But she doesn’t.
She’s too good for all of us, not just Daemon.
Tucking her face into the crook of my neck, I can’t help but wonder if she’s soaking just as much strength up from me as I am her right now.
The thought is something akin to a baseball bat in the chest.
But, unable to dive into the painful shit, especially when we’re meant to be celebrating, I fall back on my safety net. Sarcasm.
“And you couldn’t wait another minute so I could take a piss,” I mutter, returning her embrace and holding her tighter than I’m sure is really necessary.
“It’s good to see you, Bro,” she whispers in my ear, her words wrapping around my heart and squeezing tight.
“You too, Sis. He still treating you right?” I ask, unable to drop the big brother act. All the while, Bri’s comments from earlier float around my head and cause a shudder to race down my spine.
“You know it,” she agrees without missing a beat, and my eyes lock on Daemon’s over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s party.”
Unsurprisingly, Daemon doesn’t react at all to my warning glare. If anything, I’m sure his dark eyes twinkle with accomplishment before the fuck shoots a look over at Bri.
“Just go over there. Enjoy yourself,” Calli says, startling me and letting me know that she didn’t miss that look her new boyfriend and I shared.
Ugh, my stomach knots. My baby sister has an actual boyfriend.
“I… I can’t, Cal,” I say, finally releasing her before taking off across the room to find my discarded bottle of vodka. If all these couples are about to start grinding up against each other like they usually do, then the best way to get through this night is to be so wasted that I forget one of them is my sister. I just need to pray they’re not into PDA quite like Seb and Stella, who seem to have made up at last—or at least Seb is putting in maximum effort to make it happen as he kisses her like she’s the air he needs to breathe.
I fall onto the sofa, lifting the bottle to my lips and chugging a more-than-generous amount as Brianna emerges from the kitchen and delivers each of the girls a cocktail.
From the state of them all, it’s more than obvious that they’ve already had plenty, but it doesn’t stop any of them throwing this one back like it’s a shot. Well, Stella and Emmie do, preferring to be distracted by their boys to wasting time drinking. Calli and Jodie take it a little slower, thank fuck.
When Brianna gets back to the kitchen, I watch her throw a row of three shots back, clearly deciding that the potent cocktails are still too weak if she has to be here tonight before she saunters through the room.
But before she gets to wherever she was going, Jodie intercepts her, catching her hand and pulling her toward her to dance.
Brianna shakes her head at whatever Jodie says as I tip the bottle to my lips once more.
My head is beginning my spin nicely, my perception blurring, allowing me the escape from reality that I crave so badly.
At some point, I know it’s not going to be enough. It’s why I’ve got a little baggie of Molly in my pocket. Sometime tonight, I’m going to need more, and something tells me that she’s going to be the reason.
A wide smile lights up her face as she dances with her friend. Alex joins them, but I’m too enthralled in the way her body moves in time with the music to pay any attention to him.
Her movements are hypnotising and as her hips roll, I can’t help but let my imagination run away with me, imagining that she’s beautifully naked and moving like that against me.
Fuck.
Reaching out, I tug at my trousers, giving myself a little space.
Thankfully, everyone is too lost in what they’re doing to notice me suffering from just watching Bri dance.
I have no idea what it is about her. She’s like fucking kryptonite. Has been since I first saw her that night.
I only went to be a good friend. I never would have imagined that Toby would have led me to such a spitfire.
I had no idea back then that he’d set the whole thing up. And to be honest, I’d have been too lost in her large blue eyes and sinful curves to even care anyway.
Letting myself remember the events of that night, of our little trip to Hades does little to stop the semi I’m rocking.
How many girls would allow their one-night stands take them to a fucking sex club and screw them every which way while others looked on?