn’t give me the time of day if we weren’t engaged? How am I supposed to interpret this whole situation?
I grip my sweatpants in a silent reminder to stay calm. The last thing I can do now is let any trace of my alpha aura escape. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact we already have a house.
Staring at the TV without even seeing the program helps me get myself under control. We never used to fight like this. Maybe we need a date night, just the two of us, without the pressure of her friendship circle. Our friend circle, I mean.
I sink a little deeper into the couch, grounding myself. I’m beat, not just from the work, but the summer heat that gets trapped in pitched roofs. It saps my energy. So does fighting with the woman I love. My eyes sink, lids heavy.
“I thought we were talking?”
Tracey’s sharp voice snaps me out of a microsleep. “We were. We are.”
“You’re so insensitive, you know that?”
Shit, is she the one trying to pick a fight? It really sounds like she won’t be happy until she’s raked me over the coals again. But I did scare her, and she didn’t deserve that. No woman does.
I scrub my hand over my face. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m just so tired from work.”
“Well, try working in heels,” she shoots back.
Is this a competition or what? No, be understanding, Joel. Having our emotions in a tangle because of the fight must have been much harder on her, forced to smile at clients all day. Like Belinda cautioned, I really need to be more careful since Tracey’s sensitive to alpha pheromones.
I can do better. “Do you want to come over here, and I’ll massage your feet, babe?”
She flicks the wok off and sashays over. I know what that shake of her hips means, but maybe I’m dreaming again.
Tracey straddles my lap, her gaze clear and all signs of the winter frost gone. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course.” I smile and tuck hair behind her ear. She’s so beautiful like this, eyes soft and warm. “You just gotta be clear with me what you need, Tracey. You know work’s really taking it out of me right now.”
Her brows furrow.
“And it’s the same for you with your job,” I add hastily.
She hums, hands shifting to my sweatpants. “All right. But see if you can guess what I need this time.”
Her eyes light up in a familiar way as she tugs at my drawstring.
I chuckle softly, now wide awake. This is the lady I proposed to. Spontaneous, cheeky. Not to mention the body of a goddess.
“What you need—” I murmur, clasping her hips. “Is a massage for sure. But where?” I knead my fingers around her hip bones, and she giggles. “No, not there?”
She shakes her head.
I skim my hands higher, resting just under her breasts. Need to make sure I don’t misread any signs. Most of all, I don’t want to go back to her freezing me out.
“Here?” I ask, stroking the soft undersides.
“Maybe,” she says, voice catching when I pass over her nipples.
I trail my hands over her shoulders to find the zipper on the back of her navy dress. After easing it down, I massage her soft skin before sliding the sleeves lower on her arms. She’s not wearing a bra, which is surprising given she’s still in her work clothes.
But exciting.
Her nipples peak, turning hard as stone.
“Oh, definitely here,” I murmur, rubbing the points in circles.
She swears under her breath and digs my cock out. “Did Jeremy get the bigger share?” she muses softly as she palms my length.
I freeze, hands cupped around her breasts. Surely I misheard. “What?”
“Oh, nothing much.” She shakes her head, silky black hair covering her eyes as she glances down. “Just wondering if Jeremy . . . has a bigger dick?”
My throat constricts. Tracey’s never had a good thing to say about Jeremy, so why bring him up now? Are we still fighting about the phone call last night? A quivery sensation runs through my veins.
“What a weird thing to wonder,” I say, choosing my words cautiously. “But yes, as a matter of fact he does. I hope you aren’t complaining about this one, though?”
I flex the hardening length, making her smile.
Better. This will be good for us. Smooth things over, take our relationship back to how wonderful it was in the beginning.
Eyes on my cock, Tracey slides off my lap onto her knees. She tugs on my sweats and I lift my ass so she can slip them down. When she leans in and presses her pert mouth to the tip, I groan.
“Fuck!” I mutter. Now that I think about it, it’s been five days since we last made love. That’s way too long, considering how much like rabbits we’ve been until now.
With one hand I caress her hair, and the other I reach between my legs to play with her tits, stroking them in a way that makes her moan. The soft sounds blend with the stove exhaust and whatever’s playing low on the TV.
“Tracey, you’re so fucking sexy,” I mutter as the blood burns in my groin. “How’d I ever get a girl as beautiful as you?”
She slaps my thigh playfully, her mouth too full. I pry her loose from my dick, an old game we’ve played for years where she refuses to let go. When I get her mouth free, I lean down to kiss her soundly.
An odd scent rises off her; cold, salty, and edged with seafood like a fish market refrigerator mixing with her natural hibiscus tones. It’s underpinned with sweat. When I search for a second whiff, all I get is fried onion.
“What were you making for dinner?” I ask between kisses.
“Prawn and coconut stir fry,” she huffs, fingers digging into my thighs.
“Ah, so that’s what I can smell.”
She smiles up at me and presses me back into the couch, leaning in to suckle up my cock once more. I groan and grip the armrests as my first hint of orgasm tingles in my balls.
I glance up over her head and what I see smothers every pleasure. The news reporter sits at her desk, with an image of wrecked cars behind her.
“Last night, a three-car crash in Knox Park closed down the off ramp for over an hour after a bakery van ploughed through a red light and hit another car. A third car ran into the back of the van. All four people in the vehicles have been taken to hospital, some with serious injuries.”
There, smoking in the middle, lies Jeremy’s truck, belly-up. My blood grows cold.
“Holy shit!” I push Tracey’s head away. “That’s Jeremy’s truck!”
“Who?” Tracey murmurs, wiping her mouth.
“My brother’s.”
She whips around. “Are you sure?”
I scoff. “I’d know that paint job anywhere.”
Dark forest green with flames running down the side. He painstakingly painted the graphics himself eight years ago, even though it took all summer long.
Tracey clicks her tongue, staring at the TV. “Damn.”
My pulse leaps in my throat and I curl my hand into a fist to quell the shaky sensation in my fingers. That’s why he called three times yesterday. I’m such an ass.
I try to rise, but Tracey holds me down. When she leans forward, reaching for my cock, I block her mouth. “Babe, I need to go see if he’s okay.”
The look on her face is something I’ve never seen before. Harsh, accusing. I recoil.
She smooths over the look, turning pleading instead. “Right now? When I’m giving you a blow job? Please, just wait until we’re done here, Joel. It’s been so long since we had sex.”
Her tone lands the wrong fucking way in my gut. Yeah, we need to connect, but the way that big truck’s up on the dividing wall and crumpled on one side says it was no simple accident.
“He’s my brother!” My voice rises. “And he’s in the fucking hospital!”
Tracey flicks her hands away like she doesn’t want to touch me and rocks back on her heels. “Go on, then. Go running to that loser.” She crosses her arms. “But I swear, if you go now, we’re done.”
Ice stabs at my soul. “What?” I gasp.
Her finger arcs through the air toward the door. “You heard me! Leave in the fucking middle of this . . . this shit, and we’re through.”
She can’t mean that. It’s just a stage we’re going through, nothing to rock the upcoming marriage. So why? Where did I go wrong? I lever myself up out of the chair and pull on my pants, my chest hollowing out as I tidy my clothes up.
“Babe, you don’t mean that.” Iron-hard bands constrict my lungs.
I can’t drive another woman away.
“Try me, you selfish bastard.”
I stare at her, unable to catch my breath.
I don’t understand. “You . . . you don’t throw that around like an ultimatum.
Not when you love someone. We’ve promised to be together.
” I close the distance between us. “Please, Tracey. He’s my brother, and he’s been in a car crash. He doesn’t have anyone else.”
She jerks her face away from me, jaw rigid. “I thought you were making things up to me after scaring me last night, but it turns out I’m a joke to you.”
A joke? Why does she keep using the words that hurt me the most? I don’t think I’ve ever told her what happened with the omega I drove away and yet it’s like Tracey knows exactly how to gut me right through.
None of this is a joke to me. I do everything possible to show her that I’m serious, that I love her, and I want us to be together.
Something is wrong.
A strange silence descends between us, charged like an electrical storm. Tracey’s cheek ticks in and out, while her body stays as unmoving as a rock. She means it. This isn’t some emotional outburst or even a phase we’re going through; she’s actually considering leaving me.
How the hell did we get here?
Is this all because I want to go see Joel in the hospital? Because I set aside our sex for him? Or does it have something to do with what’s been going on between us in the past few months? My mind scrambles, no answers coming for the onslaught of questions.
The one reality that rises to the surface is that it’s happening again—I’m screwing up my relationship. But this time, I can’t figure out what I did wrong. A mental warning not to release my scent clamors through my brain, drowning everything else out.
My knees weaken and I fall back a step.
“We’re good together, aren’t we?” I whisper. “I do everything you ask.”
Apparently, that’s the wrong thing to say. Tracey rears back, fire blazing in her eyes. “What I want? Are you fucking kidding me? We do everything according to your timetable.”
“But that’s my job—”
Tracey stabs a French-manicured finger into my chest. “I wasn’t finished. You never make decisions for my benefit, and you never invest in our social life. Shit, I have to drag you everywhere like I’ve got a lasso around you. Do you think this is the life I want, Joel?”
Yes? I mean, she agreed to marry me, knowing I’m more reserved than she is. But clearly not.
I shake my head, the room distorting. “I . . . I mean, where is this coming from? Then what . . . what life do you want?”
I thought it was to be with me, to get married, have children, start her own real estate company. An ache runs up my spine.
She bares her teeth. “If you knew how to care for a woman, you wouldn’t have to ask.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I hiss.
The distortion in my head breaks, sending a thousand needle points chasing through my veins.
This is a bunch of utter bullshit! I’ve spent all day walking on eggshells around her even after apologizing, fighting down every trace of alpha impulse, and now I’m supposed to guess how to fix this situation? Like I’m some fucking mind-reader?
Something inside me shatters.
Strength burns up my legs, and air rushes back into my lungs.
“You sound like you’re running solo. But we’re a team.
A team, Tracey! Not that you seem to remember that.
I come home tired as fuck from a job you couldn’t handle in ten lifetimes, and with no notice you wanna drag me around like a dressed-up puppy.
And somehow, I’m the bad guy for not being over the moon about it? I’m exhausted, woman!”
And not just from my job.
All of it. The fights, performing, the displays and the sharp critiques that follow.
How much do I need to cram myself into a box to fit her expectations?
To swallow down the designation I was born with and avoid my twin brother for her sake?
Standing here toe-to-toe and seeing not an ounce of love in her flinty gaze, I ask myself if this relationship I’m fighting so hard for is worth the cost.
“Oh, you’re exhausted?” she spits back.
I spread my hands in bewilderment. “Yeah, I’m exhausted. Don’t try and one-up me on that when you only work part time.”
Tracey slaps me across the cheek. I see it coming and I could stop her, but I don’t.
“So, this is who you are?” I ask, dead calm.
The maelstrom running through my brain fades away, leaving clarity. She’s so terrified of my alpha strength, when I’ve never hurt her, but she’s okay with using violence?
I don’t deserve this.
She stands frozen, hand to one side, eyes wide.
Turning away, I grab my phone, keys, and jacket. Halfway out the door, I say over my shoulder. “I’m going to visit my brother in his moment of need. Call me when you remember what it means to be a family.”