“About the car—” He frowned, so she hurried to add, “About remembering you doing me a favor by driving me home—”
“Baby, I was just kidding about that.”
Another baby. Really distracted. Still, she kept going.
“I didn’t need the reminder to think of you,” she admitted. “I’ve thought of you every single day since you left me.”
It was as though he’d suddenly been prodded with electricity. Every muscle in his body went taut, and he rotated to face her. “What did you say?”
Oh shit.
She shook her head. “Forget it—”
He kissed her.
One second, she was ready to run away or beg the floor to swallow her up so she could forget what she’d admitted, and the next moment his mouth was on hers, his tongue down her throat, and sparks exploding along her spine.
Her knees wobbled, her panties got soaked, and her arms slid around his neck.
Hell, she was never going to catch up on Outlander now.
Six
Tanner
Fuck, had it always been this good between them?
Tan had thought it was pretty freaking great kissing Kels nine years before, but now his mouth on hers was fucking incendiary. He slid his tongue across the seam of her mouth, and she opened immediately, letting him in at the same time she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged him closer.
She tasted of tequila and flowers, sweet with tang, but she also tasted of Kelsey.
His Kelsey.
His from the first time he’d laid eyes on her, eight years old with tears in those pretty brown eyes because she’d fallen and scraped her knee. He hadn’t known what she was to him then, just that he hadn’t liked seeing her hurt and crying, so he’d hugged her and helped her inside to her mom.
But she’d been his since that moment.
That hadn’t changed when he was in middle school and she was taking college courses, books sprawled on her kitchen island and pencil marks on her face. He hadn’t been able to help her with her homework—in fact, she usually helped him when his own math problems stumped him—but he’d been self-sufficient for a long time. He knew how to make good snacks, and since she’d often forget to eat when completing whatever complicated work her professors had assigned her, Tan had made it his responsibility to feed her.
Even when they’d gotten older, when he and Bas had spent more time out of the Scott house than in it, he’d still checked in on her.
She’d been pretty then, but still so young, and he’d been in high school then college and after what most boys that age were. Kels had been both jailbait and his best friend’s sister, so she was beyond off-limits. She was absolutely, impenetrably untouchable.
He’d tucked away the pretty, focused on the sister . . . until the day she’d graduated with her Master’s, and he’d made the mistake of hugging her.
So right in his arms. So much fiery desire from such innocent contact.
Like now—
But also unlike now.
Because his mouth was on hers, and she was kissing him with far more confidence than she’d ever done before.
Her fingers drifted to his head and wove into the strands of his hair, tugging firmly, making prickles of pain dance on his scalp. Rather than really hurting, it enhanced, taking his cock from mostly hard to granite and sending his control scattering.
His hands swept down and cupped her ass, scooping her up. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around his waist and, fuck, that felt incredible. Lungs screaming for oxygen, he broke from her mouth, sucking in air while nipping at her throat, running his tongue along the shell of her ear. She moaned when he sucked on the lobe, fingers clenching on his scalp again, and he felt a bolt of satisfaction in remembering her spots, in discovering they hadn’t changed.
But he also knew this was too much too soon, so he didn’t drift lower when he desperately wanted to. Instead, he went back to her mouth, nibbling at the corner before taking it in a slow, easy kiss that helped him garner some of the tendrils of his control. Finally, he eased back, returning to reality to find that he’d pinned her against the wall, his groin nestled against the sweet softness of her pussy, and that reality meant that his control almost went scattering again.
Luckily—or perhaps unluckily, depending on how one looked at it—Tan glanced to the right and saw the eight-by-ten of her family hanging on the wall less than a foot from her head.
The whole gang was there, her parents, Grant and Megan, Devon and his wife, Becca, Sebastian and Rachel, and Kelsey. Brown locks shining, huge smile on her beautiful face, and bright brown eyes proudly focused on the camera.
Everyone else was laughing, no doubt because she’d said something smart ass.
They were happy.
And he wasn’t there.
Carefully, Tanner set Kelsey back on her feet, trying to ignore the piercing pain that reminded him of exactly how much he’d missed when he’d run. It took her a moment to come to, her lids opening slowly to reveal eyes hazed with desire. His cock twitched again, but he ignored it and stepped back after making sure she was steady.
That made the haze clear slightly and a pang of regret shot through him, but seriously, what the fuck had he been thinking? He was fucked up. He didn’t have a job, had put his camera equipment in storage—or all but his favorite DSLR—and he didn’t even have a place to stay. Spending the last years as a nomad meant that he didn’t have any ties, didn’t know how to be part of a family, let alone a close one like the Scotts, and he knew that the moment he got involved with Kelsey, he’d be all in.
Which meant that inevitably he’d fuck things up with her.
And then he’d lose what he had with all the Scotts.
“Fuck,” he muttered, turning away and shoving a hand through his hair. He needed them in his life, needed Kelsey in his life, and that meant he had to get a handle on this desire and go back to being a surrogate brother. If he didn’t, he’d lose them all.
“Good to know that my kissing still makes you react in the same way.”
At that smart comment, he almost turned around and slammed his mouth back down on hers. It took locking every muscle in his body tight to keep from doing it, but he managed. Then he sucked in a breath, took two steps, and reached for the doorknob.
He heard a noise—a rustle, a whoosh of something falling to the floor.
He shouldn’t have looked. He knew that in his bones.
But he also knew he couldn’t have not looked to save his life.
Tanner had made the same mistake all those years ago—underestimating Kels—and why he did the same thing in that moment was beyond fucking stupid. Regardless of his mental capacity, he glanced back.
Oh fuck.
She was standing opposite him . . . wearing nothing but her bra and panties.
He looked. He had to fucking look.
Turquoise lace that did nothing to disguise the dusky pink of her nipples, the brown hair between her thighs. Her breasts and hips were larger. She’d been slender before, almost a reed of a girl, but now she was all woman. Still tall and thin, but with curves that his palms ached to caress.
“Tan,” she murmured.
He was frozen.
Then she unhooked her bra and dropped it to the floor.
Fuck.