Full Exposure (Independence Falls 1)

“Did you hear me? Your brother’s here.”

Georgia opened her eyes. Eric stood at the side of the bed zipping up his pants, his expression grim. Looking at him, seeing the regret in his eyes, pushed a button somewhere inside her, the one labeled “Emotions. Do not touch.”

She’d shared something with him she’d never shared with another person, something intimate and private. She wasn’t a virgin, though it had been far too long since she’d been with a man, but she’d never put herself on display like this. She’d never given herself an earth-shattering orgasm while someone watched. This was hands down a first.

And it had left her feeling. The physical she could handle. She needed it, craved it like the air she breathed. But the emotional? She’d been running hard from that since she returned home.

After all she’d see

n overseas, all the people she’d lost, opening her heart and letting someone in wasn’t an option. It would take away the small shred of security she relied on to get herself from day to day without falling apart. Right now, she could trust in herself. She was strong. She could get herself through today and the day after that. She didn’t need to rely on anyone else.

Looking away, she pushed herself off the bed.

“You go ahead.” She tried to keep her tone light, as if what they’d shared hadn’t shaken her to her core. “If you keep him in the kitchen, I’ll meet you there after a quick detour to my room.”

Eric nodded and headed for the door.

“And Eric?”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Please don’t tell Liam.”

From across the room, she felt his body tense. It wasn’t that she feared her brother knowing she’d fooled around with Eric. She might be scared of her feelings, but she could hold her ground when it came to Liam. But she worried it would hurt Eric. She’d seen the regret in his eyes. He always, always did the right thing—until tonight. Until her.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said.

The door closed behind him. Georgia picked up her towel and made a dash for the stairs leading to her second-floor bedroom. When she got there, she scrambled to find underwear, shorts, and a T-shirt. Dressed, she reached for the knob and paused.

Eric’s voice drifted up. She had to go down there. Liam would be concerned if she didn’t, and the last thing she needed was her brother asking questions. But facing Eric? How could she look at him and not picture the raw desire she’d witnessed in his eyes? It was a heady, powerful thing knowing she could bring him to his knees without laying a hand on him. If she’d ever doubted he wanted her the same way she wanted him, she didn’t now.

But she couldn’t risk a repeat performance. This wasn’t like jumping out of an airplane. This wasn’t an adrenaline rush she could walk away from unscathed. After she came, she’d wished she could curl up in his arms and let him hold her. Wanting that simple comfort left her flat-out vulnerable.

She refused to be weak. She hadn’t come home alive and whole only to crumble. No, she had to find her way through these overwhelming emotions before she could open up to someone else, even a man who’d been her friend for years—and just revealed he could be so much more.

“Where’s Georgia?” Liam’s voice carried through the house’s open spaces.

She quickly made her way down the curved front stairs, past the sprawling open living area to the kitchen. Liam stood by the granite counter, his hands shoved into the pockets of his work jeans. The two men looked like night and day with Eric in his dress shirt and suit pants, and Liam in his ripped gray T-shirt and dirt-covered work boots, though physically they were roughly the same size, both large and imposing.

“I’m right here,” she said. “What are you doing here, big brother? Checking up on me?”

She saw the grim expression on her brother’s face, and a small tremor ran through her. Not fear, just awareness. Liam always greeted her with a smile. Always. Tonight, something was wrong.

“Nah, I came to see your boss.” Liam studied her for a minute as if he could tell if she’d done something wild just by looking at her. Then her brother turned his attention back to Eric. “We have a problem.”

Georgia stole a glance at Eric. He looked nothing like a man who had experienced an orgasm worthy of the Richter scale. There was no way her brother could guess they’d been naked together on Eric’s bed when he arrived, not from the severe expression on Eric’s face.

“A problem?” Eric crossed his arms in front of his chest with his feet firmly planted a hips’ distance apart. This man could take on anything.

“Forest fire.”

Georgia had grown up in timber country. Forest fires were serious business. Hearing those words, she could practically smell the smoke the memory was so strong. When she was six, her family had been forced to evacuate, leaving their home and all their worldly possessions in the fire’s path. In the end, the firefighters and loggers had held the flames back before the fire reached their home. Others hadn’t been so lucky. She looked to Liam, knowing he remembered too.

“Where?” Eric demanded.

“The hundred acres in White Rock.”

She watched as Eric went pale. That was the piece of land he’d inherited from his father. Those trees had been growing for seventy years, maybe more. Georgia knew he’d finally decided to harvest them not because he needed the money but because it was the best time for the trees. And he also wanted to set the money aside for Nate. Eric had told her that he planned to place the profits in his nephew’s trust fund.