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For several beats I just stare at the box she holds out. I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt so many things at once. All of them sharp. Anticipation. Grief. Need.
Gratitude. For Greer being Greer.
For her being here. It hits me like a freight train, how much I don’t want to be alone right now.
Maybe I don’t have to be.
“What’s this?” I manage as I set down my coffee on the nearby dresser. I take the box from her.
“A little something to thank you for this fabulous trip. Open it.”
I tug at the knot in the ribbon. My fingers are shaking, though, and I can’t get it undone.
Angel that she is, Greer puts her hand over mine. Hers is warm, steady. When our eyes meet, I feel everything inside me go upside-down. Like the laws of gravity have suddenly been suspended, and my heart is floating somewhere between her body and mine.
No.
No no no—
“You really are addicted,” Greer is teasing, her fingers tangling with mine as she swiftly unknots the ribbon. “Look at you shaking, waiting for your next hit of sugar.”
She knows that’s not why I’m shaking. She also knows I’m feeling all the things right now and I could use a little levity not to crumple beneath the weight of it.
She opens the box, revealing two neat rows of three chocolate covered pretzels each. Big ones, six total. The top row is piped with three different kinds of chocolate: white, dark, and milk. On the bottom row, the pretzels are covered in what looks like blue and purple frosting and a different kind of chocolate. Semisweet, maybe?
The familiar smells of chocolate and the salty, yeasty scent of the pretzels fill my nose.
My eyes blur. I blink. Look up at Greer. Her brows are pulled together. A small indent appears between them. Her eyes are full of kindness. Understanding.
Hunger.
She smiles. Small and soft. The same hunger I see in her rips through me. A full-body shockwave.
“George told me that your sister really loved chocolate. Chocolate covered pretzels in particular, right? The ones drizzled with all the good stuff?”
I can’t stop looking at Greer’s mouth. “Yes.”
I put the box on the dresser beside my coffee, my eyes never leaving hers. I step closer. Her gaze changes as it follows mine. Up, up. The look on her face going from warm to hot in the space of a single, decisive heartbeat.
Curling an arm around her waist, I lean down and kiss her. Hard.
Who am I kidding? It doesn’t matter anymore whether I hold back or give in.
I’m fucked either way.
And either way, I’m not letting this girl go without finding out what she wants to learn and teaching her.
Every damn thing she needs, she’ll get. Everything she asks for, I’ll give her.
It’s only fair. She’s given me everything I asked for.
It’s only fair after she keeps giving me shit I didn’t even know I needed.
Recognition.
Respect.
Reciprocity.
I’ve felt so fucking lonely for so long.
I don’t anymore with Greer in my arms.
Chapter Thirteen
GREER
Rising into Brooks’s kiss, desire unfurls inside me.
There is no preamble this time, no tentative exploration. This kiss is needy and deep and messy. His breath hits my skin in hot, short rushes. He pulls at my mouth with such intensity, I have to go on my tiptoes to keep up. He tastes sweet, like sugary coffee, a startling counterpoint to the lethal pace he sets.
Brooks turns his head, tongue pressing against the seam of my lips to open them. He licks into my mouth, and a bolt of lust cracks down my middle and lands in my clit. He turns his head the other way, our tongues finding a new, deeper rhythm. My pulse beats between my legs, begging for friction.
I wrap my arms around his neck and press my body against his. He groans, tightening the arm around my waist to pull me even closer. It feels so good to be held like this—to be surrounded by his warmth and his freshly showered smell—I whimper.
He responds by kissing my neck. Heat floods my pussy. More friction. I need it. Now.
I lift my leg, running my knee up the outside of Brooks’s thigh. Without missing a beat, he grabs it and pulls my knee to his waist, spreading me open. I’m not wearing underwear—I go commando at night—and my bare pussy rubs against the fly of his jeans. I whimper again, and he curls his other hand around my opposite knee and effortlessly wraps that one around his waist too, lifting me off the ground.
I’d immediately beg any other guy to put me down. I am not a small girl, and I imagine some random—and probably tipsy—guy carrying me to bed would be terrifying.
Brooks, though? He’s in total control. I feel safe with him. His hand may have shaken opening that box of pretzels, but right now, his body is solid, his grip on me sure.
