The Home-wrecker (The Goode Brothers)
The Home-wrecker: Chapter 27

This family is so fucking weird. Granted, I don’t have a lot to compare it to. It was just me and my dad growing up, and we never did family shit.

So I have no clue if this is how normal families behave. Yelling at each other in private rooms one minute, then saying grace and talking about the weather around the table the next.

This is how they were when we were kids, and I see nothing has changed.

Abby asked to sit next to me, which made Sage grumpy because, apparently, she always likes to sit next to her.

“She has a new favorite,” I brag across the table, to which my pink-haired boss just sticks her tongue out at me.

Abby giggles and leans in closer to me.

After that outburst in the office, everything is mostly normal. There is still a thick tension in the air, but I think most of that is just from the situation of their patriarch being a slimy, villainous creep.

I like Adam, I do. But the way he yelled at Caleb got under my skin fast. Maybe it was what happened the other night with Briar, but I feel closer to Caleb now.

I’m still mad at him for what happened, but as I get to know him more and see just how complex his life has become, I think I understand him a bit more than I did when I was fourteen.

I think I’d consider him a friend, although friend doesn’t seem the right word. He’s something to me now. I just wish I knew what.

At the end of the table is Caleb’s twin brother, Lucas—although they’re not identical. Caleb is so much broader and taller, whereas Lucas is built more like me. He’s slender and quiet. I notice the way he watches the room as if he’s studying us but doesn’t bother to weigh in much.

I wonder if he and Caleb are close. When Lucas arrived, he seemed to be able to tell immediately that Caleb was worked up. One look and he was approaching his brother with concern. For that, I stepped away, letting Caleb have a little privacy with his twin.

But now, as we sit at dinner, I feel Adam’s eyes on me every few minutes, but he doesn’t look as angry as before. He looks curious, which I can understand. I was acting like Caleb’s boyfriend in there, practically pounding my chest like some overprotective gorilla.

That shit is just not like me.

“I hope none of you have forgotten about the charity gala next week,” Caleb’s mother, Melanie, says from the head of the table.

“We’ll be there,” Sage replies sweetly.

Melanie grins at her before touching her hand.

“I think it’s good for the public to see us together, standing strong amid all of this,” Adam adds from the opposite side of the table, sitting at the head where I assume his father once sat.

“I agree,” his mother replies. When her eyes scan in my direction, I tense.

“Dean, I hope you know you are invited.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” I stammer in response. “I appreciate the invite, though.”

“Of course,” she says with a gentle smile. “The invitation is always open.”

I want to ask why, but I don’t. I’m not part of this family, and the longer I sit here, the more I realize how much it feels like I’m filling Isaac’s seat. He’s not here, but I am.

Once that thought enters my mind, it becomes harder to relax. I end up pushing around the food on my plate and drowning out the rest of their conversation.

What would he think about this if he were here? What would he think about me, Caleb and Briar? Would Isaac and I have stayed together if it wasn’t for Caleb driving us apart? Would we still be together today?

My gut says no, but it doesn’t change the fact that, at the time, Isaac was everything to me.

That memory just hurts.

After our dinner is done, the family mingles for a while. We help clean up the table, do the dishes, and end up in the living room. I don’t sit on the couches with them, though. I linger somewhere near the door.

Caleb notices me standing alone as he glances up from the recliner. With Abby sitting on his mother’s lap, he says, “Mom, do you mind if I take a look through Dad’s office before we go? I just need to check for something.”

“Of course, baby,” she says with her sweet Southern drawl.

As he passes by me, up the stairs toward the office, he nods in my direction, signaling me to follow. I feel Adam watching us as I jog up behind Caleb.

Once we reach the office, Caleb closes the door behind us, and my blood pressure spikes. For reasons I don’t understand, I like the idea of being alone with him. I wanted this.

“You want a drink?” he asks, going to the shelf along the wall.

“Sure,” I reply, watching as he opens the cabinet and pulls down a bottle of bourbon. He pours two glasses and hands one to me. When he moves to the large chair behind the desk, I take a moment to admire how handsome Caleb has become over the years.

He was always good-looking, but when I knew him before, he was hot in a young, college-athlete way. Now he’s sexy in a mature, aged way with a short beard and crow’s-feet around his eyes.

I see the stress he carries, and if he were my client, I know exactly how I would help him relieve it.

Neither of us says anything for a while as he sips his bourbon.

“You seem stressed,” I say after taking a drink of my own.

He chuffs. “You think?”

“Why do you care about your father’s statement? Your dad lied. So what? Just tell everyone the truth.”

“It’s not that easy,” he replies, rubbing his forehead.

“Why is it on you, though? It’s like…you’re carrying the emotions of everyone around you—your wife, your daughter, your mother, your brother, your family, the whole fucking world. But who’s taking care of you?” I ask, taking a step forward and leaning against the desk with the glass in my hands.

“I didn’t bring you in here so you could lecture me about how I’m doing everything wrong,” he snaps.

“Then why did you bring me in here?” I ask, tilting my head.

He quickly averts his eyes, taking another drink. “I don’t fucking know.”

After a moment, he picks his head up and glares at me with a furrowed brow. “No, I do know. I brought you in here because I want to know what that was earlier. Why did you defend me to my brother?”

“Because I wanted to,” I reply plainly.

“And why did you kiss me the other night?”

“Because I wanted to.”

His eyes meet mine, blazing with something desperate and wild. “And what else do you want?”

Setting my glass down on the desk, I take another step toward him until my legs are brushing his.

“I think you know what I want.”

His nostrils flare as he forces in a shaky breath. “Well, too bad. I’m married, so knock it off.”

“That is too bad,” I reply in a low murmur.

“Dean, stop it,” he says with a plea in his tone. His resolve is fading, and it’s not that I want him to do something he doesn’t want to. I do care about his wife, so I’m not forcing him to do anything that would hurt her.

It’s just that Caleb and I have been teetering on the edge of something for a while, and I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t exist. We have chemistry, but he just likes to pretend that that chemistry is hate. At first, I guess I thought it was hate, too. I haven’t forgiven him for what happened with Isaac, but as I get to know him more, there’s a pull between us that has me forgetting about all of that.

“Stop what?” I reply.

He glares up at me as he says, “You know damn well what.” But as the words leave his mouth, his leg brushes mine again. Then he’s leaning into me as if his body is sending a different message than his words.

Leaning down, I rest my hands on the arms of his chair. This brings our faces mere inches apart.

“No, Caleb. I’m afraid I don’t know what you want me to stop because you were the one who brought me in here with you. You were the one who stuffed my underwear in your pocket.”

“I—” he starts, but his words quickly get lost the moment my hands move from the chair to his thighs. Sucking in a gasp, he freezes and waits for me to make the next move.

“I know you’re married,” I whisper. “And I know you don’t want to cheat on your wife, but you’re lying to yourself if you say you don’t want this.”

“My family is right downstairs,” he replies, glancing toward the door.

“Then stay quiet.” Slowly, I move to my knees between his legs, and I feel him tense.

“What—what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take care of you for once,” I reply.

He stares into my eyes with trepidation as I move my hands to the waistband of his pants. I carefully slip the button through the hole, and my cock throbs in my pants when I think about having his hard length in my hand.

I want to be his reckoning. I want to be the one to make him come undone.

His hands grip the chair as he watches me. “I can’t do this,” he whispers. “Fuck.”

“But you want it, don’t you?” I ask.

He lets his head hang back. “God, yes,” he replies, his voice strained.

How long has he held up this lie about himself, probably to himself? How exhausting that sort of life must be. I wish I could dismantle every single lie he’s told himself.

“I’m married, and I know I shouldn’t, but fuck, Dean. I need your mouth. I need it so fucking bad.”

Hearing him say that is like warm honey dripping down my spine.

“Tell me to suck your cock, then,” I whisper.

He doesn’t hesitate. “Suck my cock.”

“Good boy,” I reply with a smirk.

I can see him shiver with anticipation. After easing down his zipper, I tug on the elastic of his boxer briefs, and his aching cock springs out. As I wrap my hand around it, he winces.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he murmurs.

“Relax, let me take care of you.”

“Okay,” he breathes out.

Sitting higher on my knees, I stare up at him as I run the length of my tongue along his shaft. When he feels my lips wrap around the tip, he turns his gaze downward, locking eyes with me as I suck him into the back of my throat.

His mouth falls open, and his eyes roll as I hollow my cheeks and bob my mouth up and down on his cock.

I love every single second of watching him lose his mind. I’m fairly certain I’m the first man to ever have Caleb’s dick in their mouth, and I love it. I want to be the last, the only. I want Caleb Goode to treat me like his own personal fuck toy, his dirty secret, his guilty pleasure.

Tightening my hand around the base of his cock, I squeeze as my mouth and hand pump, bringing him closer and closer to the edge.

I realize our time is limited, and someone could walk through that door any minute and find me blowing him under the desk like his naughty secretary. That thought has my own dick leaking at the tip.

As if he can read my mind, he mutters, “Are you hard?”

I pull my mouth from his shaft, keeping up the movement of my hand as I reply, “Hard as a rock.”

“Stroke yourself,” he commands.

Putting my mouth back around his dick, I flick open the button on my pants and ease my own rigid length out. My hand is moving rapidly, stroking myself as I suck his cock, flicking my tongue under the head as I go.

“I’m going to hell for this,” he whispers, running his hand over the short, buzzed hair on my head. “But God, it’s worth it.”

If I could smile, I would.

“Can I come in your mouth? Will you swallow it for me, baby?”

I nod eagerly.

Fuck yes, please. Give me all of it. Let me feel your pleasure sliding all the way down my throat.

A moment later, the head bulges, and he moans quietly into the crook of his arm as the warmth hits my throat. I let him fill my mouth before I pull my lips from his cock.

Grabbing his arm from around his face, I make him look at me as I show him my open mouth, my cum-covered tongue, and my seed-lined lips.

He lets out a whimper at the sight. Then I close my mouth and swallow, licking my lips and savoring the taste of him as he becomes a part of me. Rolling down my throat like he belongs there.

I’ve given up on my own cock at the moment. I’m not interested in jacking off under his piece-of-shit dad’s chair.

No, tonight is about Caleb.

Releasing my cock, I stuff it back in my pants and rise from the floor.

Caleb is staring straight ahead, focused on nothing as the last ten minutes replay in his mind. I know he’s already reeling with guilt. I knew that would happen, as did he. I just hope it was worth it. I hope I was worth it.