When she popped back up in Vegas, it was easier to ignore the past hurts and press forward.
“It’s not necessary. Really.” I try to walk past her but her hand around my wrist stops the motion.
“It is.” She looks at me with heartfelt sincerity, and immediately I feel tears prick my eyes.
“I was wrong for leaving like I did, for cutting you off because I couldn’t face Jake. At that time, I just…” Her eyes drop to the ground before flicking back up to mine. “I didn’t know how to still be the cool big sister to you, and not have him…in my life. I know how close the two of you were—are—how much you look up to Jake, and I didn’t want to come between that. I thought it was best if I stayed in my world and left you guys in yours. I really missed you, Jess. I’m happy that we get a second chance.”
She blinks back her own tears. “I’m honestly sorry if I hurt you.”
“It’s no big deal.” I try to shrug her words off like they’re nothing, but the pricks turn into tears saying maybe I needed her apology more than I knew.
“It is and I see that now. It admittedly took a while, but I can call bullshit on myself and acknowledge the part I played and all the fuckery that went down.”
“I know you were between the proverbial rock and a hard place.”
Sin taps a knuckle at the corner of each of her eyes, collecting the tears gathering there, and sniffs a little.
“At that time, it definitely felt like it.” She sighs.
“It’s all good now. I accept your apology. Let’s just leave the past in the past and Lord forbid, if you and Jake ever break up again, just remember that although our friendship started with an introduction from my brother, it doesn’t revolve around him.”
“You’re such a sweetheart. I really don’t deserve you.”
“Well, you’re stuck with me. That diamond ring on your finger says as much.” I tilt my head toward the three-carat diamond ring that belonged to my grandmother. Jake went to our father to ask for the family heirloom before flying out to London to ask her to marry him.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” If I didn’t already know Sin was a perfect addition to my family, her humble apology just solidified it.
We embrace in a quick hug before heading back out into the dry heat and sun. My brother is exactly where we left him on the other side of the pool.
Sin and I skirt around bodies and flotation devices until we make our way back to Jake’s side. She settles next to him on the chaise. I kick off my shoes and walk toward the edge of the pool.
“You guys aren’t getting in?”
My brother lets out a loud bark of laughter.
“What?” Sin playfully hits his stomach. “This suit wasn’t made for chlorine.”
“Exactly. Why wear a swimsuit that can’t get wet?” Jake says under his breath just loud enough for us to hear.
Sin leans over, her lips next to his ear. “You want to see me get wet?” she practically purrs.
Jake’s body visibly tenses at the sound. He moves to wrap an arm around her waist, but she evades his touch, springing off the cushions.
Without another word, Sin steps onto the stairs at the shallow end of the pool. Cupping water in her hands, she pours it over her chest and giggles as the droplets roll down her body.
“The water is nice. You coming?”
Jake is a blur, but I follow at a more leisurely pace.
When I finally dip a toe in the water, I feel the prickle of a stare on the back of my neck and look up to find Daniel’s soft brown eyes looking at me through a haze of smoke.
Chapter 10
Jessica
I'm lying on a neon pink blow-up flamingo in the center of the pool. Sunglasses covering my eyes even though they’re closed. I feel like a lazy cat, stretched out, well fed, sunning myself under the scorching rays of the Vegas sun.
A loud noise comes out of nowhere and it’s almost too much to lift my head to see where the commotion is coming from. But I do, just in time to see a flash of red swim trunks and long black hair barreling toward me.
I try to paddle as quickly as I can to the side of the pool before I’m completely soaked by the pending tsunami that’ll be caused when Daniel’s cannonball connects with the water.
Annnnd it doesn’t happen.
The second he hits the water, the flotation device flips over, successfully plunging me under.
I attempt to kick up and just when I break the surface, a manacle around my foot drags me back down.
I open my eyes underwater to see a smiling Daniel. All that hair floating around him like something out of a mermaid fantasy. The muscles of his chest that were only hinted at under the shirt the last time I saw him are on full display.
It’s disgusting how sexy this man is. I mean seriously, who can pull off a watery flirtation at the bottom of a pool?
Long fingers drag up my leg. Starting from my ankle, sliding up my thigh and over my ass before wrapping around my waist. Weightlessly, we float to the surface and our eyes stay locked in some weird, liquefied stare that’s hot enough to boil the water around us.
I fixate on the individual beads of water rolling down the planes of his face and across the divots between the muscles of his chest. I let my eyes drop all the way down to the dark wispy hairs that dip into the red swim trunks clinging to his legs.
“What’s shakin’, lady?”
“Huh?” I immediately divert my gaze but everywhere is muscle and man and sexy.
He lets out a low chuckle, running hands up the high cheekbones and over the wide forehead, scraping the thick mass of hair out of his face. A few resistant pieces stay sealed to his skin by water and maybe a little magic fairy dust.
Fairy dust or merman magic is the only explanation I have for allowing myself to be felt up in the middle of a pool by Sin’s bandmate, with my brother mere feet away.
I assure you, merman magic and hormones are one hell of a cocktail.
“Was that really necessary?” I demand because it’s better than panting or staring or begging him to keep touching me.
Even through the forced irritation I sound breathy and that’s my cue to get the hell out of Dodge. I try, not so subtly, to swim around his back to my overturned raft.
He grabs my hand, pulling me gently until my back is against the wall of the pool, his arms on either side of my shoulders caging me.
“Necessary? No. Ask me if it was fun, though?” Daniel’s stare is raptorial. A predator patiently stalking his prey. His gaze swallows me in small increments, moving down my face and body in a way that’s new, and exhilarating, and scary. I want to test that look, poke at the edges, explore the subtext hidden beneath the blinks and lashes.
My whole body responds. Goose bumps raise on my arms. My nipples tighten to stinging peaks, and I’ve suddenly turned into a mouth breather because I can’t seem to get enough oxygen. But I don’t look away. I can’t.
“Ask me,” he says in a seductive whisper, leaning forward until his face becomes a blur in my vision.
“Was it fun?” I whisper back. Did you like touching me as much as I liked being touched?
“It was the most fun,” Daniel says. His lips so close that the vibration from his words tickle my skin and I can’t help but to watch, mesmerized as he lifts a hand to the back of my neck.
“Yo, D?” Miles shouts from the pool’s walk-in steps. Daniel closes his eyes for a moment before turning his head to call over his shoulder. “Not now.”
“Remember that thing we talked about earlier?” Miles insists, giving Daniel narrowed eyes under bunched brows. “You don’t want this smoke, D.”
“Cockblocking motherfucker,” Daniel says under his breath, rolling his eyes as he partly turns to face Miles. With his attention divided between Miles and me, it’s easier to breathe and see reason.
&nb
sp; The reality of possible consequences comes into sharp focus.
“I really think I might,” Daniel says, but when he turns back to me, I’m already moving past him and this time when I dip under his arm and swim a distance, he lets me go.
“You guys go ahead and get out of here. I think I left my bag in the casita out back by the pool.”
I giggle a little bit at the irritated growl that emits from my brother. Jake’s been ready to get out of here since I showed up, but Sin made him mingle and socialize like a pro. Momma would have been proud.
I’m already halfway to the back door by the time I hear Sin calling after me.
“We can wait, it’s no biggie.”
“No.” I shoo them with a hand over my head. “It’s fine, I drove myself anyway. You guys get out of here.”
Jake looks between me and the beautiful woman curled into his side. The desire to wait with me directly conflicting with his need to get out of here with Sin. Ultimately, he makes the choice we both could have called five minutes ago.
“Okay, baby sis, hit me up when you get home. Just a quick text so I know you got there safe.”
“I’ll be fine.” I roll my eyes long and exaggerated, fluttering my eyelashes and smacking my lips in feigned irritation. For the record, it doesn’t irritate me that he cares.
It’s quite the opposite.
My brain can’t even imagine a day when my brother’s overprotectiveness diminished into polite indifference.
He gives me a quick hug and waves once again as he and Sin step out of sight through the sliding glass door.
With the last remaining people dispersed, the backyard falls into an odd, almost eerie, silence.
There’s no one fighting to be the center of attention, which is apparently a thing with Adam and Jake.
There’s no laughter. No music.
The only thing out here is me and silence. Oh, and a stunning view of the city that even as a native dazzles me. Without all the watchful eyes, I let myself bask in the flashing pink and blue neon of far-off marquees and the stiff desert air that’s finally starting to relax under the fall of night.
Adam’s house is beautifully situated. A perfect display of both the city and his wealth. I’m not sure how long I stand there but it’s long enough that the chill quickly covering the valley raises the hair on my arms and sends a shiver down my spine.
With one more glance at the skyline, I turn and walk toward the glass panel wall of the casita. Adam folded it back a while ago, opening the space fully to the pool.
I move quickly through the semidark space, finding my bag where I left it on the bathroom counter. I’m almost halfway back to the pool deck when I hear a deep male voice coming at me from the darkened living room.
“Look at you, creeping like a nice little stalker.”
Startled, I whip around, taking a step forward. Then thinking better of it, I move a couple of steps back.
“I—I wasn’t creeping. I left my stuff in here.” My words come out stilted. A decibel above a whisper.
I have no idea why I’m whispering. I shouldn’t be. If anything, I should be yelling, but that voice in this space doesn’t make me want to yell or run. Instead of sprinting out the door I want to get closer.
“Why are you lying on the sofa in the dark? Trying to accost unsuspecting women?”
“I never accost unless properly asked. This…” I see a shadowy hand reach out. “Is called being at one of my best friends’ houses and staying the night because, as a responsible adult, I don’t smoke and drive.”
I blink rapidly, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the lack of light, and slowly I make out the lines of his lithe form in the darkness. Daniel reaches up to turn on the light and I raise a hand to cover my mouth and maybe to make sure my jaw isn’t hanging open because he’s mostly naked, wearing little more than a pair of boxer briefs with green leaves and an animal, a koala, wrapped around his rather sizable, um…package.
And a slightly drowsy, sexy-as-hell drummer looking up at me through dark hair might just be the best and worst thing I’ve ever seen.
Daniel is all the things I shouldn’t want, wrapped in a pretty package, literally on tempting display. I take a couple more steps back but stop at his words.
“Hold up. Why is it every time I see you, you’re sprinting out the room like Flo Jo ?”
“I’m not—I don’t.”
“Bullshit, poppet,” he quips, sitting up and moving to the edge of the sofa. “You know it. I know it. Everyone who was at the pool today saw it. If I were a sensitive kind of guy, I might take that shit personally.”
“Only if you were sensitive, though, right?”
“Right. But lucky for you, I have thick skin. So, we’re all good.”
“Oh my God, you’re so ridiculous,” I say, moving closer to get a better look at his face.
“I own that, but I can be a lot of things.” It comes out sounding contrived and I fight the urge to rub my hands over my arms to wipe off the ick factor.
“Do those quippy lines actually work?”
“It’s a fifty-fifty shot.” He chuckles. “I take it you aren’t impressed.”
“That would be a no.”
“So, what does a guy have to do to impress you?” He grips the edge of the cushion and leans forward, the muscles in his arms straining under his weight.
I’m impressed when he doesn’t smarm all over me, when his eyes eat me up, and his lips pull into an appreciative smile.
“You don’t have to try. Just be…you.”
“How do you know that isn’t me?” His face is angled up toward mine, illuminated by a slice of moonlight.
I take another step forward so that I can clearly see his eyes. “Why do you care?” I ask, trying to read his gaze, but the dark brown color is cloaked in the outside darkness.
“Do you want the truth or the politically correct answer?”
Politically correct. Sugar-coated and wrapped in a pretty bow. “Let’s try the truth.”
“Truth, it is.” He stands, moving close enough that the heat from his skin arcs over mine in the cool desert night. “I think you’re interested in me, maybe reluctantly because of your brother, the age difference, or our unfortunate meeting, but it’s there. Every time I looked up tonight your eyes were on me just like mine were on you.”
“I wasn’t…”
“You so were,” he says at the same time.
“You feel that chemistry, right? Tell me I’m not crazy.” You’re not crazy. So not crazy. But, so what?
He’s still him—ladies’ man, rock star, future sister-in-law’s bandmate, off-limits—and not a risk I should take. Shut it down, Jess. Tell the man no and walk out of this room no worse for the wear, but I can’t.
Just once I want to know what it feels like to let go of the expectations and responsibilities of being a member of my family in this city. It might be fun to sit with this man next to the pool and see where the night takes us.
“You’re not crazy.”
His smile is bright white in the shadow of his face. “Good. Let’s start there and figure out the rest tomorrow. Or maybe a week from now. Hell, I’d even go for a month down the road. Give me right now. I want to smoke the rest of my joint, talk to a pretty lady, and enjoy the outrageous view at my buddy’s house. What do you say?”
Chapter 11
Daniel
I back up until the backs of my knees touch the sofa and take a seat. Jessica is looking at me with wide, uncertain eyes and I think I have about an eighty percent shot that she’ll bolt. I pull the spliff from behind my ear, place the tip in my mouth, and grab the lighter from the edge of the table. Cupping my hand, I light the end and take a deep inhale.
Watching her indecision through narrowed eyes as I blow out a stream of smoke.
I’m surpri
sed when she kind of flops next to me on the sofa, back against the armrest, knees drawn to her chest.
“You smoke?” I ask, extending the thin white joint.
“Yes…I mean, no,” she stammers. Her eyes rounding in an ‘oh shit, did I really say that?’ look.
So, there’s a rebel under all that prim and proper. “I didn’t quite get that.”
Nervous fingers come up to twirl in her hair. “I’ve done weed, not regularly or anything, and only with my close friends because, I mean, you never know what people put in… Not that you would put anything…or are a weirdo stranger.”
Jessica’s ramble peters out into an embarrassed silence and it’s some of the cutest shit I’ve seen in a long time. Cute and telling. Little Miss Johnson isn’t nearly as controlled or put together as she likes to project.
Which in turn makes me want to rile her up, get her messy, just to see what she’d be like behind the unflappable demeanor.
“First, one doesn’t do weed. Second, I’m all for drug safety.” I take another hit before extending my hand in invitation as I blow out a stream of smoke. “You want to?” I ask simply.
“I…” She looks at me for a long uncomfortable beat and I feel like a sleazy dealer trying to snag her with a gateway drug. I’m about to rescind the offer when she says, “I…yes.”
Oh, Miss Johnson, things are about to get interesting.
I like to consider myself a connoisseur of sorts, and from experience I know when people say they’ve done weed it doesn’t mean that they’ve smoked it. “Have you ever smoked anything? Cigarettes? Cigars?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve had edibles.”
“Then we have to start with teaching you how to smoke.”
“You put it to your lips and inhale,” she says, a slight frown creasing her brow.
“That’s one method sure to choke the hell out of your lungs. Comes with coughing, and watery eyes, and pats on the back. But hey if that’s your thing, have at it.”
Exquisitely Yours: A Sin City Tale Page 6
