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‘Tell yourself whatever you like, if it makes you feel better, but it doesn’t change the truth of it.’
‘That is the truth.’
I suck in a breath, my lungs fighting my body’s stillness to take in air. I shouldn’t feel like this. She shouldn’t have this power over me. And yet the tell-tale pressure building behind my fly knows otherwise.
Remember the pain.
Remember how she hurt you.
How they hurt you.
‘Did you ever wonder why I left?’ I ask, clinging to the memory as a lifeline.
‘Are you serious?’ Her eyes widen. ‘You walk out without a word, go completely off-grid, where no one can reach you. Christ—of course I wondered. We all bloody did! It was only the fact you spoke to Marie that stopped us calling the police and sending out a search party!’
She’s trembling from head to toe, her voice shaking, her eyes watering. I could almost believe she’d cared. Really cared.
‘I had my reasons to leave.’
‘Oh, yes, of course you did—and they all revolved around looking after numero uno. Yourself. And to hell with the rest of us.’
‘I cared, Alexa, believe me. I cared more than you can possibly know.’
She laughs, and the manic sound drives me crazy. Pain collides with something more fierce, something more treacherous, and I move without thinking.
I’m across the room and pulling her against me. Her startled moan is drowned out by a growl I cannot contain and I realise my folly the second my lips claim hers.
Folly because she’s not fighting me. She’s on fire with me, her lips meeting me halfway and leaving me in no doubt as to how much she wants this too.
Fireworks erupt inside me—an explosion of sensation wrapped up in a warning so powerful it makes me dizzy. Drunk on her. On what’s right. What’s wrong.
I try to see sense even as my lips move with hers. Remembering. Reacquainting. But there’s nothing soft or loving about this. It’s harsh, demanding. Each of us taking what we want, what we need.
Her hands are pressed against my chest. I feel their heat burn a path to my heart beneath. And then she’s lifting them to my hair, holding me, her body melding to mine. She’s giving herself over to me. It should be enough. I should stop now. I should be the one to stop it. The one in control.
Instead I’m kissing her back like a drowning man on a quest for air. My hands are in her hair, and its softness is so familiar, her impassioned surrender so pure. It’s pulling me under. It’s not air I want—it’s this sea of sensation, of incandescent need that she’s always instilled in me.
I want to use it to obliterate my brother’s touch with my own.
I want to use it to obliterate the past, the pain, the ache of loss.
But at what cost?
Do I really want to succumb? To lay down my defences? To be weak?
CHAPTER TWO
DON’T DO THIS, ALEXA.
The mantra is on repeat, playing at the back of my mind, but I can’t listen. I don’t want to listen. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way. Alive. The heat pulsating between my legs, robbing me of any coherent sense and making me feel again.
I’d started to think I was immune, that nothing would bring this feeling back.
But I’m not numb. I’m not dead inside. I’m thriving, flourishing, abuzz with it.
He’s the reason you feel like that. And he’s the reason you shouldn’t be giving in to it now.
I kiss him harder, forcing out the dawning sense, the voice of reason. I only want to feed this budding ache, to go with it until it consumes me, and it’s all I’m capable of thinking of.
