by Eden O'Neill
“Business?” Curious, my eyes flashed up from my computer screen. “What kind of business?”
I felt like I hadn’t seen him in forever, which kind of meant something considering finals were around the corner. The only place he should be was either here or at the library.
He definitely wasn’t going there in a nice jacket and a pair of his best Jordans.
Catching me looking, Niko waved a hand. “Nothing much. Just meeting some friends.”
Friends must have been real important. Again, we were coming up toward the end of school, and that’d always been priority. It was the most important—for both of us. Family didn’t get fed off partying, but jobs after school with degrees did. As far as Niko, the stakes were even higher, his mom being sick and all that.
Like I hadn’t said anything at all, Niko fisted a biscuit before pointing at Dasha. “Save me some leftovers, little Jay?”
“Of course.” My sister actually sighed, all doe-eyed and dreamy in her gaze, and my fucker best friend winked at her. I told him about entertaining her fascination with him. She clearly had a crush, and he shouldn’t be giving in to it.
Ultimately, I let him off the hook since he was headed out, but I would have to bring up how I hadn’t seen him around lately. I mean, neither of us were homebodies or anything but when it came to finals and shit, we didn’t play around.
With him gone, the girls ended up making berry cobbler for dessert, and after we ate, I did them both a favor and washed the dishes. This was something they should definitely document considering I didn’t even do my own fucking dishes. I had someone come a couple times a week to do it, a cleaning service.
While I did that, Billie helped Dasha with her homework. I called the school back home about her fleeing town, and they agreed to let her do e-learning until she got back. Since it was her senior year, she hadn’t had much to do anyway, and my sister rocked in school like I did. I was just finishing up the dishes and going back to my own assignments when Billie returned to the kitchen.
She had her arms stretched above her head, her little navel exposed with her stretch, and I couldn’t fight a smile in her direction.
“My sister tire you out?” I asked, passive about it.
Her shoulder lifted as she took a barstool. “Nah, I can handle her. She’s a good kid.”
“When she wants to be.”
“I can hear you, asshole!” came Dasha’s voice from the living room. “Like literally, I’m in the next room here.”
“Yeah,” I tossed. “And you should be doing your homework.”
“Basically done!”
“Well, get it all done.”
A groan and Billie’s chuckle beside me. The laughter made her face red, a huge flush all over her cheeks, and I hated I wanted to kiss it. That I wanted to kiss her. We really shouldn’t be doing this.
And yet here we were.
“You don’t have to stick around, you know?” I stated, my last ditch effort here. Weak, I even heard that in my voice. I wanted her to stay, as long as she liked.
Her lips parted as she wet them, another shrug and that bare shoulder. Christ, if I didn’t want to push that sweater up, make her warm. She looked at me. “I know and before, I didn’t mind helping. You needed the help.”
“I can handle my sister.”
“I didn’t say with her.”
We collided again, our gazes. Hugging her arms, she leaned over the bar. “Why didn’t you just tell me that was your sister that day? On your phone?”
My gaze passed over to my computer. “Didn’t seem relevant.”
“Didn’t it?”
Not at the time, and it’d been a very good reason to cut all ties. It’d been my reality check for dipping into shit I had no business tasting. Billie Coventry was forbidden fruit for me. “Look, I appreciate you helping—”
“Don’t do that.”
I looked her, all joy gone from this girl’s face.
She reached for me, but when she hesitated, I let her pull back. Her barstool scooted out, and I got to watch her walk away from me.
She tugged her sweater back up over her shoulder. “I’m just going to go say goodbye. To Dasha?” She stepped back. “Then I’ll be out of your hair.”
My eyes closed as I was left by myself in the kitchen, my thoughts completely plagued. I wanted nothing more than to go after her, tell her things were complicated with me. Nothing could come between my family and me. They were the most important thing, always, and if I thought for a minute any involvement with someone else could complicate that, there’d be no contest. My family and my priorities would win every time.
“LJ?”
But still, I came when she called me to the living room, ran right to her like a fucking weak-ass little shit. Billie stood in front of the couch, and I had no idea why until I arrived.
Billie stared at my sister, my sister sleeping on the couch. Dasha managed to actually look innocent, her textbook across her chest. Billie grinned. “I was going to wake her up and say goodbye, but…”
She looked sweet, goddamn her. I scrubbed into my hair. “I get it. She actually manages to look innocent.”
“She does.”
“But she can’t sleep on the couch.” I had my sister set up in one of the guest rooms upstairs. I started to go for her books, but Billie grabbed them first.
“I’ll help,” she said, doing that for some reason. I’d given her not one, but she was there right with me. She got Dasha’s books while I picked my sister up in my arms, carrying her upstairs and to the guest room. The place was a mess with her living in there, but I managed to get around all her things.
Billie pulled down the bedding, and I tucked her inside.
“‘Night, ingrate,” I whispered, kissing her brow, and in her sleeping daze, my sister gave me her middle finger again. She immediately curled on her side, and I chuckled, letting her have that one. I drew the bedding over her, and when I got up, I noticed Billie at the desk in the room.
“You did these?” she asked, showing me my own sketches. I had them papered all over the desk since I usually worked in here. This was normally a guest room so no one came in here.
“Uh, yeah,” I passed off, some of my older designs in here. Simple stuff for commercial buildings and some modern family homes. That’s why this rental actually appealed to me. Reminded me of my own stuff. “That’s what I’m going to school for. Architecture.”
“Really?”
I grinned. “Yeah, didn’t know I was really good at it until, well, I came here.”
I honestly hadn’t known what I wanted to do when I first came to Woodcreek. I just knew I wanted my degree, needed to do something profitable for my family. Architecture and design work just came easy for me.
Billie picked up one of my notebooks beside the loose designs. Opening it up, she thumbed the pages, a small smile on her face. Her hand stopped on another family home I designed, many elements of chrome and granite in the design. “These are really good, LJ.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I tend to sketch in here since this is usually a guest room.”
“Well, now I see why you don’t like film,” she stated, laughing a little. “Clearly, it’s not your thing.”
“What gave it away?”
Her laughter faded as I reached around her, turning to some of my best work. Her soft smell consumed me, and my fingers danced from the pages to her fingers.
They looped around them, her digits so small compared to mine.
I angled a look at her. “I have more back in my room if you want to see them.”
I had no idea what I was doing, inviting her to my room and deeper into my life, but once my lips got going, I couldn’t seem to stop them.
Billie
Flipping through LJ’s design portfolio, it was hard not to notice him hovering over me.
I mean, we were in his room now.
We’d managed to keep our hands off each other, but we were and I truly had to be an idiot. I’
d put myself in this position far too many times before. The most recent, only seconds ago in the guest room down the hall.
My gaze drifted to a set of baby blues staring at me, LJ’s big body crammed into the window seat with me. I hadn’t gone anywhere near his bed. This was safer, and as it happened to be near the bookshelf where he got his design book, I’d been okay with this.
I turned another page. “You really are good.”
Had I been in the market, I might have hired him myself, his smile coy beside me. He studied his work over my shoulder, but I felt like he was more so studying me. He watched me study his work, fingers to his lips. “And here you just thought I was a lazy shit.”
“Oh, you’re definitely a lazy shit.”
A deep chuckle, his chest rumbling against my back. That was how close he was, smelling like aftershave and the ocean. He grinned. “I try when I feel like it. I’m pretty much set up after school. I’ve made some contacts and my professors have put in good words for me.”
I closed the book. “Well, I’m glad you have your thing. I wanna teach, so yeah, that’s where I’m at.”
“You’d be good at it.” He raised a foot to the window seat. “Nothing but a hard ass.”
“As long as none of my students are as arrogant as you, I think I’ll be good.” I shoved him, and he took my hand, a way too dangerous action. “LJ?”
A warning in my voice, but more for myself. I was warning myself I needed to stay away from this guy. I was warning myself he hurt me before and was probably about to again as soon as he could.
Even still, he didn’t let go, playing with my fingers. “You fuck with my head, you know,” he stated, looking up at me. “You’re not good for me.”
“And you’re good for me?” I started to pull my hand away, but he kept me. He wouldn’t throw me away.
“…when I have something good, I don’t throw it away.”
“I’m the worst for you,” he admitted, his words cold. “Probably even worse than the other way around. Surely, your daddy warned you about people like me. Thugs? Kingpins…”
He hadn’t, but he would. He would if I let him.
I wasn’t currently on speaking terms with my dad, but LJ was right. He would not want me to be with someone like him. Besides the fact that he was completely self-involved and arrogant, he was also dangerous. No, my daddy wouldn’t like this.
My hand flatted on LJ’s heart with a press, his racing muscle beneath my hand. I frowned. “Why am I bad for you?”
He looked up, and so much flashed across his eyes, so many words, but all of them unsaid. He wet his lips. “Because when it comes to my life, I have one priority. Family and that’ll never change.”
But what did that have to do with me? I didn’t understand.
He let go, but I grabbed his shirt, a warning in his eyes now. “Beauty queen…”
“It’s Billie,” I said, getting on my knees. I shouldn’t cross this line, and he obviously had his own reasons for not wanting to do the same.
He grabbed my hands. “Billie then,” he said, his thumbs touching my chin. “I’m really not good for you.”
“Then try to be.” Completely blinded, I took his mouth, wishing, praying he could be that very thing. That he’d choose to be so…
That this was worth it.
What we felt, at least on my end, always felt right. I couldn’t stand it, but that didn’t mean I could deny the feeling. This guy and I were literally liquid heat, physically unable to flow in a different way.
Believe me, I’d tried.
LJ’s lips hesitated against mine, slow, but sighing, his hand covered the whole back of my head.
“I want to be,” he said, kissing me harder and pulling me onto his lap. “Fuck, do I want that. Crave it.”
Then why couldn’t he? Absolutely none of this made sense. Hell, we didn’t make sense, but always, there was that heat. There was this, his hands on me, and there was no stopping it once it happened. I’d die first.
Guiding my mouth open, I ground my hips against him, and not only did he hold them firm, he shifted me on my back.
Angling over me, he delved his tongue into my mouth, pinning me between his arms. I moaned, and he absorbed the sound above me, reaching back and gripping his shirt.
He jerked it free and his hair was a mess of blond, the length flopping over his eyes. He was so goddamn sexy I couldn’t even stand it, my fingers digging into each hard crease of his firm muscles.
LJ growled as he picked me up and took me to his bed, and crowding over me, he appeared like the Greek god he was.
His abs tightened and strained beneath his tanned skin, his cock thick and probing his sweats. He’d changed into them when he’d gotten home, working himself through the material before tugging me beneath him.
He placed nearly his full body weight on me, lacing our fingers together and pressing them into the sheets. My thigh hugging his hip, I rubbed up against him, and he groaned.
“This won’t last long if you do that, beauty queen,” he teased, his tongue flicking mine. He hugged me close after that, just holding me as he kissed me, and I sighed at how slow and wonderful each stroke was. This wasn’t like the first time we were together, like he wanted to claim or even break me. This time, it was like he wanted to keep me.
And damn if I didn’t want to keep him.
These thoughts were foolish, of course. There was something he was obviously keeping locked up, something about his family, and whatever that was, he’d strategically placed a fair amount of distance between us. He wanted this, maybe even needed it, but maybe that wouldn’t be enough.
I didn’t know what plagued him, but at the moment, I didn’t care. I needed my own release in a way. I had my own bullshit I was dealing with, issues with family and all that crap with Sinclair. I just wanted to feel something, and this passion with LJ was truly the only consistent thing in my life. My body’s need for him, I recognized.
It was so familiar it scared me.
I drew in a breath as he bit down on my neck, reaching to shove his hand beneath my sweater. He palmed my breast, the flesh tight beneath his working hand. Dipping his head, he eased my nipple out of my bra, suckling, and I gripped his back. “LJ…”
“Beauty queen,” he hummed, moving to the other breast when he eased it out. He teased that one too with gentle flicks, his eyes closing. “Billie…”
I burned, wriggling in his sheets, and he tugged my sweater completely over my head. Tossing it, he wrapped my hair around his fist, tugging while he sucked me.
I bucked against him, my back bowing off the bed, and he unstrapped my bra. He threw it somewhere, then he was picking up my legs, jerking my leggings and panties off. He would have gotten my shoes too, but I left them at the door when we’d come in.
A mighty growl, and he dove between my legs, kissing my sex before sucking. He pulled my pussy lips right into his mouth, drinking in my taste and I spread my legs.
“Oh my God.” I clinched the bedding beneath my fingers, sighing when I rubbed my head back into his pillows. They smelled delightfully of him, all male and whatever sea breeze scent he used in the shower. Gripping my thighs, he drew me up, tongue diving inside my heat. His tongue spun around inside me, a come hither motion before he sucked, and I called out. “LJ, stop. I’m going to come.”
He didn’t stop quickly, his body basically shaking at retreat before working his sweats down his thighs. His cock sprung free and when he kicked the sweats off, he sat back on his powerful thighs. He got a firm hand on his length, working his balls. “Can I come inside you? I’m clean.”
If he was asking me if I was on birth control, I was. I nodded. “We’re good. I’m on birth control.”
Exactly what he needed, he kissed me with what could only be defined as animalistic vigor, moaning deeply into my mouth. Gripping my hips, he turned me on my tummy and I was ass up when he hovered over me.
He caged me, guiding himself inside. A hard slap and his powerful
thighs hit the back of mine.
I groaned as he thrust his hips and gathering both of my arms, he fucked me wildly.
“Yes,” I sighed. “Yes…”
His wingspan came around me as I sighed him on. His embrace tightened, and he really was hugging me, holding on to me as if almost for dear life.
I hugged him right back, my face buried into his pillows to contain my scream. His sister was maybe two rooms away, and biting the material, I gave readily into the release.
I crashed with stars behind my eyes, LJ’s hand around my throat as he too submitted to the fiery flames.
His body quivered and shook as his cum filled me. He milked me hard, riding out his high until he collapsed nearly on top of me. The only thing keeping him from falling was the fact he pulled me flush up against him. He found a home for me within his arms, and I stayed there.
I closed my eyes to the sound of our breaths, LJ’s lips tugging mine apart with soft but intentional kisses. I honestly didn’t remember when I fell asleep.
I just remembered kissing him even in my dreams.
Chapter Nineteen
LJ
My sister bitched really fucking good on the drive back home to Maywood Heights, our small town. She couldn’t stay with me forever, and if she actually wanted to graduate and go to college next year, she needed to go home. This was something she knew but wasn’t necessarily happy about. She literally pouted in the back seat of my Beamer and would have sat up front had Billie not been insistent on coming along. I told her it was a long drive. Like five fucking hours, but for whatever reason, she said she was cool about it.
I watched her from time to time sitting next to me, the hours she spent in my car gauged between messing with the radio dials (which drove me fucking crazy) or chatting it out with Dasha. She was keeping my sister very cool. I knew because the bitching about coming home and seeing Mom had stopped around the three-hour mark. Turned out Billie Coventry was really good with my family, at least my sister.
