by Meg Maguire
“I’m sorry,” Colin murmured, sounding as if he were apologizing for much more than just this.
Libby managed to whisper, “I should get some sleep.”
“Yeah.” His hands were still hovering between their faces. He moved them, fingertips settling in the hair just above her ears. Again, she feared his kiss, but he merely pressed his lips to her forehead. He rested them there, waiting, his breaths coming warm and deep and fast against her skin.
“I don’t feel that way about you,” Libby whispered.
“I know.” He swallowed. “I know your heart belongs to my brother.”
“He doesn’t want it.” As she said it, Libby felt curiosity taking control. She wanted answers, and here they were in front of her for the taking. “But you. You want me.”
His lips slid to her temple. “Of course I do.”
“You want to kiss me.”
“I want so much more than that.”
“You want to…be with me,” she said.
“So bloody bad it hurts.”
She was playing a reckless game, but for the moment her desperation trumped her nerves. “I need to hear that,” she murmured.
Colin’s thumbs traced the curves of her ears then his lips against her hairline whispered, “I want to give myself to you so good that no other man will ever be able to make you forget it.”
Libby started.
His voice fell to her ear, words steaming hot. “I want to give it to you so deep and so thick that any other man inside you after me will only make you feel more empty.”
Libby froze. Her body seized with that familiar fear Colin roused in her whenever he didn’t hide his sexuality. At the same time, she was transfixed by what he was saying—everything she wanted from Reece but couldn’t have. Words more potent than mere dirty talk could ever hope to be.
“You think you can do that?” she breathed against his neck.
“I know I can. And so do you.”
She swallowed. “You might be surprised how little I know—”
They froze as the door before them rattled, the way it always did when the one at the bottom of the stairs was opened. Libby looked to the clock. One eighteen.
Colin’s hands dropped from Libby’s face, and he rose, running a palm over the back of his neck.
“Colin—”
“Good night, Libby.”
Footsteps started up the steps.
“Thank you. For coming after me.”
He nodded.
“And Colin,” she added, watching the door.
He glanced back over his shoulder at her with weary eyes. “Yeah?”
“Don’t…please don’t tell your brother,” she whispered. “You know—that we talked like this.”
He turned to walk to his room, and she couldn’t see his expression as he murmured, “Of course not.”
Chapter Thirteen
Get your shit together, Libby commanded herself. This is pathetic.
She peeled her butt off the couch and drank a glass of water over the kitchen sink, trying to formulate a plan of action for the day. The previous evening, which had started out so promising, had turned into one of the most disheartening and depressing ones she could remember, despite Colin’s rescue mission. Their interaction afterward had thrown her…and it was her own fault. Everything that had started going so massively wrong lately was her own damn fault.
Perhaps it was best to get to work and put some distance between herself and all this…complexity. Get back to simpler things, like biochemical analysis. She had lab results to collect and research to type up. That would be a good project to pour her attention into. It was the whole freaking reason Libby was here, technically. It would serve her right if her visa extension got denied. And she’d check the forecast too, see if the breakers were supposed to be good that afternoon.
As she rounded the corner to head back into the living room, Libby bumped into Colin. Quite literally. Quite half-nakedly. Her nose nearly collided with his chin and the sudden closeness was like an incapacitating punch in the gut, or perhaps just a bit farther south.
“Sorry,” he said, stepping back, echoing his apology from the previous evening.
“Sorry.” Libby’s eyes widened with surprise and genuinely seedy interest, her fear gone with the darkness, replaced with a heart-pounding curiosity.
If Reece’s body belonged to a ninja, then Colin’s was a boxer’s. He was bigger than his brother, built more like a wild animal than a tight, efficient machine. Libby let her eyes scan him from the neck to the waist, her view cut off by his pajama pants just where a vee of muscle dove from his hips downward. Colin’s body made perfect sense, delivering everything his smile promised. His sleeve tattoos started at his elbows and ran up his powerful arms, and the patterns Libby hadn’t been able to make out became clear. Birds—interlocking, dark-and-light patterns like Escher tessellations, starting small and intricate and growing larger until the details were decipherable at his shoulders.
Colin smiled tightly at her slack-jawed appraisal. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” His flirtation was harmless and limp, tarred with unease.
Libby barely heard him. His words from the night before flashed across her mind. Beads of water dotted his torso, and he smelled of shaving cream. Libby realized with an embarrassed start that she was still blocking his way. She shook herself into coherence and stepped aside.
“I’ll make some coffee.” Blood rushed to her cheeks, and she worked hard to sound nonchalant, busying herself at the counter.
“Ta. You sticking around this morning?”
“I think I have to do some work, actually.” Libby kept her gaze on her hands, jostling mugs in the sink with distracting loudness.
“I’ll get you a copy of the keys this afternoon,” Colin said, then added quietly, “I’m really sorry about last night.”
“I know. Don’t be.” Libby met his eyes again, needing him to know she meant it. “I appreciate what you did after I ran out. You’re a good friend.”
He nodded, looking away. “You too. Anyhow… Let’s get back to how we were, eh?” he asked, reading Libby’s mind.
She turned away and made a noisy show of preparing the coffee until she heard his bedroom door close. All at once she could breathe again.
She’d just been treated to a potent dose of what all those other girls must feel when they looked at Colin—panty-peeling charisma and enjoyably bad decisions aching to be made.
Those other girls might smile at such a reaction, but right now Libby wanted to run in the other direction. What was that instinct? Fear, obviously, but of what? Of the opposite of what Reece made her feel, the opposite of safe and inaccessible. That promise of sexual misadventure Colin’s smile—and his body, as she’d just confirmed—effortlessly exuded. Libby shuddered.
Her plans for Reece solidified in her mind, with a certainty that rang and rattled like a heavy steel cage door slamming down, locking her in. Locking out whatever frightening threat Colin posed.
Safe.
Reece ran a damp towel over the bar as the sunlight began fading outside the pub’s front window. A blur of jeans and black T-shirt and orange paint flashed by the glass, brakes squeaking seconds before Colin wheeled his bike inside. Reece held his breath. He’d been only too happy to avoid his brother that day, given their confrontation the evening before.
When Reece had moved back to New Zealand a few months ago, Colin had been as levelheaded and calm as Reece had ever seen him. Perhaps not levelheaded by some people’s standards, but remarkably docile for Colin, or the man Colin had been before his accident. Now things were changing, each passing week unraveling him bit by bit.
Reece couldn’t say for sure that this was Libby’s influence. He hoped it wasn’t his own presence, though that too was a possibility… Returning and accepting his duties as the so-called head of the family probably didn’t sit well with his brother. Any angst Colin might be feeling about this role redesignation had been well-hidden
until recently, but now Reece could see him fraying. Cracks were forming in his brother’s normally easygoing façade, and underneath shone glimmers of the volatile soul that used to inhabit that body.
Colin finished stowing and locking his bike and took a seat opposite Reece, expression neutral.
“You got a package from some parts company.” Reece hoped he sounded light and conversational. “I left it on your bed.”
“Ta.”
“What’s up for your Friday night?”
“You tell me.” Colin’s tone was clipped but civil. “I dumped my shift on you last night. You want me to take over down here?”
Reece shook his head. “You could use a night off. And I’m enjoying myself. Match is on in a bit. I’ll be fine.”
Colin’s face betrayed a certain desperation. “You sure?”
“Positive. Go out or something. It’s still early—go do whatever it is you young people do.”
Colin glanced behind Reece to the television, then to the front door. He looked lost. He looked so much like his twenty-two-year-old self that a chill settled over Reece. He scouted for approaching patrons before leaning close. “What’s with you, eh?”
Colin’s eyes, so like their father’s, met his. There was something brewing behind them. “You really want to have this conversation, Reece?”
“I want to know you’re okay, that’s all.”
“I’m bloody fantastic, mate. Never been better.”
“Is this just about Libby?” Reece asked in an elevated whisper.
“No idea what you’re on about.” Colin’s lack of conviction may or may not have been intentional.
“She’s not worth it,” Reece began.
Colin pushed his stool back with a gruff squeal and stood. “I’ll tell you when I want your bloody advice.”
Reece’s hackles rose. “Good. Sometimes I’d like to be told.”
“And sometimes I’d like to believe you give a shit.” Colin squinted at him, disgust written across his face, plain as his scar.
Reece felt himself itching to take the bait but held back. This wasn’t the time or place to start clawing open old wounds. “I’ll see you,” he said evenly.
He watched Colin unlock his bike and disappear out the front door without a backward glance.
Exhausted from a few hours’ aimless riding, Colin pushed the door in and swept his eyes around the ratty little club, feeling his energy shift. The wailing of a live punk band assaulted his ears. Erratic, drunken people staggered around him like crazed animals, and he could actually feel his sanity falling away now. It was seeping from his brain one drop at a time, hour by hour, week by week, the remaining portion sloshing around uselessly in his skull.
This scene had been Colin’s salvation for a long time, his anesthetic. The chaos and noise and the electricity of collective, violent emotion had numbed him on a hundred nights when he’d felt he was losing his mind a few years earlier. The last time he’d been here, smoking had still been allowed in pubs and restaurants, and without it the stink of piss and sweat was nauseating.
There was no sanctuary to be found here. Just a dim, reeking room full of fucked-up jackasses jostling each other in a sea of pointless, postured aggression.
Stepping back into the night air, Colin stood by his bike and stared up at the darkness. A few stars winked beyond the city’s glow. His chest was tight, lungs leaden, his angst feeling heavy, thick enough to drown in. He had one final idea to try to snap himself into rational thought. He unlocked his bike and began the long ride to Eastbourne.
“Colin.” Jessie opened the front door of her flat, looking surprised. She leaned in the threshold, arms folded over her chest to shield her from the cold breeze blowing in.
Colin attempted a smile. “Hey.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” He realized for the first time how crazy it must look for him to show up at midnight after having barely spoken to Jessie in the past six months.
She stepped aside to let him enter. “Well, come on in. My flatmate’s asleep so you have to be quiet.” She herself was dressed in boxers and a camisole. She closed the door behind him. “What’s up?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest.” He laughed weakly. “I feel like I’m bloody going mad. Did I wake you?”
“No, I was watching a movie.” She held up a remote control. “God, you look rough…no offense. You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
He shook his head.
“Well, sit down.”
She pointed to the couch and took a seat beside him, her smell and the sweep of her wavy, dark hair familiar and comforting. Colin rubbed his palms over his head, gathering his thoughts.
“Is anything the matter?” she asked. “Is everyone okay?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I don’t really know exactly why I’m here,” he admitted. “I just felt like I needed to see you.”
She nodded, cautious. “After I ran into you the other day… Well, I wasn’t expecting this. Do you want something to drink or—”
Colin’s hands flew from his own face to Jessie’s in an instant. He clasped her jaw and pulled it to meet his, the kiss urgent and aggressive. He felt her noiseless gasp but then, just as they had months ago, her hands gripped his shoulders, her mouth and body eager for him, welcoming the contact.
She tasted as he remembered, and Colin wanted to lose himself in what they’d had then, back when he’d still known how to be this way. He pushed her down on the cushions, covering her body with his. He heard his name whispered against his mouth as her legs shifted to wrap around his waist.
He dragged his mouth up her throat to her ear, lightheaded from his own desperation. “I need you.”
“You can have me. You can always have me,” she whispered. “I’ve missed your body.”
Her hands pulled him closer, running over his arms and back, sliding beneath his shirt to touch his skin. He thrust his hips into her.
“Colin, tell me what you need.”
“I need you to fuck the bloody sense back into me.”
Chapter Fourteen
All through Sunday afternoon’s documentation session, Libby made herself appear as normal and blasé as possible, to offset her embarrassing disappearing act three nights ago. She thought she was succeeding. Her rapport with Reece felt as casual as it ever had.
As the daylight began to fade, Reece walked to where Libby was eating an orange on a bench at the edge of Wellington’s expansive botanical gardens. “I think that’s enough pictures for today.”
She could sense an impatience in his voice and worried it was about to upend her plans to ask him to hang out that night. She needed tonight. She needed another evening with Reece as her patient teacher, to recapture the feelings of the first few times and wash away the panic the last one had left her with. To prove she hadn’t wrecked everything.
“Well, it’s almost dinnertime,” Libby offered. “You hungry?”
Reece glanced at his phone, checking the time. “I have to get home, actually. One of the other instructors at my studio just got promoted to third dan, and there’s a big party starting at his flat. I need to grab a case of beer and get over there.”
“Oh, fun.” Libby tossed her orange peel in a bin and waited for an invitation that didn’t arrive.
“You want a lift to the marina?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, hiding her supreme disappointment.
They walked to the car.
“What are you up to tonight?” Reece asked as he unlocked her side of the Laser.
“I dunno. You’re busy and Colin’s working, so I guess I’m on my own.” She waited once more for an invite before giving up, feeling irritated. “I’ll probably go out for a drink, I guess. Maybe catch up on some work.” They took their seats.
“Can I talk to you about something?” Reece asked as he started the car.
Libby’s heart fluttered. “Sure… Is it about the other night?”
“Um, no. I thoug
ht we’d just pretend that didn’t happen.”
She nodded, relief and fresh embarrassment flooding her chest. “Fine by me.”
“It’s something else. You know the envelope you gave me on Friday?” he asked, meaning her weekly bribe package, for all intents and purposes.
“Of course.”
“And the one before that, last week? They, um…they’ve been a bit more than we agreed on.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Don’t play innocent with me, Libby. It’s not your strong suit.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Yeah, there’s a bit of a gratuity in there.”
“To be honest with you, I don’t know how I feel about taking it.” Reece merged them into traffic.
“How do you feel about taking the regular twenty percent we agreed on in the first place?”
“Bit dodgy.”
“So is this any worse? Morally?”
“I suppose not.”
“Well, take it, then. I want to help you guys out. I’ve been eating all your food and sleeping at your place, and Colin won’t let me pay for anything. Call it room and board.”
He seemed to mull this over. Although it surprised her, Reece appeared to possess less pride than his brother when it came to Libby’s financial offerings. “Okay. But it feels weird.”
“Does our fooling around feel weird?” Libby asked, heart leaping into her throat.
“A bit. You know, since it’s clinical. But it’s important to you, so I don’t mind.” Reece said the last bit quickly.
Since the night she’d tried to run away, he’d been exceedingly sensitive when acknowledging their little educational sessions, as though Libby were a horse inclined to spook. It wasn’t the worst analogy in the world.
“Well, this is important to me too,” Libby said firmly. “I want to help. And you should always give me what I want.”
