Chapter 4 #2
His brother’s wives were great. Mike knew both his brothers realized how blessed they were.
Two beautiful women, particularly Nicole, who had a blinding kind of beauty, with that Snow White ivory and ebony thing going on.
Though Ellen was a looker, too, and a world-class singer.
Sam and Harry were lucky men because their wives were not only gorgeous and smart and talented, but also loving.
They’d both created happy homes for his brothers, given them constant, unwavering love and beautiful children.
Neither Sam nor Harry had ever had a happy home, and they lapped it up.
But neither of the women held a candle to Chloe.
Mike couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He edged closer to see whether he could pick up on whatever it was that surrounded her.
There was some kind of force field around Chloe, something he couldn’t in any way define or explain but that was as strong as a tractor beam.
Nicole had a cellphone to her ear, snapped it closed. She clapped her hands. “Okay everyone, listen up! Manuela is going to start cooking lunch for us just as soon as she stops crying. So we can take this show down to Coronado Shores. Chloe, where are you staying?”
“With us,” Harry and Ellen said at the same time. “No question,” Harry added.
Chloe was looking overwhelmed with joy. Mike had been bowled over by her in the office lobby, this pale, anxious beauty. Now she was glowing with happiness, eyes gleaming with tears of joy, cheeks flushed. Absolutely irresistible.
“Oh!” Chloe covered her mouth with her hand.
“I don’t mean to impose! I booked a room at the Del, you don’t need to put me up, for heaven’s sake.
You have a small child and…” Her voice trailed off when she saw that Harry and Ellen weren’t even listening to her.
Ellen absent-mindedly gave her shoulders a squeeze while talking to Harry about beds and space, then turned to give Chloe another kiss on the cheek.
“This is so exciting! It’s the best Christmas ever!”
“No, really.” Chloe stepped back, just one tiny step, but it was the first step back anyone had taken. Her hands clasped in front of her and she pulled them apart. A sign of distress.
Harry glanced at Sam and at him and they drew closer, closer to him and to Chloe.
It was a look they’d shared all through their adolescence in a brutal foster home, a look they all understood instinctively, down to the bone.
Harry wanted Sam and Mike to have his back.
It was a call both Sam and Mike were incapable of resisting.
They’d have Harry’s back no matter what.
Mike would willingly take a bullet for him, and for Sam, too. He loved them.
He’d walk into the jaws of death for both of them.
Coming closer to Chloe, something he wanted desperately, was a no-brainer.
Harry took Chloe’s hands in his, carefully. Harry had big strong hands, they all did. They were all careful not to hurt women or kids with their hands.
A hot flush of grinding guilt shot through Mike at the memory of holding down the cokehead during the fuckathon last night. Hurting her. She was a whack job, true, but she didn’t deserve even one second of pain from him.
It was a memory that shamed him, made him feel unclean. Unworthy, of his brothers, of their wives. Of Chloe.
“Chloe,” Harry said gently, watching her face carefully.
“You need to understand something really important. We’re all your family now.
Sam and Mike and me, we’re like brothers.
More than brothers. We’ll have all the time in the world for me to explain why, but for now—all you need to know is that they are your brothers, too.
Together with Nicole and Ellen and Merry and Gracie. We’re all one family. Yours.”
Chloe burst into tears again. Mike could see that she couldn’t contain her emotions, which made sense.
When she’d told her story, he could hear a longing for connection in her voice.
Almost feel her yearning. He’d had his family until he was ten.
He knew what it was like to yearn. She’d had it harder than he had because she’d never known family except for the first years, when Harry protected her. Years she couldn’t remember.
Sam bent to gently embrace her. Sam was tall – six four. He had to bend down low to her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m your brother, too, Chloe. It’s just like Harry said. Nicole and Merry and me—we’re your family now, too.”
Chloe smiled up at him and swallowed, the muscles in her long, graceful neck moving. She swiped at her face. “Thank you, Sam,” she whispered.
Sam stepped away for Mike.
Mike put his arms around her. Somewhere along the way, she’d shed her coat. She had on some silky thing, a ruffled blouse in a delicate pink—the color of her flushed face.
She eased into his arms. She fit so perfectly, just slotted right into him.
The hug with Sam had been awkward. He was so much taller than her, and she’d moved stiffly. The embrace had been genuine but stiff.
But with Mike, she just moved naturally into his embrace and just as naturally his arms closed around her.
Time stopped, telescoped.
The room disappeared. Harry and Sam, Nicole and Ellen—gone. No more.
There was no noise, nothing. Just Mike and Chloe, in his arms.
Mike was shorter than his brothers and Chloe’s head fit naturally, perfectly, right against his shoulder, at exactly the point where all he had to do was tilt his head to rub his cheek against her soft golden hair. Bend down just a little more to kiss her.
Mike felt heat all along his front, like being covered with a soft, warm blanket that was silky, too. And smelled like heaven. Something fresh and warm.
He was super-sensitized. He could feel the short gasps of her excited breath against his neck. His hand was so big it covered a good portion of her narrow back and he could feel her rapid heartbeat against the palm of his hand. The quick heartbeat of joy.
Mike had fucked hundreds of women, but he’d never felt anything even remotely like this.
A mild electric shock as he held her raced through him.
Everywhere he touched, it felt as if he’d never touched a woman before.
Never felt such silkiness, such warmth. Never felt as if she’d moved her body into his like magnets of opposite poles meeting.
A force that was unstoppable, natural, utterly right.
She rested against him and he wanted to keep her there forever, but when he felt himself harden, he moved away subtly, mentally rolling his eyes.
Goddamn. His dick had never known how to behave itself.
Oh man, way to turn this moment into something that belonged in the dives he frequented when he got his black moments.
He couldn’t really blame his dick, though. His dick was right to move. He felt it wasn’t getting erect so much as trying to get closer to her, close to all that silk and gold.
His dick would get closer to her eventually. Close to her, in her. Oh yeah. Only not right now.
Her hand was still in his and it took real will power not to bring her fingers to his mouth. She had beautiful hands, fingers long and slender. A pianist’s hands though he had no idea if she played or not.
He could almost feel her fingers against his lips, so strongly he had to drop her hand and step back, muster a smile.
When he pulled back, Chloe did too, and smiled back up at him. “A brother,” she whispered.
Mike didn’t answer, didn’t reassure her that she’d just found another brother.
Because what he was feeling right then wasn’t brotherly at all.