“Dax, I want you,” I say again. “I want you inside me.”
“My hands aren’t good enough?” he teases.
“They’re good. Fuck, they are so good.”
“But you want me to stop,” he says, his finger slowing. His eyes are wild like the ocean before a storm, and I meet his gaze.
“I want to come on your dick,” I say. And the storm hits.
Dax pulls his finger from me and push-ups over me, driving himself deep inside. I moan at the rush, the girth, the heat that burns my tights and makes even my fingers and toes tingle.
“Damn, baby girl. I’d love to fuck you slow but right now, I don’t think I can.”
“So don’t,” I say and Dax thrusts even deeper before pulling back and diving in again. We get one, two, three solid drives and I swear to god he is about to end it right here, right now, after only thirty seconds. But before he can, the door slams and we both stop dead.
“What was what?” I mouth the words. And then we hear the voice.
“Hello? Anyone home?”
OH. MY. GODDD.
Kai is in the shop.
We scramble to our knees, pulling my skirt down, zipping his fly, fixing my hair, flatting his shirt. I look down at the bulge, and he gives me a panicked look.
“Tuck it in your belt,” I mouth, adding hand gestures.
Dax tries it but it still doesn’t fix the problem.
“What do I do now?!” he mouths.
“Hello?” Kai asks again and then we hear footsteps.
I look around frantically and point at the kids’ corner. “Hide.”
“Where?”
More hand gestures and mouthing. “Inside the tree.”
Dax looks at me like I’m crazy and I stand up, revealing myself to my brother.
“Jesus, sis. You scared the shit out of me. What the fuck were you doing on the floor?”
“I was fixing the wheel…on the book cart. It was…stuck.”
“Ookay…” he narrows his eyes at me.
I smile and out of my peripheral, Dax is army crawling to the fake tree in the back of the shop that serves as a tiny playhouse. If he can roll up into a ball the size of a sleeping bag, he should be fine.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I wanted to talk to you about the store.”
“What about it?” I ask, my tone level. I have a gut feeling I won’t like where this is going.
“You do understand that in order to make the transition to Hemingway, a lot of things have to change.”
“I’m aware,” I say, meeting his eyes. My brother walks over to the counter, his eyes sweeping disapprovingly over the clutter of impulse trinkets and a bobble head Edgar Allan Poe on the cash register. He also runs a finger over the edge of the counter, looks at the invisible dust on his fingertip, and wipes it on his pants.