Two Chronicles in One & An ARC Giveaway
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Thanksgiving
Bradford Style
An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle
“I’m sorry,” Duncan somehow managed to get out, as he dropped his gear by the backdoor, tempted to join it only to sigh when he realized that he was talking to himself.
That was followed by the realization that it was barely three in the morning. God, he was fucking exhausted, Duncan thought as he opened the laundry room door and stripped down to his boxers so that he didn’t bring the scent of smoke through the house. As soon as he was done, he quietly closed the door behind him and headed upstairs, too fucking tired to find out what his wife made for Thanksgiving.
Then again, since it had been two days since she made Thanksgiving dinner, there probably wasn’t much of anything left. He hadn’t planned on working the past sixty hours straight, but he hadn’t had much of a choice. He should have been able to make it home with plenty of time to help his wife on Thanksgiving morning, but his relief called in sick. After that, it was pretty much house fires, cuts, burns, family disputes that turned violent, two emergency childbirths, and the occasional car accident, but it had been enough to keep him going for the past three days.
He’d barely managed to get two hours of sleep in the last three days, Duncan thought as he walked into the downstairs bathroom and grabbed a shower. When he was done, he dried off, pulled on a pair of clean boxers from the drawer that his wife kept well-stocked for him and headed upstairs. He stopped by his baby girl’s room first and bit back a groan when he saw her, sitting up in her crib and looking so damn happy to see him.
“Did you miss Daddy, sweetheart?” he asked, forcing himself to ignore just how tired he was and picked her up.
When she gave him that devious little smile of hers, he made sure to scrunch up his face and pretend to be scared when he changed her diaper and found the surprise that she left for him. She giggled adorably as he cleaned her up, put a fresh diaper on her and then proceeded to spend the next ten minutes alternating between kissing her chubby little cheeks and raspberrying her tummy as he carried her downstairs so that he could make her a bottle.
Biting back a yawn, he grabbed the bottle and-
“Go to bed,” his stubborn grandfather-in-law said with a huge smile for the adorable little girl in his arms.
“I’ve got this,” Duncan said, biting back another yawn.
“You’re dead on your feet. Go to bed,” Grandpa said, already taking the baby in his arms and giving her the bottle.
“Thank you,” Duncan said, shooting his baby girl a wink that had her giggling before he finally managed to drag himself upstairs, knowing that he was only going to have a couple of hours to hold his wife before she had to get up for work.
A few minutes later, he was carefully crawling in bed next to his wife and curling his body around hers as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer. He pressed a kiss against the back of her neck as he gently caressed her stomach. When Necie turned her head towards him, he pressed another kiss against her jaw, one on her adorable little chin and found himself groaning when he kissed her lips.
He’d meant this to be a quick kiss to let her know how much he’d missed her, but once she brushed her lips against his…
He was fucking lost.
As his hand covered one bare breast, he pressed himself more tightly against her, earning a moan. When he did it again, he felt her reach back and grab hold of his boxers, awkwardly trying to push them down even as she pushed her ass back against him, driving him out of his fucking mind.
Releasing his hold on her breast, he reached down and freed himself so that the next time that she pushed back, she was rubbing his cock. It felt so good, Duncan thought as he placed his hand on her hip and gently ground himself against her. Without a word, she rolled over onto her stomach and he followed, pressing a kiss between her shoulder blades as he wrapped his arms around her and positioned himself so that his legs were on the outside of hers as he continued to grind himself against her ass.
When she moaned his name against the mattress, he pulled back until the tip found the soft, wet slit waiting for him and pushed inside her. Releasing his hold on her, he held himself up on his elbows as he covered her hands that were fisted in the sheet and leaned down to whisper in her ear, telling her how much he loved her, how much he missed her, how good she felt wrapped around him, and all those things that he thought about doing to her while he was working.
She didn’t last long and neither did he, not in this position and not with her whimpering his name and begging him for more. By the time she finished squeezing him dry, he was laying back on his side with his arm wrapped tightly around her and he was fast asleep.
“We’re going to need you to get up now,” an annoyingly familiar voice said sometime later.
Determined to ignore the owner of that voice, Duncan rolled over onto his stomach and-
“Shit!”
Found himself being dragged out of bed by two of the most annoying assholes that he’d ever met.
“Get up,” Trevor said, releasing his hold on him so that he dropped to the floor with a pained grunt while the other asshole continued to glare down at him.
“Get your lazy ass up,” Jason demanded, as Duncan laid there, frowning as he glanced up at the alarm clock and-
“Oh, shit!”
-snapped when he saw what time it was.
He’d overslept. He should have been up a few hours ago so that he could spend some time with his baby girl before he went back to work, but now it was too late. He had thirty minutes to get his ass to work. He grabbed the fresh uniform that his wife set out for him, pulled on his clothes as he frantically searched the room for his boots only to remember that he’d left them downstairs by the back door because they’d been covered in soot from the house fire on Bedford Street.
As he pulled his shirt on and tucked it into his pants, he absently thanked the assholes that had woken up even as he berated himself for fucking this up. He should have remembered to set the alarm clock so that he could have gone next door to his brother’s house and picked up his baby girl early. He’d been looking forward to spending a few hours with her and now, he was headed back to work and wouldn’t see her again until tomorrow.
Furious with himself, Duncan headed downstairs, doing a quick mental inventory of everything he needed to do and going over everything that he had in his jump-pack and-
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Necie said, smiling at him as she raised herself on her tiptoes so that she could kiss his cheek as he took in his family working to finish setting up the living room for the kids table before he glanced over his shoulder and found his father and brothers setting up the dining room table right around the time that the mouthwatering aroma of roast turkey reached him.
“What’s going on?” he asked, watching as his mother and sister carried out platters of food.
“We weren’t going to have Thanksgiving without you,” Jodi said, as Danny rolled past him in his wheelchair, his temporary wheelchair after what they were all hoping was his last surgery, with a, “Happy Thanksgiving, Asshole.”
“You waited?” Duncan asked, unable to believe it.
“Of course, we did,” his mother said, as she carried a platter of stuffed mushrooms past him.
“Everyone came over for a Zoe tradition,” Trevor said, shrugging it off while Duncan stood there frowning until the woman in question cleared it up for him.
“P.B. Changs,” Zoe said, as she carried a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes past him that had his stomach growling and had him biting back a groan, because he couldn’t stay.
“I have to go to work,” he said, feeling like an asshole as he stood there and-
“No, you don’t,” his wife said, pulling him down for a kiss. “John’s covering your shift for you. So, go sit down and enjoy Thanksgiving with your daughter.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, unable to help but smile down at his wife before he went and did that, wondering if she had any idea just how much he loved her.
*-*-*-*
The Counter Plan
Part III
An R.L. Mathewson Chronicle
“What’s going on?” Mikey asked, swallowing nervously as she glanced from her Uncle Eric and Uncle Trevor standing at the bathroom door in front of her to look back and-
“I told you that you were the weakest link,” Sebastian said, as Uncle Jason dropped him on his feet in front of him, effectively trapping them in the bathroom, which reminded her…
“Umm, I’m in here for a reason,” she said, gesturing towards the toilet.
Eyes narrowing, Uncle Trevor and Uncle Eric stepped back as one and closed the bathroom door for her as she glanced back just in time to see Uncle Jason grab hold of Sebastian’s shirt and pulled him out of the bathroom before closing the bathroom door behind him. She stood there for another minute, before she shrugged it off and locked both bathroom doors and used the bathroom. Once she was finished, she washed her hands, grabbed a baseball magazine from the stack that she kept under the sink, a few towels, and climbed into the tub where she settled in for the night.
That was followed by a throat clearing awkwardly a few minutes later. “Are you done?” Uncle Eric asked.
“No,” Mikey said, getting comfortable as she started reading the article on fast balls that she’d been meaning to get to for the past few weeks.
“It’s just that if you come out right now, I’ll get to help Trevor with the next house that he flips so I’m gonna need you to help me out here,” Uncle Eric said, making her sigh because they both knew that Uncle Trevor was never going to let him within fifty feet of a power tool.
“I have your best friend,” Uncle Jason pointed out, which was followed by a heavy sigh from the other closed door, the sounds of her baby brothers’ door opening, someone walking down the hallway before her bedroom door was opened and-
“Oh, come on! I wasn’t going to hurt him! I was negotiating,” Uncle Jason explained, which was followed by, “You mean bastard!” and the sounds of a pained grunt and other sounds that she easily ignored as the sounds of the bathroom door unlocking caught her attention.
Frowning, she watched as Sebastian let himself in only to close the door and lock it behind him, which was followed by a, “Damn it!” He glanced at the other locked door before shrugging it off, walking over to the tub as he gestured for her to move over even as he climbed in behind her, wrapped his arm around her, and-
Promptly stole her magazine so that he could read it.
Sighing, she settled back against him, pulled the large blue towel higher, closed her eyes, and-
“As soon as Eric leaves to go renegotiate the terms of our surrender, we’re going to have to make a run for it.”
“That won’t be for a while,” she pointed out.
“Probably not.”
“You know that we’re going to have to do, right?” she asked, as she heard her father join whatever was going on in her room.
“Tell them about the two extra tickets?” Sebastian said, chuckling.
“It’s the only way,” she said, nodding solemnly.
“How do you think that will end?” he asked, placing his chin against her shoulder as his hold around her tightened.
“Probably something like this.”
“Probably.”
©Rerum Carta Industries, Inc. 2019. All Rights Reserved.
Coming December 26, 2019
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Coming February 4, 202
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Love the Chronicles.
Oh I loved the Bradford Thanksgiving…. that put a smile on my face
I so drool for these. They are my addiction.
Thank you so much! These two chronicles will tie me over until the 26th!!!
I totally love your books!!!
Devestated was amazing, and can’t wait to read Trace and Aidan’s stories!!