My Brother's Best Friend - A Second Chance Romance (San Bravado Billionaire's Club Book 8)

by Layla Valentine

  Roughly, desperately, I take off his belt and pants, then swing my legs to the side so that I’m sitting on his desk rather than kneeling.

  He kisses me hungrily, pulls my skirt down with no regard for anything except his own needs, and I feel both undignified and irresistibly attractive. We’re like animals, unable to control ourselves, or teenagers in the back of a car, all hungry hands and the need to be closer. I moan when he bites my bottom lip, and he shushes me.

  “Jonathan will hear us,” he whispers huskily in my ear, his voice so warm that it sends tingles down my spine.

  We’ve got to be silent. I can do that. I kiss down his smooth chest and chiseled abs until my lips reach the line of his boxers, then tug them down mercilessly.

  “These are in my way,” I tell him.

  Tyler seems to have no problem with that. He bites at my collarbone, pulling me close enough that I can wrap my legs around his hips. I can feel the pressure of desire building between my thighs, hot and urgent. My kisses are clumsy, like we’re trying to make up for all the time we’ve lost and compact every wasted second into one magical, explosive encounter.

  “Tyler,” I moan, unable to remember any words that aren’t his name.

  He mutes me with another firm kiss, a gentle reminder that we must be silent. That, too, is thrilling. With Tyler, there’s something dangerous about every time we’re together—there’s someone to hide it from, some reason we shouldn’t be together, not here, not now. The chemistry that we have together is like an unstable reaction trying to reach equilibrium: explosive, but unstoppable.

  I feel like a prisoner to my own desires, which isn’t something I’m used to. I control every other aspect of my life from my diet to my exercise to my every activity, but as soon as Tyler looks at me, my self-control is gone.

  He pumps fireworks inside me and I bite my tongue against the most powerful orgasm I’ve ever experienced. I’ve spent the past five years nervous to have sex again, unsure how it might compare to those nights with Tyler, and now, I’m positive that nothing in the world could compare to this.

  Tyler’s sweaty, hot body relaxes, though his muscles are still rock-solid against me. I’m all but lying down on his desk with him looming over me, leaning against the edge of the desk for support. He kisses me even deeper as he helps me sit up, both of us exhausted from the exertion.

  “That was…” I trail off, breathing hard, “incredible.”

  I don’t want to sound immature, or like I’m somehow under his spell, but I can’t help it. Thankfully, to my relief, he nods in agreement.

  “You’re incredible,” he says quietly, looking me fiercely in the eyes.

  Tyler has one arm around me, still naked and vulnerable. He kisses my hair softly, and I’m keenly aware of just how tangled it is, especially compared to how neatly I’d tied it up this morning in preparation for the meeting. He’s running his hand through it, lightly working out each knot with his fingers.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that for years,” I admit in a hushed tone.

  Tyler’s hand stops stroking my hair. “Really? You have?” he asks, sounding much more surprised than I’d expected.

  How could it come as a shock to him that I still wanted him after all this time? Unless…unless he just doesn’t understand the feeling.

  “Yes,” I reply, turning on my side to face him. “Haven’t you?”

  He looks almost offended by the insinuation. “Of course I have,” he says instantly. “I just…if I’d known that you felt the same way, I would have called you sooner.”

  I grin, kissing him once more. “Oh yeah?” I tease, stroking his chiseled chest with the palm of my hand. “How much sooner?”

  “Five years sooner,” he answers, cupping my cheek in his hand.

  “You should have,” I tell him. “I’ve been dying to relive the best sex I’ve ever had.”

  Tyler smirks so deviously that I can’t decide whether or not I regret stroking his ego.

  “The best sex you’ve ever had?” he challenges.

  Suddenly, I’m embarrassed. Tyler was my first, and there haven’t really been many others in between, but I’m probably facing a lot more competition. I’ve told him he’s the best I’ve ever had, and I wasn’t exaggerating, but what if I don’t even rank on his list?

  “Yes,” I maintain. “It’s like a drug. I got one fix, and I’ve been craving another ever since,” I confess.

  He kisses me softly on the forehead. “If I’m being honest,” he says, “you’re the best I’ve ever had, too. If I’d known that you felt that way, I wouldn’t have hesitated. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to.”

  I sit up, feeling chilled lying on the desk, suddenly afraid that Tyler’s secretary might come to check on us. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m here—Tyler is something of a celebrity in San Bravado, and his affairs can constitute tabloid news…especially if they involve the younger sister of his former business partner.

  His business partner. Shit, I think. Jackson.

  All at once, I’m overwhelmed with guilt and shame. All the reasons that I haven’t called Tyler flash in my mind, and I can’t help but cringe at the memories of my brother’s face when he first told me that Tyler had bought him out of the business, or the tone of his voice when he tells me week after week that he’s still working at the cellphone store. Tyler is the reason that Jackson never got what he wanted in life—even when he’d been so, so close to it at one point. He cheated Jackson out of all the work that he put into the business and didn’t felt an ounce of hurt over it.

  I gather my clothes and begin to put them on, not even caring that my hair is wild and my lipstick is probably smudged. So long as my skirt is on properly and I manage to do up what few buttons remain on my shirt before I storm out, I’m happy.

  “Mel?” Tyler calls, not quite understanding the sudden change in me. “What’s wrong?”

  I scoff. “Everything about this was wrong.”

  Somehow, I really can’t find the energy to be angry anymore—I think that mostly, I feel like a traitor. What happened five years ago is Tyler’s fault, sure; but what happened here today is all on me. I acted like a smitten young girl sneaking out after curfew to see her boyfriend, or like an addict left unsupervised.

  I gave in to my most primal desires, and now, I’m ashamed.

  “What are you talking about?” Tyler asks, but I’m already dressed and halfway out the door.

  “I’ll call you,” I tell him, slamming the office door behind me.

  I have no idea what to feel, but I know I can’t sort it out if Tyler is around. Right now, I have to be alone.

  Chapter 15

  Tyler

  I have no idea how Mel is going to react to seeing me as I pull into the parking lot of her apartment, nearly a week after we had sex. She hastily told me that she would call me as she rushed out immediately after, but I haven’t gotten so much as a text from her since, and I’m not in the habit of waiting around for other people to make a move.

  My phone still has her birthday saved in her contact info—something I added five years ago and never got around to deleting—and it’s today. She didn’t mentioned anything about it during our lunch, but if I remember correctly from one of our first conversations, she’s not someone who enjoys huge parties, and thus doesn’t like to make a big deal of her birthday.

  I knew I couldn’t just let the date come and go without doing something for her, however, so I had my secretary look up her address. It had taken a few cheap background checks on dubiously trustworthy websites, but when he finally got an apartment number here in San Bravado that was just down the street from Shape Up, I decided to take the chance on that address.

  Champagne and flowers in hand, I head to her apartment complex, arriving shortly after eight p.m., and head up to the third floor of the building to find her unit.

  I knock on the door three times, waiting several moments for a response and not getting one. Mel must be ou
t, which shouldn’t surprise me. Perhaps a group of her coworkers has taken her out for a birthday celebration, or maybe she’s having dinner with her brother. Hopefully, none of her male clients have asked to take her out for the special occasion.

  After knocking again, waiting, and deciding definitively that Mel isn’t home yet, a memory comes back to me—something she told me the first time we met. When she’d first moved in, she’d locked herself out of her apartment so many times that she’d decided to hide a key. At the time, I’d thought it was cute, endearing. I doubt, of course, that she’s done the same thing at this place—after all, nearly five years had passed, and she’s now a successful young professional rather than a scatterbrained young girl moving to a new city.

  I can’t imagine that she’s hidden a key outside her apartment, but the only way to find out is to pull up the mat and check…

  Turns out, Mel does still keep a spare key under her doormat.

  Closing the door behind me, I begin stripping petals off the roses, creating a path from the doorway of her apartment to her bedroom.

  Just as I finish up, I hear the sound of a key in the door. Mel isn’t talking, so I assume she’s alone, which is a relief. She swings the door open and yelps in surprise when she sees the rose petals. A moment later, she’s standing in the doorway, looking awestruck and confused.

  “What are you doing here?” she breathes, clutching her chest and trying to catch her breath from the shock. “You scared the life out of me!”

  “Sorry,” I chuckle. “You look gorgeous, if that helps?”

  She’s dressed in a tight purple dress that hugs her curves in all the right places, low-cut in both the front and the back but still hanging gracefully over one shoulder.

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t answer my question,” she points out.

  I don’t answer immediately. I’m fixated on her dark lipstick, on the way her smoky eyeshadow brings out her eyes and the way her hair falls in soft curls that frame her face as she leans against the doorframe.

  “Right,” I reply, reaching for the champagne. “I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”

  Her mouth forms a perfect little “O” shape as she eyes the bottle.

  “Let me get some glasses,” she says, sounding flustered.

  I follow her into the kitchen and enjoy the view of her as she reaches into a top cabinet for the flutes. She hands them to me, and I don’t even pretend I wasn’t staring. I pop the cork and pour us each a glass, holding mine up in a toast.

  “Happy birthday, Mel,” I say.

  “Thanks,” she breathes, then takes a sip. “This is delicious,” she adds, unable to keep herself from smiling.

  Before she can ask another question, I reach into my suit pocket.

  “I brought you a present,” I tell her.

  Mel’s expression turns apprehensive. “Tyler, you didn’t have to do that,” she scolds, but she sits down at the kitchen counter next to me, anyway. “What is it?”

  I laugh, clutching the trinket in my fist before opening my palm flat to show her. Mel gasps audibly when she recognizes the locket that she left in my apartment five years ago.

  “That’s—you kept that all this time?” she stammers, picking it up gently. She opens the tiny, heart-shaped locket to reveal an old family photo—a picture of her and her brother when they were kids, wearing their Sunday best. It looks like it may have been a Christmas card at some point.

  “Of course,” I tell her.

  “But you kept it,” she whispers. “You could have just mailed it to me, or something. Why would you hold onto this?”

  “Because,” I say, my tone becoming serious, “I always knew that I’d see you again someday. I knew that if I held onto that locket, that you’d come back to me. And now, here you are.”

  “Here I am,” Mel agrees.

  She turns so that I can clasp the necklace behind her, then looks back at me.

  “Beautiful, as always,” I tell her.

  “Thank you,” she says with enough weight that I know she’s not just talking about the assistance with putting on her necklace or the compliment.

  She leans in and kisses me, slow and meaningful, and I feel magnetically drawn to her. The electric heat that ignites inside me when we kiss is now warm instead of hot—softer, but no less pleasant. I realize that I’m not just attracted to her: I have true, deep feelings for her.

  She pulls away and gazes deeply into my eyes.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” she says softly.

  God, I regret nothing more than leaving in the first place.

  Chapter 16

  Mel

  I kiss Tyler passionately, pulling him closer with every second, willing him to need me as badly as I need him. He held onto my necklace for five years. I’ve been so sure that I’d never see him again as long as I lived—I even told him as much on that night I stormed out—but he knew. Even when I swore up and down that I wanted nothing to do with him, we both knew better, and he saved the necklace without even knowing that it was anything more than a trinket to me.

  I can’t kiss him hard enough, can’t sit close enough to him. We’re both so wrapped up in the kiss that neither of us hears the door open. There’s no knock, and only one other person besides me has a key.

  “Mel? Tyler?!” Jackson shouts, aghast. He’s carrying a bag from a local boutique, which I’m sure contains a birthday present for me.

  Immediately, I break off the kiss, my face turning bright red in the process, but the damage is already done. Jackson is furious. The bag and whatever is inside slips from his fingers, and he charges forward, shoving Tyler off the edge of my bed.

  “Jackson, stop!” I yell.

  Without thinking, I leap up and try to pull Jackson off Tyler. By the time I get between them, I have to pry Jackson’s hand off the collar of Tyler’s shirt. Jackson would never risk anything happening to me in the crossfire, so he backs away as soon as I place myself in the middle.

  “I can’t believe this,” Jackson hisses. “Mel, what the—”

  “It’s not what you think,” I lie, desperate to say anything that will placate him.

  It doesn’t work, and Jackson laughs humorlessly.

  “I know exactly what this is,” he snarls. “God, Tyler, I could have expected something like this from you,” he says, “but you, Mel?”

  Hot shame turns my face pink, and I can’t bear to look my brother in the eyes. There’s nothing I can say to argue, because he has every right to be angry.

  “I’m sorry,” I choke out, feeling a lump form in my throat. I’m close to tears, but I have no right to cry right now, so I force myself to blink them away.

  Jackson wrenches his arm away from me and turns to leave, his posture hostile. He steps over the bag he brought for me and stomps to the front door, hovering in the doorway.

  “Jackson, wait,” I beg, but he shakes his head.

  He slams the door behind him but I open it up again and run after him, pursuing him down the stairs of my apartment complex. He’s ignoring me as I call his name, telling him to stop, but I’m faster than he is, so by the time we’re at the bottom of the stairs, I catch up to him.

  “Jackson, hear me out,” I plead. “Tyler was just—”

  “How long have you been seeing him?” he demands, cutting my explanation short.

  I blink, surprised. “He…he surprised me, Jackson. I didn’t know he was going to be here; he just dropped by.”

  “So this is the first time you’ve seen him in five years?” he presses, and I shift awkwardly from foot to foot.

  “Well, he came to my work last week,” I admit. “We…we had lunch.”

  While I don’t want to lie to Jackson again, that’s all the details I want to give. It’s enough to make Jackson look wounded.

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I was afraid you’d react…well, like this,” I say, attempting to defend myself.

  He rolls his eyes. “Well, you were right,” he
says flatly. “Congrats, Mel. Happy birthday.’’

  The wish is unfriendly, and he takes off right after he says it, leaving me standing there in the lobby, fighting back tears.

  I go back to my apartment, opening the door to find Tyler standing in the middle of my living room, his shirt looking rumpled.

  “I’m so sorry, Mel,” he says, stepping forward protectively. I let him wrap his arms around me, pressing my face to his chest so that he won’t see me tear up. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I reply honestly, shaking my head against his chest. “I’ve never seen him so upset.”

  “Hey,” he says gently, turning my face toward his by my chin so I have to look him in the eyes. “Listen. This is going to blow over.”

  I push his hand away dejectedly, letting him hold my hand for just a moment before becoming overwhelmed with guilt once more. I can’t let Tyler comfort me, not about this.

  “Maybe,” I say vaguely. Jackson has never been one to hold a grudge, but I also can’t see this disappearing so easily.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again. It seems sincere, and I know that this isn’t all his fault, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

  “I know,” I say instead of accepting. “I think you should go.”

  “Can’t we talk about this?” he asks, but I shake my head. “I just wanted to—”

  “Tyler,” I cut in, my voice quivering with unshed tears. “Please, just leave. I need to work things out with my brother.”

  Tyler nods. He takes my face in his hands once more and strokes my cheek, which I allow for a moment before pushing him off reluctantly.

  I watch him leave, which he does gracefully and respectfully. It takes everything in me not to call after Tyler, too, but my priorities are clear. Besides, I know that no amount of fancy champagne is going to make me feel better.

  As soon as Tyler leaves, I write a lengthy text to Jackson, apologizing for everything. I explain—leaving out all of the sordid details—that Tyler had seen my name in the paper and decided to drop by my work, which had led to a lunch agreement I couldn’t get out of, which had led to tonight. I tell him, not entirely truthfully, that I don’t have any feelings for Tyler, and that if it would make things better, I’ll promise to never see him again.