Love Brewing (Love Brothers #3) (8 page)

“All right, I’d better take off.” He moved past her toward
the window.

“Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “Show me.”

He grinned and flipped his wrist over. She held hers next to
it. The entwined pair of fancy capital letter Ds with stars matched more or
less. “You’re my boyfriend, right Dominic?” she demanded, not letting go of his
arm.

“Sure thing, sweets,” he claimed, lightly kissing her nose
and winking before climbing out the window, making his practiced way down the
trellis, then scurrying into the shadows. She touched her neck, tingly where
he’d likely sucked another hickey on her, then got another twinge of pain
between her legs. Limping, she snuck into the hall and grabbed a washcloth from
the linen closet.

“Diana, honey?” Her father’s voice floated out from his
room, sleepy but ever vigilant—or so he believed.

“Yeah, Daddy, sorry. I had, um, a bad dream. Got all sweaty.
Getting a cold cloth.”

“Want some warm milk?” he asked.

She slumped in the bathroom doorway. “Yes, please. That
would be great.”

“I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

Two Weeks Later

Diana clutched her books to her chest. Sweat beaded her skin
but she didn’t bother swiping at it. She couldn’t move.

Renee had her arm linked through Dominic’s, grinning her
perfectly white grin, flipping that stupid, flawless hair over her tanned
shoulder. “Tell her, Dom.”

Dom blinked. “I’m taking Renee to prom.” He sounded like a
robot. She frowned, focusing on him and not the slutty girl clinging to him.

“Oh?” She sensed the high school population swirling past
them, taking it all in without seeming to do so.

“Yeah, honey, sorry.” Renee patted her arm.

Diana jerked out of her reach. “Forgot that bit about me
lightening your load, did you, Dominic?”

“What is she talking about?” Renee frowned at her, then Dom,
who had his mouth hanging open like a fool. Diana’s head cleared.

“Never mind,
honey
.” She spoke to Renee while looking
straight at Dom. “It’s a dumb farm-girl thing. Catch you later, Love.” She gave
a jaunty wave and forced her way through the crowd and out of the building, to
her car, home, and into the barn where she saddled her horse and rode for what
felt like hours. By the time she’d returned to the barn and wiped the horse
down, her parents were frantic. Her sister stood next to them in the paddock,
arms crossed. Diana stomped up to her and slapped her, hard. Jen didn’t make a
sound.

“Diana!” Her father held her arm so she couldn’t do it
again.

“It’s all right, Daddy. She knows she deserves it.” Diana
wiped her stinging palm on her jeans, the hole in her chest aching like a
rotten tooth. “You’re right about him, though. He’s bad. But I want you all to
know that I’ve been having sex with Dominic Love since July.” The expression of
surprise then horror in her father’s face, and the one of non-surprise, then
hurt on her mother’s, gave her a grim satisfaction. “Yeah. So now you know. But
we aren’t together anymore so he won’t be sneaking up the trellis into my
bedroom to fuck me anymore.”

Her father made a sound that was dangerously close to a
growl. Her mother touched his arm. “I’ve got this. Young lady, upstairs, now.”

“No, Mama. I’m gonna go over to Lisa’s to study for my
algebra test.”

She left her parents and sister standing outside the barn,
speechless. But she no longer cared. When she got home several hours later, the
late spring evening was still warm enough to enjoy. Leaving her backpack in the
car, she wandered over to the paddock, not eager to deal with her folks now
that she’d calmed down.

“C’mere, Pepper.”

The animal trotted over, snorting and flicking his tail.
There had been a time when she’d been a serious competitor on the barrel-racing
circuit and she missed it. But her father’s tobacco base had barely weathered
two bad seasons, severely reducing the family’s ability to do much more than
pay the electric bill and feed everyone, including the horse. She’d thrown such
a fit at the concept of selling the damn thing, her parents didn’t bring it up
again.

Being near her horse soothed her. Lately, she wished she
could sleep out there, breathing in the combined barn smells, listening to the
sound of all the animals’ gentle snores. She scratched his muzzle and rubbed
his neck, smiling when he went sideways so Diana could pat his flank.

“You’re so spoiled. But I love ya.” She pulled a carrot from
a nearby bucket, laughing when the horse stuck his nose under her arm for more
once he’d finished it.

Finally, figuring her daddy had gone to bed and she’d best
go confront her mama, Diana narrowed her eyes noting something different about
the back of the house. The trellis had been torn down, leaving a ghostly shadow
on the wooden siding. She slouched toward the porch, swallowing yet more tears,
a state she figured she’d best get used to now.

Now

Dom cradled the half-empty bottle to his chest and stared
out over the dark, familiar expanse of grass between barn and the Brantley
house. In the course of trying to come to terms with his current
situation—effectively disowned from his tight family circle—he longed for a
reconnection with Diana in the most irrational way possible.

“Yeah, right. As if she’d….” He spoke out loud into the
darkened space, knocking back another slug of bourbon. The liquid burned more
than usual going down. His father’s forearm chokehold must have damaged his
throat. All temporary, of course. He’d been nearly throttled by too many angry men
to count—most of them jealous boyfriends and, memorably, one legitimately
pissed-off husband.

The onrushing slew of mental images of Kent Lowery, the man
he’d allowed into his emotional inner circle, overpowered him. The step he’d
finally taken, thinking it would be the solution, the answer to his life-long
inner turmoil, had sent him into this particular downward spiral. Once again,
Dominic had no one but himself to blame for his current situation.

“What a clusterfuck,” he muttered, before deciding not to
torture his poor, shredded esophagus with another drink. Glaring down at the
bottle, he attempted to shove the horror that was the new state of his life out
of his head. Between missing Kent, wishing he’d never met Kent, and now craving
Diana in his arms again like some kind of junkie, he could hardly breathe.

He stood, hanging onto the rope above the haymow entrance
and letting his torso dangle over the lawn. When he spotted a doe at the edge
of the woods, her snout up to the night air, testing it for safety, he held the
bottle up to the sky then took another slug, wincing when it worked past his
shredded throat and spread its welcome warmth in his chest

“Here’s to you, Dominic Sean. You’ve done it again. Gone and
fucked everything up, this time for good.” He barely recognized his own voice.

A cool breeze soothed his skin. He let his grip slip ever so
slightly, wondering, with a sort of distant, objective temptation, what he’d
break first when he let go.

Not if. When.

He ducked back inside and dropped to his butt. His leg
burned like fire—a fine complement to his throbbing nose, eye and cheek. Not to
mention the agony in his windpipe. The shower had helped clear his head some
but had brought a fresh burst of pain to his brutalized skin. He allowed a moment
to wonder where Kent was, what he might be doing. Considering he’d obliterated
his phone days ago, Dominic didn’t even have any way of knowing. Odd,
considering they’d spent the better part of the last eight months not going
more than a couple of hours without chatting.

He heaved the bottle against the wall with a loud curse,
relishing the crash before curling up on his side, miserable, and realizing
that this could be it—the proverbial final straw. Visions of all the people who
still loved him flashed across his vision. His brothers, sister, mother, all of
them—they’d be sad, sure. But they’d get over it.

The one thing he’d sought without realizing it, and that
only after a long conversation with Kent, he now knew had become utterly
unobtainable. His father would never accept him, much less give him the respect
and love he craved. He rolled over but spins got worse so he sat up, burped and
eased back to the window so his legs dangled over the edge.

Memories of all his time spent on this property flooded in
then, replacing the ones of what he and Kent had done for the first time, for
him at least, thank the good Lord. His last two years of high school had been a
whirlwind of loving and hating it here. The place where he’d lost his virginity
to one farmer’s daughter and fallen in scary-deep love with the other one.

Diana
.

Her smile filled his consciousness. He shook his head hard,
dismissing her and sending a jolt of pain down his neck. He had no right to
even think about her, as she’d stated more than once. Of all the times he’d
been a jerk, he’d saved his real whoppers for her. Which probably didn’t speak
to her ability to think rationally about him—something he had taken full
advantage of more than once.

He groaned when his stomach heaved, sending an brutal gush
of acid into his throat. Why had he come here anyway? It was like the Brantley
farm represented his default setting when it came to life screw-ups. He’d show
up and hide, needing to be taken care of, and for whatever reason, he received
what he required every time. His karma level on it had to be tapping out—a
fished-out pond, like Diana had just told him.

For some reason, a vision of Renee Reese came at him
them—she of the sexy curves, and smile, and blow-job skills. He’d broken up
with Diana the first time thanks to Renee’s bewitching ways. Her insistence
that he get clear on who was dating whom after he’d spent yet another illicit,
booze and pot-filled weekend in her bed had worn him down. Well, that and the
fact that he’d been a quivering, worn-out mess by the time she’d finished with
him.

Even as a teenager, Renee known how to please and how to
gain her own pleasure. She was an enchantress, a succubus, and one who’d
quickly flipped her allegiance to his nerd-ball younger brother Aiden the
second Dom had dumped her, a few weeks into the summer between their junior and
senior years.

Stupid little bookish fucker had let Renee pop his cherry,
then had played her boyfriend for a year or more, pissing Dominic off and
earning him a black eye from his dear old dad that one time he’d voiced a
twinge of jealousy over it. The fact that all this time later, Aiden had come
home after an unsuccessful run at some kind of writing school and within inches
of actually marrying Renee still blew his mind.

He smiled, thinking about how nicely Renee had matured. She
still had a mouth smarter than most, but had opened her own spa and salon, and
now catered to all manner of richies who’d been flocking to Lucasville as their
pastoral escape from the mean urban streets of Lexington, Kentucky.

He liked her now, and gave a split-second thought to the
concept that he might bunk with her a while before acknowledging a couple of
flaws with that plan. One: he had no phone. Two: She’d probably snip his nuts
off with her hair-cutting scissors while smiling at him. He’d not acted so
great to a couple of
her girls
, as she called them. Wasn’t his fault
they got him hard while manhandling his junk. It was unprofessionalism on their
part, not his. He merely did what seemed natural after a waxing session.

Guess it was a good thing Aiden had come to his senses and
hooked up with Rosalee instead. Of course, that decision, which had eventually
resulted in a couple of Love family weddings, had been one for the record
books. It had been sorta nice actually—super-drama unfolding that he hadn’t
provoked.

God, you are lame.

He sank into the darkness, knowing that tomorrow’s hangover
would be epic even as he slipped into a drunken stupor. Dreams sucked him into
their grip, plying him with sensations—Kent’s lips, the hard planes of his
body, his rough jaw, then Diana, her firm, wiry limbs, her calm, reassuring
voice, her fingers creeping up his neck to twine in his hair which coated his
rattled psyche with a unique, soothing balm.

He reached out for her, knowing even as he did it he wasn’t
dreaming anymore. She kissed him, and gripped his hair, her small tongue
probing into his mouth, her fingers flicking at the small ring in his left
nipple. He shuddered, keeping his eyes tight closed in hopes of maintaining the
dream-state fantasy. He couldn’t be doing this in real life. It defied logic.

But he refused to be logical and gripped her hips tighter,
groaning when she teased their way down his neck to his chest, using her tongue
on the nipple rings, her teeth on the sensitive flesh around them. A hole
opened up in his head and he launched into it, welcoming its familiar
anonymity.

Sex represented a lot of things to him, and he treated every
encounter with a sort of awed reverence, as if he couldn’t imagine how in the
hell he’d gotten in whatever pleasurable position he found himself—but when he
tried to ease into the softness now, it defied him, forcing him to acknowledge
this current bizarre moment in time.

“Diana,” he gasped, tugging her up off his chest before he
lost it. “Please don’t do this.” The words tumbled out, confusing him for a
second. They sounded like something a nice guy would say. She draped over him,
her long hair framing them, hiding them from the world.

“Don’t talk,” she muttered, her face grim as if in the
middle of something unpleasant. He grabbed her hands, pushed her up, thinking
he should stop her, or at the very least try to stop her. It would be the right
thing. But she pulled her arms out of his grip, her expression so angry it lit
a fire in him. He yanked her back down and kissed her with a scary, blinding
desperation.

“Mmmm.” He shifted so she could pull his jeans down. The
prickly hay pierced his bare butt.

“Oh my Lord in heaven, what did you do?” Her voice shattered
his slide into happy, erotic oblivion. “Dom!”

He blinked up at the haymow roof, confused. “What?” He
struggled to his elbows to see what the hell else he’d managed to damage over
the course of the last twelve hours. He tried to focus on what she gaped at and
figured out it was the Prince Albert piercing.

“Oh, that. Did it a while back.” He waved at her. “Go on,
Di. This isn’t what you want, I’m sure. You’re just….”

He grunted with surprise when she did something very
pleasant with her mouth on his dick. He groaned while she did more of that same
pleasant thing, using her fingers, flicking at the metal ring with her tongue.
His spine tingled and his brain started to fuzz over in climax anticipation.
But the darkness wouldn’t take him. He remained aware, fully aware, of what he
was doing and who was doing it to him.

“Di.” His voice was raspy and breathless. “Come up here.
Please. I…want….”

She slid up his sweat-slicked torso and straddled him,
taking him deep inside her without a word. She rocked her hips, propping her
hand on his chest, the other on his thigh to get the angle she preferred. When
he reached up to cup her breasts and tease her nipples, knowing good and well
what that would do for her, she dropped her head back and rode him in utter
silence.

Finally, she glared at him, grinding against his body,
gripping his dick so tight it, hurt but dragging him toward the orgasm with
her. “Dom,” she dropped down, kissing him as her body pulsed and flexed and
sent him right over the edge.

He clutched at her, hips moving, body taut. They calmed and
she stayed on his chest, her hair tickling his nose while he caught his breath.
He touched it, its well-remembered silkiness slipping between his fingers like
he’d come home. He experienced a sort of hollowed-out sensation, grateful she’d
taken the first step toward a reconciliation. Diana would love him. She would
guard him—pull him away from the yawning abyss.

At some point they both slept.

A honking horn brought him to a full, terrified, sitting-up
state, heart in his throat, mouth full of booze-flavored cotton. Groaning when
the pain caught up with his quick rise and slammed him between the eyes, he
fell onto his side, unable to sort out why every muscle in his body ached. Not
to mention why he lay in the hay naked and sticky, and smelling like Diana.

“Holy crap,” a voice to his left croaked. “What time is it?”

He grinned at her, sitting there with her long tumble of
blonde hair, her body gloriously naked. It all rushed in on him, including the
peaceful state he’d inhabited post-climax and pre-sleep. Lunging for her,
forgetting what had forced them awake, he pinned her arms over her head and
dove down to her breasts, licking, sucking. She eased her legs open and arched
into him in silence.

The horn honked so loud he lurched up and off her, his dick
stiff and his brains rattling like marbles in his aching skull. “Who the fuck
is here?” He rubbed his face, forgetting how sore everything was about a second
too late. “Ow. Damn. Diana, whose van is that?”

He looked out the front haymow window, noting a blurry logo
on the side, something about
animals
and
Tolliver
. Diana came up
to peer around his shoulder. He tried to tug her close and kiss her, eager to
pick up where they’d left off, relieved beyond measure that he could be shed of
the Kent mess with the woman he never should have left in the first place.

“Fuck,” she whispered, sidestepping him, appearing for all
the world like a trapped wild animal. “Quick, give me those.” She pointed to
his stained jeans and faded shirt. He blinked. “Dom, damn it, give me the
clothes.”

As she dressed, he glanced down at the mystery van and saw a
tall guy emerge wearing light denim jeans and a T-shirt that emphasized his
slim torso. The man started toward the paddock gate, whistled, and Diana’s
horse came loping over, head nodding and tail twitching with delight.

“There, do I look okay?”

He nodded, still confused, but figuring it for some
appointment she’d forgotten about. She had the too-big shirt tucked into the
grungy jeans and had used his belt to cinch them in tight.

“You look like you got into your big brother’s closet for
dress up.” He moved close and tried to gather her into his arms. “Get rid of
him. I want a shower and to get into bed with you and stay there all damn day.”

“Get off me.” She shoved him away. “Stay down, over there.”
She pointed to a stack of bales away from the windows. “Don’t make any noise.”
He frowned at her tone. Wincing at how gross he felt, he watched her lean out
the window and call out.

“Hey, Lee, sorry! I almost forgot…” She glanced back at Dom.
“Shit. Shit. Shit. What the hell are you standing there for? Get down.”