Love Hurts: The Love Duet Read online

  “Well, thank fuck for that,” Dad said with a long tired but relieved sigh. Grabbing my shoulder, he gave it a hard squeeze. “Thank fuck for that mate,” he said again, this time his voice choking with the relief. Mum was his life, he might do a good job keeping his emotions under control under most circumstances, but when it came to his wife… I liked seeing the softer side she brought out of him.

  We stood staring at each other for a handful of seconds, and for a moment there I was kinda expecting Dad to give me a hug. He made all the right moves to do it, when a high pitched shrill put a stop to that idea.

  “Oh my god, Deck!” An excited female voice yelled out.

  I whipped my head around just in time to catch the small feminine body being hurled at me.

  “Deck I haven’t seen you in so long,” the woman gushed, her legs were wrapped around my waist, her arms around my shoulders, hugging me to her ample chest.

  Over her head I gave Dad a look that said ‘what the fuck?’. This woman definitely had the impression she knew who I was, only… she had the wrong person.

  “Um Deck, son, I’m just going to grab a coffee then by the time I get back we can go see your mum,” Dad said, saying Deck with a straight face but I could see the laughter he was holding back. This wasn’t the first time some girl had mistaken me for my twin, it happened a lot when we were younger. But as we got older the physical differences became more apparent, at least I thought they were.

  Not according to the cute blonde currently doing a good impression of a spider monkey and using me as her tree.

  Giving Dad a nod and a smirk, with Mum out of danger now I decided it was time to let my hair down and relieve some of my current stress. And what better way to do that than to fuck with my brother’s reputation with the ladies.

  With a plan in mind to be an arsehole and ruin any future Deck may have with this woman, I was about to do just that when the blonde pulled back and smashed her mouth to mine.

  You know that old adage; sparks fly, trumpets sound, unicorns dance around a rainbow when the one meant to be yours kisses you for the first time?

  Fuck me if all of that didn’t happen.

  Instead of dropping the woman to the ground and making a dick comment on her weight or something hurtful like I planned, I tightened my arms around her curvy arse, pulled her closer against my swelling bulge and opened my mouth over hers to take control of the kiss. For long minutes, I dominated the sweet lips and mouth of my mystery lady, and my tongue swept over the softness of her inner lips and smooth wet tongue, pulling sexy erotic moans from her. Moans that vibrated all the way to my finally aroused cock, that was currently extra happy because of the position of the nymph’s pants covered pussy.

  Right on top of my hard as a rock cock.

  Happy, happy days. Thank you Deck you wanker.

  Aware that I was holding a woman in my arms, kissing her and grinding the hell into her in the middle of a hospital and being a law enforcement officer, I thought very seriously of stopping. Thought about it but couldn’t because clever fingers were combing through my short-buzzed hair while nails were scrapping deliciously on my scalp. The scent of flowers filling my nostrils, and not an overpowering hit in the face kind of flowers. Subtle, inviting, sexy.

  One more minute, then I will stop. I promised myself, then moaned low and loud when my Nymph ground her hips seductively sending electrics bolts through every nerve ending in my lower body.

  “God damn gorgeous, you are so fucking hot,” I muttered against her swollen lips, suddenly my game to trick her didn’t matter to me, her mistaking me for Deck long forgotten. I wanted this woman for myself now.

  Just as I was about to go back to devouring the woman in my arms, those sweet lips stilled against mine. Opening my eyes, I stared into the prettiest pale green eyes I had ever seen, eyes that were round with shock.

  “You’re not Deck are you,” she whispered, her lips still stuck on mine, her breath warm against me.

  “Ah, no. I’m his brother,” I answered amused that we were doing all of the talking still with our lips connected.

  “Twins?”

  “Subtle differences,” I told her, thrusting my hips into her.

  “Definitely not subtle,” she argued, moaning when I did it again.

  So, my dick is bigger than the muscled beef-cake idiot’s, I thought victoriously. Not that I ever thought about my brother’s cock, but the validation I was getting made me a little smug.

  “Maybe you should put me down now,” my Nymph suggested. But by the way she was still holding me and the fact that her lips were also pressed to mine told me she was enjoying this just as much as I was and I was very much. However, we were in a public place and not being very appropriate.

  Reluctantly, I slide her body down mine, making sure she slid against my hard cock as she made her way to the ground, earning me another one of her sexy moans.

  “You know my brother well?” I asked the question but to be honest I didn’t want to know the answer. I was still holding her close to me, our lips sadly not fused together but it gave me the chance to take in her amazing beauty. She was fucking gorgeous, short blonde hair that was all curls. She resembled a pixie version of that actress Mum liked, Meg Ryan. Mum called her hair fluffy, and now I saw Mum’s description was spot on.

  From there she just got better and better, pretty green eyes, pale pink full lips and the cutest little button nose. And to top off her bombshell looks, a beauty spot just above her upper lip. Fucking perfection, and… Deck had obviously been with this woman, fuck my life.

  “Um… you could say that,” she answered me shyly, but I noticed she wasn’t gushing about it. Good sign, maybe the mighty Deck hadn’t conquered every woman in this town after all.

  “Can you elaborate on that for me, Nymph?” As soon as the word was out of my mouth she pulled out of my arms, and I nearly roared my disapproval. I wanted to go on holding her in my arms forever.

  Her soft green eyes, grew darker glaring at me.

  “Are you saying I am a nympho or something? Because if you are then you can go and fuck—” I cut her tirade off with my mouth, smashing it down on hers again.

  One, because I wanted to stop her from insulting herself, and two… because I needed to kiss her again like my life depended on it. If I lived two lifetimes with this woman it wouldn’t be enough.

  She couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen and as ridiculous as it sounded those green eyes bored a hole in my heart, burrowing onto it, searing it. Ruining it for anyone else. This was more than a lustful pash with a sexy woman, this was —.

  “Jason, the doctor said Mum is awake, let’s go,” Dad yelled as he ran towards me from the hallway he’d disappeared down a few minutes earlier. The coffee cup in his hand was spilling liquid from the spout as he rushed passed me. “Move it kid,” he said elbowing me making me release my hold on my beautiful Nymph.

  “Jesus old man, take it easy she ain’t going nowhere,” I replied laughing at his haste to get to his wife. Reaching out with my hand I turned to see the woman wasn’t standing in front of me, instead she had taken advantage of my dad’s sudden intrusion to make her retreat.

  “Hey,” I shouted at her as she walked at a fast clip in the opposite direction of where Dad headed.

  “Can you tell me your name?” I called when she stopped and looked at me.

  “What’s wrong with nympho?”

  “Nymph,” I corrected her. “A beautiful creature, because that’s what you are.”

  A smile lit up her face for a brief moment, almost blinding me even from the distance she put between us.

  Then as quick as it appeared, it disappeared replaced with a sad, regretful frown.

  “It’s best this way, Jason, but I promise you I will never forget that kiss. Ever,” she said sadly then turned and walked down the hall, around a corner and she was gone.

  Running a hand over my lips, I started to walk the way she went. How the fuck could she walk away
from what just happened between us? She felt it, I know she did, the spark, the heat and the instant connection that flowed into each other as we kissed.

  Oh, fuck that kiss. Licking my lips, I could still taste her sweetness there, my tongue craved another taste. How that was going to happen when I didn’t even know her bloody name or how she was connected to my brother I didn’t know?

  Was she his girlfriend, one I had never met? Asking him was out of the question no way was I gonna do that. Deck would make it his mission in life to hold her over me if I showed a morsel of interest in her.

  “Wasn’t meant to be, I guess.” I decided quietly, shaking my head, but the words felt bitter, wrong somehow like the one chance for love just walked out of my life.

  Looking back to the empty hall I sighed, “Fuck me she was beautiful.”

  Rubbing my hands over my face in frustration I tried to shake off the hollow feeling in my chest and focus back on why I was here in the first place.

  I was keen to see Mum and see that she was okay with my own eyes, then head back to Melbourne. I still had to front up to work tomorrow despite Mum’s emergency.

  Not able to stop myself I glanced one last time behind me, a big part of me hoping that the blonde would run back and jump back in my arms.

  Wishful thinking on my part, but that kiss would stay with me for a very long time to come.

  Damn if she didn’t smell like flowers, sexy flowers.

  Chapter 4

  TEN YEARS LATER

  “Ma’am you can’t eat your cereal and drive at the same time.”

  Holy fuck did I really just say that? The fact that I had to say it boggled my mind, but here I stood eight-thirty on a Monday morning pulling over a twenty-something young woman I caught on my way to work eating her morning breakfast while going sixty kilometres per hour in a forty-kilometre school zone.

  And although technically traffic wasn’t my field, and didn’t fall under the job requirement of a detective, that didn’t stop me from flipping on my lights on my unmarked Holden Commodore and pulling her over.

  “The law says I can’t use my phone will driving, which is so ridiculous because I am a brilliant driver with one hand. So, you can’t fine me for this.” The annoying millennial proceeded to tell me in a nasally voice. “Are you sure you are a police officer? Because you are dressed like a homeless person.” She finished her tirade with a look of disgust at my attire.

  I hung my head and counted to ten, my head twisting slightly in the direction of my car where a takeaway cup of hot coffee was sitting in the cup holder waiting for me. Still untouched I might add.

  “My clothes have nothing to do with the fact that you are driving distracted, and that is against the law. You were speeding in a school zone, this becomes effective as of eight a.m. every weekday, as I am sure you know. Please hand me your licence out of your wallet, ma’am.”

  Taking the square plastic card, she thrust at me with a huff and a whine, I nodded at the woman then headed back to my car to write up a speeding ticket already deciding to let her off with a warning for the charge of driving while distracted.

  Too much paperwork for a Monday and the start of a working week.

  Going about the usual routine of typing in the registration and relevant information for the ticket, I nearly missed the rumbling sounds of multiple Harley motorcycles coming up from behind where I was parked on the side of the road.

  Ripping the ticket from the hand-held ticketing machine in my car, I stood out of the car just as the first of six big Harleys passed by me, going the required forty in speed.

  Narrowing my eyes behind my dark sunglasses, I kept the expression on my face rigid, showing no emotion what so ever, the only reaction I gave the first four bikers was a slight chin lift. The fifth one? Well, he got a bit more special attention from me, a more personal lift of my middle finger. Which of course was reciprocated and joined by a cocky smirk.

  The sixth biker smiled outright, and his booming laughter could be heard over the header pipes of his deep blue monster of a bike. Because he was going slower than the others I could hear his amused comment.

  “Still the same fucking amusing Johnston twins,” Booth called out to me.

  “Yeah well, he is still a wanker,” I muttered even though I knew Booth could not hear me.

  I watched the men who tormented me right through my teen years as they made their way slowly through the school zone with the respect the area was intended until they turned the bend down the end of the road that would take them to where their compound was located.

  “Hey did you see that? They are outlaws, you should be arresting them instead of giving me a ticket, you idiot.”

  The woman had her head out the window looking at me and her cereal bowl in her hand pointing in the direction Deck and his club brothers went.

  Sighing tiredly, I turned and got back in my car, and started typing on the keyboard on my dash. Looks like your mouth just got you a driving while distracted charge after all lady.

  “Yo Johnston, you going to lunch? The boys want a pub meal over at the Queen’s Head,” my partner shouted at me from his desk across the bull pen.

  Glancing at my watch, I was surprised to see that it was five-thirty p.m.

  Fuck where did the day go?

  When I finally made it into work, after pulling up another speeding motorist and having left the cereal eating millennial spluttering how unfair it was I gave her a fine for the two offenses instead of just the speeding; my day went from bad to worse. Paperwork, and a case that was pissing me off, taking up the rest of my day.

  I had to laugh at the young woman’s threats to sue me for police harassment and letting criminals pass on without stopping them. Deck and his mates may be dicks to me ninety percent of the time, but calling them criminals was nothing than further from the truth.

  Since they returned to Ballarat after ten years in the army and formed their club the Wounded Souls, the town had benefited from their presence. They were not an outlaw club like most MCs were, these guys lived on the right side of the law and each and every one of them were upstanding citizens.

  I came back to Ballarat, assigned to the Lucas Station well before Deck and his posse of bikers set up their club. They were welcomed back like heroes then started to cement themselves in the town as upstanding business owners. But, other than the occasional sighting of them on their bikes riding through town, I had yet to speak to any of them.

  My brother included.

  But that was about to change, because of one reason or should I say one person.

  My mother.

  She called me a half an hour ago, and let’s just say the tongue-lashing she bestowed on me had my cheeks heating with shame and embarrassment.

  “Jason your brother has been back in town for four months now. Don’t you think you should go and see him?”

  Why she presented it as a question was laughable, she sure wasn’t asking me to go see Deck. However, the smart arse in me couldn’t help yanking her chain.

  “Nope, haven’t thought about it at all Mum,” I told her in a bored tone, which of course was the wrong thing to do. Mum was on a mission and when she had something in mind there was no stopping her.

  “You will get your butt to the compound and visit with your twin brother. Can you imagine the humiliation I feel every time I have to tell the ladies at my tennis club that my boys haven’t seen each other for close to ten years? My heart is breaking and neither of you two care. So, you will do as you are told, Jason Humphrey. End of story young man.”

  After that gem, I mumbled an apology to my mother like a good boy, wisely leaving the crude comment about my middle name unspoken and promised her I would go to the compound after work.

  Why the prick couldn’t come see me was also a question I kept to myself, that horse was well and truly flogged.

  Shaking my head, I pushed out of my office chair and worked out the kinks in my shoulders and back.

  “Sorry bud, got
ta go do some family shit. Have a beer for me mate,” I said by way of goodbye and headed out of the room and the station.

  It was time to face my brother. Only this time I was no longer going to be his punching bag, verbally or otherwise. My time on the force handed me many opportunities to hone skills that gave me the advantage I needed when facing dangerous criminals and situations.

  Although my build had always been on the more muscular side, and boxing always a part of my fitness regime, the last few years I really got into the ring in a big way and developed better skills and techniques with a bonus being the muscle I had acquired.

  My height and size gave me a convenient leverage on the streets and it would serve me just as well against Deck.

  Reaching my XY, I opened the door and dropped into the comfortable as fuck leather bucket seat. Fuck I loved this car, once the muscle car of the seventies and now a classic and worth a small fortune in her perfect original condition.

  Turning over the powerful motor, I backed out of my parking spot and headed slowly out of the police car park.

  Mum was right about one thing, ten years was a long time in between visits and not normal for brothers. Unfortunately, the Johnston brothers were anything but normal, but maybe… just maybe the love/hate relationship of our youth was now part of our past and maturity would play a part in a truce.

  Chapter 5

  Two seconds after I entered the huge carved wooden door of the Wounded Souls compound, I realised my previous idea of maturity was just a pipe dream.

  “Well if it isn’t officer prick come to grace us with his presence.” My twin brother greeted me from his seat at a long bar located at the far end of a massive main room.

  “Decker, good to see the army taught you to be a grown-up,” I replied dryly, walking toward him. Enjoying the glare at hearing his given name.

  The years in the army had noticeably changed Deck, and he was bigger than I thought possible. There was also a more guarded aura to him, his eyes narrowed as I got closer, but not in a pissed off way. It was more like he was surveying his surroundings and I noticed straight away he didn’t give me his back like he would have years ago. He was tense and on alert, expecting the worst and ready for it if it came.