Page 24 of Best of Me

Jesus. She’s not messing around. It’s like she has a direct line to my unresolved issues and is picking at them one by one. I give a terse shake of my head. “No. She wanted us to at least be engaged first. I had an offer in on our dream house and had planned to…” I let my words fall away as the pain of losing her consumes me.

I’m sucked back out of my misery just as quickly when Mallory mutters, “She was right.”

“I’m sorry, what? Who was right?”

Sweat beads her hairline, and her breaths are shallow but rapid. She’s hiding something.

“Who was right?” I ask again, leaning forward, crowding her space just a little.

She shakes her head. “No, I, um…no one. I-it’s nothing.”

“It’s obviously something, Mallory. Tell me. Who. Was. Right?”

“Pass,” she whispers, her voice rough with some kind of emotion. Judging from the inward curl of her shoulders and her refusal to meet my eyes, I’d say guilt. The question is, what is she guilty of?

“Just remember, you only get one pass and you just used yours all up.” Which suits me just fine, because now I can get down to the nitty-gritty and there’s not shit she can do about it. “Take your turn, Mallory.”

“Why did you kiss me?”

There are a million different lines of bullshit I could feed her. I could say she reminds me of her sister, but I won’t because it’s a damn lie. Sure, when I first saw her, all I noticed were the similarities, but over the course of our run-ins, I started seeing all of the differences, too. And I don’t just mean in the way she acts. Their shape is different; Mallory is all curves while Val was straight lines. While they’re both blonde, Mallory’s hair is a darker shade. And their eyes…Val’s were a deep, dark chocolate, whereas Mallory’s are specked with gold and caramel.

I could tell her it was simply to shut her up, but that’d also be a lie. The truth of the matter is, I kissed her because she is, hands down, the single most frustrating and fascinating woman I’ve ever met. So, I settle with something close to the truth. “Because I wanted to.”

She scoffs. “You wanted to? Riiiight. And that’s why you acted like I’d done something to personally offend you afterbothtimes and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the party, and the next ten days. Sure, Duke, that makes complete and total—”

Before I can stop myself, my lips are on hers again. While our last two kisses were fairly benign, this one’s ravenous and wild—a violent clash of lips, tongue, and teeth as we both release our pent-up anger and desire, letting it engulf us.

I haul her from her spot on the couch onto my lap, and she instantly bears down on me, both of us moaning at the sensation of the seam of my jeans lining up perfectly with the apex of her thighs. Unable to relinquish control to her, I palm her hips to guide her movements, but like the little minx she is, she fights me, determined to set her own pace.

That just doesn’t work for me. I flip her onto her back, settling myself between her thighs. She claws at my chest—in passion, not protest—as I thrust my denim-covered erection against her. The pain of her nails digging into my skin is gasoline on the fire that is us, but I’m not ready to combust just yet. I press against her again and drop my lips to her neck, distracting her just enough to pin her wrists above her head, leaving her breathless and at my mercy. Too bad I’m not feeling particularly merciful.

She jerks her arms against my hold, but the way she wiggles her pelvis against mine tells me she doesn’t want me to let go, not really. I capture her lips in a bruising kiss, and when she parts them, I suck her tongue into my mouth, relishing the taste of her.

“Oh, God, Duke,” she pants, her voice wanton and pleading.

“Tell me what you need, Cricket.”

She bucks against me. “More.”

I trail kisses from her lips down the right side of her jaw and neck, stopping at her collarbone. “More what?” I ask before nipping at the protruding bone.

A soft, needy moan passes her lips at the feel of my teeth marring her flawless skin, and she wraps her legs around my waist, holding me to her. “More of you.”

All too eager to please, I kiss and nip my way across her chest, giving her other collarbone the same treatment before sliding my free hand beneath the fabric of her shirt to tweak her left nipple. “Yesss,” she hisses. “More. I need more.”

That makes two of us,I think as I draw back, releasing my hold on her wrists. “Lose the shirt,” I command. Mallory sits up and strips it off, baring her braless tits to me. Like a man possessed, I dive for them, drawing the tight bud into my mouth. I lavish her breasts with attention, and all the while she runs her hands all through my hair, over my chest, shoulders, back, and abs—anywhere she can reach. Her fingers burn a trail, and I fucking love it. This is the most alive I’ve felt since Valorie’s death.

And just like that, my desire, my need, my aching want for Mallory, withers under the memory of who she is—of how wrong these feelings simmering between the two of us really are. I mean, how fucked up is it for me to even entertain the idea ofmorewith my dead girlfriend’s twin sister? Pretty sure that makes me the lowest of low. Being with her, in any capacity more than friends, is plain wrong…but goddamn it feels right, and that makes me sick to my stomach with guilt.

What would Val think about this? How would it make her feel to know that her sister’s touch sets me on fire or that at night, when I can’t sleep, instead of counting sheep, it’s visions of Mallory playing behind my closed lids? Do I think she’d want me to find happiness without her?Absolutely. With her fucking sister?Hell-fucking-no.

I jump up from the couch and grab her shirt, tossing it her way. “Get dressed.”

She blinks up at me, chest still heaving and her lips swollen from my kisses. “What?”

“You heard me. Get dressed.”

I turn away from her, giving her my back while she rights herself. “You really are an asshole, Duke Kincaid.” Her voice is hoarse, like she’s trying not to cry. I feel like a dog, but I know I have to put a stop to this before we go too far. Were it not for that terrible day, she’d be my sister-in-law, for God’s sake. How fucked up is that? That the one woman I want is the one woman I absolutely can’t have.

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