Chapter 2
DEX
Iwoke up to sunlight stabbing through the blinds like accusation, and for one blissful second, I didn’t remember.
Then it all came crashing back, and I wanted to put my fist through the wall.
I was still in my flat above the garage. Couldn’t face going home to that empty house last night. Not after what I’d done. The sheets were twisted around me like I’d been fighting in my sleep, which I probably had been, reliving the moment over and over.
Her face when I’d pulled away. The hurt in her eyes before the anger took over. The way she’d looked at me like I was something disgusting.
I deserved that look. Deserved worse.
I rolled out of bed and immediately regretted it. My head pounded. Not from the whiskey, that had worn off hours ago while I lay awake torturing myself. But from lack of sleep and too much thinking.
The feel of her was still on my skin. Her taste still in my mouth. The sounds she’d made when I’d kissed her neck, the way she’d fisted her hands in my shirt like she couldn’t get close enough, the heat of her body pressed against mine.
And her eyes. God, those eyes. Looking at me in that bar like she actually saw me. Not Dex the friend, not Dex the surrogate brother, not Dex who was always there to help. Just... me. The real me underneath all the roles I played.
For the first time in months, I’d felt alive. Present. Like I existed as my own person instead of as an extension of everyone else’s happiness.
And she was their sister.
Trace, Booker, Xander, and Gage’s sister.
The sister they’d just found out about. The sister they were meeting for the first time today.
The sister I’d had my hands all over last night. My mouth on hers. My body pressed against hers in a parking lot where anyone could have seen us.
“Jesus Christ, Moore,” I said to the empty room. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
I stumbled to the bathroom and turned the shower as hot as it would go, trying to wash off the guilt that clung to me like oil. It didn’t work. Under the spray, all I could see was her face.
The way she’d laughed in the bar, free and uninhibited. The vulnerability when she’d talked about feeling like an outsider, about being afraid of not fitting in. The way she’d touched my arm and said it helped to know she wasn’t the only one feeling lost.
She’d been talking about them. About being nervous to meet her brothers. And I’d been so caught up in the connection between us, so desperate for someone to understand the loneliness that had been eating me alive for months, that I hadn’t put it together until she said the name.
The Farringtons.
My brothers. In every way that mattered, even if we didn’t share blood.
And I’d almost slept with their sister. Would have slept with her if she hadn’t mentioned them. Would have taken her home and spent the night learning every inch of her body, losing myself in her until morning.
Before she ever even met them.
The realisation of the level of betrayal it would have been made me feel sick.
I got out of the shower and stood dripping on the bath mat, staring at myself in the foggy mirror. I looked like hell. Dark circles under my eyes, jaw tight, the guilt written all over my face.
This was who I really was. Not the good friend, not the loyal brother, not the guy who was always there when they needed him. I was the asshole who couldn’t even meet their sister without trying to fuck her.
And then I’d made it worse. I’d tried to call someone to pick her up. Had actually started to dial Xander’s number. The look on her face when she’d realized what I was doing...
“Are you calling THEM?”
The disgust in her voice echoed in my head.
She’d been right to be disgusted. What kind of person does that? Gets someone worked up, backs off in a panic, and then tries to dump them on someone else like they’re a problem to solve?
