had served with dinner. “Any reason why I wouldn’t want to take you home to meet my mother if we shared that kind of a relationship, Swan?” Although he didn’t think he needed to let her know—again—that they didn’t share that kind of relationship, he did so anyway.
“Honestly, David, do I really have to answer that?”
“Yes, I think you do.”
She stared at him for a minute. “I’m well aware when it comes to interracial relationships that not all families are accepting.”
He chuckled. “My family isn’t one of them, trust me. Interracial or international, we couldn’t care less. My brother Brad met his wife, Sela, while working in Seoul, South Korea, and my brother Michael met Gardenia in Spain. Like I told you, my parents would accept anyone who makes us happy, regardless of race, creed, religion, nationality or color.”
She didn’t say anything to that. Then she broke eye contact with him to glance down into her glass of tea. Moments later, she raised her gaze back to him.
“My father’s parents didn’t. They threatened him with what they would do if he married Mom and they kept their word. They disowned him. Still, my mother reached out to them when Dad died to let them know he’d passed. They came to his funeral but had no qualms about letting Mom know they still would not accept her. They would only tolerate me since I was biracial. They even tried forcing Mom to let me go back with them. That’s when my godfathers stepped in.”
Flipper shook his head, feeling the pain she refused to acknowledge, the pain she’d obviously felt because of her grandparents’ actions. But he’d heard it in her voice nonetheless.
“It’s sad that some people can be such bigots. At the risk of this sounding like a cliché, some of my closest friends are black,” he added, immediately thinking of Bane, Viper and Coop. Like her, Mac was of mixed heritage and had a white mother and black father.
“I’m sure some of your closest friends are, David.”
He wondered if she believed him. One day, she would see the truth in his words. Then it suddenly occurred to him—no, she would not. There would be no reason for her to ever meet the four guys who were just as close to him as his biological brothers.
“I’ll be back in a minute with the pie,” she said. Then she stood and left the room.
Flipper watched her leave, feeling that he hadn’t fully eradicated her doubts the way he’d wanted to do. That bothered him. He didn’t want her to think he was one of those prejudiced asses who believed one race of people was better than another. What her grandparents had done to her father and mother, as well as to her, was unforgivable. Regardless of how she’d tried to come across as if their actions hadn’t hurt her, as if they still didn’t hurt her, he knew better.
She needed a hug right now.
He pushed back his chair and left the dining room to enter her kitchen. Instead of getting the pie like she’d said she would do, she was standing with her back to him, looking out the kitchen window at the ocean. And he could tell from the movement of her shoulders that she was crying.
“Swan?”
She quickly turned, swiping at her tears. “I’m sorry to take so long, I just had one of those miss-my-daddy-and-mommy moments.”
He crossed the room to her, knowing that her tears were about more than that. He knew it and he intended for her to know he knew it. “Not wanting to get to know you—that was your grandparents’ loss, Swan.”
She gazed into his eyes and nodded. “I know, David, but their actions hurt Dad, although he never said it did. I knew. Mom knew, too. I think that’s one of the reasons she loved him so much, because of all the sacrifices he’d made for her. That’s why she did anything she could to make him happy so he would never regret choosing her. But it wasn’t fair. He was a good man. Mom was a good woman. They deserved each other and should have been allowed to love freely and without restrictions, reservations or censure. It just wasn’t fair, David.”
And then she buried her face in his chest and cried in earnest. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her, leaning down to whisper in her ear that things would be all right. That her parents had had a special love, one she should be proud of, one the naysayers had envied.
Emotions Flipper hadn’t counted on flowed through him as he continued to stroke her hair and whisper soothing words next to her ear. Inwardly, he screamed at the injustice of trying to keep someone from loving the person they truly wanted to love. It was something he’d never understood and figured he never would. And never would he accept such a way of thinking from anyone.
* * *
Swan knew she should pull out of David’s arms, but found she couldn’t do it. Being held by him felt good. His fingers, the ones that were stroking through the strands of her hair, seemed to electrify her scalp. They sent comforting sensations all through her—and something else as well. A need that he was stroking to fruition. As a result, instead of pulling out of his arms, she closed her eyes and enjoyed being held by him while inhaling his masculine scent.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, but it didn’t take long for her to notice his breathing had changed. But then so had hers. His touch had shifted from comforting to passionate. He was using the same strokes, but now the feelings within her were beginning to build to an insurmountable degree of desire.
Opening her eyes, she lifted her head to stare up at him. The minute she did, she caught her breath at the intense yearning she saw in his gaze. That yearning reached out to her, jolted her with a level of throbbing need she hadn’t known existed. She’d heard of raw, make-you-lose-your-senses passion, but she had never experienced it for herself.
Until now.
“David...” She said his name as something burst to life in the pit of her stomach. It made a quivering sensation rise at the back of her neck. He implored her with his eyes to follow this passion, as if letting her know he understood what she was experiencing even if she didn’t.
“Tell me what you want, Swan,” he said in a deep voice while gently caressing the side of her face. “Tell me.”
The intensity in his eyes was burning her, scorching her with the sexual hunger that was coming to life inside her. She wanted more than his erection pressing hard against the apex of her thighs. She wanted him on top of her. She wanted him to slide into her body and begin thrusting in and out. She needed to lose herself in more than just his arms.
Suddenly, she felt emboldened to tell him just what she wanted. “I want you, David. In my bed.”
* * *
Flipper wanted to be in her bed as well. Lord knows he shouldn’t want it, but he did. He would have to deal with the consequences later. He felt too tight and hot to try to fight the demands his body was making. Sweeping her into his arms, he quickly walked out of the kitchen and headed toward her bedroom.
“You think you know where you’re going, David?”
He slowed his pace, remembering that she had no idea that he knew the layout of her home. Not only did he know where her bedroom was located, he knew the blueprint of the plumbing underneath her floor. He looked down and met her gaze, grateful she wasn’t suspicious. “I figured you would stop me if I went in the wrong direction.”
“Yes,
