Play Me to Infinity (The Broken Men Chronicles Book 3) (10 page)

On my way home the next morning, I felt guilty for imposing the same end to my time spent with Nicole as she had bestowed upon me yesterday afternoon.

I walked through my front door and rushed to get changed, not bothering with a shower since I had been lucky enough for another round in Nicole’s bathroom before we had called it a night.

Exhausted, but nowhere near as tired as I was upon waking yesterday morning, I shaved and dressed.

Ready to go and face my sister’s wrath, I texted Nicole.

Beautiful,

I’m sorry I couldn’t be there when you woke up.  Had to go to Dani’s.

Forgive me?  I’ll call you later.

Hope you have a great day,

Mike

Upon entering the Landen household, I was met by the boisterous cries of twin babes.  Peering into the living room, Jordan was trying to mute things out with a head-splitting volume on the television.

Jake popped into my field of vision, running from one end of the kitchen to the other with a baby and bottle in hand.

“Someone’s in trouble!” Jordan said in an amused tone and turned the TV off.

“What makes you say that?”

“Mom said so.”  He smirked.  “What’d you do now?”

“I’ll let you in on it when I know myself.  It looks like they could use a hand in there.”  I walked into the kitchen and made my presence known.

“Mike.” Danica’s eyes were piercing me.

Here we go!
  “Here.”  I extended my arms and made to grab Gabby, my niece.  She went from panic to calm and lay in my arms, her dark baby blues taking me in.  “That’s right, Uncle Mike’s here.”  I smiled down at her tiny form.

“A baby looks good on you, bro.” Jake handed me a bottle and then popped one in baby Marco’s mouth.

“Thank God!” Danica massaged her temples.  “I couldn’t think.  One was tough, but two?  Having them at the same time is one thing, but did they have to be on the same schedule for everything else too?”

“Sit down and relax, sis. Jake and I have it under control.”

“Let’s talk since you’re stuck here for the next half hour, at least,” she said.

“I’d rather not, but I don’t think I have a choice do I?”

“Nope.”

“Before you start asking questions, here’s the deal,” I said.

“You mean I won’t have to force it out of you?”

“Let me talk, woman.”  I sighed.  “I like her, Dani, I mean, really like her.”  Christ!  Could I have sounded any more like a nervous teenager?

I told Danica about what had been going on since the night she had gone into labor up until the night before last.

“When you called yesterday, I thought I was alone.”

“What happened?”

“I know that she’s been hurt bad in the past, she’s told me what happened with Dean, but I got
mad. Anyway, when she hesitated and became distant, I gave her the brush-off and went home alone.  I was so exhausted that I passed out on the couch.  When I woke to take your call, she was curled up against me.

“I know I should have kicked her out after I was done talking to
you, but she wouldn’t wake up and then I realized that I didn’t want her to leave, so I let her sleep and I slept some more.

“When I woke up, she was gone, but she left me a text, apologizing for leaving without waking me.  She’d come by because she knew I was upset, Dani.”  No one but my family and Ben had ever done that.

“There’s just one problem.”  I sighed.  “I know she’s not one for playing people, but I can’t shake the fact that this is more for fun than anything serious with her.  I like her too much to hurt her, and I’m scared shitless of getting hurt again.  I don’t need another Tracey, though I know Nicole wouldn’t do that to me.  She knows how it feels to be on the other side.”

“So you mean to say that you’re falling for the short, scrawny, brunette that sported pigtails, funky jammies, fuzzy slippers, and braces; the same girl that you terrorized while we were growing up?” Danica asked.  I gave that some thought, but didn’t answer.  “Well, are you?”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” I said.  “I hate arguing with her, but I love it at the same time.  She challenges me in everything; even over that stupid pitch of Winthrow’s.”

She looked puzzled.  “You like arguing with her?”

A short laugh escaped me.  “I know it sounds ridiculous, but yeah.”  I smiled.  “The air gets filled with so much tension that when it breaks, we’re left with...”

“Heat,” Jake supplied.

I nodded.  “Lots and lots of heat.”

“Men!”  Danica shook her head.  “I love you both, but I’ll never understand either of you.  Well, at least not completely.”  That garnered a chuckle from her husband and I.  “So what do you plan on doing if she’s only in it for fun?  You can’t keep going like this and falling for a girl who won’t worship the ground you walk
on, even if she is my best friend.”

“I don’t know.”  I looked down at Gabby who’d fallen asleep on her bottle.  I rubbed her cheek and she started suckling for her food again.  That was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it?

Danica broke the silence.  “I have an idea.”

Filled with optimism for where things could head between Nicole and me, I got in my car to head home.

What amazed me was that Danica hadn’t had a clue about those tracks her best friend had recorded years ago, but she did know that Nicole had harbored a strong love for music and had managed her own music store.

When I made my sister listen to the songs, she understood why I had kept the CD for myself.  She would have done the same.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, I checked my messages before taking off and saw a text from Nicole.

I’ll forgive you if you give me a repeat performance of yesterday. - N

My lips tugged upward into a smile and my finger hit the dial button.

“Is breakfast tomorrow morning included?”  I asked the moment she answered.

“Perhaps.”  Her voice held a semblance of relaxation. “I could possibly be persuaded to include lunch and dinner for today as well.”

“You’ll be too busy for that,” I said, self-assured.

On a harrumph, she said, “Really?”

My voice went husky.  “Yes, really.”

“Now you’ve got me curious.”

“I bet.  Listen, I have a few things to tend to, but I can be there in about an hour, unless you rather I come by later?”  Even to me I sounded like a damn whipped fool.

“No, that’s perfect.”  My relief was immediate.

With my phone dropped in the middle console, I put the car in drive, all the while smiling as if nothing could get me down.

It was time to get to business.

I was in the kitchen, cutting up some vegetables for a salad to go with dinner when Nicole’s doorbell rang.  Moments later, she came waltzing into the kitchen with a large vase of flowers and an even larger smile.

Whistling at the impressive display, I said, “Someone’s well-liked.”

“Except that I can’t think of a reason I’m getting these.”  She stuck her nose into the roses and closed her eyes as she took in the scent.  “They’re gorgeous.”

“What’s in the envelope?”

“I don’t know.  Flowers never come with envelopes this size.”  She dug into it with a puzzled expression.  “It’s a CD.”

“Nothing else?”  She shook her head.  “Pop it in.”

I followed her to the den where she put the disk in her stereo and pressed play.  The soft sound of the guitar kicked off and I saw her face drain of blood.  She turned to me in shock when her voice came from the speakers.

“I haven’t heard you sing this one.  I thought you didn’t have any other songs?”

“I don’t.”  She sat on the armrest of her couch, nibbling at her thumbnail.  “Well, nothing new.  I wrote this in high school.”

“Why is it recorded?”

“Dad had a dream for me.  He brought me in to record a demo after school one day and then he died a few days later.  I lost the CD about a week after he passed.”  She looked down as if reliving it all and I noticed fleeting emotions of sadness and pride cross her features.  “I have no clue where I’d left it.”

“It must be nice to get a piece of history back.”

“It is, but it’d be better if I got the whole damn thing.  The problem is that I have no clue who knew it was mine to begin with.  The CD wasn’t labeled or anything.”

She went silent and listened, eyes closed.  When the song ended, she powered down the stereo.  With a smile and a glint in her eyes, I followed her back toward the kitchen.

I prepped, she cooked, and at some point, she began to hum to the tune that had played in her den some fifteen minutes before.

My duties tended to, I found a seat at the kitchen island and watched her.  The woman appeared content, which had me smiling.

It’s working.

In bed that night, I cradled Nicole’s head on my shoulder, our bodies fitting to perfection.  Absorbing the heat of our skin-to-skin contact, an epiphany hit me.  I wasn’t falling for this woman… I had already crashed.

When did this happen?

An image flittered in my mind of the previous night, when everything had changed.  Her armor had been stripped down enough for me to catch a real glimpse of the complex woman that now lay next to me.

With that image in my mind, I kissed her hair and fell asleep.

According to Nicole, the following morning, I needed to be on the “up and up” because she had plans for us.  If I only knew what she’d meant by that.

I was lathering my hair with shampoo when a pair of breasts with hardened nipples pressed against my back, arms hugged me from behind.

Without a word, Nicole grabbed the bar of soap and proceeded to wash my body, paying detailed attention to my cock which began to throb with need.

“Nic?”

“Shh.”

I was on the verge of exploding when she turned me to face her and sunk to her knees to take me in her mouth.  Despite the hot water streaming between my shoulder blades and back, I felt a sheet of goose bumps blanket my entire body and shivered.

My eyes rolled to the back of my head and I hissed when her tongue circled the tip of my shaft.  “Fuck, that feels good.”

Her hands massaged my balls and the tip of my dick hit the back of her throat.   She moaned around me and my hips jerked at the feel of that sinful mouth of hers.  Gentle teeth grazed my length and my hands grasped her hair, finding purchase in an effort to keep me grounded.  Nicole was about to send me flying over the edge without a parachute.

When I hit the back of her throat a second time, she tried to swallow me.  The action milked my cock and that was my undoing.  I tried to pull out, but she grabbed my ass and pulled me back in, taking all I had to offer.  She hummed her satisfaction, causing my body to shake with one last tremor.

When Nicole pulled away, she looked up with a self-satisfied smirk.  It was hard for me to maintain my footing.  The woman could have brought me to my knees with the simple sucking of my cock, and I wouldn’t have complained one iota.

“Up and up!”  She pointed down at my dick and giggled.

My grin was slow and lazy. “You’re evil.” I pulled her up to her feet and wrapped my arms around her.

Kissing her hard, she moaned into my mouth as my tongue met hers.

After indulging in her body for a few more minutes, we called our shower interlude a done deal.

Finding ourselves at the breakfast bar, Nicole set out a bowl of fresh fruit, yogurt, toast, and an assortment of jams and jellies.  I grabbed the coffee for us and filled two mugs.

The doorbell rang.

When she came back, she held a yellow manila envelope in her hands and another one of her confused expressions.  “It came by messenger service.”

“On a Sunday?” I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders.  “Weird, I know.”  She opened the envelope and pulled out another CD.  “What the hell is going on?”  Forgetting about breakfast, she headed to the den and popped the disk into the stereo, knowing what it would contain.  She wasn’t disproved as the first strums of guitar strings filled the air.  “It’s another one of them,” she said when she noticed that I’d followed her.  I smiled.  Instead of the same look of shock she had worn last night, she sported a goofy grin.

“There’s a note with this one.” She handed it to me.  I read it, although I knew what it said, seeing as I had written it.

An angel called and her songs kind of stuck…

“What’s it mean?”
she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Your guess is as good as mine.  Are they some of your lyrics?” I asked. She shook her head indicating the negative, lip singing to the words that poured out of the sound system.  Was this one a favorite of hers?  “Maybe it’s a poem?”

“A one-liner?”

“No, I’d say it continues by the ellipsis.”  I showed her my observation.

“There’s more?”

“Well how many songs were on that CD?”

“I don’t know.”  She paused to think.  “Five or six?  It’s been so long.”

“My guess is that you’re bound to find out.”

“I think you’re right.”