Sin With Me

33

I’m not trying to be a c**k tease, or lead you on, or send mixed messages. This dress was a stupid idea, but it’s honest. I want you and I don’t want you. I don’t want to want you as much as I do. But mostly I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I don’t want you to get hurt.” I swallow around the rock in my throat. “I couldn’t bear it if I hurt you.”

There’s so much tension in Brody’s body he’s practically vibrating with it. He steps closer to me. His nostrils are flared. His eyes are blazing. His breathing is irregular. When he speaks, his voice is rough.

“Thank you for being honest. I know that couldn’t have been easy for you. And now I’m gonna tell you that I’m a big boy and I can make my own decisions.”

I groan. “Brody—”

“No, Grace,” he whispers with quiet intensity, closing the distance between us. “I don’t care. I don’t care if we only get one amazing night together and you don’t remember a f*****g thing tomorrow because I’ll remember.” He grabs my arm and drags me against him. “And I know it’ll be worth it.”

He crushes his mouth to mine.

It’s everything it was the first time, and more, because now it’s all out there between us, my heart as exposed and fragile as a naked baby tossed out into the snow. He holds my head and kisses me with a depth of passion that leaves me dizzy, gasping against his mouth.

I’m on fire.

I am fire.

And he’s the fuel that makes me burn.

“f**k,” he whispers, dragging in a breath against my lips. “f**k, Grace. Tell me you feel that, too.”

All I can do is softly moan and cling to him.

He kisses me again. Just when I think my knees will give out for good, Brody breaks it off. He grins down at me, his cheeks flushed with color.

“You climbed Mount Kilimanjaro?”

“I’m sort of an adrenaline junkie,” I admit sheepishly.

His grin grows wider. “Good,” he says gruffly. “’Cause I have a feeling this is gonna be one hell of a wild ride.”

Rock ‘n’ roll. Whoever coined that phrase was a goddam genius.

Standing two feet in front of the temporary stage set up in Brody’s backyard, I stare with an open mouth as Nico leads the band into their fourth song. Even missing A.J. on percussion, they sound amazing—primarily because Marcus is on the drum kit, playing his balls off.

He wasn’t kidding when he said he was good. He’s better than good. He’s awesome. And he knows all of Bad Habit’s songs.

Funny the conversations we missed because we were too busy knocking boots.

The music is eardrum-shattering loud. Everyone around me is jumping up and down and screaming. Kat stands next to me, laughing like a lunatic, singing along to all the lyrics in her terrible voice. Marcus’s three little piggies are on my other side, shaking their moneymakers for all they’ve got. Behind me are a few hundred of Brody’s friends. The night air is crisp, the salty sea breeze is invigorating, and the energy of the crowd is incredible. I literally feel the ground rolling under my feet.

Whoa. The ground is rolling under my feet!

I stumble against Kat, who then stumbles against a guy next to her, and then it’s like a line of bowling pins as we all topple sideways, staggering, trying to stay upright. Luckily there are so many people pressed so close together we’re eventually pushed back the way we came.

Only I end up swaying like one of those egg-shaped Weeble dolls, snorting with laughter as the sky tilts sideways and all the stars slide off the edge.

I’m exceedingly drunk.

Kat yells over the music, “You okay?”

I give her two thumbs up. Then I burp, which makes me laugh and makes Kat’s eyes widen in alarm.

“How much have you had to drink?” she yells, steadying me with a hand gripped around my arm.

I make a sloppy gesture that’s supposed to mean “a lot” but looks more like I’m describing the gargantuan breasts on the cross-eyed blonde next to me.

Kat—normally the first to get shitfaced at a party and fall into a random shrub—takes it upon herself to adopt my usual role of mother. She grasps me firmly by the hand, turns, and clears a path through the crowd by shouting, “She’s going to puke!”

“Thanks a million, girlfriend,” I say drily as people leap out of the way in horror.

She drags me across the wide lower lawn to the winding stone path. Then she drags me up the stone path. When she drags me into the house, I protest, “You’re bruising my arm!”

It comes out as, “Yerbruthinmaarrm!”

I sound like an inebriated pirate with a lisp.

Kat marches me into the kitchen, where she retrieves a bottle of cold water from the big stainless fridge. She props me up against the counter, opens the bottle, and shoves it into my face.

“How many times,” she scolds, “have you told me you have to stay hydrated when you’re drinking?”

I reach for the water bottle. For some inane reason, she moves it out of the way. “Hey! Quit that!”

Kat looks at the ceiling. “I’m holding my hand steady, lushy. It’s you that’s moving.”

She helps me get a grip on the bottle. When I’ve got both hands around it, I lift it to my mouth and drink. Most of it goes down the right pipe.