Alluring Temptation (Bayou Stix #3) (16 page)

As I got older, my brother and I became really close. He was a really talented musician and he taught me how to play the guitar. My grandparents raised us and we never wanted for anything. They had a house here in town, but my grandfather had a house in Lafayette. It was his family home and they were always working on it, trying to restore it. We’d go there every weekend.

John was older than me, so of course, as he got older, he started doing his own thing. When he’d go off, I’d work furiously at the guitar my grandfather gave me. It was my father’s. Apparently he was in a band, too. I quickly mastered the art of mimicking anything I heard. I could listen to any song and within ten minutes, I could replicate it.

When I was ten, John was fifteen. He was a looker, too. He always had girls around him. We looked a lot alike, but where my hair is dark, like our mother, his was light, like our father. He was Mr. Popular and a football star. I was younger, but by the time I was twelve, I realized that I must be good looking, too. He was seventeen and always surrounded by girls. Some of them would flirt with me. It made me feel like a man.

About that time, he started really looking into what he was going to do after high school. A lot of colleges were looking at him and he was offered several football scholarships, but he told me he didn’t want to play football. He wanted to join the military. Paw was a Veteran and had been in the Navy during World War II and John wanted to follow in his footsteps.

Paw and Maw were the best. They raised us both and we were a handful. I was a typical boy and always getting into mischief, while John was the good son. He was smart, athletic, and had all the girls. When I was thirteen, they called us into the kitchen one day. They had both been crying, so of course John and I were concerned. We sat down and they told us that our mom had been sick for a long time, since she was a little girl. They’d tried to get her help over the years, but she resented them and thought they were judging her.”

He stops and swallows. This is so hard for him. I need to let him know he can stop. He doesn’t have to tell me. I squeeze his hand and he looks at me. “You can stop. You don’t have to tell me all this, Liam. It’s ok.”

He shakes his head and smiles sadly. “No, I want to. I need to tell you, Clove. Just give me a sec, ok?”

I nod and just hold his hand.

After a bit, he sighs and starts back up. “My mom was bi-polar. She didn’t always take her meds and well, when she didn’t, she was also really paranoid about a lot of things. She gave us to my grandparents because she wanted us to be cared for properly. My father had left her when I was a baby and never looked back. Anyway, that day, they’d gotten word that she’d driven her car off of a mountainside in Colorado. Apparently, she hadn’t been taking her medicine for a while and she never called them for help…

The news hit John hard and he was a mess. I barely remembered her and hadn’t seen her in over ten years, so it wasn’t as bad for me.

But it killed my grandmother. She’d already been ill, but the news of losing her daughter was just too much and she had a stroke. She never recovered and passed away a few months later.

We were all devastated. John graduated high school and enlisted in the Army. He left for boot camp on my fourteenth birthday. I took it really hard. Maw was gone and he was far away, so it was just Paw and me. We made do, and my guitar and girls were my focus, but I missed my brother.

He went off to Afghanistan after boot camp and he did a couple of tours there. Meanwhile, I was growing and filling out. Ladies loved me. I was fifteen and women in their twenties were suddenly all over me. I was a wild child and lived it up.

Once I graduated high school, Paw decided to sell the house here in town and move to Lafayette. I stayed. He helped me get an apartment and told me as long as I worked, he would help me with my bills, but I was not going to be a freeloader. I hated school, so college was out of the question.

I started modeling. One night I was playing guitar at a dive in town and I met Cruz and Jessie and they introduced me to Jude and Dade. They were looking to start a band and asked me if I was interested in joining. I didn’t have anything else going on, so I did.

That was when I met you…”

He stops talking and looks at me. I can tell there’s more he wants to say. So, I ask, “What else? I feel like there’s more, Liam.”

He smiles at me and kisses our joined hands. “There’s more. Right when we signed with the label, like a few days after, I got a call. It was Paw. He told me I needed to come to Lafayette immediately, but he wouldn’t say why. I’d been drinking, so Cruz drove me to his house. When we got there, Paw was sitting on the front porch, just staring into space. I had to call his name three times to get his attention. He looked at me and I swear he’d aged about twenty years since my last visit, which had been a couple of weeks before. He only said one word. ‘John.’ My heart instantly started racing and I started talking really fast about how I had been waiting for him to call me so I could tell him about the band and how he needed to get home on leave so we could go celebrate. Paw stopped me with a hand on my arm.

I knew what he was going to say. I knew it. In my heart, I already knew. He grabbed my hand and pressed something into it. When I looked down, I saw John’s dog tags. They were full of black soot…”

Tears are running silently down my face. I’m praying that I’m not going to hear the next words coming out of his mouth correctly.

He looks at me and his eyes are glassy too. “He was killed in action. He threw himself on an IED to save his friends. He was twenty-four years old and the person I loved most in the world. He was my big brother and he died on foreign soil, fighting a war we shouldn’t have been in, saving his friends. They say he was a hero and he was, but he was always my hero…

We never got a body to bury. They sent us some remains in a jar along with his dog tags. We scattered them at his favorite fishing spot.”

He looks at me and I can see the pain in his eyes. “I don’t talk about my family, Clove, because there’s nothing to talk about. It’s just Paw and me, now. My mom is gone. My dad is who knows where and I don’t even know his name, and my brother is gone, too.”

He laughs harshly. “There you go. Sorry you asked now?”

Am I sorry I asked? No, I’m not. Not at all. I love that he told me all that. It was painful for him too, which makes me appreciate it a lot more. He’s damaged and he has some serious issues too, but we all do. I love that he trusts me enough to share that part of himself with me. It makes me love him even more.

Wait, what?! I don’t love him. I like him. I lust after him. But, no, I absolutely do NOT love him!

I can’t love him, right?!

Smiling at him and pushing all of that crazy talk to the far recesses of my brain, I lean up and kiss him softly. He pulls back when I stop and looks at me in surprise.

“No, I’m not sorry I asked. Not at all. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me with that information, Liam.”

His face clearly shows his astonishment. I chuckle. “Why does that surprise you?”

He shakes his head to clear it and shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess because you’re so very different than I thought you’d be. Every reaction I expect you to have, you have the opposite. It’s quite surprising to me.”

I grin in delight at his words. “Good. Who wants to be predictable? That’s so boring.”

He laughs and reaches for me, pulling me into him. My breath hitches and my stomach starts doing somersaults. He snickers at my response to him and leers at me. “You’re so sexy when you react to me. I feel like Superman.”

I laugh at his ridiculous analogy. “Superman? Does that make me Lois Lane or Lana?”

His brows arch. “You know about Superman?” He sounds so stunned.

I’m offended. Of course I know my comic book references!

Sticking my tongue out at him in ire, I retort, “Of course! What do you think I am?!”

Throwing his head back and laughing, he mutters, “Sexy, responsive, sassy, and knows comics… you’re my dream girl!”

My heart takes off like a steam engine!

Grabbing his face, I mesh my mouth to his and explore the innermost angles of his mouth with my tongue. He lets me take the lead and moans with his pleasure.

Before I know it, I’m straddling him and kissing him like I’m possessed. He doesn’t seem to mind at all.

I’m worked up into a frenzy and ready to strip him down and have my wicked way with him when I realize my hands are all over him, but his hands are not even touching me. Stopping my gyrations and trying to rein myself in, I sit back. He opens his eyes and watches me. His pupils are enlarged and the blue of his eyes is so dark they are almost navy.

I’m all over him and he’s totally in control. I’m mortified.

I jump off of his lap so quickly, I almost hit the floor, but I manage to catch myself just in time. My breathing is ragged and I feel like I’m going to burst into tears. He’s watching me scramble away from him with a wary expression. Once I stand up, he stands too and asks, “What’s wrong?”

Turning my back to him, I leave the gazebo and walk out towards the water. I hear him follow.

He calls my name, but I keep walking.

Finally, he asks in exasperation, “Clove. What the hell is wrong? What happened?”

I pick ferociously at my nails and stare at the reflections on the water. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” He sounds completely bewildered. “Sorry for what?”

My manicure is a disaster. I just chipped all of the polish off of two nails. “I’m sorry, I threw myself at you.”

He touches my arm. “Threw yourself at me? What?”

I chance a look at him and he’s looking at me like I’m crazy. “Just now. I was all over you and I’m sorry.”

He repeats what I’m saying like he’s trying to understand it. “You were all over me and you’re sorry? Clove, why are you apologizing to me?”

God, I’m an idiot.

“I was all over you and you weren’t even touching me. I was literally attacking you, Liam.”

He looks baffled. If I was watching this happen to anyone else, I’d probably laugh at the look on his face. He rubs his forehead. “Wait.” He stares at me and throws his hands out to the sides. “You were all over me, yes. I didn’t and don’t mind a bit. No, I was not touching you, because I was fisting the blanket to stop myself.” My eyes go as wide as saucers. “Did you miss the part where I was kissing you back?!” I gasp. He stares at me long and hard before he closes the gap between us. Staring up into his eyes, I get lost in the emotion. He grabs my hand and presses it to his groin.

Oh shit, that is hard. Very hard. I want to see. I want to touch. Dear God, he makes me want to act like a wanton whore. No wonder he gets women like he does. If he’d say the word right now, my panties would melt right off. Holy shit.

I flex my fingers and cup him. He stares at me and moans, “You think I don’t want you, Clove? I want you so bad I’m in physical pain over here. But I told you I wasn’t pushing and it would be when you were ready. That’s not tonight. I’m going to wait even though my balls are screaming ‘fuck you’ at me right now.”

I smirk at him and he smiles back. “Really, they are?!”

He throws his head back and laughs. “Um, yeah, they are. But please take your hand off of my dick. My head is saying no no no. And my dick is begging to come out and play. Your hand there is fueling the already raging inferno.”

Oh shit. Move your hand, dumbass. He wants me. Liam wants me… Me! Be still my racing heart.

We head back to the gazebo where we curl up under the blankets and talk for a few hours about everything and nothing before he drives us home and walks me to my bedroom door, where he kisses me so thoroughly my dreams are filled with him all night.

Liam

I
awaken to the early morning light and stare at the patterns on the ceiling. My dreams were filled with Clove last night. Oddly, John was also in them and he was congratulating me on finding a keeper and telling me I need to introduce her to Paw. I decide to talk to her about that today and see if she’d like to make the trip with me. I would really like to see what Paw thinks of my girl.

My girl? Is Clove my girl? Are we there yet? This is so fast. And it’s not like she’s a stranger…

Am I ok with Clove being my girl?

Surprisingly, I think so. I plan on investing in this and I want it to work. Something about her just wakes up something in me. It’s like she fills the missing pieces and makes me want to stop being “rock star Liam” and just be Liam. She likes me as just “Liam.”

Oddly, I like “just Liam,” too when I’m with her. And I haven’t been a huge fan of myself lately…

I smell coffee brewing and decide to go help Clove with breakfast. What time is it anyway?

Looking at my phone, I see its 7:17AM and I also see I have a few different texts. I check them and delete most without reading them. I don’t need to respond to them anymore. One from our manager catches my eye and I open it up and read it before I head to the kitchen.