Page 41 of Sinful Seduction
“Oh! Yes, please, Daddy!”
“See you in a bit.” I bring the phone away from my ear, tapping the screen to kill the call, then I tip my water back and chug half before coming up for air.
“She’s still asleep?” Cato turns his soda can between his fingers and stares at the ring of condensation on the counter. “She okay?”
“She needed to catch up.” I move to the opposite side of the counter and fold, resting my elbows on the stone and matching my brother’s stance. “Youdoing okay?”
He shrugs. Worse, he doesn’t meet my eyes. “Slept better than at the apartment. My neck doesn’t hurt for the first time in a while.” He sniggers, soft and almost silent. Fake. “Don’t let me get too used to it, or I might struggle to re-adapt to the couch when we go back.”
“It was a big day for you.” He wants to joke, to pretend his world didn’t hurt yesterday. But I’ve been on the job long enough to know when a guy is struggling with the things he saw. And fuck, maybe he’s a Malone, and being a Malone means seeing a hell of a lot more, a hell of a lot sooner. But that doesn’t change the worry pulsing in my chest. “Watching Steve drop like that would’ve been rough. If you wanna talk about it or whatever…”
Finally, his eyes flicker up to mine. “Steve?”
“Yeah… our landlord. The guy you?—”
He snorts. “I know who Steve is, dipshit. I’m not feeling a certain way about him, though.”
“You’re not?”
“Fuck no. He dropped. We made out. Doctor Delicious swung in to save the day, and now that other doctor says he’ll live to talk about it.” He lifts the soda can, then lowers it again, so it rests exactly where it started. “Got in my feelings about Minka thinking I did it on purpose, though.”
“Minka—”
“She cleared it up,” he cuts in. “We’re good again. But I had a couple of hours there where my brain was saying some shit and hurt my feelings. So now I’m just…” He exhales, dropping his head and shaking it gently side to side. “It felt like we had a breakup or some shit. Even though that’s not what happened. And even if we’re all good now, I’m still a little raw about it.” He scoffs. “I’m such a pussy.”
“So you’re not worried about Steve?” I straighten and frown. “A dude literally collapses at your feet, and you’re solely responsible for keeping him alive, not knowing if anyone would come to help. You didn’t know if we were close, or if we were an hour or two or three away. You have nomedical training, and no fucking obligation to help the guy. But you did it anyway. Butthat’snot what’s messing with you?”
“There was a cutie hosting first-aid classes over at Copeland U a couple of months ago. Blonde with a tight ass and bulky rack.” He fists his chest, like I need help understandingbulky rack. “She was a total baddie, Arch, and she was happy to flirt. So I took that course, like, six times in a row.” He chokes out a bouncing laugh. “I was her star pupil, and it’s not like she didn’t know I was there just because I liked watching her bend over that dummy in those little shorts she wore.”
I roll my eyes and bring my water back to my lips.
“She taught the course because that was her job, and I took the course because it gave me a hard dick every time her tits bounced. We each knew our reasons for being there, and she rewarded me at the end with a killer BJ that nearly took me out.”
“We can skip the details,” I grit out. “I understood way back atthere was a cutie hosting first-aid classes.”
He snickers. “So my mind was fresh, and I felt okay helping that old dude. He’s always been nice to me, and he’salwaysnice to Mayet. She’d be pretty sad if he died, so I did what I had to do.”
“Makes you a good man.”
“Makes me a guy who was more worried about howshewould feel if he died than I was abouthislife. She’s had a rough time this year, especially with that case and those fuckwit documentary makers hanging around. She works herself to the bone and hurts her own feelings with the things her brain tells her. I didn’t want her year to get suckier by letting her friend die.”
“Are you…” I bring my brows closer together, pinching them tight and exhaling a heavy breath. “Are you in love with my wife, Cato?”
“Oh, for sure,” he nods easily. “Absolutely, I am. Not even thelove you like familylove. It’s the kind where I’d be willing to grow up and be whoever the fuck she wants me to be if it meant keeping her. The kind where I would kill anyone for hurting her, even my own brother. The kind that I care if she’s sleeping, since I know she didn’t sleep the night before, and I care that she’s medicated, because I know she’ll die a long, painful death if she doesn’t. It’s the kind of love where I know, from watching you, how to infuse her medicine, slowly, so she doesn’t get a headache.”
“Cato—”
“But it’s not the kind of love where I’m stupid enough to hope we’ll ever be together.” He snags his soda and smirks behind the lip of the can. “I love who she is when she’s with you. I love who she isforyou. So even if I’m checking her out, like,allthe time, I’m just watching and never touching. Just listening, but never crossing any lines. Because I love her with the kind of love that tells me, without a single shred of doubt, that her heart belongs to you. And breaking that up means breaking her. People who love people don’t break them.”
“So you…” I’m speechless. Stunned… but not. Shocked, but not really. “Fuck. Okay.”
“It’s the kind of love that means I’ll look at her every day for the rest of my life, even later, when I’ve found me a baddie and given her a diamond ring and said my promises. I’ll always look atyourwife and remember how it felt to love her first. But don’t worry,” he adds nonchalantly. “I’m not making a play for your girl.”
I chug the last of my water and scrunch the bottle, the crinkle of plastic echoing throughout the large, mostly empty kitchen. “Not sure what I’m supposed to say about all that.”
“Nothing. Your life remains exactly the same, except before, youthoughtI was peeking at your wife. Now, you know.”
“Good to know?” I laugh.
