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Vegas brought out the version of Broderick few ever saw. And as I watched him march off ahead of me like the photo booth wasn’t his idea in the first place, I canted my head, admiring how that perfect bubble butt filled out his dark slacks. Because nobody here cared. Not a soul was watching the childhood friends gallivanting through the streets, at the mercy of our whims, wondering if it was something more. There weren’t any Mistyvale alumni to make a jab or tell my brothers that Broderick spent the evening with my hand in his, or his arm looped around my shoulder. There was an entire city, entirely barren of fucks to give. And I loved it.
This is why people love Vegas. Not just the gambling or hookers or shows—the freedom of it. The nameless face among the tens of thousands on this condensed strip of endless sin and entertainment.
“Oh, come on!” I teased, feeling like a Chihuahua chasing a Doberman as my stubby legs attempted to keep up with his long stride. “You can’t tell me we’re not cute,” I added as I caught up, lunging forward to wrap around his swinging arm and force him to slow to my pace. At least mild amusement laced his features when he turned my way, begrudgingly accepting the photo strip. I swore I watched him stifle his smile.
“You’re cute,” he said, quirking a brow. Heat rushed my face, and I broke away from his gaze in favor of our feet over the dirty concrete, careful to avoid a suspicious pile of something viscous.
We were quiet until we turned down the over-the-top drive of the resort, great arching palms to either side with twinkling lights everywhere. For the most part, Vegas felt like what would be vomited out if one could eat neon lights and an ashtray. It took getting to the outskirts, the suburbs against that gorgeous expanse of desert, to see the appeal in the enormous metro. But the resort, while over the top for my taste, at least attempted to class up the tacky surroundings of tricks and illusions.
After a beat too long, I said, “Thanks for tonight, Broderick. I had a blast.”
“Good,” he said simply as the splatter of the fountain misted our direction, and we rounded the corner to the grand, domed sunshade. As we entered, smiling at the bellmen to either side of the automatic glass doors, he added a quiet, “I’m glad.”
With his hand at the low of my back, sending jitters through my insides, we made our way through the bustling lobby and down to the elevator bay without speaking again. The longer we stewed in our silence, the thicker the air seemed to get, crackling with some kind of turbulence I didn’t want to acknowledge as the heat of his palm against my dress pulled all of my focus from the cacophony of voices and echos of omnipresent machines around us.
In and up, we moved in contemplative static energy, my heart gradually picking up tempo in anticipation of something—anything—happening. A switch to flip. The way his eyes tracked my movements made the hand on my back seem like a kind of ownership my entire body thrummed to accept. By the time we reached our door, my heart was fluttering in my throat, and my nearly nonexistent oxygen supply halted entirely when he caged me against the busy wallpaper with his exquisite body, chest heaving, determination in his eyes.
Like a dumb fish, my mouth opened and closed twice, but words failed me. Broderick’s shallow breaths were hot on my face, his exhales dancing with my short inhales, the taste of him on the air coasting through my parted lips. God, over the years, I’d fantasized countless times about what it would feel like to finally kiss him again. To taste him and feel those hands on my skin without that measly three-year gap between us damning it all.
His gentle finger tucked my hair behind an ear before his warm, smooth palm slid down to cradle the side of my neck, his focus entirely trained on my mouth. Desperate to touch and feel and taste, a stuttered little breath stalled in my ribs when the flat tip of his straight nose bumped the end of mine. My desperate hands scraped up his arms, settling on his biceps as he nuzzled our cheeks together, burying his face in my hair and inhaling audibly. Like he needed to commit my scent to memory as badly as I needed to anchor myself in his spiced musk.
When his forehead settled against mine, I wet my lips, but as I shifted my chin to meet him in the middle, his gaze snapped to my eyes like I’d shocked him, something like panic flaring in those deep browns. A little pinch formed between his brows a beat before he closed his eyes in something like painful resignation, a tiny shake of his head and flex of his jaw the only warning I got before he turned away. The door beeped as he slid his card free, returning the air to my lungs in a whoosh of disappointment as he rushed inside, running a palm over his short hair before wordlessly vanishing into the ensuite.
My mouth popped open, confusion battling the devastation suddenly making my heart plummet for an entirely different reason as I stood there, dumbfounded and wondering what the hell had just happened.
Was it all in my head? I quietly shut the door, locking the bolt and the top latch before slowly leaning into it, craving the icy metal support to stay upright as my brain whirred through the last several hours. Had I read it wrong? Or had he been weighing our options just as heavily and yet again decided I wasn’t worth it? There was no way I’d just imagined the want dripping off that man. I wasn’t alone in this, so what the fuck was holding him back?
Broderick came back into the room in a rush, frustration tensing his brow as he tongued a molar. His mouth just opened when my cell phone rang. Without glancing to the screen, I declined it. As I made to break the horrendous silence with some pathetic deflection and announcement of bedtime, it rang again. My eyes slid shut, and I chewed my bottom lip.
“You should answer,” he breathed. Swallowing, I pulled my phone up, scowling when Alice’s photo flashed across the screen.
Bringing it to my ear, I answered the call, my eyes back on conflicted deep browns. “Sissy? You okay?”
“I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
“Oh boy,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as I wandered toward the patio. “Greyson?”
“No. Santa Claus. Of course, Greyson. It’s always Greyson. I fucking. Hate. Him.” The last two words seemed to come through gritted teeth, and I winced. With one last glance over my shoulder, I found Broderick staring at his feet, his hand at the back of his neck. “I finally had a date planned this weekend, but nooooo, the dragon needs me to accompany him out of town to a luncheon where he can’t be bothered to remember a god-damned name, so he needs me there to remind him who’s who. This is fucking insane.”
With a sigh, I pushed open the door and stepped outside into the cool city air. It might’ve been smoggy, but at least it was brisk, and didn’t emanate with that insane energy occupying the space between me and my roommate.
“So quit,” I suggested for the millionth time, already well aware of what her answer would be. It had been the same since the first day he told her a little country bumpkin would never make it in the city, let alone in his company. Little did he know, the fastest way to make a Rhodes double down was to tell us we couldn’t do it. Alice even more than most. She might have been one of the quietest in the bunch, but she was resolute, and only an idiot could mistake her silence for stupidity. The woman missed nothing. Which is why Greyson Hart had been eating his words for the last year and a half as she became his begrudging right-hand woman. Purely out of spite to prove him wrong, of course.
“And let him win?” we both said in unison. Mind you, mine was dripping sarcasm, and hers was more of a pissed off pterodactyl. She choked on something like a laugh, but I let her be the one to finish.
“Never.”
Broderick
Stupid. Selfish. Reckless.
I almost kissed my best friends’ baby sister. It didn’t seem to matter how hard I ran sprints in the gym, or how heavy I lifted, the guilt of that didn’t dissipate. Not even the endless string of pull-ups seemed to help. Hell, any time the two of them wanted to scare off some low life showing a little too much interest in their sisters, they called me in for backup. I was supposed to look out for them, not memorize the outline of her curves in that dress. What the hell had I been thinking? Taking her out. Indulging that idea for any period of time when I’d sworn she was off limits—safe with me—to the only two people that had always had my back.
It wouldn’t have stopped at a kiss. I knew it. Hell, the portrait on the wall across from us in that hallway knew it. If I tasted those soft, red lips and let my hands roam up her athletic little frame, that would be the end for me. If she didn’t stop it, I certainly wouldn’t have what it takes to peel myself off her until I’d laid claim to every inch of Elora Rhodes. Fulfilled every forbidden fantasy that had accumulated over the last eighteen painful, albeit entertaining, years.
But some distant part of my brain—probably the one responsible for survival—thought of Jameson’s face, if he knew I had Elora up against a wall, about to claim that pretty little parted pout before shoving her inside my hotel room. A room where she had no escape plan if she felt like I crossed a line. With no spare rooms in the city, we had to survive two more days of this event—preferably without her knowing I was sporting a perpetual chubby and fierce case of blue balls. She had to be focused enough to give a presentation the day after tomorrow, and after all our years together, I owed her at least that much.
Best-case scenario, if she didn’t think I was a creep taking advantage of a shit situation, and still returned the sentiment, I knew her heart enough to know getting involved would be an enormous distraction and compromise her conviction in the competition.
