“Mine,” Jared groaned as he moved his mouth from hers. “You’re mine, Mara.”
Mara dug her short nails into his back as she milked him of his orgasm, taking everything she could get, feeling as possessive of him as he was of her right now.
My Jared. My sweet, tormented, stubborn man.
Cradling her head against his shoulder, Jared rocked their bodies together, his fingers still gripping her ass. “I knew you were trouble from the minute I saw you,” he muttered huskily with a touch of amusement in his low rumble. “And I was right.”
His voice was teasing, and she smiled against his damp, sweaty chest. “You’re trouble, too. But only in the very best of ways,” she answered breathlessly, mimicking their earlier conversation and savoring the afterglow of her mind-blowing intimacy with Jared for a very long time.
CHAPTER 14
“I’m wrecked,” Jared confessed to all of his brothers the next day at Grady’s house. Leaning back in his chair, he ran a frustrated hand through his hair and took another slug of his beer.
All four of them were having a bachelor party that Jared was fairly certain Dante didn’t even want, sitting at Grady’s kitchen table and killing off a whole lot of beer. Dante and Grady roared with laughter, while Evan simply stared with his usual icy control.
“Bastards,” Jared mumbled irritably as Grady and Dante continued to chuckle.
“Welcome to the agony and ecstasy of love, little brother,” Dante told him jokingly.
“I don’t love her,” Jared answered hastily. Maybe a little too hastily.
Hell, maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned his involvement with Mara, told his brothers how it was getting to him, but he needed a male to talk to. He figured maybe more than one was needed for this particular situation.
Grady and Dante starting chortling again, and Jared shot them both a dirty look.
“Perhaps he doesn’t love her,” Evan observed, taking a sip of his bottled water, which he’d insisted be served in a real glass. “Not everyone is cut out for obsessive love.”
Dante glared at Evan. “You might be capable of it if you’d take the poker out of your ass. When did you get so damned uptight anyway?”
Evan glanced back at Dante stoically. “The poker was put there by one of the best at torturing other people. And not everyone is cut out for love.”
“Who put it there?” Grady asked curiously.
Evan’s eyes fixed on his water, he replied, “Our father.”
Jared swallowed hard, remembering how Evan had always been the caretaker of every one of them when they were younger. His eldest brother had never let go of that particular habit. Maybe Jared had hated his oldest sibling when he’d dragged him back into reality, but Evan had been there for him, asshole or not. Sometimes actions were more telling than words. Evan might be frigid, but he wasn’t completely frozen all the way through.
Being the eldest, Evan had always been expected to take over their father’s business. Their old man had died while Evan was still in college getting his business degree, but his older brother had been forced into their father’s company almost every moment he hadn’t been in school. From the time he was a young child, the heir apparent was being trained up by the biggest bastard in the country as soon as he could walk and talk—their abusive, alcoholic father. Remorse hit Jared hard and fast, suddenly realizing that Evan was a product of the way their father had treated him. His oldest brother had saved most of his other siblings from spending much time with their disparaging and particularly vile parent. But nobody had ever been there to give Evan a break. He’d been his father’s target, a victim just because of his birth order. Evan just hadn’t ever complained. Sometimes, Grady had been his father’s main target because he’d been socially awkward as a child and adolescent, and he’d stuttered quite badly. Even then, Evan had done everything he could to deflect their father’s wrath away from Grady.
“I’m sorry, Ev,” Grady finally spoke, his voice full of regret. “I know the old man was a bastard, and you spent a hell of a lot more time with him than we did.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Dante interjected quickly.
“And me,” Jared added hoarsely, his throat tightening as he tried to imagine what his father had put Evan through as his eldest child and heir.
“I obviously survived,” Evan replied unemotionally. “The business has thrived, and I’ve doubled my own wealth over the last twelve years. I have nothing to complain about.”
Jared wanted to call bullshit on Evan. If his suspicions were correct, Evan had plenty of things he could bitch about that could have made him as bitter as he pretended to be.
“Was it bad?” Grady asked hesitantly. “The time you spent with him alone. Was it really bad?”