Bringing It Home (The King Brothers Book 2) Read online

  She remains fixed there throughout the morning with her eyes crossed and mouth in a tight, zipped taciturn line.

  I know what’s really going on. She’s jealous, and yeah, fuck, maybe I am to blame, but looking at her today I’m seeing her in a whole new light.

  I missed it before but now I see subtle beauty, and it’s more than skin deep. Her quiet nature hides an intelligent mind. No, a brilliant mind. I doubt Kelly could recall her times tables, but Maya sees it all clear as day, as natural with numbers as she is simply sitting there and being…

  Can I say it? I ask myself.

  Yes.

  Gorgeous.

  Maya is gorgeous.

  I let the word roll around in my head, test it against my baser instincts and see what comes up. I’m surprised when my dick starts to swell under the desk, the thought of being with her increasingly hypnotic.

  It’s what she’s after that has me confused. Generally, girls want one thing from me, and it ain’t my brilliant mind. Maya’s probably just like the others. Who am I to deny her?

  I decide to give her a second chance, but it seems Elsa the Ice Queen really doesn’t want to come out of her ice fortress today.

  I knock my pen off the table, stooping down so I’m basically between her legs fishing for it on the floor. They press together as I lift slowly, breathing in when I’m near her neck—near enough for my intentions to be pretty fucking obvious.

  “You smell amazing today,” I tell her. “You wearing something new?”

  She scoffs. “No.” She taps the paper. “Come on, we’ve got a lot to get through.”

  Oof. Strike one.

  Looks like I’m going to have be a lot more brazen. I wait for my moment, stopping to lock eyes with her, reaching forward and hooking a lose strand of hair behind her ear, adding that panty-dropping King smile for good effect.

  But the sound of panties hitting the floor is nowhere to be heard.

  She shrugs back instead, looking back down at the desk. “You missed X.”

  I check my work. “Damn, you’re right.”

  I sigh and return to the work, but I’m silently dreaming up ways to flirt her into submission. It’s never this hard. Kelly was basically ready to jump my dick the moment we were out of the bar.

  But that’s Kelly, my head informs me. Maya is a whole different animal.

  Yes, but any animal can be tamed, can they not?

  Increasingly, it’s like she doesn’t notice my advances at all. Short of sticking a sign to my head that reads ‘I want to fuck you,’ I’m running out of ideas.

  But it’s more than that. I’m not just running out of ideas. I’m running out of daylight. I decide to go all-in with a classic King combo of physical contact and classic game theory. I hesitate until I’m reminded of Neil Strauss’s immortal words: ‘As soon as you ask yourself whether you should or you shouldn’t, that means you should.’

  So I do.

  I reach over and place my hand on her thigh just below the hem of her skirt, skin against skin. I act like it’s no big deal, forcing my gaze on her again, looking beyond those olive eyes which are, admittedly, fucking stunning now I’m giving them time of day. “What do you say we wrap up early, try out something else?”

  She looks slightly sour, but she hasn’t gone to remove my hand—yet. She lifts an eyebrow. “Oh, and what did you have in mind? Shots? Super Mario? Tic-Tac-Toe?”

  “Hmm,” I hitch, smiling and adding a bit more pressure to her thigh, slowly sliding my hand upward, her skirt bunching against my fingers. “I was thinking I want to have sex.”

  Suffice to say, this does not have the desired effect.

  She leaps up, swiping my hand away and standing there flustered. She goes to say something, finger rising in accusation, face drawn tight, but instead she turns and storms out. The door slams shut so hard one of my framed Mickey Mantle cards falls to the floor.

  “…With you! I shout at the door, shaking my head at myself.

  “I want to have sex with you.”

  But the door remains closed. I hear her footsteps hammering down the stairs, the front door swinging open and slamming closed.

  Mickey’s staring at me like, ‘You done fucked up, boy.’

  “Fuck!” I yell, kicking the desk. Papers and books falling to the floor.

  The door opens.

  Hope rises, but it’s fucking Phoenix. He puts on a baby face, trying to copy me, “But baby, I want to have sex… with you!” he whines, cracking up at himself. He shakes his head at me. “Nice one, hot shot.”

  I reach for a baseball from the shelf above my desk and toss it at him, but all it hits is the back of the door.

  I put my head in my hands. “Yeah, nice one, hot shot,” I tell myself.

  *

  I flip my cell over in my hand for a good fifteen minutes wondering whether I should call her and explain, but what the hell do I say?

  In lieu of anything actionable, I decide to hit the weights instead—always the best course of action for dealing with frustration.

  The home gym is down in the basement, a purpose-built space that would give Gold’s a run for its money. I’m not surprised to find Phoenix is already here pumping iron.

  He’s curling a dumbbell, alternating hands and watching himself in the mirror. Looks like he’s been at it a while given the sweat he’s built up.

  “You going to tell me what was going on up there? Couldn’t get it up with Tutor Girl? I think Dad’s got some pills for that kind of thing, maybe a pump?”

  I whip him in the chest with my towel. “Just me or you starting to get a bit chubby there, bro?”

  He lowers the weights, straining. “Fuck. You.”

  I take a seat on the lifting bench, towel swinging between my legs. “You’re sweating like a one-legged hooker working both sides of the street. It was probably your BO that drove her away.”

  Phoenix places his hands on his hips. “Your humor hasn’t gotten any better, hate to tell you.”

  “Says the world-class comedian.”

  “You know what is funny?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The way you were acting before your little lobotomy.”

  I wasn’t expecting this, but I’m keen to know where it’s coming from. “You want to elaborate on that? What the hell do you mean ‘before’?”

  He squats down in front of me, chewing on his cheek. “I’m just sayin’, you were acting weird, bro.”

  “Define weird.”

  “I don’t know, acting evasive, not really keeping up with your usual activities. You’d get defensive if I even tried to talk to you about it. In fact,” he huffs, “I was starting to get worried.”

  “Worried?” I laugh. “About me?”

  “Yeah, and I’m being serious here, man. I was genuinely getting worried something serious was going on.”

  “Like what?”

  “Some kind of trouble. I don’t know. Maybe you were running with a gang.”

  I can’t help the explosion of laugher that comes from my mouth. “Come on. A fucking gang? Do I look like a gangbanger to you? Crips or Bloods, or some Aryan bullshit?”

  “Seriously,” Phoenix repeats, “something was going on with you and I couldn’t work out what.”

  “Maybe I was just chasing tail.”

  Phoenix looks to the floor, murmuring. “Nah, I mean, fuck… I don’t know. Maybe it was girls, a girl, a guy…” He can’t hold his smile back.

  I push him over. “Now who’s the funny guy?”

  He stands up. “You’re a big fucking question mark at the best of times, brother, but I am telling you. You were all kinds of weird.” He picks up a kettlebell. “Anyhow, I’m going back to lifting and building this beautiful body, and you can sit there stewing on it wishing you were as cool and ripped as I am.”

  “Dream on.”

  But I am stewing on it, because it’s odd Phoenix brought it up. His subject matter stops at pussy and sports. Anything else that comes out
of his mouth must be taken with a certain amount of serious consideration.

  Phoenix stops what he’s doing. “You come down here to lift or sit there like a statue?”

  But lifting isn’t the physical activity I desire right now.

  I stand and punch him in the arm. “Raincheck.”

  Phoenix goes back to lifting. “Don’t come crying to me when Coach rips you a new one because you look like a human Twinkie.”

  I lift my shirt and tap my knuckles against my abs. “Bro, you could crack eggs on this shit, and you know it.”

  “Get the fuck out of here,” he laughs, swinging the kettlebell between his legs. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Adios,” I tell him, heading back up to my room.

  I lock the door and jump onto my bed staring up at the ceiling.

  The last thing I expected today was a deep dive into my emotional wellbeing with Phoenix, but he wasn’t wrong. I do feel something, something I know was there before. I try to round it out in my head, fill in the minutiae, but it’s impossible. I can’t remember.

  It’s all such a shitshow.

  I look at the door, loosely hoping it will magically open and Maya will be standing there with her pinkie hooked into her mouth and a hand between her legs, but all I’m getting is fucking Mickey Mantle laughing his ass off at me from his new position on the floor.

  I return to staring at the ceiling, reaching into my shorts and finding I’ve got a raging erection. I close my eyes and take hold of it, lightly stroking the sensitive area under my glans. I think of her as I do so, conjuring up an image of her naked and surprised when I find myself instead seeing her face, her eyes and the gentle demeanor she brings to the room. I can’t believe I wrote her off so easily. I should have looked harder, seen beyond the plain clothes and superficial, because I know underneath is a sexual powerhouse just waiting to be kickstarted.

  I lightly begin to stroke myself as I mentally draw in the details, my dick growing harder and hotter in my hand, the no man’s land between my ass and cock tightening in response.

  In my head she’s saying my name, whispering it lightly as she lies beside me and tells me that this is right, that this is exactly what she’s been after all this time, and it’s reassuring that finally, finally something is making sense.

  I can smell her, the peachy scent of her body. I slide down the bed and take hold of her ankles, pulling her to my face and separating her legs. What I find there is perfection. I don’t even have to think about it, to sketch it in my head, because it’s already there in exquisite three-dimensionality—the color, the soft swell of her outer lips, the bright pink center of her sex.

  I push my shorts down to my knees and start to stroke harder, one hand going to my balls, cupping them while I picture her.

  In my mind I come forward, but the taste of her is already on my lips. I press my tongue inside her and her back bows in response. Her nipples have turned to tight peaks, hands splayed against the bed.

  She moans and calls my name.

  Yes.

  It’s right. It’s all so fucking right.

  I slide my hands under her buttocks and lift her against my face, smothering myself with her wetness and heat, unable to get enough of her.

  She jerks and begs for more.

  I pump harder, fisting my cock and speeding up the strokes.

  Maya. Maya.

  I concentrate on her clit and she responds by reaching for my head, snaking her fingers through my hair and gripping me tight against her. She’s close. Her whole body is coiled tight, ready to explode.

  My hips lift off the bed. I pump myself hard, my own orgasm rising in the distance to match. She pulses, telling me to continue, that she wants me to come.

  My balls are growing heavy in my hand, my cock painfully hard as I stroke it, fingers tightening when I move over the head. My buttocks squeeze and I lift from the bed using my shoulders for leverage.

  She’s there in my mind’s eye looking down her body at me, her face flushed and needy, her mouth parted open and eyes lax.

  I’m panting for real, switching between reality and imagination, every time I dip into the latter my cock stiffens further and inevitably I draw closer and closer until I’m not sure I can hold back any longer.

  “Come for me,” she whispers. “Come, Titus,” she repeats.

  “Fu—” but the orgasm hits me so hard I can’t even get the full word out.

  I go tight and freeze up, giving a soft, strained sigh before it hits me, and I fire. I swear to god I come so hard it almost hits the fucking roof, ribbons of cum shooting over my hand and chest, an endless, draining climax the kind of which I haven’t had since I was in high school.

  She’s there the whole time in my head telling me how hot it is, how much she enjoys seeing me come like this… for her.

  I go again, my balls drained dry, body wracked with the thought of her.

  It’s insane.

  With a final, stunted spurt, I slump back to the bed, wet cock in my hand continuing to dribble over my fingers. I hold it and let the afterglow of the orgasm sweep over me. I wasn’t expecting this at all. If anything, it only adds to my consternation I came like that thinking of her, of all people.

  “What the fuck was that?” I ask myself, but there’s no response.

  I don’t even know why I started touching myself like this, can’t recall the last time I masturbated. I suppose it was more of an experiment to see if I could. On that front, you’d have to call it a sweeping fucking success.

  Why did it feel so familiar when I pictured her? My fantasies are never as detailed as that, always generic cut-outs from films or TVs shows or whatever poor girl I picked up the night prior.

  And that was just the simulation my head was playing.

  God knows what it would be like to be with her for real.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MAYA

  It takes all my courage to show up the following day. I steel myself for it, have to breathe with every step.

  I hate this side of Titus I saw last night. He’s the same cocky jerk he was when we first started dating. It’s like that wayward baseball to the head reset him back to jock mode. Problem is, I haven’t worked out where the switch is to bring him back to the Titus I know.

  I wasn’t an easy lay. I made him work for it the first time we had sex. Even then he was just as arrogant assuming I’d just fall into his bed like all the others, but I wasn’t raised that way. I have more respect for myself than these yoga pants-wearing, messy braid Crestfall groupies.

  Aretha Franklin comes into my head and I start to smile.

  I didn’t drop into his bed then and I won’t do it now, no matter how hard it is to resist him.

  Maybe the hurt’s put a dampener on it too, the idea he’d go off with another girl so easily, ‘cheat’ on me even though I know that’s not the right way to put it. The fact he cannot remember us and everything we had planned—that hurts far more than any casual fling.

  He’s a little more subdued when I arrive. Maybe it’s the on-off rain outside or the frustration at trying to work through these papers, but he remains far less talkative than previous encounters. Of course, this doesn’t stop him openly trying to flirt with me. At least that provides the quick ego boost I so desperately need.

  I catch him side-eyeing me at one stage while I pretend to scroll through my phone. He licks his lips, a clear sign I’m making him nervous.

  Good.

  He leans back in his chair twirling his pen through his fingers and I just know I’m about be to hit on.

  Be cool. “Struggling with those Hamiltonian dynamics?” I ask, my tone even and casual.

  Titus smirks. “I know why a bouncy ball does what it does.”

  “Is that so?”

  His eyes fall to my chest. “And other, more complex dynamic systems.”

  I laugh it off. “Next you’ll be ranting about ass conjecture.”

  “Which was shown false by Huang and Sudak
ov.”

  “Hmm,” I muse, “perhaps you didn’t forget everything.”

  Only what’s important, my head adds.

  “Given your pea brain is swimming in the gutter then, perhaps you can tell me what the tits alternative is?”

  He smiles because he knows. “A group is said to satisfy the tits alternative if it is either virtually solvable or contains a free subgroup of rank at least two… but I’m more of an ass man. You want to continue with the Wiener measure, Cox-Zucker machine, perhaps? Because I can talk dirty all damn day, baby.”

  I’ve missed him calling me that, as lurid as it is in context here. I try not to let it show and fold my lips, playing along. “I trust you’re familiar with the Hairy Ball Theorem?” I can never say it keeping a straight face.

  “You can’t comb a hairy ball, I know, I know.”

  “Because there is no nonvanishing continuous tangent vector fiend on even-dimensional n-spheres.”

  “Keep talking,” he smiles. “You’re turning me on.”

  “Is this your seduction method, how you ‘game’ the other Crestfall girls? Dirty math isn’t really my style.”

  Damn. I think I’m getting good at this.

  He smiles. “What is your style, Ms. Riordan?”

  “You know my last name?” I ask, hopeful.

  His gaze shifts to my notebook on the desk. “It’s written right there.”

  And snap, the hope is snuffed away.

  “You sure you want to study, because I could think of a whole list of far more exciting activities that involve numbers. Like, say—”

  I remember this exact line. “Like sixty-nine?”

  He jerks back a little before correcting. “Great minds think alike.”

  “Not that alike. You ready to drop this sleaze act so we can actually have a conversation instead of talking like some porn botnet?”

  He looks back through the window where the rain’s continuing to fall in a murky blur. His eyes find me, somehow glacial and burning at the same time. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  I shake my head. “Afraid not.”

  He puts his hands out. “So tell me what I have to do. I don’t think a dozen roses is going to fly, and I doubt a box of chocolates is going to be much better.”