CHAPTER THREE – ETHAN
“Where the hell’s the beer?”
Mark shrugged, and the guys simply stared at me, so I went to go see what the holdup was. I was ready to share a beer with Kyra and figure out what her ex fiancé did to hurt her, so I could kill the bastard. I walked down the hallway and pushed through the kitchen door, looking around for where her and Owen had gotten off to.
“What’s the holdup?” I asked. “No one likes a lukewarm beer!”
Kyra threw her head back and laughed before she handed me one.
“Here you go, oh impatient one,” she said, grinning. “A cold one just for you.”
“Oh, how thoughtful,” I said.
I took a long pull from it while Owen gathered up the other open bottles. I smiled at Kyra, winking in her direction while Owen pushed past me. I leaned against the kitchen table, my eyes scanning Kyra before stopping off at her left hand one last time.
That ring didn’t suit her anyway.
She blushed underneath my gaze, and I watched as her lips wrapped around the bottle. She was even prettier now than she had been last Christmas, and I had no idea how she did that. How she just popped in after all these months with ragged jeans on her little legs and a shirt that draped over her fabulous curves and simply took me to my knees. Seeing her again filled me with the same lust that grabbed at my cock ever since I figured out what the hell my dick was supposed to do, and all I could do was latch onto the one thing that gave me hope.
The one thing that signaled to me I might still have a chance.
“So… it’s over?” I asked.
I watched the smile fall from her face as she grasped her beer bottle tightly.
“I think so,” she said, sighing.
“What went wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t really wanna talk about it.”
“You know I’m here for you, right?” I asked.
She shrugged, and it killed a part of me inside that she didn’t feel she could talk with me about this.
“He’s a dick,” I said. “You know that, right?”
“You haven’t even met him,” she said.
“Doesn’t take knowing a man to know when he fucked up something good for him.”
She flashed her eyes over at me, giving my body a once-over as a smirk crawled across my face.
“I’m here to enjoy the holidays, Ethan,” she said. “I could really use a break from the drama.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place, beautiful. We specialize in getting away from it all.”
“Being thirty minutes outside of town will do that to you,” she said, grinning.
“See, now there’s that beautiful Kyra I know and remember,” I said. “You remember when we were eleven? How you dared all of us to sled down that hill out behind the elementary school?”
“Butt naked?” she asked, giggling. “I sure do. I remember you and Chase actually had the guts to take off all your clothes in the freezing cold and do it.”
“It was a dare! What were we supposed to do?”
“Keep your clothes on like the rest of the sane brothers,” she said.
“Not a chance when it puts a smile on your face.”
“You both got into a fight at the bottom of the hill because Chase thought you touched his junk, and you both ended up with hypothermia for Christmas,” she said.
“Well, at least I had the upper hand in that fight. Nailed him right in the dick.”
Kyra almost spit out her beer, she was laughing so hard, and her voice filled me with a warmth that tugged at my balls and rattled my spine.
“You were a scrawny eleven-year-old with a taste for puffing out your little chest,” she said. “Chance was almost twenty, and he was built like a brick house.”
“Yeah well, that just means I’m still young and spry while he’s old and wilting away with his salt and peppered hair,” I said.
She rolled her eyes at me before she took another swig of her beer, and I took the chance to leap into action. I set my beer down onto the kitchen table and lunged at her, my hands dancing all along her stomach and her sides while she giggled and jolted.
“You think you can roll your eyes at me and get away with it?” I asked, smiling.
“Ethan! No! You know I hate this!”
“Apologize,” I said.
“Never,” she said, laughing.
“Apologize!”
The both of us were laughing hysterically, and soon, she collapsed into my arms. I caught her and held her, feeling her chest panting against my arms as I held her closely to me. I couldn’t believe how good she felt. How the excess of her breasts pressed into me while her toned stomach taunted my pelvis. I wanted to hold her like this forever… hold her the way I knew that asshole ex of hers wasn’t.
But the moment was ruined when Chance strolled into the room.
“No wonder the beers are late,” Chance said. “Owen only brought the first four.”
Kyra stepped out of my arms at that very moment, and that was when I noticed it. The rose gold locket around her neck.
“That’s a beautiful necklace,” I said. “Where did you get it?”
“Oh,” she said. “Owen gave it to me.”
I nodded slowly before my eyes darted over to Chance.
“Do you want to talk about your breakup?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said. “She doesn’t wanna talk about it.”
“That’s right,” Kyra said. “So, thanks for addressing me like I’m not here.”
“That’s right, Ethan,” Chance said. “Kyra can speak for herself.”
“The fuck did you say to me?” I asked.
“I said, Kyra is a grown-ass woman and can speak for herself.”
“If you don’t recall, you’re the one that busted in here and rudely ruined the conversation I was having with Tinkerbell. So, if you’d like to grab your libation and back out, that’d be nice.”
I watched Chance cock an eyebrow into the air, and I had to admit I was glad I rendered him speechless. The last thing I wanted to do was fight him again over something stupid while Kyra was standing here.
I was enjoying my time with her, and I wasn’t ready to share her yet.
“No need to be rude, baby bro,” Chance said. “Just coming in to check on things.”
I threw my hands up in the air as he grabbed his beer and came to stand beside Kyra. His eyes were locked onto me, like he was waiting for me to just abandon her with him and leave. He always had to get the last word in. He always had to be the big shot. He always had to get what he wanted, when he wanted it, because he was the oldest and had to set the example. Mr. Ex-Military with his faded hair bullshit on his head and his hunting escapades and his deer antlers or whatever.
I hated Chance sometimes.
“I’m really glad you’re back for the holidays, Kyra,” I said.
“I’m really glad I’m back, too,” she said.
Then, I grabbed the rest of the beers that were sitting on the counter, and I left. I’d rather wait until another time when I could get her alone than try to measure cocks against the big brother of the group.
But we all knew who would win that measuring contest. Only men insecure on shit like that acted the way Chance did.