Sing for Me (The Langston Brothers Duet, #2)

by Brittany Ann

The one thing I didn’t expect was to come home and see my brother for the first time in five years with my fiancée in his bed.

The medical supplies were in her arms, and she was standing three feet from the supply closet. No joke. Three feet.

Mason Langston, the best bull rider in the world. Mason Langston, the loneliest bastard in the world.

“Gonna need you to say something to me,” he demanded gently. How could this tall, huge man be gentle? It didn’t seem possible. His boots clicked on the concrete as he stepped up to me. My eyes met his, and I felt my lips part. He was angry. Holy goodness, he was angry.

“Did he…did that man over there touch you?” he asked, still gentle.

“Darlin’, you got liquor in that bottle?” the cowboy asked. When his eyes met mine again, my heart skipped a beat. I shook my head. “Soda?” Another shake. “Drugs?” I shifted my feet. God, I was so lame. “Water,” I whispered, my raspy voice shaking a little. The cowboy stared at me for the beat, his eyes trying to assess me in a way I didn’t want to be. Then, he turned his attention back to the security guard. “Let me get this straight, man. You saw this woman carrying a water bottle and decided that’s what you needed to focus on?”

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear: ever touch another woman who doesn’t want to be touched in my presence again, you’ll wake up in the hospital sucking shitty food from a straw,”

“Darlin’,” he called softly, snapping my attention back to him. My spine straightened, my body on alert again now that we were alone. He held up his hands, the storm in his eyes calming a bit. “You alright?” I nodded. His handsome features softened, causing my belly to flip, and my heart skipped another beat. How could a man like this be soft? “Need to hear you say the words. If you don’t, I’m going to go after him.” “W—why?” I asked. The damage was done. It was over. “Men don’t hurt women,” he stated, his jaw tightening. “Men who do pay.”

One look and I knew I wouldn’t be forgetting this cowboy. His eyes held mine as he said softly, “Say it for me, baby.” Baby.

Anyone who gives him lip gets an ass whooping. That’s the thing about Mason Langston: he doesn’t take any shit—from anyone.

I allowed my body to feel what she needed. The notes filled my ears as my eyes closed. Music was a way to process my pain, but that afternoon, I found myself writing lyrics about a cowboy’s pain and the storm in his eyes.

“That woman has been through enough.” Her eyes widened as her arms fell away slowly. She was stunned to say the least. How typical. Her head tilted, her brows coming together as she stepped up to the counter. “How do you know what she’s been through, Mason?” Because I saw it in her memorizing blue eyes. Because I read her body language like a fucking book. Because she was holding onto that teal bottle like it was a fucking lifeline.

“Do you feel threatened by him?” she asked, raising a dark brow. I shook my head. Threatened? No. He would never hurt me; I knew that in my soul.

My body reacted to only one person, one person in my entire dark, messed up life. He was here.

I felt his stormy eyes land on me, beckoning me to get lost in the storm with him, rain, wind, thunder, and lightning be damned. My watchful dark cowboy. He did remember me.

I wanted to know the significance of that bottle. I wanted to know why she was still fearful after I threw that man off her. I wanted to know why she couldn’t hold my eyes. I wanted to know how to make her smile. I wanted her to tell me who hurt her.

I stepped in front of her, and she ran into me, the collision causing my heart to jump, heat spreading through my body. “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry,” she said, her raspy voice going straight to my dick. She was adjusting her hold on her belongings and hadn’t looked up yet. I needed those blue eyes on me, and I needed them now. Fuck it. “Baby,” I drawled, my voice lower than it had been with her fucking boss. Her head snapped up instantly. There’s my girl.

“What do you want?” “You.” Just you, darlin’. She wasn’t expecting that answer. “What?” “You heard me, baby. Don’t like repeatin’ myself,” I warned her, testing the waters. Let’s see if she can handle me. “Stop calling me ‘baby’,” she hissed. Fuck, she was feisty. I smirked again, pushing off the door to close the space between us, enjoying the way she sucked in a breath. “I’m gonna touch you again,” I murmured as I moved my knuckle down the side of her face.

“You’re going to tell me about that bottle, but not today. Today, we are going to dinner.” “D-dinner?” she stammered, breathless. I hummed, bending my head a bit. “I can’t see your eyes,” she whispered. “Give me your name and I’ll give you my eyes,”

“My name is Harmony,” she said softly. Of course, it was. She was the song running through my head for months, over and over, like a broken record. I couldn’t get enough.

“Mr. Langston—” “Mason, baby. Call me Mason,” I reminded her softly, meeting her eyes again. “You need to step away from me now, please.” Her raspy voice was trembling a bit. “I can’t see your eyes.” I stepped away and pulled off my hat. Her breath hitched again as she drank me in.

“I don’t want to go to dinner.”

“It’s Friday night.” “Yeah, it is,” I drawled, my lips twitching. “I make pasta on Friday nights,” she stated. I smirked and took a step closer to her again. She cooked? Fuck, even better. I liked to cook but there was something about a woman who knew how… “I like pasta,” I murmured. “You going to follow me home if I tell you no?” she asked, attitude lacing her voice now. I almost smiled at that. It was cute as fuck. “Yep.”

“I’m drawn to you, Harmony. That doesn’t happen to a man like me.” There was no point in flirting around the obvious. I wanted her, and she wanted me, whether she was willing to admit it or not. “You’re very direct, Mr. Lang—” “Little Song, I will spank that ass if you call me Mr. Langston again,” I growled.

“Harmony.” I shook my head and looked up to him as he towered over me. “Yes?” I breathed. His lips twitched, and amusement filled his eyes under his cowboy hat. “I open doors for you, got me?”

“That means you gotta let go of the handle for me.”

“This is the first of many dinners for us. There are things we need to discuss, baby. A lot of those things center around the way you reacted that night at PBR and the bottle in your arms,” he said lowly, tipping his hat. “I’m not going to push you, Little Song, but you need to know you’re safe with me.”

“When you sing for me, I’ll let you know if you sound like shit or not.”

“Darlin’ you’ve done something to me because I can’t seem to get you out of my head.”

“Why did you come to the clinic?” I found myself asking. “You.” “Why did you invest half a million dollars in the clinic?” I breathed. He chuckled and took off his cowboy hat, sliding a hand over his short, dirty blonde hair before looking at me. “Had to find some excuse to be near you, Little Song.”

“For a woman like you, that ain’t nothin’. Now come on, you have to feed me.”

I changed into an old Nickelback T-Shirt, and yoga pants. I didn’t do yoga, but damn, yoga companies made comfy pants.

Fuck. Here I was trying to be a gentleman, and she changed into yoga pants. Yoga. Fucking. Pants. The thin, black tight material clung to her wide hips and ass like a second skin. My cock was begging for mercy against the zipper of my jeans.

“Pretty sure trouble is sitting on my stool.” I leaned forward to grasp her chin in my fingers, causing her hands to freeze. My eyes held hers, getting lost in her seas of blue, reminding me of all the beautiful places I’d been. None of those places could compare to this apartment. Her pink lips parted, and her chest heaved under my scrutiny. “You a woman who likes trouble, Little Song?” “Only your kind of trouble, Mason,”

I wasn’t even touching her, and her body was on high alert. Why? “You’re safe with me, baby,” I assured her. I came around to her side to find her eyes were squeezed shut. I wanted to touch her cheek, but there was something about her body language stopping me. “Harm?” I called softly, concern coating my voice.

every man had a monster inside him, and that what makes a man is how they contain it.

A woman like her needed the world placed at her feet.

“Tell me this, Harmony,” I whispered. “Are you afraid of me?”

“My soul trusts you.” Not her. Her soul.

“What are you doing to me?” I asked, my voice thick with emotion and confusion. Her breath hitched as I brought my forehead down to hers. She held my eyes as she whispered, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Did I say something wrong?” “No, baby. You said everything right,” I admitted roughly, my control slipping. “Then why—” “Gotta create some distance, or I’m going to take you right here.”

“Take me?” she parroted, her brows rising. “Yeah, Little Song. Take you.” Another growl. I took another step back. What the fuck was wrong with me? “Claim you, Harmony.”

“You can go, but just tell me this one thing." Anything you want, Little Song. Anything. “What?” Inhaling a shaky breath, she began to whisper, “Tell me I didn’t freak you out. Tell me my brokenness didn’t scare you away. Tell me—”

Fuck it. My lips crashed down to hers, my hands cupping her face to hold her where I wanted her. A whimper came from her as she staggered back, hitting the wall behind her. My tongue pressed against her lips, begging to be let in as my fingers dove into her mass of curls.

When I found him, he was in the kitchen, standing at my island, pouring creamer into my coffee. He slid the mug across the surface to me. “There you go, darlin’,” he murmured as he turned to the brown bag. I stared at the coffee; it was the right color. He knew how much creamer I took.

“What are you doing here?”

“Breakfast, baby,”

“Why are you—you could have any person in the world,” I blurted again. He stared at me. “You could buy breakfast for anyone in the world. Why are you—”

“Harmony,” Mason murmured, his voice soft, calling out to me like the sweetest song. It was gentle at first, and then it would build into a crescendo that caused another round of goosebumps to cascade over me. The way my body reacted to him was a miracle, one that I was struggling to understand. I didn’t deserve to hear that song. Some other person, maybe, but not me. “Look at me. Now,” he demanded.

“I don’t want to be another notch on your headboard. I don’t want to be something you need for your image, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for the clinic, but…”