Incidental Contact (Those Devilish De Marco Men) (25 page)

Eric’s big brother bent to grab a box. “We’d just met that day, Cynda. I didn’t see the point in airing the family’s dirty laundry. If people don’t know, why bring it up? We’re not exactly proud our baby sister got pregnant so young.”

There was something about the look Dan and Colton exchanged that made Amy wary. She turned. Some sixth sense said she needed to stop Eric from coming up the stairs.

He stood frozen near the top step. His knuckles gripping the railing were white. She hated that hopeless, lost look in his eyes.
But they’re talking about his sister, not his mother.
He lowered his head. Watching the defensive way Eric’s shoulders hunched, Amy wanted to yell at Lila and Dan to shut up. She felt her stomach knot, but she had no idea how to help him, because she couldn’t figure out what was wrong. But her sense of dread only grew bigger. Kicking Lila to shut her up seemed a good idea, if she could only reach her. Too bad she couldn’t throw something.

She looked away from Eric’s stricken face. “So, how long is it supposed to snow?” She had to get Lila off-topic. That wasn’t too hard.

Something told Amy to grab Eric and drag him to the truck. She hopped over box after box, moving in his direction. Breaking free of the clutter, she nearly ran to the stairs, but Eric didn’t step aside or make any move to turn around. The look on his face made her want to hug him. The set of his shoulders said she’d better not.

“Please, let’s go home,” Amy whispered. “None of this can possibly matter now.”

* * * *

H
e might as well beat Colton to the punch. Eric kept his eyes downcast, staring at the dark grease that never seemed to come out of the cuts and ridges on his hands.
Fuck it.
Amy might as well know. Maybe knowing would wipe that starry look out of her eyes and he could forget about trying to be someone he wasn’t. He lifted his eyes to Amy’s, sure all the warmth would leave them now, for good.

“My fault Sarah got pregnant. Dad told me to look after her. I was a senior the year she was a freshman. Colton was a sophomore. Dan had graduated, of course. Dad told me every fucking day it was my job to look out for Colton and Sarah. I was supposed to drive ‘em to school and then bring Sarah home after school let out. Colton was at auto shop class at the old high school last period. He caught a ride to the garage from there.”

“Then, I started going with Deanna Danielson. This was before she started going out with Jeb Wilkerson. We’d go to her house after school because her mom worked and we’d knock boots real quick before I had to turn up at the garage. Sarah covered for me. She said she’d find a ride and go straight home. But I guess she decided if I could fuck around, she could too.”

“Huh,” Lila muttered. “Sarah got pregnant and you think she did it on your watch? Last I heard, you kids had one parent.”

Eric broke Amy’s gaze.  Colton started heaving boxes back into the room. Dan caught them. He made himself look at Lila. “Lila, it
was
my fault. I was supposed to protect her. I failed. See, she confided in me when she realized she was pregnant. And I—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. 

Dan had no misgivings about telling the end of the sorry tale, apparently. “Dad went off like a rocket when he found out those two had been sneakin’ around, trying to get Sarah an abortion. When they realized she needed the signature of a parent, they asked Grandmother Liv to sign for her. Livia told Dad.”

“Dad demanded to know who the father was.” Colton bent to lift another box, refusing to look at Eric. “She told him she had no idea, too many choices to name one.”

Eric could tell from his youngest brother’s uneven tone that, even after all these years, Colton still blamed him for the loss of Sarah. Because they’d lost her the minute she’d gotten on that plane to fly west. Those two had been inseparable all their lives. Colton hadn’t spoken to him for months after she left.

Dan slapped a hand onto the wide doorframe, dragging his arm across his forehead. “Dad said some harsh things to Sarah and to Eric. He thought she was too young to know what she wanted to do. That it was his decision to make. And he laid a beating on Eric I’ve never forgiven myself for not stoppin’.”

“I earned it.” Eric shrugged, dropping his gaze to his battered work boots.

“So Liv asked if Sarah could stay with her for a few days. Just until Rafe calmed down. He was talking about killin’ people. I honestly think if he’d found out who got her pregnant, he’d have shot the guy.” Dan’s voice seemed to ring in the wide hallway. “Grandmother thought so, too. She put Sarah on a plane. Sent her to stay with her sister, Ellie. Sarah never came back and Dad never forgave Grandmother. That’s why it was such a shock when she turned up with the deed to the orchards. Lila, that’s why she rented a truck, so she didn’t have to make a second trip. Her and Dad were the same kind of stubborn, I reckon. They never made up. Dad drove to Los Angeles when we heard Jonah was born. Sarah took the baby and ran away. Stayed with friends until he left. Once he got back from California, the minute he pulled those garage doors down every night, he started workin’ on gettin’ drunk and mean.”

Eric felt those rocks grinding together in his gut again. He’d bailed. That was when he’d moved into the cabin at camp. Dan had listened to the old bastard rant and cleaned up his puke. He’d never begrudged Dan inheriting control of the land for that reason. He’d wimped out, leaving his baby brother and Dan to deal with their father. And that mess was why Rafe hadn’t lifted a finger to send Eric to college. If he’d been more concerned about getting laid than looking out for Sarah, who could blame his dad for thinking he’d put fucking ahead of his college courses?

Eric aged about a year, he felt, waiting for Amy to pass judgment.

Deep in his heart, he’d always feared Lila would use what’d happened to Sarah as her excuse to break Colton’s heart. Teenage pregnancies didn’t happen in nice families—respectable families, like the Walkers and the Sizemores. He couldn’t look at either woman, for fear he’d see that same look from Lila or Amy that he’d seen on the face of the Hammond guy the other day.

“Let’s go home,” Amy whispered. “We aren’t going to find these damn records. Let’s go home, Eric.” She grabbed his hand.

Couldn’t she see? He was home. This was the place he’d never be able to leave—or outrun.

“It’s just laundry, Daniel. You wash it out and you wear it. My mother was a teenage mom, too. This discussion is over,” Cynda announced with a regal tone Eric had never heard her use. “I’m going to put dinner on the table.”

L
unch was a miserable experience. The family hadn’t brought up Sarah again after Cynda’s decree, but the discussion about John Carpenter hadn’t been much of an improvement.

Amy had some opinions about what’d happened, but upsetting Eric further wasn’t on her list of things to do. What seemed to be on his agenda was another matter.

He grabbed her hand the minute they stepped through the front door of the cabin. Her heart leaped when he headed through the kitchen and down the short hall to his bedroom.

“I’m going to start a fire. You get naked.”

Fitting his large hands around her waist, he tossed her gently onto the bed, making her squeal. Amy could guess he was using sex as an excuse not to talk, but she was okay with that. Men talked when they got good and ready, not before. She based that premise on her father’s behavior. Alice could save herself a lot of complaining with some patience, she privately thought.

She gazed around the masculine space when he stepped out of the room. A rock fireplace dominated the wall opposite the bed. Knotty pine furniture with wrought iron handles looked like something her grandmother once owned. But the bed was unique.

The wide head and footboards were lines of square brass tubing, arranged like lattice. At each junction, there was a rosette.

No notches
.

She’d guessed everything wrong about this man. The brass didn’t have the over-bright, fake appearance of plating. She ran a finger over one of the medallions behind her head.

“Old elevator safety gates,” he explained when he returned with an armload of wood.

“Ingenious,” she murmured admiringly. How had anyone ever called him stupid? “You have the most amazing creative streak, Eric. I’d never in a million years have thought to use these like this.”

He shook his head slightly, stooping to stack the wood on the grate. “When I went to the scrap yard to find some stuff for the wind turbine, I saw ‘em. Piece of local history. They came out of one of the old banks downtown. Seemed a shame to let ‘em go into the furnace.”

“Wind turbine?”

He lifted his shoulders, reaching for a container of long matches. “I was fooling with the idea of going off the grid.” He cocked a brow. “Get naked.”

The need in his tone made her tummy tighten.

Amy removed her shirt and jeans before tucking her hands behind her head, enjoying her view of his back and thighs. Muscles rippled beneath his dark skin. Watching the motion sent a strong current along the inside of her thighs.

When the fire was crackling, he yanked open a drawer and began to toss rolled-up athletic socks over his shoulder. They bounced across the quilt and came to rest on the tangled sheets. When he turned, he held one pair of socks. Unrolling them, he held her gaze while he knotted the two together.

“Oh.” Her heartbeat kicked up like a hurricane but she smiled, thinking of his promise to identify every single thing that turned her on. She’d never been tied up to have sex before, but she was game.

“Oh, yes.” He unrolled another pair, tying them together. “Your inquisitive little mind’s getting busy now, wondering what I might do when you’re restrained. You might even be getting a little bit wet.”

A small throb bloomed inside her clit and her nipples hardened.

He noticed. “You have the cutest little nipples, did you know that? And I do like that underwear. Now take it off.”

The catch in his voice told her he was still devastated. She didn’t know what to expect, but she’d do whatever it took to get that look out of his eyes. She sat up to unhook her bra.

Her tummy muscles drew taut when he tugged on the socks to test his knot. She slipped her underwear down her legs. Her mound felt sensitized just from his heated look.

When he had four lengths made, he fastened the end of one to the footboard. Moving around the bed, he tied the doubled length of socks to each corner of the brass bed, leaving them dangling. Her excitement mounted with each knot.

He lay down next to her, tracing the curve of her cheek before leaning in to kiss her.

The scruff on his face rasped her cheeks and lips when he dragged his chin across her skin. There was something primitive about the act, and her body responded to the harsh touch. Her folds began to swell. The thrum in her clit became more insistent. He grazed her nipple with his thumb.

Amy arched into the light touch, wrapping her arms around his neck and trying to ignore the small ache that said he’d never be hers for more than a few moments at a time. Why waste them?

His kisses were gentle teases, interspersed with hard nips of her lower lip, only making her crave more. He maintained control, pulling away with a look of warning when she tried to move closer, silently teaching her the rules of this game. Soft touches, brushes of his fingers over her mound, his warm breath caressing her naked ear were her clues.

He buried his face against the side of her neck, his kisses wet and warm on her skin. His open palm moved in a circle, barely grazing one hard point. The circling made her squirm, needing more. He didn’t give it.

When he moved off the bed she was aching and wet. He bound each wrist. The act positioned her arms above her head. In turn, that made her breasts rise, gaining his attention. He bent to tease one with his tongue. The restraints were soft, but held her fast, making her crave the ability to touch him again.

His bed was so large, she was spread wide when he tied her foot. Moving to the other side of the long footboard, he reached to trace the arc of her mound with his finger. She wanted more than one soft stroke, but he turned to the business of tying her last limb.

Then, he simply stared. Her pussy seemed to clench of its own accord. She seemed to feel his gaze moving along her inner thighs and her folds.

Shades of gold, brown, and rust predominated in the room. So she felt she might be forgiven for overlooking the feather duster—until he plucked the brownish-feathered item from the mantelpiece.

His expression was enough to make her stomach hollow. Rifling the feathers across his palm, he approached the bed. Picking up a roll of socks she hadn’t noticed, he pulled one loose. “Close your eyes. All I want you thinking about is what you feel.”

She couldn’t stop thinking about what she felt. That was the problem.

He laid the soft cotton knit across her eyes, knotting the socks at her temple.

Her hearing seemed to become more acute, but she didn’t think he was moving.

Then she felt his warm breath skitter across her breast. He dragged something—his lips?—along the hardened peak. His tongue came next, briskly flicking the nub. Her other nipple ached for his touch. When he sucked the point into his mouth, the sensation was so sharp, she cried out.

Just as her world narrowed to his mouth, he released her nipple. Another sensation intruded. She had no trouble identifying the feather duster, dancing across her breasts. Shrieking with laughter, she squirmed, trying to break free.

* * * *

H
earing Amy’s giggles stimulated an organ that wasn’t his cock. The sound lightened something dark inside him that had arrived so long ago, he barely noticed it now. She laughed like a child. She used her entire body to do it, just as she seemed to put her entire little being into everything she cared about.

Her sense of sexual adventurism blew him away. No coaxing required, she was willing whenever he was. Was that because she thought she owed him, or some other reason?

He’d had to cover her eyes. He had no idea what emotions might play across his face while she gave him control of her body. He moved the duster lightly down her legs to her feet. Dragging feathers between her tiny toes, he enjoyed the breathless music of her laughter and the sexy sight of her writhing.