“You sure you want me standing up there with you? I don’t want to steal your thunder, you know, what with me being so good-looking and all.”
Chris barked out a laugh. “I’m not worried. My future bride only has eyes for me.”
Another blast of music rippled over the extension. It sounded Latin…salsa music?
“Where exactly are you?” Dylan demanded. “Don’t tell me you proposed at a salsa club.”
“No, I proposed at LeBlanc’s,” Chris answered, naming one of the fanciest restaurants in San Francisco. “But Claire wanted to celebrate, so she dragged me here. We’re at that club you and I went to last time you came home.”
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up, even though Chris couldn’t see him. He remembered that particular nightclub catering to a more rowdy crowd, like Dirty Dancing-style shit—and Claire had chosen to go there? Seemed like the last place a goody-two-shoes snob like her would pick to celebrate an engagement.
“Anyway, I couldn’t keep the news to myself, and I knew you’d be up, night owl that you are. We’re going over to Mom’s tomorrow morning to tell her.”
He suppressed a sigh. And ten minutes after Chris and Claire left Shanna Wade’s house, she’d be on the phone with her younger son, demanding to know when he was getting married. Dylan adored his mother, and the two of them had always been close, but no matter how many times he told her he wasn’t ready to settle down, she never seemed to hear him.
“Well, at least this will give Mom something to do, planning the wedding,” he told his brother. “She’s been kind of bored and cranky ever since she quit her job.”
There was a beat. “She was bored and cranky even when she had a job.”
“True.”
“Okay, well, it’s late and I’m ready to forcibly remove Claire from the dance floor and take her home,” Chris said with a touch of exasperation. “Just wanted to share the good news with my baby bro.”
Dylan rolled his eyes. Only a two-year age difference between him and Chris, yet his brother never failed to act the part of the perpetually wiser older sibling.
“Congratulations again,” he said with fake enthusiasm. “Pass that along to Claire, too.”
“I will. Talk soon.”
After they hung up, Dylan turned his head in time to see Kelly saunter out of the bathroom.
“Everything okay?” The mattress bounced as she hopped back on the bed.
“My older brother’s getting married.”
She smiled, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “An impending marriage is typically good news, sailor. You look like someone just died.”
“Something did die,” he grumbled. “My brother’s manhood. Trust me, this chick he’s about to saddle himself with for the rest of his life? She’s god-awful.”
“Speaking of manhood…” Kelly shot a pointed look at his cock, which had gone soft, the condom sagging off the tip.
Great. Now Claire McKinley was destroying his sex life. The way she would destroy Chris’s future.
All right, that was extreme. Chris’s future wasn’t destroyed. And to be fair, Chris had the tendency to be a goody-two-shoes snob himself. There was a reason Dylan didn’t talk to his brother about his sex life. Some of the shit he was into, Chris would never understand, not in a million years.
“How about you put your womanly charms to use and get me nice and ready again?” Dylan drawled, licking his bottom lip as he met Kelly’s blue eyes.
She licked her own lips, already peeling the unused condom off his shaft as she scrambled into position between his legs. She wrapped her lips around the blunt head of his cock, summoning a groan from deep in his chest. He closed his eyes, but not before he saw her reaching for the discarded Hershey’s bottle.
All thoughts of his brother and Claire McKinley flew out of his head. Let Chris make the mistake of his life. Dylan would simply help the guy pick up the pieces later, when it all fell apart.
For now, the only thing he needed to concentrate on was the hot suction of Kelly’s mouth as she sucked chocolate syrup off his dick.
Chapter Three
“In other news,” the Channel 8 news anchor chirped, “the San Diego Zoo welcomed some new residents this morning. Piggy the Lioness gave birth to four healthy cubs. Mother and babies are resting comfortably, and zoo officials hope to reveal the new additions to the public in the next few weeks…”
Miranda tuned out the news report as she stood by the stove, flipping pancakes. Why on earth would anyone name a lioness Piggy? Shaking her head in bafflement, she slid a pancake onto the empty plate on the granite counter.
“Did you hear that, Mom? Piggy had babies!”
She glanced over her shoulder to smile at her daughter, who was sitting at the kitchen table braiding the hair of her favorite doll. “I did hear it,” Miranda confirmed. “What do you say, should we go meet Piggy’s babies?”
“Yeah! Let’s go today!”
“We can’t. Didn’t you hear what the lady on the TV said? Piggy and her cubs are resting right now. We have to wait until the zoo says we can see them.”
Sophie’s bottom lip dropped out in a pout. “Fine.”
Turning off the burners, Miranda carried two plates to the table and placed one in front of Sophie, the other by the empty chair. She headed back to the counter to grab her own plate, then joined Sophie at the table.