Bliss Series Boxed Set: The Whole Damn Harem (105 page)

Isn’t that ironic that it’s almost exactly what I’m doing?

“Not cool, dude. You almost gave me a fucking heart attack and after seeing those . . .” I throw my hand out toward the flowers, “ . . . I don’t need any more surprises.”

“Yeah, about that. So now I’m in the shit with Kate because she thought they were for her.”

I snort at the thought, momentarily breaking the tension that’s filling the air.

“Maybe you should break the bank and buy your woman flowers a bit more often, Zan. There’s still two weeks till she says ‘I do’—someone might sweep her out from under your feet if you don’t up your game. Hell, I broke up with Justin months ago and he’s still buying them. Lucky me.” Yes, I’m sarcastic when I’m tired and fed up with impossible ex-boyfriends who just won’t get the point.

“Get your ass over here and sit down.”

“Why am I getting a dad vibe from you?” I ask with a smirk as I drop my bag and roll over the back of the couch, landing with a thud on my side.
Well that seemed like a better idea in my head.

“’Cause I feel like I need to pull my big brother card out tonight and I was going to wait till tomorrow but Kate reminded me we’ve got a family lunch with her parents so it’s now or never.”

“You’re lucky I even came home,” I add, daringly poking the bear.

“Oh, I’m not touching that one first. Now we’re going to talk about Justin . . .”

“We really don’t need to. He’ll give up soon enough,” I say with a shrug that I hope is convincing.

He stares at me as if I have a screw loose, and if I wasn’t on such a high from having awesome first-time, very overdue sex with Noah, I would probably think the same thing. “Zo, when I told Kate who they were actually from, she freaked out, and not in a good way. I have two women living under my roof that I love more than life itself, I can’t have either of them feeling scared in their own home.” Reason number one why I can’t tell anybody the true extent of Justin’s attention. I don’t want my issues affecting anyone else.

“Look, Zan, coming home to the Spanish Inquisition wasn’t high on my list of things I wanted to do when I walked in the door. So can you cut me some slack for tonight at least? Your note said ‘breakfast for dinner.’ That is when us Roberts talk shit out and I really want bacon!”

His mouth twitches before he catches himself doing it, and he levels me with a ‘take no prisoners’ stare. One that I guarantee my dad would probably have had throughout my teenage years if he had lived to see them. Instead the alcoholism that had controlled most of his life decided that it wasn’t on the cards.

“Zoe, he’s not going to give up. A man, a
real
man might try and get the girl back for a week, maybe two, tops. He’d then lick his wounds and try and date up, in the hope that his ex sees him with said upgrade. Or he licks his wounds, gets drunk, gets laid and moves the fuck on. That dickwad of an ex clearly isn’t a real man because it has been months, Zo, and he’s still hounding you. He fucking broke into my mother’s house while you were all sleeping and lay down next to you. This has to fucking stop. Why are you protecting him?”

“I’m not! I moved out here to get away from him, Zan. I don’t want anything else to happen to anyone. “We got the police involved and he backed off. This is the first I’ve heard from him in . . . a while.” I have to bite my tongue because if Zander—or Noah—knew exactly how persistent Justin is being in his renewed pursuit of me, I think I would actually fear for his life. “He’s harmless, Zan. He’s in Indiana anyway. I’m at least a few hours’ drive away from him. And if you haven’t forgotten, I’m moving next weekend.”

“What happens when he tracks you down there?” That thought chills me to the bone but I don’t let on.

“My mail is still coming here, my contact address is here, there’s no way for him to find me.”

“Utilities?”

“Included in the rent.”

“Zo . . .” His expression softens and he leans forward and rests his hand on my bare foot, which is hanging off the end of the sofa. “You’d let me know if you needed anything, right?”

“Of course. You’re my Zanzan Sandman, remember?”

He groans loudly at my childhood name for him, making me snigger. “Zoly Moly, what am I gonna do with you?”

Stifling a yawn, I rest my head on my folded forearm and close my eyes. “Let me sleep?”

“We still have to talk about Noah . . . ?” He leaves it hanging there, a statement ending in a silent question, an opening for me to launch into a tirade about how he’s
not
my father and how I’m a grown-ass woman who can make up her own mind about who she sees and what she does with them.

“Wake me up when you’ve finished your lecture.” I start to fake snore, which earns me that hand on my foot dragging up my arch and tickling me. Pulling myself up to sit cross-legged in front of him—and keeping my feet firmly out of his reach—I look at Zander, seeing a smile on his face. “Let me hear it then.”

“Well . . .” He grabs the back of his neck, and something resembling an awkward silence stretches between us.

The last time we had a conversation that had this much potential to be uncomfortable was when Zander walked into my friend’s party and started stripping—back when I
didn’t
know he was stripping to pay his way through college. To this day, Mom and Danika do not know about that. Mia, well she wrangled it out of me, and then busted a gut laughing when I told her. Since then, she’s taken great pleasure in teasing our brother about it—affectionately of course.

“The thing is, you know the history between Mac and me, and Mac and the other guys.”

“Mmm hmm, man-whore.” I cough jokingly.

“
Anyway,
it’s only due to Daniel being so fucking secure within himself and his relationship with Mac, as well as his childhood friendship with Noah, that we’re all able to be friends. God knows if it was an ex of Kate’s I would have hit the fucking roof.”

“But you’ve never been one to share well with others, Zan. Ever since I stole your Hot Wheels and hid them in my dollhouse.”

“Ha fucking, ha. What I’m trying to say is, I’ve watched Noah work his magic in a room full of women. I’ve been at the bar with him and the guys and heard the way he used to talk about getting laid and—”

“You used to be like that too, Zan.”

“I know. But I want better for you. You’re my sister—you need a man to have your back and who would stand up to your pig-headed big brother and take me on when I told them to leave you alone. But last week when he brought you home—and didn’t stay—and tonight when he did nothing to piss me off or go against me—it got me thinking.”

“Zan, I love you like a brother . . .”

“I am your brother, dickhead. And I’ve also noticed how you said you wouldn’t be home but here you are. Doesn’t say much about him, does it.”

“I chose to come home, Zan. And I mean this with all the love in the world, but I’m a big girl. I can meet a man I like and choose to date him without my big brother’s permission.”

“I was—”

“And I do value your opinion and I will always take the time to listen to it, but you’ve got to let me make my own mind up about Noah.”

“Okay.”

“Zan, you got to . . . what?”

“I said okay. You told me when we were leaving that you were going to stay to help clean up and maybe have a swim, and you told me in no uncertain terms ‘not to wait up’.”

“You still stayed up though.”

“Didn’t say I obey you, I just said okay.”

“Where is my brother and what have you done with the real Zander?”

“It’s me pulling my head in and letting you live your life, because you’ve already got one man still hooked on you from a whole other state away, you don’t need me being all up in your business as well.”

I lean forward and look around the room, trying to see if I’m being punked or not, then narrow my eyes at him. “You’re not secretly planning to kill Noah and hide the body, are you? Because you’re a cop. That kind of thing is frowned upon.”

“All I’m gonna say is keep your eyes open, and listen to your heart and your gut. If something doesn’t feel right about it, or him, don’t leave it so fucking long next time.”

Standing up, I shuffle over to the chair and bend down, wrapping my arms around him. “You’re a big softie, Zan. And I love you.”

“Love you too, Zoly Moly.”

I giggle and playfully punch at his arm. “He’s been nothing but good to me, Zan. I promise you. He’s a good guy. If he wasn’t, I doubt he’d be breathing right now.”

“Good point.”

“I actually think he might be scared that you’re going to use something from your arsenal on him.”

He stands up and wraps his arm around my shoulder as we walk down the hallway. “Let’s keep him on his toes and let him keep thinking that way.”

“Deal.”

∞
∞
∞

Sunday morning I wake up with a smile on my face when my legs protest with every movement. I know exactly why my legs are sore and there’s a certain female part of me that wishes I could do it all over again today, right now even.

Alas, it’s not to be. Today is my packing day. Not that I unpacked anything other than clothes, but it’s still time to make sure everything is in the right boxes and make sure I’m ready to move in next Friday afternoon after I sign the lease and pick up my keys.

In an effort to delay packing for a little bit longer, I pick up my phone and ring Mia for our weekly gossip-fest. This is despite the fact that she’s coming up next Friday to help me move and get settled then crashing at Zander’s place with Mom and Danika for a week before the wedding of the century.

“Miiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaa,” I shrill down the phone.

“Argh, what time is it?”

“Ten . . . ish . . .”

“You mean it’s like eight or something stupid, right?”

“Nah, it’s 10:15, to be exact. How on earth are you still sleeping?”

“Who says I was sleeping?” She says.

“Well I know you sure as hell don’t have a man keeping you busy because you would never answer the phone mid-sex.”

“Depends . . .”

“Depends on what?”

“Well if there
was
a man in my bed, I wouldn’t be talking to you. But what if I was otherwise engaged?” This is what I love about Mia—we’re so close in age, and she’s been my best friend for my entire life. We think the same, we talk the same, and the ways in which we are different complement each other perfectly. She’s my go-to person when anything goes right, wrong, or sideways.

“Oh please! You definitely wouldn’t answer my call if you were flicking the bean.”

“Playing downtown DJ,” she adds with a giggle.

“Buttering your muffin,” I throw back.

“Petting the pussy.”

“And we don’t even have a cat!” we both shout out before we crack up laughing.

“If you must know,” she states, “I wasn’t having a ménage a moi. You’re safe.”

“Good.”

“Where are Mom and Danika?”

“Mom went to a garden show or some shit, and Danika was up playing some online game most of the night, so I’m sleeping in while the going is good.”

“I just woke up too.”

“Lazy ass. How was the barbecue last night?”

“How did you? . . . Zander, right?”

“The one and only. He texted me late last night asking about Jus-fuck-off-tin.”

I giggle at her name for him. She’s been calling him that ever since he started with the creepy shit. She even went down to the tattoo studio while he was working and ripped him a new one in front of his boss, workmates, and a bunch of clients. By all accounts it was awesome, and I kind of wish I could’ve been there for it. Not that it helped at all.

“What did he want to know?”

“Just whether I thought he could be dangerous. Whether you ever filed another report here about him, that kind of thing.”

“Bet he was pissed off. Justin sent a bunch of flowers with a note.”

“What did the note say?”

“Fuck knows. I didn’t read it. I’ll be throwing it in the trash along with the flowers, as soon as I get up.”

“Well just from Zan’s tone last night, I’d say on a scale of mellow to fire-breathing dragon he was at about an eight.”

“He was about a six by the time I got home. He was waiting up for me.” I grab my spare pillow and prop myself up, getting comfortable.

“We’ll come right back to that little nugget of information but first, what do you mean ‘when you got home’? You went to the Dildo’s house for a barbecue and didn’t come home with Kate and Zan?”

“Not exactly . . .” I say with a laugh, fully aware of what’s about to happen.

“How can you ‘not exactly’ go home with our brother when you’re living with him? Did you get lost and fall on top of the Dildo, Zoe?” Her voice is playful with an edge of excitement to it. She’s been waiting for something—
anything
—to happen with Noah since the wedding.

When I don’t answer, she gasps loudly down the phone. “Oh something totally happened. You’re such a hold-out. Spill, or I tell Mom.”

“Fuck off, you whore. You wouldn’t tell Mom.”

“Wanna bet?”

I pause for a second and consider my options. Yeah, nah. Not worth the risk. “I was going to tell you anyway.”

“Riiiight. That’s why you totally led in with ‘Hey, Mia my favoritest sister, guess who I boinked last night’?”

“Earth to Mia, when you’re a grown-up you’re not supposed to say the word ‘boinked’ anymore.”

“Boned, screwed, did the horizontal mambo, I know—you slipped and impaled yourself on his dick. It’s all the same to me. Tell me everything.”

“It was nice.”

She snorts and lets out a loud laugh. “Please, please tell me he is not a bad lay.”

“He’s not a bad lay.”

“Then why aren’t you raving about it?”

“I’m raving on the inside. My head is scrambled.”

“Why, Zo? You like him; he obviously likes you. He may have been drunk, but he stopped and looked at you for a minute before he kissed the shit out of you at Mac’s wedding, so he definitely likes you. If he was just kissing anyone, he would’ve just gone straight on in there.”

Sighing, I scootch back down the bed and throw an arm over my eyes. “He makes me feel too much, and that was before we slept together. Now I can’t
stop
feeling things.”