The night wore on and I relaxed a bit, lulled by the music and the happy chatter all around. I’d always liked people watching and there was no better place to do that than at a crowded party. Everyone was at least slightly drunk and uninhibited.
I blinked when I saw Preston enter the barn, my heart flipping once. His eyes scanned the vast space, landing on me, and I was caught for a moment in his gaze, my breath frozen, unable to move. Something seemed to spark between us, as if the twinkle lights overhead brightened for the brief span of a moment, the music fading around me and then resuming in a loud burst of melody as Preston broke the strange contact, looking away.
He walked along one wall, weaving in and out of a few people, and then back toward the door again. The way he moved—and I knew his movements, had watched them all my life—made me realize that his muscles were tensed, and I had the strange idea that he looked like a pacing panther.
Finally, he moved toward a bench and I watched him as he sat down, taking a long drink from the red plastic cup in his hand. He glanced at me again, very quickly then away, and even from where I sat, he looked slightly angry. Was he still mad about the motorcycle? When I thought about it, he’d been angry, or at least tense, two of the three times I’d seen him since he’d been back. Was that about his dad? That would make sense, although I sensed his anger was at me, or with me. I just wished I understood why.
I thought back to the week before when I’d come here, and we’d sat together in the barn. I wanted that intimacy back. I wanted it to be just him and me again and not all these people, all this noise, and the way I felt out of place in the crowd, even with Cole’s warm body next to mine as he chatted and laughed.
I thought, too, about how things were the same now, but also different. All three of us were back in the same town, but we’d all grown up in the last four years. I had been a confused, overwhelmed, longing-filled girl just dipping my toes in the swirling water of romantic relationships when they’d left for college. I didn’t have much more experience now, but I knew myself better, understood the responses of my body. I was never going to love Cole as more than a friend. It was Preston I still loved, and whether or not he felt the same for me, his brother would never—could never—be a substitute.
I hoped Cole had come to the same realization and wouldn’t try to kiss me tonight because I would have to tell him no. We were better as friends. I wouldn’t go so far and tell him the reason. That the white-hot shattering feeling inside me existed for Preston but not for him. And it did no one any good to pretend it was, or to tell the lie that the absence of it didn’t matter. I’d always settled in my life—but now I realized pursuing anything more than friendship with Cole would be exactly that, I couldn’t do it. Not just because of myself, but because of Cole. He deserved a woman who was going to light up every time he entered the room. Not one who was going to look over his shoulder for a glimpse of the man she really wanted.
Yes, I loved two brothers—identical twins—but it was only one soul that spoke to mine. One soul I’d always belonged to.
I glanced at Preston again but didn’t allow my eyes to linger. I wanted to think and each time I looked at him, all my thoughts became jumbled and discombobulated.
The noise rose and fell around me, lulling me into a kind of trance where I could escape into my own head.
If I did make it clear to Cole that I only wanted to be a friend, would there be a chance between Preston and me? My heart raced with the possibility. For a moment, in this very barn, our hands had touched, and I’d thought maybe the attraction between us—that zing of electricity—might be mutual. And thinking back now, with the eyes of a woman, I wondered if maybe it had been there all along, especially that night in the Laundromat when we’d danced and he’d pulled me close. I’d been so uncertain, just a girl, and a girl who was so deeply in love that nothing seemed clear except the steady thumping of my own yearning heart.
Perhaps he’d given his blessing for his brother to pursue me once, but things changed, people changed, hearts opened. Even now, I was sitting across the room with Cole. But what if I got up and went over to Preston? What if I found the courage to help him see me in a different light than he had in the past . . . what if I made it clear that I wished he would? My heart began pounding more quickly in my chest.
The people around me suddenly exploded in laughter and I jumped slightly, coming back to myself and realizing Cole had said something apparently hilarious. I forced myself to pretend I’d heard, laughing along with everyone else.
When I looked back at Preston, he was talking to a redhead who had parked herself right next to him on the bench. He had a smile on his face and she was leaned in, talking closely, presumably to be heard over the noise. Jealousy made my tummy tighten, and I looked away again. I didn’t want to be here now. I had been right to think this might be a mistake. I could pine for Preston as I always had—it was a miserable familiarity—but I couldn’t sit here and watch him with other women, even if they were only talking. I hated it. I focused back in on the conversation around me and managed to listen for a few minutes before tuning out again.
When I looked back toward Preston again, it was just in time to see the redhead scoot even closer, put her hand on his thigh, and lean her head in to kiss him. Sick panic rose in my throat and ice filled my veins. Oh God, I couldn’t sit here and watch Preston kiss her. I willed him with all my heart to pull away, but he didn’t. He tilted his mouth over hers as their kiss went deeper.
For several horrifying seconds, I stared as they made out across the room before I stood, jostling Cole, and causing him to look up at me in confusion.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “I have to use the bathroom.”
“The house is open,” Cole said. “First door on the right. Do you want me to walk you over?”
I shook my head. “No, no, thank you.”
Cole looked at me for another beat before nodding, and I walked as quickly as I could to the door, making it a point not to look toward Preston as I left.
Once I was outside, I sucked in a big breath of the dry night air, holding back the sob that wanted to escape my throat. I didn’t want to go in their house. The barn was one thing, but the house was where their mother lived, and she had made it clear I wasn’t welcome. I didn’t want to go in, even to use the bathroom while she was out of town, just on principle alone.
The thought of their mother and how much she disliked me, along with the desperate clawing jealousy of just having watched Preston kiss someone, rose up inside me so strongly I could no longer choke it back. A sob escaped and I picked up my pace, running toward the road. I just wanted to get out of here. My stomach was twisted in a tight knot of pain. Oh God, I was an idiot. I’d just been sitting across the room, questioning whether Preston might have feelings for me. Trying to work up the courage to let him know about mine. I was going to be sick.
“Lia!”
I stumbled, glancing behind me to see Preston emerging from the barn. Oh no. Tears were sliding down my cheeks, and I felt desperate to get away from him, from the agony I’d just experienced. I picked up my pace, running aimlessly now, just needing to get away, away, away.
“Lia, Jesus! Stop.”
I was sputtering and choking now, horrified by my own reaction. Preston couldn’t see me like this.
“Go away, Preston,” I begged. But the pounding of his feet behind me didn’t cease, and just a few seconds later he slammed into my body, causing me to yell out in shocked alarm at the impact. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, halting my forward movement completely, and although I fought him, crying harder in his arms, I was no match for his strength. We’d been here before—just like this—that night in the Laundromat when he’d held me from behind as I cried. Was I doomed to repeat every painful, embarrassing experience in my life? Especially every moment with him?
He murmured my name over and over, his breath hot against my ear, and I finally went limp, my soft cries disappearing into the n
ight around us. “Shh, Lia, what’s wrong? What’s wrong? Did someone hurt you? Was it Cole?”
I turned my head away, filled with self-hatred, because I was the one who’d hurt myself—by coming here tonight, by watching as Preston put his lips on someone else, by never quite figuring out how to let go of my love for him.
Misery overwhelmed me to know that even if he was holding me now, he’d go back to the party soon enough and take that girl back in his arms, not as a sister, not as an old friend, but as the desirable woman he saw her as. God, I could smell her on him. “You should go back inside,” I choked. “The redhead must be waiting for you.” I knew I sounded bitter and hurt, and I clenched my eyes closed in humiliation.
“The redhead . . .” he muttered, as if he had no idea who I was talking about.
“The one you were kissing,” I blurted, a nasty edge of accusation I had no right to in my tone.
He froze behind me for a second and then spun me around so quickly I gasped and stumbled toward him, falling into his body and bracing my hands on his chest. He grabbed my wrists and held me away slightly so he was looking into my face, his expression intense and . . . baffled. “You’re jealous?”
I sucked in a shaky breath, trying to get hold of myself but feeling the misery rising up in me again, the embarrassment of this awful moment.
Preston’s eyes were moving intensely over my face as if he were trying to read my mind. I turned my head away, unwilling to answer him, unwilling to let him see what must be clear in my expression. But he let go of one wrist and put his fingers on my chin, turning my face and forcing me to look at him again. I let out another soft cry. “Yes,” I rasped miserably. “Yes, I’m jealous.” The anguished, painful emotion was clearly evident in my voice.
He stared at me for another tense second—something so thick in the air between us I was tempted to reach out and grab for it so I could examine it in my hand and figure out what it was. But then he made a sound that was almost a growl. It shocked me and caught me off guard, and before I even understood what was happening, he’d picked me up and was carrying me toward the house, his stride long and sure, his breath coming out in sharp bursts of sound.
What was happening? What was happening?
CHAPTER NINE
Preston
I barely registered the walk from the yard, up the stairs and inside the house, but suddenly we were there and I was setting Lia on her feet. The sound of my own breath, my own heartbeat whooshed in my ears, but above that, the vague sound of music came to me and I turned and locked the front door of the house so no one could disturb us.
Lia was backing up through the foyer, stumbling away from me into the kitchen, her eyes wide and her expression confused. I stalked her as if I were a predator, my physical hunger for her so intense I felt out of control. I was sweating and my heart was pounding like a drum. She was looking at me with the stunned fear of prey, but I couldn’t manage to find the words to reassure her. Yes, she’d said. Yes, I’m jealous.
I’d felt tense and angry all day, knowing Annalia would be here tonight and that she’d be with Cole. And then he’d driven her up on the back of that damn motorcycle he barely knew how to drive, and I’d had to hold myself back from kicking his ass on our front lawn. And then the torment of watching her sit with him, his arm draped around her, her slender body close to his. I knew just the way she felt, remembered the way she smelled, and the memory of it tortured me and made me feel like a caged animal.
Lia’s butt hit the large farmhouse table, stopping her retreat, and she let out a small squeak.
“Why are you jealous? Tell me why.”
I heard the desperation in my voice but didn’t much care. Suddenly it seemed as if my very existence hinged on her answer. My voice sounded far away as if this moment might not be real, as if I might be dreaming it.
Her eyes darted around as if she, too, was questioning whether this was actually happening, and then her eyes met mine again, filling with resolve, and her lips parted and she breathed, “Because I don’t want you to kiss anyone else. I want you to kiss me. I’ve always . . . I’ve always wanted you to kiss me.”
Oh God. At her words, my heart lurched. The desire that had been contained for so long surged inside me like a violent squall, causing me to sway on my feet as if in time to the internal motion. My body tightened, the tsunami that followed on the heels of the storm making my blood rush suddenly downward. I swelled and hardened, so aware of her and only her that nothing else existed in the room, maybe even the whole entire world. Only the two of us and the energy leaping between our bodies, the words she’d spoken echoing in my head. I want you to kiss me.
Our eyes held as I stepped forward, her gaze tracking me, her head tilting as I pressed myself into her. A guttural sound came up my throat. It had been too long. I’d suppressed my need for her my whole damn life, and in one unexpected moment, I’d given myself permission to release it. I struggled to hang on to even a small modicum of control. Her body was shaking and I thought maybe mine was, too, and so I wove my fingers into her hair, leaning my forehead against hers for just a minute as I attempted to rein myself in. I didn’t want to scare her. My God, I was scaring myself.
She tipped her face up, letting out a small gasp as if she’d held her breath for a few seconds too long. Her warm breath brushed over my cheek and I turned my head, bringing my lips to hers, brushing them together lightly at first, once, twice, breathing in the scent of her mouth, feeling the luscious softness of her lips right against my own.
She whimpered softly and I shivered, unable to keep myself from pushing my tongue into her mouth and tasting her. Sweet Jesus. She was delicious. I thrust deeper, and she met my tongue tentatively with her own, and then sucked gently on mine. My erection surged in my pants and I moaned, lifting her up on the edge of the table so I could step into the warm cradle of her thighs, wanting desperately to get closer to that soft, sweet place between her legs.
Oh God, was this happening? Lia, Lia, Lia.
Mine.
I tore my mouth away just so I could see the expression on her face and when she gazed back at me with half-closed, lust-filled eyes, her bee-stung lips wet and swollen from the pressure I’d exerted with my own, I moaned and returned my mouth to hers.
Her fingers pressed into my shoulders and we were both moaning and writhing against each other in a primal dance that our bodies knew how to perform even without rational thought, or maybe more so because of the absence of it. My own tenuous control slipped and I felt the hot rush of arousal increase, my brain foggy with lust.
I needed to feel her hot skin on my own, was shaking with the urgent desire to explore the velvety softness of it. I leaned back and attempted to undo the buttons of her shirt, but my fingers felt thick and clumsy. I couldn’t make them work properly, so I ripped at the material, the buttons popping off and scattering across the floor. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly and I took a moment to gaze at the silken skin of her breasts spilling out of her bra. “Annalia,” I groaned.
“Preston, I . . . please.” She pulled at my T-shirt and in one swipe I pulled it over my head. I unhooked her front-clasping bra, baring her breasts completely. Oh, sweet Jesus, they were so beautiful. Firm and high, her nipples taut and a deep brownish-rose, straining toward my eager mouth. I trailed my lips down her throat, over her collarbone, and to her breast where I sucked gently on one peak. Lia cried out, her hands coming up to my head to weave into my hair, pressing her nipple more firmly into my mouth. Oh God, I was going to orgasm before I got inside her.
She was clawing at my back and letting out sweet little gasps as she rotated her pelvis against mine, my raging erection nestled in the V of her legs, pulsing in time to her movements.
Our skin was slick with sweat and I wanted to go insane with the pleasure. Maybe I did for a minute because the next thing I knew, I’d lifted her with one arm wrapped around her waist, pulled up her skirt and pulled off her underwear, tossing them somewhere on t
he floor. My mind whirled with the urgency of our need for each other and the almost violent nature with which we were coming together now. Like desperate animals. Like a pressure cooker that had finally gone off.
“I’ve waited so long for you, Lia. So long,” I choked.
“I want you, I want you, I want you,” she was murmuring, the words going straight to my groin.
I sucked and licked at her breasts for several minutes, her cries of pleasure radiating through me like hot bursts of fire. She was shaking when I raised my head from her breast to her face and kissed her again, thrusting my tongue into her mouth. She met me with equal fervor, sucking on my tongue again in that way that made me even wilder for her.
I yanked frantically at the button of my jeans, releasing my penis which was standing hot and hard in aching, ferocious need. It was painful, but oh God, it was the best sort of pain in the world. Part of me desperately wanted relief and another part wanted this to go on and on and on. Lia’s thighs opened to accept me, and I growled fiercely as the engorged head of my erection probed at her slick opening. Lia’s head fell back and she gripped my shoulders again, her fingers digging into my muscles as she braced herself against me.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I guided myself to her soft opening and pushed inside, swearing in a rush of half-formed words and breath at the tightness of her body. She froze and cried out in alarm, trying to scoot her butt backward on the table, but I held her to me, gathering every ounce of control I still had not to plunge into her. “It’s okay. I’ll be slow, all right? It’s okay.”
“You won’t get it in,” she said, panic causing her voice to crack.
Despite the intensity of the situation, despite the fire coursing through my veins, and the feeling that I was about to explode, I couldn’t help the small chuckle that rose in my throat. It was a soft, pained sound and it ended on a groan. “I’ll get it in, Lia. Just relax your muscles, okay? We were made for this.”