Page 87 of Don't Take the Girl
My fingers trail higher, just barely, testing boundaries. Her breath catches—a sound so quiet only I can hear it. She knows exactly what game we're playing, knows the risk we're taking, and she's letting it happen. That knowledge makes me reckless.
He knows she's mine. We've never had the conversation, never sorted through our tangled history, but some truths don't need words. And though he let me believe he was pursuing her, I know now it was never real—just another game in the complicated dance between brothers.
But this? This is real. The way she's fighting to keep her composure while my touch sets her on fire. The way she's protecting this moment, protecting us, even as we teeter on theedge of discovery. This is everything we've been building toward. Every stolen glance and loaded silence is finally taking shape.
"I brought you to the table," Laney says, and I can hear the effort it takes to force calm into her voice as my callused hand glides up her leg. "Secrets are poison. I've lived with them for far too long, and I won't do it anymore."
I know those words are for me as much as they are for him. Their irony leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm the one who asked her to coffee, who wanted to see her and finally talk through the wreckage we've been tiptoeing around for years. Then she's the one who stood me up and had the audacity to get salty about it afterward.
And tonight... Christ, that comment about my aftercare in the barn. She knew precisely what that taunt would do to me, knew it would burrow under my skin and fester, because she knows every fucking button I have. She knows the way I loved her—wholly, completely, desperately. She knows I've always taken care of her, that if she asked for five more minutes, she got them. One more kiss was never a question.
The memory of that one night six years ago burns through me. How, afterward, I collected her dress from the grass, pulled it carefully over her shoulders, smoothed her hair with trembling fingers, and ran my thumbs under her eyes to catch the mascara that had smudged. She looked so vulnerable then, so beautifully wrecked, and I treated her like she was made of glass.
Now she's too busy trying to fortify her walls, too scared to let me close enough to show her what we can be again if we're brave enough to reach for it.
I skim the backs of my fingers along the tops of her thighs, the silk of her dress hiking up as they make their slow, deliberate climb. Her muscles tense under my touch, a war between wanting to pull away and wanting to lean into the contact.
"I don't have any secrets," my brother says above us, and we both know that's bullshit, but I'm less concerned about whateverhe's hiding when every nerve in my body is focused on the woman above me who's trying so hard to stay composed.
"Are you serious right now? You specifically asked me—or maybe threatened is the better word."
The word "threatened" detonates something inside of me, and I can't help but sink my teeth deep into her thigh. I'm fucking livid that she'd allow my own brother to threaten her and not come to me. It doesn't matter that we're caught in this gray space between together and apart. It doesn't matter what labels we've discarded or what boundaries we've tried to draw. There's no universe, no reality, no scenario where I would allow someone to intimidate her, not even him.
The hand that was tightly gripping the chair glides over my scalp, sending a shiver down my spine and straight to my groin. A low groan rumbles deep in my chest as her fingers twist in my hair before she tugs with force. My cock twitches hard before I relinquish her sensitive skin from my teeth. We've been apart for six years. She can take care of herself. Laney has always been fiercely independent, unafraid to dance to her own beat, never keen on conforming just to fit in. She likes being on the outside.
"Did I threaten you?" Trigg questions as Laney's hand disappears, leaving me alone under the cloak of the table cover. "Or did you not like the alternate ending?"
This week without her, this goddamn week of silence, has shown me something I can't ignore anymore. I can't do this dance again. I was already planning to lay it all out for her, all the truths I've been choking on, but I wanted them to come in the right order, at the right time.
"Does it matter?" she asks as I place a chaste kiss on her milky skin where a mark is already blooming into a bruise, the sight stirring to life something possessive—something territorial. She's mine. I've only been lying to myself, trying to make myself believe there was a universe where I'd actually let her go again if she told me no. I tried that. Living without her wasn't living at all. I'd follow her to the ends of the earth and live in her shadow.
My gaze shifts higher, following the path my forefinger dares to blaze to the apex of her thighs. Fuck. Her pussy is covered by a thin white thong. The tip of my finger slips beneath the seam, and I close my eyes for a heartbeat to rein in my own desire. I could come from just toying with her panty line, feeling the heat from the place I've visited in my head, with my hand wrapped firmly around my cock, countless times. Her hand hasn't returned to stop me. She's aware of what I'm after, and she's letting me stay. I hate that it feels like I'm taking advantage, crossing lines she might not let me cross if she knew everything. But something she said in that barn keeps echoing in my head. When I tried to stop, tried to be the gentleman and say we should talk first, she said it wouldn't change anything. That she wants this. Wants me.
Their conversation becomes background noise as I let myself get lost in her, but then I hear her say, "You knew I would tell London. You knew who I was all along, and you knew, regardless of who hurt who, my loyalty lies with him, and I would rat you out."
And I'm done. Done waiting for the perfect moment. Done letting other people interrupt what's ours, stealing time that should belong to us. Done watching her from across rooms full of people who don't know her the way I do, who don't see the fire behind her eyes or understand the way she bites her lip when she's thinking. She can ignore my texts all she wants, but she can't ignore me forever. Not when we're breathing the same air, not when I can see the way her shoulders tense every time my eyes land on her, knowing it's my gaze alighting the recognition in her veins.
There's no more teasing as her words hit a mark I didn't know I was waiting for, and I slide a thick digit into her tight hole. Damn. Her pussy clenches hard around my finger, and fuck if it isn't the hottest thing I've ever seen—her swollen pink lips greedily taking what I'm giving her. I've had her a total of two times now, but not like this. I've never had my face between her thighs. I haven't even tasted her yet, but I know there is no way I'm leaving things the way I did last time. Her thighs instantly try to close.The intrusion came without warning, and I wish I could see her pretty face, see the ecstasy I know is there by the way her pussy is responding to my touch.
"I was counting on it," I hear Trigg say right before I run my tongue up her center. My God, she tastes better than I ever could have imagined. I groan deeply, a vibration that I know rumbles through her core when her thighs tighten around my head.
I should be focused on what my brother is saying, but so far I haven't caught anything I don't already know. I've known all along that Trigg's motives with Laney were shrouded in deception, but I've also suspected that their core revolved around someone and something else.
"Why?" I hear her ask, her tone breathy as I add another digit and pump two fingers deep.
"I guess you could say it's in my DNA. I'm the product of a secret, and I grew up in a family intent on keeping them. It feels like a survival mechanism. I have to know to be prepared."
Those words don't surprise me. I've felt similar sentiments after learning everything I didn't know existed after being dumped on my uncle's doorstep at eighteen. This show he's been putting on with her for the past few weeks was posturing, him staying two steps ahead and plotting his next move. I remove my fingers and slide both hands over her thighs until I have a handful of cheek in each hand.
The move grants her a small reprieve, and she uses it to ask, "Then I suppose you know what London is planning?"
Her voice is unsteady, and I can tell she's getting close. The thrill of getting caught, coupled with what I'm doing to her, is utterly intoxicating. My fingers dig into her flesh, and I pull her to the edge of her chair, where my tongue spears her pussy. I hear the glass on the table rattle as she braces herself. I wish I were a fly on the wall so I could see exactly what she's doing to avoid my brother's dissecting stare.
"No, but you're going to tell me," he states squarely. The demand should give me pause, but it doesn't. I can't. I have theonly person I want, writhing against my lips. Whatever stunt he's pulling—score he's trying to settle—comes second to her pleasure.
"What makes you think I would do that?" Laney responds as I suck her clit into my mouth, her thighs now trembling.
"I think we both know the third person in your trifecta isn't inside nursing a migraine."
