The Wright Brother Read online

  “Hold on.” Setting the phone on her lap, she looked at Jules.

  Tonight he only wore a pair of gray sweatpants, and his naked chest full of tattoos and pierced nipples was making it a little hard for her to concentrate. Dressed up or dressed down Julian was the yummiest specimen of male beauty she’d ever seen. Feeling inordinately pleased that he belonged to her, she flicked his left nipple—just because she could.

  The latent heat that always simmered between them flared to life in his eyes. Julian shifted on his seat, giving her better access to his body. She smirked.

  “Chas, wants us to go to this party thing that Luke’s set up for Friday. You free?”

  Taking the final bite of apple, he tossed it in the wastebasket and nodded. “I was going to meet the tutor, but I could bump it back to Sunday if that helps.” His warm fingers wrapped around her waist, bringing her more firmly on his lap. She nibbled on her bottom lip when he began to kiss the hollow of her throat.

  Swallowing a groan, she picked the phone back up. “Chas.” Her voice came out a barely audible sound.

  “Elisa?” She could practically hear her friend’s sudden confusion.

  “We’ll…ah—” She grunted when his tongue joined in on the assault of her body, and dragging her nails down his scalp, she cleared her throat. She needed to get off this phone now. “We’ll go,” she rushed out.

  Her body became warm and languid when his callused palm slid down the waistband of her sleep pants, cupping her ass.

  “What in the world are you… Oh,” Chas snickered. “Oh, that’s naughty, Lisa.”

  Stomach quivering when his mouth locked over her still-clothed right nipple, Elisa clicked the stupid phone off and tossed it onto the seat opposite them.

  Chastity would understand, and if she didn’t, Elisa really didn’t care at the moment…

  ~*~

  She walked out of their bedroom and then did a twirl holding her arms out to her sides.

  “Well, how do I look?” Elisa asked once she faced Julian.

  It was Halloween night, and Luke had set up a couples-themed dance for his frat. There wasn’t really a set theme so much as a request that if you were a couple you tried to match.

  Julian had snorted and said no way in hell would he wear a costume. He had however let her put him in a little bit of color. She’d bought him a dark red plain t-shirt and stylish jeans that were scuffed at the knees. Elisa had also brought him over to the dark side by getting him out of his skater shoes and into black converse sneaks.

  She on other hand had gone all out with her costume.

  “Well?” She smiled when she walked out of the bathroom, beginning to feel a little awkward the longer he stared. Maybe the wig and makeup had been too much. She patted her head nervously.

  But his impassive face soon turned into a large grin. Wiping his palm down his jeans, he signed, “So hot.”

  Wearing a lopsided grin now, she patted her stomach. The moment she’d seen the Queen of Hearts outfit in the store window she’d been possessed by the need to slut it up a little for him.

  Normally Elisa dressed pretty conservatively. Just jeans and a nice shirt, occasionally a dress or skirt, but nothing super racy. This thing stopped short at mid-thigh and puffed out around her bottom in such a way that every time she took a step it flounced up and down, exposing so much of her thigh that at times she felt a brush of cold air against the bottom curve of her ass.

  Chastity had tried to convince her to go for the white thigh highs with red hearts lining the sides and garter straps to hold it up. She’d put her foot down with that one and instead she’d gone for the black fishnet, which, yeah, wasn’t that much better at covering her up, but at least she could pretend. However, she had taken Chas’s advice to get the black suede pumps with the four-inch heels.

  Advice she wished she’d now said no to, she was not used to wearing heels at all, and already her ankles were throbbing their displeasure.

  Getting up from his seat, he came to her and threaded his finger through her black wig.

  Blushing, she snatched the piece of synthetic hair out of his hand. “Feel silly,” she signed.

  Julian grabbed her fluttering hand and brought it to his lips, giving her a sound kiss on the back of it, before letting her go to grab their jackets out of the hall closet. A knock sounded on the door just then.

  Emotions all over the place, Elisa jogged to open the door. Chastity stood on the stoop wearing a red-corseted devil outfit, complete with horns and tail. Her long dreds were piled high on her head in a sort of modified ponytail. The smoky eye make up she’d done made her caramel-colored eyes pop almost like neon.

  Julian whistled as he helped Elisa into her jacket, buttoning her up from waist to neck without missing a beat.

  Chastity laughed. “Thanks, Jules. And do you always let him dress you like a baby?” she teased, saying it not only in words, but in sign.

  Once Chastity and Luke had discovered how serious she and Julian were, they’d decided to learn how to speak to him. Elisa had the best friends in the world.

  “Come on, admit it,” Julian told her back, “you’d love it if Luke was half as romantic as I was.”

  “You Wrights were blessed with a healthy dose of ego, I swear.” Chastity slapped his shoulder and Elisa couldn’t help but chuckle, it was so true.

  “Now come on.” Chas rubbed her arms. “I’m freezing my ass off in this getup.” Turning on her heel, she jogged back toward her still-idling car.

  Locking up behind them, Elisa handed Jules the key and gripped his elbow to help keep her steady. Already she was majorly regretting her decision to wear these heels, but she was stuck for it now.

  She settled into Chas’s passenger seat with a loud sigh of relief. It wasn’t horribly cold out tonight, it really could have been worse, but Luke had apparently set the party up to happen in the McCreary Woods. Which was cool, but would mean her nipples would be frozen nubs by the end of the night.

  Elisa didn’t speak until they were on their way. “How big is this thing gonna be?” she asked, making sure to sign it so that Julian could be included in the conversation.

  Chastity shifted gears as she cruised to a stop at a red light. “Um, well, about that.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  Tossing her a tight grin, Chastity gave a self-effacing chuckle. “So apparently once everyone found out where the party was going to be held, well, it got kind of big.”

  Julian tapped Elisa’s shoulder to ask her what had made her suddenly grimace. Making sure to keep a running narrative of not only her conversation but Chas’s as well, she asked, “Like how many are we talking here?”

  “Umm.” She took off again, threading her way through the back roads of the campus that led toward McCreary’s haunted woods. “A couple hundred, I’m thinking. Which is good,” she was quick to interject, “‘Cause you know they were trying to raise money for the animal shelter. And by the way I’m pretty sure the entire swim team is gonna be there.” She didn’t look at Elisa when she said that.

  Tossing herself back on the chair, Elisa shook her head. “Chas,” she sighed, “you know I only agreed to go because I didn’t want Luke to have a bad turnout. You know how I feel about my teammates, though.”

  Things had not cooled since the night of the “incident” at the pool. In fact, Ava’s hostility toward Elisa had only seemed to increase. She was always careful to never do anything to land herself on Carter’s radar, but the last thing Elisa wanted to do was to spend an evening around her and Thomas. For whatever reason, Ava had it in for Elisa and was determined to make her life a living hell.

  Chas tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Not my fault. Ava came up and invited herself and Luke didn’t know about you guys. I’m sorry, babes. You really mad at me?” She gave Elisa a brief, worried frown.

  Julian patted her shoulder. He wasn’t much of a fan of Ava either.

  “No. But don’t think it escaped my notice how sne
aky you were by not telling me.”

  She shrugged. “Well, I’m not gonna apologize for that. You know how much I hate crowds, but I had to go cause of Luke and you had to go cause of me. But it’s not all bad—Chris and Rome are coming too.”

  Elisa smiled at Julian as she’d told him. Even though they were all going to the same school, neither she nor Jules had had much of a chance to hang out with the guys. Only about once a month or so could they all find the time to get together. Roman and Christian had done exactly what she’d expected them to do in college: they’d joined a frat, gotten involved in team sports, and basically lived the party lifestyle.

  Chastity turned down a quiet country ride, causing them to bounce up and down in their seats. Without streetlamps, the car was suddenly cast in deep shadow, with only the faint light of the moon to see by.

  Elisa dropped her hands to her lap.

  “Hey,” Julian tapped onto her bicep, “we can go whenever you’re ready, even if we have to call a cab, okay?”

  Smiling, and so thankful she’d fallen for Julian instead of Rome or Christian, she nodded. “Okay, thanks babe,” she said, even though she knew he couldn’t hear the words.

  Chastity frowned and glanced between them for a minute.

  “What?” Elisa asked when she said nothing.

  Shrugging, she smiled. “Nothing, we’re almost there.”

  Looking up, Elisa saw the lights. Elisa wasn’t really sure who owned McCreary Woods, but it was private property that somehow the college campus was able to access.

  Only once had she come through the woods, and that had been during the day for a long fifteen-mile jog with Julian. Even in the wash of morning sun it’d felt creepy. It probably had more to do with her imagination than the fact that the trees looked like something straight out of Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and it was a known fact that murders of crows nested there, which all added to its spine-chilling allure.

  Elisa had never wanted to come back, but she had to admit it was the perfect setting for a Halloween bash.

  “I strung up the lights, what do you think?” Chastity asked when she parked the car.

  Getting out, Elisa smiled. The white stringed lights that Chas had hung up through the dead branches all over the place, coupled with the strobing pulse of lights from the DJ booth set in the back did make it kind of funky cool.

  There were punch booths set up, food tables, and instead of chairs to sit on, Luke had scattered square bales of hay all around.

  Elisa was glad for her friends warning, because she was right, the place was packed with bodies dancing, laughing, eating, and making out. A few faces she recognized immediately.

  She spotted Ava and Thomas who looked like they must be a matching Romeo and Juliet snipping at each other at the refreshment stand.

  “It’s pretty damn awesome, actually,” she said, turning and smiling at Chas, who now looked like a proud peacock.

  Chas was studying to become a bio-medical engineer, but her passion of late had been design, much to Elisa’s surprise. This was the fourth party Chas had set up for Luke, with each one looking a little better than the last.

  The moment Chas’s eyes began to twinkle, Elisa knew Luke was headed their way.

  Luke sidled up next to them just a minute later and instead of wearing a devil costume like Elisa had assumed he would, he wore an all-white suit with a golden halo crown on top.

  A very light-skinned black man with unbelievable green eyes that spoke to his Irish-African heritage, it was easy to understand why Chastity had fallen in lust with him the moment they’d met. Thankfully the feeling was totally mutual, Elisa loved seeing them together.

  “Hey sexy,” he said to Chas, wrapping his arm around her waist and planting a big kiss on her lips before turning to Elisa and Julian.

  Freeing his hands, he jerked his chin toward Jules’s outfit. “See you didn’t get the memo.”

  Shrugging almost sheepishly, Julian settled his arm across Elisa’s shoulder. She wiggled deeper into his warm body, wrapping herself up in his clean scent of soap and mint. No matter how cold she got, Julian always stayed warm—he was like the world’s best blanket.

  “Do you want some punch?” he asked a second later.

  Nodding, she watched as the two guys walked off to grab their drinks.

  Chastity threaded her arm through Elisa’s. “So you guys are super serious, huh?”

  “I don’t know,” she said even as her stomach grew hot with nerves.

  “Pft.” Blowing a raspberry, Chastity led her toward a stack of hay sitting before a large bonfire and took a seat on the edge of one of them. “Yeah, and I’m blind. The way he looks at you, holy hell, it makes my insides want to combust.”

  “Chastity, you’re such a freak. What would Luke say if he heard you?” Elisa laughed, glancing at the guys who were now in the middle of an animated discussion.

  Luke and Julian, she’d discovered, had had much in common. Namely, their love of rhythm and blues.

  It always astounded Elisa how much Julian could hear without actually hearing. He loved music, sometimes she’d come home to find him lying down on the couch with the stereo turned to full sound and his eyes closed as he’d tap his foot to an invisible rhythm.

  Which she was sure drove her neighbors nuts, but since the Ken and Barbie twins liked to blast their music through all hours of the night, she was hardly going to ask Jules to turn his down.

  Chastity grinned.

  “Anyway, how are things going with you guys?” Elisa flicked her wrist, switching the subject. Not that she was shy talking about her relationship with Julian, but it was just one of those things where what they had still felt so new and intense that she wasn’t really sure how to define it.

  “Good. I guess.” She sighed, slumping her shoulders as she toyed with a thread of hay. “He graduates next year.”

  Elisa’s stomach flopped at the sadness tingeing her girlfriend’s eyes. It was easy to forget sometimes that she was now a junior and Jules only a freshman. Next year she’d be the one saying the same thing.

  “Oh hell,” Chastity said, squeezed her hands. “I totally forgot, Lisa, you and I are pretty much in the same boat, huh?”

  Feeling a little like someone had deflated her balloon, she shrugged. “Well, at least we still have almost two years before we have to talk about that.”

  Just then a hard kiss popped the left side of her cheek. For a second Elisa grinned, thinking it’d been Julian, until another pair of lips popped her right side.

  Twisting around, it was to see Rome and Chris—dressed in gladiator getups—grinning back at her.

  The guys had begun to look even more alike as they aged. Almost to the point that if she hadn’t known better she would have thought them identical twins instead of fraternal triplets.

  They’d filled out nicely, and the costume only helped to highlight their now bronzed and muscular physiques. Chris’s hair was still slightly lighter than his brother’s, and his blue eyes just a little more intense, but apart from that they were almost carbon copies.

  It didn’t help that they’d bought the exact same outfit. A dark brown pleated leather skirt with wrist cuffs and a leather collar around their necks. On their feet they had leather sandals that wrapped up to their knees.

  Leaving their rippling abs and nicely toned biceps on full display. She could admit to having the tiniest of heart flutters.

  The Wrights could never be accused of failing to make an entrance.

  “I think you guys got had.” Elisa grinned and pointed at them.

  “What?” Roman’s brows twitched as he glanced down at his body and then at Chris, who was having the same reaction.

  Snickering, Chastity nodded. “Yeah, somebody forgot to sell you the rest of your clothes.”

  “Oh please, you know you love it.” Christian made his pecs pop as his eyes gleamed.

  Roman sat beside Chastity, and Chris beside Elisa, both guys grabbing their h
ands and petting it seductively.

  “I say we ditch the losers and you fine ladies come and dance.”

  “Like hell you will.” Luke slapped Roman upside the head, which caused him to laugh and hop up from his seat.

  “You heard that, did you, damn.” He snapped his fingers. “Maybe next time.” He winked unabashedly at Chastity.

  Elisa knew Luke owned Chas’s heart, but the woman had an eye for hotness. And good looking was good looking, no matter which way you diced it.

  Julian cocked a brow, giving Christian a knowing look.

  Wiggling his own in return, Chris gave her another kiss on her cheek. Elisa laughed as Julian growled, but it was all in fun. Grabbing her hand, he got her to stand so that he could take the spot she’d been sitting at and then patted his knee.

  Tossing Chas a silly little grin, she took a seat and sighed when he handed her the drink.

  “I think it’s sick the way you let her use you like a chair,” Roman teased. “But come to think of it…” He pretended to adjust himself.

  Julian tossed a clump of hay at his brother’s head and he merely chuckled before sitting down on the bale beside them.

  The boys were currently single but actively looking for their Mrs. Wright now.

  Taking a sip of the hot punch, she played her fingers along Julian’s slightly furred forearm.

  “So how are things going, guys?”

  Christian shrugged. “It’s going. But I’m thinking of switching majors.”

  “Already?” Chastity chuckled. “You’ve barely even begun.”

  He grimaced. “Yeah, but I’m not sure I’m actually that serious about being a horticulturalist.”

  Julian snickered, signing quickly. “Are you serious? I thought you were kidding.”

  “It’s where all the chicks were, dude.”

  Roman chuckled, yanking Chas’s drink out of her hand just as she was about to take a sip.

  “Lord save us,” she growled at Luke.