“Who’s the hottie!?” I hear before I can get away.
“He used to be hot, now he’s just damaged goods. Just look at that arm,” Olivia teases.
“Shush you.” Chase smacks her bottom. “I’m Chase Grant.”
“Well, you look plenty good to me. I’m Kaitlyn.”
“And he’s taken.” Olivia makes that clear by kissing him. She licks her bottom lip and winks at her “friend.” “You should try an athlete. They taste better than businessmen.”
All of them laugh, but Olivia takes Chase’s hand and leans against his neck. There’s something genuine between them, not a quick rebound like I hoped. Which is stupid to even think, considering I know Olivia and I know my brother. Chase hasn’t ever mooned over a girl like he’s doing with Olivia. And Olivia is irresistible, warm, and passionate.
Her eyes drift over the crowd and find me. Alarm flares in her expression, but when Chase tries to look around her, she drags him into another kiss, something deep that I know he won’t resist. Predictably, he wraps himself around her, unaware of the game he’s involved in.
I need to get out of here.
Staying will only cause a scene. Either Chase will see me and start asking questions very loudly or I’ll keep drinking and won’t be able to keep my hands stuffed in my pockets. I run my hand through my hair and get up as if I see someone I recognize.
Once in the house, I rest my back against the wall. I can’t pretend that things between Olivia and me are over. She clearly still feels something for me, if what happened in the bathroom is any indication. But having my brother between us is a wrinkle that’s harder to iron out.
As silly and immature as he is, I don’t want to hurt him by stealing Olivia away, and she’s clearly unwilling to be stolen. But I can’t just see her and do nothing about it. I can’t let her go without a fight even though I was the one who pushed her away. I need to get home and work it out in my head and come up with a plan when I’m not being eaten up alive by my jealousy.
But home isn’t exactly going to offer that reprieve. Chase lives in my pool house and I’m not stupid enough to believe they aren’t going to end up there. Which means Chase will have his cock deep in the girl I love in my own goddamn property. She’ll be shouting his name, clawing his back, and moaning for him in my own backyard.
I rub my forehead, feeling the migraine as it worms deeper into my head. Calling my car, I head home as my head goes to a hundred different places. I could take the high road and duck out gracefully. After all, if she’s with my brother, she’s still in my life. I can make sure she’s protected, and I can slowly withdraw.
It’s the mature thing, the right thing, to do. I can fix things with my best friend, and he and I will never come to blows over Olivia again. But how long can anyone deny their heart? Wouldn’t that just be delaying the inevitable?
Because Olivia and I are magnets. We’re going to somehow find our way back to each other, and I don’t have the power to stop it. My body craves her like a drug, and she twists my reason and logic into cotton candy, until only need and desire are left. I want to claim her as my own, to embrace my more primitive side and drag her to my room and fuck her hard, whether Chase knows or not.
But he’s my brother.
And I’m not a sadist.
I toe the line between reason and madness as I walk to the pool house. I shouldn’t go—it’ll just torture me and invade Chase’s privacy, but I can’t stop myself. I’ve shown too much restraint since leaving the bathroom, which is whyhe isthe one who gets to bring her home.
I unlock the door with my key and slip inside. Surprisingly, it isn’t the mess I’m used to. Then again, the last time I saw Chase’s room was when he was still in college, a long time ago. Back then it had been stacks of pizza boxes, a nearly empty backpack, clothes all over the floor, and more smells than anyone could process. Now he has clothes piled in one corner, no stink hanging over the room, and the bed is almost made. He’s making an effort to keep things comfortable—for Olivia, no doubt. At least he cares.
But my brain still isn’t convinced. Maybe it’s just a fluke. Maybes are going to drive me insane. I reach under the bed and after tossing two pairs of his boxers to the side, I find the evidence that silences all the arguing in my head.
I recognize these purple lace panties. They’re Olivia’s size and style. She modeled them for me once to show off what she and her friends had spent the day buying. I hold them up, dangling them from my finger.
A thong that had obviously done the job since the lace has a bad tear in it. I have no doubt that Chase had ripped them off her in the heat of passion. I press the underwear to my nose and inhale. I know her smell anywhere, not just because I had my face between her legs less than an hour and a half ago.
It should break me, kill me, but instead my cock hardens. Smelling her makes me remember her muffled moans in the bathroom, the way she begged me to fuck her, and how perfectly her sweet pussy took my cock.
I palm my cock through my pants as I think of her, of how sexy she looked pressed against the door—lips parted, body mine for the touching, tasting, taking.Mine.
Just as I start to think about having a solo session right here and now, I hear a car door slam. My eyes open wide and every muscle in my body tenses. Either Chase has come home alone—unlikely—or he and Olivia are about to end their night with a bang.
Either way, I can’t be caught here. I groan. “Fuck!”
They must have rushed to be here this fast. Which means Olivia got him so riled up, he happily turned down free drinks, food, and eye candy. My window of escape is closing quickly. I manage to get out of the door, then catch a glimpse of two bodies moving toward the pool house. I don’t have the time to make it to the house, so I duck around the corner like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.
Olivia giggles and Chase unlocks the door. “I’ve never fucked someone in such an expensive dress.”
“And I’ve never had an expensive dress torn off me.”
I don’t want to hear this, and if the breathy moan is anything to go by, this definitely isn’t going to be the worst thing I hear tonight. I can’t blame them, even as I hear her gasp and the telltale sign of fabric ripping. It’s my fault for giving in to Olivia’s charms way back when. It’s my fault for not maintaining the distance I promised myself, her father, and her that I would. And it’s my fault for sneaking into my brother’s space to what, snoop for myex-girlfriend’s panties?