Homelands Pt. 05 Ch. 03

He had a thick but not unruly carpet on his chest and abs, a neatly trimmed beard and a full head of hair, all of which was black as jet where it wasn't shot through with beautiful silver. His face simultaneously bespoke youth, virility, maturity, experience, and resilience. There were lines in his face, particularly around his eyes and his mouth, but not nearly as many, or as pronounced, as with her father. He had a strong jaw, beautiful brown eyes, prominent cheekbones, and an easy smile.

And his body?

It almost hurt to even allow her eyes to drift down past his neck.

Most importantly, from what Veronica could tell so far, her grandfather was not only handsome and built like a god, but every bit as kind, caring, patient, and understanding as the sweet old man of whom she had so many fond memories.

No wonder Annie wanted him all to herself.

If her kid sister shared Veronica's thing for older men, she'd done a good job of hiding it throughout the years. But, at the same time, it would almost have been strange if she didn't. After all, she too had, quite obviously, been abandoned by her father at an early age. Had grown up with the knowledge that the man whose job it was to love her unconditionally had shown no interest in spending time with her, in taking care of and providing for her.

Perhaps she should just tell her sister that she had no intention of trying to steal their grandfather from her. That she couldn't help feeling flattered by his compliments, and wouldn't mind spreading her legs for him once before she and Nick took off again to continue their quest to help Patty, but after that, she'd get out of the way.

"I'm sure she didn't mean that," Grandpa Randy said as he started cutting tomatoes. "You and your brother have a powerful connection though. Your presence might have more effect on him than you realize."

"Wouldn't that be a good thing?" Veronica asked.

"Yeah. Shouldn't she go back in there?" Annie added.

Veronica shot her sister a quick glare that the girl wasn't gracious enough to even notice.

"He needs to stay under as long as he needs to stay under," their grandfather said, without looking up from his knife work. "If his spirit senses yours, senses your need for him and the deep worry you have for him, he might rush back before he's ready."

The breath went out of Veronica's lungs.

She almost wished her grandfather hadn't told her that. It made it even harder to resist going to Nick. And gave new meaning to the forbidden words they'd spoken to one another.

"Best to leave him be, for now," her grandfather continued. "Before you know it, he'll be healthy and whole and back with us."

"There's something to look forward to, huh, Vee?" Annie asked with a saccharine smile that revealed most of her impossibly white teeth.

The diamond stud in her sister's nostril glittered in the natural light drifting in through the cabin's window. Somehow, that struck Veronica as even more mocking than her smile.

Veronica regarded Annie cooly. The hair her sister was running her hand through had fewer blonde streaks in it than usual. Just one on each side, near the front. If Annie would let her hair return to its natural color, all of it, she'd look a little older. More like a young woman instead of a bratty teenager.

And if she'd start acting less like a bratty teenager, maybe men would notice her more.

When Annie was going to realize that the men of their kind didn't fall for the same crap that high school guys did? That she wasn't playing for the minor leagues anymore?

Veronica tried to understand where her sister was coming from though. To remember that she felt bad that Annie didn't have anyone, the way she had Nick and Patty had Kurt. Her sister could be a real bitch when she wasn't getting her way, but she could also be really sweet at times. Often when you least expected it. And her life had been turned upside down overnight, before she'd had any time to wrap her head around the fact that she wasn't mortal and neither was anyone in her family. Her older siblings, on the other hand, had known what they was for quite some time before all this madness began. Before the fateful induction ceremony had taken their sister away from them.

With a deep breath, Veronica turned her attention back to her grandfather.

He wasn't wearing anything but a pair of khaki cargo shorts. His amazing torso made Nick look puny and underdeveloped. Made even Eric look like it wouldn't hurt him to hit the weights a little harder. Yet it wasn't just that he had big muscles. Which he did, and which Veronica very much appreciated. Nor was it just that they were beautifully toned. Which they were. His eight pack was no less perfect than Nick's, yet his chest was fuller, his shoulders broader, and his biceps more akin to basketballs. All of which was to the good. But he also had more hair than either of her brothers.

Some women would have said it was too much. That he looked more like a bear than a man. But in Veronica's eyes, there was nothing more manly than a good pelt stretching from collarbone to the guy's waist. And beyond. Especially since his upper arms and his back were bald. He wasn't exactly neatly groomed, and probably had no idea what manscaping was, but his body hair was hardly out of control.

The way he worked the knife through the vegetables suggested a certain dexterity too. Veronica could only imagine what else he could do with those nimble hands.

"Annie, cutie, would you check on the fish?" he asked.

With another overly sweet smile, Veronica's sister climbed down off the kitchen stool and padded over to the oven. As Annie bent over to look in at the fish, Veronica couldn't help but notice that her sister had no ass to speak of.

"Mostly white," Annie said.

Nick thought that Veronica's ass was too small, and she'd always worried that she had too much junk in the trunk. What guy could look at Annie's backside and not be a little disappointed? True, the girl had pretty big boobs. Not nearly as big as Veronica's, but awfully generous given her slight build.

A wave of guilt crashed over Veronica as she realized what she was doing. Taking stock of all the ways in which she thought that was more desirable than her sister, so as to take the sting off the girl's passive aggressive behavior towards her. There was no need for that though. It was just petty. She genuinely loved Annie. Wanted her to be happy. If their grandfather could give the girl what she'd been missing, so much the better.

"We're waiting for it to start to brown," their grandfather said as he used the edge of the knife to slide the freshly chopped onion and tomatoes off the cutting board and into the bowl of salad he was preparing.

"Should Vee go tell Mom and Grandma that dinner's almost ready?" Annie asked, without so much as a glance at Veronica.

"Not just yet," their grandfather replied.

Veronica was almost amused at her sister's latest thinly-veiled attempt to get rid of her. As if she hadn't even noticed it, she asked their grandfather, "How did you meet Grandma?"

Seeming to forget all about her campaign against Veronica, Annie climbed back into her stool, plopped her elbows up on the marble counter, and rested her chin in between her hands. "I love these kinds of stories," she said, grinning faintly.

"Well, unfortunately, this one is surprisingly boring," their grandfather said.

"So surprise us," Veronica said.

Annie nodded emphatically.

He chuckled as he added oil and vinegar to the salad. "Well, I was one of only two remaining members of a very modest house. Before our feud with House Fisher, there were seven of us, of course. But that's how these things go."

Veronica's throat felt tight. By the look on their grandfather's face and his casual tone of voice, you'd never think he'd just spoken of the violent deaths of most of his family. It might have been long ago, and he might not have been a young man, however much he looked like one, but their kind wasn't supposed to be as used to burying loved ones as mortals were.

"Fisher. That's our father's house?" Annie asked. The grin was gone from her face, and her voice had shifted from enthusiastic to somber.

Their grandfather nodded. "Of course, Hank's father hadn't even been born yet. So we're talking a ways back. Before Daphne's time, even."

"Who's Daphne?" Veronica asked.

"Oh, my. You don't know who...that's for another time. Your grandmother is the one to ask anyway. Not me."

Annie gave Veronica a look, as if to ask, "Should we let him get away with that?"

The name sounded familiar. She was pretty sure she'd come across it in her grandmother's diary, at least in passing. But what the significance of it was, she couldn't have said. She didn't even think Daphne was from Summer. Autumn maybe. Or Winter. Yeah, Winter sounded right. Worlds away from everything she'd ever known.

Veronica shrugged. It wasn't often that she forced her curiosity to take a back seat, but she really wanted to hear about how her grandparents met. Besides, her grandfather's reaction notwithstanding, how big a deal could some random woman from Winter be?

Their grandfather had already moved on though. "Point is, this was all a long time ago, even by Summer's reckoning. So it wasn't your father, or even his father, but his father's father, who very nearly wiped my family out of existence."

Again, he said it the same way he might mention that they'd had a particularly mild storm season that year. Some random factoid that gave context for the important part of the story and nothing more.

Veronica shuddered.

"Until your grandmother stepped in." His eyes drifted up to the ceiling. "That's Flori for you. She was the youngest of the Hardts, and still something of a stranger to Summer, despite having been initiated several years earlier. But it was she who saw an opportunity, where the rest of her House saw somebody else's problem."

"An opportunity for what?" Annie asked.

"To fuck House Fisher over, of course," their grandfather said, nonchalantly.

Annie gasped, then laughed at herself for doing so.

Veronica almost did so herself. Here she was, expecting a romantic tale. The dreamy look on their grandfather's face certainly suggested as much. But it turned out that he was, at least initially, nothing more than a pawn on a chessboard to her grandmother.

But, then, this was the Homelands.

What did love have to do with anything? Her mothers had never been in love with one another. Her father clearly hadn't been either. Uncle Wes loved Aunt Zoey, but Veronica had always had the sense that he was the exception to a lot of rules.

It was probably just a matter of time before someone pressured her to marry a guy she hardly knew, and perhaps had more than a little reason to hate, just so that some stupid feud could be brought to an end. That was just how things were done here.

That made her blood run cold.

It wasn't as though Veronica thought that she was going to get to marry the guy she wanted to marry, of course. If one of their kind married her own brother, it would be a complete scandal. But still. She'd at least like to think she could choose whom to settle for instead. The idea of arranging marriages to end wars seemed so archaic.

"So your grandmother married way beneath herself," their grandfather continued, "her brother married my sister, and House Fisher offered a truce." He gave them a grin, as if to say, "It might have been a boring story, but at least it had a happy ending."

"Just like that?" Veronica asked, still feeling a bit disoriented.

"Well, you have to understand that, at the time, House Fisher was an upstart," Grandpa Randy explained. "They were strong, and getting stronger, but they were still young and small compared to the mighty Hardts."

Annie giggled at that.

With bemused smile, their grandfather added, "It might help to clarify that those were the glory days for your house. And I should also note that House Fisher wasn't done with us. Or their quest for the throne. But if there's one thing that's always separated Fishers from the rest of us, it's patience."

"So what happened next?" Annie asked.

"Some other time," their grandfather said. "That part of the story isn't so pleasant."

Veronica drew a deep breath.

Did he think that they found it pleasant to hear about how one branch of their family tree had nearly annihilated another branch? How thoroughly unromantic was the story of their grandparents' marriage?

For her part, Annie seemed completely unaffected. A little disappointed, maybe, in either the story itself or the fact that it wasn't going to continue. But certainly not disturbed.

"I'll go tell Mom and Grandma it's about time for dinner," Veronica said.

#

It wasn't easy for Gabriela, but she pulled her brother into her arms and forced herself not to pay attention to her son as he went over to Olivia and Zoey.

She'd reclaim Eric soon enough. But, much as she hated to admit it, her son would get more energy from those two than he would from her. Especially from Zoey. That woman had a Libido the likes of which weren't found in Summer.

And, truth be told, she was feeling a little more attracted to Wes than she had been in a long time. With the way he'd stood up to his wife, Gabriela could almost imagine that her brother actually had a pair after all. She'd of course prefer to be with Eric. But Wes didn't seem like quite so poor a substitute just at the moment.

"The two of you have really fought about me?" she asked, between nibbles of his ear.

He hesitated. Then, with a sound that could have just as easily be taken for a cough or a scoff, he said, "You could say that."

"That's...pretty fucking hot," she said.

Wes laughed awkwardly. "Exactly what I was thinking at the time."

"Of course it wasn't," she said. "But that doesn't matter." She knew how her brother abhorred conflict. Especially with those he loved. And there was no mistaking that he did love Zoey. "In fact, that's exactly what makes it so hot."

She felt a little guilty saying that. She never would have asked her brother to pick a fight with his wife. But she couldn't help the fact that it turned her on that he had done so. That it made her see her brother, and his feelings towards her, in a different light.

Gabriela fumbled with her brother's shorts. Getting him out of his clothes was proving a little difficult, given that she couldn't bring herself to stop kissing his neck.

"Here," he said, taking her hands aside to take care of it himself.

She pulled back and stared into his blue eyes. They were just like her son's. So was his hair, besides the tufts of white at his temples. His blonde beard didn't even seem quite as silly to her as it always had before. If she tried hard enough, she could almost mistake her brother for Ryan Gosling.

"Promise me something," she said.

"Anything."

"Don't hold back."

He furrowed his brow.

"Fuck me like a whore, Wes," she said, without missing a beat. "Use me for your pleasure. Don't worry about whether I like it. If I don't, I'll let you know. But if I know you're enjoying yourself, I will too. So just let yourself go for a change."

Gabriela had never said anything like that to her brother. In the past, she'd always felt that she shouldn't have to tell him. That she'd sent so signals over the years that he should have been able to figure it out on his own. But she was tired of waiting for him to do so. It was time to go ahead and say what needed to be said and hope that it lead to them sharing a special moment. He'd always wanted them to be closer. This was his chance to make it happen. All he had to do was allow her to be who she was, instead of forcing her to be who he wanted her to be.

He didn't respond at first. But, eventually, he nodded.

That was it. Not a word of protest. No questions about what she meant by that. No attempt to explain why he'd behaved as he had in the past, or to apologize for having done so. He just took her request at face value and was prepared to honor it.

She kissed him, and for the first time in too long, felt a real spark.

Her brother might not have Eric's confidence, determination, and intensity, but he was a good man. Caring, devoted, thoughtful, and responsible. And he worshiped her.

It was in his eyes, and in the way his lips wrestled with hers. The way his hands hungrily freed her breasts or slid up the hem of her dress. His Libido was giving off heat like a miniature sun. No man had ever desired her as intensely as her brother did.

Not even her son.

And though he wasn't quite as well-built as Eric, Wes had a nicer body than Gabriela sometimes gave him credit for. As she ran her hands over his sleek torso, up his sculpted abs and hard chest and over his rounded shoulders and firm arms, she forced herself not to think about how disappointing her previous experiences with him had been. How frustrating it was that he'd set her up on a pedestal and refused to let her be a real person, flaws and all. It was as if she was discovering her brother's body for the first time.

And the truth was, Wes was fucking hot.

While they continued to play tonsil hockey, her brother ripped away her dress. The sound of it tearing and the surprise of his sudden aggression almost made Gabriela fail to notice the sting of the fabric cutting into her skin before it gave way.

Wes could simply have made her dress evaporate. But she was glad he didn't.

Gabriela broke away from their kiss, needing to look into her brother's eyes and see the fierce, animalistic lust there. And she was not disappointed. He was practically snarling as he stared back at her.

"Oh, Wes," she moaned.

He pulled her back down, giving her lower lip a gentle bite.

It didn't take long for him to guide his hard cock into her welcoming cunt. She was so ready for him, he slid right in. Which came as something of a surprise, seeing as her brother was not small. By any means. Ordinarily, he stretched her so wide that it took some effort to accommodate his full length.

Gabriela almost cried with joy as her brother filled her up. She could feel him pressing against her cervix. His thick shaft parted her walls and rubbed against the spongy flesh of her G-spot. If she were a mortal woman, incapable of adjusting herself so readily, it would have hurt. Instead, it made her feel more intimately connected to her brother than she'd ever allowed herself to feel before.

Once he drove all the way in, to the point that his heavy balls rested against her ass, he stopped. Whether that was to let her catch her breath or allow him to get used to her tight grip, she couldn't have said. But either way, though, it was only a moment's reprieve.

After that, her brother did indeed fuck her like a whore.

Except that if that was how men treated whores, every woman in the world would be clamoring to take up the world's oldest occupation.

Gabriela bit her brother's neck, raked her nails down his back, and squeezed his tight ass cheeks in her hands. She wrapped her legs around him so tightly that she almost worried that she might cut him in half. But all the while, he just kept staring intensely into her eyes and pounding her pussy.

"That's it, don't stop," she panted.

"You like that?" he asked. "Does my filthy slut of a sister like having her little brother's big dick rip her apart?"

Gabriela threw her head back. "God, yes!" His furious thrusts had her on fire. She was building rapidly towards a climax. "Fuck me, Wes. Fuck me hard. Please. I need it so bad." Biting her lip so hard she feared she might draw blood, she added, "I'm your whore."

She worried that he might be baiting a trap. That if she kept up the dirty talk, he'd eventually pull out and turn his back on her in disgust. But she was too turned on to care. If the thought of his sister wanting to be treated like a whore bothered Wes, though, he didn't let it show.