Licks

by Kelly Siskind

  August was entwined in this search, for some reason. Now his brother was, too. Trying to figure out why would drain energy and time I didn’t have. The bigger issue was how seeing Finch would affect August now. The confrontation could shake the rickety suspension bridge we were navigating.

  Maybe it already had.

  Questions built in my throat until it burned. “Do you regret sleeping with me?”

  He was on me in a heartbeat, his hands cradling my face. “No. Not for a second. Why would you think that?”

  Relief flooded me, but barbs still chafed my windpipe. I hooked my thumbs through his belt loops. “The drive here—you were so…distracted? I mean, I get that seeing Finch now isn’t ideal, but he’s your brother. We can’t avoid him forever.” Which implied August and I had forever. Seconds, I reminded myself. This was nothing more than seconds and right now and enjoying the moment. I had a life here. A job. He was leaving. The barbs dug deeper.

  He loosened his hold on me, enough that the scratch of his calluses became more pronounced. “The only regret I’ll ever have with you, Gwen, is taking too long to pull my head out of my ass to understand we’re bigger than what went down between us. This thing with Finch—my moodiness on our way here—is partly because of that, but there’s more to it. Stuff I didn’t want to discuss tonight.”

  “What stuff?”

  Spine rigid, his attention drifted over my head, to the club beyond. “You sure you want to hear this now?”

  “We’re about to see Finch, so I think the answer to that is obvious.”

  The muscles in his jaw shifted, working mercilessly. I kissed the clenched knot and he softened slightly. “I know you think Finch and I always got along, but things got tense between us during high school.” He tilted his head side-to-side, brushing his cheek against my lips. “It’s great having an identical twin, growing up with someone who’s literally a part of you. I wouldn’t trade our childhood for anything. But looking the same comes with expectations of acting the same, performing the same. It frustrated the hell out of Finch.”

  He leaned back slightly, his eyes shifting from distracted to piercing. Like he’d forgotten I was in front of him. “You are so goddamn beautiful.”

  My heart swelled three sizes. “Are you stalling?”

  He stared at me until my pulse pounded in my ears. “I might need you to pinch me sporadically, because I keep thinking I’m dreaming. The fact that I can touch you, kiss you”—he planted a hard one on my lips—“floors me. So if I stop midsentence from time to time to tell you how gorgeous you are, that your green eyes remind me of the first breath of spring, you’ll have to deal with it.”

  I pinched his upper arm, as requested. To lighten the mood. To shrink my heart back to its proper size. Any bigger and the effects would be irreversible. “I see where you get your lyrics from.”

  “Many from you, Possum.”

  Oh, dear Lord. “Let’s not discuss ‘Girl with the Black Heart.’”

  He shrugged a shoulder, no apology in his open gaze. I didn’t want an apology. I’d deserved every biting word. “Back to the Finch issue,” I said, nudging August’s hip with mine.

  He turned and planted his sexy behind against my car. I wanted to worship his ass. Bite the firm globes. Suck on the length of him until he shuddered and spilled into my mouth. God, even here, minutes from facing Finch and searching for my father, I could do little more than fantasize about August.

  He drew me into his chest. “Finch started acting out end of our junior year. He was pissed I was chosen to captain our soccer team. He started smoking weed regularly. His grades dropped, like really dropped, and every time our folks celebrated something I did, he’d withdraw more. Not with his friends. He’d put on his Finch smile and pretend all was roses, but at home he’d barely look at me. It got worse the start of our senior year. You and I had stopped speaking, but I knew he still spent time with you, so I…” His arm tightened around my shoulder. “I asked him for a favor.”

  “Am I going to like this favor?”

  “Unlikely.”

  Not that it mattered. He’d forgiven my unforgivable WTF. There were no grudges left to hold, not now, all these years later. I squeezed his waist, telling him I’d support him. I was here for him, the way I wished I’d been for the past nine years.

  He exhaled a harsh breath. “I asked him to watch out for you. Spend time with you. Being cut off from you messed me up, but I was worried. Figured something else was going on. I had to make sure you were okay.”

  The weight of his arm slung over my shoulder suddenly turned crushing, and I fought the urge to shrug him off. It took every ounce of my control not to whirl on August and tell him I hadn’t been his charity case. I hadn’t been a helpless pet. As sweet as his gestures often had been, that was how I’d sometimes felt. That I’d been a problem for him to solve. A project he needed to ace, like everything else in his life.

  Even now, I felt like I was seventeen again, shrinking smaller as Kayla Morgan told me August had pitied me. That I dragged him down. Long buried insecurities clawed to the surface, and I nearly screamed.

  I wasn’t that girl anymore. I jumped out of airplanes, for Christ’s sake.

  I was no longer a teenager who believed she was unlovable because her mother had sneered at her, called her unwanted. Stupid. I didn’t walk through life trying to make as little noise as possible, avoiding friendships, commitments, believing myself unworthy. Yet here I was, anxiety-riddled self-doubt resurfacing.

  I needed to get a grip.

  I slowed my overactive lungs. I replayed his explanation, how he’d been worried about me back then. There had been no hidden agenda. He may have approached our relationship from a hero perspective, wanting to be the savior, but based on all we’d admitted to each other today, asking Finch to keep an eye on me had been out of desperation, not pity.

  All because I’d cut him from my life.

  I nestled deeper into August’s side instead of pulling away. I was that woman now. A nestler, not a runner. “Did Finch show interest in me back then? Is that why he agreed?”

  “He never said, but he knew exactly how I felt about you.”

  “Which made what we did even worse,” I mumbled, still sick about it all.

  “It did make it worse, but it wasn’t the only reason.” He looped a lock of my hair around his finger and twirled it. A guitar pick. My hair. Always busying his fingers. “The night I asked Finch to look out for you, he agreed…but asked for a favor in return.” He twirled my hair faster. “He’d tanked his SATs and hadn’t told me or our parents. I didn’t know how bad his grades had gotten, either. He had one more chance to take the test in December of our senior year, and he needed that score.”

  “What did that have to do with you?”

  “He asked me to take the test for him.”

  Oh.

  Fuck.

  Identical twins.

  “And you did it?” I couldn’t hide the shock in my voice. I’d once asked August to help me buy a fake ID. Everyone did it. No biggie. He’d laced into me, saying it was stupid, not worth getting caught. He never colored outside the lines.

  “And I did it.” He quit fiddling with my hair. His body became a block of cement. “I wore his preppy clothes and his glasses, and no one was the wiser. I nearly puked before the test. I did puke after. Barely slept for the next few months, sure someone would find out and I’d be expelled, lose my chance at my scholarship. Be kicked off the soccer team. I was a wreck.”

  Shame winded me. “So you did this insane, massive favor for Finch.” For me, really. So his brother would watch out for me. “And Finch promised to be my shadow, knowing how you felt about me. Then…that night happened?”

  “That about sums it up.”

  If he weren’t holding me up, I’d sink to my haunches and bury my face in my hands. August’s requested favor explained Finch’s increased attentiveness toward the end of high school, into college. Finch would drag me out for co
ffee, force me to meet him at the library for study sessions. But his words to me that fateful night—I’ve wanted you so long—hadn’t been the words of a brother doing a brother a favor. Especially considering what August had done for him.

  “I didn’t think I could feel worse about what went down, but this is definitely worse.” Profoundly worse. Shove me in a cell and toss away the key worse.

  August spun me quickly, pulled me tight against his chest. “I didn’t tell you to guilt you, but Finch and I never recovered from that night. We speak as needed, but we’re only civil. Not because of what you did. Because my brother betrayed me. I put my future on the line for him, and he fucked me over.”

  It all made sense now, how furious August had been that night. The vicious punch to Finch’s face. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No.” His tone turned vehement. “Don’t apologize. I’m done playing the victim. There’s no changing the past, and I don’t want you spending these next couple days feeling badly. I forgave you. Not just with words. There’s no anger left. We’re too important. Our time together is too important.”

  Our seconds. This finite slice of time. “I don’t know how to do this.”

  “Oh, honey. I’ll take care of you. Of us. Don’t worry. I’ll make this work.” He kissed me, sweet and slow.

  Kissing was one solution. A mighty fine one. The rest was August taking charge, always trying to solve my problems. He didn’t know my life here, what I could and couldn’t do. He hadn’t even asked what I wanted to do. But his lips were addictive, coaxing mine into action. I kissed him back harder, the two of us moving against each other with such devastating need. His lips were soft yet firm. His body was all firm.

  “I plan to fuck you blind tonight,” he said against my lips. “Taste every inch of you. Have you come on my tongue and fingers. You don’t even know.”

  My body sure as hell knew. “I’m so wet. You make me so wet.”

  “Jesus, Gwen.” His mouth was on my neck, licking and sucking. “I’ll never get enough of you.”

  Not in two days he wouldn’t. But I might lose my heart.

  That sobering notion had me abruptly ending our PDA. I heard a whistle, but wasn’t sure it was directed at us, not that I cared. What I did care about was not falling to pieces over this man, who had to get on an airplane in one and a half days.

  I needed to feel him inside me again. I wouldn’t deny myself that. But my feelings for him were already ten-foot swells, ready to drag me under. I had to keep an emotional distance, not do stupid things like wish I wasn’t on the pill.

  Following the journal’s clues was the perfect distraction. The breather I needed. Which meant facing Finch. “You still okay to come in the club with me?”

  “I’m not leaving your side until I get on that plane.”

  He wasn’t making my emotional armor easy to wear. “Even when I have to pee?”

  “You’ve peed next to me before.”

  I had. Our tenth-grade graduation had been a raucous affair. Someone had organized a field party, and I’d drunk my weight in peach schnapps. August had stood sentry while I’d squatted in the grass. He’d later held my hair back while I’d puked. The best friend a girl could have.

  “Okay,” I said, tugging him toward the club.

  He tugged me back. His hooded eyes drank me in, dropping to my neck. His pupils flared. “I gave you a hickey.”

  I touched my feverish skin and laughed. “Are we sixteen?”

  “It means you’re mine,” he replied, his voice thick.

  My voice got stuck. I couldn’t be his. Not with his itinerary. Being his meant losing myself, and the last time that happened, after my WTF, I’d tripped so far down a rabbit hole, I’d gotten lost in the bramble. “When we’re inside,” I said, deflecting, “holler if you need to leave.”

  He considered me a moment, stared so intently I looked away. “I’ll use our safe word,” he said.

  Nothing about my feelings for him felt safe.

  August

  I led the way to the club, still high from kissing Gwen. From touching Gwen. From marking Gwen’s skin. Unfortunately, the way she’d disconnected her lips from mine and her subject change just now hinted at her worry. She was holding herself back, keeping a piece of her heart protected. I’d quit trying to guard mine. She was everything to me, the center of my best childhood memories, the reason I wrote music. She had all of me, and I’d have all of her before my plane took off. As long as this search for her father didn’t backfire.

  And Finch didn’t ruin things again.

  A bouncer was at the club door. He had a neck thicker than a tree trunk, bald head, tattooed neck. His black suit was definitely purchased at a big and tall shop. He saluted me, as though we knew each other. “You shaved, Mr. Cruz.”

  I kept Gwen’s hand firmly in mine and offered him a tight smile. “Wrong Mr. Cruz. I came to see my brother.” No point avoiding that particular elephant.

  He grinned, displaying two gold teeth. “Oh…right. Sure. Go on in. Hope to catch you on stage later.”

  I’d wanted to play the Blue-Eyed Raven stage for years. It drew mid-sized bands these days, and bigger acts wanting an intimate setting. The sound system was killer, the audience filled with music devotees. Finch had managed the venue the past five years, bringing it back to life after it had dropped off the radar. He’d never asked me to play. I’d never offered. Our ongoing stalemate.

  I led Gwen to the semi-circular bar cradling the patron-filled tables, most enjoying some sort of dessert. Between sets, likely.

  She pressed closer to my side. “It’s sexy in here.”

  “You’re sexy.”

  Even in the sultry lighting, her eyes sparkled. “Trouble,” she mumbled.

  She scanned the instrument-filled stage—piano, bass, a couple horns, and one hot-as-hell Fender. The walls and ceilings had been remodeled, the moldings giving the room an art deco vibe. Blues tunes drifted from speakers. Servers wore twenties-inspired dresses and suits. Yeah, I’d always wanted to play this club, and it would probably never happen.

  Never loosening my hold on Gwen’s hand, I nodded to the bartender. “Is Finch in?”

  The woman did a double-take. “You’re August Cruz.”

  “I am.” Although people like that ballerina occasionally recognized me, I mostly flew under the radar when outside Europe. Not where my brother worked.

  She planted her hands on her hips and shook her head. The feather in her bobbed hair caught the light. “I’d always hoped you’d play here. I love ‘Girl with a Black Heart.’”

  From my angle, I could see Gwen roll her eyes, and I had to muffle my laugh. What had happened between us wasn’t amusing. Writing that song hadn’t been, either. But man, if we couldn’t laugh about it now, find some humor in the darkness, we’d never make it. “It’s one of my favorites,” I said, dragging Gwen closer. “I used to act it out on a voodoo doll.”

  “Hardy-har-har.” This from a glowering Gwen.

  The waitress detailed a bad breakup of hers, a painful time the song had paralleled. I winked at Gwen, who mouthed, Not funny. But it kind of was.

  “Shoot. Sorry.” The waitress waved a frazzled hand. “I’ve monopolized you. I’ll call up to Finch, tell him you’re here.”

  Gwen watched the servers bussing tables, the animated patrons chatting. I watched Gwen. She’d always had this effortless beauty about her, but it was amplified now. Her shorter hair was wavy and loose, like she’d been at the beach, her casual bangs falling longer at the sides, framing her stunning face. Looking at her hurt in a visceral way. Tore at pieces of me. Except the hickey. That mark made me smile.

  Then I spotted Finch, and my smile nose-dived.

  10:30 p.m., 25 ½ Hours…

  August

  Finch stood at a side door, arms crossed, legs wide, scanning the room like he owned the place. Which he kind of did. Not in name or money, but he’d rebuilt the Raven’s reputation, act by act, month by month. I’d watched
his progress from afar, impressed with the growing praise. He deserved the accolades he’d earned. Didn’t make dealing with him any easier.

  The second his sights locked on me, his chin jerked upward, and a fizzy feeling snaked through me. The lighting made it tough to read his expression.

  “He’s coming over.” I anchored my arm around Gwen. To ground her, I told myself. But that swirling in my gut lessened.

  She held her purse against her stomach. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “The owner isn’t around much, but he’s the same guy who ran the place when your mother came here. If anyone has answers for you, it’s him. Finch is your connection.”

  My brother was the link to her past. Maybe her closure. Maybe mine, too. All our paths converging. Keeping tabs on my twin’s life from across the globe, pretending I didn’t want to call and congratulate him on his success, had gotten harder over the years. Seeing firsthand how lively and full the club was made me want to drag him in for a hug. None of it changed our past.

  He strutted toward us, confidence in his long strides. His hair was longer than mine, curling at the base of his neck. His short beard was new. The changes made us look different, but only slightly. It was still like facing a mirror.

  He stopped in front of us, took in my arm around Gwen. Our close proximity. The bastard grinned. “Are you two finally together?”

  There were a thousand things we needed to hash out, but that grin had the snake pit in my gut calming. “We are.”

  But Gwen said, “No,” and I jolted. She talked over herself. “I mean, we’re hanging out. But we’re not together together.”

  What in the actual fuck?

  The hickey on her neck was from me. Her body had been mine two short hours ago. She could kid herself all she wanted, but we were as together as together got. Something we’d deal with later. For now we were on a PI mission. “We’re looking for Uncle Rex.”