Ruined (Barnes Brothers #4)(32)

“Denise called.”

“Hmm?” Eyes on her ass, it took him a few seconds for the words to penetrate and that happened only when he managed to drag his gaze away from that perfect part of her anatomy.

“Your mom. Denise.”

Slanting his gaze up, he saw her shoot a look at him and realized he needed to focus on her upper body—particularly the parts above her neck or she was going to think he was still stuck in teenager hyper-sex-drive.

Which he was, when it came to her.

But he was going to at least pretend he had some level of maturity.

Her words did click, and he realized that the impossible really was possible.

His mother could be brought up in a conversation and his sex drive wouldn’t take a sudden plummet toward Earth.

“Okay.” Turning away from Marin, he lifted a shoulder. “I’ll call her back. I sent her a message earlier, asked if she and dad were doing anything. I’m . . . uh . . .” Self-conscious now, he gave Marin a quick look. “You asked earlier. Yeah, I’m thinking about driving down there.”

“Oh.”

For a few minutes, nothing was said and he busied himself with rummaging through his fridge for the makings of a sandwich. It was either that or focus on Marin and lose the fraying edges of his control completely.

There was a downside to it, though. Once he forced himself to focus on something that wasn’t Marin, he started thinking more about that upcoming trip to see his folks and he realized that there were shades of making the impossible possible—and now, like somebody had been dripping cool water down his spine, he could feel his balls shriveling and the hot pulse of lust fading as dread started to seep in.

“Second-guessing that trip down there?”

He jerked his head up to see that Marin had eased in a little closer. She wasn’t close. Now that he thought about it, she had taken deliberate care to make sure she wasn’t close, and not just since he’d gotten out of the shower, either.

The distance had been between them for a few days at least. She hadn’t called or texted and she hadn’t given him the quick, easy hug that had become the norm for them. He’d come to expect those hugs—need them, even.

Something had changed between them, and although he knew when he’d noticed it, he couldn’t say what had caused it. It had started just before he’d seen her with Dash. The days when she hadn’t returned his calls.

She’d hardly called him since before he’d gotten wasted—again.

At least she’s talking to me now.

Although to be honest, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, because Marin knew him like nobody else. She knew him even better than his brothers did these days, but that was probably his own fault. He’d pushed everybody away, save for her.

Marin . . . well.

He hadn’t been able to push Marin out for anything.

The thought that she might be pushing him away left him feeling like the ground was crumbling under him and he hated it.

“There you go . . . brooding again.” She tsked under her breath.

When he scowled at her, she laughed. “Scowl away. It didn’t work a few months ago, it’s not going to work now.” She hopped up on the counter and crossed her legs neatly, hands going to rest on her knees. “What’s the problem, Seb? You’ve been doing better. You’re actually dragging your ass out of bed before noon. You’re not drinking so much—if at all. You socialized at the wedding, and if I’m not mistaken, you’ve actually been shaving. It seems to me that you’re ready to return to the land of the living. Visiting your parents is the next obvious step.”

“You know, these pep talks of yours would be fantastic—if I was still nine years old and getting ready to try out for my first national commercial,” he said sarcastically.

Marin lifted a shoulder. “Seems to me that you’re more nervous about visiting them than you were about that stupid commercial. You ate a bowl of cereal and if I remember correctly, you told me that any idiot could eat cereal—but it took a cute idiot to do it right on TV and you could do it just fine.”

Sebastien snorted. “Well, I was a cute idiot.”

“Sometimes, you still are.” Head tilted to the side, she continued to watch him. “Are you going to chicken out?”

“For f*ck’s sake.” He tossed the knife he’d been using for mayonnaise down into the sink and stalked over to her.

That was the first mistake.

The second was bracing his hands next to her hips. Smooth . . . round . . . hips. His fingers wanted to curve around those hips until they dug into her backside, and then he’d pull her in closer . . . and closer . . .

Marin’s eyes widened on his.

“Sebastien.”

“Marin.”

The smell of her went straight to his head, carrying the same impact as if somebody had swung a two-by-four at him. It left him dazed and unsteady and he knew, just knew that if he touched her, kissed her . . . everything all turbulent and crazy would get better—feel steadier.

He knew it.

And yet . . .

Her hands went to his chest.

He could feel each imprint of each finger and he thought maybe, just maybe, if she stroked those hands up and pushed them into his hair, and maybe if she tilted her head back, it would be the signal he needed to kiss her.