Kiss the Sky (Addicted #3)(85)

“That’s not true. I’d love the position.” I wait for my choice of words to crawl under his skin.

“You don’t love anything,” Ryke groans in distress.

“Hey!” Lo cuts in and physically pushes Ryke back as he steps closer to my body. But I’m not afraid of getting punched. “To make it fair, you two can flip for it.”

“No,” I say quickly. “I’m not leaving this up to chance.”

Lo shrugs. “Then you’ll both just have to share it.” He puts a hand on each of our shoulders, standing between us. “Co-best man,” he says to Ryke and then looks to me. “Co-best man.”

Ryke glares at me.

And I say easily, “I’m toasting first at the wedding, just so you know. I’m afraid you’ll scare the children.”

“Fuck you.”

“My point exactly.”

He restrains himself from flipping me off. “I’m standing closest to Lo when Lily walks down the aisle.”

I don’t like losing this part. “You can stand behind me,” I tell him.

Ryke glares harder.

“Or beside me. On the right side.”

“Fuck off.”

“We can always tie you to the arch.” I’d actually really enjoy that. “I’ll set out a bowl of water so you don’t get thirsty.”

Lo laughs while Ryke just shakes his head.

“There isn’t going to be an arch at his wedding,” Ryke reminds me. “It’s indoors in a f*cking church.”

Right. I forgot. Formal. Traditional. Lily and Lo seem more likely to be married in the middle of a comic book convention—or something else far from the norm. When Rose proposed an outdoor wedding to her mother, she quickly rejected it. Three times. In text, phone and email. That was not a good day for anyone.

“I’ll tie you to a pew then.”

Ryke takes another step forward, and Loren puts his hand on his chest.

“You should be honored,” I tell him. “I only tie up the people I really like.”

Ryke rolls his eyes dramatically and shakes his head. “I’m not backing down from this.”

He’s his brother. He should be his best man. The loss is going to sting, but I can manage. Just as I go to relinquish the title, I notice the questioning in Lo’s eyes, the narrowed gaze, wondering how much I’m going to fight for this. If I care at all. He’s naturally insecure about friendships since he’s had very few.

So I look back to Ryke and say, “Let’s just flip for it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Why not?” Because my odds are now fifty-fifty.

Lo brings a quarter out of his pocket. “Who wants to call it?”

Ryke nods to me. “Go ahead, princess.”

“Stop, you’re making me blush,” I say flatly.

He actually laughs, and both Lo and I share a smile. His brother hasn’t relaxed this whole trip, not with Julian here and Scott threatening to unhinge his brother’s life.

Hearing that sound from him lifts the whole mood of our run. “Heads,” I tell Lo.

He tosses the coin in the air, and it comes down into his palm. He cups his hand over the quarter, and I hear the mechanical groan of Ben’s camera as he zooms in over my shoulder.

Lo uncovers the coin.

Tails.

This is why I hate gambling.

I usually lose.





[ 30 ]

ROSE CALLOWAY



“This week went by so fast,” I say, watching the snow fall outside, the dark sky illuminated by the ski resort’s bright lights in the distance.

We fly back home soon. Back to rabid paparazzi. American television. And my mother. Even though Ben, Brett, and Savannah have followed us around, it’s been nice to have a house that isn’t rigged twenty-four-seven with cameras.

Connor sidles up behind me, and his hands slip around my waist. I sink back into his chest, the action so much more natural now. It’s hard to believe that months ago I was scared of this intimacy. Now all I think about are ways to be closer.

He pulls my hair off my shoulder and kisses the sensitive skin of my neck, marking a line up to my ear. My nerves prick with each feather-light touch. “This week may have gone by fast, but tonight will feel so…” His warm breath tickles me. “…unbearably…” He brushes the straps of my nightgown, and they fall off my shoulders. “…slow.”

The air nips my skin, and he runs a hand from my thigh, along the curve of my hip and settling his palm on my breast. He tugs the silky fabric to expose them. A breath hitches in the back of my throat as he kneads my breast with one hand, standing behind me while I stare at the snowfall. His muscular body overtakes my frame, no space between us, and I eagerly wait for his skin to meet mine, for his shirt to be gone, his pants to disappear. Please, yes…

He massages my breast with force and want, rippling a new feeling through my core. I ache for him. All of him. His thumb flicks my hardened nipple back and forth, shivers cascading down my spine.

And then he spins me around, his eyes grazing my breasts and the way the nightgown bunches at my waist. “Step out of it,” he tells me.

I wiggle the nightgown to my ankles, my head starting to readjust, to make sense of what’s going to happen. “Are we…” I trail off, lost to the way his eyes bore into each crevice and curve of my body as I stand bare, only in a pair of black cotton panties.