She blushed, very aware of the solid body of her boyfriend’s twin at the other end of the ping-pong table. “You didn't hear all the details?”
“I didn't hear any of the details. Ian doesn't tell me things anymore. Especially about you. I guess we have some secrets from each other now.”
“That's good, right?”
“It's the way it is.”
Quiet fell. The only sounds between them were the bounce of the ball on the table and the clack of the paddles. Someone cranked up the music on the patio.
She wasn't looking away from Brendan now. Across the table, he raised an eyebrow at her.
I'm sorry, she wanted to say. Or, you know what, Brendan? It is a good thing. Because you and Ian are two separate people. Or, Ian didn't give you any details, but I need to. Or...
“Please don't tell me my top was pulled down this whole time,” she blurted out.
“Okay, I won't tell you.”
“Brendan…”
“It wasn't, Di. Don't worry.”
The ball flew off the table toward the fence.
“Ugh, I'm sorry. I'm not paying attention.” Diana knelt on the grass to find the ball. Brendan reached for it at the same time.
“No, my fault.”
“Wait.” She put her hand on his shoulder as they crouched on the grass. It was such a basic gesture. So simple. Brendan had probably rested his hand on hundreds of shoulders. But for a girl who wasn’t a toucher, whose friends were still surprised when she grabbed them in a hug, it wasn’t a simple gesture. It meant something. She didn’t know if Brendan would understand that, but he looked down at her hand, then at her face, he had a funny expression.
The ping-pong table hid them from view. Brendan was close enough for her to whisper.
“I need to talk to you.”
Brendan looked startled. “Anytime.”
“Now. Alone. Please, Brendan? Don’t brush me off this time.”
Hazel eyes blinked, then cut to the people milling around the grill and the bodies thronging the pool.
“Go inside,” he said softly. “We can talk in my room. Now, alone. I’ll meet you in a few minutes.”
“I— okay.”
She swallowed a dozen things she wanted to say, threw one last glance at Ian flipping burgers, and headed for the O’Brians’ back door.
Chapter Eleven
Diana’s dress clung to her sweaty curves as she climbed the stairs. Brendan had taken charge again as naturally as breathing, she thought. And she’d followed his directions just like that. It hadn’t occurred to her to argue.
She was alone in the house. The laughter and music of the barbecue were muffled.
At the top of the stairs, she turned right and pushed on the slightly open door.
Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows. Brendan kept his room neat and clean. The room was bigger than Ian’s. This was the bedroom the twins had shared as kids.
Diana stopped in the corner where the bunk beds used to be.
Long ago, during a thunderstorm, she and the twins had built a blanket fort on the bottom bunk and whispered ghost stories over flashlights. At the most chilling moment of the scariest story, Ian had breathed down her neck like a monster. She’d screamed and tackled him, going straight for his armpits.
Ian had been aggressive — no surprise there. Fight back, fight harder, she’d kept telling herself, until they tumbled out of the blanket fort and Brendan called a truce. But it had come as a surprise that Brendan wasn’t ticklish. At all.
Rows of trophies sparkled on the shelves over Brendan’s dresser. Sports posters decorated the walls. A mini basketball hoop hung on the door above a UConn pennant.
Pausing by the full-length mirror, Diana smoothed her windblown bangs and eyed the deep line of her cleavage. She really was poured into the ladybug dress. The printed fabric covered her skin, and the hem hit her knees, but nothing was left to the imagination. No wonder that guy Keith had been hanging around like a hopeful puppy.
As she pressed her hands to the mirror, she felt Ian’s mouth on her breasts, sucking each of her nipples to swollen hardness, devouring her skin. Ravenous, consuming her with sheer desire.
What would he say if she told him she was overwhelmed? That she loved last night, she didn’t regret it, but she was so raw with feelings for him that she had no idea what to do? How did you put that into words? He’d been vulnerable afterwards. She’d seen it. Stripped as bare as she was.
She glanced at the closed door. Brendan would have a clear head. He’d probably tease her, but that was part of being a big brother. It would all be better after she talked to him.
Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the desk to look at Brendan’s photos. They covered the wall in a collage. The twins were everywhere: shirtless, wearing tuxes, in their basketball uniforms, streaked with paint at someone else’s game. Always together, always confident.
Her own face caught her eye, though she barely recognized herself in the blue cap and gown. She touched the picture Marissa had taken of the three of them at graduation.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright behind her glasses, and her smile stretched from ear to ear. Her graduation cap was crooked as the twins sandwiched her. That was Ian on the left, a half-smile on his face, the faint shadow of a hickey on his neck, and his hand invisible behind her back. Her ass remembered his pinch. Brendan smiled broadly on her right, an affectionate arm slung around her shoulders.
And later that night, the two of them in her bed, inside her together…
Mixed in with the college photos were high school pictures: Brendan and Ian lifting weights, posing with gorgeous girls at prom, in motion on the court.
Diana stopped on a shot of the twins outside the school auditorium. Brendan wore a white dress shirt and striped tie. His face was clean-shaven, his arm around his brother. Ian wore a black hoodie, his jaw stubbled, his eyes bloodshot.
Both twins had the same half-smile, like they shared a secret. A lot of secrets.
Diana remembered that spring day near the end of her freshman year. Brendan was running for student body president, and everyone knew he’d win. She’d stared at him as he gave his speech, drinking in his handsome face and athletic body. She’d burned with envy at his total assurance. She’d missed him more than she had in a long time.
And, as she squeezed her knees together, feeling uncomfortably warm, she’d scanned the auditorium for Ian.
He sat in the front row, sprawled across three seats, a huge smile on his face as he watched his brother. He looked entertained, sure. But he also looked proud.
As Diana followed the edges of the collage, the pictures went back even further. The twins were twelve and riding their skateboards. They were ten and waving water pistols. Then she spotted a girl’s heart-shaped face.
Wide blue eyes looked out from under dark bangs, and a kid’s crooked grin — her grin — beamed fearlessly at the camera. She was bouncing between the twins on their trampoline, pool water dripping from their swimsuits.
Had this picture been on Brendan’s wall all through high school? College? Or was it more recent?
She turned away. The striped student body president tie lay on the desk chair, the only mess in the room.
A poster above the bed made her grin. Believe you can, and you’re halfway there. So Brendan.
A tall floor lamp stood near the bed. Inside the lampshade was a shadow.
Curious, Diana walked over to the lamp. When she reached inside, her fingers met plastic loops. She stared at what came out in her hand. Then she burst out laughing.
Handcuffs. Dangling from her fingers, made of that pale green glow-in-the-dark material. This was a joke. It had to be. For a costume, or something.
But Halloween was months away. And it was too easy to picture Brendan walking toward her, a persuasive smile on his face, holding those handcuffs.
She shook her head hard to clear it. Yet suddenly she felt herself lying on the big be
d, Brendan’s bed, hot and aroused, her bare curves on display, her arms stretched above her head. A naked twin knelt over her in the near-darkness. All she saw was the outline of his muscled body. Cuffs closed over her wrists, one at a time, with a soft but definite click.
“Ian?” she whispered. Fuck, her eyes were actually closed, and she’d said his name aloud. “Brendan?”
Not telling.
She knew the intimate tease in that low voice. Didn’t she? Oh God, this was crazy. She strained at her bonds, her back arching. Ian — yes, it was Ian, it had to be — was running his hands all over her breasts. Squeezing the full swells, whispering the filthy things he was going to do to her.
And Jesus, more touch opened her thighs, gently but firmly. Brendan was stretched out next to her, his soothing hand on her cunt, stroking her swollen clit over and over. And the two of them were doing whatever they wanted with her while she ached for release…
Beg, Ian breathed. Beg for what you really want.
Steady footsteps sounded in the hall. Lightheaded, she slapped the handcuffs back inside the lamp, just as Brendan walked in the door. His amused expression turned her face even hotter.
“Glow in the dark?” she sniffed. “Really? I thought you had class.”
Brendan chuckled, but his eyes flickered over the flush on her skin.
“You're as nosy as Ian is. No wonder you guys are perfect together.” He took the cuffs out of the lamp and handed them back to her. “Here. Have a look.”
“They look uncomfortable.” She busied herself examining the cuffs, turning them over and trying out the mechanism that opened them. “Who would want to wear these?”
“No idea.” Brendan’s look of wide-eyed innocence could have belonged to his brother. “Maybe someone who likes being uncomfortable.”
Her legs turned to jelly.
“Who would want that?”
Brendan's teasing voice floated past her ears. “Someone who likes being pushed. Someone who can handle more than she thought she could. Someone who wants to let go.”
Jesus. Instinctively she reached out to him for support, and he put a hand on her back to steady her.
“You can get softer ones.” Brendan sounded normal again. “You might like those better, Di.” He took the cuffs from her and held them up to the light, like this was just a friendly chat with a big brother who dispensed kinky advice. “Wanna borrow them?”
She swallowed. “I— no. That's okay.”
Brendan looked surprised. “You trust Ian, right?”
“Of course.”
He grinned. “He’d probably let you put them on him, if you wanted to. He’d do a lot for you. You don't have to be scared, Di. It's really fun.”
“Easy for you to say.” Her face flamed. “Nothing scares you. You’re not even ticklish. And I’m a hundred per cent positive you’re not the one wearing the handcuffs, so don’t tell me about being scared.”
Brendan’s smile disappeared. “Do you have a problem with that?”
She crossed the room, restless and prickly. She’d felt raw all day. Overwhelmed, sick of secrets, desperate to keep them. Feelings were beating inside her, dying to get out. Her boyfriend’s twin, standing there by the bed with his glow-in-the-dark handcuffs, made her want to snap.
“You always have to be in control,” she burst out. “Don’t you? Everything has to go your way.”
“Not everything.” Brendan watched her, his eyes alert.
“You asked a few people to ‘drop by’ today instead of hanging out with me and Ian. Because for whatever reason, you don’t want to do that.”
“I’m talking to you right now. Alone, like you asked.”
The edge in Brendan’s voice made her want more. Jesus, wasn’t it enough that she’d pushed Ian to lose control? Her stomach was knotting, pressure hot behind her eyes.
“Okay. Thank you. So when are things going to change? Ian's trying, but you're not.”
Hazel eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”
“The good twin-bad twin bullshit.”
“It's not bullshit.”
She ignored his warning tone. “It absolutely is. Tell the truth for once.”
Brendan walked over to the desk and looked out the window. Blowing out a breath, he turned to meet her eyes. The charm was back, curving his lips in a winning smile.
“I just ‘fessed up to putting a slug in the DiStefanos' mailbox. What more could you want?”
“Yeah, but you still think it's funny.”
“Come on, Di. It was a giant slug. Of course it's funny.” Brendan's dimples invited her to share the joke. “We were fucking five years old. It's in the past. Let it go.”
“Says the boy whose wall is covered with old photos.”
Brendan folded his arms over his chest. She’d used the wrong word. Brendan wasn't a boy any more than Ian was.
She pressed into the silence. “I looked at your pictures before you came in. You were so busy being wonderful. Did you really do his homework in high school? Because that is fucked up.”
“Yes, Diana. I helped Ian in high school.” Brendan was speaking very slowly. The space between them stretched tight. Those three feet felt like a rubber band, pulling her closer to Brendan and shooting her away. “You know why? Because Ian has trouble in school.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “Maybe he would have pulled it together on his own. He's doing that now.”
“Because he gives a shit. He didn't then. He wasn't thinking about the future. Someone had to.”
“So when you’re not hanging on to the past, you’re controlling the future? Do you ever just deal with the present?”
Brendan's mouth opened. Staring at his face, the tension bunching his muscles, she knew she'd pushed him to the end of his fuse.
“You don't know what you're saying, Diana. You think you understand the situation and how to handle it, but you don't. You're young, you're so fucking naive, you think everything is black and white, you're shit-smart but you know nothing about the world or anyone who’s different than you, because you basically locked yourself in your goddamn room and lived and breathed school for six years and now you come out expecting to do everything.”
“Brendan?” she gasped. She didn't believe her ears. “Fuck you. You said I could do anything when I graduated. Was that another line?”
“I’ve never fed you a line, Di.” Brendan's voice was quiet now, vibrating with anger. “I’ve never lied to you. You think Ian's this victim, playing a part he never wanted to play. Would you believe me if I told you he was into it? That it was real?”
“It's not all of him.”
“No, it's not. But it wasn't fake, either. He cut class because he wanted to, he smoked shit because he wanted to, he screwed more girls than even I can count because he wanted to.”
“Okay.” The room wavered around her. “I get it. You can stop now.” She whirled toward the wall and covered her face with her hands.
“Jesus. Jesus Christ, I'm sorry.” Brendan was in front of her, holding her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Di. I shouldn't have said that.”
“No, I told you to be honest.” She couldn't take her hands off her face. She couldn’t breathe. “It’s my fault.”
“I went too far. That was shitty of me. He's always wanted you.”
“I don't want to fight with you,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen you lose your temper before.”
Brendan laughed briefly. “That's because I don’t.”
“I just—” She let out a shaky breath. Then she grabbed him in a hug, hard.
Brendan was going to think she was crazy. But his arms went around her, pulling her close.
“It's not just that,” she said into his chest. “It's everything.”
“Shhh. Shhh, it's okay,” he soothed. His voice was still urgent, but he rubbed her back in circles, her neck. She squeezed his waist, wanting the solidity. “Whatever it is, it's going to be okay.”
“Can I tell you?”
“You can tell me anything.”
“Ian took me really hard last night,” she whispered.
For a minute, no one spoke.
Then — oh God. That was a definite throb against her belly. She kept her face pressed against his chest, not daring to react to the sudden erection between them.
Brendan stopped rubbing her back. He eased his body away from hers.
She forced herself to look up at him. Please just be my big brother right now, she thought, as hard as she could. I need you to keep hugging me.
“Don’t let go,” she said out loud.
Slowly, Brendan’s hand flattened on her back. He held her carefully, like she was a time bomb about to detonate.
“Did you want Ian to take you that way?” he asked softly.
“Yes.”
“Did you like it?” Brendan’s hand moved into her hair.
She swallowed. “Yes,” she breathed. “I liked it. Did he say anything to you?”
Dimples flickered in and out. “I saw the scratches on his back when he went to shower this morning. That was you, wasn’t it, Di? It wasn’t just Ian being rough. You were giving it right back to him.”
“Yeah.” The word came out on a long breath. “I started it. He took me to that boxing arena you guys sneaked off to when you were thirteen. The one he kept going back to.” Brendan’s startled expression reminded her that had been the twins’ secret, but she rushed on. “I asked him to let it all out and show me everything. And he wanted me to lose all control. If we could have devoured each other, we would have. It was so much…it was so intense…oh God.” She buried her face in Brendan’s chest and squeezed her eyes shut. “I came so hard it scared me,” she whispered. “I know it sounds crazy. But I don’t know what to do. I can’t talk about this with anyone but you.”
Jesus, Brendan was rock-hard. His powerful arms circled her, his fingers tightened in her hair. And fuck — her heavy breasts pressed against his chest. She should step out of the circle of his arms, right now, but she stubbornly stayed in the hug.
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