Page 50 of Free Fall

My lips tingle. He keeps glancing at them, making me acutely aware that they’re there and ready for him to claim. The feeling spreads, and my whole body buzzes with anticipation. I think Reid fucking Parker is going to kiss me out here under the prettiest sunset I’ve seen in a while. Although, I haven’t been looking for the pretty in my life lately. Maybe that’s all about to change right now.

He grips me hard. “God, I want you.” He shifts his hips closer to me, and I can feel how much he means that. He’s rock hard, and with just that motion, he’s already fanning the embers in my core.

I lick my lips in preparation to say something, but how do you tell the guy you’ve been friends with your whole life that you’d like to see if there’s something more there? Reid seems to be going with the straight on approach, but I just can’t seem to get the words to come out of my mouth.

He curses low under his breath. His fingers keep moving over my hair like he’s cherishing me. “I should tell you though.” He licks his lips and stares down at me hesitantly. “Your brother didn’t want me to pursue you.”

I stare into his green eyes, feeling their pull.Wait. What?

Reid swallows. “I would hate myself forever if I didn’t tell you that.”

“Brady knew? He knew you liked me?”

Reid nods. “I wasn’t going to move on his sister without telling him first. That’d be a dick move.”

“And he said no.” I don’t even pose it as a question because I can see Brady saying that. I don’t know his reasons. I’ll never know his reasons, but when Brady was adamant about something, he stuck to his guns no matter what. He was a bit stubborn in that way. I guess our whole family is.

“Why?”

His jaw hardens. “Look at me,” he says. “I’m not good enough for you. You’re super smart. You’re going to college to pull off some Bill Gates shit, and the only reason I’d be getting out of Spring Hill is because I’m a muscle head.”

“That’s what Brady said?” I ask, disbelieving. Brady loved Reid. There’s no way he’d put him down like that.

He shakes his head. “Not in so many words. He actually wouldn’t really say why, just that he didn’t think it was a good idea.”

I pull him toward me. “It was probably just an older brother thing then. Maybe he didn’t want to lose you to me.”

Reid dismisses that idea with a quick shake of his head. “We’ll never know, I guess. I dropped it after that, even though he watched me like a hawk around you. I didn’t mean to fall into it with you again, Briar, I swear. But when you were so lonely, so broken up and you needed somebody, I couldn’t stay away.”

My hands move up his sides. “I’m glad you didn’t.” I don’t want to think about where the hell I’d be if Lex, Reid, and Cade hadn’t forced themselves back into my life.

He shakes his head and steps away. He’s clearly still stuck on something. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve even talked to Lex about it. You should just be with him. He likes you. Really likes you, and we all know he’s the better person out of all of us. Hell, he’s like Mother Theresa in football pads.”

Bile rises in my throat. It tastes like slow boiling anger. “Maybe I’ll go be with Cade,” I offer.

Reid practically growls at that, but he’s not fazing me anymore. Shrugging, he says, “He’s probably better for you than me too.”

This is just so surreal. “How can the most popular guy at SHH have such a terrible opinion of himself?”

Reid lets go of me and forcibly steps back. “I have football, that’s it.”

“That’s it? It’s only the most important thing in Spring Hill, Reid. You’re acting like you’re some dumb jock, but you’re not. You’re a leader. You’re—.”

“Stop,” he snarls at me.

He turns to walk away, but I walk up to him and shove him in the back. I’m not one for physical violence, but this all stems from when we were kids. I used to like to play rough with them, which sounds dirtier than it is. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to get their attention. He stumbles a few steps, probably only because he was taken off guard. He turns around slowly. I place my hands on my hips. “You’re loyal. You’re smart. You loved my brother so much that you made sure I was fine, even when I pushed back and pushed back. You have real talent, Reid. Not just Spring Hill talent, but you could go so far. Being gifted at a sport is impressive.”

He walks straight toward me and gets in my face. “Then why does none of that seem to matter if my best friend couldn’t even trust me with his sister?”

I suck in a breath. There’s betrayal in his eyes. Wow. Brady really hurt him. I’m gathering that all this happened a long time ago, but it hurts Reid to this day, and now look. Reid will never get his answers. He’ll never know why Brady said no.

“I trust you,” I say. I move forward pressing my lips to his. It’s an awkward exchange of pressed lips until Reid takes over. His resolve seems to crumble after a moment of hesitation. Then, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me closer, angling his head to deepen the kiss. His skilled tongue passes over the seam of my lips until I open for him. It’s a free-for-all then. Our kiss seems to mimic Reid’s inner turmoil. One second, it’s passionate and all-out, kissing me with months of pent-up feelings. Then, it’s slower, more cautious, like he thinks this will be our last kiss and he just wants to savor it while he can, imprinting it on his memory.

If I have anything to say about it, it definitely won’t be our last kiss. This was what I was missing these past two years? Each pass of his tongue stokes the fire inside of me until I’m breathing so heavy I can barely scrape in breaths. Everywhere his hands glide over me, my skin sparks like it’s a live wire. I moan into his mouth, my fingers creep up his neck until I lace my fingers behind him, making him stay in place, feeding my soul with his kiss. But it’s more than that too. I’m feeding my soul with the fire inside Reid that makes him Reid Parker.

We kiss for minutes upon minutes. When he finally pulls away, my lips are swollen and satiated, and I’m light-headed on my feet. “Christ, Briar,” he groans.

My first thought is to tell him I’m so glad he broke up with Sasha, but I tamp down that word vomit and smile instead. No need to bring up that name to ruin the moment. “You can say that again.”

---