by Lindsey Hart
And all the space in her heart. Her stomach cramped and something fluttered wildly, like she’d eaten a bucket of rusty nuts and bolts and that kind of thing didn’t digest so well. She could almost hear them clunking around.
“Man, that’s kind of hot,” Chance informed Ross. Of course, he thought getting slugged in the face was hot. What was wrong with her brother?
“I left a plate of food outside when all the drama started,” Alix ground out. She realized, belatedly, like an afterthought, that she was soaking wet too. She probably looked like a drowned rat. “I’m going to go get it.”
She disappeared down the hall and outside again before anyone had a chance to protest. Of course, Chance and Ross wouldn’t protest. Why would they? She was just a fly in their world. An annoying gnat that wrecked their fun growing up. The way they zoned out completely on her told her that they didn’t think much better of her as an adult.
Outside, her parents and the throng of people that she didn’t know, milled about like nothing had happened. Welcome home. We missed you Alix. How have you been, Alix? You just saved someone’s life Alix, that’s incredible. Yeah right. No one noticed her. No one said anything. She was able to grab her plate and disappear back inside. She stood inside the door in the living room, stuffing pickles and cheese into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully.
Finally, after she’d finished her makeshift dinner and felt slightly less jetlagged for having actually eaten something, she set her paper plate down on the coffee table, mostly because she knew it drove her mom nuts, and headed back to her bedroom. Her suitcase was there. She couldn’t stay in her damp jeans and tank all night.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t slip in and out of the room as easily as she’d slipped in and out of the buffet line outside.
“Alix, the conquering hero. Saved Ross’s ass again,” Chance crowed the second she walked into the room.
She ducked her face so he couldn’t see the blush that no doubt stained her cheeks scarlet. “Was there ever a first time?”
“You’re right. That was me.” Chance bumped Ross’s shoulder and Ross let out a huff of pain. “Are you ever going to learn to swim properly, man? It’s pathetic that my sister had to save you.”
“Should I have let him drown?” Alix asked testily as she grabbed for her duffel bag. “Maybe I would have done the world a service.”
“Harsh,” Chance hissed. “Just harsh.” He turned to Ross. “She still hasn’t forgiven you, man. She still hates you, even though it’s been years and she should have done some growing up while she was away. You can’t still be mad that he wouldn’t take you to Prom. It wouldn’t have looked right.”
The scarlet from her cheeks must have shifted, because all of a sudden, she saw red. “Out!’ Alix screamed. “Get out of my room. Both of you! Right now!”
“The guy’s bleeding from his head. I’m going to take him to the hospital. He needs stitches. It’s a nasty gash.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to fire something back about her brother knowing all about nasty gashes, but that was probably the most immature, horrible, crass thing she’d ever thought, so she sucked it back and let out a breath wavering with anger instead.
“Just go. Please. Take him. I spent hours on a plane. I got home and I thought one person might actually be glad to have me back. I just saved his ass from drowning. I’m tired. I just want to take a hot shower and get changed, relax, and put on a shitty movie so I can feel better about my life.”
“Alix bear, you know we love you,” Chance said in his syrupy tone. The same tone that often worked to get him whatever else he wanted in life. She wasn’t buying it.
“Nope. You’re still gone. Now.” She pointed to the door. “Him too. Take him. Go. That gash isn’t going to close itself.”
“Don’t worry. His brains won’t leak out all over your pillow. I don’t think he has any to begin with. He actually called that girl by the wrong name. That’s why she slugged him.” Chance threw back his head and laughed like it was the punchline to the world’s funniest joke.
Alix turned to Ross. He wasn’t looking at her, thank god. He was looking at Chance like he was trying to calculate if he could deck her brother before he passed out from blood loss. She wished he would.
“I don’t know why you’re friends with Chance at all.” She sighed when she spotted the first aid kit her mom set down on the nightstand by the bed. Everything had been cleaned out of the room when she moved out. All her posters and books and nick knacks, like she was never coming back. “Let me take a look. Maybe I can bandage it up and you won’t have to go to the hospital after all. It’s a pain in the butt. You’ll wait for hours. You probably don’t even need stitches. Head wounds just tend to bleed a lot.”
“Which is probably why everyone just left us alone in here,” Chance shot back. “Mom and dad are out here smooching it up with all their friends like Ross didn’t almost just die.”
“They’re trying to keep everyone calm.”
Alix had always given her parents the benefit of the doubt. She didn’t think they were heartless. They just honestly weren’t cut out for being real parents. They were too busy early on, running their company, selling RV’s and doing all the shows in the off season so people came and bought their overpriced crap later on in the year, and other than that, they had their own social life. They loved her and Chance, but it wasn’t the same kind of undivided love that other parents gave their children.
“You’re not helping either. Go on. Go get some snacks or something. Come back in fifteen minutes.”
Chance shook his head. He shot her a look that told her that fifteen minutes wasn’t enough to seduce Ross in any lifetime. Just because he had a head wound didn’t mean he’d suddenly changed his mind about being into her.
Just to back up the look, as Chance slithered out of the room, he bent in her ear and whispered. “He’s never going to dick you. Get over it.” He slipped out like he hadn’t said anything at all.
Alix slammed the door. She turned the lock on the handle that she’d installed herself because she wanted her privacy and her parents were never actually around to do it for her or take her seriously.
She faced the door for a moment, her heart beating wildly, beating out of her chest, beating in her ears, her throat, her wrists, beating everywhere. It was like a drum. A death knells.
She pivoted slowly, already fully aware that she was going to declare all-out war, not wave the white flag that Ross probably thought she was going to offer. This shit between them needed to be settled once and for all.
She waited until Ross’s cobalt blue eyes shot to her, electrifying her, causing her blood to sizzle and her skin to burn, just like a real lightning strike. God, did he have to be so freaking handsome? It really wasn’t fair. It only strengthened her resolve.
“San Jose isn’t big enough for two of us. I’m back and I’m not going anywhere. I know you’re not either, so I have a proposition for you. A truce of sorts.”
Ross’s dark brow curled nearly to his hairline, which sat droopy and soaked over his forehead. He blinked at her with ridiculously long, dark lashes that would make most females jealous and the rest sigh over how gorgeous they made Ross’s eyes look. Okay, all women would sigh, and likely all of them would be jealous too.
“Oh yeah? What truce is that?”
Alix twisted her fingers together, just for something to grip, since she had nothing to hang onto. “I want to see what all the fuss is about. Just once. Just one time. You give me that and I’ll be civil. I’ll even pretend that I like you. We could be friends.”
“You mean… you mean have sex with you?” Ross scoffed. “I told you no once. I’m not going to repeat myself.” Something shifted in his features though, and emotion flooded his eyes. Disgust, likely, though she wasn’t going to look at him long enough to find out.
Alix dropped her eyes down to her hands. “No. Not all the way. Just- I want you to make out with me. For half an hour. First and s
econd base. I want to know what every single woman in the world thinks is so great.”
“I could describe it you in detail. It’s about ten inch-”
“Stop!” She pegged him with a death stare, and he winked back at her. Fricking winked. The asshole! “That’s not what I mean. I said make-out. I just want a taste. Am I so gross that the thought is so awful and vile?”
“I might throw up in your mouth,” he confessed, but there was enough humor attached to his tone that it carried the weight of doubt.
She flipped him off. “Fine. It’s on then. I’m going to make your life a living hell from now on. Starting right now. I just locked the door. We’re alone. I have a first aid kit and you have a big bleeding cut on your head. Let me tend to that, oh brother’s best friend. I promise to be super gentle.”
She let out a wicked chuckle and dove for the first aid kit before Ross could reach out and snatch it away from her. She stared him down, unrelenting. He stared back. He blinked first.
He waved his hand in the air like a white flag, declaring his surrender. “Sit down,” he barked, his eyes suddenly glowing feral and icy. “I’m not doing this without conditions.”
CHAPTER 4
Ross
Conditions. Of course, there has to be fucking conditions on this.
Ross couldn’t even believe he’d just agreed to make out with Alix. She was practically a little sister to him. He’d babysat her so many damn times growing up, or at least, looked out for her because Chance couldn’t, that it felt totally wrong. Just like taking her to her prom would have been wrong. Just like taking her v-card would have been wrong. She was smoking some seriously bad shit the night she’d asked him that. Even if he knew for a fact that she didn’t smoke anything at all.
Alix was a good girl. She didn’t smoke. Didn’t do drugs of any kind. Barely even drank. She never went to parties in high school. She got straight A’s. He had no idea what in the ever-living hell had gone through her mind when she came to him and wanted to know if he’d be her prom date, oh, and also, if he’d give her a side serving of cock after. Not that she’d asked like that. She’d been much more tasteful and classy, as per usual.
Still.
He was flattered. He’d tried to decline politely. He’d tried to make things right. He’d tried, for once in his life, to be a gentleman. That had blown up in his face. For the past four years, Alix made it obvious that she hated him. She’d never acted like that before.
She’d been, honestly, a pretty cool chick growing up. Not half as annoying as he and Chance told her she was.
Honestly, she was too damn smart and too damn beautiful for her own good. Standing there with her hands on her hips, defining her narrow waist, her long dark hair tossed over one slender shoulder, she looked like a goddess about to wage war on his ass. Her dark honey eyes told a different story. Her face was heart shaped with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline, full lips, and a petite nose. Her features were striking, but it was her eyes that made people stop and stare at her when she wasn’t looking. They wanted a second glance of those honey gold orbs.
Framed by thick lashes, huge and round, and a strange yellowy gold, they were otherworldly. Some people would call them hazel. Those people were douchebags who had zero imagination.
“Conditions,” he repeated.
“Conditions?” she mouthed.
“Conditions. Though it’s pretty hard to have a serious conversation with you when you’re soaking wet.” He refused to tack on and delicious, because that would give her the wrong idea.
He’d never actually seen her as edible before. She’d been this brainy chick who was off limits growing up. Not only was she way younger, he’d spent so many years hauling her ass out of scrapes and keeping her safe, helping her with homework, blah, blah, blah, that he’d never thought of anything else. She was like an annoying puppy that everyone couldn’t help but love no matter how much it whined and complained for attention.
Either the four years she’d been gone had changed his mind or he’d hit his head really, really hard.
Okay, so Alix had grown up a little. She’d sprouted fuller curves while she was off at college, or maybe it was just that her clothes were plastered skintight against her killer body. A body that could make even the oldest fogy spring a hard-on.
Thinking of grandpas and boners at the same time was gross, so he turned his attention back to the throbbing pain in his head and tried to force himself to come up with a way to get out of his current predicament.
“We write it down,” he started off, because yeah, written shit was key. “As a contract that we both have to honor.”
Alix’s perfectly waxed or threaded, some version of manicured- brow shot up. “Why? That’s stupid.”
“Because honestly, I don’t think that just making out will be enough for you.”
She shot him a glare that would slay him straight through the chest, if looks could actually kill. It was the stabby kind of look. Her eyes narrowed after and she stared at him through the closed lidded slits.
“You’re mighty high on yourself. Wasn’t that how you just about drowned?”
“Not at all. I would blame faulty memory for that one. That and picking the wrong date. Did you see her? She dressed to match me. I swear, I didn’t know anything about that.”
Alix’s eye roll told him that she had indeed, noticed his date. Her lips thinned out and he’d seen jealousy and outright desire in the eyes of enough women that he recognized the flash in Alix’s instantly.
“Conditions,” she reminded him. “Don’t get off track.”
“First condition.” His brain worked overtime. “You have to agree to drop this whole stupid thing where you try and evade me at all costs. It’s weird for our parents. They’re good friends. Our families were always close. You refusing to do dinners at my parents’ house or be around at your house when I come over is just ridiculous.”
“Maybe I was just busy.”
“We both know you were avoiding me.”
Alix’s chin tipped up haughtily. “We both know I had good reason to.”
“Do we?” He pressed the towel to his head a little harder, because the ache was pulsing in his temples and he was pretty sure it was either from the conversation he was currently having or from blood loss. Too bad applying a little pressure couldn’t fix the former.
“Of course! I asked you for one thing only. One thing. You couldn’t even do it for me. I wanted you to take me to prom. I had to go alone because you refused. I looked stupid and pathetic. Everyone probably made fun of me behind my back all night. I was the girl who got rejected the day before and didn’t have a date. Do you know how humiliating that is? You could have done me a solid and just taken me.”
“What about after?”
“I don’t want to talk about after. You could have turned me down and still taken me to prom.”
“Because that wouldn’t have been at all awkward.”
“Okay, so it was a mistake to ask you to go out with me after.”
“You asked me to take you in my car, to find a field, and get rid of your v-card because it was pesky and you felt like you shouldn’t be a virgin at eighteen, but you couldn’t be bothered to find someone you trusted enough to get rid of it with.”
Alix’s hands left her hips and she crossed her arms over her chest. Unfortunately, the movement pushed up the swell of her breasts. They weren’t huge, but they were round little globes and he could make out the outline of her nipple through the soaked tank.
Apparently, he hadn’t lost that much blood, because low and behold, he could still spring a boner. Thankfully, Alix’s eyes stayed locked on his face. That was just her. She used those unnerving eyes to stare people down. She wasn’t afraid of a challenge or a good sparring match. She’d refused to be on the debate team because she didn’t want everyone to think she was a complete keener, but she should have been. She would have made a very intimidating lawyer if she’d pursued law, not business.
“That wasn’t the basis,” he said, the words coming out with more than a tinge of disbelief. Was that honestly what she thought?
She shook her head. “Right. We’ll have to agree to disagree. Chance explained to me after, so that you didn’t have to, that I wasn’t your type. I believe his exact words were, ‘he’s never going to dick you because you’re too ugly. And you’re still not blonde.’ He spelled it out for me loud and clear.”
“What he should have said was-”
Alix threw up a hand. “Just save it. I don’t need you to rehash the past. Here are my conditions. One, the making out is platonic. Clothes only. I want to see what the entire world is buzzing about when it comes to you. Why women faint all over at the prospect of a single closed mouth kiss to the forehead. Two, this is basically just an experiment only. I feel like I’m the only person in the entire said female population who hasn’t had a good kiss. You’re a good kisser. I’m twenty-two. I think I deserve just one by now. Three, no one finds out.”
Ross stared at Alix in awe. He’d never known a woman who knew her own mind better than Alix Bear. He’d also never seen a woman who let herself be pushed around by those she was most vulnerable to. She didn’t stand up for herself when her parents wanted her to take business, not fashion or design or art like she wanted. She rarely stood up to Chance when he was being a shithead. And she took what happened the night before her prom as a rejection of a lifetime. She chose to believe it was because she wasn’t pretty enough. What a load of shit. He made a mental note to kill Chance as soon as he saw the bastard again. Blood loss or not, he could still kick the guy’s ass any day of the week. At the moment, the urge to cut off his balls and glue them to his forehead with a sign that said, I’m a ball-less bastard, was pretty fucking strong.