by Anna Paige
Becker watched her for a second before asking, “Blair, how much have you had to drink?”
“I don’t know. But I need a lot more now that everyone within half a mile—including my brother—saw my boobs.”
She wasn’t slurring, but she was definitely buzzed.
I stepped in front of her to block her from the crowd. “No one saw anything. I was standing two feet from you and all I saw was a flash of black lace. Everyone else was at least ten yards away. They didn’t see anything.”
“Neither did I,” Beck added, but his face was an ungodly shade of red.
Charli giggled. “I did, but what’s a nip slip between friends, right? Not like I haven’t seen it before.”
I glared over at her. “Not. Helping. Charlene.”
My use of her given name was intentional, because I knew she hated it with a passion.
Beck reached for Charli’s arm and nodded down the beach. “Come on, let’s get everyone another round. Give Blair a minute to get her shit together.” Clearly, he knew Charli was better off getting far away from me before I lost my cool and said something unfortunate. He caught my eye and pointed to his sister, mouthing “watch her” as he ushered Charli safely away.
Honestly, he probably needed to get away, too, since seeing his sister’s chest was likely to have scarred him for life.
I threw my arm around Blair’s shoulders and steered her in the opposite direction, toward the other end of the beach and the obscured view provided by the dunes. “Come on, let’s walk it off.”
I rubbed her shoulder as we walked, but didn’t say anything because I got the feeling she wasn’t in the mood to chat.
After a few minutes of slowly trudging through the sand, she sniffed miserably and asked, “Why are you being nice to me?”
What the hell, may as well go with the truth. “Because I sort of antagonized you into what you did, so it’s partially my fault.”
“You always antagonize me. You hate me.”
I stopped and turned to grip both her shoulders, giving her a light shake when she didn’t look up at me. When her eyes finally met mine, I said, “I do not hate you. Not even a little bit. Why would you even think that?”
“You pick on me constantly, Ash. You talk to me like I’m a stupid kid. The few times you’ve been nice to me it was only because my brother was around. Like tonight. And that time at the park.”
“What time at the park?”
“When I hurt myself rollerblading. I was eleven, I think. So you and Becker would have been around fourteen. Hit my knee so hard when I fell that even the pads didn’t stop it from bleeding. My brother asked you to stay with me while he got something to help clean me up. He was all upset, because Mom didn’t want me going to begin with, but he promised to look out for me. You kissed my knee and tickled me until I stopped crying. But that was for Beck’s benefit, not mine.” She shook her head, looking somehow wounded by the idea. “And you’re being nice now because he asked you to, right?”
I couldn’t believe she still remembered that. “He asked me to watch you, yes, but I was planning to stay with you either way.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.”
Her eyes narrowed on mine. “Why?”
“I don’t know. But I just want to be close to you right now. Because I missed you all these months since our last visit. Because despite what you seem to think, I don’t hate you. And I want to make sure you’re okay because this hasn’t been a very good night for you so far, and I don’t like seeing you miserable.”
She snorted. “Making me miserable is your life’s mission. How is it any different tonight?”
“Maybe I don’t like other people making you miserable, okay? Maybe I don’t like it when you get set up on dates that make you miserable or when you do impulsive things to make yourself miserable.”
“Like flashing the whole world?” She cringed.
I nodded. “Something like that.”
She peered up at me, studying my face. “You really didn’t see anything?”
“Sadly, no. I didn’t see much at all.” I didn’t have to pretend to be disappointed. I really was. And I made sure my tone made that clear.
She slugged me on the arm, finally smiling. “Pervert. I’m gonna tell my brother on you.”
I smiled back for a second then gave her an even look. “No, you won’t.” I reached out and put my hands on either side of her waist, tugging at the hoodie briefly before gripping her sides. “Because you kind of like that I wanted to see what Charli claims she saw.”
She swallowed thickly but said nothing.
I lowered my voice and leaned in. “Want to know something else?”
Her voice came out in a strangled croak. “What?”
“I like the way you look in my clothes.”
“You do?”
I nodded. “And I liked the way you moaned my name in the car, even if you were just pretending at the time.”
I probably shouldn’t have told her that.
Shit, how many beers have I had?
Oh, well. Too late to take it back now. May as well go with it. Not like I haven’t wanted to say it all damn night anyway. Plus, chances are she’s so buzzed she won’t remember it in the morning.
And if she does, I’ll tell her she’s remembering it wrong.
She looked up at me for a second, her expression shifting to suspicion. “Is that why you’re doing this? Me moaning in the car put the idea in your head and suddenly you’re into me?”
She started to pull away, and I tightened my grip.
“You can’t really think that little of me, can you?” I searched her face, hoping like hell she knew me better than this.
She rubbed a hand over her face in an awkward way that reaffirmed my suspicions about her blood alcohol level. “I don’t know what to think. I know you never acted this way before. And I don’t understand what’s changed.”
Fuck it, I already started this, no point in holding back now.
“Nothing’s changed. Absolutely nothing. At least not for me. It’s always been this way; I just didn’t let you see it until now.” I rubbed my thumbs over her stomach, loving how she shivered at the sensation. “I’ve imagined you moaning my name for so many years I can’t even remember a time when it wasn’t a fantasy of mine. Hearing it tonight, it took every bit of strength I had not to drag you into the back seat and kiss you until you were moaning it for real.”
“Ash . . . I . . .” Her gaze dipped to my mouth and a blush crept into her cheeks.
“Don’t worry, little one. I don’t plan to kiss you tonight. But it’s not because I don’t want to.” I looked at her sweet, full mouth and drew in a fortifying breath. “It’s because one”—I held up a finger to illustrate—“you’ve had a lot to drink and it’s not cool to take advantage of that, and two”—I added a second finger, fighting not to smile when she seemed mesmerized by the motion of my hand—“I don’t want the memory of our first kiss sharing space in your head with the other things that happened on this beach. When I kiss you, I want it to be the only damn thing you’ll ever remember about that day. I want it to be a monumental, life-altering event. Because that’s what it’ll be for me.”
She swallowed, hard, and glanced back over her shoulder. “What about Becker? Won’t he be mad?”
“I can promise you he’d rather see you with me than someone like Cliff Turner.” I couldn’t contain the edge in my voice. Cliff was a complete player who preyed on innocent girls. If I’d known she was going to the fucking prom with that douche, I would have had him knee-capped before he ever made it to her front door. But Beck and I had been away at college and we both failed her.
We left her behind, and he swooped right in.
She put her hands over mine, an odd expression on her face. “You really resent Cliff. Why?”
“Because he’s a lying, manipulative piece of shit who didn’t deserve to be your first.”
“You’re seriously
jealous of something that happened three years ago?”
“Yes. And?”
“And if it mattered so much to you, why didn’t you step in and stop me from going with him?” There was an edge to her voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
“I didn’t know. Beck didn’t either or he would have had a fucking conniption fit.”
Her jaw twitched and she pursed her mouth in a sad half smile. “Silly me. I thought you would care enough to check on me once in a while. My mom told anyone and everyone she talked to how pretty my dress was and how handsome my date was when he came by the house to ask me to the dance. Beck must have been too busy to check in. Probably assumed I’d go in a group like I did junior year. And why did I have to do that? Because the two of you had all the guys scared to ask me out—all the decent ones anyway.”
She shifted her gaze out over the water. “Those first few months after you guys’ summer visit, when you’d headed back for fall classes, he called a couple times a week, but by second semester every year he hardly called at all. Probably busy with parties and girls and the new life you two were living, the one that didn’t include me anymore. The longer you two were away, the easier it was to forget me.”
She sounded so hurt by that. And she was right. We headed off to college and that first year was a blur of classes and girls and parties and hangovers. Second semester had been brutal and busy. It was like that every year after, too. Our schedules were always heavier in the spring for some reason.
And somehow, Beck had managed to miss all the prom news from back home.
“You’re hurt that Beck didn’t know, aren’t you?”
She averted her eyes but gave her head a little shake. “Not exactly hurt. I know you two were busy, and I was happy for him, that he was doing all these exciting new things. He’s been so occupied looking out for me all these years that I feel like I held him back from a lot of stuff. Mom stifled him almost as much as me, one of the reasons Dad forbade her to bug him at school and demanded she always let Beck call her first. He needed to get away, too. Needed some space from her insane hovering. Which makes it ridiculous for me to be angry.” She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes clenched tight. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“You were mad at him for leaving you behind.”
“I just thought if he called and heard that Cliff was my date, one of you would have tried to step in. But no one did.”
“Wait, are you saying you went to prom with Cliff to get Beck’s attention? Or to punish him for leaving you?” I was trying to follow, but my buzz was working against me.
For the first time tonight, she looked up at me with true anger in her eyes. “It had nothing to do with Becker, okay?”
Whoa.
Wait a minute.
Wait one goddamned minute here.
Once again, she averted her eyes. “At the beginning of each new school year, when Beck was still bothering to check in, he would tell Mom how great things were, how he was acing his classes and meeting all these new people. And she’d always ask about you.” She brushed her hair out of her face and chuckled humorlessly. “You know what his standard answer was? ‘You know Ash, getting the grades without even studying and getting the girls without even trying.’”
I had to take a beat to process what she was saying, what that look of devastation on her face meant. “You’re telling me you went to the prom with Cliff because of me? That you thought I’d rush in and stop you from going and when I didn’t, you fucked him to spite me? Tell me I’m reading this wrong, please. Because the idea of you with him is bad enough, but the thought that you did it because I failed you somehow . . .” I glanced around, my stomach twisting. “I think I may be sick.”
“You left me behind and didn’t even care enough to check and see how I was doing. You didn’t want me. So, I was supposed to what? Wait forever? Hold out for you? Like you held out for me?” She was still angry, but the waver in her voice told me exactly how hurt she still was.
“It’s not about waiting, Blair. It’s about giving that moment to someone who didn’t care about it the way they should have. And I know Cliff didn’t give you the respect you deserved. I know because he doesn’t respect any woman. Ever.”
“Oh, so now I’m a woman?” She threw her hands in the air in frustration.
“Apparently,” I deadpanned, giving her a stonily serious look. “If I’d been here, I would have crushed his nuts for even attempting to ask you out, much less put his filthy fucking hands—”
“But you weren’t here. And it happened.” Her expression slowly softened as she looked up at me, no longer angry and making a valiant attempt at hiding the hurt. “And it was a mistake, a stupid, childish mistake that only proved how immature I was at the time. It’s mortifying to think about. I wish every day that I’d done things differently but wishing doesn’t change it. It wasn’t about you failing me. I failed myself. And I have to live with that.”
“I hate that we—that I—abandoned you that way. I hate that you lost something so precious to someone so vile because I was too stupid to realize how much you needed me.”
She swallowed thickly, staring out over the water. “It was a long time ago. And you’re back now, at least for the time being.”
“I still want to throat punch him.”
She reached for me then, her hands coming to rest on my upper arms. My hands went immediately to her waist. “You know what would be even better?”
“What?”
“You could be everything he wasn’t.” She looked down at where her hands rested on my biceps, her voice dropping to a whisper. “If you wanted to be.”
I let go of her waist long enough to cup her chin with one hand, bringing her head up so she met my gaze. “Damn right I want to.” The way her eyes roamed my face, a small smile curling one corner of her mouth. She was breathtaking. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to kiss you right here, and I promised myself I wouldn’t do that tonight.”
She let go of my arms and reached for my hand, threading her fingers through mine as she nodded back toward the bonfire. “Far be it for me to tempt you into losing your head. Let’s find Beck and Charli. I don’t know about you, but I could use another beer.”
Ashton
Before we emerged from behind the dunes, I let go of Blair’s hand and threw my arm around her shoulders instead, figuring it was less intimate and therefore wouldn’t tip off Becker or anyone else that things between us had shifted.
We didn’t discuss it ahead of time, but I assumed we wouldn’t be mentioning anything to Beck until we knew what was happening between us.
It was unlikely that he was even aware of my attraction to his sister; I’d been very careful over the years to appear unaffected by her.
It hadn’t always been easy, either.
More than once I’d had to make some lame excuse to leave the room when she was around because my body reacted in ways that weren’t exactly discreet.
Two summers ago, Beck and I came home for a month and I thought I would lose my fucking mind. Thin summer dresses, short shorts, tank tops, and a ridiculously hot yellow bikini all tested my willpower. I’d come so damn close to telling her back then exactly how much I wanted her, but I stopped myself.
Fuck if I knew how, but I managed to stifle it and pretend I didn’t notice her.
The truth was, I noticed everything about her. I noticed when something was bothering her, when her smile didn’t feel quite real, or when she was really excited over something small, the little bounce in her step. I noticed when she got her hair trimmed or her nails painted. I noticed new outfits and when she’d gotten a touch too much sun, causing tiny freckles to pop up on the bridge of her nose. I even caught myself smiling more when she was around, which was something I had to watch.
I noticed those things without letting on to anyone that I was paying her any attention.
It had been the longest month of my damn life.
I kept up appearances, te
asing and antagonizing her like I always did, but it was different that summer. It felt less like a game and more like foreplay. Like it was building up to explosive, scratching, biting, slamming each other against the wall, screaming each other’s name, flat-out fucking.
Too bad she’d seen it as business as usual, trading insults and generally irritating each other but otherwise not interacting.
I’d often wondered if she ever, even once, thought of me as anything aside from her tormentor, the asshole best friend of the brother she adored.
After tonight, I had my answer, of course, which was good.
For the last several years, whenever I thought of her I got an erection.
But I didn’t dare make a move. Not because Beck wouldn’t approve or because I thought she wouldn’t be interested. I just didn’t want to start something with her knowing I was going to have to leave her behind. That wasn’t fair to either of us, especially her.
She deserved more than I was able to give. The age gap wasn’t much, just under three and a half years, but it put us in completely different stages of our lives. She was finishing her freshman year in high school when Beck and I graduated.
Back in high school, I didn’t see her the way I do now, but I was always protective, even if I also enjoyed pestering her every chance I got.
When we came back for her graduation a little over two years ago, everything shifted. She wasn’t the awkward, lanky little sister Beck used to carry around on his shoulders. She was a complete stunner. Smart, sexy, and driven. She was the total package.
And I had to pretend nothing had changed.
It had been a serious struggle to stay away from her.
Still was.
Hearing my name falling from her sweet lips in the car tonight . . . instant hard-on. Shit, every time I replayed it in my mind, even hours later, my dick twitched.
“Everything good, Blair-bear?” Becker had a beer in each hand and offered one to his sister as she and I approached. “Ash take good care of you?”
She gave a little nod and focused her attention on her beer, not looking him in the eye.