Page 24 of I Wanna Be Your Lager

“I’m sorry.” I stride past Eve. She turns on her heel and follows me. As I pass through the threshold of the storage room, I flip the light switch. The fluorescent lights flicker to life, illuminating the space. When I reach the liquor shelf, Eve is next to me, resting her back against the metal. She swivels her head toward me.

“So, what are you going to do? Ignore me the entire time I’m here?”

I freeze with my hand on the neck of the bottle. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Her brows pinch together. “I don’t know what that means.”

Keeping my gaze trained on the bottle, I blow out a deep breath. “When I’m near you, all I want to do is haul you in my arms and kiss you.”

“But I’m Jake’s sister.”

“Yeah.”

“At this point, it’s kind of late, isn’t it? We’ve already kissed. In fact, we’ve already had sex.”

I jerk my head to look over my shoulder to make sure no one else is around. “You have to be quiet.”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay.” She leans toward me and whispers, “You’ve already given me multiple orgasms.”

I have, and I thoroughly enjoyed every single one. With a sigh, I release the bottle and push my hands through my hair.

“Look, I understand keeping secrets from Jake. Currently, he doesn’t know I left Knoxville because I quit my job or about my ex being married. I wanted to tell him. I tried to tell him,” her gaze drops to her feet, “but I didn’t want to disappoint him.” She inhales a deep breath and lifts her head. “But sometimes we need to take things for ourselves.”

Every scenario that runs through my mind has Jake giving us his blessing, but that’s only a fantasy. I’ve seen Jake punch people for less. And that’s the reality.

“Because I want more of this,” she purrs, taking a step closer and dragging her fingertip down my chest, sending shivers down my spine.

Fuck. I don’t need this now. The proximity of her presence short circuits my brain. Every ounce of my rational thinking is shot to shit. Consequences be damned, I need to kiss her. I wrap my hand around the back of her neck, haul her to me, and crash my lips to hers. A small squeak escapes her, but within seconds, she melts against my body. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed her. Tilting my head, I deepen the kiss. Her soft lips move against mine, both of us getting lost in the kiss.

“I hate to kill the moment.” Nora’s voice echoes through the storage room.

My heart rate spikes as adrenaline shoots through my body. I jump away from Eve as if she’s a blazing inferno. Together, we are. She’s the gasoline, and I’m the matches. One strike, and we combust.

“It’s getting busy out there,” she hikes her thumb behind her, “and I need some help. You can finish making out later.” She spins on her heel and disappears from the doorway.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

“No—”

“I shouldn’t have done that.” Without sparing a glance at Eve, I swipe a bottle of rum off the shelf and storm out, leaving her alone in the storage room.

With a loud thud, I slam the bottle onto the bar. I can’t believe I did that. I wasn’t thinking. What if Jake came back, and it was him instead of Nora? Plus, there are cameras. I doubt Jake sits around watching surveillance video, but he could. Fuck. I wasn’t thinking. Instead, I got caught up in Eve.

“Sorry to interrupt your make-out session. I promise you can continue later, but those customers at the other end of the bar need drinks first.” Nora pulls three bottles of beer from the cooler with one hand and pops the caps off each before sliding them across the bar.

“Got it.” I don’t address the kiss. It’s best I don’t. Maybe if I ignore that it happened, everyone else will too. But I should talk to Eve when I drive her home, and tell her we can’t do this. Then I can do it with no prying eyes.

Eve returns and doesn’t look my way once. Instead, she stays at the opposite end of the bar with Nora. For the rest of the evening, she does what I did to her. Avoids me.

After the bar closes and we clean up, I break the silence. “Eve, are you ready to go?”

Her hardened gaze meets mine. “Actually, Nora’s going to give me a ride.”

I fucked this up. All of it.

FIFTEEN

IT’S A SECRET

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