Forbidden: King (The Four 4)

After a moment, Casey said, “I guess you’re right.” I totally understood his concern, but I was glad he agreed to keep the money. It was going to make a huge difference in his life, since he really would have been paying off his student loans forever.

A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of Casey’s cute, hot pink Victorian. There were rainbow curtains in the windows, and a big Pride flag hung above the front door. I glanced up at the second floor and said, “Your house seems to have gained a new feature since the last time we were here.” A blond twink was dancing naked and wiggling his bare ass right in front of the window.

Casey followed my gaze and sighed. “That’s Lark. He just moved in this past week. Among other things, he’s a cam boy, and he keeps forgetting to close his blinds while he does his thing. Yolanda’s talked to him about it three times already.”

“He seems fun,” I said with a grin.

My brother muttered, “He’s a lot.”

Casey started to get out of the car, and I called after him, “See you tomorrow. Don’t forget, you promised to bring seven-layer dip!” He’d been coming over every Sunday to watch football, in addition to joining us one night a week for dinner and cards.

“I won’t forget,” he said. “I’m actually making two separate containers of it. One’s just for you, a decoy, basically. That’s the only way Eden and I will get any.” That was totally true.

Once he went inside, we drove across town yet again and pulled into the driveway of our cute little home. Both of us paused at the foot of the stairs and looked up at it, and I murmured, “Holy shit, this is ours.”

“It hasn’t sunk in yet.”

I turned to look at him and asked, “You want to keep it, right? I know it’s worth a ton of money, but you don’t want to sell it, do you?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

I took his hand and said, “I want to live here forever with you, Eden. Please tell me that’s what you want, too.”

A smile spread across his handsome face. “That’s absolutely what I want.” I whooped with delight and threw my arms around him, and he said, “I’d been working on remodeling it with George in mind, but now we can do anything we want to it. I actually had some interesting ideas for the kitchen. Let’s go inside, and I’ll show you some websites.”

As we climbed the stairs, I said, “That reminds me, I have something to show you, too.”

He glanced at me and teased, “Is it another sex toy from Buckingham Phallus? Don’t get me wrong, I love it when you bring your work home with you. But the nightstand’s about to burst at the seams.”

“It actually is from work, but it’s not what you think.” I couldn’t keep the amusement out of my voice. When we got inside, I said, “Wait in the living room, so I can spring it on you.” He was chuckling as I ran upstairs to our bedroom.

Ever since we’d returned from Utah, we’d been sharing what had formerly been Eden’s room. I burst through the door, patted my stuffed Scooby on the way past the bed, and rummaged around in the closet for my surprise.

I quickly stripped naked and put on the outfit, and then I ran back downstairs and yelled, “Ta da!”

Eden burst out laughing. I was wearing a tall, black Buckingham Palace-style guard’s hat and a sequined jock strap with a Union Jack on the front. “We’re redoing the mannequins at the shop, and they were just going to throw this stuff out because it’s a little sun-bleached,” I explained. “How could I let it go to waste?”

“That’s a lot of look.”

I attempted a British accent and wiggled my brows as I said, “Oi mate, fancy a shag?”

In the next instant, a screeching hiss rang out, and something tackled my tall, furry hat. I staggered a bit, and Eden leapt to his feet. Then he pried an orange cat off my headpiece and asked, “What are you doing here, Pancake? I thought you went to live with George.”

“There’s a note.” I untied a slip of paper from her collar, and when Eden put her down the cat shot out of the room. I unrolled the tiny scroll and said, “It’s from George. It says, ‘The house is a package deal. Pancake comes with it.’ Aw see, I knew there was a catch.”

Eden grinned as he straightened my hat. “This has been quite the day—first my granddad got hitched, then we became homeowners, and now we’ve found out we’re cat dads.”

I asked, “How can we possibly top that?”