I saw a video once where a kid was putting rubber bands around a watermelon, one after another, getting tight as a belt around the melon’s middle until it burst in a rain of red guts and juice. I can feel those rubber bands surrounding us, pushing us together as it gets tighter and tighter, on the edge of . . . something. A kiss, maybe?
We were close earlier. But I can’t—won’t—do that to Emily.
“’Bye, Cowboy.”
He touches the brim of his filthy ballcap. “Goodnight, Lil Bit.”
I can’t help but watch him swagger across the row to Bessie. In the light of my headlights, I can trace the wide breadth of his shoulders, the taper down to his waist, the full roundness of his ass in those dirty work jeans, and his long, thick legs. I’ll give him this—he looks good coming, but damn, does he look even better going when you can’t see that knowing spark in his eyes.
He climbs in the truck, slamming the door with a finality that irritates me for some reason. The window being down is the only reason I hear the click-click-click when he tries to start Bessie.
“Sonofabitch!” I hear him spit out. His window must be down too.
I sigh to myself, looking up at the headliner of my truck and beyond. “You testing me? Because this is so not right.” Still, I get out and trace his steps across the parking lot. I lean against his door with my hip, not able to reach the window frame with my forearm like he did, and cross my arms casually.
Not a care in the world, see? Everything’s fine, just fucking peachy.
Except it’s not.
Because it’s just the two of us in this dark lot now, and though my brain is screaming that he’s off limits, my body doesn’t give a shit. It just wants his, and heat pools low in my belly.
He turns his head to glare at me, but I’m well aware that he watched every step of my approach in the side mirror. Those eyes promise punishment . . . to Bessie? To me? I’m not sure which.
“Pop the hood. I’ll take a look.”
He reaches down, pulling the lever with a pop, and I push off the truck to walk to the front. After releasing the safety latch, I climb up on the bumper, balancing on my toes to lift the hood into place. A quick check tells me it’s probably the battery.
I glance back before I jump down and see Brody right in my landing zone. His eyes are locked on me, tracing along my skin. I can feel it now, from my boots, up the bare backs of my thighs, to my nonexistent ass that’s sticking out as I bend over the truck to work. I can’t decide whether I’m glad I changed from my coveralls into cutoff shorts and a T-shirt for this little forced outing or wishing I had them back on to hide my skin from the heat of his gaze.
He’s not the least bit embarrassed to be caught looking and boldly looks more, daring me to call him out on it.
He reaches for me, big hands wrapping around my waist before I can string together a sentence to refuse. He lifts me off the truck like I weigh nothing, lowering me toward the ground. But he takes his time, letting every inch of me rub along the hard planes of his body. Through the layers of clothes, I feel the tightness of his abs, the bite of his belt buckle against my body, and the bulge beneath it. His hands tighten incrementally as my toes hit terra firma, not letting me go. I’m a little unsteady myself and lean against him, though I’d never admit that. Not even in a court of law under oath. Nope, I don’t recall it that way, Your Honor.
“I’ll have to jump you off . . .” Why has that never sounded so damn sexual before? I rush to finish my thought. “And you can follow me back to the shop. I can drop a new battery under Bessie’s hood in a few minutes and have you on your way.”
My voice has gone cold and flat, a defensive mechanism I picked up a long time ago.
I’ve done this dance before. And one of two things is going on here. Option one, he’s decided I’ll be a good stand-in replacement for Emily, though he doesn’t need one because she’s just this side of throwing herself at him. Or option two . . . there’s a certain subset of guys that has twin fantasies, something about double the pleasure, double the fun. As if we’re damn Doublemint gum. No one ever considers that for their twin fantasy to happen, it means me having a sex-moment with my sister, and that’s some fucked-up shit. I love Emily, but never do I want to know what sounds she makes or what her O-face looks like. I won’t say I’ve never done it in front of a mirror, but that’s actually me, not another person who just looks like me.
Brody hasn’t exactly been flirting with us both. He’s actually been pretty quiet all evening, but he was being all gentlemanly putting Emily in her car and now he’s holding me like he’s got plans already formed in his mind . . . and his pants. And he’s got that bad boy charm that says he’d be down for just about anything. ‘Oh, by the way . . . I saw this thing one time . . .’ and we’re back to Doublemint territory.
He lets go of my waist, the evening chill thankfully replacing the warmth of his hands and reminding me of something important. Emily. Not that I forgot, but maybe just a little, for a second.
“Sounds good.”
I step around him, shoulder bumping him in that douchebag-dude way that says ‘you’re so unimportant, I didn’t even see you there’ and stride to my truck. It starts up easily and I pull up next to Bessie.
I make quick work of the cables and jump Bessie off, her diesel roar loud in the night air.
“Follow me,” I order before hopping up in my truck and slamming the door. He can do it or not, his choice. Because I’ve already made mine.
Brody is Emily’s.
And no Doublemint shit.
I remind myself again an hour later.
Brody is Emily’s.
But after we got back to the garage and I did the quick change on the battery, promising I’d only charge for the battery itself and not labor, we’re still sitting here. The music is low, a playlist from my dad that’s mostly 70s rock, and as the guitar riffs of Kansas’s Carry On My Wayward Son wash over me, so do Brody’s eyes.
Again.
When he looks at me that way, the reminder about Emily gets lost in the static in my head. I’m a good sister. Hell, I’m mostly a great sister, but bad thoughts are taking shape.
Dirty, filthy, sexy thoughts that I should not be having about the guy my sister wants.
I sip at my beer, knowing this one is decidedly stouter than the watered-down piss they serve at Two Roses.
“Don’t you need to go?” I shouldn’t ask. I should order him to leave. Normally, I would, but apparently, I’m going soft in my old age. I’m only twenty-six, but apparently, that’s old enough to be ruining my reputation as a hard-nosed bitch.
“No.” Brody doesn’t move a muscle, sitting in a duct-tape covered office chair that Reed usually claims. That seems ironic to me, given their pissing match to see who the Alpha at the bar was.
Newsflash: it’s me. I’m the Alpha.
And anyone who doesn’t think that’s possible can check their misogyny at the door. I’ve had to fight my way through everything that’s been thrown at me, not just a woman in a man’s world, but a tiny, cute woman. If I had a nickel for every man who’s called me ‘baby’, I’d be a rich bitch, sitting on a pile of silver, taking dead shot aim at the fuckers below who got me there. Every one of them underestimated me, but they’d learned not to.