Only then did he rise above me, only then did he push himself inside. I clung to him, my nails digging into his back, my thighs locked around his hips, and the taste of my own pleasure in our kiss.
When he'd finished, he didn't roll off me and fall asleep like most of my other partners had. Brant was still inside me when he pushed my hair out of my face, stroked his fingers down my cheek and looked into my eyes for a long moment before kissing me softly. It wasn't passionless, but it wasn't lusty either. It was a different kind of kiss—one that spoke of intimacy and a connection.
It terrified me.
He gathered me against him and long after his breathing was deep and even, I lay awake staring into the darkness wondering what the hell I'd just done.
Besides having two orgasms for the first time.
4
Brant wasn't in the bed next to me when I awoke, but his pillow was still warm and his shirt was still on the floor. He hadn't gone far and I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I wasn't sure how I felt about any of this.
I heard voices coming from the kitchen.
Wasn't that just going to be a bucket of awkward? We were all friends, or had been before last night. Kieran, April, Brant and I.
I really hoped April wasn't going to be one of the ones that I had to tell to go home. I'd been kidding last night, but Kieran didn't usually have morning coffee with the girls he brought home.
Unless April was something different for him.
That thought caused a pang of discomfort in my chest—and made me feel like the world's biggest asshole. My thighs were still sticky from sex with one guy and I was angsting over another. Why did I do this shit to myself?
I thought about hiding in my room until everyone went home, but Kieran was already home. I'd have to face him sooner or later. But later was good...
No, it actually wasn't. I needed to own my shit. Facing them later wouldn't change what anyone had to say about anything. Further, I was a grown-up capable of making my own choices, up to and including who I decided to sleep with. Kieran had been pushing me toward Brant for a while. What did he expect would happen?
I got up and pulled on a pair of jeans and a Day of the Dead t-shirt, stuffed my hair up into a reasonable facsimile of a ponytail and padded out to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
Brant smiled and handed me a cup. One packet of Stevia and cream, just the way I liked it.
"Thanks." I accepted the cup gratefully. I watched him over the rim of the cup, and his smile was infectious. Not only because he really was handsome, but it reminded me of all the wonderful things he could do with his mouth.
"You're much too fucking chipper this morning, boy-o." Kieran mumbled as he guzzled his black coffee.
Brant turned to Kieran to reply and that's when April and I both saw the angry, red scratches down his back. He looked like he'd been wrestling bears or something. I almost choked on my coffee when I realized I'd done that to him.
April squealed and flashed me a look. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be props or censure.
Brant, on the other hand, didn't care which. He flashed a grin over his shoulder. "Oh, that. Yeah. Battle scars." He winked at me. "They're a good look, don't you think?"
I blushed. "You have to work tonight. I'm so sorry."
"No worries. I'll get better tips. Men don't look like they've tangled with a hellcat if they're bad at what they do." He winked again.
"Well, you know, if it helps, you should come over after work and I'll give you some more." This time I thought it was Kieran who was going to choke on his coffee. That gave me some perverse sense of satisfaction. "I mean, in the name of your career. I like helping my friends."
"You could help the shit out of me," Kieran said.
His words slammed into me. What was I supposed to do with that? Was this part of our usual banter, or did he mean it? I shook my head, maybe because I thought if I rattled my brain around enough, something might start making sense. Before I decided I wanted Kieran, I never would have questioned that. So why start now? Suddenly wanting him wasn't some kind of alchemy that could change what always was or wasn't between us.
"I guess you could take a number and get in line." I decided to play it off.
April looked hurt, but Brant just smirked. "You haven't got the skills to elicit that kind of reaction. Boy-o." He tossed Kieran's Irish affectation back at him. "Give it as many tries as she'll let you."
I liked his confidence. I could tell from the way he held himself, the look on his face, everything about him said that he wasn't talking shit—that he believed what he said.
"Riddle me this," April interjected. "What's it like when you two have sex? I'm trying to picture it and the only thing that comes to mind is a Chihuahua trying to mount a Great Dane."
Her words were a barbed arrow that struck home for me, but Brant was singularly unfazed.
He snorted. "A Chihuahua? Have you ever heard yourself?" Brant then mimicked the sounds we'd heard last night coming from Kieran's room. He yipped, barked, and sounded an ineffectual little howl that did indeed sound like a Chihuahua that had been taking hits from a helium tank.
"Fuck you, Brant." April poured herself a refill.
"Not if you paid me." The retort was quick, sharp and from the look on her face, had obviously struck home much as her words had done to me. "So, you guys want to get breakfast?" He changed the subject.
"I could go for a steak. How about you, Taco Bell?" Kieran looked at April. "You want some breakfast?"
For a second, I wondered if I heard him correctly. If he'd just called her Taco Bell in reference to the little Chihuahua mascot the chain had once had.
Instead of being pissed, she blushed. "Yeah, I guess."
"Get your ass in gear." He swatted her ass and she scurried off to put on something besides his t-shirt.
I hated her in that moment. Not just because she was wearing his shirt, but that was a contributing factor. No, actually, it wasn't. I was jealous, to be sure, but I couldn't be angry at two people who fucked because they wanted to. Neither of them owed me fidelity.
But what April did owe me was friendship. Not even something so trite as Girl Code, but Friend Code. She knew how self-conscious I was about being with someone smaller than me. She knew it, and she used it against me because the guy she wanted was giving his attention to me instead of her.
Even though she was the one he'd fucked last night. She was the one in his bed. She was the one wearing his t-shirt. She was the one who had what I wanted.
Brant finished his coffee in one swallow. "I'm going to get dressed. Don't take too long with that coffee. I can buy you another."
"Yeah, but you made this one for me. So I want this one."
"If you tore up my back like that, I'd make you coffee every day." Kieran grinned.
"You had your chance, Oirish." Brant mocked him, but clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Snooze you lose." He wandered back toward my room leaving us alone.
"I guess last night went really well," Kieran said.
What to say? I usually told him everything, but I couldn't tell him this. Not what I really felt about any of it. "Yeah, I guess it did. You were right. Brant is a nice guy."
"You deserve a nice guy." He nodded. "Gavin went home with Rosa."
"No shit?" I couldn't picture that. Not after the things he'd said about me being pretty for a fat girl. Rosa was the same size as me. Gorgeous, but not skinny. Not traditionally beautiful, as I'd come to say.
"Yeah. I bet that's going to be an awkward morning."
"Probably no more awkward than this one. It's a little weird, you have to admit."
"Nah." Kieran shook his head. "It'd be weird if we'd had a foursome. That's when it gets awkward."
I was determined not to blush. Although, I wasn't sure if I succeeded or not. "I don't see that happening."
"Try harder. It could be fun." He grinned.
"It's always about sex with you."
"It's always about sex w
ith everyone, Claire. Don't let anyone try to fool you and say that it isn't."
I couldn't let that go, even though logic said to ignore it and move along. "What about us? We're friends. I like to think that we care about each other. Am I wrong?"
"Of course I care about you."
Okay, now would have been a good time to let it go. But my mouth kept moving. "We've never had sex. What does fucking have to do with us?"
He grabbed me hard, hugged me. For one moment, I allowed myself to think about the way his body felt under my hands, my breasts crushed into the hard expanse of his chest—his hands burning my skin through my t-shirt.
God, it was like I'd gone from Lolly Librarian to some kind of sex addict.
"It's because I care about you, because I love you. But don't think for one minute that I don't know you're a woman." He released me as suddenly as he'd grabbed me and then rinsed out his cup as if that hadn't just happened.
My brain overloaded with scenarios. Of all the times we could have fallen into bed if one of us had made a move. He wanted me, too.
I didn't believe it. It didn't make sense. Kieran Holt could have any woman on the planet. Why would he choose me?
He wouldn't. It was just because for the whole of the time we'd been roommates, he'd never seen me with another guy. The few guys I had dated briefly didn't come to the house, we didn't hang out together as a group and Brant was in our group of friends. I'd always still been his friend... These guys I dated were never real to him.
I knew Kieran had attachment/abandonment issues. He'd been on his own since he was fourteen. No one had ever stuck with him like I had. I was his family.
"Are you going to wear that to breakfast?" he asked.
"Uh—" I looked down at myself. "Yeah. Is there something wrong with it?"
"No. If you're ready you can tell April to get moving."
I really didn’t want her to come. I wanted her to go home so she’d know she was nothing better than any of the other warm, wet holes Kieran had in his bedroom. She wasn’t special. For once, I didn’t want her to get what she wanted. Because I’m an asshole. I hated feeling that way about my friend, but I couldn’t seem to stop. "You know, if all you wanted to give her was Finn McCool, you shouldn't be taking her out to breakfast."
"She's taking me."
I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean."
"She says she wants the Kieran experience. The real me. I kind of don't believe her. She just wants me because she thinks she can't have me."
"Can she have you?" I really wanted him to say no. I wanted him to say that he could never belong to anyone but me.
"Anyone who wants me can have me, lass. I'm nothing special."
"Finn McCool thinks he's pretty damn special." I teased.
"Finn McCool knows he's not good for anything but his dick. We all have our talents, love, and that's his."
I bit my lip. I'd never heard him talk this way before. "Kieran Holt is worth a lot more than Finn McCool. He's pretty, there's no doubt about that. But you're my best friend. Do you really think that if all you had to offer was a handsome face and a nice gun show that I'd trust you to live in my house? That it would be your shoulder I lean on?"
"And here I thought you just liked hugging me because I'm taller than you." That moment of insecurity, wherever it had come from, was gone. In its place was the Kieran I knew so well.
Then I wondered if maybe he was just as damaged as me. I'd always admired him for how he'd come through so much, but lived life on his own terms. He wouldn't be content with what the world gave him, he reached out and took what he wanted. Only maybe, he hid his insecurities the same way I hid mine. He was just better at it.
"April is taking a damn long time. I'll go hurry her along. I'm starved." I wasn't really, I hated eating in the morning. Kieran knew that. But I had to get away from the situation and the things it made me feel.
I wandered into Kieran's room and found April sitting on the bed. "What are you doing?"
She looked up at me. "Feeling horrible."
"For what?" If she said she regretted telling Kieran she wanted the real him instead of Finn McCool, I might slap her.
"For what I said."
My hand twitched.
"About the Chihuahua and Great Dane. That was super shitty."
I exhaled heavily. So she knew what she'd said was mean. I didn't know which was worse. If she'd known it and done it anyway, or was completely oblivious. "It's okay. All the women Kieran brings home are threatened by me because I'm permanent and they want to be." Yeah, maybe I was being a little shitty myself.
"I know," she admitted. "It pissed me off when he started talking about wanting you to scratch him. I mean, we'd just had sex again. I gave him the BJ of my life, but obviously not his, the way he was talking about you."
Ouch. If I were April, I'd be hurt too. "You know that he and I are friends. Best friends. We've always had that kind of banter and we always will. If he's really the one for you, that shouldn't matter.”
"I don't know if I have the stones to be with a guy like him. He's so hot and he could have any woman he wants. Why would he pick me?"
A gamut of emotions washed over me. I'd just been saying the same things in my own head. Why, indeed? "Well, you should have thought about that before you told him you wanted him for himself. He's not perfect, April. He has doubts, and insecurities. We all do, even guys that look like him. And I guess even women who look like you, too. Have you seen yourself lately?"
"I guess there is always someone who is going to be prettier, smarter and skinnier."
Back to that again. "Why do you assume that skinnier is always better? Why can't someone just want to be with you because you're you?"
"Because it doesn't work that way." April sighed.
"Really? You just said that to me?" I thought about what Kieran had said. That he was definitely aware I was a woman. That he hadn't tried to get in my pants because he loved me.
April worried her lip and I could see that she was conflicted, but after what she'd just said, I didn't really care. "Hurry up. Don't be that chick who doesn't go home."
She looked like I'd just hit her and I might as well have. "He invited me to breakfast."
"Of course he did. We're all going. So you can't very well sit here in his room while we go eat, can you?"
She pushed her feet into her shoes. "Yeah, I'm coming."
I could have been nicer, but if no one else cared about my feelings, why should I worry about dancing around hers?
I knew this would happen. As soon as he started shagging my friends, things would go straight to shit.
I almost wished it had been anyone but April. She was the "pretty girl" who got everything. Everyone wanted to be her, know her, or fuck her. I was jealous, I could admit that. Who wouldn't be? If the universe had been listening to me, Gavin and April would have gone home together.
But I wasn't the girl whose wishes came true. I was more like the Wicked Witch. I had to plot, scheme, and claw for every bit of good that came my way.
Which was a reminder I should have been working on Chubbalicious rather than worrying about any of this crap.
Now I had to go sit through a breakfast which I'm sure was going to be awkward and uncomfortable. I'd rather just go back to my room and work on the website.
Except when I came out of Kieran's room, Brant was waiting for me and all my anxiety vanished. I don't know why he had that effect on me, but he did. Everything seemed simpler when he was around. It was as if his very presence was like a dose of bitch, be cool.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I thought we were going to IHOP?”
He shrugged. “If that’s where you want to go.”
“You’re being too nice to me.” Mostly because I felt like I didn’t deserve it.
He raised a brow. “Do you think I should treat you badly? Claire, I haven’t done anything for you I wouldn’t do for any of my friends.”
“If
you treat your friends this way, I can’t imagine how you treat your girlfriends.”
Brant eyed me like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. I probably shouldn’t have brought up the subject of girlfriends anyway, considering I’d told him I didn’t want any kind of commitment.
April emerged from the bedroom and I saw she still wore Kieran’s shirt and a pair of his boxers-like shorts. She’d managed to snag a pair of my sneakers and her hair was tucked up in a bouncy ponytail. “Ready.”
“I’ll drive,” Kieran offered.
“Did we decide where we were going?” Brant asked.
“The usual. Unless the girls want something else.”
“I’m just going to have more coffee, so whatever Claire wants,” April demurred.
I wasn’t going to let her keep me from eating, even if all she had was coffee. I wasn’t going to be one of those girls who didn’t eat because she was with a man. I nodded and we shuffled into the backseat of Kieran’s Challenger.
It was a tight fit, but Brant had no qualms about pulling me into his lap. Probably because my breasts were shoved into his chin.
“Jesus, Claire. Are you trying to kill him?” April joked.
It hadn’t occurred to me until now how often April said things like that. How often she poked at my weight, or my size, or anything else that she knew I was sensitive about. I acted like I didn’t care, so maybe she thought I really didn’t.
“Hey, if I die, I’ll die happy.” His hand splayed on my hip pulled me closer.
“I’d rather you didn’t die.”
“Would you miss me?” He nuzzled into my neck.
It was a different experience to be the one who had the gushy morning after PDA. To be the one who was the center of someone’s attention.
“Maybe.” I cupped his jaw and leaned down close to his ear. “I’d definitely miss your tongue,” I whispered so only he could hear me.
Kieran tapped the brakes abruptly. “Hey, none of that back there.” I met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “I don’t want any white stains on my black interior.”
“It’s leather. It’ll come up with a wet wipe,” Brant replied.
Hearts on Fire: Romance Multi-Author Box Set Anthology Page 61