‘How can I ever forgive that?’
‘Jesus, Cain!’ She shakes her head fiercely. ‘Your brother and I were geeks. We understood each other...shared the same love for programming. He was my best friend. We didn’t care that we weren’t popular, or cool, or part of the “in” crowd... We weren’t like you. We—’
‘You think the fact I was popular with a bunch of idiots at school made me invincible? Stopped me feeling insecure within my own family? With you?’
She slams her glass down on the side, the liquid sloshing over the side, over her hand. ‘I never once gave you reason to doubt me. Your own jealousy did that for you.’
‘And after?’ I say, ignoring the seed of doubt she’s sowed. ‘When you walked up the aisle with him?’
I place my own glass on the side, feel a toxic mix of jealousy, anger and desire raging like a storm within me. I stalk towards her, half expecting her to back away, but she doesn’t.
‘Or are you saying you married my brother in some reckless move of your own just to get back at me?’
It’s a ridiculous notion. She would never...
But her eyes flare as I pause before her. Her lips are silent. No, she wouldn’t have done that. She loved Liam; I know that. She even told me so that fateful night. She loved him as a friend, as a brother, she claimed.
But that doesn’t stop my eyes burning down into hers, seeking an answer. I see how she looks at my mouth, how her pupils swell with the need I so easily trigger in her, but she’s not getting out of this.
I raise her chin with my fingers, brush her lips with my thumb and feel the air she sucks in pass over it. ‘Tell me Lexi, did he make you feel like this?’
Her eyes snap to mine. She gives an infinitesimal shake of her head and my heart soars even as my chest tightens with the twisted question.
‘No...?’
‘That’s not... I mean... Don’t do this, Cain.’
I press her back against the kitchen counter, her breasts crushed against my chest, and the carnal sensation is bittersweet in its intensity. I look at her mouth, parted beneath me, and I lower my head. My tongue teases inside, sampling the hot whiskey taste of her. She whimpers, the sound small and clamped inside her throat.
‘I want to know, Lexi...’ I brush the words against her lips, my fingers lifting to caress her neck, just like she used to ask me to. ‘Did he kiss you like this...?’
My fingers start to trail down as I slant my mouth over hers, feel the softness of her lips. And the ease with which she lets me tells me I have her. She’s mine.
I circle my fingers over her breasts, feel their hardened nubs press against the fabric of her dress as she rocks into me.
‘Did he make your breath catch and your body ache like I do?’
I rotate my hand over one nipple and raise my head to look down at her. She’s all wanton, swaying into every touch, every sweep of my lips, and I’m losing control. I can feel it shuddering out of me.
Did he make her feel like this? Did he make her wanton, lustful, desperate?
The twisted questions sear my brain, my body, push me, goad me. I want them gone. I want her begging me. I want her demanding that I fuck her. Demanding that all trace of any man, be it my brother or another, be gone from her mind.
‘Are you wet for me, Lexi?’
Her lashes flutter open.
‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’
The admission is small, a whisper, and the colour rushing back to her cheeks is an added confirmation.
I stroke my fingers down her belly. ‘Show me.’
She wets her lips. My brother would never have done this. He would have had her on a pedestal, all perfect and pristine. But I want the Lexi I know that’s inside her—the one who would perform for me, drive herself crazy while I watched.
‘Show me.’