Tool (A Step-Brother Romance #2)

"Oh my God." Delaney stops, just outside of the maze, her hand over her chest and her breath short. "We could have gotten caught in there."

I hold my glass up in the air, in a mock "cheers" gesture. "But we didn't."

"We should get back," she says, her expression panicked.

"Oh, I don't think so. I'm not done with you yet." I take her hand and place it on the front of my pants, and she laughs.

"How are you hard after we just ran out of there because people were coming?" she asks, her eyes wide. Then she pauses. "Oh. You're hard because we might have gotten caught."

I shrug. "Maybe," I say. "Or maybe it's just you that got me hot."

"There's nowhere to go," she says. "If we go inside the guest house or the main house, someone will notice."

"Good thing we're not going either of those places," I say. "Come on."

Delaney follows me across the path to the golf cart, parked on the side of the outbuilding where the gardeners keep their supplies. "I don't get it. Here?"

"No, not here," I say, gesturing. "Get in."

"Where are you taking me?" she asks. But she slides into the seat in the golf cart.

"Don't trust me, darlin'? That's awful hateful of you, given where my fingers just were."

Delaney raises her eyebrows, grinning as she holds onto the side of the golf cart. "I definitely know not to trust you," she says.

"Shameful." I shake my head, steering us along the path that winds down the back of the property.

"So what's it going to look like to anyone who sees the golf cart just roaming around back here?" she asks.

"Like one of the groundskeepers is doing work."

"At night."

I shrug. "No one will give it a second thought," I say.

Delaney glances over at me. "My father was right," she says. "You're trouble. You definitely need a babysitter."

"I do. Will you wear a plaid skirt?"

Delaney laughs. "That's schoolgirl, not babysitter."

"Ooh. Schoolgirl then, even better. What do babysitters wear?" I ask, pulling the golf cart up to where I want to take her. We're parked on a hill on the far end of the developed part of the property next to a pond that's stocked for fishing – man-made, I think -- and overlooking the garden, which just tonight became my new favorite place. Well, it's a close second to the sunroom.

"Mine wore jeans and a t-shirt. Nothing sexy," she says. "Sorry to disappoint. Didn't you ever have a babysitter?"

"I had a nanny," I say. "German. Not very pleasant."

"Was Anja around a lot when you were a kid?" she asks.

"Nah," I say, shrugging. "Which is probably for the best. She's not really the most motherly person there ever was."

Delaney is silent for a minute. "It looks so pretty from afar," she says, looking at the party from our vantage point in the distance, where the white lights glitter against the backdrop of the tents.

"Yeah, it's when you have to actually go down there and interact with everyone that it's not as pretty," I say. That came out a lot more bitter-sounding than I intended.

Delaney tucks her hair behind her ear and looks at me. "Are you happy?" she asks. "I don't mean, like are you happy with you and I or whatever. I mean it more generally."

"What the hell, Delaney? That's an uncomfortable fucking question."

"You think?" she asks. "It shouldn't be, right? It should be easy."

"I don't know," I say. It's not easy. It's the least easy question ever. "Are you happy?"

She studies me for a second, and I swear to God my heart stops. Like, full on stops. I don't know why I care so much what her answer to that question is, but it suddenly seems like the most meaningful second of waiting in the world.

Then she breaks into the biggest damn smile I've ever seen, and she's absolutely fucking radiant. "Yeah," she says. "Right now I am."

I stare at her stupidly, and before I can say anything, she presses her soft lips to mine. The kiss is tentative and hesitant, just like the way she first kissed me four years ago. And I'm instantly transported to feeling eighteen and head over heels for Delaney.

She kisses me the way no one ever had before and no one has since, and the chemistry is so intense it's a fucking explosion, fireworks on the Fourth of July.

And I mean that literally.

Both of us jump at the explosion, and Delaney giggles. "Oh my God, that scared me," she says.

Then she puts her hand in mine, and for a minute, we just sit there watching the fireworks together, and I think that my fucking heart is going to explode.

The fireworks are still going when she climbs on top of me and kisses me, her hair falling down around my face. I slip the straps of her dress from her shoulders, followed by her bra, and look at her, silhouetted against the background of the party and the fireworks.

I'm suddenly struck by how much everything with Delaney feels right. She feels like coming home.

She pauses, looking at me. "What?" she whispers. "You look weird."