Page 68 of Dove
Her bottom lip protruded in a pout, and her hand splayed on my chest. I glanced down at it, then back to her.
“It’s been years,” she said, letting the words drag. “That’s the hello I get?”
The spot on my chest grew cold from her touch, scaring away the warmth Dove had stirred within it.
My hand wrapped around hers, forcibly removing it, but Stella was a wily one, always had been. The moment our hands met she threaded our fingers together in a move too fast for me rebuff.
“Stella,” I warned.
Ignoring me, she pirouetted under my arm before raising up on her tiptoes in an attempt to slot our lips together.
Never in my life had I appreciated my height more. I straightened up, subtle but firm, putting her lips just out of reach—and making damn sure they stayed there.
There had been a point in my life when I truly wanted Stella—when I believed she was all I needed, all I craved. But every time I caught the hurt in Dove’s eyes as Stella stole my attention way, it chipped away at the truth.
We were using each other.
Stella needed an escape from her shitty home life. And me? I was just projecting my affections onto someone Icouldhave... instead of the one Icouldn't.
“It doesn’t have to be anything serious,” Stella coaxed, guiding the hand she still held captive to her sternum. The neckline of her dress plunged dangerously low, and my fingertips burned where they brushed bare skin. “Just a littlebirthday treat.”
The heat radiating from Stella’s skin only made me think of Dove—how her skin burned under my touch, hot and alive in away that drew me in far more than it ever had with the woman in front of me.
I snatched my hand out of her grip.
“Go find someone else, Stella,” I said as gently as I could. I didn’t want to hurt her—but I needed to make it clear that whatever she was hoping for tonight wasn’t happening. “I’m not interested.”
Harsh, maybe. But true.
Was there ever an easy way to tell an interested ex you didn’t want them anymore?
Stella’s blue eyes hardened into steel, bottom lip trembling before thinning out into a hard, unforgiving line.
“You think you’re too good for me now that you’ve left,” she accused, words sharp as knives. “Well, you can’t run from where you’re from Josh. You’ll always be backwoods trash just like the rest of us.”
With that, she spun on her heel, hair snapping like a whip through the air before she stormed off.
That could have gone… better. But I’d known there was a chance I might see Stella tonight. Hell, Eddie might’ve even invited her for all I knew.
How do I explain that I wasn’t ashamed of being back home, or of being with her, but that I was harboring a soul-crushing crush on my stepsister?
The answer was simple: I didn’t.
So I let myself be the bad guy instead.
Something the whole town would agree on if anything ever happened between Dove and me.
Which...where the hell was she?
A low-level niggle of worry bloomed in the back of my mind, but I quickly squashed it. She’d probably gone back to the bar if she couldn’t find me in this dense crowd. Or maybe she’d spotted Eddie and the others and gone to chat with them.
But after searching the entire place, she was nowhere to be found. I’d given in and asked my friends, but none of them had any clue Dove was even here. That’s when the low-level worry morphed into full-blown dread.
Had she left?
Had I pushed her too far?
Had I finally given her a reason to run, to disappear from me for good?
