sparked in his spine, and he knew he was dangerously close as he pounded away, watching Reese, waiting, waiting…
“Oh, fuck, yes!” Reese cried out, his body bucking, cock exploding.
Brantley drove into him one final time and came in a fierce rush that left him breathless and light-headed.
And so fucking content.
Chapter Four
Friday, December 25, 2020
This year, Christmas Day was going about the same as every other day. Chaotic and crazy were adjectives Reese would use to describe it.
It had started with breakfast with Brantley’s parents, Iris and Frank, as well as Brantley’s three sisters, two brothers-in-law, three brothers, the offspring that belonged to them, and last but not least, JJ. Oh, and Tesha. Couldn’t forget her. But she’d been on her best behavior, so Reese couldn’t really say she’d contributed to the chaos and craziness that had filled that house.
And while it had left him with a bit of a headache, Reese couldn’t deny he’d had a great time. The Walkers were an interesting bunch, and he found he enjoyed being around them.
However, he would have to admit, he had also enjoyed the three-hour drive from Coyote Ridge to his mother’s house in Plano. During the trip, JJ and Tesha had chilled in the backseat, both of them catching some sleep while Reese had relaxed in the passenger seat. He never even asked to drive, knowing Brantley would’ve insisted, and since it was Christmas, he figured there was no reason to get into an argument if it could be avoided.
Now, as he sat at his mother’s dining room table, he was immersed once again in family, but not so much chaos. Theirs was a much more laid-back kind of get-together.
“So how’s work?”
Reese glanced at his brother, saw that Zachariah, better known to anyone he introduced himself to as Z, was directing the question at him.
Fork in hand and halfway to his mouth, Reese answered with, “Good. We’re busy.”
They had just sat down to dinner—he and Brantley, his mother Cindy and her boyfriend Hugh, Z and RT, his sister Jensyn, and JJ. The eight of them were comfortably scattered around his mother’s huge dining room table, feasting on pork roast with potatoes, carrots, and baby onions and his mother’s specialty: sweet cornbread while Tesha relaxed at Reese’s feet, likely hoping for a scrap or two to make it to her. They’d been told they had to eat the healthy stuff before they could move on to the desserts. The kitchen counters were loaded with more sweets than they’d be able to finish in a week. And that was saying something considering Z’s enormous appetite.
“Cold cases?” Ryan Trexler, known simply as RT to his family and friends, asked.
Reese nodded. “For the most part, yeah.”
“Any luck?”
“A little,” he admitted. “There’s a reason these cases are cold.”
“Oh, I’m sure. If it were easy to solve missing-persons cases, no one would be missing, huh?”
Reese picked up his iced tea. “Exactly.”
“Are these mostly in the Austin area?” Hugh asked.
“Yes, sir.” Reese looked his mother’s boyfriend in the eyes as he answered, aiming to show him respect being that they’d hardly spoken much to one another.
This wasn’t the first time he’d met Hugh Weston, the sixty-six-year-old investment banker born and raised in the suburbs of Dallas, but it was the first time he’d spent a decent amount of time with the man despite the fact his mother had been dating him—exclusively—for quite a number of years.
It wasn’t that he had anything against the guy. In fact, he thought Hugh was good for his mother. Since his father had been comatose after his accident, right up until he died, Reese’s mother had needed someone to lean on, someone who could be there for her, and Hugh had filled the void. He seemed to make her happy, and for Reese, that was all that really mattered. He simply didn’t know much about Hugh, and he couldn’t deny the ingrained desire to unearth as much information as he could in an effort to appease his own curiosity.
Not that he would. That would be a violation of privacy, and being that his brother seemed content with Hugh, Reese figured there weren’t any skeletons in the guy’s closet. After all, Z did work for Sniper 1 Security, had access to information Reese probably couldn’t even get his hands on. He could only assume that meant Z had done his homework at some point and deemed the man worthy of their mother’s love and attention.
“For the most part, we stay in and around central