Dylan (Bowen Boys, #3)(23)

“Come here, love. I want to taste you,” he said. She shook her head. “I want you right here on the floor. We can break it in like we did the counters at lunch.”

“We’re going to break each other if you don’t stop that. And how are you going to get this place finished if you’re forever sending your help away?” She backed up, then stood up. “I mean it, Dylan. It’s daylight.”

That stopped him. He looked out the windows. He’d decided before she came into his life that they didn’t need curtains. Now he could see the necessity of them. He looked back at her.

“It is daylight for sure, but what does that have to do with me wanting you?” She looked around, suddenly shy. It seemed so out of character for her.

“You’d see me.” He cocked a brow. “Okay, I know you’ve seen me naked before, but now it’s different. I’m ready for you.”

He took a deep breath, and she flushed and stammered on. “I mean, I know that you want me. Before, when you and I had sex on the counter, you snuck up behind me and…and you seduced me. This time I know that you want me and I’m prepared. I think we should wait until dark.”

“Why?” She looked away and he wanted to leap into her mind and find out, but he’d promised her that he wouldn’t do that…not unless he had to. He was nearly there when she spoke softly.

“Because I know what I look like without my clothes on.” She looked up when Khan came in the room. “I have to go.”

She took off out of the house and into the yard. Dylan looked at his brother and decided that he needed advice. Maybe not from him, but his wife for sure. He asked where she was.

“She’s mad at me again,” Khan said.

Dylan didn’t ask what he’d done, because neither of them was in a great mood, and that might be all it took for them to get into a brawl in his new dining room. “She is mad because I said she was a tad cranky and maybe she needed to lay down. I was only trying to make her feel better, but she stomped off saying something about men and their brains. I didn’t mean anything but that she looked tired.”

“You didn’t tell her that, did you?” Dylan knew that he had when his brother turned away from him. “Christ, how am I supposed to figure out how to be the best mate in the world when the one man I’m supposed to be able to look up to is a moron?”

“Hey. That isn’t right. All I said was she needed to go and have a f*cking nap. How the hell was I supposed to know it was going to cause an all-out war?” Just as he lunged for him, their father stepped between them. “Dad, this is between Dylan and me. I think you should stay out of the way.”

“Women problems, right?” Dylan nodded. “Thought so. Well, boys, I’m going to give you the best advice a father can pass to his sons. It’s sound and has worked for me for nearly twenty-five years.”

“Dad, you’ve been married for forty.” Khan looked at his dad and then at his mom when she stepped in the room as well.

“Right you are, but it took me nearly fifteen to learn what I’m about to tell you.” His dad sat down, and Dylan was ready to take notes. His parents had been happy together since he was a kid. He’d never seen them fight, never seen them to be anything but a loving, wonderfully happy couple. Dylan leaned forward when his dad did.

“Shut up.” Dylan started to tell him that they’d not spoken when his dad continued. “Just shut up. I don’t care if she wants your honest opinion of something or if she’s asking you if you like her new recipe. Shut up. It’ll settle things in a heartbeat.”

“You old fool.” His mom came all the way into the room. “What is wrong with you telling them that? You’ll have their mates coming to me asking me why I raised such an idiot. Shut up indeed. I should have taken out your tongue with advice like that.” She looked at the two of them. “You have to listen. We women know you guys are trying, but there are times when we don’t even know what it is we want. So you just have to listen. Try listening to us with your hearts, not your empty heads.”

Dylan watched his parents argue and looked at Khan when they stepped out of the room. When Khan got back to work on the floor, so did Dylan. They had about a half dozen more pieces to lay when Khan suddenly sat back.

“Who do we listen to? The man who says that’s what he does, or the woman who tells us to listen to our hearts?” Khan looked at the floor. “Why are we doing this when both our mates are pissed at us?”

“Mine isn’t pissed. She’s embarrassed for me to see her naked.” Khan smiled. “What? You think you can help me?”

“Yeah. Monica is mad because I said she needed a nap and I wouldn’t go lay down with her. She seems to think that I don’t think she’s sexy while she’s pregnant. Honestly, I’m terrified of hurting her. I mean, look at me compared to her. I’m like an ox and her this little…little flower of a thing. What if I rolled over on her or the baby?”

Khan sounded so horrified that Dylan laughed. “You should tell her that. I mean just like that. You sound that afraid of her and she’ll melt.”

“You think?” Dylan nodded. “Okay, your problem. You know how Monica was hurt by that prick? Well, she was embarrassed about the scar he’d left her. I took her to bed and kissed every place she had on her until we were…. It worked. She felt better about them because I didn’t care.”