I swallow at the sight. “You took it off.”
Her head snaps up, and I catch her gaze.
“I never put it back on,” she whispers.
I don’t know what it is about those words, but they’re my complete undoing. In a blur, Nessa is pressed up against the wall, and I’m there.Rightthere. My thigh is pushed between hers. Her lips are inches away, so fucking close I canfeelthe strangled breaths she’s taking.
It reminds me of having her in my hotel room bed back in New York. The way I fell against her and how soft she was beneath me. The noises she made when I trailed my lips justbelow her ear. How she looked up at me like I was the only person in the world.
Like she is right now.
Someone ambles down the hallway, and I press closer, shielding her from them as they pass by with a quiet, “Sorry.”
I’m not sorry. Not when it means I’m so fucking close that all I’d have to do is dip my headjusta bit and I’d be kissing Nessa again. Ireallyfucking want to kiss her again.
I shouldn’t even be back here in this hallway. I should be out there with my teammates—with herbrother. I shouldn’t be thinking about how easy it would be to slip my hand up her shirt or how fast I could make her come. I shouldn’t be thinking about that at all.
Then I feel it.
It’s soft and subtle, but it’s there. Nessa rocks her hips against me. Slow and short movements. So damn minuscule I wouldn’t even know she was doing it if I weren’t so close to her. If my thigh wasn’t pressed so tightly between hers. If her eyes weren’t fluttering closed with each gentle pass.
Fuck, I want to grab her hips and help her. I want to slide her over me again and again until she’s making those sounds I love so much, but I can’t. I don’t. I keep my palms pressed against the wall, my hands decidedly to myself, even though it’s killing me as she continues moving.
Intentionally or not, she breaks down my walls with each glide, and I’m doing everything in my power to keep them from completely crumbling. I’m slipping, and I’m slippingfast. Maybe if I could just touch her a little or taste her. Something.Anythingto take the edge off.
I press closer and she gasps lightly, our position changing just enough to make a difference, and the sound unravels me. I drag my nose along her cheek, the scent of fresh flowers overwhelming me in the best way possible. Then the lavenderkicks in, and I wonder if that’s the lotion she wears or maybe even her body soap. I don’t know. I just know it drives me wild and makes me do unimaginable things, like press my lips to that spot below her ear.
She whines, and I grin against her. It’s the first time I’ve felt like smiling in a week, maybe even longer. I’m not sure, but it certainly doesn’t make me want to let this feeling go. I kiss her again, this time moving toward her lips, which is where I really want to be. With each kiss, she grinds against me again.
Kiss. Grind.
Kiss. Grind.
Kiss. Grind.
I’m there, just at the corner of her lips. So fucking close I swear I can already taste the cherry lip gloss I know she loves so much. If I just move a millimeter…maybe two…I’d have my lips on hers again, and I’ll know for sure if that one night was just a fluke, if all the thoughts of her I can’t seem to let go of are just me holding on to a fantasy. I’ll know if I have any chance of staying away from her.
Then I hear it—footsteps. A cleared throat.
I freeze, and Nessa does the same beneath me.
Fuck. Shit. Fuck.
Slowly, I turn. Relief washes over me when I realize it’s not Hutch, but it’s gone just as quickly as I take in my teammate standing there with a wicked grin on his face and heavily tattooed arms crossed over his chest.
“Whitlocke,” he says quietly.Pointedly.
I swallow. “Keller.”
His lips twitch when he moves his gaze to the woman pinned against the wall. “Stepsister.”
If possible, she stiffens even more under me. She doesn’t like that. She doesn’t like that we know things about her, that Hutch has brought her up to us before. She shoves at me lightly, and Ireluctantly pull away, putting a respectable amount of distance between us.
“It’s Vanessa,” she tells him, running her hand down her wrinkled shirt. “I…”
But she doesn’t finish her sentence. She bolts, pushing past Keller and back into the bar. I wish I could be surprised by her fleeing, but given our history, I’m not. I watch her go, not moving an inch, even though I want to run after her so damn badly. I can’t for a multitude of reasons, one being the hulking man taking up the hallway. We stand there like we’re in some old Western film, and I can’t decide which of us is going to pull a gun and fire first.
“Well, can’t say I had you pegged as a sister-fucker.”
