Page 48

He stepped up behind me, all lemon cologne and shower gel and warm breath on my shoulder. “Can you show me?”

What a question. Since he’d arrived back in our house, my every waking hour involved “tension,” and my long-gone eighteen-year-old self would have given away her entire collection of One Direction CDs for the chance to show him anything.

“Sure.” I sat down on the bed, teasing the yarn through my fingers. Brody joined me, the mattress sinking under his weight, our arms almost touching.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it? You can be honest. I think my hands are too big.”

I turned my head to see him wearing one of his glorious grins, the corners of his eyes wrinkling, just the way I liked it.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?” His face was all feigned innocence, his voice husky.

The heat from Brody’s body pulsed through the thin cotton of my top, and my mouth ran dry as I stared at his oversized biceps straining against his sky-blue T-shirt. He was playing with me, teasing me, just as he always had. But make no mistake, I was here for it. Front and center.

I turned to face him, a flash of boldness settling low in my gut. “What do you really want, Brody?”

He narrowed his eyes briefly before bringing them to meet mine, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why? Did you hear something from your team or that journalist?”

After the longest beat, he answered. “I think you know why.”

I swallowed, the lump in my throat firmly staying put. His voice was thick and low, and each sonorous decibel went straight to my core. What the hell was going on? Surely, I hadn’t imagined the tightness in his throat, though it was hard to tell with the thundering of my heart.

Nope, I was just going to call it. Brody Flockhart, my brother’s best friend, the man I’d lusted after, crushed on through my entire young adult life, was sitting on my bed, dialing the heat to one hundred.

“I, I…” I had no words. He was the only man with the superpower to render me speechless.

Brody took the crochet from my hands and put it on the mattress. With a soft sigh, he intertwined his fingers through mine, the warmth of his skin imprinting on me. “I know it’s too late for apologies, and I acted like a complete dick back then, but I can’t stop thinking about the night we kissed.” His blue eyes bored into me, a glow of something forbidden deep within them. “Did you ever tell anyone?”

At his question, my heart hammered louder than a kettledrum, and blood sang in my ears. “Nobody knows.” Silence hung in the air. The one answer I’d wanted these last five years was mine for the taking. “I left you a note. You never replied.”

He sighed, the hiss racing into the room, and a burn crept up my chest. A small crease had formed between his brows. After the longest pause, he brought his eyes to mine. “I got your note, and I’m sorry I never responded, but there were…complications.”

I huffed a soft breath. “Cooper?”

Brody nodded, and his head dipped a little. “My career, too. I had commitments that would take me away from town. From you. And we were so young. You were only eighteen, Ro.”

And didn’t I know it? Eighteen, totally in love, and totally what he wasn’t looking for.

He squeezed my hands, bringing them together, his fingers sliding over my knuckles. “But not everything you said in your note was right.”

At his words and the softness in his eyes, my heart cranked up a notch, and my pulse stuttered in my chest.

“You said you’d made a mistake. That kissing me, that me kissing you back, was wrong. And I know our lives have followed different paths.” Brody lifted my knuckles to his lips, his featherlight breath glancing across my skin. “But I want you to know, I never regretted that kiss. Not for a second.”

I loosened a breath. No matter what I’d told myself over the years, I hadn’t either. Nothing and nobody else had ever come close to nudging their way into my heart since that night on the porch.

Brody brought my hands back into my lap, loosening his grip. “And seeing you again reminds me of all the reasons I kissed you back.”

He lifted a hand to my braid, winding his fingers through its end, working the hair loose to hang in dark tendrils. “And all the reasons I still want you.”

I closed my eyes, my stomach doing a backflip. Brody wanted me as much as I wanted him. His words were all I’d dreamed of. All I’d waited for. My skin fizzed as five long years of buried regret and hidden desire threatened to bubble over. I burned for his touch.

Brody moved his fingers up to the base of my braid, his thumb hovering next to my cheek. Desperate to be nearer to him, I turned into his palm, kissing its skin softly. I dared to open my eyes and found him looking back at me, his gaze full of fire. Sweet, glorious, Brody-shaped temptation.

Everything he’d said about the past made sense even now. I was still his best friend’s little sister. He still had his career and a fantastic life far from Tuft Swallow. And worst of all, he could break my heart. But this time, I wasn’t going in blind. Naïve. I could draw a line under anything that happened between us, couldn’t I? Maybe if I finally quenched my thirst for Brody, I could move on.