Page 8 of Has-Been
The bed was clearly messed up after it’d been made, because of the way the covers were scrunched up only across the middle. We were busted, and suddenly I wished we’d made it further than a little light fucking touching. She didn’t even get to feel my lips around her nipples. Jesus.
“Anyway, I should get going. Got a spray job to finish. Nice talking to you, Elise.” I got the hell out of there before he figured shit out. Yeah, so I’m not only not man enough to resist her, but I also wasn’t man enough to own up to that shit to her brother. Wow… what a catch I am.
Elise
Ifiguredthebestwayto play it was to act like nothing had happened, which was strictly true in that we’d barely even started, but it also wasn’t true at all. He’d started to give in, and he’d shown me just how much he wanted me. And I’d had my second and third ever kisses, I’d been topless, and I’d felt his hard dick pressing against me. These were all new experiences for me, and I wanted more.
I was monumentally pissed at my brother for interrupting us. What if Has-Been rethought things before we saw each other again? He was still so convinced it wasn’t right to be with me, that he wasn’t good enough, or something.
“So he told you?” Oh shit. I headed for the kettle, and switched it on.
“About what you guys were talking about?”
Seth nodded, leaning his ass against the small kitchen counter, while I prepped two mugs for coffee.
“No, he said it was club business, but then we just chatted about this and that.” I pretended to be busy searching for something in the cupboard, but I think Seth actually bought that.
“Yeah, that’s all it was, sweets. Club stuff, but look…” He leaned a hand on the counter, and lowered his voice. “Don’t go locking yourself in with anyone from the club, yeah? Me and Reacher, we’re safe. I think Ryder and Ice too. Until we know more, I need to know you’re not risking letting anyone near you.”
“Because I shouldn’t get to have friendships, as well as no sex, Seth?” He recoiled, blinking rapidly.
“I… uh… what the fuck? I’m talking about there being a rapist and killer somewhere around here, hopefully not in this club, but we don’t know anything for sure.”
I slammed the cupboard door, and shoved past my brother to get to the kettle as it boiled.
“I’m serious. You need to stop trying to dictate my life for me. I’m twenty-one dammit, not twelve, but even so… teenagers kiss, Seth. Teenagers go on dates, and meet boys and, Jesus, they get to explore what it means to grow up! You can’t keep locking me away like a princess, because you’re locking me away from everything that a grown woman needs!”
My voice was a little shrill by the end of that sentence, and maybe some of that was the sexual frustration of almost, ALMOST getting somewhere with the man I desperately wanted, and getting interrupted.
“Elise-”
“What? What can you possibly say to that, apart from, ‘wow, that’s a good point, I’ll butt the hell out of your private life from now on’. You know, especially as you have a damn wife now, and you have your happy ever after!”
Seth backed up as I gestured a little too wildly with the kettle in my hand, and held his hands up.
“Okay, okay… I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I’ve been a little protective, but you’re my baby sister, and I’m only trying to make sure nobody hurts you.”
I placed the kettle back on its base, and finished making the coffees while I calmed down. I slid one mug in his direction and he grabbed it.
“You know the worst part?”
Seth frowned, shaking his head. He looked a little like he wished he’d never come to see me, and that helped diffuse my anger a little more.
“Seth, for a few months we thought you might be dying. We thought you were going to disappear from my life, and leave me all alone. It was the worst time of my life. It was unbearable, the thought of you being gone, but you know what else?”
He looked downcast at the mention of the illness we’d all thought might be killing him. The disease that left him, as he put it, ‘less of a man’.
“I’m sorry, sweets.”
“No, I need to tell you. You were working so hard to protect me, so intent on keeping anyone harmful from me, that you know what you did? You made sure I had nobody in my life. No friends, no boyfriends, or even ex boyfriends. The only people willing to come near me were the girls who thought they could flirt with you if they got close to me. And once they realised you weren’t interested, they lost interest in me. I have no friends. I have no best friend, or girlfriends to hang with. Nobody to text or meet for coffee. Nobody. If you’d died on me, you’d have left me completely alone, because you are the only person in my life.”
Seth cursed, and shoved his mug on the counter, stepping closer and drawing me into a tight hug.
“I’m so fucking sorry. You’re right. I’ve been a complete ass, but what I saw as being protective might maybe,possibly, seem just atinybit overbearing.”
“You’d think you’d be better at apologies by now.”
He laughed, and kissed the top of my head before he released me.
