“Reese,” Mark says, his husky voice a decibel above a whisper. He says the single word with so much pent-up emotion that it physically hurts to hear it.
He stands frozen just inside his doorway as the door slams shut behind him. He wears a plain, gray t-shirt with jeans and black Nikes. His stubble is more grown in than usual, like he didn’t shave yesterday or the few days before. His dark hair is an unruly mess, and his usually vibrant eyes are shadowed with dark circles. His eyes dart down to my shirt before they move back to my face, but his expression is unreadable.
“Hi,” I say, the picture of awkwardness as I lift my hand in a little wave.
“What are you doing here?”
“Uh, Brian…” I trail off, and he looks pained at the mention of his brother’s name. “He invited me to a dinner party last night but then he was called away on business in the middle of the night. He said you were out of town.”
“I was.” He drops the overnight bag I didn’t notice he was carrying until just now onto the floor. “And now I’m back.”
Where were you? Were you with another woman?
They aren’t my questions to ask, but I want them to be.
“I’m sorry,” I say, moving away from the windows and toward the kitchen counter where I set my purse. “I’ll be on my way.”
He steps toward me. I’m almost to the counter, but I stop short. He closes the gap between us and sets his hand on my arm. My skin burns where he touches me, and my eyes go to his hands—those talented hands, hands that play guitar and grip microphones and slide up my thigh in my memory.
“Don’t be sorry. And don’t go.” His voice pleads, and a rush of emotion flitters through my stomach. It’s not just that he’s gorgeous. It’s not just that he’s my favorite singer in my favorite band. It’s not just that he’s deeper than I realized, that he knows how to fuck like a pro, that he can please me the way no one else ever has.
It’s more.
I fell for him that night, and standing here with his skin touching mine, I’m more sure of that than ever. It took one night. I was half in love with him before I even met him, but that wasn’t real. The night we spent together was, though.
I don’t know what to do. I’m torn between doing right by Brian and doing right by myself.
I gaze at his hand for a second as it still rests on my arm. His fingers press gently into my flesh, triggering my mind to replay every second of our one night together. The memories flood me, a torrent of lust and passion and pleasure and powerful feelings that I’ll never let go.
He drops his hand from my arm, but only to take another step closer to me. We’re inches away from each other, eye to eye. His green ones remind me so much of his brother’s, but his are somehow even more penetrating. There’s pain in the depths, things I don’t understand about him, things he hasn’t told me, things I might never know…but somehow I also see hope and desire and heat there, and all of it is aimed directly at me.
My breathing increases as my heart pounds harder. I take a step back out of his grasp. It’s too intense here.
“Stay for breakfast,” he says softly. “There’s no reason a guy can’t have breakfast with his brother’s girl.” His eyes shadow on his last few words.
I clear my throat. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t…well, apart from the fact that I want him to kiss me. “Okay,” I find myself saying against my better judgment.
“What are you making me?” he asks.
I furrow my brows in surprise. “Excuse me?”
He laughs and walks over to his refrigerator. “I’m just kidding.” He takes a peek through the contents inside the fridge. “Scrambled eggs okay?”
“Sounds good. Can I do anything?”
“You get the orange juice. I’ll get the eggs.”
“Deal.” I step behind him and grab the juice out of the fridge. “Glasses?”
He points to a cabinet. “You want toast, too?”
“Sure.”
“It’s in the pantry.” He nods over toward a door, I walk that way and look blankly at the contents.
The shelves are mostly empty, but the top two shelves are completely filled with every sort of liquor imaginable. It’s like a store up there with the selections of spirits, beer, wine, and liqueur.
A box of cereal sits on another shelf with a handful of other boxed items. A loaf of bread hangs out on its own shelf all alone.
“You find it?” His voice is low and close to my ear, and I jump.
“Yeah,” I say, snapping out of it and grabbing the loaf. When I turn around, he’s blocking me from moving.
“You need any help?” he asks.
“I’m okay,” I say, but my voice comes out much more like a squeak.
He chuckles but doesn’t say anything more. I get out of the way and he grabs the toaster from another shelf—I hadn’t even noticed it there. He plugs it in on the counter, and once he’s out of the way, I set two pieces of bread in it.
“So, Reese, you have any plans for the rest of the summer?” He hums a tune as he stirs the eggs as they sizzle in the pan. I try to recognize what he’s humming, but just the sound of his voice mixed with the sizzling eggs sets a soundtrack to our morning that I find soothing.
I feel like I have all these things I want to say to him, all these questions about our night, whether he felt it too, whether it’s just my imagination working overtime…yet here we stand, making small talk as we prepare breakfast.
“I’ll probably go visit my family at some point.”
“Where are they?”
“Phoenix.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“Yeah.” I watch the toaster heat the bread with its red coils. “I moved out here for college and stayed after graduation.”
Mark grabs some plates from the cabinet next to me, and I tear my eyes away from the bread long enough to pour the orange juice.
“Weather’s about the same, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Phoenix usually runs a few degrees warmer.” Am I really discussing the weather with Mark fucking Ashton?
“I prefer the weather in LA. It gets hot, but it usually sticks around the eighties in the summer. I try not to hang out here too much in the summer.”
“You don’t like feeling like you stuck your head in an oven?” I tease, and he laughs.
“Not my preference.”
“Have you ever played the summer tours out here or Phoenix?”
“Yeah, but we require indoor venues.”
“Smart. What’s your favorite venue?”
“To play?”
I nod.
“There’s a little place in Wrigleyville called Sevens that we always played before we signed with our label.”
“Where’s Wrigleyville?”
He chuckles. “Chicago.”
“Where you’re from?”
The toast pops up, startling me.
“Yeah. We could walk to it from the house where our parents raised us.” Us. He means his sister and his brother. “Just a little dive bar.”
“When was the last time you played there?”
He thinks for a minute as he divides the eggs in half and plates them. “Probably eight years ago.”
“Have you ever thought of just showing up and playing a set?”
He laughs. “No, I haven’t. But now I am.” He hands me a plate, and I stick a piece of toast on it. We head over to the table.
“What would they do?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. We owe them a lot, though. They put up with our shit when we were stupid kids without representation.”
“What does that mean?” I take a bite of my eggs and let out an mmm.
He shifts in his chair. “It means Ethan and I used to be stupid. We’d play drunk or sometimes high, break bottles, start fights.”
“High?”
“Weed, mostly, though Ethan will try anything. No one cared back then, but as soon as we signed with the label, we had to straighten out.”
“This is you straightened out?”
He laughs. “I found different vices.”
“Women?”
He shrugs, and the mood is suddenly uncomfortable as I hit the nail on the head. “It’s all an image created by my publicist. Sex sells and all that.”
“So you’re saying you don’t sleep with a different woman every night? Because from my recollection, I was one of them.”
He looks across the table at me with a touch of sadness in his eyes. “Not a different woman every night.” His voice is soft but a little defeated.
“Most nights?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Some. I’m not making a very strong case for myself.”
“What are you trying to argue?”
“I don’t always bam and scram.”
I raise a brow. “Bam and scram?”
“Fuck and truck.”
I drop my fork to the table with a clatter. “Um...what?”
“Screw and shoo.”
I cover my mouth to hide my laugh.
“I don’t want you to think that way about me.”
I want to ask why not, but I have a feeling it’ll only lead me to an answer I shouldn’t hear—not when I find myself pining for him—for that one lost night between us.
“So tell me more about the private Mark Ashton, then,” I say instead. “Something different from what your publicist projects.” I pick up my fork and take another bite and let out another mmm of satisfaction.
Mark readjusts in his chair. “Can you stop making that noise please?” He takes a bite of toast. “Nice job on the toast,” he says.
I hold in another giggle. “Thanks. The eggs are good, too.”
“There you go. I’m good at making eggs. That’s something they don’t print in the tabloids.”
I laugh. “They should. What else?”
“I love football.”
“Who doesn’t?”
He nods with approval at my comment, and there’s something so intrinsically sexy in the fact that he approves of something I like that a pang of intense desire darts through me.
I ignore it because I have to.
He clears his throat. “Where’s my brother?” He speaks quietly and without looking at me.
“Houston.”
He looks down at his plate. “You deserve better than him.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s my brother and I love him because he’s family, but someone like you can do better than someone like him.” His voice is a warning, and it splits my already fragile heart right in two.
I stare at him for a minute. I’m at a total loss. I have no idea what to say or how to respond to that. “What are you talking about?”
He shakes his head. “Never mind.”
“He treats me well.”
He nods once. “I’m sure he does. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Why did you?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he stands up. We’re both done eating, so he gathers our plates and sets them in the sink.
“Mark, why did you?” I repeat.
He looks at me, and the longing I feel for him, the memories of our one night together, the need and the craving inside me—they’re all there, all a mirror staring back at me.
It can’t be because he wants to be with me. He can’t be issuing me warnings about his brother because he thinks he’s better suited for me. That’s not realistic.
Is it?
I have the sudden urge to leave before something happens that shouldn’t. I force myself to remember why I’m here in the first place…because I spent the night in another man’s bed. His brother’s bed.
I pick up my purse once we’re done with the dishes. All the things I wanted to say to him have flown right out of my head. Instead, I’m leaving with the knowledge that he loves football and used to smoke weed before he got on stage. We didn’t exchange the words we needed to say—didn’t talk about how we connected on some other level that night, never mentioned whether he felt it or if it was all in my own head.
“You don’t have to go,” he says, suddenly standing between me and my path toward the door.
“I should.”
“I have a few things I’d like to say.”
My heart races. He takes a step toward me, and I freeze. He closes the gap between us, and my body betrays me as I automatically lean toward him. He takes it as a cue, and the next thing I know, his arms are wrapped around my waist and his mouth is crashing down to mine with an unexpected passion. His tongue brushes against mine with a tender desire that fills me with hope. He kisses me like a man starved, a man who needs my mouth to survive, a man who has gone without the things he needs for far too long.
He kisses me in a way that tells me everything he wants to say. He tells me it wasn’t just in my head. That night was different—for both of us. The connection we shared was special.
It’s brutal. His mouth batters mine, like he can’t kiss me hard enough, his tongue can’t get enough of mine. He’s reliving that night like I am, but even though it’s brutal, it manages to hold onto its sensuality. He has to do this now because once it ends, it’s over. His mouth does all the work—his hands have made their way under my shirt, but they’re motionless on the warm flesh of my back as his fingers dig into my skin. I feel his growing erection against my hip, and the memory of that very part of him piercing through my walls and pushing me to pleasure embeds itself in my chest, my mind, my veins. My very being.
It’s wrong. Some dark recess of my brain is telling me to stop, that this isn’t right, that I’m with another man—his brother—but I’m not strong enough to push him away. It feels too good, too right in his arms, his mouth on mine.
If this is wrong, then I’m content with being wrong.
If I thought the memories stuck with me before, his kiss is a physical reminder of the passion we shared that one night. I moan into him as I wrap my arms more tightly around him because I want this. I want him to hear what he does to me. I want him to know how much I want more—more than still fingers on my skin, more than our bodies buried beneath too many clothes, more than a stolen kiss in his kitchen.
More than just one night.
Out of the clear blue, it all stops.
He drops his hands from my body and pulls back from me. He moves out of my orbit, and I’m left with cold disappointment.
“Fuck,” he mutters, turning away from me. “I can’t do this.” He says two simple words that break my heart, his eyes downcast.
He can’t? He can’t because I’m with his brother? He can’t because of some other reason? Why is he stopping?
Why the fuck is he stopping?
Of the two of us, the idea that he might put a halt to things never entered my mind.
I clear my throat. “I shouldn’t.” My voice comes out as a husky whisper, and the questions in my mind are left unsaid.
He shakes his head, still avoiding eye contact. “No, you shouldn’t.”
“Neither should you,” I say, my tone more accusatory than I mean it to be.
“You’re right.”
I like being right, but in this case, I wish I wasn’t. An awkward beat of silence tenses between us. “I should go.”
“Wait,” he says, stopping me with a hand on my arm again. “I need to say something.”
We both stare down at his hand on my arm. “That’s what got us in trouble a few seconds ago.” I move my arm down so his hand falls, and then I edge past him and pick up my purse, slinging it over my shoulder and moving toward the door. I have to force each foot, one in front of the other, and not look at him again, because if I do, I don’t know what will happen.
“It’s not fair,” he says quietly as I reach for the doorknob. The pain in his voice is heartbreaking, even in its softness. “You were mine first, and I can’t stop thinking about you. Not even for a second since that night.”
I close my eyes, squeeze them shut like I’m trying to squeeze the words out of my head as if they never happened.
It doesn’t work.
The words float in the air between us. They land in my ears, twine through my auditory system, and envenom the nerve endings surrounding my brain until they become a part of me I’m sure I’ll never let go.
* * *
I cry the entire ride down the elevator.
How fucking dumb am I?
I walked out of Mark Ashton’s place for the second time. I didn’t even give him a chance to explain what he meant.
I can’t. It doesn’t matter how many times I repeat the same stupid shit in my head—I’m with Brian. I’m falling for Brian. Brian loves me. It doesn’t make anything better, doesn’t help me feel like I did the right thing. Doesn’t cure my broken heart.
At least I have my sunglasses this time, so I slip them on and cry as I wait at the valet station. I keep crying as I pay to get my car back and drive home.
His words replay over and over, like a song he might sing to me. It’s not fair, fair fair. You were mine, mine, mine first. I can’t stop, stop, stop thinking about you.
His brother was right.
The realization hits me with the force of a hurricane.
Mark’s saying the right things, doing what he can to charm me, to try to steal me away from Brian. This is just a game to him, but he’s using my emotions as his pawn, and that’s not fair to me.
“Hey, how was your ni—“ Jill starts when she sees me walk in, but she stops short when she looks up at my tear-streaked, red, puffy face. “Oh my God. What happened?”
Seeing my best friend and all her concern only brings on another bout of sobs.
She tosses an arm around my shoulders and leads me over to the couch. “What did Brian do?”
I shake my head.
“Who did this?”
I inhale a shaky breath, and let out his name on another sob as I collapse on the couch. “Mark.”
She sits next to me. “That fucking asshole. What did he do?”
I love her. I love how she stands up for me without knowing the story. I love how she’s on my side no matter what. I shake my head. “Not like that. I think I love him.”
“Of course you do, babe. So do I. He’s Mark Ashton. Everyone loves him.”
“But Brian.” I swipe at the tears.
“You love Brian, too?”
I nod. “I think so.”
“Start from the beginning.”
I draw in another shaky breath. “I went to that dinner thing last night at Mark’s place but Mark was out of town. Then Brian got a call late last night, and he had to go to Houston right away. I stayed over because I drank wine all night. When I got up this morning, I was all alone in the penthouse. Then Mark walked in.”
“Oh, shit.” She’s sitting on the edge of the couch—like she’s on the edge of her seat as she waits for me to tell my story. “What happened?”
“He kissed me.”
“Oh my God, Reese!” She grips my wrist. “What does this mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything except that I cheated on Brian.” I shake her off.
“You had sex with Mark?”
My brows draw together in confusion. “Yeah, almost two months ago.”
“Not this morning?”
I shake my head. I know she’s getting at the fact that a kiss might not be considered cheating, but I’m not looking for a loophole. I’m guilty of my crime. I didn’t initiate it, but I certainly didn’t stop it.
She folds her arms across her chest. “Okay, so you kissed, then what?”
“He stopped it and I left.”
“That was it?”
I shake my head. “He said some things when I walked out.”
“What did he say?”
“He can’t stop thinking about me,” I paraphrase.
“Oh my God,” she says for the third time since I walked in the door.
“It doesn’t matter. I like Mark. I might even love him. But I could love Brian, too. Mark doesn’t want me, he just doesn’t want Brian to have me.”
“I don’t know,” Jill says. “I saw the way he looked at you at the party. I don’t think it’s just a game to him.”
“It doesn’t matter. Brian’s the right choice.” I say it adamantly, mostly to try to convince myself that it’s true. “The safe choice.”
She huffs out a mirthless laugh. “Safe and love don’t mix, babe.”