Hendrix (Caldwell Brothers #1) (20 page)

He moves through the kitchen silently, getting an orange juice from the fridge.

“Long day, slick?” I laugh more.

“Livi, my days are your nights, and you should know, when a Caldwell is involved, it’s definitely a long one.”

“Anyways, how long are you in town this time?” I ask him since he is gone more than he’s home.

Hendrix has stressed over the last two months that this is my home. The one day I even considered the idea of finding my own apartment again, I was quickly shut down.

“Livi, do you not live here now? Do I not have panties in my sock drawer? Have I moved one thing that you purposely came in here and put with my stuff?”

I open my mouth in shock that he knew I did that to mess with him.

“No, I haven’t. Have I complained about having you here? Have you had any complaints about being here? Why would you move out? Did I not tell you I wanna put a Caldwell in your belly? If we’re gonna do all that, then why the fuck would you move out?”

A smile builds as I think back to Hendrix reminding me he wants me here, and I belong.

“Stop thinking about my brother when I’m trying to have a conversation here, Livi.” Morrison smirks at me.

“Sorry, I kinda think about him all the time.” I smile bigger.

“Fuckin’ crazy broad. Swoonin’ and shit over the wrong damn Caldwell.”

I punch Morrison in the arm. “He’s the right Caldwell for me. One day, a woman is gonna come along and lay you flat out, slick.”

“Oh, women lay me out all the time, Livi, right before they climb on my cock,” Morrison replies arrogantly.

“Make sure you wrap it up, Morrison. Some things you can’t smooth talk your way out of, ya know,” I remind him, laughing, yet wanting to protect him at the same time.

“I can smooth talk my way out of anything, Livi. Don’t underestimate me.”

“Never, slick.” I simply shake my head at him.

What more can I say? He truly has a ‘poker face.’ He is unreadable. I feel it in my bones that there is more to him than the playboy he personifies. He simply won’t let anyone see it. One day, though, one day.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Hendrix

It’s Monday night, and Livi’s mom is coming; as a result, we’re getting ready for her visit. Livi is excited, yet nervous. I should be the one who is nervous. My pad is a flophouse for my brothers, I own a bar, and I’m banging her little girl, trying to knock her up, like, trying all the fucking time.

Shit, now I’m hard.

“Livi?” I yell to her. She’s in the bar, and I’m in the kitchen.

“Yeah?” she asks as she walks in.

I smile when I see her wipe the back of her hand over her forehead, ridding herself of the sweat she’s worked up.

“Can you reach across here and grab that rag?”

“You can’t?” She shakes her head and laughs before bending over in front of me.

I grab her hips and hold her against the stainless steel island. “Nah, you look much better doing it than I do.”

She laughs again as she looks over her shoulder.

“As much as I like looking at you when I fuck you, I’ve been watching you bend over for the past couple hours, and I can’t…” I yank her leggings down, and then I’m staring at ‘Caldwell’s piece.’ “Fuck yes,” I say then nip at her ass.

“Hendrix,” she gasps.

“Sorry, babe, but it says mine, and it looks fucking delicious.” I nip her again, and she giggles. “No laughing,” I chastise as I rip her panties down and then unzip myself. I line us up, hissing at the heat she’s producing.

“Oh, my…” she says, arching her back and lifting her ass in the air.

“Sexy,” I say before ramming into her. I don’t stay still, though. I grab her ass and watch it bounce with each thrust. “Fucking beautiful.”

“Yes,” she says as her arms stretch out and her fingers curl around the edge of the island.

“I love you, babe,” I say through my teeth. I reach around, pushing my hand up her shirt and grab a titty. “Fucking love these, too.”

“I love you.”

“What else do you love?” I thrust into her again.

“Your … your…”

“I love your pussy, Livi. My pussy. What do you love?” I want her to say something nasty just once.

“Your … thingy,” she cries out.

“My cock, babe.” I thrust it in hard. “Does that feel like a thingy?”

“No,” she whimpers. “So good.”

“What do you love, babe?”

“You inside me.” She pushes into me. “More, please.”

“More what?” I grip her hips harder.

“You,” she cries.

I give up. Livi isn’t gonna dirty talk, and I don’t need her to. She is sexy and sweet and mine.  I love her how she is.

I stop and turn her around before lifting her up onto the counter. Standing between her legs, I push back into her.

“Can’t say cock, can you?”

She wraps her legs around me and pulls me into her until I am balls deep. “I love you.”

I chuckle and pull back. “I’m gonna fill you up with the future generation.”

She nods and braces herself. She knows what’s coming.

“This isn’t a thingy.” I thrust into her again, and she cries out as she holds me tight, basically climbing up me.

Eye to eye, she says, “If you need me to, I will.”

“Nah, babe, I wouldn’t change one thing about you.” I kiss her as I take in a deep breath, readying myself to step up and be the man my mom would be even more proud of. “Well, maybe one.”

Her face shows concern. I pull out of her then push myself up so I am sitting on the island, and then I pull her so that she is on top of me, straddling me.

I smile, take a deep breath, reach in my pants pocket, and then pull out the ring.

“Olivia Hemmingway, you are everything and more than I could ever want. We were both drawn together, both broken in a way, but strong enough to never give up. There is no one I would want to spend my life with, have kids with, or get old and wrinkly with. So, will you—my beautiful, fucking crazy love, Olivia Hemmingway—allow me the opportunity to start our forever with the vows our parents never took? Will you marry me, babe?”

“I love your cock.” She grins, making me laugh, and she smiles even bigger. “I love you.” She laughs, and yeah, she snorts. “Yes. Yes, of course!”

I put the ring on her finger, the one I bought a week ago and then waited for the right time to give it to her, but it didn’t come.

“Babe?”

“Yes?”

“If the kids ever ask, we lie about the proposal. Now, hang on.”

And hang on she does as I fuck my girl relentlessly. I hold back nothing. I know it is selfish of me, but it couldn’t be helped. I need the connection physically after taking such a big step emotionally.

When we are done, I carry her out of the kitchen and into the bar where I sit, holding her as she stares at the ring.

“You like it?” I ask as I kiss the top of her head.

“Stunning,” she says, looking up at me and smiling. “Just like you.”

She looks up then, and I follow her eyes.

“What’s up there?”

“Used to be an apartment. It was where I grew up, so I destroyed it after I kicked my old man out. I wanted it to be more, but I don’t know if I have it in me. Right now, I feel like I have everything I need.”

“The room?” She nods to the door toward the back on the balcony.

“Awe, yes, well, that was left because it was the room Mom used to read to us in. Best childhood memories, and the place we went when mom told us to. You couldn’t hear the beatings as bad from back there.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says with sadness in her voice.

“He stopped hitting her after I got older and busted his nose.”

“You fought him?”

“Every chance I got.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

I sit, looking up for a few minutes, lost in thought as I feel her watching me. Eventually, I grab her hand, kiss her ring, and smile.

“It’s all over now. No more looking back. I want to look no farther than beside me, and I want you to do the same. Our lives are ours, not theirs.”

“Do you ever talk to him?”

“Nah, I don’t need to.” I knew she was gonna keep pushing, so I changed the subject. “Livi, you and I are getting hitched.”

A smile spreads across her face. “When?”

“Tomorrow?”

She laughs. “I would, you know.”

“Okay, let’s do it.”

“My parents ... Dad is just getting settled. Mom will be here soon.”

“They will be in Thursday night.”

“They will. I can’t wait for my mom to meet you.”

“We’re getting hitched on Saturday.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. Your family will be here. We—”

“There’s no time to plan.”

“I want you to have my last name before we have a family, Livi. We’re getting married this weekend.”

“Where?” She starts grinning again, not seeming like she’s gonna argue with me.

“Here, right fucking here. Already have live music.” I smile and look up. “You can hide out up there in that room and walk down those stairs to me. Say, I do.”

“I do.”

“I meant on Saturday, but I like how enthusiastic you are.”

Her mouth crashes against mine, and our tongues dance until she starts laughing.

“Livi, no laughing.”

“I’m happy.” She laughs again. “So very happy.”

“I’ll make sure you are for the rest of your fucking life.”

“I know you will.”

*.*.*.*

“You wanna stop pacing?” Morrison says as he reaches up to fix my tie. I am wearing a monkey suit, but I’m not fighting it. I wore one on the night I found my girl.

“No. Her mom and stepdad are here. They don’t seem to like me.”

“You told them, if they made her cry again, they’d be asked to leave.” Jagger laughs.

“She’s dealt with it, so her mom needs to get her shit together and move the fuck on. Livi has,” I snap at him and bat his hand away. “Is Livi’s old man here?” I ask as I walk toward the door.

“Yes, ten damn minutes.” Morrison holds his hand up, stopping me from walking out.

“Jared here yet?”

“Yeah, and do you know how fucked up that is?”

“He offered. Livi likes him, and he’s family,” I say and start pacing again.

There is a knock on the door, and then Toni peeks in. “She’s ready.”

“‘Bout damn time,” I grumble, but Toni simply smiles. “Thanks, Toni.”

“Anytime, you know that.”

My brothers walk out and I follow. Livi said we should get married on the stage, and I told her the kitchen represented our union more honestly. She had no idea what I was talking about, so I showed her again. I love fucking my girl in the kitchen, less chance for us to be walked in on.

I watch as the door opens upstairs, and she walks out. My girl is wearing a white, floor length gown that nearly matches her pale skin. It skims every curve she has, and yes, it makes me chub up.

Her hair is down and lying over her shoulder. She wears no veil, since I asked her not to. I wanted to see her eyes. I fucking love her eyes. She looks like I imagine an angel would look, even better.

Her mom is beside her as she walks down the stairs toward me. At the end of the stairs, her father waits in a wheelchair that her mom pushes beside her as they walk toward me.

Three people who haven’t been a true family ever are one today on the most important day of our lives. My heart swells for Livi. She deserves this. She deserves the world.

Once she’s at my side, I take both hands and turn her to me. “Beautiful.”

She smiles and blushes a bit.

“When I heard these two were gonna tie the knot, I asked to be part of it,” Jared starts. “Livi laughed, thinking it was another one of my jokes, but it wasn’t. I’m sure no one here could believe I am capable of much, but Hendrix trusted me. Well, Livi insists he trusts me.”

Everyone laughs at Jared’s joke.

“I’ve seen love before, been in love before, but I haven’t seen it in many, many years until the day I saw the way Hendrix looks at this little one.”

I am stunned that this is the same Jared I have known for years, but that was Jared before Livi. She makes everyone around her want to be a better person.

Then, he grins.

Oh, shit,
I think to myself, while Livi laughs.

“Don’t encourage him, babe,” I warn.

“I once heard a married man in this very bar say he was happy for twenty years. I told him I hadn’t heard many men say that, and he told me it was the twenty years before he got married.”

Everyone laughs, including Livi, of course.
Fuckin’ crazy ass woman
, I think with a smile.

“I heard a married couple just the other night arguing. The wife said she was a fool when she married him. He looked at her and said, ‘I know you were, but I was in love and hadn’t noticed.’”

As the crowd laughs again, I look at Livi who is smiling, beaming actually.

“I, myself, was married once. Do you know what I did before that?” He looks at Livi who shakes her head. “Any damn thing I wanted. My wife dressed to kill and cooked the same damn way.” The laughter keeps him going. “We were married by a judge, but it should have been a jury. Our motto was ‘never go to bed mad,’ so we stayed up many nights and fought.” More laughter until he continues, “Don’t get me wrong, I married Mrs. Right. I just didn’t know her first name was Always.

“I’m not alone in my struggles. I passed a church on my way here. The ten o’clock service tomorrow is titled, ‘Preparing for Marriage,’ and the six o’clock one is, ‘A Look into Hell.’ Coincidence? I think not.”

Livi laughs along with everyone else.

“I am sure these two will endure similar struggles, but as you know, I have known Hendrix for years, and I am one hundred percent certain that if he is standing here in his bar, in that damn get up, he’s made up his mind. I don’t doubt his love for Livi. Hell, it’s not like he’s doing it to get laid. The man has had so much pus—”

“Jared, can we move on to the vows?” I shift uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact with Livi’s parents.

“I spent three hours online and a few bucks to become ordained, so you’re just gonna have to deal.”

Jared turns to Livi. “Livi, you know he isn’t the last man on earth, right?”

“To me, he is.” She smiles sweetly at me.

In unison, the whole place says, ‘awe,’ and I lean in to kiss my girl

“Not yet,” Jared interrupts. “Hendrix, you know we consider her family the minute you say I d—”

“We already do, Jared,” Jagger chimes in.

“All right, then.” Jared chuckles.

“You wanna marry him, Livi?”

“I do.”

“You sure?” he jokes.