Rule's Property (The House of Rule Book 2) (23 page)

"Hey," Damian responded with a nod.

"Thanks for having the kids."

"Not a problem. You kept ours last month; paybacks are hell," Damian quipped. "So, how was the Caribbean?"

"Awesome, as usual. Traveling there and back sucked, though, just like it always does." Even after all these years, his wife wouldn't travel on the same flight with him. She said it was more dangerous than putting the President and the Vice-President on the same plane. It just wasn't done.

Damian laughed. "You have to keep cutting her some slack, Nick. Courtney may never get over it completely."

"You're probably right," Nick responded, knowing he'd happily deal with that one small inconvenience in his otherwise perfect life. At least Courtney agreed to go away with him once a year, to leave their children with either his mother or his siblings and their spouses. His life had worked out brilliantly as far as Nick was concerned, he wasn't complaining about shit. He knew he was the luckiest man alive.

"So, what happened with Madison last night?" he asked his brother.

Damian glanced away from the grill and looked at him with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You've heard already?"

"News travels fast when one of the angels gets into trouble," Nick teased, although it looked as if his brother was
not
happy.

Damian frowned and Nick could tell just how upset his brother was. "We'd warned her three times about texting late at night.
Shit.
She's supposed to be asleep."

Not particularly shocked and not really thinking the transgression was all that terrible, Nick asked mildly, "How'd you catch her?"

"Cell phone statement," Damian answered.

"Past her eleven o'clock bedtime again?" Nick mocked, expecting this 'late night' terminology to mean eleven-fifteen or so.

"Dude. Two o'clock in the fucking morning."

Nick just stared at his brother, stunned.
"You have to be shitting me."

"I shit you not."

"What the hell do fourteen-year-old girls need to talk to each other about that late at night?"

Damian turned completely toward him but only smirked condescendingly. "You have a lot to learn, little brother."

"What do you mean by that?" Nick asked, confused.

"Madison hasn't been texting a girl. Hell, no. Not as easy as that."

Nick was completely floored. "She's texting a boy at two a.m.?"

"Oh, it gets worse," Damian announced, his muscles stiffening as anger became apparent on his visage.

Nick couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do I need to sit down?"

"You might."

"Tell me," Nick demanded.

Damian lowered the boom. "The kid she's been texting is sixteen."

Nick stared at his brother for a moment before glancing at Madison who was lying on a lounger with ear buds in her ears.
Christ
. Were those curves on that little kid? Moving his eyes to Melissa, her twin, he saw the exact same curves but she was rambunctiously playing in the pool with her cousins and little brother so they weren't as transparent. Nick swallowed and glanced back at his brother. "Have you put out a contract on the kid?" he asked, only half-teasing.

"Wish I could. Just wait. You'll see, it'll happen to you one day."

Ignoring that prediction into his future, Nick asked, "Where'd she meet him?"

"School. Summer practices. He's on the football team."

Nick caught on quickly and felt his brother's pain. "Fuck . . . she made freshman cheerleader."

"Yeah, and classes start next week. It's not like we can ground her from school," Damian said flatly.

"You think anything's going on?" Nick asked, almost flinching at the thought.

"We don't think so, but we're pretty much dumbshit parents, you know? You think we grew up fast man? These kids grow up at warp-speed."

Nick shook his head, not liking the sound of things. "How's Angie handling it?"

At the sound of his wife's name, Damian turned, his gaze searching for and finding her. "Better than I am. She's talking to Madison about it, a lot," he said, continuing to watch his wife from across the yard.

"Well, that's good, I guess," Nick answered, although it appeared he'd lost his brother somewhere. Damian's attention was firmly on his wife, and as Nick glanced in Angie's direction, he saw she was watching her husband as well. Her glance moved to Nick for a second, and she flushed before quickly smiling and then looking away. Feeling as if he was interrupting a moment that was suddenly private, Nick cleared his throat.

Damian's attention turned back to Nick and the waiting grill. "You guys going to stay for lunch? We've got plenty," his brother offered, almost as an afterthought.

"Can we take a rain check?" Nick asked. "We have a million things to get ready with school starting next week."

"Sure, no problem."

"I better get to it then," Nick breathed out. "You know how long it's going to take to round 'em all up."

Damian just laughed, nodded his head and began flipping the burgers again.

****

Later that night, all four kids were accounted for and in their bedrooms, if not asleep.

Nick leaned back in the bed, hands behind his head and waited for Courtney to come from the shower, his body hardening at the mere thought. He loved the smell of Courtney all the time: when she was made up and ready to go out, when she was fresh from a swim in the ocean, even when she was covered in dirt from working in the garden.

But the smell of her right out of the shower did him in
every time
. It wasn't so much because of her squeaky clean scent or because he knew she'd be naked under her nightclothes.

It was because she was ready
for bed
. And the connotation of that was like a red flag to a bull where he was concerned.

He certainly didn't live his life just for their love life. He loved every second of every day of his life. He loved the family they had together. The kids meant everything to him and Courtney was completely happy now, and she was the perfect mother.

But when she took a shower at night and came to bed,
it was to be with him
. He didn't mind sharing her during the day with the kids, or even at night if one of them happened to be sick, but most nights, nights like this one, she was
his and his alone.

It never let up, the love he felt for her. It had always been there, since his early twenties, and it had only grown and deepened as the years went by.

He heard the water stop and a few minutes later, she began walking toward the bed, taking her hair from the elastic band she'd tied it in.

As the soft blonde curls fell around her shoulders, he groaned and bit out, "I love you."

She glanced at him, undoubtedly hearing the intensity he couldn't keep from his voice and she stared at him a moment, her heart in her eyes. "I love you, too."

He patted the spot beside him, "Come to bed."

She smiled and began to switch off the light.

"Leave it on," he rasped out.

She sucked in a breath and then sent him a small, seductive smile. "We're going to play a game?"

Leaving the light on usually meant Nick was in a certain mood and Courtney knew him well enough to recognize that fact. They only very rarely played sexual games. There was really no need. The sex was fantastic without anything extra. But for some reason, there was a certain thought that was tantalizing him tonight. He raised an eyebrow. "You want to?"

Her eyes lit up and she nodded her head. Putting first one knee on the bed and then the other, she paused and whispered, "Tell me your rules."

"My rules?" he asked, barely keeping the amusement from his voice.

Her palms went to his chest and with her hot touch against his naked skin, his amusement fled. "The situation you want," she prompted softly, running her mouth along his ear, all too eager to please him.

His hands landed on her outer thighs, gripping her where she kneeled eagerly next to him, ready to try anything he wanted. "Okay. You're eighteen, and I find you home, all alone."

"Oh, I like the sound of that one," she smiled wickedly.

A rush of blood hit his groin. "Shit, me too, baby."

She lifted her head, about to begin, but Nick ran his hands up to her shoulders and she paused, searching his eyes. He swallowed, "You're eighteen, Courtney. You're eighteen, I'm twenty-four, and I'm going to strip you naked like I was never able to before." Her eyes flared and his heart began racing as he demanded, "but you're happy, understand, baby?"

She continued to search his expression, her eyes turning serious, until a tiny smile lifted her lips. "Okay, I understand."

"Do you, sweetheart?"

"Yeah, I do." She gave him a soft, bittersweet smile as she ran her fingers through his hair. "You never want me to be sad again, not even in make-believe."

He lifted his hands to her hair, gripping her at the scalp. "That's right. I want you to be happy.
Always happy. Like you make me and the kids."

Her bittersweet smile turned so sweet that his stomach flipped. "You don't need to worry. I'm always happy, Nick. You and the kids
are
my happiness."

He felt a shot of instant relief, and unable to wait a second longer, his lips dropped to hers and he began kissing her like he planned on doing for the rest of his life.

The End

###

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Rule's Addiction

Book Three--The House of Rule

Coming Soon

****

Available Now:

Rule's Obsession

Book One--The House of Rule

       (Damian and Angie's story)

****

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.99 cents during one week only, September 9th-15th, 2014:

Sarah's Surrender
by Lynda Chance

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USA Today
, full-length, stand-alone book

Excerpt:

Sarah left the restroom and began walking down the darkened corridor toward the main area of the dancehall. She hadn't taken more than ten steps when her wrist was enclosed by a strong, ruthless grip that pulled her into a dark room. The door was slammed shut, trapping her inside a room that was in shadows, only a subtle glow from a small table lamp negating the otherwise darkened interior of the room.

Her spine landed against the closed door, and a hard, masculine hand came up and covered her mouth, cutting off the scream that tried to leave her throat. Fear, vivid and real slammed through her and made her pulse take off so fast she could barely concentrate enough to breathe through her nose. Her mind ran away from her as every nightmare she'd ever had hit her from all sides.

The need for flight kicked in and as her eyes widened in fright, she began struggling against the man who held her.

He controlled her easily, dominating her entirely, and gave her one shake before she felt his hot breath in her ear.
"Sarah."

She recognized that voice easily and went completely slack with the shock of discovery. A huge feeling of relief that she wasn't about to be brutally violated engulfed her. She swallowed behind the hand that held her mouth; at least, she didn't think she would be violated. Butterflies immediately followed the relief as she realized it was
his
steely muscles that surrounded her. His hand stayed over her mouth, but he lifted his head from the side of her hair where he'd spoken her name, and now he looked into her face.

She was starting to adjust to the darkened room; she had no trouble making out his features. His eyes glittered down into hers and she could see them smoldering with lethal fire. The sexual significance of the moment hit her deep inside, the aggressive hold that dominated her had a stark, primal connotation that incapacitated her and rendered her helpless.

"You're safe. I only want to talk to you." His voice was firm, his jaw clamped, and she swallowed deeply, managing a small nod of her head.

Her heart was banging loudly in her chest, she breathed roughly through her nose, and excitement that she couldn't deny, laced with fear and panic, skittered down her spine.

He continued to hold his hand over her mouth, taking his time to release her as he pressed his torso into hers and tightened the hand that still held her wrist captive. She felt her eyes flare and she knew he must see the apprehension in them.

"I'm going to take my hand away now
. Don't. Scream."
His words were rough, resonating deeply in the small room.

She swallowed and remained still.