We came out to the kitchen to start dinner, but food ends up being the last thing on our minds. Robin’s lips meet mine and everything changes. Is it me or her that has created this need to have more of each other? Is it some type of reverse hero infatuation, one where I fall for her because I’ve helped her out of one too many ordeals?

Do I even care how this happened?

I’ll figure that out later.

For now, I want to enjoy the way her touch makes me crave her more. She crosses her wrists behind my neck, tracing fingers through my hair as she kisses me, which is cut too short for her to tug on. I match her kiss with fierceness, parting her lips, and exploring every contour of her teeth and mouth with my tongue. It’s sure to leave both our lips swollen. Robin lifts up on her tiptoes and grinds against my groin as her breasts rub against my chest. I pick her up by the waist, placing her to sit on the countertop, and with one arm, I pull her legs apart and wedge my body between them.

Gripping her ass, I jerk her toward me and press her heat against my cock. It’s hard as granite, throbbing and wanting nothing more than to drive into her and feel her tightness around it. I reach my other hand up to the back of her neck, eyes filled with lust, looking on as Robin unwraps the condom and slowly rolls it up my cock. Once it’s in place, she leans her face in toward mine and kisses me again. With a tilt of her hips and a tightening of her crossed ankles, she welcomes me home.

Robin pulls from our kiss as I sink into her. Her head falls back, her hands hang on to my biceps, and she matches each and every stroke I deliver head on. I lift up her t-shirt to admire her nakedness. As I pound into her, I lower my face to her chest. Latching on to one nipple, I tug it into my mouth, circling the hardening bud with my tongue. She’s whimpering and rolling her hips in response, adding to the pleasure around my shaft, allowing me deeper inside of her, so deep that I don’t think my cock will be content again unless it’s connected with her.

She whispers a simple plea into my ear, and I smile.

“More.”

It turns out that where Robin and I are concerned, more is better. That has never been the case for me with any other woman. But I need to be realistic. She’s here with me temporarily. Eventually, she’ll go to her parents, or find herself a place, and in all likelihood, there will be no more between us. I’ll face that reality when it happens. At the moment, while she rocks her hips and her tight core pulls more of me inside of her, I’ll give her more.

I move up from her gorgeous breasts to her collarbone, and to her neck, relishing her response to my every decadent bite on her sweet skin. The moans, the breathy whimpers are almost too much, and when her body tells me she’s about to come, I almost can’t wait to send her to her peak. She relaxes her knees, leans back some more, and snakes one hand down between us until she has two fingers over her clit.

Fuck.

The image drives me out of control, and all I can do is piston into her at a punishing pace. Her body begins to quake as we come together. We’re both weak and overflowing with our releases, but Robin reaches up and kisses me hard. We’re far from over.

I find a reserve of strength to carry her back to the bedroom.

More is coming.

Or maybe not.

Robin moves out of my arms and kicks her legs over the side of the bed. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

I sit up, looking at her as she collects her clothes. “What? Are you kidding me? Tell me you’re joking, Robin.”

Glancing over at me for a moment, she pulls the t-shirt over her head and puts on one that’s less wrinkled. “I’m serious. What we did…what we’ve been doing…it’s wrong. You’re my sister’s ex-boyfriend. I can’t anymore, okay?”

“I don’t see what’s the big deal.”

“What?” she shouts.

“It was almost ten years ago. Your sister and I weren’t that serious.”

“I can’t believe you could say something so hurtful…but maybe this is the real you, huh? Selfish, arrogant and mean-spirited. You didn’t just break her heart, Reid. You killed her spirit and her will to live.”

“I’m sorry that happened. I couldn’t tell her I was leaving, Robin.”

She steps into her sweatpants and drags them up her legs in a huff, taking her anger out on her clothes. “Why not?”

“It’s complicated.”

“No it’s not. It’s simple. You left because you’re a coward.”

“You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know enough! You left because it was the easy way out!”

“That’s not true.”

“It is!”

“It’s not!” I thunder out so loudly, I’m sure the neighbors hear. “I left because I couldn’t tell her, all right? I couldn’t tell anyone. I was still a minor. The only way I could enlist at seventeen was to get parental consent. I had to forge my father’s signature, and I couldn’t take the chance that someone would try to stop me from getting the hell out of Dad’s house. You think these cigarette burns are bad? They’re nothing compared to the hospital visits for fractured ribs, broken arms, a separated shoulder… I can go on, but the point is, I couldn’t stay there one more day. All along, Danielle kept trying to convince me to stay. I just… couldn’t.”

“So you knocked her up and left her without manning up instead?” she screams.

My head snaps like a whip in her direction. “Sorry, what?” I ask, because I did not just hear what I think I heard.

“That’s right,” she spits out like venom. “You took away her virginity, got her pregnant, and then you left. Just like that.”

I shake my head. “She was pregnant?”

“Yes.”

A million questions are going through my head, and they’re coming out haphazardly. “Did she have the baby?”

“She miscarried, Reid. That’s what caused her downward spiral. That’s what made her try to kill herself twice with prescription pills. She almost succeeded the second time. It landed her in a coma for three weeks. And when she woke up…Danielle hasn’t been the same.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry she went through something that painful, but there’s just one thing wrong with all of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

I make sure Robin is looking into my eyes before I say another word. Somewhere along the line, she was misled, probably by Danielle. “You have to actually have sex to produce a pregnancy, Robin.”

“What?”

“I never slept with Danielle.”

“No. That can’t be true.”

“We messed around in high school, but she was insistent that she wasn’t ready. We never went all the way. Not once.”

“You’re lying. That’s not possible. She was pregnant.”

“Not by me.”

“She told us you were the father.”

“I said it already, and I’ll say it again. I never slept with your sister. And I’ll gladly confront her with it face to face.” I get out of bed, take Robin’s hand and put it over my heart. “There’s only one Sparrow sister I’ve had my way with, and she’s right next to me.”

Robin snatches her hand away. “Bullshit,” she shouts, and jumps back a few feet. “Danielle and my parents should be home by now. I hope you don’t mind letting me use your car. I have to talk to her. She’ll probably have another breakdown because of this… this outrageous lie. I can’t believe you’d make up something so ridiculous. But at least I won’t have to waste another second hearing this craziness from you.”

“Yes, of course you can still use the SUV. Look, I’m not lying. Danielle must have had her reasons for telling you that I was the father, but it’s not possible.”

“Save it for someone who cares,” she shrieks. In almost the same breath, she lowers her voice and adds, “Oh, and thanks for letting me use the car.”

“Be safe getting out there,” I say. “Maybe I should come with you.”

“No. I can’t be in the same room with you right now, let alone the same vehicle. I’ll… I won’t be coming back here. Josh or my dad will return you SUV and phone during the day tomorrow. And I’ll pay you back for any costs you incurred.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I will. Thanks for your hospitality, and for helping my while my family was away. I just can’t take this road. Not after what Davison did.”

Davison. Why does that name ring a bell? I tilt my head to one side in confusion. “Who?”

“Dave.”

“Wait,” I tell her. “What’s Dave’s full name?”

“Why on earth does that matter to you right now?”

“Humor me for a moment. Please. What’s his full name?”

“Davison Grant Walters. He goes by Dave Walters, but sometimes he uses his mother’s maiden name.”

“Davison Grant,” I repeat. All the hairs on my neck stand on edge, and the proverbial lightbulb goes on in my head.

“Yes. Goodbye Reid.”

With her arms at her side, and my phone and keys in her hand, she leaves. I don’t follow.

First of all, I have a murderous firebug to catch.

Robin may be the first person that I see myself having more than a casual thing with, but she has taken a side. At this point, I don’t expect to see her again.

If Danielle lied to Robin and her family for all these years, she has even less reason to tell the truth now.