by Misti Murphy
His gaze cuts into me, while he waits for me to make a move, his face all sharp angles. “What’s it going to be, Little Bit?”
My chest aches, those butterflies he brought back to life beginning to die again. My eyes burn, and I wince. I want him, but not like this. Not when there’s only this cold glint in his perusal of my body. Not when he’s deliberately being an asshole in an attempt to push me away. Not when it’ll destroy the good things we have between us. We do this, we can’t go back. Can I say goodbye to him again, this time forever? I’m not sure. A slow ache sets up in my chest at the idea of going back to not having him around. How much would it hurt, knowing I pushed him out of my life a second time? Too much.
I scramble to press my hands to his chest, pushing at him so I can get away, but he grabs my arm and hauls me back against him. “You’re a fucking prick tease. One minute you’re making out you want me, the next you’re all Miss Innocent. You’re mind fucking me, Claire, and I’m done.”
When he releases me I brush past him and bolt for the end of the alley and the streetlights that bathe the pavement in light. Razer doesn’t catch up to me, letting me get away. The tears I’d felt prickling behind my eyes leak down the sides of my face, but only for a moment before I drag air into my lungs and grit my teeth. I barely cried over Henley. I am sure as hell not going to cry over Razer fucking Bennington.
“Sorry I scared you, sugar,” I hear him say behind me, though I’m not sure his words are actually meant to reach me, “but it has to be this way.”
I want to scream, No it doesn’t. It could be perfect, beautiful, amazing between us, but instead I glance around, desperate to find a cab. There is no way I can be near him any longer. I certainly can’t get on his bike and hold onto him. I see one with its light on at the end of the block and signal the driver.
Razer follows me, but stays a few steps back. I guess it’s hard to break the long formed habit of keeping me safe. As the cab pulls up and I open the door, he says something, though it isn’t until I’ve shut the door on him and slid down in the seat that the jumble filters into words I can make sense of. Something about fighting harder, followed by taking on the world for me, but the last part I got clearly. “I must be fucking crazy.”
I get home before him, and Tom is still out. I don’t bother to turn on the lights as I make my way through the house to my room and crawl into bed, fully clothed. He thinks he’s crazy, but this is all on me. I’m the one who can’t control myself around him, the one who keeps pushing him to the limits. I need to let go of him once and for all.
Razer
She speeds out of there like her backside is on fire. Which is entirely the point, even if for one half second I wanted her to actually take me up on my offer. But that is the point of the alley. To show her she doesn’t really want me like she thinks she does. Funny how seeing her take off doesn’t ease how much I want her. Or maybe that’s something I’ve forgotten how to live with thrumming deep in the space in my chest. It certainly feels tighter than normal. I rub at the back of my neck, trying to make sense of the urge to chase after her, grab her, and change her mind.
Then I decide I better follow, if only to make sure she gets into a cab safely. Her hands brush agitatedly at her face a couple of times before she straightens her spine. Maybe I’ve finally gotten through to her. My heart does a slow shuffle, as she glances over her shoulder at me. Fuck it, I’ve scared the crap out of her in more ways than I’d intended. I can’t let it go. Not when we still have to face each other in the same damn house. Maybe I’ll pack up my shit and go camp out at the block. At least then she won’t have to deal with seeing me. It’ll be good for us both, not sharing the same space. It’s the only thing I can guarantee will keep her from pulling me under her spell. But I don’t want her scared of me. I don’t want to see fear in her eyes every time she looks at me. “Sorry I scared you, Little Bit, but it has to be this way.”
Except as soon as the words rush out of my mouth, I can’t help feeling like it’s the biggest pack of bullshit I’ve ever told. There are a lot of reasons why it’d be better to not get involved with my best friend’s little sister. Why I intend to stay far away from her. But that doesn’t mean I want to. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to grab her up and devour her. It sure as hell doesn’t change the way I feel about her.
“I’d take on the whole fucking world for you, woman, if I thought it would be worth the fight,” I mutter under my breath. But she’s still so young. She’s got a lot of growing up to do before she’ll know what she really wants out of life, and I doubt it’ll be me.
She gazes at me for a second, as if she might have heard me, but there’s no way she could make out what I said over the sounds in the street. Then she’s in the cab, slamming the door closed and sliding down on the seat, blocking me out. It’s an unpleasant sensation, knowing I’ll never touch her again the way I did tonight. She’ll never get that close. But it’s exactly how it should be.
I stalk back the way we came until I get to my bike. Sitting on the back of the beast, I take a moment to gather my scattered control before slamming my helmet on and cruising back toward Tom’s. I won’t see her again tonight. No doubt she’ll avoid me like the plague, and tomorrow I’ll pack up and move out to the block. Away from her, away from the temptation that drives me to the brink of my sanity.
Chapter Nine
Claire
“What are you doing here?” I squeal as I launch myself at Mace and wrap my arms around his neck.
He hauls me up like a koala and spins me around with a chuckle. “I take it you missed me.”
“Of course I missed you,” I murmur into his neck before he drops me back on my feet.
“Look at you. You’ve grown since the last time I saw you, Little Bit.” He smiles down at me as he drops his bag beside the door.
“I stopped growing a while ago.” I grin. “It’s so good to see you. Tom didn’t tell me you were coming home.”
“I planned to surprise him. I didn’t expect to see you here.” He winds his bulky arm around my shoulder. “How about you show me where he keeps the beer.”
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.” Razer leans against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his torso. My heart flip flops in my chest. It’s been days since the incident in the alley, and he’s avoided me every moment since. To be honest, if he’s so intent on staying away from me, I’m not sure why he hasn’t packed up and moved out of Tom’s house. Each time I see him, he seems to lose more of that smooth controlled air. The stubble’s grown into thick scruff on his jaw, and his intense gaze lingers on me. My breath hitches with the wildness I see there. As though the lack of a razor is only a symptom of some inner transformation. He prowls across the space to clap Mace on the back.
“Now this is a surprise. Razer Bennington in the flesh. I never thought I’d see the day you returned to Reverence, brother.” Mace grins.
“Whatever, asshole.” Razer leads the way to the kitchen, and Mace and I follow behind.
“What’s been happening in your world, sis? Any boys I need to beat on while I’m here?”
I catch Razer’s fleeting glance, before he clears his throat. “We’ve offered but she won’t let us touch the bastard.”
“What?” Mace spins around, staring at me with that ‘I’m going to kill something’ expression that all my brothers perfected when I was a child. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”
Nothing compared to the rollercoaster of emotion, and sexual frustration Razer’s doling out at every turn. I turn to glare at him as he tosses a beer at Mace’s head. “He’s just a dick who can’t make up his mind on what he wants.”
Razer’s jaw slackens, his gaze drilling into me, making me squirm while he opens his own bottle. “So how long are you in town?”
“It was going to be a couple days, then I was going to go see Little Bit, but she’s here, so I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
“W
hen do you have to go back?” I ask Mace, brushing past Razer to get my own beer and lemonade out of the fridge. Sparks shoot between us, and he darts this glance at me, and it’s so sinfully intense I have to wonder if he’d be able to keep his hands off me if my brother wasn’t in the room.
“I’m not. Thought I might try my hand at this civilian lifestyle you and Tom seem to favor.” Mace shrugs.
Razer’s taken to leaning on the counter under the cupboard where Tom keeps his glasses. He smirks as I prod him to move aside, planting his feet further apart. Bastard. He’s daring me. Right in front of my brother, because after the alley he doesn’t believe I have the guts to go after what I want. His eyes widen when I step between his legs, stretching up on tiptoe while every inch of my front presses to his chest. He grips my waist, still talking to my brother like there’s nothing weird about how close we are, or that if I move even slightly, I’m going to be rubbing up against the growing bulge of his cock. “What about Rush?”
“I thought he was doing the international thing at the moment?” Mace scrunches up his brow. “I can never keep up with where he’s at.”
“How about I just get it for you?” Razer’s managed to turn us so I’m in front of him, while he reaches over me, pressing his hardness between my legs. Is Mace even still in the room? God, I hope not. I’m burning up, my face flushing under Razer’s knowing smirk. He’s aware of how turned on I am, how every inch of my body is in ecstasy from his touch, the pleasure slicing through me. He pushes the glass into my hand and tickles my ear with his lips. “You can’t let it go, can you? Do you want to tell Mace that you’re trying to seduce me?”
“You’re the one teasing me with your cock,” I whisper. Pushing away from him, I swallow around the lump of need that’s clogging my throat to find Mace wandering around the room, checking out Tom’s collection of photos.
“I thought he was back in Vegas. But I haven’t heard from him in a month, which is still more than some.” I elbow Razer in the ribs. He has to know I’m going to get him back for that prank he just pulled.
“Oh come on, Little Bit, lay off. You know we keep in touch as much as we can. You’re beginning to sound like Mom.”
I beam my beer cap at Mace’s head. “Am not.”
“Are too.” He chuckles.
“I do not.” I huff, putting a hand on my hip in a mock display of parental annoyance.
“You even stand like her.” Mace smirks behind the rim of the bottle neck.
“Stop riling her up, fucker. Let’s go prop a seat on the porch, and I’ll call Tom,” Razer says, leaving the kitchen. “You being here might be enough to drag him away from whatever one-on-one class he has planned for tonight.”
“Your little brother’s a manwhore, Mace.” I giggle as we head outside.
“Tommy? You’re kidding, right?” He plunks down on one of the long wooden benches.
“Apparently not. It’s like a revolving door around here.” Razer straddles the plank beside me.
“Let’s see.” I tick them off on my fingers. “Lucy, Kate, then there was the redhead in the bathroom.”
“And Christina at the gym,” Razer adds. “Then Sally this morning.”
“You’re kidding right?” I raise both brows. “I thought he said her name was Savannah?”
“Revolving fucking door.” He grins.
Mace lets out a low whistle and peels the edges of the label off his bottle. “Lucky him.”
As though she thought he’d called her name, Lucky trots up from the trees at the back of the yard and settles beside me. I drop my hand to her head, scratching her behind the ears, while Razer calls Tom and then puts Mace on the phone. They’re fully focused on their conversation so neither of them notice my hand slide from the dog’s head to Razer’s thigh. He jumps under my fingers and glares at me. As though what he did to me in the kitchen isn’t ten times worse than my fingers stroking the inside of his thigh, accidently on purpose brushing along the length of him. He grasps my hand, holds it in his palm, his fingers locked around my wrist. “We’re playing with fire.”
“Huh?” Mace flicks a glance at both of us.
“I was saying we should celebrate being all together,” Razer says with a shrug.
“Yeah.” Mace goes back to his conversation with Tom, telling him we should all go out drinking this evening.
“You started it,” I hiss through my teeth.
“You should invite Chelsea to come, too,” Mace says to me when he ends the call. “I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Okay.” I get up from the table and leave them to talk while I go inside to call her. When I get off the phone, Razer’s standing in the door to my bedroom. “What do you want?”
Kicking the door shut with his foot, he leans against it, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re supposed to be pissed off at me.”
“You assume I’m not?” I toss my cell on the bed and march over to him. “What’s with that stunt in the kitchen, in front of my brother?”
He lifts off the door, invades my personal space. “I wanted to see if you’d given up yet.”
“It didn’t feel like that to me.” I glance down, eyeballing his zipper. “It felt like you wanted to take me right there in the kitchen, while my damn brother was in the room.”
“I thought I’d scared you off.” He shrugs.
“You’re a prick.” I push at his chest. “Don’t play with me.”
“I’m not playing.” He grasps my wrist, tugging me into him while his mouth descends on mine hungrily. When he lets me go, I’m panting, my lips swollen from his demands, and I struggle not to hang onto him, not to force him onto my bed.
He cups my cheek. “I don’t want to scare you, but I don’t want to keep doing this. Tomorrow I’m moving out to the block. It’ll be easier that way.”
***
Having nearly the whole gang in one place is surreal. After Tom gets home from work we go out for a meal and a few drinks at Blazer’s. With so much testosterone in the group, I’m glad Chelsea decided to join us. Besides I want to dance. Leaving the boys surrounding the pool table in the back corner, we hit the dance floor and let loose until we’re both sweaty. A huge grin on my face, I motion that I need to get a drink and lead the way to the bar. It’s crowded here too, but talking is a little easier as I yell at the server for a couple of Japanese slippers. “Ever had one of these?” I ask Chelsea, as I hand her the sugar-rimmed glass full of green liquid.
She takes a sip. “Mmm, it’s good. So how is the seduction going? I thought you’d have all cleared out of Reverence by now.”
“I don’t know.” I stir the swizzle stick through my drink. “One minute I think I have a shot, the next he won’t even talk to me.”
“Have you gotten any action?” She leads the way out to the beer garden where it’s much quieter than inside. There’s a table in the middle under a bare bulb, and wooden seating around the perimeter of the rectangular space. We find a spot at the back where we can perch without being rubbed up against.
“He’s a good kisser.” I dip my head, blushing under my admission. “And he’s huge. I mean…”
“You’ve seen his cock?” She gasps. “Really? And you don’t know whether he’s into you?”
“Well, he was in the shower.”
“Please do not tell me you walked in on him like some psychotic bunny boiler, Claire.” Chelsea laughs and her drink sloshes over the side of her glass and runs down her fingers.
“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t do it on purpose. At least not until.” I snap my mouth shut. The details are too much for me to share. Besides, I like having that private connection between me and him. “It doesn’t matter. He’s moving out of Tom’s tomorrow to get away from me. I’ve got to give up. I’m going to lose him completely. I don’t even know.” I shake my head. “Wanting him is ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not.” She squeezes my knee. “But it’s time you owned up to still having feelings for him. This isn’t abou
t sex for you.”
“Why can’t it be? Why can’t I be like Henley? Or Tom? Even you? You slept with my brother when you were what, fifteen? He can’t have been the only one.”
She laughs and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Because you’re you. You’re not as sweet as the image you’ve been living up to these past few years, but you’re not us, either. There’s a middle ground somewhere.”
“Do you think?”
“I do.” She grins. “And I wouldn’t give up on what you want. With the way he stares at you and glares at anyone else who glances in your direction, it’s only a matter of time until he comes to his senses.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.” She gets to her feet. “Now, do you know what I want?”
“What?”
“Another one of these cocktails.” She drains the glass and drags me up beside her. “More drinks, more dancing. Let’s find some boys who don’t mind busting a move. Maybe we can make him jealous.”
“You’re devious. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“It’s up to you.” She hustles me inside. “You have to decide whether you can be happy with status quo.”
And that’s the problem. I no longer want to just get him into my bed. I want the whole package. But the idea of him leaving me behind again is agony.
Razer
“I was talking to Robert Long, you remember him? He was a couple years older than us. Owns Blazer’s now.” Mace talks while he leans over the pool table to take his shot.
“Yeah, I remember Bobby,” I grumble, unable to peel my gaze from where Chelsea and Claire are dancing with some local boys. One of them keeps trying to get a little too familiar with Claire, his hands finding her hips far more often than I can handle. I clench and unclench my fists, imagining strangling the cheeky prick.
“He said there’s a need for more security in Reverence, since the town keeps growing.”