Читать книгу Anything but Ordinary - Madelynne Ellis, Madelynne Ellis - Страница 8

Kara was a finger’s breadth away from the climax of her life when the bedroom door slammed back on its hinges.

‘Oh…my…fucking…God!’

The shout made Kara wince. Both her lovers too.

Really, now? He had to turn up at this moment? Could he actually have found a worse time?

A feeble croak escaped Kara’s lips as her libido shrivelled and the glorious promise of orgasm that had seemed so imminent slipped quietly beyond her grasp. She froze, prompting Ric and Zach to still too.

Ric turned his head to look over his shoulder, while Zach attempted to peer around her.

The voice was too disturbingly familiar to require her to look. It wasn’t like she was going to forget her baby brother’s voice.

‘Kara?’

She screwed her eyes closed, and sucked a deep breath in through her teeth. ‘Chris…Hi. Welcome home. I wasn’t expecting you yet. Not for another week, in fact.’

‘What the fucking hell are you doing?’

Goose bumps peppered her skin. Zach peeped up at her, his thick brows doing a questioning dance. His lips were pursed, and he looked damned confused. Sadly, that didn’t seem to have affected his state of arousal. He remained hard inside her. So too was mister virility Liddell. In fact, she’d swear he was more turned on now than he’d been earlier.

Ric was just the sort to get pumped up by being caught red-handed twice in one day.

‘Kara – you’re in bed with two fucking men.’

‘No, she’s in bed with two men she’s fucking,’ Ric growled.

She’d have laughed if she wasn’t so close to tears.

When Chris had emailed her not long back to let her know that the film he was currently working on as a focus puller was wrapping soon, she’d neglected to consider what that actually meant. Now, the repercussions were all too evident.

Never mind holidaymakers cramping their style, having a member of her family present on the island was going to be far, far worse.

She probably ought to have thought of this before now, but she’d been enjoying herself, and Chris had seemed far way. He had been far away, in New Zealand. Maybe he wouldn’t be sticking around long, and he’d be off again within a week or so to work on another film in some other exotic location.

Please, God, let this be a short, short visit.

‘Aw, man. No! Don’t walk into the shot.’

Kara turned her head to find Ric frantically waving her brother away from the bed.

‘Excuse me,’ Chris snarled, glaring at the tripod-mounted camera. ‘This happens to be my house. I’ll walk where I fucking like. Who are you, anyway?’

Kara slapped her brow in despair, wondering how much further down the slippery slope of doom this conversation was going to get. While she wasn’t in any hurry to give her brother a more graphic visualisation of what they were doing, she needed to extract herself from between the two men, and that meant both of them slipping free of her body.

She pushed up from the bed, leaned over and snatched her dressing gown off the nearby chair. Once she’d pulled it on, she climbed out of bed to face her brother. Ric followed her off the bed, but made no attempt to cover up. He flaunted it all in front of Chris: ink, washboard abs and a hard-on so stiff it was hugging his skin.

Her already flaming cheeks filled with additional heat.

‘Chris, this is Alaric Liddell. Your landlord. Ric, this is my brother Christopher, who I’ve been house-sitting for.’

Consummate professional that Chris was, he stuck out his hand, only to withdraw it immediately. Presumably, once he’d considered where Ric’s hand had just been.

‘Um,’ he grunted, looking startlingly uncomfortable. ‘And that?’ He stared pointedly at Zach, on the bed.

‘That’s Zach.’ Kara glanced back at him regretfully. It rather looked as if the night of fun they’d had planned was now off. ‘He owns the Bunker. I mean Blackwater’s. It’s the restaurant at the head of the causeway, next to where you parked up.’

She assumed he’d arrived by car.

‘Nice to meet you, Kara’s brother.’ Zach offered a cheery wave.

‘Yeah, you too.’ Chris’ facial expression didn’t match his polite agreement.

Oh, lord, this was excruciating. The only thing that could possibly make it worse would be if her mother turned up…or Ric’s stalker…or his dead wife…OK, actually, there were quite a few ways things could go downhill from here, but that didn’t make this any less awkward.

Chris grabbed hold of her upper arm and turned her towards the bedroom door. ‘Kara, a word, please.’

‘I was kind of in the middle of something.’

He glared at her. ‘Not funny.’

She hadn’t meant it to be.

Oh, Christ! This was going to be ugly.

Chris guided her onto the landing, and pulled the bedroom door closed behind them. Then, clearly having decided they were within earshot of her guests, he ushered her into the squat bathroom.

‘When did you get back to England?’ Kara asked pre-emptively, sidetracking his inevitable rant.

‘What?’ Chris floundered. ‘Oh, about four hours ago. I collected the car from the airport and drove straight here.’

Kara refastened the belt of her dressing gown so that it concealed her body a little better. ‘You didn’t stop to see Richard? Aren’t you lovebirds anymore?’

‘It’s complicated. Look, Kara. Stop it. Never mind about Richard. What the fuck is going on with you? Seriously, explain it to me. I left you to housesit because you needed a place to crawl out from under Gavin Covey’s thumb and hide from Mum, but I come home to find you gangbanging my neighbours…’

‘It’s hardly a gangbang.’

‘It’s hardly what I expect to find my sister doing. I thought you’d be camped out in front of the TV, not recording porn.’

‘So, you’ve unrealistic expectations. That’s hardly my fault.’

Chris rubbed at the more than five o’clock stubble around his jaw. ‘What the hell has got into you? Are you putting that stuff on the internet?’

‘No! Uh…’

She raised her palms, fingers spread wide. In the past, she’d have squirmed and wriggled, but if her time on Liddell Island with Ric and Zach had taught her anything, it was that she didn’t owe anyone an explanation about how she chose to live her life. What she did in privacy, or otherwise, was her concern and hers alone, even if her cheeks were currently flaming.

‘The camera’s just for fun.’ Ric’s predominantly.

Judging by the puce tint to Chris’s face and the twin furrows wrinkling up his forehead, her brother believed otherwise.

‘Seriously, Kara, what the fuck are you doing?’

She sighed, lifting her shoulders at the same time. How many times was he going to berate her with the same question?

‘I was having the time of my life until you walked in. If you’re intending to turn this into a lecture, then you can fuck off back to the airport, because I’m not listening to it.’

‘This is my house, remember. That’s my bed you’re –’ he made a goldfish face as he strove to find the appropriate word to describe the activity ‘– that you’re doing whatever it was that you were doing.’

‘Shagging my boyfriends,’ she helpfully supplied. ‘And yes, they are that and not random strays I picked up on the beach.’

Chris caught a few more flies. ‘Does Mum know?’

‘Does she know you’re gay?’ Kara countered. Chris had jumped out of the closet at age fifteen, loud, catty and über-proud, but while most of the family had shrugged and accepted his revelation as no big deal, their mother had point-blank refused to accept reality.

To this day, she insisted that Richard, Chris’s on-off lover, was nothing more than a housemate. Moreover, she explained away Chris’s lack of romantic attachments as him being career focused.

Frankly, their mother was a bigoted dinosaur, which made her hard to love. Kara had rather enjoyed not having her breathing down her neck for the last nine months.

‘Anyway, why are you acting as if me dating Ric and Zach is some major surprise? I mentioned them in my emails, or didn’t you read those?’

‘I assumed you were bored and horny,’ he said scratching at his stubble growth. ‘I had no idea that you were for real.’

‘Well, I wasn’t bored. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying myself. I’m working for Ric, and I help Zach in the restaurant, so I’m pretty certain they’re not figments of my imagination. I’d have starved by now if they were. Nor would you have me squashed in here making such an enormous scene about nothing.’

‘I’m not making a scene,’ he protested, scrunching his face into a scowl. ‘I’m establishing facts. I’m concerned.’

‘That’s sweet of you.’ She patted his arm, faking gratitude. ‘However, now you’ve established them, can I get back to what I was doing?’

Chris’s jaw damn near hit the basin. ‘You’re…you’re intending to go back in there?’

‘Well, I’m certainly not intending to spend the rest of the evening hiding in here with you. I’ll try not to squeal too loudly if that’ll help. Make yourself at home. There’s plenty of food in the cupboard. No beer, I’m afraid, but there is a demijohn of cider in the porch, should you fancy putting some hairs on your chest.’

Given that Chris normally waxed every speck of hair from his body, she doubted it, which was probably a good thing, since the only thing worse than an overprotective baby brother was a drunk, overprotective baby brother.

After he’d managed to close his mouth, Chris glared at her, nostrils flaring. He wasn’t happy. Kara sighed, already anticipating another screech of ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ only for the screech of bed springs to turn both their heads back towards the bedroom.

‘They’re getting it on without you.’ Chris growled, turning the remark into an accusation.

‘So?’ Kara lifted her shoulders. Given her brother’s preference for loving other men, she couldn’t see why Zach and Ric making out would render him bug-eyed. ‘What’s the problem? We were having a threesome. It wasn’t all about me being in the middle.’

‘It’s a problem, if you’re coming between them.’

‘Excuse me?’ She was planning on coming with them, if he ever let her out of the room. Whether that was while she was in the middle or some other place wasn’t really important.

Chris blocked the exit with his body.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, what is your damage?’ Kara blurted, getting in his face, despite being a foot shorter.

‘Were they lovers before you came along?’

What! What the hell did that have to do with anything? ‘Yeah.’

‘I can’t believe you’d do that.’

‘Do what?’

‘Sabotage an existing relationship. What are you doing, trying to make them less gay?’

‘Fuck you. You’re talking out of your arse, Christopher North. You don’t know a damn thing about either of them. That’s some assumption you’re making. For starters neither of them is gay. They both like men and women. Ric’s been married before. Just because you have a narrow view of the world doesn’t mean everyone else has.’

‘I have a narrow view…’ He spluttered inarticulately. ‘Babe, you’re either deluded or just a complete fucking idiot. Straight guys don’t muck around with one another’s dicks.’

‘I never said they were straight.’

‘Kara, trust me, there is no middle ground. It’s one or the other. You’re obviously a crutch with which they’re clinging to normalcy.’

‘Fuck you,’ she spat. She darted underneath his arm and sprinted across the landing. Chris followed, but she slammed the bedroom door in his face and slid the bolt.

He hammered against the wood. ‘You’re making an enormous mistake, Kara. I thought you might have grown some sense since you left dickbrain, but you’re being just as stupid as ever.’

‘Fuck off, Chris.’

‘It’s my house,’ he repeated, but after a moment, he stopped banging and she heard him stomp down the stairs.

Kara turned her back to the door and closed her eyes. Shit! What was his problem? He’d never been like this with her before. Chris normally took people as they came. She was sure he had friends who swung both ways. It wasn’t as if the concept was alien to him. So why was he trying to suggest she was some sort of interloping queen bitch? Christ, the only reason Ric had agreed to deepen things between himself and Zach was because she was around too.

‘Problem?’ Zach asked.

Kara rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. Her two lovers were sitting side by side on the bed, extremely naked.

‘He’s come home with a stick up his arse. He’s not normally like this.’

Chris was usually the one member of her family she could rely on not to be an utter prick. He’d been the one to support her and offer her refuge when she’d cancelled her wedding at the last moment, while everyone else was banging on about her having made the biggest mistake of her life.

‘Where’s he been?’ Ric rose from the bed, still eager for action if the wood he was sporting was anything to go by. Curiously, he headed over to the camera to turn it off, rather than towards her.

‘New Zealand.’

‘It’s a long flight. Maybe he’s jet-lagged.’

‘Maybe.’ Jet-lag might explain his behaviour, but it didn’t excuse it.

‘I’m going to head off,’ Ric announced, having removed the SD card from the camera.

‘What, now? I thought we could…’

Since none of them had come, because of the interruption, she’d rather assumed they’d find a way of picking up where they’d left off. Her gaze drifted down Ric’s naked body. Just the sight of him defused some of her anger and made her insides molten. Ric was…

Well, he probably ought to have been in front of the camera rather than behind it. A shiver of anticipation rolled along her spine, making her flex. She reached for him. He wasn’t actually going to leave, not when he was standing at the ready. No way was he even going to fasten his fly over that.

Zach shifted on the bed, making the floorboards moan. He seemed surprised by Ric’s announcement too, if the furrows between his brows were anything to go on. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Home. I’ve stuff to do.’

‘No, you haven’t.’

‘Actually, I have.’

‘We agreed we’d spend the day together.’

Ric shrugged. ‘I’m not exactly in the mood any more.’

The hell he wasn’t.

‘Sure could have fooled me,’ Zach drawled, stalking towards him. ‘The ice might have melted, but there are still plenty other toys around we can play with.’ He reached out to touch Ric’s cock, but Ric turned so that he was facing Kara. For a moment it looked as if he was angling for attention, and manipulating the pair of them into giving it. As in: offer him incentives, and he might be persuaded to stay. The fact that he pushed his hands inside her dressing gown only prodded her further towards that conclusion.

Ric’s fingers slid into the slick wet heat of her sex, causing Kara’s pleasure centres to reawaken.

Oh, yes, please…All she wanted right now was to get back into bed and prove her damn brother wrong.

She lifted her hands to wrap them around Ric’s neck and pull him close for a kiss, but he stepped backwards, leaving her with her hands raised towards his cheeks.

He sucked his wet fingers into his mouth and pulled them out clean. ‘I’ll call tomorrow.’

Kara swallowed, suddenly terrified that he might not. She’d never known him to be a liar, but something about his tone set her on edge. In all probability the fear was unfounded, and she was simply giving credence to Chris’s nonsensical assertions. Things were fine between them all. She didn’t need to go hunting for shadows where none existed.

Ric pulled on his jeans.

‘Go talk to your brother. You’ve obviously plenty of catching up to do.’

Talking to Chris was the last thing she wanted to do. All they were going to do was have a blazing row.

‘Are you coming?’ Ric asked, casting a backwards glance at Zach as he jerked open the bedroom door. ‘’Cause I’m leaving now.’