Above and Beyond (Twist of Fate 4)

Before I could get too riled up about my stupid mistake, Lucky gestured me toward the house.

“Where are we going?”

Lucky bounced his eyebrows at me. “My room.”

I groaned. “Not a good idea. We’ll get caught.”

He shook his head. “Not true. Xander is gone and Bennett’s too busy with work stuff to notice. He’s at the lodge. We’ll have the house to ourselves.”

As soon as we entered the house, my brother-in-law popped his head out of the kitchen. “Oh thank god, come taste this. I think I’ve accidentally poisoned everyone,” Oz said.

Lucky froze and the three of us stared awkwardly at each other for a beat.

“Uh,” Lucky blurted. “We can’t. There’s… a…” He glanced at me in panic.

“Cat,” I said stupidly, eyeing one of the baby’s burp cloths with cartoon animals on it.

Lucky nodded slowly before turning back to Oz. “Yes. There is a cat. Who… needs to be returned to his home. Down the street.”

Oz’s eyes flicked back and forth between us. “You know, if you didn’t want to be poisoned, you could have just said that. There’s no need to lie about it.” He turned back to the stove with a huff.

Lucky turned to me with big eyes that clearly said, “Do something.”

“So, uh…” I began. “We’re just gonna go and…”

Oz flapped his hand over his shoulder. “Whatever. Like I care. I should have had the gourmet grocery store make this shit for me,” he muttered. “No one would have ever known.”

We made our way through the house and back out the front door.

“What now?” I asked. “Where the hell are we going to get a cat?”

I waited till Lucky looked back at me in confusion before shooting him a wink. His face relaxed into a grin. “Smart-ass,” he said, turning back around and heading for the tree line behind the house.

Once he stepped into the trees, he stopped mid-stride and screamed. “Aiiiii! Jesus fuck! Aunt Lolly, god!”

He turned around and smashed his face into my neck, pressing his eyeballs into my skin as if to unsee something.

I glanced over him and saw several naked older folks doing some kind of stretches.

The ringleader was a woman with lovely long white hair. “Lucky, don’t be a prude. There’s no better way to start a day than with a naked sun salutation. You should try it.” She walked closer and I instinctively backed up a step, pulling Lucky with me so he wouldn’t fall over.

“We can’t,” he called.

“Why not? Because you’re scared of being nude in nature?” she teased.

“No! In fact, we’re, uh, we’re going skinny dipping! Same thing, really.” He swallowed and stood up, turning only partway so he still wasn’t really looking at her. “So we have to go. Sorry to… peep and run, or whatever, but we don’t want to, ah, be late.”

Another old lady called out, “WHAT DID HE SAY?” at top volume, but Lucky ignored her.

He yanked me back toward the house. I threw a wave over my shoulder in an effort to soften the rapid exit.

“Take us with you!” she called out.

“Pretend like you didn’t hear her,” Lucky whispered.

As soon as we made our way back around the house, we almost ran Aiden right over.

The attractive man lifted an eyebrow at us. “I thought you were going to the swimming hole.”

Lucky threw up his hands in frustration. “We are! We are. Jesus. Why is it anyone’s business? Can’t a guy just get some… swimming action without it being everyone’s freaking business?”

He dragged me to my truck, shoved me in the driver’s side door, and jumped in the passenger seat.

“Drive.”

I glanced over at him. “Where are we going?”

He covered his face with his hands and groaned. “The fucking swimming hole, apparently. Take a left.”

As we drove, I could feel Lucky’s eyes on me. “What?” I finally asked.

“You were jealous,” he said. I could practically hear the grin in his voice. “Earlier. With Aiden.”

“Of you and your uncle?” I asked, injecting as much disbelief into my tone as I could.

“You didn’t remember he was my uncle until after you started talking. Up until then, you looked like you wanted to murder him.”

I kept silent, hoping Lucky would drop the whole thing, but then he was settling his hand on my thigh. “It was pretty hot,” he said softly.

Lucky’s nimble fingers began caressing me through my pants. His hand got frustratingly close to my hard-on but never quite landed.

“Lucky,” I growled.

“Yes?” the young man said next to me in all innocence.

“Keep that up and we’re not going to make it to that swimming hole.”

I glanced at Lucky. His eyes had glazed over and he was licking his lips. “And that’s supposed to be a threat how, exactly?”

I found myself laughing. I reached down to grab his wayward hand and lifted it so I could press a kiss to the back of his knuckles. When I was done, I held on to his hand but did so over the console so I wouldn’t be too tempted to scrap the whole swimming hole idea and take Lucky in the back seat of my truck.