Hotshot (The Bennett Brothers 1)

Her lips linger on mine longer as she slips her tongue through, touching mine lightly then leaning back too soon. “I do feel the same,” she whispers.

Warmth floods through my body and the anger disappears. “Jesus Christ, baby.” I squeeze tight. “Don’t ever do that shit to me again.”

Her head drops to my shoulder, and she sniffs a few times, trembling against me. “I’m sorry, Shaw, but please, understand where I’m coming from. I’m so scared.”

“Scared of what? Tell me and you’ll never be scared again.” There’s so much truth to the statement, me pleading with her to tell me everything.

“Most people don’t go away on a weekend trip and come back in love.”

“We’re not most people.”

She leans back, her eyes shining bright, the tears almost dried. “I don’t want to hide. But can we wait until the next monthly dinner night and explain it to the guys?”

“Mathis already knows my feelings. He called me out before we left. And obviously, Gail knows something.”

She narrows her eyes then starts to laugh, throwing her head back. “Claire will know the minute she sees me.”

“So it’s just Nick?”

“And our parents.”

“Why wait, Bizzy?”

“Nicky is a bit protective. I think we need to ease him into this.”

“He’s almost twenty-five. He’s a big boy.”

She gives me a skeptical look and puts her forehead against mine. “You may not understand. You may never understand, but I need to plant the seeds with him. He may be a big, tough football player, and even more of a macho ass with the guys, but he’s very protective of me. I’d like to do this my way. It means a lot.”

Well, shit. When she looks at me with such love and concern, I falter. To me, Nick is a powerhouse. But in reality, the woman in my arms, the woman I love, is also his best friend, the one woman he’d die for, so understanding starts to sink in.

“I’m not happy about this, but we’ll do it your way. Next MDN, everyone knows,” I mumble.

“Agreed.”

“I’ll make it up to you, promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that. And when we finally let the ‘secret’ out, we’ll talk about you moving in.”

“Shaw!”

“Don’t say another word. I’ve agreed to too much already. Now is when you kiss me, declare your devotion, and spend the next fifteen minutes convincing me I wasn’t just cock-blocked by my baby brother.”

“Oh, I can assure you, your baby brother will never block your cock. But, after today, let’s never mention the two in the same sentence again.”

She starts to nibble on my ear and kiss her way down my jaw. Then she shocks the hell out of me, erasing all coherent thoughts. “When we get home tonight, I’ll finally have access to all my lingerie… Maybe it will finally get some use.”

This night has taken a turn for shit. I sit in Bizzy’s living room, cramped in her shitty armchair, watching Nick and Claire look at her pictures. If it were up to me, we’d have ditched everyone the moment we walked into her apartment, but Nick had other ideas. He wanted to discuss the game yesterday, never being dissuaded when I explained we watched every second of it. Then Claire showed up with bags of take-out.

I’d have fallen for her best friend slash interested routine until she took one look at my scowl. She darted her eyes between Bizzy and me for a good ten seconds before settling down and insisting Bizzy upload the pictures to her computer so she could see them better. I knew, she was testing me. It was hard to swallow my aggravation until I saw Bizzy’s excitement. She gave me a knowing look, and I relented, sitting in the chair, while she gave a rundown of the weekend, minus the sex, the intimacy, and the declaration of love.

Nick whoops, standing proud, when Bizzy tells about her meeting with Darren and his reaction to last year’s game. Mathis comes over, handing me a beer and nudges me, jerking his head to the back porch.

No one gives us a second glance when we walk out, too involved in Bizzy’s stories.

“What’s up?” I don’t waste time when we get outside.

“You went for it.”