“Was waiting a week really asking too much?” his father ask
ed, shaking his head in disgust.
“No one told me that she wasn’t supposed to do anything for a week,” he bit out, because if he had known about it he would have resigned himself to cold showers and inappropriate thoughts to help himself get through the week.
“I wanted to wait for marriage,” the little demon whispered.
“I know you did, sweetheart,” his father said, nodding in agreement, but Lucifer didn’t miss the way his old man’s lips twitched with amusement as he betrayed him.
“He always was a selfish bastard,” Aidan added.
“Can we get anything for you?” his father asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her.
A sniffle. “A Coke, please? I’m ever so thirsty.”
“You poor thing,” his father said and he knew that his father was going along with this just to fuck with him.
“Thank you,” the little traitor murmured softly as she shot him a shy look that honestly scared the living shit out of him, because she was a little too good at this.
“You are so fucked,” his brother whispered next to him and he could only nod in agreement.
“I’ll get you that drink, sweetheart. You just lay there and take it easy,” his father said with a reassuring smile as he stood back up and headed for the door, pausing long enough to shoot him a glare. “Do you think that you can keep your hands to yourself for that long?”
“I didn’t know!” he snapped, wondering how he’d ended up in such a fucked up family.
“I just wanted him to like me,” she murmured as she lay there, looking completely innocent.
“So. Fucking. Screwed,” his brother said, deciding that enunciating every word was fucking helpful.
It wasn’t.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked the little brat trying to get comfortable as he elbowed his brother.
“Oh,…shit,” Aidan choked out as the shot to his stomach knocked him on his ass, freeing Lucifer up to handle other matters.
“Probably because no one told me?” Rebecca said, dropping the innocent schoolgirl act that was going to get her spanked once she was medically cleared.
He shot his brother a questioning look.
“She was dad’s patient,” Aidan managed to get out as he rolled over onto his side.
“It was in the print out,” their father said as he walked back into the room.
“Oh,” Rebecca said with a wince, letting him know that the little brat was at fault on this one.
“Why didn’t you read it or at least tell me about it so that I could read it?” he demanded.
Sighing, she gave up on getting comfortable and simply bunched up her pillow. “I stopped reading handouts a long time ago,” she admitted with a shrug, reminding him that she wasn’t exactly on the best of terms with the medical profession after all the years of bullshit that they’d put her through.
“Where is it?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose and wondering if he should invest in Advil.
“In my bag,” she grumbled, not looking particularly happy, not that he fucking cared.
She was following the doctor’s orders whether she liked it or not.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, shooting her a glare that told her exactly what he would do to her beautiful ass if she even thought about getting out of that bed.
Once he was sure that she got the message, and he was assuming that’s what that eye roll of hers meant, he stalked out of his bedroom, determined to find her bag and get back here before the little demon could get into any trouble.
*-*-*-*
“So,” Rebecca said, nibbling on a French fry as she simultaneously slapped Aidan’s hand away from stealing her hamburger patty, “why doesn’t Lucifer let you in here?”
“Because he’s an asshole,” Aidan said, glaring at her as she picked up a fry and dipped it in the large puddle of ketchup that covered most of her plate.
“Aidan,” Ethan, as she was now allowed to call him, said in warning, sounding like a dad. Well, not her dad, but a dad in general.
“What?” Aidan asked. “It’s true.”
“He’s not an asshole,” she said, shaking her head absently as she took another bite out of her fry.
“No, he’s not,” Aidan grudgingly agreed with a chuckle as he once again-
“Are your five cheeseburger platters not enough for you?” she asked, blinking at the large man pouting, and yes, he was in fact pouting, across the table from her.
He glanced down at three platters still filled to the brim with food and shook his head. “No.”
“He got this from his mother,” Ethan said as he picked up a cheeseburger off of one of the six-cheeseburger platters that he’d ordered.
“I suspected as much,” she said, nodding in agreement as she cut a piece of her hamburger patty off with her fork and popped the tender piece of meat in her mouth as she considered the two handsome men sharing the large booth with her.
“How long have you been tormenting my son?” Ethan asked, cutting one of his many cheeseburgers in half.
“A little over five years,” she answered proudly as she popped a fry in her mouth.
Ethan chuckled as he bit into his burger.
“How did he end up with the name Lucifer?” she asked, deciding that they were probably her best bet at getting an answer to the question that everyone in the restaurant had been dying to know.
Instead of giving her the answer that she’d been waiting five long years for, they laughed. “Sorry,” Aidan said, grinning hugely as he shook his head, “you’re going to have to ask him and that includes finding out his real name.”
Shrugging, she said, “I already know his real name.”
Aidan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
Before she got a chance to respond, the man in question was there, glaring down at her, which was a little unsettling since his hair was messed up, his shirt was a bit torn and there were familiar looking scratch marks on his arms and chest.
“Did you find the bag?” she asked as she nibbled on a fry.
“Run,” he snarled and since she was almost positive that he was talking to her, she decided that it was probably for the best if she called it a night.
“Lovely seeing, you gentlemen, again,” she said with a smile as she carefully scooted to the end of the soft bench, stood up and took a step towards safety when she remembered the ice pack that had been keeping her bottom comfortably numb.
“Excuse me,” she said softly, shooting Lucifer a smile as she reached around him, grabbed her ice pack and with another murmured, “Goodnight,” quickly shuffled towards the back door where she found Mojo, lying on his side, drooling and wagging his tail like the naughty little boy that he was.
“You let me down, buddy,” she said, sighing as she carefully scooted around him so that she didn’t slip in the puddle of drool that he’d created, “you let me down.”
Chapter 33
“I like her,” his father said with a fond smile as the three of them watched Rebecca shuffle towards the back entrance.
He considered going after her, but…
It was probably for the best if he took this opportunity to calm down before he did something irrational like spank that bruised ass of hers. He’d give her twenty minutes to make it back upstairs, get ready for bed, curl up beneath the covers and come up with some asinine excuse that would explain why she’d left his apartment and decided to sneak his father and brother into the Fire & Brimstone, the one place on earth that he’d worked his ass off to keep Bradford free.
He didn’t do it because he hated them or because they embarrassed him, but because he wasn’t ready for them to see what he’d done. If there was one thing in the world that his family took seriously, it was food. He wanted to make sure that everything was fucking perfect before his family finally managed to break into the place.
He’d always been like that. It was the reason that he’d had his own room when he was a kid, why his parents
never had to ask him to do his homework, clean his room or do his chores. The problem they had with him was getting him to stop cleaning his room, doing his homework and glaring at anyone that came near the sink when he had dish duty. Things really hadn’t changed that much when he got older and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing anymore.