Unmistakable

I had forgotten Nicole entirely. I’d like to continue to forget her, but my arm is caught in a bony grip. It disgusts me to give into her pout, but I need an escape.

  “Yeah. I’ll be right back.” Probably not.

  Before I can scour the crowd for any sign of Stella, Nicole catches my hand again. I whip around and see a tall, good-looking guy putting some serious moves on her. Good on him.

  Nicole thrusts a little bag into my hands. “Here. Hold this for me.”

  She says it with the confidence of a beautiful woman who’s never known rejection. Even though we just met a couple of days ago, I know all of her tricks. I’ve been with dozens of Nicoles over the past couple of years. I hate myself for it, but I can’t seem to stop.

  Sex magnifies the pain, and a perverse part of me wants that. Needs it. It’s no less than I deserve. I can almost see Caroline’s little pity-filled smile, the one that says, “I know exactly what you’re doing, Luke, and you and I both know it’s never going to work.”

  It’s usually not a problem. I can silence her voice, unlike her daughter’s.

  I start to shove the bag back into Nicole’s hands, fully intending on accompanying the gesture with a snarky comment, but I freeze.

  There’s a flash of light, and my heart implodes.

  This was inevitable. The universe was going to align itself for us sooner or later. It doesn’t change the fact that I could never have been prepared for the reality of her.

  Green cat eyes peek out from skin the color of cream mixed with honey, but my eyes slide lower, to red lips made for all kinds of things that I should not be thinking about because she’s practically my little sister, even though I haven’t had a brotherly thought about her in more than five years. Shit. I look at the lines of the green and gold dress, taking in the curves hidden below the mesh-like fabric. Part of me wants to scream at her for wearing the dress in public. A bigger part of me wants to rip it from her body, the rest of the crowd be damned.

  Her expression is flickering from amused to serious to laughing and back again. I follow her gaze and realize that she’s talking to someone in the crows. Talking without words is just one of her innumerable talents, but it’s one that I haven’t thought about in a while. My physical response is immediate and undeniable.

  The shimmering blond hair is gone, replaced by jet black waves that don’t quite line up with my fantasies. It doesn’t matter. She looks so incredibly beautiful, and so incredibly fragile, that I can’t take it. I have to touch her. I don’t think she knows that I’m here, don’t think that she felt that same jolt.

  Desire is my burden alone, then.

  I hand the bag back to Nicole. “No.”

  Stella’s body shakes with the effort of taking a breath. If I were a better man, I would leave right now, but I’m not a better man. I’m so fucking tired of fighting this.

  The stormy sea in her eyes knocks me back to earth. She’s not the least bit surprised to see me. If anything, she’s pissed.

  The goth chick in the hallway. It was her, and she didn’t say a word.

  Her body is readying itself for flight. Nice try, but I don’t fucking think so.

  I’m pissed, too, and from experience, I know that repressed heat turns into combat. We haven’t had a conversation that didn’t end in a fight in years, not since I realized that I was so in love with her that I couldn’t see straight.

  “Come. Dance with me.” I sound like an overbearing jackass. I try again, my voice shaking with the effort of maintaining control. “Come.”

  Her eyes move back and forth between the girl in the crowd and my hand on her arm, but eventually, I feel her body surrender. I curl my fingers into her skin.

  I don’t trust myself to speak to her, because if this is all I get, I’m going to need to relive it for years. It’s not a dream, because dreams are phantoms, and her skin, trembling and soft and damp, can only be real.

  Dancing seems like a truly terrible plan, but I can’t think of another option. I seek a space in the crowd, a place away from prying eyes. When I find it, I hesitate for a fleeting second, and then I draw her into my body and try not to crush her with my unchecked need.

  She’s tinier than I remembered, and the dress reveals too much skin. I will not touch her flesh. I won’t do it. I slide my fingers up and down the dress, touching every inch of fabric until I get to her back, which is entirely exposed.

  I drag my hand away. Fuck.

  My newly hatched plan breaks apart. I touch her arms, her back, her face. My fingers linger on her cheek, and I will her silently to look at me.

  She refuses. Smart girl.

  I notice, for the first time, that our feet are moving. It’s the same old dance we’ve done a thousand times. Just before the grand finale, I’m the one who needs to look away. Does she trust me? I lower her into the final dip, letting her hair brush the ground before pulling her tightly into me.

  A lock of black hair falls onto her cheek and I brush it back behind her ear and feel my face relax into a smile. My reward is a flash of emerald brilliance, a look that makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world. She used to look at me like that all the time, back when we were kids and I was her favorite playmate. Then, her eyes turn to smoke, her unpainted lips widen, and she finally releases that breath.

  We’re playing far more treacherous games, and I lose all sense of time and place, of promises that I must have known would be broken.

  I’m in love with her.

  It took me a long time to figure that one out. I pulled my head out of my ass long enough to realize that she was beautiful when I was eighteen. Jack and I had shown up at her track meet after baseball practice and she was dancing around with one of her silly little friends. The rest of the girls were still in training bras, but Stella had grown up and gotten all kinds of gorgeous while her brother and I weren’t watching.

  Some random junior commented on the shapeliness of her legs. Jack decked him in the head. Personally, I think he got off easy.

  After that, the word got out. Anyone would have to be crazy to mess with Jack, so she managed to stay blissfully unaware of the effect that she had on men. I watched from a distance and tried to ignore everything about her.

  It worked, at least until the red dress incident. I couldn’t keep my hands off her. My filthy hands that she wanted no part of.

  I love her, and the best possible thing I can do is to get in my car, drive to the nearest airport, and head for Timbuktu and make the disappearance permanent this time.

  She’s frozen in my arms, so I press my lips to her temple in the most brotherly of ways. I fully intend on releasing her before I get any bright ideas, but she smells like honeysuckle and moonlight and heaven. I’ve never felt less brotherly.

  I slide my hands around her waist and hold on tight. This might be my last chance. I ignore the violent shaking of her body, the clear indication that she needs to be released, because I’m a selfish fucking pig and I want to keep her in my arms forever.

  “Stella.” Her name is a sacrament.

  She struggles against my arms and I clasp her tighter until eventually, unable to be the cause of any more of her pain, I let her slide into the crowd. But I can’t stop myself from calling out her name.

  * * *

  Oh fuck.

  What have I done?

  I place both hands on the windowsill and the ferociousness of my grip splinters the paint. It flakes off in tiny chips, but even that does little to dampen my need for destruction. I’d break the damn thing, but then I’d have to clean it up and I already have a much more perilous situation on my hands.

  I want to roll back the annoying red numbers on the clock. I should have left Izzy at the door. I never should have come here. I knew the temptation would be too great for me to withstand. I’ve gotten used to trying to destroy myself, but I just had to drag her into this.

  Breaking something might release some pent-up energy, but what I really want is to curl myself back into her soft litt
le body, to take everything that she’s freely offered to me and to make sure that she never offers anything to anyone else. I want to watch the emerald turn to smoke, I want her to yell my name, and I want to kiss and touch and play with her stupid hair until the end of time.

  “Stay away from my little sister. She’s everything good and pure in this world, and you’re everything that’s not.”

  “I love her.”

  “You think you do. But you’re going to break her fucking heart, and I won’t be there to pick up the pieces. Promise me, Luke.”

  A beat. “Yes. I promise.”

  I’m sorry, Jack. You asked too much of me.

  I can’t stand to be in the same room without looking at her, so I glance backwards and then immediately curse my own stupidity. She’s curled up into a tiny ball in the corner of the bed and half of her is endless, streaming waves of hair.

  She shifts her body so that she’s no longer covered by the blanket, and there’s a deep ache in my brain when she stretches her limbs, one by one, until I feel like I really will explode.

  The enormity of what I have to do next rips me into shreds.

  If Jack were alive, I would tell him the truth—that I love her, and the only person in danger of a broken heart here is me. He would hit me until I was bloody and had enough broken limbs to satisfy him.

  It’s a tragedy that he’s not here and that I’m a coward. I’m going to tell whatever lies I need to tell to keep myself from hurting her any more than I already have.

  It hurts like a bitch.

  My anger comes out in a silent scream so loud that I’m surprised to see that the window is still intact.

  “I love you,” she said to me.

  She didn’t mean it. It was another one of her good deeds. She bears the weight of the world on her shoulders and she saw that I needed help, so she offered up another one of her little white lies.

  I’d like to think that I could have withstood anything but that.

  I steel myself and retreat into my own skin. I’ve always been an expert at locking myself away. Caroline would say…

  Shit. I cannot think about what Caroline would say.

  I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. I take another breath.

  “Forget that ever happened.”

  My voice is ice, but it’s filled with tiny cracks that I have to hope she doesn’t look too hard to find. Fully aware that I am still naked and still filled with unquenchable thirst for her body, I grab my pants and pull them over my legs.

  Her voice, tiny and defenseless, comes from the bed.

  “Give it a name, Luke.”

  “We fucked.” We made love. It is a sacrilege to call what happened by that name. I breathe, even though what I really want to do is throw myself on the altar of her mercy. “That’s the last time you’ll hear it from my lips. It never happened.” If only I could convince myself of that.

  “You are such an asshole.” Venom spews from her lips. That’s good. I want her to hate me.

  “Yeah, I am.” Yeah, I am, but this is the only way, Stela bella.

  “That’s it, Luke? Seriously? You were just waiting for Jack to get out of the picture before making me another one of your conquests? That meant nothing to you, huh?”

  I’m going to break, and I can’t be here when I do. We throw daggers at each other, passing them back and forth. It’s more of the same old verbal sparring, but this time, there’s a gravity that’s never been there before, not even that day on the patio.

  She threatens to come to my class. My response is incoherent and cruel.

  Finally: “I was pissed and I reached for the nearest piece of ass to calm me down. It just happened to be you. You lucked out, sweetheart.”

  I love you.

  “Good to know.” A beat. Her voice softens and I almost lose it. “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

  No. I’ve always been in love with you. “Apparently not.”

  More inane responses. More hurt in the service of good. I have to believe that’s what this is.

  Finally, she stands up, and I can’t help but look. Her body is on full display and I stare, just one last time.

  “Get. Out. Now.”

  “Happy to oblige.” I hate myself.

  I fumble with the door. I’m can’t get my hands to work properly. She must see my struggle, but she offers no help.

  I am despicable. The lowest form of mankind.

  The sins just continue to build.

  Anger. Lust. Jealousy. Greed. I’m sure I’ve hit all seven at one point or another, even if I never can remember what they all are.

  Worst of all, I broke a deathbed promise to my best friend.

  Jack’s voice rings in my head: “Give it a name, Luke. What was that promise you broke? Say it to yourself. You deserve pain. You deserve punishment.”

  I deserve a hell of a lot more than that, but it’s a start. I give it a name. I made love to the person that I’ll be in love with her for the rest of my life. I felt like a fucking god. I felt like the universe had finally stopped playing jokes and that I would spend the rest of my life trying to make her as happy as she makes me.

  And then I threw it all away. I will never feel her body trembling in my arms, I will never see her eyes turn to smoke, I will never touch the little place behind her knee that makes her squeal. I will never tell her that I love her.

  The words slide from my mouth. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I actually think Jack really might be able to hear me: “Don’t you think that’s punishment enough?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  I curse the universe for a while until I realize that no amount of cursing will take back the things I said. Or the things I did.

  There’s nothing left but aching, throbbing pain.

  And that is exactly what I deserve.

  Sneak Peek of Beholden

  Quinn

  2006

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  “We need to talk.”

  Clearly, those are the words every woman in the universe longs to hear. Luckily, my most cherished possession is an almost infinite capacity to ignore reality.

  If I had any sense at all, I would run for cover. Then again, my lack of sense is directly correlated to my ability to ignore basic facts. I whirl around and focus my eyes on one perfectly sculpted cheekbone.

  “No. You need to talk, and you want me to listen,” I say softly.

  Holden Evans is caught unaware and rendered speechless, probably for the first time in his life. I can pick laughter or tears. For all of my other faults, I’ve never been morose, so a mirthless giggle will just have to do.

  Although I can’t avoid the encroaching storm, I have a brief reprieve and an irresistible need to feel the blades of grass between my toes. I toss my flip flops to the side and dart across the grassy levee, seeking a tiny corner of the Fly that’s free from kites and children and rambunctious dogs and the man who has already broken my heart. When I reach a sheltered cluster of trees, I sneak a look over my shoulder. Silhouetted against the brilliance of the too-colorful sky, the geometric perfection of his features is more pronounced than ever.

  I’m that girl. The one who falls for the sickeningly handsome guy with the dazzling smile and charm. He’s emotionally unavailable, of course, as are all sickeningly handsome men with dazzling smiles.

  By contrast, I am stupid, reckless, decidedly unbeautiful, and completely emotionally available. Damn him.

  He catches me staring, and as a punishment, I’m gifted with one of those aforementioned smiles. He closes the distance between us in effortless strides that emphasize the fluid movements of his muscles, and just before he reaches me, I fall against the sweet, dewy grass and turn my face up to the sky, wanting desperately to suspend time.

  When I feel the shadow cast by his imposing frame, I whisper, “Come lay with me awhile.”

  He settles his body down next to mine, but I don’t fail to notice that he leaves a small, but intentional, space in betwee
n our bodies.

  This entire day has been a carefully orchestrated prelude to the words that I don’t want to hear. Only Holden would want that for me—one glorious, perfect day before he takes himself away. I hate him for it. I love him for it.

  He made the decision to leave at least a week ago. The tip-off was a small thing, of course. We were having a minor disagreement about sushi and burritos. He turned to me and said, “We can get whatever you want, Quinn.” That’s when I knew—Holden hates burritos, and he never gives in without a fight.

  I held out hope that New Orleans’s charms would entice him into staying. I have no such illusions about my own, considerably less potent, allure.

  “Quinn…”

  I cut him off. “It’s hot.”

  “It’s August,” he counters, raising one eyebrow. “In New Orleans.”

  Thank you, Holden, for that insightful observation. Thank you, self, for being a moron.

  Sweat sticks to my back and thighs, and I feel the gritty dirt attaching itself to my skin. By the time we leave, I’ll have added at least a dozen new mosquito bites to my already marred flesh. In short, I’m a mess. I glance at Holden, hoping, for once, that the relentless humidity and swarming insects have left some trace on his perfect body.

  Of course not. His skin sparkles. What’s the saying? “Women glisten and men sweat?” Bullshit.

  From somewhere in the distance, I hear the faint thrums of jazz, the unmistakable sound of a horn, and the steady beat of drums. Someone is celebrating the thunderstorm. I stand up, sticking out my tongue and catching a stray raindrop.

  Laughter lurks at the corners of his mouth. “We should get out of here before the rain comes in.”

  Defiantly, I steal the plastic cup from his hands and raise the spoon to my lips, savoring the sweet flavor of crushed ice and condensed milk. In the oppressive heat of a New Orleans August, snowballs are the best kind of salvation.

  “You’re dripping all over the place,” he says.

  “Then you better take this away from me before I ruin my last semi-clean shirt,” I say, laughing and wiping at my chin.