“Ouch,” he breathes out, taking a drink of his beer.
“Yeah. Now, I’m stuck moving in because I already told him I would, and he needs the help with the rent. Plus, if I back out now, I’m sure he’ll ask why. But I can’t tell him that I treated his kid sister like a slut and fucked her in a dark parking lot. I mean, he’s always been super protective of her. Like, he helped raise her and shit.”
Drake laughs and shakes his head. “Did you not recognize her last night?”
“No, I hadn’t seen her since she was in grade school. And she didn’t give me her first name. She gave me her middle name. Had she given me her real name, I would have gotten it right away. There aren’t not many women named Deven.” I roll my eyes as I take a long drink.
He whistles. “Damn. So what are you going to do?”
I laugh and shake my head as I rub my eyes. “I’m stuck moving in, so I guess I’m just going to try avoiding her and ignoring her when she’s around. I don’t know what else to do.”
“I’m glad I’m married and don’t have to worry about shit like that anymore.”
“Must be nice,” I mumble. “Of all the women in this town, I had to go and fuck the one I wasn’t supposed to touch. How does that even happen?”
He lets out a deep chuckle. “Welcome to the Slade family curse. If something can go wrong, it will.”
“So, what’s been new with you and the guys? Distract me,” I nearly beg.
He sits back and thinks things over. “Nothing that I can think of. We’re all just living and working, raising our families. It’s been rather boring around here. Good thing we have you back for some comedy,” he jokes.
I laugh. “Yeah, fuck off.”
He only laughs harder.
I stand up. “Well, guess I’m going to go in and crash. Got a long day of packing tomorrow.” I head for the house.
In the morning, I grab my duffel bag and toss it into the truck that Drake is letting me use until I buy one of my own. I have the money for one, I just need to actually go. It takes all day: you have to test drive every one, then settle on a price because I never give asking price. Then, there’s the hours of paperwork, going to the DMV, and getting insurance. I also hate making large purchases. It’s all just more than I want to deal with right now, especially with all this Deven shit on my mind.
I make the drive into town and to the apartment. I park and grab my bag to carry it up to the room. When I get up to the second floor, I jiggle the handle, but the door is locked. I knock a couple of times before realizing that Brad is probably dead to the world right now after working his midnight shift last night. I bend down and check to see if there’s a hidden key under the welcome mat, but I’m out of luck. I reach up and feel along the door frame, but I come back empty-handed. Not wanting to wait in the hallway for him to wake up, I remember Deven mentioning getting a job at Destiny’s boutique. I grab my bag and pull it up on my shoulder before heading back down the stairs and to my truck.
The boutique is in the center of town, smack-dab in the middle of Main Street. It belongs to my brother, Wyatt, and his new wife, Destiny. I haven’t been there yet, but I’ve heard Drake and Celeste talk about it. I park the truck and head for the door. Pulling open the glass door causes the bell above it to jingle.
“Welcome to Destiny’s,” a woman says from somewhere in the store. I look around at various items, running my finger over them as I walk down the aisle and toward the counter, finding Deven.
When she looks up, her eyes widen with surprise. “I can’t right now, Hudson. I’m working,” she teases.
“Haha,” I deadpan. “I’m supposed to be moving in today, but the door is locked and your brother must be asleep. You got a key I can use?”
She laughs “When he’s asleep, you could have a freaking Metallica concert in the next room and he’d never know it.” She pulls her bag out from under the counter and places it on top as she digs through it. “Looks like we’re going to be roomies for a while,” she says, pulling out a set of keys and smiling up at me as she works it off the loop.
I force a fake smile onto my face. “Can’t wait.”
“You know, there’s no need to be afraid of me, right?” She holds the key up.
Instead of taking it from her, I hold out my hand, not wanting to touch her. “I’m not afraid of you.”
She drops it into my palm. “Yeah, right. You have fear and guilt written all over your face. It was just a thing that happened. No sense in dwelling on it…well, not unless you want to do it again. I’m down.” Her dark eyes sparkle with mischief as she offers up a grin.
I shake my head. “Forget about it.”
She sticks out her bottom lip in a playful pout. “You can’t tell me you didn’t have fun. I know you had fun.” She leans on the counter, giving me a peek down her shirt. Two big, beautiful breasts greet me, sending a shock right to my dick. It twitches, but I mentally talk it down.
“I had fun jumping off a 250-foot cliff, but I’d never do that again. I like fun, but I don’t have a death wish.” I take the key and turn on my heel for the door.
“Oh, come on! Brad isn’t that bad,” she shouts at me, but I ignore her and walk out, heading back to my truck and back to the new apartment I have to share with my one-night stand and her overly protective big brother. How I get myself into this shit is beyond me.
I let myself into the apartment and take my bag back to the room that Brad showed me yesterday. Luckily for me, there is already a bed, dresser, and nightstand, so unpacking is a breeze. After everything is put away, I sit down at the kitchen table and write him out a check for the first month’s rent. I tear it out and leave it on the table, next to his lunch box, so I know he’ll see it. Then I take the key and head out to get a copy made and to stock up on some needed items.
There’s a blonde girl working the counter at the hardware store, and she smiles and flirts with me as she uses the key-copying machine. I’m tempted to ask her out in an attempt to get Deven out of my head, but I don’t want to be forward. Instead, I just talk pleasantly with her and flirt back, priming her up for the next time I see her. She introduces herself as Ashley, and I tell her my name before paying for my key and leaving for the next stop, the grocery store.
Inside, I stock up on bathroom essentials: soap, shampoo, body wash, a new toothbrush, and razors. Then, I decide to go ahead and stock up the fridge. I know Brad could really use the help, and I have more than enough to spare. I have more than enough to build my own damn house, but I’m not in the place to do that just yet. I’d like to see where life takes me, where I’ll end up. A house here won’t do me any good if I decide to move to another state.
It takes me three trips, but I finally have the truck unloaded and everything into the apartment. I put away all the groceries and then place Deven’s key on the coffee table so I will be reminded to give it back to her when she gets home. Brad wakes up around three in the afternoon. He comes out of his bedroom and straight through the living room to the kitchen. I hear him pop the top on a can and take a long drink before he walks back into the living room where I am.
“Oh, hey man. I didn’t see you there.” He’s holding a can of soda in one hand while scratching his bare stomach with the other.
“I thought you were sleepwalking. You do that often?”
He laughs as he sits down on the opposite end of the couch. “Deven tells me I do, but I don’t know. Sometimes I’ll have these dreams of things happening, and then when I wake up, I find out that it wasn’t a dream. I eat entire meals in my sleep. These midnights are really screwing with me.” He laughs out.
“Well, I’m all moved in. I got all my stuff unpacked and I stocked the kitchen up with groceries. Your check is on the table by your lunchbox.”
“Cool, man. Thanks.”
“Thanks for offering me a place to crash,” I reply. “Oh, I should probably warn you. Ever since I joined the military, I’ve been having these nightmares. It’s not a big deal or an
ything, and I don’t sleepwalk, but if you hear me talking in there, or yelling, or even some banging sounds, just ignore it.”
He laughs. “Got it.” He shakes his head. “We’re really a pair, aren’t we? I sleepwalk and you sleep-fight the enemy,” he jokes.
I offer up a smile and nod in agreement, but I don’t find it funny. It’s a part of myself that I just have to get used to now. I’ve talked with many therapists over the years and it never seems to help. They all just wanted to give me drugs to make me sleep better, but I’m not a fan of drug use so I’ve always avoided going that route.
“Well, I gotta get cleaned up for work.”
“What’s your schedule like? So I know when I need to be quiet around here.”
“I work Sunday night through Thursday night. I have Fridays and Saturdays off normally. There’s been a few times when I’ve swapped with guys from work, but that’s my normal. I’m gone all night and I sleep most of the day, usually waking up around two or three. But I sleep like a baby, so you don’t have to worry about waking me,” he says, heading toward the bathroom to shower.
I doze off and on the couch for the next couple of hours. Brad leaves for work and Deven makes it home from work. The door closing jolts me awake. I open my eyes to find her standing at the door.
“Why you sleeping in my bed? Don’t you have your own?” she asks with a smile as she moves farther into the room.
I sit up. “Sorry,” I mumble, wiping sleep from my eyes.
“Don’t be. I’d like to have you in my bed more often,” she teases, heading for the bathroom.
I shake my head. I don’t know how much torment I can take. Is this what every day is going to be like? Her teasing me and joking around about our night together? Fuck, I hope not. I can’t take the constant reminders. All I want to do is forget that it ever happened.
I make my way toward the kitchen to make myself something for dinner. I search through the fridge and cabinets but don’t find anything that I’m craving. I’m still feeling a bit tired and not in the mood to cook a full meal, so I end up settling with a can of soup and two grilled cheese sandwiches. I place the bowl of soup on my plate next to my sandwiches and take everything back to the couch to watch TV while I eat.
I take a bite of my sandwich. The bathroom door opens, and steam comes flowing out. My mouth drops open when Deven walks out of the bathroom, water dripping off her beautiful body, which is wrapped only in a tiny, damp towel.
“Sorry, I forgot I don’t have a room anymore. I’ll just grab some clothes and go get dressed. Ignore me,” she says, bending down to dig some clothes out of a box in the corner of the room. “That is, if you can.” She looks over her shoulder at me with a smile.
I take a deep breath and push away the urge to pull her against me. I talk my body down, piece by piece: no arms, you can’t pull her closer. No feet, you can’t walk over to her. No dick, you’re not going to be sliding into her again. It doesn’t matter what I tell my body. It seems to have a life of its own.
I watch as she finds her clothes and walks back into the bathroom to dress. With her no longer in sight, I go back to my food and watching TV. However, when that door opens again and she comes walking back out, it’s not any better. She’s wearing a short pair of cloth shorts and a tank top that’s so thin, I can practically see her nipples under it. No bra, of course. Her long dark hair is wet and hanging over her shoulders as she brushes it. It’s soaking one side of her shirt, the cold water making her nipples harden.
“Your key is on the table here,” I tell her, trying to keep my mind on anything and everything that’s not her body.
“Oh, thanks.” She bends over right in front of me to pick it up.
“Do you always dress like this around the house? I mean, what does Brad think?”
She snorts. “Brad is never here or awake when I am. This place is practically mine. Well, until now, I guess.” She moves over to her purse to put the key back on its loop.
“Well, it makes me uncomfortable,” I admit.
“Oh, really?” she challenges, turning to face me with a look of surprise on her face.
“Yes, really.”
She rolls her dark eyes. “You didn’t seem to be all that uncomfortable when my naked ass was bent over in front of you.”
“Shhhhh, keep it down.”
Her arms move out to her side. “He’s not here. He can’t hear us.”
“I know, but I don’t want us to get comfortable talking about what happened with us openly. We’ll end up fucking up and saying something in front of him.”
She scoffs and shakes her head. “Then keep your eyes to yourself. This is what I sleep in. Deal with it.” Without another word, she heads into the kitchen. Based on the sounds of pots and pans banging around in there, she’s fixing dinner.
Thirty minutes later, she’s sitting down next to me with a plate full of mac and cheese. “Who bought all that food in there?”
“I did,” I reply, keeping my eyes on the TV.
“Damn, rich boy. I haven’t seen that much food since I was placed in that detention center for young girls.”
Slowly, my head turns in her direction. “Detention center? What did you do?”
She snorts. “I got caught tagging a building with some friends. Well, first, I got caught underage drinking—that got me probation—then I got caught tagging a building. Since I was on probation, I was sent to the detention center for ninety days. It’s not a big deal.”
“Sounds like a big deal.”
“Yeah, that’s because you’ve never broken a rule in your life. I’m free and clear now.”
I scoff. “I have broken a rule,” I argue, feeling attacked.
“Oh yeah, what rule have you broken?” She quirks one eyebrow.
I snap my mouth shut, trying to think. “I fucked you,” I throw in her face, but that only causes her to laugh.
“You didn’t know that I was off-limits then, so that doesn’t count. Try again.”
“I skipped school once.”
She frowns at me.
“It’s true. My buddy, Jeff, and I skipped last period to use our fake ID cards to get into a strip club in the city.”
She gives me a look that says, yeah, right.
“Okay,” I confess. “We skipped to go volunteer at the church. It looked good on college applications.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “See, things that are bad to you aren’t so bad to me. We’re different people, you and I.”
“We’re not that different.”
“Yeah? Then why can’t we pick up where we left off?” She smirks. “I know you want to. I saw that tent you were sporting when I came out of that bathroom in a towel.”
“Why were you kicked out of your mom’s house?” I ask instead of answering her question.
“It wasn’t my mom’s house. It was her boyfriend’s and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Looks like we have something in common. You don’t want to answer my question, and I don’t want to answer yours. We’re not that different.”
She snaps her mouth shut and turns her attention to the TV instead of giving me shit. We spend the rest of the night not talking or even looking at one another. We both just sit, watching TV until ten o’clock rolls around and I excuse myself to go to bed for the night. Inside my room, I strip down to my boxers and throw back the blankets. I flip the bedside lamp off once I’m beneath them and comfortable. When I close my eyes, all I see is her. That tight, damp towel that’s wrapped around her naked body. The way her big, brown eyes landed on mine. The way water glided down her neck, over her collar bone, and disappeared under that towel. I wish I could’ve licked every bead of water off her sweet skin. I wonder if she knows how badly I want her. Or does she just think that I had my fun with her once and now I’m done? I am done, but not because I’m done with her. I’m done because I can’t allow myself to touch her. Brad would break my face if he knew what I did to his little sister. And I’d have
to let him because I’m wrong and he’s right. I need to find something about her that I hate, something I can focus on to keep me away.
I try thinking, but for the life of me, I can’t think of anything. Everything about her is perfect. Everything except who she is, but even that isn’t enough to keep my body under control. I guess I have no choice but to keep looking. She has to have something that’s imperfect. Everyone does.
When I wake in the morning, I’m relieved to find Brad sitting on the couch, still dressed in his work clothes, Deven nowhere in sight.
“Hey, how’d things go last night with my sister?” he asks as I walk through to the kitchen for some water.
“What do you mean?” I shout.
He comes walking into the kitchen, watching as I stand at the sink and fill a glass of water. “I mean, did she give you shit and drive you crazy last night?”
I shake my head. “No, we hardly talked.”
He nods. “That’s a relief. I thought for sure she’d try to fuck you.”
I spit my water out and cough. “What?”
“Yeah, she’s been a little fucked up since dad died. She has daddy issues, if you know what I mean. She’s always looking for another guy, someone else to approve of her. She means well enough, but she gets herself into some shitty spots. Anyway, just try to ignore her.”
I nod once. “If you say so.”
“Look, I know she isn’t perfect, but she’s my sister and I love her. Whatever she does, just tell me and I’ll put a stop to it. You are in no way, shape, or form allowed to touch her. You got that? She’s my baby sister, and I’ll defend her honor with everything I have. Deven is off-limits.”
“I know, man. I’d never even think of it,” I lie. All I can do is think of it.
4
Deven
“Have a good day,” I tell the customer as I hand over her bag of purchases.
“You’re doing such a great job, Deven. Have I told you that already?” Destiny asks as she walks out of her office.
I smile. “Only about a dozen times today, but it’s always nice to hear.”
Best Friend's Sister (Slade Brothers Book 5) Page 4