Page 87 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
She laughs, low, breathy, and swings a leg over to straddle me. The move drags a curse from my throat. She plants her palms beside my head, hair falling like a curtain around us, and rolls her hips in a slow circle, testing. My hands clamp her waist in warning that’s not a warning.
“Dangerous game,” I tell her.
She tips her head, all tease. “I like dangerous.”
The phone rings again. My jaw tightens. I flip it facedown without breaking eye contact.
Her laugh is muffled against my neck when I shift, rolling us so she’s beneath me. The sheet slides away, puddles at our feet. Her gasp turns into a quiet sigh when my hands roam, thumbs pressing into the soft give of her waist before sliding upward, tracing the curve beneath her ribs. She arches into the touch, and I take the invitation.
My mouth finds her shoulder. I linger there until I feel her shiver, then trail lower, deliberate, unhurried. She tastes like last night’s salt under clean soap, something floral that clings to her skin. I drag my lips across her collarbone, savoring the hitch in her breathing.
Her nails graze up my back, just enough to string me tight. I splay my palm at her lower spine and lift her into me, feeling the tension coil in both of us.
The phone rings a third time, same tone, same beat. I press my forehead to her collarbone, shutting my eyes against the intrusion. Her fingers slide to my jaw. She tips my face up.
“It’s nothing,” I say, kissing her before she can answer.
She hooks a leg higher around my hip, pulling me closer. I break for air and she chases, teeth catching my lip in a quick, wicked promise that nearly unravels me. I answer by dragging my mouth down her throat. She tilts, giving me that pulse point I always take like a win.
The phone rings again.
“Persistent,” she says, breathless, amused and frustrated at once.
“Let them wait.” My voice is rougher now. I shift, pressing her deeper into the mattress, and she meets me with a slow, deliberate roll of her hips that rips a low sound from my throat. Silence. Blessed, empty silence.
I start to move… and the phone buzzes, a fifth time, short and insistent. A text. Another call follows.
I lift my head, a fraction, like a swimmer breaking the surface. “I may have to take this,” I murmur, torn between the heat of her body and the cold weight of the unknown.
Instead of protesting, she studies me for a moment, then nods once. “Go.”
The word lands like permission and restraint all at once. I grab the phone, flip it over… +44. England. My pulse glitches. I hover, thumb stroking the edge of the phone, not ready to sever the moment, not ready to pretend it isn’t real. My other hand is still on her hip, thumb sweeping bone.
I swipe. “Wilson.”
A pause, then a crisp British accent: “Mr. Wilson, this is Margaret Hale. I’m calling from Oxfordshire… I’m afraid I have some difficult news.”
I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, rubbing the back of my neck. My shoulders lock. “Go on.”
“It’s about Claire Turner,” she says, careful. The name cleaves the room. “She passed away unexpectedly three days ago. I’m very sorry.”
For a moment, the voice in my ear feels far away, tinny, like I’m listening through water. Claire’s laugh comes back first, low, smoky, the kind that made strangers lean in. A rain-slick London street behind her, my coat over her shoulders. The night she told me she was pregnant, eyes steady, as if she’d already chosen the ending.
I see Emma then, not fifteen but one, strawberry-stained mouth, a tumble of dark hair, eyes too big for her face. She clung to Claire’s leg while I crouched with a toy I’d brought, unsure if I should offer it or just wave. She blinked at me, curious, like she was deciding whether I belonged to her at all.
That was the last time I saw her in person. Later, a single photo arrived, Emma on a swing, hair flying, the sea behind her. No note. Just proof of a life Claire kept separate. And I let her.
“She had a daughter,” Margaret continues, bringing me back. “Your daughter. Emma. She’s fifteen now. Claire’s arrangements named you as her next of kin. She’ll need to come live with you immediately. Likely within the week.”
“Does she know?”
“She does,” Margaret says. “And she has questions. I imagine you do as well. But the priority is making sure she’s with family.”
“Send me the details.”
Before hanging up: “Your father was also contacted. He said he would reach out to you directly.”
Of course he was. First to the narrative, always. And if there’s leverage here, he’ll find it.
