“Are you complaining?”
“No, but I’m thinking that you might actually be trying to kill me.”
I leaned down to press a kiss between his shoulder blades, my hands trailing deeper down between his thighs until my fingernails lightly scraped his balls. The sharp intake of breath he took made me struggle to hold in a needy moan of my own.
“I’d never kill you,” I whispered against his warm skin. Words to follow those flashed in my brain, words I’d never said to a man in any romantic capacity and words I hadn’t even thought about until right then.
I definitely wasn’t going to say them out loud, though. Instead, I opted for injecting a bit of humor into the situation before I did something stupid. “If I killed you right now, I’d be killing myself too. Death by horniness. It’d suck to have that on your death certificate.”
“Yeah, except that I think you’re about to sign mine if you don’t fucking touch me soon.”
“I’ve been touching you all this time,” I said innocently.
“You know what I mean,” he growled, and when my fingertips brushed against his balls again, he moved so fast that the next thing I knew, I was the one on my back and he was on top of me.
The broad tip of his cock glided through my seam, and when it hit my clit, I cried out as sparks of pleasure shot through me to the very tips of my fingers and toes. “What is this, payback?”
“Nope.” His jaw was tight as he hovered above me, but there were emotions in his eyes as he held mine that spoke of a lot of things other than lust. Just like me, he didn’t seem to want to talk about it, though.
My hips twitched up as he slid through my folds again and both of us gasped. “If it’s not payback, why aren’t you inside me yet?”
“Fuck,” he muttered. Then his weight shifted as he reached for a condom and disappeared as he sat up to roll it on. “I think I’m addicted to you.”
My heart rate picked up even more at his darkly muttered confession, my hands reaching up so I could twist my fingers into his hair to bring his mouth to mine. “Same.”
“Thank God,” he whispered against my lips before slamming his mouth down over mine. At the same time, he thrust into me. Hard.
But it didn’t hurt. Jordan knew how I much I loved it when he—
Stop thinking that word.
Thankfully, after that, he rolled his pelvis over my clit and I couldn’t think about much of anything at all. Jordan made me shatter into a million pieces twice before he finally surrendered to his own need, his mouth never leaving mine as he tensed above me and cried out into my mouth as his climax ripped through him.
Breathing heavily, both of us collapsed onto the bed. His weight was pressing me even deeper into the mattress, but I didn’t mind it. I’d always liked it actually, knowing that his limbs had gone as limp as mine in the aftermath.
“Holy fuck,” he said a few minutes later when neither of us was panting anymore. “I don’t have any words for that, but I do have something else for you.”
“What?” I frowned, planting my hands on his shoulders and nudging to let him know to lift up so I could look into his eyes. “What do you mean you have something else for me?”
“I mean that I got you something earlier today.” He planted a kiss on the tip of my nose, grinned suddenly, and lifted himself off me. I felt empty for the loss of him, so I sat up, brought my knees to my chest, and looped my arms around them while I waited for him to come back from wherever it was he had gone.
He walked into the room butt naked and having discarded the condom on his travels, holding a purple velvet box. It was a lot bigger and flatter than any ring box I’d ever seen, so I wasn’t worried about that, but it didn’t stop my heart trying to thunder its way out of my chest.
“What’s this?”
He gave me a sweeter, more boyishly excited smile than I’d seen from him before sitting on the end of the bed and handing over his gift. “Open it. See for yourself.”
I ran my thumb over the soft, smooth fabric and then flipped open the lid, tears jumping to my eyes when I saw what was nestled inside. “You got me the pendant I wanted? Why?”
“I just saw it made you happy, and I wanted you to be happy.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, but it was. It really, really was.
“Thank you,” I whispered, setting the box down next to me on the bed for a moment so I could cradle his face in both my hands. Our gazes caught as I moved my mouth to his, our kiss less hurried and more emotional than any of the others tonight had been.
It was in that moment that I realized the word that had kept popping into my head might actually have been accurate. There was every possibility that I was in love with Jordan Coppens.
Love. Crap. Well, that’s a game-changer.
Chapter 31
Jordan
Waking up with Elyse in my arms was incredible. A literal dream come true.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only Dennis I woke to. My phone buzzed on my nightstand and my heart skipped about twenty beats when I saw it was Kole calling.
After the shortest internal debate known to man, I slid my thumb across the screen and took my best friend’s call. All the while staring down at his naked, sleeping sister lying right beside me. Fuck.
“Hey, man. What’s up? Why are you calling me so early?”
“To tell you to put on the kettle because I’m on my way to your house,” he said.
I nearly choked on nothing but air.
Elyse stirred, a sleepy, lazy smile forming that fell from her lips the second she opened her eyes and saw the expression on my face. “Kole,” I mouthed to her, and those same eyes opened so wide I was afraid they might fall out.
“Why are you on your way here?” I asked, already climbing out of bed and motioning for Elyse to do the same. She swung her legs over the side of the mattress and reached for her dress.
“Because I need to talk to you. Why else? Hey, do you still have any of those instant marshmallow cappuccino sachets? I really want one of those right now, as revolting as I usually think they are.”
“Yeah, uh, sure. I’ll check.” I clamped the phone between my ear and my shoulder and pulled last night’s jeans back on. “How far away are you? Do I have time for a shower before you get here?”
He laughed. “No, sorry. I’m only a few minutes away. Be there soon.”
“Okay,” I said and tossed my phone onto the bed as I bent over to pick up my shirt after Kole disconnected the call. “He’s almost here. You have to leave. Like, right now.”
“What?” She crossed her arms over her chest, her dress and the only item of clothing she’d apparently brought with her, already back on. “Look, maybe you were right last week when you suggested we should just tell him the truth. This is ridiculous. We’re both consenting adults. We shouldn’t be having to act like teenagers whose parents are on their way home the morning after.”
My heart skipped twenty more beats. The Dennises really weren’t good for the poor organ this morning. Or for my eyes, for that matter. I didn’t think they’d ever been open as wide for as long as they had been now.
“What? You want to tell him about us? Right now? What happened to there being nothing to tell him?”
She held my gaze for a beat, then shrugged. “Things changed. I really don’t want to have to be chucked out of your bed the morning after again, for one. He’ll be pissed off, but then it’ll be fine.”
“Sure, because that’s why we haven’t told him for so damn long. Because it’s all going to be fine.” I jammed my shirt over my head just as I remembered about something else. “Fuck. Everything from dinner, the candles included, is still in the dining room. If he finds you here, with blown-out candles on the table…”
“So what?” She tilted her head, a deep frown forming between her brows. “You don’t want to tell him anymore?”
“No, I do.” I finally stopped moving for the first time since I’d jumped out of bed, walking around it so I could put my
hands on her shoulders. “I do want to tell him, but it can’t be like this.”
“Like what?”
“You have to go, babe.” I released her shoulders to grab one of her hands, just about dragging her out of my bedroom. “Please. Just go. We can talk about everything later, but he can’t find out about us like this.”
Elyse snapped her hand out of mine, marching down the hall ahead of me. We were just out of the front door when Kole pulled up. She tossed me a glare over her shoulder, then schooled her features.
“Hey, little sis, what are you doing here?” Kole said when he climbed out of his truck, suspicion darkening his eyes and his expression set in a scowl.
“She just came over to see if I wanted to go get some breakfast,” I said. “I told her you were on your way already, so we thought we could all go together.”
Elyse’s lips pursed, but then she sighed very quietly and nodded, pasting a very fake smile to her lips. “Yeah. Exactly. Breakfast.”
The scowl melted from Kole’s face and his mouth slanted into a smirk. “Thank God. For a second there, I thought you two were sleeping together.”
“What? Why would we do that?” I asked at the same time that Elyse snorted, a sound so derisive that even though I knew she was only doing it to help us cover our tracks, it still made something in my chest hurt.
“Yeah,” Elyse added. “Why would we do that? It’s not like we could ever be in a relationship or have something real. Sleeping together would only be a massive waste of time.”
Wow. She was really upset about this, which made just about zero sense since she’d been the one who’d been adamant last week that we shouldn’t tell Kole the truth at all. She’d also been the one who’d rather jump off a cliff than talk about the future and had told me in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want to settle down.
Which was another reason why we couldn’t talk to Kole about it this morning. At some point, the two of us were going to have to sit and talk about it first. Figure out what it even was.
If we didn’t do that and simply told him we’d been fucking, I was going to be dead to him. In fact, maybe not even just to him. Maybe to everyone else, too, because I was pretty sure he’d really fucking kill me if he thought I’d only been using his sister to get my rocks off.
Since I couldn’t exactly tell him what was going on between us when I didn’t know myself, I didn’t think it was a good time to have a conversation I’d been trying to plan out in my head for years.
Also, we hadn’t even showered yet. Speaking to him about it while still being covered in her bodily fluids from all the times we’d gone at it last night seemed highly inappropriate. And probably the only thing I could do to be more disrespectful than I was already being.
I didn’t know how Elyse thought we could have told him the truth with all those things considered, but it was really obvious that she was pissed at me about saying no. I rubbed my head in confusion, then looked back to Kole.
“What do you say to breakfast at the diner?” I asked. “I don’t know if they do marshmallow cappuccinos, but they do have that awesome marshmallow milkshake.”
Kole nodded, but he was also frowning at Elyse. “Are you okay? It looks like someone kicked your puppy.”
“I’m fine. My puppy is fine too.” She pulled her keys out of the satchel she’d hastily grabbed from the kitchen as she’d marched out of my house. “I’m just in a bad mood. It’s nothing to worry about. Can we go now?”
“Definitely,” he said. “If your mood is that bad, the only thing I know of that will help is a double-thick milkshake and pancakes.”
“And bacon,” she said at the same time that I muttered the word “bacon” under my breath. She didn’t see or hear me, though. Neither did Kole.
“Do you want to ride with me?” he offered, but she shook her head.
“I have some places I need to be later, so I need my own vehicle.”
“Fair enough,” he said. Then his gaze darted to mine. “How about you?”
“Nah, man. Thanks, but I’ve got some shit to take care of after too.” Like talking to his sister about why the hell she was so upset with me over saying no to telling him the truth this morning. She’d said things had changed from last weekend when she’d said there was nothing to tell him, but we hadn’t even seen or really talked to each other all damn week.
Nothing had changed. Not that I knew of anyway.
Taking in a deep breath through my nose, I did my best to flash a grin at Kole. “Race you there?”
“You’re on.” He smirked and fitted his sunglasses back over his eyes before jogging to his truck. I ran for my Jeep, too.
Elyse, on the other hand, was still standing outside of hers as Kole and I sped away. I caught a glimpse of her in my rearview mirror, wondering if I was imagining it or if her body was actually shaking.
Nah. Has to be the mirror. She couldn’t be so angry with me that she was shaking, not when she’d been wanting to talk to him on a whim. It wasn’t like I’d ruined plans she’d been making since forever and taken away her only chance of doing something.
We would have another chance to talk to Kole, and nothing and no one would be able to ruin the plans we would have made before we did. I was a meticulous planner, and I knew Kole well enough to know what his first questions were going to be, knew that we’d have to pick the right place and time to tell him.
The thought that she’d simply wanted to blurt it out to him this morning made me feel sick. I’d have lost my best friend if we had, no doubt. And that was the very last thing I wanted. It always had been, which was why it needed to be handled delicately.
Kole and I made it to the diner first, unsurprisingly. We grabbed a table and were just sitting down when Elyse walked in. She came to join us, but she didn’t look at me. Not once.
Alarm bells went off in my head and my insides turned to stone. Maybe I’d been too quick to dismiss how angry she really could be because the vibes she was giving off were not good.
Now that she was sitting right across from me and I had some time to look at her while the siblings studied their menus, she looked hurt.
Badly hurt.
My gut clenched and my hands itched to reached out to her, but then I ground my teeth together and curled my fingers into fists. Yet again, I couldn’t even check on my girl and it was driving me fucking crazy.
I might have said no to talking to Kole this morning, but we were going to have to talk to him. Soon.
Because I was officially over this hiding bullshit. I couldn’t do it anymore, and more than that, I didn’t want to.
Chapter 32
Elyse
“Have you thought about my offer?” Kole asked Jordan after we’d placed our order.
Jordan had been staring off into space at something right behind my left shoulder, but it seemed he wasn’t so lost in thought that he hadn’t heard Kole speak.
Good. Let them keep each other busy.
If they were talking, there was less of a chance of Kole realizing that I was sitting there fuming silently. I didn’t think I’d ever been as embarrassed in my life as I had been this morning.
Getting caught naked in bed with Jordan by my own big brother would have been better than being treated the way I had been. Like I was some random skank he had to hide, like the mere thought of admitting to his best friend that he liked me was utterly ridiculous.
Jordan had always made me feel so good about myself, so confident and sexy. This morning, however, he’d also become the person responsible for making me feel worse about myself than I ever had before.
The way he’d acted like I was crazy when I suggested we just tell my brother the truth had been completely humiliating. Not to mention the fact that I was completely commando and sitting in a family-friendly diner for breakfast with two of the last people I felt like speaking to right now.
The situation was awful, and it was all Jordan’s fault. The two of us could have invited Kole into Jordan’s h
ouse, sat him down, and calmly explained to him that we’d been seeing each other. Seriously, it wasn’t like we’d been committing a crime that we were trying to get him to cover up for us.
Jordan had reacted like I’d suggested that we murder my brother instead of simply having a goddamn conversation with him. A conversation that Jordan had brought up himself less than a week ago.
I knew Kole was going to be angry when he found out the truth. I knew that Jordan and I would be on his shit list and that it was going to take him some time to adjust to the idea, but he would adjust to it.
He’d have to because I was ninety percent sure that I was in love with his best friend. Surely, he wouldn’t expect us to stay away from each other after I told him that, after I told him how happy Jordan made me and that I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
I also knew all about that imaginary bro-code thing guys had and that sleeping with thy best friend’s sister was strictly forbidden, but as far as I was concerned, that rule was antiquated bullshit. This best friend’s little sister in particular seriously objected to the notion that her brother could somehow choose who she could or couldn’t be with.
Seriously, boys needed to grow up and realize that women had rights now too. Every woman had the right to choose who she shared her bed with, and if she chose a guy who happened to get along with her brother, who the hell cared?
Sure, in the past I’d been all for keeping it from Kole because I really didn’t want him to be hurt over something I didn’t consider such a big deal and wouldn’t go anywhere anyway, but things between Jordan and I weren’t casual anymore.
We were becoming more serious than ever, and since we were, Kole deserved to know. We also deserved not to have to be forced to hide our feelings for one another. I didn’t want to have to hide being truly in love for the first time and Jordan shouldn’t have had to hide that he wanted to settle down with me.
Have Your Way With Me Page 20
