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“Let’s be clear about something, Hayden. I’m not on the menu. I never will be. In my eyes, you’re nothing more than a second-rate Aleck. Second best, maybe even third. And even if I didn’t belong to your brother, which—to be clear—I onethousandpercent do, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot lacrosse stick. Not even if you were beating me with it.”
Hayden lowers his head, tracking me with his narrowed eyes. His breath hitches in his chest, and as his ribs expand with a rageful breath. He’s angry… Good. My work here is don—
Without warning, he takes a quick step, the tip of his Oxfords touching my heels. I feel his body heat as he leans in, grabbing the edge of the counter on either side of me, boxing me in. If I didn’t find him as vile as I do and he wasn’t currently scaring the ever-loving shit out of me, I would note that he smells fantastic. Like bergamot, cigar smoke, soap, and danger.
“You’re so infatuated with my brother you don’t even see what you are to him.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me, then?”
“You’re afling, Winter. Easy to fuck, but not good enough to date. He won’t extend your little arrangement because you’re not on his level and he knows it.”
Our little arrangement…He heard me talking to Midge. Or Aleck told him.
Hayden’s steel-gray eyes wrap around my pupils and squeeze, but a glimmer ofsomethingshines through. A lump of emotions feels like a planet in my throat, choking me, but for a moment I see his sadness.
I tilt my head, looking over his handsome yet twisted face. “Why are you inso muchpain?”
Hayden’s spine straightens, his brow dips, and he takes a step back. “What?” he whispers, breathlessly, as if he’s been punched with the realization that someonefinallysees him, if only for a second.
The back door opens, and the sound of Aleck and Richard’s playful conversation carries through the hall into the kitchen. I stand straight, trying to wipe the horror from my expression, feeling the heat of Hayden’s questioning glare digging into the side of my face.
I saw you, Hayden. For a moment I saw you.
Richard appears in my periphery as he walks to the minibar in the corner of the living room, while Aleck walks into the kitchen. The smile on his face drops when he takes in Hayden’s proximity to me, and the look on our faces, I’m sure.
“Where’s mom?” he asks, stepping beside me. His hand slides across my back and he pulls me close, then kisses my temple.
“She went to the restroom,” I respond, since Hayden is too busy grinding his teeth and glaring at me to answer. “Not sure after that.”
“Everything okay?” Aleck asks.
“Relax, Brother. I was just getting to know your girlfriend. Cute as a button as long as you don’t piss her off.” With that, Hayden winks at me, then walks away to join his father in the living room.
“What happened?” Aleck hisses, his brows pulling into a scowl.
“Nothing.” I shake my head and force a smile. “Hayden just being Hayden.” I roll my eyes to seem more like Winter and curl my arms around his neck.
“Easy to fuck, but not good enough to date…”My heart aches as I try to recover from Hayden’s words.
“I missed you…” Aleck nuzzles his nose against my ear. “Fifteen minutes andI missed you.” He laughs. “I’m going to need you to suck my dick later, so I’m reminded that I actually have one.”
“I was already planning on it, handsome,” I whisper, melting into a puddle of giggly girl. “Your balls too.”
“Jesus,” he hisses, sliding his hands down to my ass, pulling me in tighter. “Eat dessert quickly. I’m ready to be alone with you.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
WINTER
Music seeps its way into my dreamlike state, forcing my eyes to snap open. I sit up, feeling the weight of the rat’s nest my hair has knotted into tilting my head to one side. Rubbing my eyes, I try my hardest to focus through the sleepy haze I’m in.
“Morning…”
I turn to the en suite to see Aleck, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, his arms stretched above his head, hands gripping the top of the door frame.
My, my, my, what a beautiful man…
“Morning,” I whisper, observing the way his skin and small patch of chest hair glisten with dampness, steam billowing around the bathroom behind him, the knot of the towel sitting just under his V, and just above his—
