He looks so bewildered, so lost, that I can’t help reaching out and taking his hands in my own. As I do, a jolt of electricity races through me—the same jolt that comes every time we touch.
The same jolt that sent me running from him that first night when I realized he was stirring up things in me that had never been stirred. Stirring up things that were better left dormant.
“What Garrett and I had…it wasn’t for public consumption.”
“I get that. I do,” he insists, when I raise a brow at him. “But I’m not the public. I’m his brother.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I roll my eyes. “The resemblance makes it hard to miss—you’re not identical but no one can deny that you’re brothers. Even if you are the wild-haired, tattooed type and he isn’t.”
Even as I mention them, I try not to stare at the tattoos in question, but it’s hard when his left arm is decorated with one of the most gorgeous sleeves I’ve ever seen. Done in shades of black and gray, it starts with a beautiful, deconstructed steam punk–type pocket watch on his shoulder while the sands of time wind down his arm, interspersed with roses and the scales of justice.
I probably shouldn’t admit that I’ve wanted to lick them ever since I first saw them on the cover of Time magazine a couple years ago, after they’d named him Person of the Year for his philanthropic work.
“So, why didn’t he tell me?” Kian’s plaintive question draws my attention back to the matter at hand, no matter how much I want to ignore it.
I buy time by slowly reaching into the backseat to get my purse as I try to figure out what to say. I finally settle on, “Want to come inside, maybe have a cup of coffee or another drink?”
There’s a part of me that hopes he says no. After all, talking about this aspect of my relationship with Garrett is completely humiliating and it’s the last thing I want to do after a long night working the bar. At the same time, though, I’d rather get it over with now, instead of having it hanging over my head for God knows how long.
And it will be hanging over my head like a shoe waiting to drop. Someone else might let it go, but nothing I’ve learned about Kian these last two days makes me think he’s the kind of guy to let anything go if it matters to him.
And this obviously matters to him. A lot.
“I’d love a cup of coffee,” he says, slowly disentangling his other hand from mine.
I feel the loss keenly, which is ridiculous considering we’re sitting here talking about my long dead relationship with his brother.
“But,” he says, stroking a hand down my cheek, “I know you’re tired. It can wait.”
I almost take the out. I want to take it, so badly I can almost taste it. But if I have to do this, I might as well rip the bandage off with one swift tug. “No, I’m good. Come on, let’s go inside.”
He climbs out of the car, then walks around to my side to shut the door for me. Then he loops an arm around my shoulder and walks me toward my front door.
With the moon high in the sky and the stars twinkling so brightly, it might have been romantic—except for the subject hanging over our heads. And the six-man security detail slowly trailing behind us.
“They’re going to have to check your place out before I can go in,” Kian says apologetically. “With you not being in there for so many hours—”
“I know the drill,” I answer. And just that quickly things get awkward again.
We wait on the porch while the three men clear my tiny cottage. I want to say something to break the uncomfortable silence but my brain is frozen. I can’t think of anything that won’t make things even more awkward.
Kian must be having the same trouble, though, because he’s looking anywhere but at me as the tension grows and grows and grows.
Lucas and the others finally come back out and I breathe a sigh of relief as they nod to us before heading back t
oward the SUV parked at the curb. At least now I can get in my kitchen and make coffee. It might not give me anything to say, but at least I won’t be standing around like an idiot who can’t formulate a complete sentence.
Except I never make it to the kitchen. Hell, I never even make it out of the foyer, because the second I close the door behind us, Kian is there. Cupping my face, pushing my back against the door, lowering his mouth slowly, slowly, slowly, to mine.
I know I can stop him, know he’s giving me a choice on whether I want to kiss him or not. On whether I want to let him touch me. I shouldn’t want it, but I do. My God, I really do.
Leaning forward, I cover his hands with my own. Then, caught in the blazing green fire of his eyes, I press my lips to his. Softly, sweetly. Once, twice, a third time as I wait for him, wait for—
He breaks so suddenly it shocks me, has my heart fluttering in my chest and my breath trapped in my throat. “Savvy,” he whispers moments before his mouth slams down on mine, open and wet and ravenous against my own.