BEST FRIEND’S BROTHER

He unfastened another button at the neck of his shirt, allowing a tantalising glimpse of brown flesh lightly covered with dark hair. His eyes narrowed, thick lashes veiling his expression. “Tilly told me you have been sick. What’s wrong with you?”

“What? Nothing. Nothing is wrong with me,” Sasha retorted quickly, inwardly cursing Tilly for making a difficult situation worse. “You-you don’t have to care. Tilly worries about me, that’s all.”

“She does worry a lot. With that, I agree.” He paused, and she knew he was registering the color that had entered her pale cheeks as she spoke.

“It was just a cold” she added.

“Colds do not usually elicit such concern.”

“No, well, Tilly is a very-sympathetic person.” Sasha made a helpless gesture. “And-perhaps she didn’t expect you to- to-”

“To what, Sasha?”

The steps he took forward narrowed the space between them and she had to steel herself not to move away.

“To-to care” she said hurriedly, not prepared to admit that he could still hurt her. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. And then, trying to make her tone light, “Don’t you have other places to be?… Perhaps with Claire. Wouldn’t she be wondering where you are?”

“Claire trusts me,” he declared harshly, stung by the way she could put him on the defensive. “What? You think I didn’t tell her where I was going?”

Tilly pursed her lips. “No.” She was defensive now.

“Good. Because you couldn’t be more wrong.” Kaleb didn’t know where this anger had come from, but he was suddenly furious. Sasha was here, in his parents’ house, looking more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, and he resented it. He didn’t want her here, he told himself. He didn’t want to be reminded of what they had. No matter how short it lasted. “Claire and I understand one another.”

“Well, goody for you.” Now Sasha felt a stirring of indignation, which was infinitely better than the embarrassment she’d felt before. “So, if that’s all you came to tell me, what are you waiting for? I’d really like to get to bed.”

Kaleb’s nostrils flared. And, just when he was sure he had himself under control, he asked the unforgivable, “Why did you come here, Sasha?”NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

Her eyes widened then. She was shocked. He could see it. And why not? It was a stupid question.

“Why did I come here?” she echoed, shaking her head. “You know why I came, Kaleb. Tilly asked me to! She wanted us to hang out here,”

“You could have refused.”

“Refuse my friend? And for what? You?” She was astounded. “What do you think I am?”

“I don’t know, do I?” Kaleb’s teeth ground together. “What are you, Sasha? Saint or sinner? I can’t quite make up my mind.”

Her lips parted, and then, a note of contempt entering her voice, “Well, at least I don’t have that dilemma, Kaleb. You’re totally selfish through and through.”

“And you’re not?” Kaleb’s lips curled, not sure why he felt this pressing need to pursue this, but unable to let it go. “I suppose this means you’ve justified your reasons for walking out on me? Or do you have to keep reminding yourself why you made such a colossal mistake?”

“It wasn’t a mistake!”

“Really? Why do I find that hard to believe? Isn’t there something hypocritical about holding the moral high ground, when a few weeks ago you were flat on your back, letting me screw your brains out?”

The words sounded so much worse, laced as they were with anger, and Sasha gasped. Before she could prevent herself, her hand connected with his cheek.

Kaleb made no attempt to deflect the blow and she watched, with a feeling of disbelief, as the clear marks of her fingers appeared on the left side of his face.

She regretted it instantly. She didn’t do things like this. But it was too late to have second thoughts. Her hand had barely moved in a gesture of subjugation when Kaleb’s uncertain control snapped. With a savage curse, he locked hard fingers about her wrist and dragged her relentlessly towards him. “If that’s the way you want to play it, who am I to complain?”

“Kaleb,” she cried, but it was no use.

“Shut up!” he said harshly.

“But you can’t-”

“I said shut up!” he repeated, grasping a handful of her hair and tipping her head backward. And then his hot mouth fastened itself to hers and she knew she was lost.

Anger, and the frustration he was feeling, made it impossible for him to be gentle with her. As he backed her up against the wall behind her, his tongue forced its way between her teeth. He pushed into her mouth, tasting her blood when his savage possession ground her lips against her teeth, but he had no mercy. He wanted to tear the bathrobe from her and bury himself inside her, and her fragile vulnerability was no deterrent, he found.

The moan she gave should have shamed him, but it didn’t. The sounds she was making only served to drive him completely over the edge. Tearing the sides of the robe apart, he feasted his eyes on dusky-tipped nipples, already swollen and painfully erect, and on the slight swell of her stomach and the tight curls that hid her sex.

“Damn it, Sasha,” he muttered thickly. “You are so fucking beautiful! So beautiful. And I want you!”

Sasha’s hands had been trapped between them but now she dragged them free to rake frantic fingers across his cheek. Thankfully, she didn’t draw blood, but when her nails scraped across his scalp he uttered a groan of protest.

“Do not pretend you do not want me, too,” he said unsteadily, and, although her hands had fastened in his hair with the intention of jerking his head away from hers, the shaken timbre of his voice tore her resolution to shreds.

“I-I don’t,” she got out fiercely, but her lips told a different story when he kissed her again. Passion built between them with every sensual thrust of his tongue, and when he sucked her lower lip between his teeth, she could only clutch his neck and hang on.

“This is why you really came here, isn’t it?” he demanded, his hands sliding possessively up her arms to tip the robe off her shoulders. “You are determined to destroy me.”

“No,” she protested, as the robe fell to the floor, but Kaleb wasn’t listening to her.