Page 22 of Just This Once

I paused, lifting my eyebrows in surprise. “Wow.” And here, I hadn’t done a single mischievous deed against any of them. Yet. “You really like them, huh?”

“My bestfriendslike them,” he corrected. “And according to them, these women are keepers. So don’t fuck with them.”

I only sniffed. “Whatever. Keepers aren’t even a thing in this group. None of you boys know how to truly sustain a relationship. I mean, not evenNovaended up being a keeper.”

Shadows and sadness filled Parker’s eyes at the mention of Thane’s ex, but all he said was, “Well, these three are different.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” I started to stroll around him, but I barely reached the entrance to the kitchen before he caught my arm.

“I’m serious, Trouble.”

Pausing, I glanced down at his fingers wrapped around my flesh and resisted a full-body shiver before slowly lifting my gaze to his.

“Be nice,” he warned.

I shifted closer, and his attention immediately dropped to my lips.

Ignoring the buzz of desire dancing through my system, I smiled cattily. “How canyoutell me to be nice when you don’t even know what nice is?”

His gaze rose to mine. “Easy. It’s the opposite of whatever I am.” Lifting his hand, he gently took a piece of my hair between two digits and slowly started to wind one of my curls around his index finger. “So behave. OrI’lldrag you out of here by the hair. Got me?”

“Careful, Grumpy,” I warned him with a taunting smile. “Tighten your grip too much more, and I just might like it.”

Parker sucked in a sharp breath, and his lips parted before his pupils began to dilate, growing larger. A clear sign of interest. Then his nostrils flared as he shut his mouth.

Across the kitchen, Hudson was demanding to know why no one had come to him for cooking advice, and all three womenwere trying to explain why they’d wanted to make a meal by themselves.

All the while, Parker and I remained standing in the doorway, staring at each other. The pressure he was putting on my lock of hair started to grow tighter as if he were actuallytryingto turn me on, and holy shit. It worked. My thighs went loose and tingly. My breasts went heavy. And my heart rate accelerated off the charts.

I had no idea what would’ve happened next, but it’d have to remain a mystery because the back door blew open, interrupting our moment.

Immediately jerking his hand from my hair, Parker turned away from me to enter the kitchen, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily, while I sank against the doorframe, trying to regain my next breath.

“I’m telling you,” Keene insisted as he led the way inside. “This chick was totally into me. She—ah shit.” Spotting me, he jarred to a halt and gaped in horror. “You’re here. Already.”

I started to smirk at him and wave tauntingly, but the guy behind him finally glanced up, noticing me.

“Hope?” Shock filled Alec’s features before his face bloomed into a full smile. “Oh my God! What’re you doing here?”

When he started toward me, I screeched out a happy squeal and dashed forward. “Alec!”

We met in the center of the kitchen, both of us laughing as we hugged hard.

He lifted me off my feet and spun me in a circle, and I rested my head on his shoulder, shutting my eyes in delight as I drew in a lungful of hisAlecscent. Gah, but he was totally my person, hands down.

“I can’t believe you’rehere,” he exclaimed, returning me to the floor so he could step back and hold my elbows steady to look at me.

“I know,” I told him, unable to stop smiling. “I was having these major Alec withdrawals because it’d been way too damn long since I last saw you until finally, I was like, screw it. So I boarded a plane, and tada! Here I am.”

“There she fucking is,” I heard Keene mutter under his breath to someone on the other side of the kitchen.

But I was way too busy grinning at my baby brother to pay him any mind.

Shaking his head in joyous confusion, Alec laughed. “Youflewhere?” He knew my aversion to flying, so he was well aware of how big of a deal a plane ride was for me.

Nodding, I answered, “For you? Hell yes. But oh my God, I cannot believe how handsome you got.” Dropping my attention to his forearms which were no longer a thirteen-year-old boy’s toothpick limbs, I squeezed the brawny flesh, impressed by all the substance I felt.

My Alec had gottenmuscles.

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