by Elise Faber
And since she had her Jamie and her Platinum—yes, her vibrator was named after the precious metal and no joke, it was worth as much as a bar of the stuff—to look forward to, she sucked in a breath and led the way over to the elevators. Security in her building was good. She had to swipe her card to access the room with the elevators and then swipe it again to get the elevator to move.
She hit the buttons for the lobby and her floor, and a few seconds later, the doors opened to reveal the marble-floored space. Kels put her hand out to prevent it from closing back up then pointed. “Just go out the doors and to the left. Your hotel is two blocks down.” Tanner glanced in that direction and nodded, but didn’t get off.
She raised a brow.
“I’ll walk you up first.”
“I don’t need—”
His expression went mulish, and she knew it was either spend the next five minutes fighting with him and knowing that any argument she might put up would be ignored anyway, or she could just accept that he was going to walk her up and then get on with her evening.
Rolling her eyes, she let go and stepped back, allowing the elevator doors to close and the metal death box to rise the six floors to her apartment.
“You didn’t use to give in so easily.”
She leaned back against the wall and stifled a sigh, since they would counteract her next words. “Meet new and improved me.”
Half of Tanner’s mouth tipped up, but his gaze drifted down to her toes, and if she wasn’t totally mistaken, Kels would say there was heat in those chocolate depths. But then again, she was probably just delusional due to the prickly pear’s yumminess. “Improved how?”
She glanced down then thought—thanks prickly pear—what the fuck? Her hands came up and she cupped her breasts, jabbing herself in the left one with her keys. Ow. “These are new since I’ve seen you.”
Tanner choked. “You got implants?”
A frown dragged her brows down. “No,” she said. “Pig.”
The doors dinged open, and he held them for her. “Just saying, I’m not the one cupping them and drawing attention to the hottest set of tits I’ve seen in ages.”
She couldn’t fault him for that.
Dropping her hands, she moved off the elevator. “My point was,” she said, “that I’ve grown up since I last saw you.”
He moved so he was walking next to her. “Grown up or filled out?”
This made her snort, and she punched him before admitting, “Both.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, “I noticed. What else has changed in nine years?”
“Hmm,” she said, slowing her pace. Her head wasn’t fuzzy, and she had gotten over her embarrassment with Tan. All that was left of her night was a pleasant warm sensation in her stomach from the cocktails. Or maybe that was just Tanner. “I’ve got my own place,” she told him. Her apartment was around the corner, the last one in the hall. Although it was smaller than the other units on the floor, the placement in the building meant that she had lovely views of the bay.
“That is very grown-up,” he said. “I don’t have an apartment.” At her look, he added, “Got rid of mine after a while. Was paying for a place that I was never in and so when I come home, I usually just bunk on someone’s couch.”
“Bas never mentioned you staying with him.”
“Probably because I’ve been home to the states maybe six times since I left, and four of those were for jobs.” There was a hint of something in his tone that she couldn’t place in his expression, but then his face cleared, and he nodded at the door they’d stopped in front of. “This you?”
She nodded. “Yup.”
Her keys were slipped from her fingers and before she knew it, the door was open, and he was nudging her inside. Immediately, because it was the first thing she always did when walking into her apartment, Kels stepped out of her heels and pushed them to the side. In proximity to the shoe rack her neat freak of a friend, Heidi, had bought her, but not on it.
His eyes slipped to her feet, and she glanced down to see her bright pink nails.
There those lips went again, curving upward just the slightest bit, even as his gaze seemed to be cataloging everything about her. Damn. Why did he have to be even sexier than before? Broader shoulders, slender hips, fine lines on the outside of his eyes that spoke to him having spent at least part of the last nine years laughing. His skin was tan and when he lounged back against the doorway crossing his arms, she noticed a tattoo on the inside of his forearm.
“What else has changed, Kels?”
She turned and walked further into her apartment, hanging up her coat, pulling out her laptop and plugging it into the charger she had on her kitchen counter. Then she stepped to her sink, reached into the cabinet, and pulled out a glass.
She held it up in his direction. “I have matching glassware? Want some lemonade?”
His half-smile went full, and he stepped into the apartment, closing the door behind him. “So, some things haven’t changed, have they? Do you still make your lemonade with approximately two pounds of sugar?” He prowled toward her, and Kels’s heart skipped a beat.
“Maybe just a pound now.” She shrugged and grabbed another cup, setting it on the counter before turning toward the fridge to retrieve her pitcher of lemonade. “I haven’t seemed to be able to grow out of my sweet tooth.”
“Hmm.”
Two glasses poured, she returned the pitcher and handed him one. “Thanks for the ride.” A beat. “In my car. With my gas. But thanks anyway, I suppose.”
“Just remember me when you don’t have to get up early in the morning to go and get it.” He took a sip and winced.
“Still too sweet?”
“There are some things that can never be too sweet,” he murmured, reaching past her to place the cup on the counter, and she knew he wasn’t talking about food or drink so much as people. Or maybe her?
But he’d left.
“How’s work?” she murmured, pushing that thought away.
The change that overtook him was instant and all-encompassing.
Relaxed shoulders stiffened, softened jaw clenched, lips pressed flat, and his eyes . . . those went cold, frostier than a chocolate shake. “Fine.”
Since that fine both spoke to things not being at all fine and also him putting up several rolls of caution tape, Kelsey set down her own glass and brushed by him, heading toward the door.
“For what it’s worth,” she said. “I’m glad you drove me home and we got to talk. Will make that trip down the aisle a lot easier.”
He’d been lost in thought for a moment but jolted as her words reached him.
Then his head came up, and he closed the distance between them. “Thanks for the drink.”
A nod.
“Apartment’s nice.”
Another nod, and he reached for the door.
“Tanner?”
“Yes, baby?” He was distracted by whatever was in his brain and probably didn’t mean that baby at all, but the endearment was enough for her filter-less, impulsive tongue.
“About the car—” He frowned, so she hurried to add, “About remembering you doing me a favor by driving me home—”
“Baby, I was just kidding about that.”
Another baby. Really distracted. Still, she kept going.
“I didn’t need the reminder to think of you,” she admitted. “I’ve thought of you every single day since you left me.”
It was as though he’d suddenly been prodded with electricity. Every muscle in his body went taut, and he rotated to face her. “What did you say?”
Oh shit.
She shook her head. “Forget it—”
He kissed her.
One second, she was ready to run away or beg the floor to swallow her up so she could forget what she’d admitted, and the next moment his mouth was on hers, his tongue down her throat, and sparks exploding along her spine.
Her knees wobbled, her panties got soaked, and her arms slid around his n
eck.
Hell, she was never going to catch up on Outlander now.
Six
Tanner
Fuck, had it always been this good between them?
Tan had thought it was pretty freaking great kissing Kels nine years before, but now his mouth on hers was fucking incendiary. He slid his tongue across the seam of her mouth, and she opened immediately, letting him in at the same time she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged him closer.
She tasted of tequila and flowers, sweet with tang, but she also tasted of Kelsey.
His Kelsey.
His from the first time he’d laid eyes on her, eight years old with tears in those pretty brown eyes because she’d fallen and scraped her knee. He hadn’t known what she was to him then, just that he hadn’t liked seeing her hurt and crying, so he’d hugged her and helped her inside to her mom.
But she’d been his since that moment.
That hadn’t changed when he was in middle school and she was taking college courses, books sprawled on her kitchen island and pencil marks on her face. He hadn’t been able to help her with her homework—in fact, she usually helped him when his own math problems stumped him—but he’d been self-sufficient for a long time. He knew how to make good snacks, and since she’d often forget to eat when completing whatever complicated work her professors had assigned her, Tan had made it his responsibility to feed her.
Even when they’d gotten older, when he and Bas had spent more time out of the Scott house than in it, he’d still checked in on her.
She’d been pretty then, but still so young, and he’d been in high school then college and after what most boys that age were. Kels had been both jailbait and his best friend’s sister, so she was beyond off-limits. She was absolutely, impenetrably untouchable.
He’d tucked away the pretty, focused on the sister . . . until the day she’d graduated with her Master’s, and he’d made the mistake of hugging her.
So right in his arms. So much fiery desire from such innocent contact.
Like now—
But also unlike now.
Because his mouth was on hers, and she was kissing him with far more confidence than she’d ever done before.
Her fingers drifted to his head and wove into the strands of his hair, tugging firmly, making prickles of pain dance on his scalp. Rather than really hurting, it enhanced, taking his cock from mostly hard to granite and sending his control scattering.
His hands swept down and cupped her ass, scooping her up. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around his waist and, fuck, that felt incredible. Lungs screaming for oxygen, he broke from her mouth, sucking in air while nipping at her throat, running his tongue along the shell of her ear. She moaned when he sucked on the lobe, fingers clenching on his scalp again, and he felt a bolt of satisfaction in remembering her spots, in discovering they hadn’t changed.
But he also knew this was too much too soon, so he didn’t drift lower when he desperately wanted to. Instead, he went back to her mouth, nibbling at the corner before taking it in a slow, easy kiss that helped him garner some of the tendrils of his control. Finally, he eased back, returning to reality to find that he’d pinned her against the wall, his groin nestled against the sweet softness of her pussy, and that reality meant that his control almost went scattering again.
Luckily—or perhaps unluckily, depending on how one looked at it—Tan glanced to the right and saw the eight-by-ten of her family hanging on the wall less than a foot from her head.
The whole gang was there, her parents, Grant and Megan, Devon and his wife, Becca, Sebastian and Rachel, and Kelsey. Brown locks shining, huge smile on her beautiful face, and bright brown eyes proudly focused on the camera.
Everyone else was laughing, no doubt because she’d said something smart ass.
They were happy.
And he wasn’t there.
Carefully, Tanner set Kelsey back on her feet, trying to ignore the piercing pain that reminded him of exactly how much he’d missed when he’d run. It took her a moment to come to, her lids opening slowly to reveal eyes hazed with desire. His cock twitched again, but he ignored it and stepped back after making sure she was steady.
That made the haze clear slightly and a pang of regret shot through him, but seriously, what the fuck had he been thinking? He was fucked up. He didn’t have a job, had put his camera equipment in storage—or all but his favorite DSLR—and he didn’t even have a place to stay. Spending the last years as a nomad meant that he didn’t have any ties, didn’t know how to be part of a family, let alone a close one like the Scotts, and he knew that the moment he got involved with Kelsey, he’d be all in.
Which meant that inevitably he’d fuck things up with her.
And then he’d lose what he had with all the Scotts.
“Fuck,” he muttered, turning away and shoving a hand through his hair. He needed them in his life, needed Kelsey in his life, and that meant he had to get a handle on this desire and go back to being a surrogate brother. If he didn’t, he’d lose them all.
“Good to know that my kissing still makes you react in the same way.”
At that smart comment, he almost turned around and slammed his mouth back down on hers. It took locking every muscle in his body tight to keep from doing it, but he managed. Then he sucked in a breath, took two steps, and reached for the doorknob.
He heard a noise—a rustle, a whoosh of something falling to the floor.
He shouldn’t have looked. He knew that in his bones.
But he also knew he couldn’t have not looked to save his life.
Tanner had made the same mistake all those years ago—underestimating Kels—and why he did the same thing in that moment was beyond fucking stupid. Regardless of his mental capacity, he glanced back.
Oh fuck.
She was standing opposite him . . . wearing nothing but her bra and panties.
He looked. He had to fucking look.
Turquoise lace that did nothing to disguise the dusky pink of her nipples, the brown hair between her thighs. Her breasts and hips were larger. She’d been slender before, almost a reed of a girl, but now she was all woman. Still tall and thin, but with curves that his palms ached to caress.
“Tan,” she murmured.
He was frozen.
Then she unhooked her bra and dropped it to the floor.
Fuck.
Her breasts, holy shit, he’d thought the lace hadn’t concealed much, but he’d been wrong. Seeing them naked, bouncing softly as she moved toward him, was going to be burned into his brain for all eternity.
She closed the distance between them, getting close enough that her breasts brushed his chest. Hard nipples through the cotton of his T-shirt, floral scent of her hair, soft breath catching in the back of his throat. His hands were in fists at his sides, desperate to touch her and yet terrified of what might happen if he did.
A kiss to his throat, floral scent getting closer, inundating his senses when she rose on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, “Come to bed.”
Then she dropped back down and turned, fingers slipping into the waistband of her underwear, hips doing a little shimmy that did absolutely fantastic things to her ass, and that turquoise lace hit the floor.
Hot brown eyes over her shoulder, shining brown locks dancing on her back.
He took a step forward and he watched her smile grow.
Then she disappeared through a doorway that no doubt led to her bedroom.
Tanner took another step.
But his gaze caught on the family portrait again, and he froze. He had to leave, and he had to leave in that moment. Otherwise he was going to cave, walk into that bedroom, then make love to Kelsey in every single way he’d imagined over the last nine years.
Which meant they’d probably never leave.
But it also meant that he would have ruined things.
He spun, scrambled for the doorknob, opted for the stairs, and hustled his way out onto the street. It wasn’t running. Rat
her, it was him protecting the most precious thing in the universe.
Or at least, that’s what he told himself to convince him to keep walking.
Seven
Kelsey
She sipped her one beer slowly, because after her experience with six prickly pear margaritas, she’d decided to take it easy on alcohol.
As in, she was never drinking tequila again.
Beer made her a little loopy after one or two glasses, but tequila made her stupid.
Or maybe that was just because she’d had six.
Either way, it was Friday. It was girl’s night and she was just going to hang with her buds and pretend that Wednesday night hadn’t happened.
“Oh, you started without us,” Kate said, flicking her long red ponytail over one shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Cora took one look at Kelsey’s face and knew. Cora had been her closest friend since elementary school and even though they’d only been in the same grade for one year before Kels had started skipping grades, they’d remained close. She was also the only person in the universe who knew about Tanner.
Heidi, meanwhile, was studying Kelsey closely. “No book, even on book club night. Beer in hand, even though she only normally tolerates it because we like beer. Hollow look in her eyes—”
Kels smacked her. “Stop. My eyes are not hollow.”
Cora plunked down into the booth next to her. “They kind of are.” Her book smacked on the table. “Let’s forget talking about this. It sucked, and I only read the summary online anyway.”
“Cora!” Kate said. “How could you?”
Heidi narrowed her eyes. “We have one rule for book club. You read the book or—” She made a slicing motion across her throat.
That, at least, made Kels smile. “Since when?”
“Since we stopped reading all the books we were supposed”—she made air quotes here—“to be reading and just started going for the ones we wanted to read.”
“Well then, what happened with this month?” Cora asked, pouring herself a beer. “Admit it, none of us wanted to read it.”
She looked at Kels, who nodded and shrugged. “It’s true.”
