Page 189 of Sinful Like Us

Unless he’s abusive or a threat to her safety in some other way, we’re supposed to be impartial.I’d like to impartially declare that I’mnota fan.

“Are you gonna tell Sulli what he said to you?” Right before they boarded the plane, this Richie Rich had words with my best friend.

“I can’t. He came to me in confidence. As her bodyguard, I have to respect a request from her boyfriend.” Tension ekes on the line. “Shereallylikes him—and I’m not sabotaging this. He’s her first kiss.”

From what Akara told me, their first kiss was a good moment. Good experiences are hard to come by. My first kiss was shit on wheels. We wouldn’t want to morph the good thing into something bad.

I tuck hair behind my ear. “You think she’ll be that mad at him if she hears his request?”

“She’ll break up with him.” He’s that assured.

I don’t tell him to go and do it.

Selfishly, we’d both love for them to break up, but our opinions on the guy don’t hold weight to hers, and that’s how it should be. We’re not the ones making out with him.

Akara sighs out his frustration. “I can’t fucking believe he told me to stop being her friend.”

That wasn’t exactly the request.

I smile into a swig of beer. “He told you to stopflirting.” I can feel Akara’s glare all the way from Scotland.

“Sul and I haveneverflirted.”

They’ve flirted.

Hell, I’ve flirted with the girl. She’s funny, competitive, a fucking smokeshow, and also very, very virginal but I wouldn’t call her naïve. I’m just not sure she understands when men are hitting on her versus when they’re just beingfriendly.

Akara’s denial has probably confused the shit out of her.

“You’re really gonna keep telling me you’re not attracted to Sulli?”

He curses me out. “She’s like my…sister.”

“Your dick gets hard for your sister?”

He laughs lightly, the line cracking. “Always with the one-liners.”

“You’re the one freezing your nuts off for sister-fucking jokes.”

“Yeah, my bad.” Akara sounds less stressed. “Hey, at least she’s not fucking the Rooster.” He pauses. “If that’s who she loses her virginity to…”

“I’d lose my shit.”

“Not before me.”

“Amen.” I finish off my eighth beer, and then stretch my legs back out. “Are you—” I cut myself off at the sound of shattering glass.

Distant.

Coming from the famous one’s townhouse.

“What was that?” Akara asks.

He could hear it over the fucking phone.“I don’t know.” The noise alerts my dulled senses. No security alarm is triggered, but I stay deathly still and pick up the squeak of floorboards.

I whisper, “An intruder.” I grip my cell, shoot to my feet, and smack my toe into the coffee table. I catch a falling beer bottle before it crashes to the ground and causes more commotion.

Jesus fucking—I swear under my breath. What I hate, more than anything, is that I’ve been drinking. If my brother were here, he’d be dead sober.