“I’m glad to be here, too, Elle. And even more glad you’re okay.”
Elle took the baby and kissed his small, furrowed forehead. He instantly silenced and started making little cooing noises Lale remembered from Ayla’s early days.
Emre put a hand on Elle’s leg and looked at his wife and son. Tears threatened behind Lale’s eyes.
Wow, when did I become such a sap?
She shook her head.
“I, um, I’ll go check on the little one. I left her in a screaming heap on the bedroom floor.” She stood. Elle reached out for her.
“No, wait. Here, want to hold him?”
Lale backed away. For some reason she didn’t. Picking up on Ayla’s jealous vibe perhaps, she realized the boy would be getting plenty of love. She needed to focus on her small, angry niece for a while. “No. I’m going to grab some food then try and coax the temper princess into a bath. Is the pool open? Maybe she and I could swim.”
Elle smiled at her. “I knew you would know what to do. We’ve been at a loss, and without any energy to deal with her, which isn’t fair. Having you all to herself will help a lot, we think.”
Emre patted his wife’s leg, stood and kissed her lips, lingering a tad longer than Lale believed entirely necessary. She cleared her throat. He broke away and started out of the room.
“C’mon, sister. Let’s find some food for you and a bottle for my son.”
She blew a kiss to Elle and followed him out.
After some yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes and bread, Lale thought she might survive the next twenty-four jet-lagged hours. Emre opened a beer for himself. She stared at him.
“What? I don’t get one?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I forget you’re able to drink now.”
She nearly choked on her water. “Yeah, I’m able all right.”
Her brother gave her a dark look. “Father is really worried about you. He says all you do is drink, take drugs, and run with men.”
“Oh, God, can we at least go a day without having this conversation? I have jetlag. And I need to get your daughter out of her funk. Spare me, for at least a day?”
He pushed the brown bottle across the marble counter top. She grabbed it and drank half of it in one gulp. The familiar anger she thought she left behind with her parents crowded out any altruistic feelings. But she shoved it away. Like she said, no arguments, not yet.
“Fine. But please understand I am not going to tolerate that here. You won’t have a car or a driver. If you need to go somewhere, I will take you or you can take a bus. Father sent me money to support you while you’re here. But you are only to get a small amount of it for shopping or whatever. Not for running around until all hours of the morning doing...whatever.”
Lale bristled. “Great. From one Deniz Prison to another, just on a different continent. Swell.” She acknowledged she should shut up and go find Ayla. But this was too much.
Emre finished his beer and grabbed another. “Caleb is coming over tonight.”
She blinked, forgetting how well her brother deflected. “Okay.” Her heart pounded.
Don’t rise to the bait. Remain calm
.
“I know that will be hard for you. You haven’t seen him since....” Emre ran a hand through his dark hair.
She put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. He and I communicate plenty. I know all about his new boyfriend. Funny he found another Turk.”
He shrugged. “He’s a nice guy. A gourmet chef. Has a restaurant down south. They are apparently thinking of moving there permanently. It’s making Elle nuts at the thought of losing him. She swears she’ll never find another assistant as good as he.”
“Is the boyfriend coming tonight, too?”
“I’m not sure.” Emre grabbed a formula bottle from the fridge and warmed it under running hot water. A long howl from the general direction of Ayla’s room made him close his eyes. Lale stood.
“I’ve got this.” She walked around the island and kissed her brother’s rough cheek. “Leave it to me.”
Emre smiled at her. “Yeah. Somehow I’m comforted and terrified by that all at once.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and made her way toward the little girl’s room.
***
Three weeks later
Lale woke when the sun hit her eyes, the small warm body snuggled into her side crowding her off the bed. She eased out, padded over to the bathroom, and stared at herself in the large mirror. She’d never gone this long without going out, getting drunk, and having sex since she’d discovered how it filled the empty space in her life after Tarkan’s death.
A little stir craziness hovered over her psyche, but overall it had been fine. She’d taken over Ayla’s care completely. The nanny came and went, helping with the baby so Emre and Elle could work a few hours each day. Ayla and her aunt shopped, swam, took taxis to the park and to endless movies, went on walks and bike rides, read books and played more rounds of Candy Land than Lale cared to admit. She loved the girl unconditionally, understood her tiny rage and had even gotten her to admit she wanted to hold her little brother. Elle showed signs of real improvement and strength, which helped. So Ayla no longer believed the baby might kill her mother. When she would have the rare temper tantrum, she understood she’d get zero attention for it. It seemed to be working.
Lale wandered into the kitchen and poured herself some coffee. She sat, looking out over the Pacific Ocean view from the kitchen and let the steaming hot mug warm her hands, nervously clicking the ball in her tongue against her teeth. She heard the baby cry out then settle. The perfection of it was starting to grate on her. She needed to get out, just for a night.
Emre wandered into the kitchen, dressed in workout clothes. She leaned back on the counter and watched him fill a large cup with coffee and sit heavily at the table. After a few silent moments spent sipping, he locked eyes with her.
“How is Mother?”
Lale startled. Deniz family dynamic gossip didn’t usually come up much. But she realized he had to talk to someone about their swiftly aging parents, since they no longer had the buffer of the easygoing Tarkan between them. She slipped into Turkish without realizing it. The language of their childhood home felt right for this conversation.
“Uh, fine, I guess, considering.”
He sighed and ran a hand over his tired-looking eyes. “They are so worried about you,” he said out of the blue.
“I know. I’ve been a real pain in the ass to them. But she’s such a hypocrite really. She won’t defend me to father when he gets all....”
“What? Fatherly? Protective?”
Her chest tightened. “No, you ass. When he starts accusing me of being a slut, just because I’m out late or drinking. I mean, I am an adult. I so need to move out of the house. But thanks to you and...well, you know. I can’t.”
They stared at each other. Lale smiled. “The one and only time I’ve ever seen Mother in her cups, she’d had too much
raki
at a picnic and regaled me and Tarkan with tales of her and Father...oh, God, I can’t even imagine it.”
“Spare me.” Emre put a hand up.
“No, no seriously, you know father was the dashingly handsome son of the servant family to the Consulate. Seduced the hell out of her, right under her parents’ diplomatic noses. She claims they did it all over the place in that huge house for a year before getting caught after she made him ‘work for it’ as she said.” She giggled. “Mother and I had a lot of fun that day.”
She slid into the seat opposite her brother at the kitchen table and studied his face. So familiar. So beloved. He and Tarkan had gotten the bulk of their father’s genetics. Their dark skin and eyes belied a traditional heritage. She with her lighter skin and eyes more green were a testament to her mother’s American family genes.
Emre frowned at her. “All I know is she couldn’t go back to America to see her family, not even after Tarkan and I were born. It took you, a granddaughter, to convince Grandfather Kincaid to step foot in Turkey again. A mess. They should have known better.”
Lale stared at him. “You? A non-romantic? After all you did to capture that woman in there. Who you don’t even deserve? You’re as big a hypocrite as Mother.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, it happens to you once you have children of your own, I guess.”
Lale let that pass and held out both of her hands across the table. “You’ve been a fuddyduddy your entire life, Emre Deniz. An old man in a young body. But it’s okay. I love you, anyway. You and Tarkan are...were...perfect foils. And I know you still get moony eyed over your wife so don’t get all righteous with me.” Her brother put his hands in hers. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his unshed tears.
“You know, I miss him every single day. It never gets better.” Emre looked down, collected himself and gazed at her, his eyes dry and steady again. Just like she needed them to be. “And I know it’s worse for you. I just hope that you and I...well, that we can at least try to get along, if not be as close as you were with him.” He smiled at her. Lale released his hands and leaned back in her chair.
“So, brother, can I ask something?”
“Sure.”
She got up and poured them both another cup of coffee. Taking a deep breath, she turned and faced her brother, who still sat, staring out across the Pacific. “I want to go out tonight. You know, without the five-year-old. I promise to be good, be home at a decent hour. I need some grown up time, you know?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You went out with Caleb and Adem last week.”
“Yeah, but just to dinner and a movie and home. I want to go
out
, like dancing and stuff, you know?” She worried the ring in her lower lip. He was going to be a hard sell she could tell already.
“Okay, but midnight is curfew.”
“What? Emre, the clubs don’t even open until eleven!”
He sighed and glanced at his phone. “Okay, fine. Two a.m.” She crossed her arms. “Jesus, three a.m. that’s it, no later.” He gave her a one-armed hug and kiss on the forehead. “Behave. Or else. And thanks for all your help. We would not have made it these weeks without you.”
She finished her coffee and danced back to her bedroom to wake up her little shadow. They had a big day ahead.
Chapter Four
Andreas signaled for the check and stared wearily at the woman across from him. Her mouth still moved, but he couldn’t hear her anymore. He made a mental note never to accept a blind date set up by the basketball coach ever again.
Vacuous
gave her too much credit. His eyes drifted over her obviously enhanced breasts. They didn’t even have their usual effect on him and he was a tits man. Nearly skeletal, with a huge head, cartoon breasts, too much makeup and nothing to say, combined to make him exhausted, and bored.
“So, I’ve got an early day tomorrow....” He signed the credit card receipt and stood. He didn’t even have the energy to be polite. She looked startled, but seemed to assume that meant he wanted to go fuck because when he opened the car door for her, she stepped right up and cupped his completely flaccid cock. “Hmmm...we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?” she cooed.
He grimaced and moved back. “No, that’s not necessary.” He shut her door and climbed in. His wife had become a lot like her at the end, too skinny, acting like an idiot with her hair, clothes, and shoes obsessions. He had a momentary twinge, thinking she’d probably fall nicely in line as a slave, at least for one night. His body could certainly use the release. His own jumpy crankiness at work could only be blamed on simple lack of pussy. Andreas knew himself well enough to realize that his strange, self-imposed celibacy did him no good. But he wanted to master his need. To force orgasm denial on his own body, to see how much he could take. It suddenly seemed futile and stupid.
He glanced down as he drove, realizing the woman had her perfectly manicured hand on his thigh and inched upward. His cock sprang to attention. But he ignored her to see how she’d react. It worked. She leaned into him, licked his neck, and nipped at his earlobe.
“Grab my cock,” he demanded, using his most commanding tone.
She practically purred in response and unzipped his jeans, wrapped her hand around him, and leaned into his lap. He moved his arms up to accommodate her.
“Suck it,” he growled. “Now.” He groaned as her lips slipped over the head and applied exactly the right suction. “Swallow it.” His jaw clenched at the sensation of her obeying his every word. She took orders well, and he moved his hips so she could take all of him. She deep-throated him, no mean feat considering his size.
She must have a lot of practice
, he mused, as his body gave in to its raging need for orgasm. She cupped his balls. He fisted his hands in her hair, tugging it, needing a reaction from her. He’d trained himself well and could not usually come without providing something for his partner. But her lips were very talented. And the words “seriously pent up” didn’t give his horniness justice.
“I’m gonna blow and you’re gonna take it all.” He’d not slowed down any. The hot Las Vegas wind blew through the windows, making his hair whip around his face. He shoved his hips up higher. The woman moaned and increased her rhythm.
“Dear God,” he muttered. The orgasm remanded out of reach. It wouldn’t allow him release. The woman chose that moment to slip her hand further under his balls, ran a finger down his perineum, and pressed against his anus. That did it. He gripped the steering wheel and grunted as the orgasm snuck up on him, and he tried not to drive off the road. His hips bucked involuntarily as he emptied into the woman’s mouth. She sucked every last drop, sat up, and wiped the back of her hand across her swollen lips.
“Mmm...lovely.” She snuggled against his arm. Suddenly furious with himself, Andreas gritted his teeth even as his brain started in with the “what have you been thinking” mantra, and his cock stayed rock hard. He had no business losing control like that. And now he needed some excuse to get rid of her. He had zero desire to do anything else. She had been a handy receptacle, pure and simple. And that ran counter to everything he believed about women. And
that
pissed him off even more.