The C Word (Just a Word Book 1) (8 page)

“Ah the young
and the foolish. That’ll change when you settle down.” Ben grins knowingly.

“Which will
be not in this life time,” I scoff. “Anyway, what do you have to complain
about? You have no significant responsibilities, you’re not the first born, the
pressure is off. You’re basically the Prince Harry of the pack.”

Alex roars
with laughter, while Ben tightens his grip on me. “Hey, I’ll have you know I’m
far better looking. But I will agree, I do have something of a regal charm.”

Alex’s holds
his sides as a fresh wave of hysteria grips him.

“Charmed life
more like,” I tease. Benedictus means blessed and everything about his life,
with the exception of the ridiculous name itself, lives up to that.

He lays a dig
in my ribs. “Name me one thing about my life that is more charmed than yours,”
he demands.

“Alright, mum’s
home cooking, no job and hello? You get to fuck the hottest girl I’ve ever
seen.” His mate is banging hot. I mean it. Let’s just say it’s a good thing he
got his teeth in her early, because she is exceptional and she is brilliant fun
too. Not that I want a mate, but by anyone’s standards, but he’s a lucky
bastard and on top of that, he never has to grow up.

“Fuck off, I
work.” His forearm tightens around my neck. “And keep your eyes off my mate,’
he growls.

“Yeah give
him a break,” laughs Alex. “He takes the rubbish out. In fact he’s recently
been promoted to washing up.”

Ben lunges at
Alex with his free hand.

“City Boy?”
We are interrupted by a voice from behind us. I turn, ducking out of Ben’s
grip.

T smiles as
he nudges me with his hip and joins our group. “Don’t you scruff up nice?” His
tongue brushes his lip in a flash as he gives me the once over from my face to
my feet, lingering a fraction longer than necessary just below my belt. It’s
subtle, but I register it and it sends a shiver down my spine. Sweeping that
sweaty cloak of hair off his face, he leaves it perfect, allowing me to see
both of his intense green eyes. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hey.” A slow
smile appears on my lips, “Just out for a drink.”

“A little off
your patch aren’t you? You stalking me? Because if you are, I like it.”

“As if,” I
say far too defensively.

He narrows
his eyes at me with a smirk. “Uh huh.”

“Actually, I
think you stalked me. This is where I’m from.”

“Well shit,
you got me. I’ve been following you all day as a matter of fact.” He winks
knowing that he was right when he told me he would see me around. Not because
he is a stalker, but because it seems to be completely out of our control and
somehow, he knew that.

Alex clears
his throat and my eyes dart to him, then flick over my other gawping brothers.
Shit. Now I have to introduce them. I’m stuck in that awkward ten seconds where
I’m weighing up whether it is worse to be rude and usher T away, or deal with
the consequences of unleashing my brothers on someone I actually like.

So when T’s
hand slowly slips under my T-shirt behind me, I jump at the contact.

“Just tell me if I have to be sickeningly jealous.”
He whispers into my head. I glance at him and he is toying with one of the
rings in his lip. I feel it in my cock, God I want those things wrapped around
me.

I can hear
his chuckle, but no one else can.

“I know where you want my rings, but answer my question, do I have
anything to be jealous of here?”

I take a deep
breath. I don’t want to share my head space and it seems I’m only broadcasting
my desires at the moment, so I’m not going to add idle conversation to the
list.

“T, these are
my brothers, Alex, Ben and Theo. Guys, this is T.”

T gives me a
wide eyed look.
“Brothers?”
he
queries in my head, because he knows for a fact that just isn’t possible. But
outwardly, he doesn’t react; he just smiles and leans forward to shake Alex’s
outstretched hand.

I lose track
of the greetings as his thumb strokes over the skin in the small of my back and
I break into a sweat.

“Your ‘family’ is interesting.”
 
It’s clear from his tone that he will be keeping a
pin in this subject until I explain it to him.

I ignore it
and instead focus on the sensation of him secretly stroking my skin. His
calloused fingers, I’m guessing from the strings, feel good. I start to wonder
how they would feel in other places.

“You’re mind sure does wander to some entertaining places City Boy,”
he teases.
“But don’t ignore me.”

I try and
listen to the conversation around me because I know neither of us are
concentrating on it and if we aren’t careful, there will be a long silence,
where one of us is expected to respond and instead we will just be staring
vacantly.

“I see, still not ready to open up, huh? Fine, I’ll just amuse myself.”

I shoot him a
look, but he is staring intently at Theo, who is talking about some girl from
uni who keeps calling him. Confused, I listen too.

“I wonder what your brothers would think if you suddenly and
mysteriously got hard?”
he continues.

Oh. Hell. No!

Considering I’ve
been fighting it since his bass first reverberated through the pub floor and
his relentless touch on my skin, is compounding the issue, I can’t let him make
it harder for me. Literally.

“Don’t you fucking dare!”
I hiss, even though no one but
him can hear me.

The corner of
his mouth turns up in a satisfied grin.
“There
we go. Wasn’t so hard was it?”
Then I catch him glance down.
“Or was it?”

“Come on! Not with my brothers here. Please.”

“Do they know?”
His tone turning serious.

“Know what?”
I ask innocently, tipping back the last of my
beer.

His face
turns pale. He suddenly realises that there is an outside chance that I don’t
even know.

I almost
choke as the laughter erupts. Beer trickles down my chin and I try to catch it
before it seeps into my clothes.

“You ok bro?”
Ben bangs my back hard, using any excuse to whack me.

I wipe my
chin with the back of my hand and look at my empty bottle. “Yeah, I’m going to
the bar, T will you give me a hand?”

“Uh, sure,”
he says pulling his hand away and following me silently.

I hold up my
hand to the tattooed beauty behind the bar signalling five and show her my
empty, from several feet away. She winks and serves the next customer in line,
while she pops the caps on five beers. It’s handy knowing the owner.

“Hey
stranger!” she grins putting he bottles on the bar and shaking off her hands. “Where’ve
you been?”

I smile and
shrug, “well, you know, I heard you married the American. There’s no point me
hanging around here, pining after the one that got away.”

She laughs
and shakes her head. “Oh stop.”

I hand her my
money and glance around as she takes it, “is he here?” I wiggle my eyebrows.

She rolls her
eyes, “no he’s home with the baby tonight.”

“Who I’m
assuming you named Max?”

She laughs. “We
thought about it but it really didn’t suit her.”

“Maybe the
next one then.”

“Maybe,” she
chuckles, glancing towards the next customer.

I straighten
up. “Well, congratulations Liv, I’m glad you’re happy.”

“The happiest
I’ve ever been.”

“You deserve
it. Say hi to that man of yours for me.” I wink.

“I will,” her
smile as always is bright, but now you can see real happiness behind it. “Good
to see you Maxi,” she says, going back to the customers who had been waiting
their turn.

T is amused
when I turn back to him.

“Old friend,”
I offer in vague explanation.

“I gathered,”
he replies. “Now, are you going to explain your family to me? Or am I going to
have to carry on putting my foot in it?”

I chuckle,
enjoying seeing his confidence knocked down a peg or two. “They know.” I tell
him.

“Know what
exactly?” He needs to check that we are on the same page.

I take two of
beers that were placed on the bar for us and glance around. This is my home
town, I know lots of people here, human and other and I don’t want anyone to
hear.

With a
resigned sigh, I hand the beers to T, lingering longer than I need to as our
fingers touch, so that I can use the…bond. That’s hard to admit. The one thing
I thought I’d never have with someone and thought I could have ultimate control
over has happened to me by accident and I’m already finding uses for it.

“That I’m not blood.”
I tell him in the privacy of my
mind. This is the very thing I have feared all my life, someone being in my
head. But it’s not so bad and at least when we’re not touching, it turns off.

T looks back
to where my brothers are so obviously talking about us. Probably trying to
figure out how I even know a person like T, much less seem to be attracted to
him. Because even my clueless brothers must be able to see the attraction
there.
 

“What about
them?” he asks quietly.

I shake my
head. “No, they are all the fruit of my father’s loins.”

T busts out
laughing. “I can’t believe you just said that out loud.”

“What? They
are!” I laugh too.

“So where did
you spring from?” he asks, more seriously.

I scoff, yeah
like I’m ready to share my life story with a complete stranger.

“Come on, you
can tell me,” he insists.

I shake my
head. “Not here,” I tell him firmly, making to move back to my brothers.

He follows
me. “When then?”

I ignore the
question as I hand beers to my brothers, then as I take mine from T, I touch
his hand and reply,
“later.”

He rolls his
eyes.
“Ditch your brothers.”

“How?”

“Hey Max,” he
says brightly. “I have to go pack up; you should come meet the rest of the
band.”

“Uh. Sure.” I
look at him
questioningly,
he inclines his head
towards the side door that his bandmates are now using to load their
instruments into a van.

“We’ll come
and find you after we’ve finished these.” Alex tilts his beer bottle towards
me. “Then we should head home.”

Theo shields
his mouth with his hand and in an overly loud whisper, tells T, “These two are
pussy whipped,” pointing to them with his thumb.

T laughs as
discreetly as possible and Alex smacks Theo on the back of the head.

“It’s okay, I
can take you home if your brothers want to leave.”

“Yeah ok,” I
say on a whim, turning back to Alex. “You guys go on, I’ll get a lift back with
T.”

He narrows
his eyes at me. “You be home by midnight kid,” he smirks.

“Bite me,” I
growl.

He snaps his
teeth at me with a smile and I catch the flash of his extending canines for a
split second. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Whatever.” I
laugh and follow T.

Sitting on
the edge of the stage with my beer, I watch him wind his cables and pack them
away. His bass sits on a stand and I reach for it. Surprised at it’s weight as
I pull it into my lap and hold it like a guitarist would. T laughs and hops
down off the stage to stand in front of me. Without a word, he lifts it and
turns it over, placing it back in my other hand, the right way, shaking his
head.

I place my
beer on the stage beside me and try to hold it like I’ve seen. It feels very
foreign and I realise I have never held an instrument before. I laugh. “Can you
tell I’ve never done this before? I think even drumsticks would probably be a
problem to me and really how hard can that be?”

“Don’t let
Jacko hear you say that,” he chuckles, glancing at the rear of the stage.

“How do you
know where to put your fingers?” I ask, looking at the strings. I run my thumb
over all four strings and a tinny metallic sound comes out, nothing like the
rich hypnotic sound T makes. I grimace.

“It kinda
needs to be plugged in,” he smiles sweetly. I hand it back to him and he places
it in it’s case.
 

With all his
things packed up, I follow him to the van where I’m introduced to the rest of
the band and hand over the box of cables I’m carrying. They slide the door
closed and the other three members of the band pile in to the front of the van
and take off.

“So where’s
your car?” I ask T.

“I got the
train,” he replies innocently.