Rough Edge (Tannen Boys 2)

My voice has gone cold and flat, a defensive mechanism I picked up a long time ago.

I’ve done this dance before. And one of two things is going on here. Option one, he’s decided I’ll be a good stand-in replacement for Emily, though he doesn’t need one because she’s just this side of throwing herself at him. Or option two . . . there’s a certain subset of guys that has twin fantasies, something about double the pleasure, double the fun. As if we’re damn Doublemint gum. No one ever considers that for their twin fantasy to happen, it means me having a sex-moment with my sister, and that’s some fucked-up shit. I love Emily, but never do I want to know what sounds she makes or what her O-face looks like. I won’t say I’ve never done it in front of a mirror, but that’s actually me, not another person who just looks like me.

Brody hasn’t exactly been flirting with us both. He’s actually been pretty quiet all evening, but he was being all gentlemanly putting Emily in her car and now he’s holding me like he’s got plans already formed in his mind . . . and his pants. And he’s got that bad boy charm that says he’d be down for just about anything. ‘Oh, by the way . . . I saw this thing one time . . .’ and we’re back to Doublemint territory.

He lets go of my waist, the evening chill thankfully replacing the warmth of his hands and reminding me of something important. Emily. Not that I forgot, but maybe just a little, for a second.

“Sounds good.”

I step around him, shoulder bumping him in that douchebag-dude way that says ‘you’re so unimportant, I didn’t even see you there’ and stride to my truck. It starts up easily and I pull up next to Bessie.

I make quick work of the cables and jump Bessie off, her diesel roar loud in the night air.

“Follow me,” I order before hopping up in my truck and slamming the door. He can do it or not, his choice. Because I’ve already made mine.

Brody is Emily’s.

And no Doublemint shit.

I remind myself again an hour later.

Brody is Emily’s.

But after we got back to the garage and I did the quick change on the battery, promising I’d only charge for the battery itself and not labor, we’re still sitting here. The music is low, a playlist from my dad that’s mostly 70s rock, and as the guitar riffs of Kansas’s Carry On My Wayward Son wash over me, so do Brody’s eyes.

Again.

When he looks at me that way, the reminder about Emily gets lost in the static in my head. I’m a good sister. Hell, I’m mostly a great sister, but bad thoughts are taking shape.

Dirty, filthy, sexy thoughts that I should not be having about the guy my sister wants.

I sip at my beer, knowing this one is decidedly stouter than the watered-down piss they serve at Two Roses.

“Don’t you need to go?” I shouldn’t ask. I should order him to leave. Normally, I would, but apparently, I’m going soft in my old age. I’m only twenty-six, but apparently, that’s old enough to be ruining my reputation as a hard-nosed bitch.

“No.” Brody doesn’t move a muscle, sitting in a duct-tape covered office chair that Reed usually claims. That seems ironic to me, given their pissing match to see who the Alpha at the bar was.

Newsflash: it’s me. I’m the Alpha.

And anyone who doesn’t think that’s possible can check their misogyny at the door. I’ve had to fight my way through everything that’s been thrown at me, not just a woman in a man’s world, but a tiny, cute woman. If I had a nickel for every man who’s called me ‘baby’, I’d be a rich bitch, sitting on a pile of silver, taking dead shot aim at the fuckers below who got me there. Every one of them underestimated me, but they’d learned not to.

At Dad’s garage, in the Army, and then back again, when it was my turn to take over Cole Automotive.

Now I wonder if Brody’s underestimating me too as he watches me carefully. Every once in a while, his left eye squints a bit like he’s looking beneath my surface. It’s an itchy, uncomfortable sensation, like scrubbing at a rash. You know it’s a bad idea, but it feels so good that you do it anyway.

“You always sit like that? Manspread like your dick needs breathing room?” He’s sitting in Reed’s chair with his thighs wide apart, dick on display again.

“Maybe. You always sit like that? Like you’re airing your cunt out?” He lifts his beer my way, pointing with the neck, and I look down at my legs, crisscrossed in front of me in the chair. They’re so short my knees still fit between the armrests.