Brant, age 25
“Let’s play shoulder wars.” Her face glistens with water droplets, her long hair soaking wet and draped down her back. June’s arms rest along the edge of the inground pool, her chin propped up on top of them as she sends me a stunning smile.
I try to ignore the way she looks at me like I’m the only one here, even though there’s a sea of people mingling around me. “You mean a chicken fight?”
“No… shoulder wars. You know, when someone is on your shoulders fighting another person on somebody else’s shoulders.”
“So, a chicken fight.”
Kip speaks up beside me in his wood lawn chair, nursing a beer. “It’s a chicken fight.”
“You’re both crazy,” June says, jumping out of the water and trailing over to me in the grass. “It’s literally a war battled upon shoulders. There are no chickens.”
My muscles lock up as she approaches, clad in only a pink polka-dotted bikini as rivulets of water trickle down her skin, causing her to light up like a moonglade.
I chug my beer.
When Kip invited us to a pool party at his new place, it was a welcome reprieve from my seven-day work stretch between the restaurant and the club.
A Saturday off?—almost unheard of these days, which hasn’t exactly been a bad thing. Working myself to utter exhaustion has kept me sane. Kept me progressing, moving forward, one chocolate soufflé and lemon drop martini at a time.
But the long hours on my feet have been getting to me, so when Pauly ordered me to take a weekend off, I humbly accepted. My bills are paid, my savings account is growing, and I honestly couldn’t think of a good reason to say no.
Especially today, when the late summer sun is shining hot and bright, music and laughter are serenading me, and my good friend Kip is seated beside me, filling me in on his latest drug bust.
The grill is hot.
The beer is cold.
And then there’s June—
In a barely-there bikini.
She appears oblivious to her own perfection as she rings out her sopping hair, her light skin already pinkening beneath the unforgiving sun.
Kip has his phone pulled out and is aimlessly scrolling, head down.
Good.
I’d probably club him if I caught him gawking at her.
Taking another sip of beer, I try to keep my eyes from dipping below her face. “I don’t know why it’s called that. It just is.”
“Well, do you want to play? You and me versus Kip and Celeste.”
Kip’s head snaps up. “Oh… uh, I’m good. I think I aged out of that about ten years ago.”
Celeste is in town for two weeks for something family-related, so June invited her to the pool party with us. Kip was fine with it as long as the girls didn’t drink.
I shake my head, in agreement with Kip but for entirely different reasons. June squirming atop my shoulders in her tiny bikini bottoms sounds catastrophic. “Sorry, but I’m going to pass, too.”
“You’re no fun. How about—” June is closing in on me, smelling of chlorine and coconut sunscreen, when Celeste steals her attention from the edge of the pool.
“Let’s dry off and grab food!” she calls out, dangling a beach towel from each hand.
June nibbles her lip, sparing me a quick glance that holds more than it should, then turns to head in the other direction. I can’t help but watch her float away for a beat too long, transfixed by the way she moves, inciting inevitable commentary from Kip.
“How’s that going?” he murmurs around the spout of his beer.
Clearing my throat, I lean back in the lawn chair, twirling my own bottle between my fingers. I glance at him in his white t-shirt and swim trunks, his coppery hair grown out more and highlighted by the late afternoon sunshine. “It’s not going anywhere,” I lie.
It’s gone too far already.
His eyebrow arches with dubiety. “You know I’m a cop, right? I can spot deception from a mile away.”
“Nothing’s happened.”
He nods, then takes another sip. “That I believe.”
Sighing, I place my quickly warming beer into the built-in cup holder, my eyes trailing to June as she wraps a colorful beach towel around her slim waist. She chose the rainbow print. “She moved in with me last week.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious,” I mutter, already knowing what a huge mistake it was. Already knowing that, while I’ve been safely wading in the shallow end for the past year, stupidity and weakness pushed me into deep waters, and now I’m flailing. “She wanted a taste of independence, so I offered.”
“Independence. Right.” He ducks his head, lips pursing with thought. “You’re playing with fire, Brant. And if you’re looking to get burned, have at it, but those flames are going to spread… you have to be okay with letting the things around you burn, too.”
I swallow. “It’s complicated.”
“Fire is pretty straightforward. You light a match, and shit burns down.”
My gaze lingers on June as she wrings more water from her hair, then disappears around the side of the house with Celeste.
He’s right. I know he’s right.
And I’ve tried—I’ve tried—to keep my feelings bottled, to fight this tooth and nail, to be stronger than whatever this is. I’ve been seeing Dr. Shelby again, my childhood psychologist, hoping for advice. For guidance.
She told me, “Out of sight, out of mind—and if you can’t do that, set your sights on something else.”
I tried that, too.
Hell, June encouraged me to try that… so, I did. I kissed Sydney. I kissed Sydney, knowing it would likely lead to more; knowing she could be the perfect cure for this disease.
I haven’t been with a woman since that final time with Wendy, on the night she brought my fucked-up feelings into the harsh light of day. I haven’t had sex in years because I’m in love with someone I shouldn’t be in love with. Someone I can’t have.
And that’s not healthy.
June is dating, and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been tearing me up inside. Every Saturday evening she disappears into the night with some mystery man she won’t tell me about, probably too afraid I’ll track him down and show up at his front door like I did with Wyatt.
Valid.
She’s probably having sex.
She’s probably having wild, raunchy sex with someone who isn’t me, and that thought shouldn’t sicken me the way it does.
Kip interrupts my reeling thoughts, sensing that he touched a nerve. “Hey, wherever you are right now, I didn’t mean to send you there.” He elbows me lightly on the shoulder. “I support you. Both of you. And you can take my unsolicited advice or leave it, you’re both adults, but I just want you to tread carefully, okay?”
I glance at him. “Yeah, I hear you.”
“You’ve lost a lot already, and I’d hate to see you lose even more.”
Theo springs to mind.
His last words.
His dying blessing.
My chest tightens at the memory, and I inhale a pained breath as I nod my head. “You know, I wish I could tell you this was just some fleeting fixation, something perverse and temporary… an itch I want to scratch,” I tell him, my tone low and gritty. “Would that make me a twisted creep? Probably. But at least it wouldn’t hurt half as much as it does right now, being desperately in love with her, unable to see a future with anyone but her… not being able to live a normal, healthy life as a single man because I already belong to someone I can’t even touch.”
A lump thickens in my throat as emotion floods me.
When I look over at Kip, he’s staring at me. His brows are pinched together, his jaw ticking with a similar sentiment. My words process, hovering in the air, sounding louder than the aimless chatter and seventies music playlist filtering around us.
“My real name isn’t Kip,” he finally says.
A curious frown unfurls, not expecting that reply. I blink. “What?”
“It’s Lance. Lance Kipton.” He looks away, pinning his eyes to the grass beneath our bare feet. “Before I became a cop, I worked as a mental health case manager. I was on-call a lot, visiting different psychiatric units, substance abuse clinics, in-home care. There was a hospital I visited frequently… and at that hospital, there was a woman. A nurse.” He smiles with whimsical affection. “Her name was Elloine—pretty name, huh?”
I fold my hands together in my lap, giving him a small nod.
“Anyway… she called me Kip. A nickname I grew to crave, almost as much as I craved my visits to that hospital. She was beautiful, of course. Black hair, the color of coal, and pale green eyes. She had a softness to her—an aura you just wanted to keep and protect. The patients were drawn to her, the staff was drawn to her… and so was I.”
“You… fell for her?” I deduce, noting the hint of torment in his tone.
He nods. “I did. Easily. Effortlessly,” he says. “Unfortunately, everything past that was anything but. She was married.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Kip murmurs, rolling his tongue along his teeth. “He was an abusive son-of-a-bitch, so I felt like that gave me some kind of permission to get involved with a woman who wasn’t mine. A woman I couldn’t have. She was off-limits… forbidden.”
He looks at me pointedly, and the correlation sinks in deep.
“But we fell in love. We fell madly in love, and once it starts, it’s really damn hard to stop.” Kip takes a moment of silence, tapping his index finger against his beer bottle, his muscles tight and twitching. “I told you that my parents died in a boating accident years back. It’s what gave me a new purpose, a new direction, and drove me to become a cop. I wanted justice. I needed it… and not just for them.” He glances my way, his eyes glazed with deep pain. “For her, too. For Elloine.”
My breath stalls as his words settle in, sluicing me with daunting realization. “She was on the boat?”
Kip pulls his lips between his teeth, holding back tears. “Yeah, she was. It was my boat, and I took Elloine out on the water with my parents that day, introducing them to her.” He closes his eyes, dipping his head. “A fire broke out near the engine. Detectives found it suspicious—discovered evidence of tampering. It reeked of arson, and I knew it was her piece-of-shit husband. I knew it… but I could never prove it, and the case went cold,” he says. “I was the only survivor.”
Jesus.
My heart thunders with grief. Kip has lost so much—he’s been through absolute hell. I run a hand down my face, sighing heavily as his story reverberates through me, sticking like sap. “God, I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine.”
“Yeah… it’s hard to imagine that I’ve lived through the unimaginable,” he replies, biting his lip and shaking his head. He takes another minute, then glances back up at me. “So… when I tell you to be careful, I’m telling you that from my own very relatable and very tragic experience—be really fucking careful. I understand that need, that all-consuming fire that turns all good reason into ash. I’ve been there, right in the hot center of the flames.
“But I’ve also been there when everything burns down, and you’re standing all alone amid the devastating ruin—when all that’s left is soot and kindling and billowing smoke. I’ve breathed in that smoke. I’ve choked on it. And I’m not saying your situation is the same… I’m not saying you’re destined for tragedy.” A smile blooms on his mouth, a little trace of empathy through the agony. “I’m just saying, friend to friend, that there are worse things than loving the wrong person.”
I stare at him, waiting, my stomach twisting into knots.
“And that’s losing them.”
An hour goes by of stewing in Kip’s words, picking at my burger, and mingling mindlessly with an assortment of Kip’s friends and co-workers, when I realize I haven’t seen June since she disappeared with Celeste to grab food.
The girls rode over with me, so I know they’re around somewhere.
Excusing myself from a casual conversation, I toss my empty beer bottle into a trash can and saunter into the older tri-level house, recently upgraded on the inside. The screen door slides open, leading through a quaint kitchen and dining area, and I’m instantly flooded by the sound of June’s laughter trickling up from a downstairs den.
My feet carry me to the doorless doorway, then down the stairs and into a furnished den, where I discover June and Celeste chatting with two male friends of Kip’s.
I stop at the bottom of the staircase, watching for a moment as one of the men curls his hand around June’s hip, a gesture of flirtation. She’s wearing denim shorts over her swimsuit bottoms, but she’s still only clad in her bikini on top.
And that’s exactly where his eyes are fixated.
A fierce sense of possession funnels through me, despite the logical truth—June is a grown adult. June is allowed to flirt with men.
June. Is. Not. Mine.
Did I retain nothing from Kip’s warning?
She sways a little, looking unbalanced. And when she responds to something he says, her words slur together.
Shit. Has she been… drinking?
I clear my throat aggressively, garnering the attention of four heads twisting in my direction, and June lights up when she sees me, ignorant to the venom racing through my blood.
“Brant! My brother…” she singsongs, stumbling toward me as I approach. “My brother is here, you guys! He’s just the best.”
June slings her arms around my neck, nearly collapsing into me as the rest of the group looks on, probably wondering why it looks like she’s trying to climb her brother like a tree.
I peel her off of me, then lift her chin with my index finger. Her eyes are glossy, her smile lopsided. A pang of worry stabs me. “Are you drunk, Junebug?”
The sound of her nickname brings a flicker of reality to her eyes. She swallows, then pinches her fingers together to signify a teensy amount. “Little bit.”
Celeste pipes in, strolling over to us with a panic-stricken expression. “I’m so sorry, Brant… it’s my fault. I brought those miniature liquor bottles, thinking we’d just get a little buzzed, but June drank two, and now she’s drunk a-and—”
“Jesus,” I mutter, swiping my palms over my face. “Kip is going to kick my ass.”
The two friends of Kip offer a sympathetic smile, then sweep past me and the girls, disappearing up the staircase. Celeste wrings her hands together. “I’m sorry. I’ll grab our stuff, and we can go.”
June pouts. “I don’t want to go. I’m having fun.” She storms over to Celeste, pleading, “Let’s stay a little longer. I want to swim.”
“Celeste, can you give us a minute?” I intercede.
She looks at me, fiddling with her dark blonde braid and nodding her head with apology. “Sure. I’ll wait out back.”
“Thanks.”
When she heads up the stairs, leaving us alone, I wait for June to turn around and face me. I’m disappointed that she was drinking when she hardly drinks at all, at a cop’s house no less, and I’m even more disappointed that she almost just fooled around with a stranger twice her age.
Disappointed, or jealous?
I ignore my subconscious buzzing in my ear, and watch as she clumsily pivots around, her hand reaching for the armrest of the couch to steady herself. Her eyes bat in my direction, her full lips parting as she says, “It’s been hell living with you this week. Even though we’ve hardly seen each other…” She swallows, taking a step forward. “It’s been hell.”
My fingers curl at my sides, tension rippling through me. “Why is that?”
“You know why, Brant.”
Of course, I know why. It’s almost as if I took in two roommates last Saturday—June, and the tangible sexual tension that came along with her.
It was a stupid idea.
I’m not exactly sure what I was thinking, especially after working so hard to put space between us; so, I’ve concluded that I wasn’t thinking at all. June was struggling, and I swooped in to save her. June wanted to leave the nest, so I offered her a safe place to land.
Unfortunately, the arrangement is backfiring, so I purposely put in long hours at work this week in order to avoid some kind of imminent explosion.
Seeing her so upset over what happened with Sydney confirmed my worst fear…
She feels it, too.
This is a mutual thing, and mutual things are ten times harder to ignore.
But I’m still trying. I’m still trying so damn hard to be strong, to do what I know is in her best interest—to keep us from going up in flames and singeing everything we hold dear.
June takes another step forward, her eyes glazed with more than alcohol.
I shake my head. “I’m not talking about this with you right now. Not when you’re inebriated.”
“Maybe we should. Maybe we have to.”
“Maybe. But not now.”
“But you look upset, and I hate when you’re upset. You can talk to me.”
My teeth grind together. “I’m upset because one minute you’re calling me your brother, reminding me of how wrong this is, and the next minute you’re looking at me like you want me to tear that bikini off of you and cross a line we can’t come back from.”
June slicks her tongue over her lips, inhaling a quick breath. Then she nibbles that lip, conveying innocence but looking like pure sin.
She teeters as she moves closer toward me, circling her finger around my face with a long, weary sigh. “It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?”
“Your face.”
I frown. “My face isn’t fair?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Why?” I almost laugh, watching as she continues her wobbly trek forward. My gaze dips south for the tiniest moment, landing on her ample cleavage, before sliding back up.
Pure sin.
June lands toe to toe with me, her partially dried hair cascading over bare shoulders in thick sections, the ends still wet and tickling the swell of her breasts. She sucks in a deep breath. “It’s not fair that your face is so perfect; a piece of art on display that I’m not allowed to touch. I should only adore it from afar, even though its beauty calls to me. Even though I’m convinced it was created just for me.” Her eyelashes flutter as she sways, as if she’s drunk on more than rum or whiskey—as if she’s drunk on her very own words. “It’s not fair that it holds two eyes that look at me the way they do, like they were made for seeing only me. It’s not fair that it has lips that I’ve memorized, that I can’t forget, and a tongue I’ve dreamed about tasting me over and over again.” June lifts her hand, pressing the pads of two fingertips to her mouth. She adds huskily, “And not just here.”
Any trace of humor lingering in the air pulverizes into dust as raw hunger takes its place.
My molars scrape together, my cock twitching at her implication.
June’s hand extends from her mouth, planting against my chest as her eyes rove my face with bold lust. She’s never come on to me like this before, and I think that’s the only goddamn reason I haven’t turned us into something criminal.
Her innocence tames me.
Her naivety grounds me.
Her sweetness buries the rotten thoughts.
But this?
This girl has the power to unleash the hibernating beast.
She’s drunk. She’s not thinking clearly. You’ll regret this for the rest of your life.
I’m about to tell her to put some clothes on and collect her things when her hand slowly travels down my chest, over my abdomen, then grazes the swollen bulge between my legs. “I bet this isn’t fair either,” she whispers, her voice full of smoke. “I bet it would wreck me.”
Holy shit.
I audibly groan, my better judgment snapping in two as I lean down and snatch her up by the thighs, coiling her legs around my hips. She squeaks in surprise as I carry her to the nearby couch and collapse backwards with June in my lap. She falls against me while I fall further under her spell.
June continues to rub my erection, her breaths morphing into quick pants and her skin flushing pink before me. She writhes a little, seeking friction, then uses her opposite hand to shove my face between her bikini-clad breasts.
Another moan pours out of me, and I’m certain I’m going to come in my pants in about five seconds.
My brain starts trying to think ahead.
Is the door locked?
No, there is no door.
Do I have a condom?
No, I haven’t had sex in two years.
Is this a one-way ticket to Hell?
Yes.
June’s movements are languid and lazy as she swivels her hips on my lap, her fingers gliding through my hair while she strokes me with her other hand. “Maybe we don’t need to talk at all. If you want me…” she says breathily. “You can have me.”
As she gives me permission to fuck her on Kip’s couch, in his den, while dozens of party guests who see us as brother and sister are above us thinking we’re down here playing fucking checkers or something, a whiff of alcohol on her breath infiltrates me.
It chokes me.
It wakes me the hell up.
With my face smashed against her cleavage, I breathe into her skin, “You want to know what’s not fair?” One of my arms wraps around her back, drawing her closer, while the other palms her breast. My thumb brushes over her pebbled nipple as I tug down the thin slip of bikini, then I drag my mouth over to it until I’m sucking it between my teeth. June whimpers desperately, squeezing my rock-hard erection with one hand and gripping my hair with the other. I lave my tongue over her breast, savoring the taste of her skin fused with salt and chlorine, before situating her bikini back into place. I glance up at her through hooded eyes. “It’s not fair that I can’t have the woman I’m madly in love with, who’s wriggling around in my lap, stroking me through my jeans, telling me that my cock would fucking wreck her.”
June stills, her forehead falling against mine. Inhaling sharply, she inches her hand away from my groin, breathing heavily, her skin prickled with goosebumps and painted in sunburn. Glazed blue eyes open slowly, almost as if she had been sleeping. Groggy, glimmering with confliction.
“I can’t have you,” I repeat.
I repeat it for her, I repeat it for me.
I can’t have you.
She swivels her forehead, reining in her feelings, trailing her hands up my chest until they rest upon my shoulders. The tips of her wet hair chill my heated skin. “If I forget this by tomorrow, can… can you remind me? I don’t want to forget this moment,” she rasps out, curling her fingers around my t-shirt. Then her forehead slips from mine, and I’m worried she’s going to kiss me—I’m worried because I’m not sure I can stop it if she kisses me—but instead, she drops her head to the top of my shoulder, becoming dead weight in my lap. “Please remind me.”
June passes out almost instantly, and before someone can walk downstairs and discover us precariously entwined, I twist her off my lap and lay her onto the couch, pulling an Afghan off the back and draping it over her. Bending forward, I push a piece of hair out of her eyes and kiss her temple, whispering, “I won’t.”
