Make a Right (14 page)

All Tuck could do at first was breathe. Cade’s weight was lighter than feathers brushing him. His cock jerked, trying to wrench out another orgasm. Almost got there too, especially when Cade shuddered and thrust out the last inside him. He could feel the slow drip of cum that’d escape him and wished he had a way to keep it inside.

He wrapped an arm around Cade before Cade could pull out and roll off, because he knew Cade and knew that was what Cade would do. He licked the salt off Cade’s open mouth and sucked down his air.

“Now,” Tuck said. “You look me in the eye, and you tell me if you can: how is this something I shouldn’t want to fight for? Or you?”

Chapter Nine

The scent of coffee tickled Tuck awake.

He rubbed his nose and sneezed. The beginnings of daylight teased at his eyes, tempting him to open them. He grumbled and shoved his pillow into a thicker bunch beneath his head. Ever since he’d had a door to lock behind himself and a bed that was safe to sleep in, mornings came way too early for Tuck’s taste, and being awake at the crack of dawn meant he’d stayed up all night again.

Apparently it also meant that semi-evil adopted sisters weren’t above bribing him awake.

Tuck swept out an arm and found the other side of the bed empty. The sheets were rumpled but long since cold of any body heat, damn it. Cade must have been up for hours if he’d really slept at all. He cracked his eyes to check, just in case Cade had rolled to the far edge or even tumbled off. It’d happened a time or two before, and queen-size bed or not, this one was still a little too small for two men.

Nope. Nothing but a note propped up on the bedside table, pinned between the clock and his glasses.
Went for a run
, it said in Cade’s neat, blocky print.

As long as that didn’t mean “went running away,” Tuck could cope.

He fingered the sorest of the bruises that littered his skin, the one that made itself known without any prodding or poking first on his part. Cade might have broken the skin a little there. His lips parted on a breath, remembering the taste of Cade’s kisses, sharp and soft. He hadn’t forgotten. If Cade had, he’d been well and truly reminded.

All good. Now, as long as it stayed that way…

The rich roasted scent of coffee grew stronger. Tuck sighed and scratched his stomach. Shower first or coffee first? Not really a question. If he came downstairs as is, Hannah would punt his ass back up here and Megan would zing a bar of something ivory-pure at his head as he ran.

Tuck laughed. Sisters, huh? You had to love ’em.

* * *

The way Tuck saw it, you could tell a lot about a person, whether man, woman, or child, by the way they handled early mornings. He didn’t flatter himself by imagining that to be an original kind of observation, but if the fuzzy slipper fit…

Tuck padded downstairs in bare feet, enjoying the off-key squeak of the servants’ stairs. His hair, still wet from the shower, dripped beads of water that rolled down his neck and under the collar of his T-shirt until he might as well have worn that while washing and been done with it.

Hannah hunched over, hugging herself in front of their coffeemaker, mumbling at the beast. Tuck stopped in the narrow doorway to watch her, half fondly and half hiding his snicker. She might deserve it and might even take it from him without popping him one, but he wouldn’t razz a lady in the morning.

Though Hannah’s tangled mass of hair hid her face, looking through the lens of memories in his mind’s eye, Tuck could see her face as clear as the new daylight streaming through the windows over the gleaming kitchen sink. Yawning, puffy-eyed, but her mind as sharp as a sliver of diamond behind it all, calculating to the last second when the final drops would gurgle through.

Speaking of math, Megan slouched in a spine-breaking slump over the honey-colored wooden table,
her
darker hair ruffled up as if she’d taken the 6:15 tornado express to get there, but if she’d been to bed at all, Tuck would eat a chunk of soap on a rope. Someone—smart money was on Hannah—had taken a length of crimson yarn and marked off a neat third of the table’s surface area.

“Not even married yet and you’re already dividing up ‘your space’ and ‘my space’?” Tuck asked. He couldn’t resist a
little
teasing.

Hannah jumped. She flipped back a mass of hair to peer at him through the tangles. “My God, you scared me. How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to pick my moment.” He feigned a dive that would have blocked her route to the coffeepot.

“Dare and die.” Her punch to his arm was perfunctory.

“Such violence. It’s unbecoming to a lady. Anyone ever tell you that?”

Megan flipped him off without looking.

Tuck laughed; he couldn’t help it. “Okay, okay. You both win.” He kissed Hannah’s cheek and leaned in front of her to snag a piece of toast popping up perfectly on cue.

“Hey, that’s mine!”

“You sure?” Tuck held the toast briefly between his teeth. “Looks an awful lot like mine. Hey, hey!” He flipped up the mug Hannah had sitting out waiting in wistful hope and poured it brimful. “Peace offering?”

She took the mug in both hands and inhaled deeply. “I’ll forgive you. This time. But one of these days, Alice. Pow. Right to the moon,” she paraphrased with an equal mix of her natural cheerfulness and a carelessness born of caffeine deprivation.

“Eh, you love me, and you know it.”

“Mm-hmm.” Hannah eyed him, making Tuck suspect his tee didn’t cover as many of the love bites as he’d have liked, if it covered any at all. “I’m not the only one. I thought you were in an appallingly good mood.”

“I’m a man with no cares,” Tuck said. At least for the moment, anyway. “Wait—you didn’t hear, last night—”

She snorted. “No. That’s why God invented earplugs and gave me more than enough sense to fill a teaspoon.”

Whew
. Tuck propped himself comfortably against the counter next to Hannah and munched his toast. “Who laid out the police tape?”

“Not funny,” Megan said without looking up.

“I did.” Hannah asked Tuck silently for a hand getting Megan a cup. He didn’t mind. Give him a penguin suit and a white napkin and he could serve it up with the best. Had done, a few times. Anything to pay the bills, back in the day, and he hadn’t been too proud to put his back into the work.

Tuck swallowed dry bread and frowned.
Huh
. He’d forgotten for a long time, but he’d used that exact phrasing once with Cade. And the way he’d reacted? Damn. You’d have thought he’d said he liked eating babies for breakfast.

Didn’t make sense. Cade worked harder than he did at most jobs. He was pickier, though. Careful to be respectable by his own definition of the word, for whatever reason, one Tuck had never quite managed to wrap his head around. But when had Cade ever made sense? The trick was loving him despite that.

“Tuck, coffee?” Megan beckoned impatiently, and Tuck snapped out of it.

“Yes, ma’am. If you can find a place in here to
put
a full mug.” Tuck tilted his head to better appreciate and admire the clutter. No, really. Her vortex of books and papers pushed the very edges of the permissible border and no farther. Suzie-Q had curled into a contentedly snoring ball under the table, insisting on letting herself be used as a footrest and quite happy about it, thank you. Megan might not have even known she abided by a code of rules set up around her—but be damned if she didn’t compensate and keep on going.

“Anywhere’s fine,” Megan mumbled, already drifting away.

“Oh yeah? How about here?” He pretended to try to rest the mug atop her head.

That did the trick. Megan glared an unconvincing glare, sighed, and returned to the land of the living in time for Hannah to tousle her hair in passing.

Pleased, Tuck settled in next to Megan, tore off the unbitten side of his stolen toast, and handed it over. “You know, I never got how that could be funny,” he mused. “A guy’s big punch line is how he’s going to put a fist in his wife’s face?”

Hannah winced. “True. Sorry about that.”

“People are fucked-up,” Megan said, turning a page. Hannah rolled her eyes and raised her hands to the heavens. “Archimedes was an asshole. Give him a lever, sure.” She erased a line. “Every guy
thinks
his dick’s got the power to move the world…” She trailed off into more mumbling, leaving Hannah and Tuck with their shoulders shaking in silent mirth.

“She really is like this all the time, isn’t she?” he asked.

“Mostly. You get used to it. And if you don’t, you still love her.”

Yeah. Tuck could understand that way of thinking. “If I had a soda, I’d drink to that.”

“Cola for breakfast, ugh.” Hannah pursed her lips in a grossed-out moue. “Cade! There you are—whoa.”

Yep. You could tell a lot about a guy by the way he handled early mornings.

Fresh from his run, Cade gleamed with good, healthy natural sweat, the tattoo on his shoulder glowing obsidian dark. A sleeveless undershirt that would have clung obscenely under normal circumstances plastered itself to him from first to last stitch. A pair of black track shorts only just clung to his hips.

Tuck wondered if either Hannah or Megan remembered that Cade went for these early, early-morning runs only when he had a metric shit-ton on his mind. Or that he pushed himself this hard, coming back home, dripping wet with sweat—okay, gleaming, and looking pretty damn hot in more ways than one—when his stress levels had gone beyond nuclear critical.

Luckily, he had a distraction ready at hand, literally, and covered her eyes. “Watch it, missy. Mine.”

Cade cocked an eyebrow at Tuck, blushed under the exertion from his run, but said nothing. Tuck couldn’t help but notice he hadn’t bothered to try to hide his love bites at all.

Megan glanced up once, dropped her pencil, and gaped at him.

Cade’s blush spread. “Stop that.”

“And where was all this love for me when I made my debut?” Tuck pretended indignant hurt.

“Don’t complain,” Cade said, wincing. “Sisters, remember? It’s disturbing.”

“When you put it that way,” Tuck conceded. He made room for Cade to reach into the fridge. He hesitated only half a beat before he acted. Tuck approved. Even more so when Cade popped open a single-serving bottle of orange juice and tipped it back to drink thirstily.

Megan propped her chin on Tuck’s shoulder, not-so-incidentally jabbing the pointy bit into one of his tenderest love bites with such precision it was absolutely clear she’d mapped out its exact position. “My, my, my,” she murmured.

“Jesus, ladies, enough already.” Tuck nudged her back by way of his forefinger at the center of her forehead. Then he frowned. The body count in the room had finally caught up with him. “Where’s what’s-his-name?”

“Tuck,” Hannah said. She put her mug into the sink. “You promised you’d play nice.”

“Who said anything different?”

Hannah looked skeptical. Tuck couldn’t blame her, really, if he were going to be honest. She knew him.

“He goes running in the mornings too,” Megan said, abruptly looking up, wholly oblivious to the undercurrent. “Funny you didn’t bump into him, Cade. Or did you?”

“No,” Cade said. Only that and nothing more.

Tuck wanted to ask. Goddamn, did he want to ask.

“I didn’t see him,” Cade said, looking Tuck in the eye. “I promise.”

Tuck took a deep breath and made himself let go of the tension before the girls noticed. He nodded at Cade and even managed a lopsided grin. “Cool.”

Cade drew a chair beside Tuck and sat down. The girls, momentarily distracted, didn’t see his frown or hear him when he asked, “As much as you don’t like him, and all you have to say is ‘cool’?”

Tuck shrugged. “I’d like to pin Thomas to a wall, yeah. But you’ve never lied a real lie with me before, right?”

He’d thought that would be that. Man, had he been wrong. Back went the chair, its legs scraping across the floor, and Cade was on his feet again, asking too brightly, “Any coffee left?”

Now what the hell was
that
about? Tuck rubbed his head.
It’s too early for this.

Mornings. Jeez.

He clapped his hands loudly. That got their attention but good. “You wanted to put us to work, Hannah? Point us in the right direction and let’s go.”

“Easier said than done. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Better think fast. The wedding’s what, three days away?”

“God, tell me about it. Time just—” Hannah waved her hands. “Where does it go?”

Megan pointed at her papers. “I’m working on that.”

Tuck stared. Cade stared.

Hannah sighed. “I’m mostly sure she’s joking.” She put her coffee aside and tapped her lip with her forefinger. “There’s yard work. Pruning, trimming.”

Cade looked dubious. “Do you really want to let him loose with a pair of shears?”

“Hey,” Tuck protested. He feinted a jab at Cade, though, to be honest, he couldn’t have loved the teasing more. At least Cade was winding down again from wherever he’d twisted himself up to, for whatever reason, and Tuck could roll with that.

Cade blushed deeper and looked down, brushing one of the dark spots Tuck had left on him. Tuck reconsidered his previous statement immediately. He couldn’t have loved anything better than the sight of
that
, especially the part where Cade’s mouth softened into something like a shy smile when he touched a bruise in the shape of Tuck’s kiss.

Hope. It still lived.

“
Oy gevalt
, you two are disgusting,” Megan said with a roll of her eyes.

“Do you even know what that means?” Cade retorted.

Tuck tipped his head back and laughed and for good measure threw his arm around Cade’s shoulders, sweat and all. Nothing wrong with clean sweat or the smell of a man who’d been working hard. He leaned into Cade and shifted his weight deliberately in a way that brought up and emphasized the long, slow burn of the ache inside him, where Cade had been.

“You guys,” Hannah said, her smile wide. “When I grow up, I want to be like you.”

Tuck blinked at her. “Say again?”

“That much in love, dumb-ass,” Megan said. She leaned against Hannah, comfortable as she could be with a double armful of books and scribbled papers. “Like it needs to be said.”