“There’s prostitutes out there, Remi! Lot’s of them.”
She’d been just about to remark that he was more likely to get into trouble with a loan shark than a prostitute when a Honda Fit had bounced right off the passenger door.
Brick had looked positively murderous at the ferry landing.
The look he leveled her with was stormy. He held her gaze for a tumultuous minute before he gave a rueful shake of his head. “It was never about the truck. He wasn’t careful with you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. They’d been dancing around the issue for an eternity. She was single. She was of age. And she was more than willing. Was he finally admitting that he cared?
“Breathe, Rem.” His hand, big, warm, callused, closed over her shoulder and covered part of her chest. It felt so good. So right. So inevitable. Why the hell wasn’t he kissing her yet?
“Brick. I’m eighteen. I’m out of school. I’m not seeing Spencer anymore. I’m not a damn virgin. What the hell are you waiting for?” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Don’t what? Damn it, Brick. Don’t you want me?”
“Is that what you think?”
“I’m tired of thinking, of guessing. Spell it out for me. You’re there every time I need you, sometimes even before I know I need you. You know all my deepest, darkest secrets. You are the only person who can tell when I’m lying. When you look at me after you’ve worn through all your willpower for the day, sometimes it looks like you can’t decide if you want to devour me or destroy me.”
She could see the clench of his jaw, how the cords of his neck stood out, and knew he was close to breaking.
“God damn it, Remi. Please stop talking.” But he didn’t back up. He didn’t take his hand off her. It anchored her to the spot, to him. It gave her the focus and the strength to see it through.
“You need to say it,” she insisted. “One way or another, you need to tell me where I stand with you.”
“You’re safe with me. That’s all you need to know.” His fingers curled into the flesh of her shoulder like they couldn’t help themselves.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I’m sick of being safe. Aren’t you tired of protecting me?”
“Yes!” he bellowed. “I’m fucking exhausted! Are you happy? I’m tired of keeping you out of trouble and keeping my damn hands off you.”
Her hands shot up triumphantly. “Finally!” The transformation was already beginning. He could see her as something more than his little brother’s annoying friend. He would let her be more.
“Remi. You’re leaving for school in a couple of weeks,” he said.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” To her, a summer fling was the epitome of adulthood. Being grown-up to enjoy a temporary relationship that they both could look back on fondly? Share secret winks across the Thanksgiving table. Maybe pick back up where they left off once she was done with college. Yes, please. Sign her up.
“You’re leaving,” he said stubbornly.
“And?”
His jaw clenched in that adorably annoyed way of his. “And I don’t want to ruin you.”
“Ruin me? Good lord, man, have you had your ears cleaned? I’m not a virgin.”
“Jesus, Remi!” He threw a glance over his shoulder and towed her into the alleyway between buildings away from the spring foot traffic. He kicked the decorative gate shut behind them and deposited her against the cool stone of the building. “If I let myself touch you? If I let myself go? Neither of us would survive.”
“Well, somebody ate a bowl of Humble Flakes for breakfast this morning. Your chivalry is so admirable,” she snapped.
“You and your goddamn smart mouth.”
“Go ahead. Teach me a lesson,” she taunted.
He leaned in until their foreheads touched. She wished she could bottle the smell of him. She’d call it First Crush and make a billion dollars.
“Remi, baby, if you knew one-tenth of the things I’ve thought about doing, you’d run away and never look back.”
Her heart was hammering in her chest as adrenaline and lust released into her bloodstream. “I don’t run, Brick.” No one had ever made her feel like he did. And deep down in some secret part, she was worried no one ever would.
“You better fucking start now.” His voice was barely a rasp.
“If I reached under that belt right now, what would I find?” To drive her point home, she curled her fingertips into the waistband of his jeans.
He squeezed his eyes shut and hissed. “Jesus.”
“No use praying for help. Jesus isn’t worried about your dick, Brick.”
“I’m not touching you.” He gritted out the words like a rusty mantra.
“What if I touch you?” she whispered. She’d lost the thread of the fight. Lost the point she was trying to make. She skated her fingers over the buckle and listened to the intake of his breath. “Do you want me to? If you do, you have to say it. You can’t just hope it’ll happen. You need to say the words.”
She watched his face change as he looked down at her, something like pain in his eyes. Oh, God. He was going to walk away. He was going to stroll down the sidewalk and leave her with wet panties and a broken heart. And she was going to have to make it her life’s mission to torture the man for the rest of his earthly years.
Cool, rough stone at her back. Hot, hard Brick at her front. It was her new favorite place to be.
His gaze dipped to her chest where the material gaped, and he clenched his jaw so hard his cheeks hollowed.
Very deliberately, he placed a hand on either side of her head. She could see the war waging behind his eyes. Want and need with right and wrong. He wanted her. The extra-large bulge behind that soft denim told her that. But he was fighting it like she was poison.
“Do you want me to touch you, Brick?” she asked again in a silky whisper.
He was crowding her with that big, wonderful body of his. Looming into her space and still not touching her. As much as it pissed her off, his willpower, his desire to do the right thing, was a goddamn work of art.
His eyes were squeezed shut. His entire body was rigid, like a trap set to spring.
And then he nodded.
She sucked in a breath, not daring to blink. “Say it,” she said softly.
Life went on outside the little alley. Tourists window-shopped. Baristas brewed coffees. Birds dipped into the water, hunting silvery flashes of fish. But none of it mattered. None of it existed. The only thing she cared about was the hum of Brick’s body mere inches from her own. The scent of him burrowing its way into her brain.
“Yes.”
It was a broken rasp.
And it set them both free.
She didn’t give him a chance to rethink, to change his mind or regroup. To rebuild the walls she’d managed to knock down.
Remi slid her palm over his belt buckle and lower. When she cupped his erection in her palm, he shuddered against her like a man destroyed. Again, he dropped his forehead to hers. His hands fisted on the wall on either side of her head.
She felt strong, powerful. And when she pressed her palm against his rigid shaft, when he trembled against her, she felt like a goddamn goddess.