Flawed

by Tracy Wolff

  “That’s bullshit. What the hell is family for if not to help you out when you’re in a mess?”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  “Look, Tori, I know I don’t have to tell you how much our parents suck. Especially Dad. But just because he and Mom don’t know the meaning of family doesn’t mean we don’t. So if you need some time to figure things out, take it. But don’t forget that I’m here if you need something. If you need anything. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I can barely choke the word out of my too-tight throat. And damnit, when am I going to stop being such a sniveling crybaby? I clear my throat a couple of times, try to sound normal.

  “I need to get going,” I tell him after a second. “But I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay. And Tori?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t take too long to figure things out, or Ethan Frost is going to find himself with another houseguest, whether he wants one or not. Got it?”

  “Got it.” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “Bye, Jason.”

  “Bye, sis.” The line still buzzes between us, almost like he’s as reluctant to hang up as I am. Which is why, in the end, I hang up first. I’ve already got enough on my plate trying to figure out my relationship with Miles. Adding to it the murky waters of my (very) dysfunctional family relationships would require more energy than I currently have.

  So I will take my brother’s call at face value and, for once, let the chips fall where they may…

  Chapter 18

  Miles

  “Grovel? What the hell do you mean I need to grovel?”

  “It’s a verb, Miles. It means to humble oneself in an—”

  “I know what grovel means, Frost. I just don’t know why I need to do it. I felt bad for her so I bought her a few things. What’s the big deal? Were the shoes not fancy enough for her?”

  As soon as I say it I know it’s a cheap shot, but I can’t help it. I’m pissed as hell over Tori’s earlier accusations and now Ethan’s telling me that I’m the one who needs to apologize? No fucking way. Not when I was only trying to help. And not when she accused me of treating her like a prostitute.

  “Dude, I know you were trying to help. Chloe knows you were trying to help. Hell, deep down even Tori knows it. But just because she’s in a bad place right now doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her pride. When you bought her all those things, you stomped all over that pride. You didn’t mean to, but you did.”

  “I got her a few things that she desperately needed. Like a phone. And shoes—she needs shoes, Ethan, considering she cut her foot while walking barefoot for the two miles between her condo and this house. I don’t why that’s such a big fucking deal. Especially since from what I hear, you pretty much bombarded Chloe with gifts when you first got together.”

  “Little things. Tea bags and seashells—”

  “And a four-hundred-dollar Vitamix.”

  “That she nearly brained me with the first time she returned it. And that got destroyed in a pretty terrible way when things went south between us, so I’m not sure exactly what you were expecting when you ordered all those things for Tori.”

  “I wasn’t expecting anything. I don’t want anything from her because I bought her a laptop, for God’s sake. I just want her to have what she needs. I mean, come on. We both know Tori’s a hell of a lot more high-maintenance than Chloe, yet she showed up here with nothing. I figured she’d be thrilled I got her a few things.”

  “And by ‘a few things,’ you mean thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes and electronics.”

  “She needs a phone, Ethan. And a laptop. And shoes. And a few outfits—”

  “Like I said, gifts worth several thousand dollars. And I get that she needed them. But don’t you think Chloe would have taken care of it by now if she thought Tori was in a place to accept anything from us? Tori’s whole world just caved in on her and she’s still reeling from it. Still raw from it. You should have given her a little time to get her head together, to figure out herself what she needs—”

  “I didn’t want her to have to ask. I figured having to ask Chloe or me for anything would humiliate her, and I didn’t want that for her. I wanted to make things easier, not harder—”

  “So tell her that. Apologize, tell her you screwed up, and tell her why you screwed up. Once she realizes it’s because you respect and care about her, not because you don’t, she’ll have a hard time staying angry.”

  My knee-jerk reaction to his suggestion is Not a chance in hell. I’ve never been particularly good at explaining myself to people in the best of times. The idea of explaining myself to Tori—who really isn’t going to want to hear it—pretty much flies in the face of how I normally operate. And while I usually figure, Why explain?—if whoever is pissed has it wrong, that’s on them, not me—that’s not how I feel right now.

  Tori’s spent so much of the last year furious with me, and the last thing I want to do is go back to that. Not after I’ve seen her laugh, not after I’ve listened to her talk, and definitely not after we spent half the morning tearing up the sheets together. Sex with Tori is absolutely the best sex I’ve ever had and I sure as hell don’t want to go back to when we weren’t having sex.

  But it’s more than that, more than just the fact that I won’t get laid as long as she’s pissed off. I don’t want Tori to be mad. More, I don’t want her to be hurt. And I sure as hell don’t want to be the one who hurt her.

  Yes, we’ve spent the last year sniping at each other. Taking verbal swings at each other and hassling each other whenever we can. But that was when she was at the top of her game. When she had the whole world in the palm of her hand. Taking a swipe at her now—even unintentionally—feels fucking awful. Especially when I think about the look on her face as she told me off. And, worse, the look on her face when she walked away.

  “Hey, Girard, you still there?”

  “I’m still here, damnit. Just trying to figure out the most effective way to grovel.”

  Ethan laughs. “I knew you’d come around.”

  “Yeah, well, the sooner I get her calmed down…”

  “The sooner you’ll get her back into your bed, where she belongs.” He pauses. “And hey, no one is happier about this development than Chloe and I. We’ve thought you’d be good together for a while now—which is why we’ve been setting her up on the worst blind dates known to man. But she’s Chloe’s best friend, and she’s vulnerable, so it probably goes without saying…but I’m going to say it anyway. Don’t hurt her, man. She’s got it rough enough right now without dealing with a broken heart, too.”

  His protectiveness gets my back up—which is ridiculous, considering he thinks of Tori like a sister. But I still don’t want him to be protective of her. I don’t want any man to be protective of her but me, and—

  Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where the hell did that come from? Caring about the woman I’m sleeping with is one thing. Going all he-man over her is another, and not something I’m prone to.

  Most of the women I date are casual. We sleep together a few times and then I move on because they’re not that interesting once we’re out of bed and sitting across the breakfast table from each other. It may sound harsh, but it’s the truth. Most women can’t keep up, let alone give as good as they get from me. The fact that I don’t have that problem with Tori—that she’s been infinitely fascinating to me for a year now—is something I’m just registering. Right along with the protectiveness.

  I don’t know what it means—or more, I don’t want to know. Two days ago we were at each other’s throats and now I’m getting my back up about Ethan warning me to take care of her. Ethan, for God’s sake, who is so crazy about my sister that it’s a little pathetic to watch. It’s crazy. Or, more likely, I’m going crazy.

  Just the thought is enough to have me up and moving. I don’t have any desire to sit here dwelling on any of this. Not now, when Tori’s still pissed at me. And definitely not when I don’t have the answers to a
ny of the questions I can’t help asking myself.

  I don’t tell Ethan that, though. I can barely handle being this fucked up—let alone having my sister’s husband know about it, too. So instead I say the one thing I am sure of. “I’m not planning on hurting her, dude.”

  “Yeah, well, I never planned on hurting Chloe. And neither did you.” What he leaves unsaid, of course, is that, in our own ways, we both nearly destroyed my sister. As always, when I think of it, the guilt almost eats me alive.

  “How is she?” I ask, because I can’t not ask. Even though I know she’s happy, even though I know things have worked out for her better than she could ever have hoped, I can’t help but worry. I didn’t worry enough when she was younger, always took her word when she told me she was doing okay. I’ll be damned if I fall into that same trap ever again.

  “She’s really good,” Ethan answers. “First month of law school is kind of a shock for her, but she’s holding her own. And she’s totally in love with Violet, so…she’s good.”

  “I’m glad. I—” A knock on the door sounds and I immediately lose my train of thought. “I’ve got to go, Ethan.”

  “Don’t forget to grovel,” he reminds me, assuming correctly that Tori is what suddenly has me so distracted.

  “I won’t.” I hang up before he can say anything else, then watch as the door to my workshop swings open.

  “Hey,” I say, walking over to the doorway where Tori is standing, looking a little pissed off and a lot uncertain. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” The words are hard and stilted. “And you can stop asking me that every time you see me. I’m not dying, you know. I’m just broke and suffering the consequences of my own stupidity.”

  “You weren’t stupid,” I told her, gesturing for her to come in. “You just trusted the wrong guy.”

  “Which makes me a clueless idiot.”

  “It makes you human.” I put a hand on the small of her back, guide her farther into the room to where I have a couple of stools. Half of me is expecting her to tear my head—or my hand—off, so I keep my touch gentle as I escort her over to the closest thing I have to a seat.

  She lets me—no snapping or clawing involved—and my radar goes on alert as I try to figure out what she’s up to. Either she’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security so she can go for my jugular the second I lower my guard, or she’s calmed down significantly since she stormed out of the foyer earlier. Considering I haven’t had a chance to apologize yet, I’m pretty sure it’s the former.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her as she settles onto one of the stools. “I shouldn’t have ordered all that without at least talking to you first. It bothers me to see you going without, especially when it’s something I can so easily provide. But I should have checked with you first, should have at least let you tell me how you felt about what I wanted to do.”

  “You should have,” she agrees, nodding with all the regalness of a long-lost queen, even with her crazy multicolored hair. “But I’m sorry, too. You were just trying to help and I totally overreacted.”

  An apology is the last thing I’m expecting from her—I’m prepared to prostrate myself, for God’s sake—and it throws me off my game. For long seconds I don’t say anything. Instead I just stand there staring at her, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, as I try to get with the new program. I’d planned on at least five more minutes of groveling before she even spoke to me.

  I finally get it together enough to say, “The last thing I want is for you to feel like I expect anything just because I bought you a few things, because I don’t. Whatever happens—or doesn’t happen—between us has nothing to do with a new phone or a pair of Jimmy Choos. If you want, I can send it all back.”

  She looks amused, all pursed lips and raised eyebrows. “Oh really? You’d be okay with sending it all back?”

  “No,” I tell her, because it’s the truth and I’m not going to lie to her, even if she doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. “I’m not okay with sending back the phone or the laptop, because you need both. And I’m sure as shit not okay with sending back the shoes.” I still can’t believe her bastard of a father let her walk out of that condo barefoot. If Tori thinks it’s bad that I bought her all this stuff, I can only imagine how she would feel if I do what I’m dying to—which includes showing up at that son of a bitch’s office and beating him within an inch of his life.

  Every time I think about how he kicked her out with nothing but a hastily packed backpack, it makes me insane. It doesn’t matter how angry or embarrassed he is by that video—though I can’t imagine ever being angry or embarrassed enough to kick someone I love out like that. It’s his job to take care of her when she needs him, not to make things harder for her.

  “You really have a thing about those shoes,” she says, sliding her fingers through the belt loops on my jeans and pulling me between her suddenly spread thighs.

  “I do,” I agree. “Your foot was a mess when you got here—you had no business walking two miles barefoot and he had no business letting you. Not to mention the fact that you’re still limping.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Don’t bullshit me. You’re doing your best not to show it, but there’s a slight hesitation every time you go to put weight on that foot.”

  “That’s not—”

  The look I give her shuts her up before she can even finish the lie.

  “It’s barely there,” she says, with an exaggerated eye roll. “How did you even notice it?”

  She still hasn’t let go of my belt loops, and I choose to look at that as a good sign. Especially considering the fact that her knees are now resting on the outside of my thighs. I can feel the heat of her sex through my jeans, and it makes my dick hard and my nerve endings stand at attention. It also gives me the confidence to slide a hand up her arm and over her shoulder until I can gently grab hold of the nape of her neck.

  “I notice everything about you, Tori. Which is why I shouldn’t have made such a rookie mistake with you earlier. I mean it when I say I’ll send it all back. Except for—”

  “The shoes,” she tells me with a grin.

  “Exactly. And—”

  “The phone.”

  “Yes. And—”

  This time she cuts me off with a finger against my lips. “Hey, Miles,” she says, voice low and eyes seductive.

  “Yeah?” Fuck. Ethan really knew what he was talking about when he said to suck it up and grovel. If it makes her look like that, sound like that, I’ll be happy to grovel for the rest of my damn life.

  “Why don’t you shut up and kiss me?”

  “I’d be happy to,” I answer with a grin. And then I open my mouth and pull the finger she’s got resting against my lips deep into the recesses of my mouth.

  She gasps as I nip at her fingertip, then moans when I do it again. And again.

  “Hey, Tori,” I tell her when I finally let go of her finger.

  “Yeah?” This time her voice is husky, breathless. Exactly as I like it.

  “I’m going to do a lot more than kiss you.”

  She grins as she leans forward and brushes her lips against mine. “That’s exactly what I’m counting on.”

  Chapter 19

  Tori

  I tremble at the first touch of Miles’s mouth on mine. There’s a part of me that says I shouldn’t be doing this, not here, not now, and definitely not with him. I sought him out in here to apologize, and maybe—just maybe—for a quick, meaningless little hookup. But there’s nothing meaningless about the way Miles is holding my neck. Nothing meaningless in the way he’s pressed up against me. And definitely nothing meaningless about the way he’s licking slowly, carefully, deliberately inside my mouth.

  I know I need to be careful, know that Miles is absolutely the last man that I can afford to fall for right now. But that doesn’t seem to matter as he presses closer into the V of my legs.

  As he slides a hand along the outside of my thigh.
>
  As he sucks my lower lip between his teeth and bites down just hard enough to send electricity streaking along my spine.

  He tastes so good, feels so good, that all my good intentions go out the window and all I’m left with is this crazy beat in my blood, this powerful throb in my brain. It’s a feeling that somehow turns into a mantra of want him, need him, have to have him. Over and over and over, the words echo in my head. In my heart. In the soul I’ve tried so long to pretend that I don’t have.

  For a second, just a second, warning bells go off in my head and I put my hands on his shoulders, begin to push him away. I shouldn’t want him this much, shouldn’t need him this much. And I sure as hell shouldn’t be charmed and excited and thrilled at the way he’s holding me. But I am. I am. Because the way he’s holding me doesn’t say Casual hookup. It doesn’t say Good time. It says that he wants me, that he needs me, as much as I want and need him. And that is both the most exhilarating and most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced.

  Even being cut off with nothing by my father wasn’t as scary as this. Because even as I walked those two miles barefoot, I knew that I had a place to go at the end of it. I knew that I had Chloe to lean on. But this? There is no cushy landing at the end of this, no one to hold my hand and make everything okay. If I give myself to Miles, if I really give myself to him, there is no going back. It’s fly or fall, do or die, and my track record with men isn’t exactly golden.

  And yet I still don’t pull away. Despite all the doubts, all the fear burning inside me, I pull him closer with the hands I meant to use to push him away. I open my mouth to him, let him delve deeper, then wrap my legs and arms around him so tightly that I can feel the thud of his heart against my own.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs against my lips. “So goddamn beautiful.”

  “So are you,” I whisper back. “And I want you so much.” This time it’s my turn to suck his lower lip between my teeth. My turn to bite down. My turn to take his groan into my mouth and swallow it down.