Chelsey
“Johnny, I swear to God, I don’t give a shit if you’re shipping off to the Middle East or to your nana’s backyard, you make one more comment about my tits and I’m going to shove your beer bottle so far up your ass you’re gonna be shitting it out next week.”
The black-haired marine holds his hands up and laughs. “Now, Chels, you know me, darlin’.”
I give him a pointed look and pause while wiping off the glass. “Exactly. Now y’all take your beers and behave.”
Like Johnny Evans and Co. could ever behave themselves. I’m almost certain that he deliberately screws around when he’s on leave to make up for how disciplined he has to be in his job.
“Behave . . .” Leila Burke muses, taking a seat on the stool just in front of me. I glance up, and her eyes flit from Johnny to me. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
I hold my hands up to signal my agreement, then reach for a wineglass. “Yeah, I know. But if he’s a prick later, I can remind everyone that I warned him.”
“If he’s a prick?” She raises a dark eyebrow. “When he’s a prick. The guy gives Tate a run for his money.”
Now it’s my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Leila, no one gives Tate a run for his money. Not even your other brothers.” I pour her a glass of wine and set it in front of her.
“Yeah, I don’t know. Right now, Mom might be winning. She seems to be struggling with the fact that her last baby is looking for a place to live that isn’t his current bedroom.”
“Her last baby? Did she forget you?”
“Apparently,” she says dryly. “When I left, Mom had Kye cornered and was touting all the perks of living at home. Including home-cooked meals nightly, getting his laundry done, and not having to worry about all the bills. I think she’s trying to scare him into staying.”
“Even though Conner can live with Sofie, Ella and Tate can buy their cute little beachside house, and Aidan and Jessie can pretend they’re not living together in the house he’s making an offer on?”
“And I can spend three months in Europe. Alone.”
I bite down on my bottom lip in a fight to hide my smile. And I know exactly what happened in Europe. . . . “What’s your Dad saying?”
“As long as Kye doesn’t knock someone up, he couldn’t give a crap. According to him, Mila is enough baby Burke for a while.”
I see his logic. “You didn’t bring Kye with you, did you?” I glance at the door.
Leila’s smile is slow and sly. “No. . . . Should I have?”
“No,” I burst out. Wait. No. That sounded desperate. “No,” I repeat, much calmer this time. I grab the cleaning spray from under the bar and squirt the shiny wooden surface. “Why would you bring him?”
“I don’t know, Chelsey. Why would I?”
I don’t need to look at her to know she’s basically silently peeing herself with laughter. She’s the only person I can’t beat into submission over this whole thing. Sofie, Ella, Jessie. . . . None of them will talk about him to me, but as soon as Leila enters the room. . . . Boom. There’s no living that night down.
“Because you’re a sadistic bitch and you take pleasure in my uncomfortableness around him?”
“You missed a spot,” she says with glee. “Oh, not on the bar,” she adds when I drop my eyes, “You missed the extremeness of my pleasure.”
I roll my eyes and briefly consider throwing the wet cloth at her face. Just for my own amusement. “One-night stands aren’t a crime.”
“I know. I had a very fun one with a hot Italian waiter.”
“And the Spanish tour guide,” I remind her. “And the English singer . . .”
“You make it sound like I whored my way around Europe.” She sniffs, lifting her wineglass. “I went to four countries and slept with only one guy in each. It was a total bucket-list item.”
Oh yeah. There was also the French “artist” who she suspected was actually a taxi driver.
“Whatever.” I choose to drop the cloth back where it belongs in the sink. “I’m just sayin’ it’s awkward to talk about it.”
“Chels, you fucked my brother. It’s awkward even when we don’t talk about it.”
I sigh heavily. I’m not going to tell her that the reason it’s awkward isn’t just because I slept with Kye, but because of the way the whole thing went down. Like, seriously. I don’t plan on sharing with everyone I know that the night he and I did the horizontal tango, I was on a mission to get totally wasted because my father had just informed me he’d knocked up his twenty-six-year-old groupie “girlfriend.” His girlfriend who happens to be eighteen months older than me. And he wonders why I have so little respect for him.
Long story short, I was already well on my way to my goal when Kye turned up and distracted me. I wish I could say that was the worst part about it, but I’m a really forgetful drunk. I can have three glasses of wine and be hazy the next morning. So . . .
Holy shit. It’s embarrassing to even admit to myself.
The whole me-and-Kye-bumping-uglies thing is awkward because, well, I can’t totally, completely remember it all. The only thing I have full recollection of is the fact that Kye Burke can lick pussy like a champ. I’m assuming he can probably fuck like one, too, but my vagina and brain are conspiring to withhold this information from me right now.
“Earth to Chelsey?” Leila bangs on the bar. “You have a customer.”
I blink harshly and escape from my own head, then turn to the woman watching me expectantly. “Sorry, I spaced out there for a moment. What can I get you?”
“Are you still serving food?”
I glance at my watch. “If you order in the next thirty minutes we are.”
“Perfect.” She lays the menu down and proceeds to reel off a food order. I write it down, nodding, and she also gives me her drink order. A few minutes later, her drinks are in her hands and I’ve taken her order to the kitchen.
“You know,” Leila says, shoving her empty glass toward me. “It’s always bugged me how the media never picked up on who you were.”
I shudder at the thought. Since I had to spend my senior year of high school on the road after my mom died, my face is familiar to most national media outlets and all the local ones. Sometimes a non-story about me buying coffee or something will pop up, even now, especially when I look a mess. “They never admitted that it wasn’t Aidan cheating on Jessie when they ran that article. At least I don’t think they did.”
Something I’m kinda thankful for.
“I don’t think Marc knew it was you,” Leila responds, referring to Dirty B.’s ex-manager as she takes back her now-full glass. “If he did, he would have played off your dad’s name until there was a nationwide ink shortage.”
I shudder again—except this time it’s worse. “Don’t even joke. I’ve had a shitstorm of calls ever since he announced the baby he’s having with that whore. I don’t even know how these idiots got my number.”
“Well, for one, your number is on your Facebook page.”
My head whips around at the sound of his warm, husky voice. The laughter laced through his words sends an involuntary shiver cascading its way down my spine. I pause before I respond, my eyes flitting across his face.
Scruffy dark hair like he just got out of bed. Baby blue eyes glimmering with amusement. Curved pink lips, set just above a chiseled jaw that’s lightly dusted with two days’ worth of stubble.
He looks like he just walked straight off a magazine cover.
My stomach flips.
“My old number is on my Facebook,” I correct him. I reach for my glass of lemonade and knock it over. Somehow I manage to catch the glass before it hits the floor, but lemonade spills everywhere. “Shit!”
Leila snorts, and her brother chuckles. The sound of a stool scraping against the tiled floor tells me he’s fixing to stay, and I can’t avoid him like I have for the past month. It’s surprisingly easy to stay out of someone’s way in this town, even with how small it is. Mostly because you know they’re coming to find you before they’ve left their house, thanks to the Shelton Bay Gossip Grapevine.
Obviously, Leila was in charge of this run-in.
I put the mop back in the corner and take a deep breath to steady myself before I approach them again. Ignoring Leila’s eyes on me, I look at him. “Can I get you a drink?”
Kye Burke meets my eyes and studies me for a second that feels like a lifetime. I lick my lips and his gaze drops for a second. “Dr Pepper,” he answers, bringing his eyes back up again. “That’s her second, and she can’t drive now,” he explains, nodding toward Leila. “Lucky for her, I walked down here.”
“Not planned,” Leila deadpans, lifting her glass and finishing it. “But, hell. I’ll have another if he’s offering.”
I roll my eyes and grab her glass. Once I’ve filled it, I pull down a pint glass and, at Kye’s nod, fill it with Dr Pepper.
He hands me his card. “Her tab, too.”
Leila shrugs like the baby sister she is, so I run the transaction through and hand him the receipt to sign. He scribbles on the line, and I shove it into the register without a second thought.
“You know, most chicks are thrilled when I give them my autograph.”
“And most girls don’t realize that rock stars are all arrogant bastards.” I smile sweetly.
His autograph my ass. Every business owner and bartender in Shelton Bay knows the Burke boys have two ways of signing their name—one is their actual signature, and the other is all fancy for their rabid little fangirls.
“And the cell number on your Facebook is your current one,” he shoots back, holding the screen of his phone in my direction.
I frown and grab it out of his hand, focusing in on the details. Fuck. He’s right. How the hell did that happen? I’d swear I haven’t updated that for months. “Crap,” I mutter, handing the phone back to him. His fingers touch mine with a warm brush as he takes it.
“Internet,” Leila snorts. “Log in once and it knows your life story.”
Kye raises an eyebrow and looks at her. “After your walk of shame through Europe, you should make a point to avoid it.”
“Look, just because I got laid more than you . . .”
He turns his attention back to me. “You can refuse to serve her, right?”
“I can, but I’m not gonna lie, I wanna see where she’s going with this.” I lean forward and rest my forearms on the bar. “Lei?”
She winks. “Kye, just because I got laid more than you while I was away doesn’t mean I’m ashamed. Maybe I should write about it. I could see doing a book, actually. Young Southern girl travels to Europe and meets sexy European men, then proceeds to get brains screwed out of—”
“Please refuse to serve her,” Kye interrupts. “I’m gonna have a fuckin’ aneurysm if I have to listen to more of this shit.”
Leila sits up straight, clearly affronted. “What, because I’m a girl, I can’t sleep with people and not care? If I were you, I’d be celebrated for it. Hell, all y’all have been celebrated for it just because you have a cock. If I had one, you’d be high-fiving me.”
I purse my lips and slide my eyes to Kye. She has a point.
“Sis, you can sleep with who you want. But the idea of some asshole having, ugh, sex with my little sister makes me want to chase him down and rip his balls off.”
My gaze travels back to Leila. Good answer.
“So? Maybe I’ve wanted to slice the nipples off every chick you’ve ever slept with.” She looks at me. “No offense, Chels.”
My cheeks burn.
“But I’ve never called you on it,” Leila continues.
“Actually,” Kye responds, “you have. A lot. You called me on it after . . . well, Chels.”
“That’s because she’s my friend.”
“You didn’t call Aidan on Jessie.”
“Maybe I like Chels more.”
“When did I become the focal point of your fight?” I raise my eyebrows. “Can you take me out of it, please? I’d rather my private life not be common knowledge in town. Because, you know, some of us value our privacy.”
That and we’ve managed to keep our little . . . encounter . . . relatively private for a month. Which is unheard of in Shelton Bay.
I don’t have the words to express how much I’d like to keep it that way. Private. Secret. Unheard of except by his family and my best friend. Who is, oddly, probably closer to being my family than my actual family at this point.
The hottest rock star of the eighties and nineties, Lukas Young, is my father. Everyone expected me to be someone. To do something amazing.
I work in a bar in small-town South Carolina. I’m a simple girl with simple dreams. I just happen to have a complicated past. . . . One I’d prefer to stay there.
If it were to become common knowledge that I had my way with Kye Burke one night . . . It doesn’t bear thinking about. I’d be pushed to . . .
Well.
Do things I don’t want to do. Like . . . be in the public eye. Maybe even follow in my father’s footsteps and sing. God only knows there’s been enough speculation over what my future would hold, especially since I was thrust into his limelight several years ago.
“Chelsey?”
I snap out of yet another trance at the sound of my coworker’s voice, Clarissa. If she’s here, my shift is over. “Sorry. What?”
“You can go,” she says slowly, her eyes dancing between me and the two Burke siblings sitting at the bar. Both of their glasses are empty.
“You need a ride?” Kye asks, pushing his stool back but not getting up.
“Nah, I’m good. It isn’t raining or snowing. I can walk.”
“It’s freezing out there,” Clarissa offers. “Icy as hell.”
“I’m good,” I reassure her, tugging my shirt down self-consciously. I glance at Leila. She’s grinning, but it’s a knowing, shit-eating, determined grin. The kind of smile that only a best friend can get away with.
Instead of reacting to it, I shake my head, take my register drawer, and disappear into the back room. I sit and count it out carefully, record it, then put the cash in the safe. My coat and scarf are hanging on the peg with my purse where I left them when I arrived, and I wrap up warmly, pulling my gloves from my purse before stepping back out into the bar. Shelton Bay rarely gets snow, but the temperature drops low enough over the winter that you definitely notice it. If it weren’t for the lack-of-snow thing, I’d wonder if the whole town was teleported to the Northeast every winter. Usually you can at least forgo the scarf by late February, but this year the sea breeze is bitingly cold, and leaving the scarf at home is a mere dream.
I wave to Clarissa and adjust my scarf so it covers my chin. My purse slips down from my shoulder as I push open the thick wooden door to the bar. The cold air hits me with what seems like a punch, and I wince at its ferocity.
So. It really is cold.
“Get in the truck,” a voice murmurs, oddly strong.
“I’m fine,” I tell Kye, opening my purse and pulling out my gloves.
“Come on, Chels,” he groans. “Leila forgot how to handle her wine and is already asleep.”
“She’s still jet-lagged,” I say in her defense.
“Whatever. I don’t give a shit. It’s freezing and it’s pitch-black out here. Just get in and let me take you home.”
I sigh and finally look at him. As our eyes meet, flashes of our night together play through my mind. “No, really. I’m okay. This is Shelton Bay, not the South Bronx. I can walk home by myself. Besides, I live on the other side of town from you.”
Kye looks at me flatly. “Don’t make me drag you into my truck, woman.”
“I’d like to see you try.” I yank the gloves over my wrists and turn away. The streetlight illuminates my path, but I’ve taken all of five steps before a hand grabs the back of my coat and drags me backward.
A quiet shriek leaves me, especially as I turn and collide with a solid wall of coat and man.
“Get. In. The. Fuckin’. Truck,” he growls, pulling me close to him. My heart thuds. “It’s cold and dark, and I don’t feel right about you walking across town by yourself.”
“I’m a big girl—”
“Trust me, babe, I remember well just how fuckin’ grown up you are. Now, two choices: get in the damn truck, or I throw you in it. Are you gonna come quietly or no?”
Asshole.
I inhale deeply, purse my lips, and meet his eyes in the dim light emanating from the bar’s neon-illuminated front window. “If you think I’m gonna come quietly, you don’t remember a thing, do you?”
He smiles sexily. It’s so fucking lazy, and I kind of want to rip it off his face. “There’s nothing quiet about you, Chels. Although if you’re up for a challenge . . .”
“Take me home,” I demand. “Preferably before you drop your sister off.”
I shove his arm off me and stalk to his sleek, charcoal-colored truck. The engine is purring lightly, and Leila’s face is pressed against a window in the back. Her jaw has dropped, and I’m pretty sure the smear on the glass is from her drool. Adorable.
My fingers itch for all of a second before I pull out my phone and snap a pic of Sleeping Beauty.
Kye laughs quietly as he opens the driver’s-side door and gets in. I shrug as I hoist myself into the giant vehicle, making sure to tuck my phone back into my purse before closing the door. On second thought, maybe I should keep it in my hand. . . . I all but curl into a ball as he puts the truck into gear and reverses. Leila breathes heavily in the backseat, and I look out the window. It’s nothing more than a flash, but the heat of Kye’s mouth on mine is searing into my memory as though it’s happening right now.
I steal a glance at him as he drives. His arms are taut, his inked biceps bulging with every gear change or twist of the steering wheel. He barely seems to notice me as my gaze travels from his shoulders to his fingertips. Every inch of his defined arms are colored in—and of course, I already know each shade.
I’ve seen him naked, for the love of God.
Kye pulls into the Burke family driveway, putting the truck in park behind his dad’s. Without a word, he gets out and opens Leila’s door. “Hey, asshole.” He jabs her arm. “Bedtime, you drunk fool.”
Leila yawns as her brother lifts her out of the backseat and carries her toward the door. “Not drunk,” I hear her protest.
She’s been back from Spain a week. I’m gonna agree that she’s drunk, but there’s a definite layer of jet lag, too.
Meanwhile, I’m pretty pissed that Kye ignored my protests and I’m sitting outside his house.
He comes back in a couple of minutes and gets in without another word. I suck my bottom lip into my mouth.
One. Night.
That’s it.
One I can barely remember.
For all I know, Kye Burke has the oral skills of a champion but the actual sex skills of a hunk of granite.
If only I weren’t curious to find out if that’s true.
Hot damn.
Breathe, Chelsey. Just breathe and remember every reason why he’s everything that’s bad for you.
“I hear your dad is having a baby.”
“Hmm,” I reply, focused on the blackness outside the window.
“Hmm?”
“Hmm.”
Kye exhales a laugh and doesn’t respond. I don’t care. I’m not sure what kind of ridiculous conversation he’s trying to start, but I refuse to discuss my father and my unborn sibling.
I hug my purse to my chest until he pulls into the small parking lot of my apartment building. There are just enough spaces for one car per tenant, so when I say he “pulls into,” I mean he drives up right outside the front door.
“Thank you,” I offer, darting my eyes to him. “For the ride. It was unnecessary. Especially the whole taking-Leila-home-before-me thing. You know how ridiculous that was?”
“Nothing about keeping you safe is unnecessary,” he replies quietly, his eyes never quite meeting mine. “And yes. I realize now how fucked up my gentlemanly efforts are.”
“Well. Thanks.” I add it awkwardly, fighting the tinge of amusement at his admission, then undo my seat belt and push the door open. The cold air, once again, hits me in a rush, and I clamp my jaw tightly as I step into the sudden chill. Damn you, stubborn South Carolinian winter. I keep my head down and scurry toward the warmth of my apartment building.
“Chelsey?” Kye steps out of his truck.
I stop just as I reach for the handle of the main door. “What?”
The steps he takes toward me are long and confident. Each stride is full of purpose and certainty until he’s barely inches away from me. From here, his movements are momentarily jittery. “That night.”
“What night?”
His eyes narrow. “We spent together.”
“We spent four hours together. That doesn’t constitute a night, Kye,” I snap. “You should forget about it. I have.”
I curl my fingers around the handle as his make contact with my arm. I breathe in sharply and turn to face him.
“That’s it,” he says in a low voice. “I can’t. Forget it.”
“Then try,” I hiss, trying to tug my arm away.
He tightens his grip and steps toward me. His body is a breath away from mine, and I can feel the twitching of his fingers. “I have.” Kye sucks in a breath through his clamped jaw and raises his free hand. His fingertips brush across my cheek, the fleeting touch a burst of heat across my chilled skin. “I’ve tried. Fuck, I’ve tried. But I want you as badly as I did then. It’s fuckin’ insane, isn’t it? It’s been weeks, but I remember the way you responded to me and I crave that.”
“You’re insane,” I confirm. I won’t tell him that my skin is sizzling beneath the layers of this coat or that my lungs are burning desperately, my heart is pounding harshly.
He pulls me so close that our mouths . . . God. Right there. They’re right there. One twitch and I’d kiss him. I want to move. Pull back. Shift to the side. Do whatever. Get away.
Run. Hide.
“That I am,” Kye breathes, his gentle fingertips on my cheek becoming a solid touch of his palm. “I’m totally fuckin’ insane, and I know you hate everythin’ about me, but shit, babe, I want to fuck the hell outta you again.”
Everything. Burns. “Keep wanting.” The words are barely a raspy whisper before I tug myself away from him and grab the door handle for real this time, hearing his footsteps retreating. I pull my key from the inner pocket of my purse and unlock the door, stopping when I sense him looking at me. He is. He’s standing by his truck, the light from inside the vehicle and the dull security lights from the parking lot illuminating his distinct yet familiar features. Not sure why, but I call out, “Wanting is all you’re gonna get.”
I punctuate my words by storming through the door. The simple move is strengthened by the final bash and click of the door swinging shut. I hold on to that barrier mentally as I drop my purse on the hall table.
But I don’t feel safe from his sudden desire.
Kye Burke.
Wanting me, still.
Despite what I said, insanity doesn’t cover it.