With that she stormed off, leaving him realizing just how badly he’d fucked up by pushing her into this. He’d been patient with her for six long years, because he’d known that rushing her was a mistake.

So then why had he fucked this up so badly?

Because once he’d found out the real reason why she didn’t want to be with him, he’d been scared out of his fucking mind that she was going to leave him.

Now…

Now he had absolutely no fucking idea what he should do.

*-*-*-*

Later that night…

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said as he stared down at the phone in his hand.

“I can’t believe you won’t shut up and let me get some sleep,” Arik bitched as he rolled over onto his stomach and pulled a pillow over his head.

“How is this supportive?” he demanded as he tried to come up with a reason not to make this call, but after spending the last eighteen hours wracking his brain, trying to figure out how to fix this, he was finally ready to accept the fact that he was in way over his head with this one.

“You’ve kept me up all night with your bitching and whining! So make the fucking call so I can get some sleep!” Arik snarled, blindly throwing the pillow at him as he climbed off the bed and stormed off towards the bathroom where he slammed the door behind him.

Knowing that it was only a matter of minutes before his brother had enough of his bullshit and tossed him out, Darrin scrolled through his contact list and did the unthinkable.

“What do you want?” Trevor snapped as soon as he answered the phone.

“I need some advice,” he admitted.

There was a slight pause before Trevor said, “Go on.”

“I’ve really fucked this whole thing up with Marybeth.”

“You’re a Bradford. It’s what we do,” Trevor explained with a chuckle.

“Then tell me how to fix this,” he said, close to begging.

“Well, that depends….”

“On what?” he asked, biting back a groan when he realized that he was going to have to deal with typical Bradford bullshit to fix this.

“On what you did.”

Sighing, he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache coming on. “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

Chapter 37

“Oh my God, what the hell are you doing?” she may have yelled, gasped, moaned and cried out in pleasure as she felt the tip of Darrin’s tongue trace her slit. Desperate to hold onto something as an intense wave of pleasure tore through her, forcing her back to arch and her toes to curl, she reached out and-

“You son of a bitch!” she shouted, her eyes snapped open all while she prayed that she was imagining all of this, but a tilt of her head told her that she wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” he asked innocently as he tilted his head slightly to the side so that he could drag the tip of his tongue through her slit at a different angle while she tugged at the handcuffs keeping her arms secured to the headboard above her head.

She opened her mouth to answer him, but could only manage a moan as he dragged his tongue over her clit, effectively robbing her of the ability to yell at the bastard for handcuffing her to the bed.

“I figured that we should have a talk. Is now a good time for you?” he calmly asked as he raised his head from between her legs, but before she could sigh with relief, his thumb took over.

“Umm,” she said, forced to close her eyes as she tried to think about why she was mad at him and she definitely knew that she was mad at him.

“Okay if I start?” he asked, not giving her a chance to respond before he was murmuring, “Good, good,” and leaning back down to give her slit another leisurely lick to keep her knocked off balance.

“Why don’t we start with a few questions?” he suggested, pulling back so that his thumb could take over again.

“Oh, that’s great, because I have a really good one! Why exactly am I handcuffed to the bed?”

She wasn’t really surprised when he ignored her question and asked one of own. “What were you talking to Jake about this morning and does it have anything to do with why all of your bags are packed?”

“Are you going to answer my question?” she asked, refusing to give him anything until she knew what he hoped to gain by pissing her off like this.

“Sure,” he said, dipping his head back down for another lick that left her gasping. “After speaking with my cousins and careful consideration, I felt that we could benefit from some uninterrupted quality time.”

Sighing, because she wasn’t sure that she really wanted to know, she asked, “Which cousins?”

“Trevor and Jason,” he said, confirming her fears.

“And what exactly did they suggest?”

“That the sooner we both accepted the fact that I was going to constantly fuck this up, the better off we’d both be,” he said with a shrug like it was no big deal, and to a Bradford it probably wasn’t, but she wasn’t a Bradford. At least, not by blood and the time that she’d spent growing up alongside them in no way prepared her for this kind of Bradford logic.

“And they suggested doing this?” she really couldn’t help but ask, because as seriously disturbed as their advice could be, which was saying a lot since they were Bradfords, she really just couldn’t see them suggesting that he use sex to fix this.