Enough of her temporizing. He needed to touch her. Taste her. Teach her how serious he was.
It had been over four months since that New Year’s Eve kiss, and every day since he’d wondered how to make it happen again. And again. And more agains until they both lost count, until no kiss was such a stand-out that he could recall its particular circumstances.
But this one, he would always remember. This one, with her plum-ripe lips and her floating curls and her flowing curves, all brushing and baiting and beguiling him. Her taste. Her spark and spirit crashing into him as they touched.
Because Gillian Bellamy was touching him. Not in a ‘fine, it’s tradition, let’s just do this’ way, but with intent. Finger spreading up his scalp, legs crowding him back against the wall, mouth as sure on his as his was on her. And her teeth, nipping at his jaw and his earlobe. Her hums of pleasure reverberating in his torso, spreading a shiver-thrill through his limbs that felt like he was breaking out in goosebumps all over. Even his dick quivered, pulsing fast as he hardened against her.
He didn’t notice the noise of the party behind them, or the clink of normal business around them. But he wasn’t so caught up in himself and the moment that he minded when Gill broke their embrace to glance around and adjust them into a less private clinch.
“Hi.”
His heart thudded at her simple, clear, unwavering word. Not running. Not downplaying. Looking at him like she meant every nuance of that syllable. “Hi, yourself.”
“Want to get out of here?”
Best six words he’d ever heard. “Hell yes.”
They went to say goodbye, and didn’t answer any of the teasing questions, didn’t touch each other until they were back in her car.
Before she turned on the engine, he took hold of her hand. “I want to sleep with you, Gill.” Not that he thought she needed the clarification. He was beyond obvious, but there was no need for pretense between them. They weren’t going to get anywhere unless they communicated, and his plans involved them getting lots of places. Getting everywhere, if possible.
“Ditto.”
God, if she only was answering his thoughts and not his words. But he would take what he got. For now. “Your place okay?”
She finally looked at him. The streetlights burnished her with amber and made reading into her expression a hell of a task. But he’d known her for two-thirds of his life, and just the way she tilted her head while leaning easily against the seat back was a clear sign to him. “My place is fine. And don’t think I missed how you grabbed extra of those party favor condoms on our way out.”
“Didn’t mean for you to miss it.”
“Or anyone else in the room, either,” she grumbled.
His grin contradicted his shrug, but he didn’t care. “I can’t help it if they draw their own conclusions.”
“Brat.” But there was no heat in her tone, just a fond caress he felt to the soles of his feet. She started the car and didn’t stop him from lacing together their fingers once they were in the flow of traffic heading home.
By the time they were on her porch, they’d both let their hands explore everything in reach of the other. Or, almost everything. They kept it just shy of PG-rated. He traced up her arm and over her shoulder, then down the sweet soft sweep of her side. She circled his knee and ran arabesques up the length of his thigh bone, ending with a squeeze that taunted but never touched his aching cock.
He wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to the door abutting hers, but wasn’t quite lust-fogged enough to miss the way she pinched her lips together as she noted Anton’s glowing front windows.
“Hey.” He gently turned her head his way. Kissed her, because kissing her filled him with the kind of golden-hour light people put up with gnats and humidity and exhaust fumes to capture on film.
She relaxed into him, which was all he’d hoped for. And more. All kinds of places it hadn’t been wise to touch her while she drove, he could touch now. All kinds of undistracted sounds and scents and sweetness, with her tight close to him.
He pulled back enough to whisper. “Inside?”
She nodded and lifted her keys towards her lock. He’d never been more pleased to see an unsteady hand, but it wasn’t like he was rock-solid enough to help her. In maybe nine seconds, he’d gone from someone with super-trained solidity to someone who needed at least a third of his body in contact with hers for him to stay upright.
But then again. She swung the door open and he saw the stairway and all his strength rushed back with one intent: get the woman up to her bed. They rushed in, kicking off their shoes, throwing the deadbolt behind them, unbuttoning his shirt.
Everything in him boiled up the stairs, rushing and pounding. Took him a sec—okay, a few seconds—to notice that some of the pounding wasn’t theirs. Boot heels storming down the stairs through the dividing wall. A slamming door. A shout of frustration that would be an ironic echo of his internal state, if it hadn’t triggered an automatic turn towards worry about Anton. He was back on the ground floor, re-buttoning his shirt, before he blinked to the realization he should be focused on Gillian, not her brother.
Well, that chilled her fervor. One moment she was all in, shelving her concerns. The next she was pushing Vic down the stairs ahead of her. At least he didn’t impede her. He covered up those strong pecs and tucked his shirttail in like he was on board with her need to restore the two of them to the point where she could find out what made Anton holler like a run-over coyote.
As if the scrunch of Cisco’s truck tires backing out wasn’t clue enough.
“Shit. Sorry, Gill.”
She quirked her head. Did he plan to stop her checking on her brother? Was that why his hand was on the doorknob?
“I didn’t mean to rush away. It’s not that I don’t still want you. This was kind of knee-jerk for me, you know? We can … just head back up to your room.” He dropped his hand, turned to face her. Offered a half-serious eyebrow wiggle. “I am more than ready to do anything you demand to get back in the mood.”
Wow. Okay. So instead of him feeling abandoned, he was abandoning her first. Good info to mull over. Later. “No. Let’s head over there.”
Before she could slide past all the warmth of his body and open the door to clear her house of the smell of his dark flower cologne, he traced a finger across her brow and cupped her cheek.
Kissed her.
It wasn’t enough to make her forget about Anton. But it also wasn’t enough to make her forget her reckless intent to get this virile man into her bed. Into her body.
“You good?” His damn sincere gaze studied her.
“Never better.” To prove it, she reached down to squeeze his butt, then hip-checked him out of her way. “Let’s go.”
The six steps between her front door and Anton’s was plenty of space to regain control. Good thing, too, since Anton yanked his open as soon as Vic’s shoes sounded on the porch.
“It’s just us,” she said, and watched her brother’s shoulders slump. He didn’t say anything, but didn’t shut them out as he retreated to his sofa.
She and Vic took their customary places on either side of him. Shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. She felt Vic’s prompting nudge as it waved through Anton’s body to hers.
Not that her brother responded.
“So, the party was good. We’re just back from it.”
He ignored her.
Vic tried. “And I found out Gillian is superstitious.”
She snorted. “Am not.”
“Are too. You’re convinced your fortune teller thing is fate.”
“Don’t be full of shit.”
“Telling it like it is.”
“Telling yourself what’s convenient to you.”
“You know I’m right, Gilly-Bean.”
Anton ignored them both, and she flushed hot at how much they weren’t helping her already-hurting brother. He didn’t need their flirty crossfire on top of whatever had happened with Cisco.
She took his hand. “You want to tell us what’s up?”
Vic wrapped his arm around Anton’s back, and she shut down the shiver that hit her when his fingers tickled at her. Last thing she needed was to transmit her unresolved sensations to Vic via her brother.
“That was Cisco leaving in a huff, right?”
Anton snorted at the obvious answer to Vic’s question.
“You know we’re here for you,” she said, giving his lax hand a squeeze. Like she could press words up his arm, past his throat, and out into the living room. She needed to get on with fixing whatever happened. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. It was her job as big sister to the best guy in the world. He couldn’t communicate well; she had a Ph.D. in Linguistics. They complemented each other.
But first she needed to understand the problem.
“Did he hurt you? Cheat? Say something cruel? Make fun of you? Steal? Sabotage your job? Post private pics? Give you an STD?”
She barely clocked the withdrawal of Vic’s arm until the sofa jostled. He pivoted to sit on the coffee table and put his hand over where she held on to Anton. “Gill, that’s a pretty extensive list to just rattle off the top of your head.”
He watched her all wary, like she was a skunk meandering past his campsite.
She shrugged.
He looked at Anton. “Has all that stuff happened to you or something?”
Her traitor brother shook his head and discovered how to talk all the sudden. “Not to me, no. But I never knew about someone giving you an STD.”
She wanted to yank her hand out from between the two of them. “He didn’t. No one did. All my screening tests have turned up negative, thanks for asking.”
“Who tried to change that for you?” Vic’s voice held a growling menace she wasn’t used to.
“No one, relax. And my dating life isn’t the point. We’re here for Anton.”
Now it was her brother trying to pull away, but Vic tightened his hold on them both. “Tony.”
That was all he had to say, and all the tension slumped out of her brother. “It wasn’t any of that stuff. Y’all don’t need to worry. I’ll be fine.”
Vic cut off her next barrage of questions. “Ton. Hey. Tell me something.”
He sighed the same sigh he’d given in childhood, when their parents quizzed them on verses Anton’s quick mind knew cold after one reading. “Tell you what?”
“Tell me how many times now we’ve talked about some problem of mine, and you minded me needing your help?”
Anton shook his head. “Zero.”
“Right. And now tell me how many times in the past twenty years I’ve minded you needing me.”
“Not the same.”
“Bullshit it’s not the same. Was I or was I not spiraling in your spare room—”
“Your room.”
“Fine, was I spiraling in my room up there not three hours ago?”
He was? Obviously he was, or he wouldn’t have used it as proof against Anton’s reticence. Not that her brother conceded with more than a shrug. Singularly unhelpful to her need to know why Vic was a mess before the party.
“Right. So. What happened with Cisco and do I need to kick his ass or what?”
Anton managed to extract himself from their hovering and moved to the door. “No, you don’t. And I’ll tell you about it. Later. I’m going after him now.”
“Let me drive you,” she said, reaching for his keys.
Vic got there first. “You have work to do in the morning. I’ll drive him.”
“Don’t need either of you to drive me.”
“And we don’t need to be up for hours worrying about you traveling up and down the freeways all upset. Come on.” Vic threw a glance at her before steering Anton out the door. She was left on the wrong side of the duplex, at a loss for how to interpret about five dozen of the night’s moments. And even more of a loss trying to grasp what she wanted the answers to be.