Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars 1)

Stay the fuck away from my sister.

Got it because that shit was not a problem.

Still, my goddamn body physically jolted with the confirmation.

Knew it, that night. The girl had been running scared. Looking for a way to get lost. Swept away.

Now, I felt desperate to know the depths of it.

What the fuck he was actually implying.

Anger threatened to lay siege to my logic.

To raze my focus to the ground. I knew better. I didn’t have the time or the space or the goodness to care or to make it my problem.

I shoved it down in the pits of my corrupt spirit where it belonged.

It was no concern of mine.

Girl was fucking hot. My dick noticed. That was it. Nothing more.

Teeth grinding, I forced a smile. “No need to mention it twice. I got you. Wouldn’t go there, anyway.”

He studied me for a beat. No doubt, he hadn’t missed whatever the hell that interaction was that had gone down between us in his family room. Whatever power had stopped both Mia and me in our tracks. Stole our breaths while something profound pounded through the atmosphere.

He was no fool.

But neither was I.

His nod was clipped. “Figured not.”

I feigned an unaffected smile.

“See you at seven,” he said, stepping out the door.

I itched, not sure how I was going to make it through this shit show. This mockery that was my life.

Motherfucking Karma.

She’d moved into my room and taken a seat at the bar, holding her glass in the air in a silent cheer.

She truly was a bitch.

“I’ll be there.”SevenMiaShit. Shit. Shit.

I shook out my hands where I paced the guest suite on the far wing of the house where I was staying with my children.

There was a living room in the middle with two bedrooms on either side. The entire place so warm and welcoming and perfect except for who was going to be shacking up in the house across the yard.

I shook my head, unable to believe my luck.

Life really did love to play cruel, sick jokes, didn’t it?

I mean . . . seriously.

I’d all but begged that man to sleep with me, thinking it would be a single night. A single encounter. A single experience.

Desperate for a reprieve.

A balm for the pain.

But I should have known if I dipped my toes into the fire, I was gonna get burned.

Scorched.

And boy, oh boy, was I on fire.

I glanced at the mirror that hung over the dressing table, my cheeks beet red and my skin flushed a matching embarrassing color.

I touched the heated spot right over my heart.

Leif.

His name was Leif. Leif, the temporary drummer for my brother’s band. Leif, the guy who was going to be staying in the guest house for the whole damned summer.

Leif, the man who had clearly not been thrilled to see me.

The way disgust and hatred had twisted his jaw in a fierce grimace was seared into my mind.

Massive hands curled into fists that he looked half a second from throwing through a wall.

I’d wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor.

Partly because of the potency of the need that instantly lit, a steady burn that didn’t come close to being slow.

The other half? It’d wanted to disappear. Wilt into nothing. Hide the same way as I’d been doing that night.

But I guessed the problem with that was I kept running into him.

This terrifyingly beautiful man who left no question that he was bad, bad, bad.

Bad for my health and my heart and my sanity.

I jumped ten feet in the air when someone knocked on the door out in the hall.

God.

I really was going to lose it.

Flustered, I smoothed out my hair like it might settle the disorder that rattled through my nerves and rushed through the bedroom to the door in the living area.

I jerked it open.

Tamar was standing on the other side, smirking.

My eyes narrowed. “Why do you look like the cat who ate the canary?”

A whole damned nest of ’em.

Probably baby ones, too.

Her smirk only widened as she waltzed in, her hips swaying side-to-side in her seductive way. I was pretty sure if I attempted it, I’d trip and faceplant into the ground. “I heard our guest arrived.”

I swallowed down the turbulence and forced the words to come out as casual as could be. “Oh yeah. I guess it was about a half an hour ago.”

Thirty-two minutes and seventeen seconds, to be precise.

But who was counting?

She moved into the bedroom where I was staying and flopped onto my bed, releasing a fluttery sigh.

I followed her, wondering what she was up to and knowing it couldn’t be good.

She rolled over onto her side. Blue eyes ridged in perfectly done eyeliner twinkled in mischief. “So . . .” she drew out, scandal injected into the word.

My shoulders heaved in feigned confusion. “So what?”

She got to her knees, way too eager. “So, tell me about him.”