Tight

Once everyone was gone, it was just Kennedy and me standing out back. I ran a hand over my jaw, felt the sensitivity of it, knew I probably had blood on my mouth, and wanted desperately to get cleaned up. I didn’t want her seeing me like this.

I’d been drinking, wasn’t completely drunk, but I was buzzed enough that the pain of the hits I’d taken wasn’t one hundred percent.

I gave her one last look before heading inside to the bathroom. The house was trashed with red plastic cups, beer bottles, and paper plates scattered over the floors and counters. Once in the bathroom, I looked in the mirror. I had a bruise forming along my jawline, and some dried blood in the corner of my mouth from where that fucker had clocked me.

I grabbed a hand towel, wet it under the sink, then cleaned off the blood. Shit, the room spun for a moment. I grabbed the edge of the sink, closed my eyes, and for a second just inhaled and exhaled slowly. Before I even opened my eyes, I knew she was standing in the doorway.

“You okay?” she asked softly.

“I’m good,” I said, but the truth was I was far from it. “Only thing seriously bruised is my ego.”

“Do you want me to go?”

I opened my eyes and looked at her. God, she was so pretty. The worried look on her face ate at me and I felt like a bastard for putting it there. “Do you want to go?”

It took her a second to answer, but she finally shook her head slowly. “No.”

“Good, because I really don’t want you to.”

Chapter Twelve

Kennedy

I’d never actually seen a fistfight up close and personal, and one had certainly never been about me. But as I stared at Roman, knowing he’d gotten in that fight because of me, to protect my honor, I couldn’t help the tightening in my belly or the tingling in my limbs.

After everyone had been kicked out, I’d told Isaac that I wanted to stay and make sure Roman was okay, that I’d find my own way home.

I felt lightheaded over that fact, and if at all possible, I fell even more in love with him.

And as he stood there and stared at me, this haziness washing over me, his body reacting to the situation, I knew he wanted me just as much as I did him.

His body was tight, hard.

His pupils were dilated.

His head was downcast as he stared at me.

And I swore I heard this low sound leave him.

I knew there was something extremely potent about Roman. There was something dangerously electric about how I felt toward him. And I knew in this moment that he felt it too, that he was just as immersed in his feelings for me as I was for him.

All these years we’d kept our distance. I regretted that. But we had a chance and I wasn’t going to let that slip through my fingers again.

He moved a step closer to me. I felt high because of Roman, intoxicated by the sight and smell of him, the fact he was all male and I was very feminine.

And no amount of alcohol could match the intoxicating feeling moving through me. I wanted him, wanted to have every part of him covering me, and I didn’t care that he was family, in a taboo sort of way. The fact that he was my step-cousin didn’t make me put a stop to this.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

And mine needed Roman.

Could he see how much I wanted him? Because I swore I could see how much he wanted me.

“Kennedy, God, look at you,” he said with a husky voice, his eyes a little glossy, the fact we’d both been drinking not lost on me. “You look so fucking good.”

I felt this tingle move through me at his words.

It was so late, his house trashed from the party, empty as he’d kicked everyone out. It was just us.

I felt this haze wash over me, felt the alcohol pump through my veins as I stared into his dark eyes. “Roman, what are we doing?” I found myself asking, whispering. Was I finding this all so easy to accept, to go through with, because I’d been drinking? Although I wasn’t drunk, I definitely had a nice buzz going on, one that had my inhibitions lowered.

One that let me feel free and unashamed or embarrassed by how I felt for Roman. Although I knew I shouldn’t care what anyone thought, the fact that being with him could have people upset, have others whispering, talking about us given the fact he was “technically” family, did scare me.

I couldn’t lie and say it didn’t.

But looking at him, seeing the way he stared at me, watched me, made me think who the hell cared about anyone else.