“Ye alright, Anthony?”
“I’m fine, Reilly. I just need to go to bed. Those gin and tonics were way stronger than I thought.”
“They usually are!” Reilly chuckles, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Make sure she gets home, Reilly.”
“I am home, Anthony,” I giggle. Reilly’s hazel eyes bore into me. They glow with what looks like lust. It has to be lust.
“That was fast,” Anthony says. He hiccups and stumbles toward me, giving me a hug. “I’m glad you’re home, baby sis. I’ve missed you.”
I hold my breath at the smell of his. He reeks of alcohol. “I missed you, too.”
Anthony pulls away, lightly tapping my forehead with his hand as he turns and walks away. “Get her home, Reilly. I’m counting on you,” Anthony says.
“No problem,” Reilly replies. “She’s safe with me.”
I stare into Reilly’s eyes, getting lost in the golden-green-brown abyss. The door shuts once more, and we are left alone again. The crickets sing and a few frogs croak around us.
“I should probably go,” I mention.
“We haven’t finished our conversation.”
“We’ve said everything we’ve needed to say. We can be friends, Reilly.”
“If that’s what ye want.”
It’s not, but beggars can’t be choosers. “I’m just glad you never hated me.”
“I could never hate ye, Gwenie. Ever.”
I read into the words more than I should. I don’t want to, but the damn hope that lives in my chest can be a real bitch sometimes. “It was good seeing you, Reilly. You look good. Real good.” I want to lick him. He looks better than good. He’s delectable. The most handsome man I’ve ever seen. But that’s for me to know, and me only.
He smiles, showing his straight, whitened teeth. One side of his lips curls higher than the other side. I’ve always liked that. I think it adds character. “So do you, Gwenie. You’ve always been beautiful though, so…” He runs his hand through his hair, messing it up.
“So?”
“Yeah. I’ve always thought ye were beautiful. What man didn’t?”
I don’t care about all those other men. I only care about him. I know that just because a man calls a woman beautiful doesn’t mean he likes her. But nonetheless, my heart grows wings and flutters right over into his palm, and he has no clue he owns it.
“Thank you.” My response sounds lame after I say it, but I don’t know what else to say. “I should go. Thanks for walking me home.” I giggle, remembering Anthony’s earlier statement.
“Anytime, Gwenie. And ye should do that more often.”
“What?”
“Laugh.”
“When I have something to smile about, maybe I will. Goodnight, Reilly.”
“Goodnight, Gwenie.”
I smile and take a step away from the man of my dreams. As soon as my hand touches the door handle, I feel Reilly’s fingers wrap around my wrist as he pulls me toward him.
“Reilly?” I ask, surprised.
He cups my face with his hands, making my eyes flutter. “This is a really bad idea. I tried. I tried for years not to want ye, Gwen. You’re here now, though, and I can’t keep myself away from ye.”
“What are you saying, Reilly?”
“I want to kiss ye. I’ve wanted to kiss ye since I held ye on your graduation day.”
The words that I’ve wanted to hear for over a decade finally spill from his lips, but I don’t know what to say in response. I hold my hands over his, leaning against the palm of his hand and marveling at his warmth. “I’ve waited so long to hear you say that.”
“I’ve waited a long time to say it.”
“Why?” I whisper, peering up at him through my wispy eyelashes.
“It was never the right time. It was also partially because of fear.”
“And what? That fear isn’t gone, is it?” I ask. His eyes soften, giving me my answer. “I can’t let you kiss me, Reilly. Not if we don’t plan on fighting that fear. It’s been you. It’s always been you, and my heart wouldn’t be able to survive if I only got to kiss you once.”
He leans his forehead against mine, tangling his fingers in my hair. We don’t say a word. The moment feels more intimate than a kiss. My body fights its natural reaction. So many butterflies flow throughout my entire body that I feel like I’m about to float off the ground. The anticipation and temptation tangles my brain cells into a rat’s nest, and I can’t even think straight anymore.
“I want to kiss ye more than anything, but I want to deserve it first.” He presses a kiss to my forehead, and I sigh deeply. My palms lay flat against his strong chest, clutching the material of his shirt. He moves his head down, brushing his nose against the tip of mine. “God, I want your lips so bad.”
He ghosts his breath over my lips, and I flick my tongue out to wet my bottom lip, but he is hovering so close, I almost swipe his, too. He groans. “Ye killing me. I can’t believe I have ye here, in me arms, after so many years. This doesn’t feel wrong because it isn’t. This isn’t a mistake. Do ye feel that?” He holds my hand over his heart, and I lean my head against his chest, making myself at home.
“You’ve always felt like this to me,” I whisper, pulling away from his embrace. Tears start to prickle my eyes as I think about everything he said. But why now? Why did I have to wait so long to hear that he is so into me? “I need to go,” I say, despite wanting him now more than ever. Confusion, anger, hurt, happiness, and a hundred other emotions consume me.
Everything I’ve ever wanted is finally mine, but I can’t believe it.
“Gwenie?”
“I need some time to think.” I hold my hand against my head, trying to understand what just happened. He has always been a dream. Since when does he care to make it a reality?
Chapter Ten
Reilly
I watch Gwen walk back into the house, leaving me in the dark with nothing but the stars. I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her all night, and the moment I finally got some time with her, I fucked up. I don’t know how I fucked up, considering I told her I wanted her, and she told me she wanted me. But somehow, I still managed to upset her.
“I don’t understand women,” I mumble to myself as I trot down the steps to the backyard. “Oh right. I forgot the whiskey.”
I turn around and snag it off the railing before making my way to the oak tree that Anthony and I used to climb when we were kids. The branches are long and thick, twirling up to the tip of the house. One of them leads to Gwen’s bedroom window.
“I shouldn’t do this,” I tell myself, staring up at the massive tree. “If she ain’t pissed at me now, she sure will be if I do this.” I place the longneck of the bottle in my mouth and grab one of the lower protruding branches, using it to swing myself up and into the oak tree. I wrap my legs around the tree trunk, straddling it.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I mutter under my breath. I feel like a teenager again, trying to do anything I can to get the girl I’m interested in to be interested in me.
No other girl even compared to Gwen while we were growing up. It always felt like I was buying time. I was just waiting until the moment was right to sweep her off her feet and whisk her away in my arms.
The bottle falls from my mouth, landing on the ground and shattering into a million pieces. “Oh, shite.” My foot slips on the bark, and I hang there for a minute by the strength of only one arm. The rough bark scratches against my hand as I tighten my grip around the branch. I swing my body until I have enough momentum to get my legs over the branch again and pull myself up.
I sit there for a moment, trying to catch my breath. I forgot how exhausting climbing trees is. The last time I climbed this tree, I was with Anthony. We were sixteen, and it didn’t end well back then, either. Both of us had fallen out of the tree. I broke my right arm and he broke his left. I swore I’d never climb the damned oak tree ever again. And yet here I am, climbing
it years later. I must be out of my mind.
Aye, to be fair, I am—for Gwen.
“Damn tree. If I finally get up there only to find that her window is locked, I’ll know ye cursed. Yer just out to get me, then.” I pat the branch, giving it a good talking to before placing my foot in another cranny and lifting myself up.
Really sucks about the whiskey, though. That was a good bottle.
I finally get to the branch that leads to her window and pull myself along. My jeans tug on the bark as I get closer to the end. The branch starts to bend a bit from my weight. “Please, don’t snap,” I whisper to the tree, as if it could hear me. Once the branch stops warping, I take a deep breath and dig my fingers under the edge of the window, but before I lift it, I peek in to make sure she isn’t there. I mean if she is there, I’ll just knock, but I’d rather not get kicked out before we can talk. As I peer inside, I notice that the bedroom is empty.
I lift the window, wincing at the terrible sound it makes. I whip my head around to make sure no one sees me, because this could technically be considered breaking and entering, especially since no one would understand the circumstance. I try to be as quiet as I can, but big guys like me? We fall really hard. From trees and for girls.
I tumble into her bedroom, falling onto my back. I had been doing so well, too. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, I catch an eyeful of Gwen. Damn, she sure is prettier than any Ireland sunset and every Italian beach I had ever seen.
“What are you doing in here, Reilly? Did you really climb the oak outside?” she asks, annoyed. She leans herself out of the window, turns her head left, looks right, and then shuts it completely. “You could have really hurt yourself like you did all those years ago.”
“I’m smarter now. I know how to climb a tree. The whiskey, however… It didn’t make it.”
She fights a smile and crosses the room to close her bedroom door. “As awful as that sounds, what are you doing here, Reilly? We’ve said all we needed to say.” She makes her way over to her dresser, taking off her earrings.
“There’s still plenty left to say,” I grunt as I stand, brushing my hands on my jeans to wipe off the bark. I hiss because my hand stings. I look down to see a dozen or so splinters embedded into my palm.
She runs over to me. Concern etched in her features, she takes my hand in hers, turning it this way and that way. “Look what you did to yourself! You’re hurt.”
“No, I’m fine. Just a few scratches. It isn’t a big deal.”
She digs her thumb into my palm, and I wrench my hand back. “Well, when ye go and do that, yeah, it hurts. Jeez, woman.”
“It wasn’t supposed to hurt when I did that. Jeez, man,” she mocks me. “Come on, follow me.” She wraps her fingers around my wrist, and I notice how small they are just then. They are slender and delicate-looking. Her fingers are so small that they don’t touch, since my wrist is too big to wrap her hand around completely, but the only thing that runs through my mind is the image of her fingers circling my cock.
As I follow behind her, my eyes stay glued to her plump ass as it sways back and forth in that tight little dress. She flips the bathroom light on and pushes me against the counter. I wish the roles were reversed. It’d be so easy to lift her dress, slide her panties to the side, and drive deep inside her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hmm? What?”
“You’re scowling,” she observes as she puts her hair into one of those messy buns. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from reaching out and skimming my fingers down the smooth column of her neck.
“I’m not looking forward to you playing doctor, that’s all.” That was a much better response than saying what I was actually thinking.
“It won’t hurt a bit. You’re a big, strong man. You can take it.” She shoots me a wink before opening one of her bathroom drawers and rummaging through it in search of something. She had already taken off her makeup within the time it took me to make it to her bedroom and fall through her window. She doesn’t need any of that crap. She has perfect skin—the kind that naturally glows underneath the warm rays of the sun. Her lashes are long and thick—dark, even without the mascara. Her lips are a beautiful shade of pink, but I want to see them swollen and red from a kiss shared between us.
“You’re staring at me,” she says, opening up another drawer.
“You’re beautiful.”
She pulls out a pair of tweezers, ignoring what I said. “This may be a little uncomfortable, but I think you’ll be okay.”
“It’s true. You are beautiful.”
She holds my palm face up, shaking her head. “You can’t say things like that. We’ve been ignoring each other for the better part of… Well, forever. So, we might as well keep the trend going.”
“Why?”
She plucks a splinter out.
“Ow!”
“Oh, you big baby. That didn’t hurt,” she grumbles as she plucks out another one.
“Shite, woman! Ye out to kill me!” I yank my hand back, clutching it to my chest and staring at her like she’s holding a scalpel.
She rolls her pretty bright blue eyes at me and yanks my hand toward her. “I didn’t know you were such a baby.”
I pucker my lips for a minute, sealing my mouth shut as she continues plucking splinter after splinter, out of my palm. I want to whine and scream as those sharp little metal clamps dig into my skin.
“Why did you climb through my window?”
“I wanted to talk to you some more.”
“You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you had just texted me.”
“I didn’t want to text ye. I wanted to see ye.”
A muscle ticks in her jaw and she plucks the last splinter out with a bit of aggression. “I don’t get you, Reilly.” She tosses the tweezers down on the counter, turns on the faucet, and sticks my hand underneath the water. She does everything with jerky movements.
“I’ve done something to upset you,” I try, watching her facial expressions.
She lifts her chin and guilt eats at me as water fills her eyes. “Kind of, yeah, Reilly. I don’t know what to make of you. I’ve had a stupid crush on you since the day I met you all those years ago, and you never even batted an eye at me. You ignored me for years and I tried to get your attention so many times, but it failed. I heard you tell my brother that you thought of me as a sister, so yeah, I just finally took a step back. The only time I saw you was at my college graduation, and even then, you looked pained to see me, as if it physically disgusted you to touch me or something. I’ve tried so many times to date, but all I ever did was compared other boys to you. I don’t know why, considering this is the longest conversation we have actually had. And then you sat there and told me that you wanted me all those years…”
Gwen scoffs, unscrews the cap off a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and jerks my hand over the sink. “You have some damn nerve,” she continues, pouring the solution over my palm.
“Damn it to hell, that hurts!” I groan as the liquid seeps into the little wounds on my hand. She just smiles. Oh, the little lady is enjoying this way too much. “You’re an evil woman.” I hiss when she pours more over my hand.
“I’m just trying to help.” She bats her eyelashes at me.
“Ye so full of it.” I roll my eyes.
She grabs a towel and pats my palm dry before leading me back to her bedroom. As she closes the door I reach a hand to touch her face, leaning in until I can smell the sweet citrus of her perfume. “Please try to understand that I didn’t know any other way to put distance between us. You were too young when I noticed how beautiful ye were.”
“And college?” she asks, leaning her jaw into my hand like she couldn’t deny the pull that had been festering between us all night.
“Your brother. He’s me best lad. I can’t imagine losing him.” Her eyes close from my words, and she nods, trying to take a step back, but I follow. “But I can’t imagine losing this
with ye, either.” I rub my thumb over the apples of her cheek.
“I’ve been waiting to hear those words from you for so long. I can’t believe they’re real.”
My breath skips when she lays her hands flush against my chest. The warmth from her hands radiates under my skin, even so much as to seep into my heart.
I lean my forehead against hers. “I want to try one thing,” I whisper, stepping closer into her space.
“You’ve been drinking.” The excuse falls off her lips like a well-told lie.
“Aye, but so have ye. I can tell ye this, I ain’t drunk. I feel me nerves firing in my body, doing somersaults, and twisting in my stomach.”
She leans her head back and the tips of her hair rub against my hand, which was resting on her waist. Her lashes fan over her cheeks as she blinks her glistening gems at me. “I love your accent. It makes my legs all jello−y,” she admits, and a red hue darkens her cheeks.
“Really? I try to keep it from sounding too heavy.”
“I love it most when it’s heavy,” she whispers really low, as if she doesn’t mean for me to hear it. “This really isn’t a good idea.” Her palms rub my chest. “It isn’t at all, especially if we don’t want my brother to find out.”
“I know. Ye right, but I have to do it. I can't help myself,” I say as I inch my way to her lips. She stands on the tips of her toes, trying to meet me. I hover my mouth over hers, wondering last-minute if I should pull away. Fuck it, though. I’ve come this far, and there isn’t any turning back now.
My lips brush over hers like a feather—tentative at first, testing and making sure I’m welcome. She gasps into my mouth and pants heavy breaths. Our lips pull apart for a moment, stopping the soft kiss before it had time to begin. I tilt my head in the other direction, pressing my lips against hers once again. I can taste the whiskey on her breath along with a hint of peach from an earlier drink. I groan, wrapping my arms around her and aligning our bodies until the inches between us are gone.
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