Nico snickers, and my chin drops in shock. “What are you talking about?”
“Fiona, there’s no point in keeping it a secret. Everyone else is going to find out at some point, anyway. Don’t be shy, princess.”
“They’ll only know because you’re shouting it!”
My blood boils beneath the surface of my skin, and I feel eyes on me as I try to twist out of his grip. Sure enough, when I look over my shoulder, Erica Moore, a Starbucks barista who was a year ahead of me in school, is plastered against the window, a phone pressed to her ear as she watches us like we’re part of a daytime soap opera.
The store window is cracked, probably so she can hear enough to sell to some tabloid, although our small town spreads never pay enough to make the leak worth it.
I force a laugh, anxiety pooling in my chest. “He’s just kidding, there’s no baby.”
Boyd yanks again, pulling me flush against him, and when I look up, his face is mere centimeters from mine. I can smell his soap, feel his breath mixing with my own, and it makes me dizzy for a moment.
Blinking from the spell and trying to ignore the way my core grasps at air, I lower my voice to a whisper. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
Moving his hand from my bicep to my elbow, his fingers dig into my skin, a bite of pain bursting beneath his touch. There’s a desperation coloring his tone, something hungry and needy that makes my womb flutter. “Yes, I have. Help me find it.”
“I’m not—”
But I don’t get to finish my sentence, because in the next second he’s slipping his hand into mine and dragging me away from the patio. My body feels like it’s on fire with each step we take, my brain only capable of processing the fact that our fingers are interlocked, sparks flaring where our skin connects, so I don’t notice at first when he turns down a dark, narrow alleyway behind the Green Apple Grocery.
I barely notice when he shoves me against the wall, chest heaving as he glares at me.
Don’t notice the way his body practically vibrates, violence throbbing inside of his skeleton as if begging to be set free. It’s not something I’ve ever seen in him before.
“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper, afraid to shatter whatever control he seems intent on exercising.
“No,” he breathes, dropping his gaze to my lips. “Not even a little bit.”
My heart pounds behind my ribcage, a thunderous sound that I’m pretty sure he’d be able to see behind my shirt if he glanced down.
“Were you on a date with that kid?”
Pressing my lips together to resist the urge to laugh in his face, I shake my head. “No, I already said we—”
“You know what he does with girls when he brings them home, right? How he and his brother share?” Raking his eyes down my form, lingering on the exposed skin where my black leather skirt stops and my boots begin, Boyd shakes his head. “They’d eat you alive.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I wasn’t going home with him,” I snap, scowling, hating the way his gaze seems to slip right under my skin.
It penetrates deep, on a search and rescue mission to find something I’m not even sure exists. A desire that seems to really only flare up in his presence, making my body hum with potential.
Except, there is no potential, because this is my brother’s best friend. His only friend, not counting the people he works for. This is all wrong, and Boyd’s moral compass is too strong to give in to that temptation, if it’s even there for him.
Right?
Still, the look he’s giving me reminds me a lot of the way he stared me down in his office, and I’m flooded with the memory of touching myself to his picture, finding my release in the idea of him, and my knees suddenly feel like jelly.
His arms come up as he shifts forward, bracing against the brick wall behind me. Caging me in. “I don’t believe you.”
Dropping his hooded gaze to my lips, he brings one hand up, smoothing his knuckles over my cheekbone; the touch is so gentle, so sudden, that it steals my breath even though I can just barely feel it. The oxygen evaporates from my lungs, captivated by the feel of his skin on mine, and my body practically melts into a puddle right there.
My voice is scratchy, raw, when I speak. “You don’t have to.”
I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m expecting him to say, but lust contracts in my center when he steps even closer, his hip bones brushing against my stomach, humming low in his throat.
I’m pretty sure I stop breathing altogether.
Maybe his moral compass is skewed after all.