Priceless (Forbidden Men #8)(52)

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “As if that hurt. I barely nudged you.”

“As if I actually insulted you?” he charged right back. “You’re all of what, a size two?”

“Six,” I hissed back.

“Ooh.” He made a sarcastic shivering motion. “That must classify you a step above anorexic, then?

I shoved him again, but this time, I chased it with a laugh. “You really are a jerk.” Though, honestly, I appreciated how he treated me. He’d never been too gentle with my emotions, as if I were a piece of delicate glass that might shatter at the slightest teasing. That was one of the things I loved most about him. He never made me feel handicapped.

After a couple seconds of silence, he said, “The sunset’s pretty.”

I turned my head to look at the pinks and yellows and oranges. “Yeah.”

A comfortable silence washed over us as we watched the colors slowly blur and change with the gradual setting of the sun.

On the banks of the lake, a couple of guys started to toss around a football. “Why didn’t you play football in college?” I asked, suddenly curious. I knew he’d enjoyed it in high school, and he’d been good enough to probably get a scholarship. But he’d never even tried out and had just kind of shrugged it off when I’d asked him before.

But I had a feeling he’d be more honest now. In this quiet moment between us, things just felt a lot more open.

“I don’t know,” he said, tugging a piece of grass from the ground and running it between two fingers. “Football was always Noel’s thing. He was so determined to make it pro, I think it killed something in him when he broke his collarbone. I just...it wouldn’t have felt right if I’d ended up going farther with it than he had.”

I blinked, startled to learn this. “So...you just gave it up because of his feelings?”

When I twisted my head to see his face, he was shrugging. “It was never as important to me as it was to him.”

“You have to know he would’ve been nothing but proud of you if you’d ended up going pro.”

His blue-eyed gaze bored into mine. “But I didn’t want to go pro. I didn’t want to leave Ellamore. Everyone I love is here. This is home.”

The way he watched me, it was as if he was trying to tell me I was one of the reasons he’d stayed, because he hadn’t wanted to leave me.

My heart swelled with emotion. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to trace a finger over his jaw. His lashes wavered and the blue in his gaze darkened. “Any other questions?” he wondered softly.

My breath caught. Well...since he was asking.

“Just how full service of a date is this?”

His gaze dropped to my mouth, and my core crackled with heat. “What’d you have in mind?”

I smiled and batted my lashes. “A kiss?”

His return grin was slow and sexily hooded. “Think you could actually handle another one of those from me?”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

He chuckled. “Whatever you want, beautiful.”

Stretching toward me, his finger grazed my chin before his mouth settled softly against mine. A gentle brush of lips, and then he was rolling onto his stomach and pulling himself closer by his elbows so he could hover his face above mine. Then he was kissing me again, his lips parting my lips, his tongue sliding deep, and his warm palm cradling my cheek.

I gripped his wrist, kissing him back as flames of desire licked through my system.

This was really happening. My best friend was kissing me and seemed eager to kiss me longer. His hands turned greedy as they streaked into my hair, then gripped hard as his mouth grew demanding.

When one of the ball players on the shore yelled, “Get a room,” Brandt broke away, gasping. His eyes met mine before he lifted his face to scowl at our eavesdroppers and flip them all off.

Laughing, they went back to playing, and Brandt dropped his gaze back to mine. We said nothing, but the way he looked at me...it was as if he were seeing me for the first time.

There was just something about the moment, the softness in his gaze, his promise a few seconds earlier to give me whatever I wanted, the wetness between my legs...it all prompted me into saying, “Will you sleep with me?”

His eyebrows twitched briefly, flashing a quick expression of disappointment. But he said, “Of course.” Sitting up, he glanced at the picnic that still needed to be put away. “Are you ready to head back then? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were tired.”

My brow crinkled in confusion before it dawned on me; he thought I meant sleeping in the literal sense, that I just wanted him to stay the night and cuddle.

So I caught his wrist as soon as he put the wine bottle back into the basket.

“No...” I said, making him pause and look at me. “I meant...will you have sex with me?”





BRANDT




A rushing sound filled my ears as Sarah’s question exploded through my head. I shook it to clear the chaos, sure I’d misheard her. I had to have misheard her.

“I’m sorry, what?” I said slowly.

No way had she asked what I thought she’d just asked.

But her blue eyes pleaded. “Just one time,” she said in a small, almost uncertain voice. “That’s all I ask. And then I’ll never bother you with it again.”