I wiped tears of laughter from my eyes and reached for another sip of my drink. “You two are idiots.”
“Ssh, that’s a secret.”
I grinned back at him and the smile he gave me suddenly froze.
“What?” I breathed, my heart stopping.
He swallowed and shook his head. “I just sometimes wonder where the time has gone.”
“I know. We’re all grown up now,” I teased.
His eyes searched my face, his expression enigmatic. “Yes, we are,” he murmured and something about the way he said it made the air between us grow suddenly charged. I swore I stopped breathing altogether. His eyes were dark and focused and I felt the heat of his look slide sensually down the center of my body. Nervously, I licked my lips and his gaze dropped to my mouth.
My gaze dropped to his.
I don’t know which one of us moved. Me to him, or him to me? Both of us moved?
Whichever one of us it was, our faces were so close our lips were almost brushing. I could feel his breath on mine and he obviously could feel mine on his. The smell of Macallan and Adam played chaos with my hormones. My chest began to rise and fall with excited nerves and hopeful anticipation.
I moved my head that little bit closer and our lips brushed. Infinitesimally. Still, that slightest touch sent a bolt of lust straight through me.
Adam made a sound in the back of his throat and I swore he was about to close the distance between us…
…but I’d never know for sure. His phone rang in his jacket pocket throwing a bucket of ice cold water over the moment. I jerked back and watched his face cloud over as he realized what had almost happened. Jaw clenched, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone but it had already stopped ringing. He lifted his eyes to me and told me darkly, “Braden.”
I guessed he meant that Braden had been the one who’d called him, but I also guessed it had a double meaning. I knew I was right when he quickly paid for our drinks and put me in a taxi, abruptly ending our night together.
I was Ellie, Braden’s little sister. To Adam I would always be Braden’s little sister, and that meant I was off limits.
When I laid in bed that night I cursed Adam Sutherland to hell and back. If he hadn’t already ruined things for me before, he definitely had after tonight.
A lip brush.
One tiny lip brush and I felt that spark I’d been waiting on since I was fifteen and I kissed Pete Robertson on bowling night. Whatever guy came next had a lot to live up to.
Chapter 5
“I was freaking out,” Adam admitted. He threw me a wicked smile. “I’ve never been so hard in my life from a lip brush. I wanted to fuck you every time I saw you after that.”
I shoved him playfully, blushing. Adam was often deliberately crude because he knew it made me equal parts embarrassed and turned on. I’d always hated when people used the “f-word” to describe sex, thinking it emotionless and casual. But after Adam and I became a couple I’d discovered that when you were in love with someone and you knew they loved you back there were different levels to sex. At one end of the spectrum there was the tender, sweet, slow sex that I would call “making love” and at the other end of it there was the rough, wild, can’t-get-enough-of-you sex that was definitely the “f-word”. Adam was more than proficient in both kinds.
I thought about what he’d said and frowned. “You did a good job of hiding it.”
He harrumphed. “I don’t know about that.” He looked back at the diary and frowned.
“What ever happened to that Christian guy, by the way?”
“I let him down gently when he called to reschedule our date.”
“I would say “poor guy” but I had to endure five years of wanting you and not having you.”
“That was entirely your own fault.” I searched for the diary I wanted and once finding it, found the entry easily since it was a night I would not likely ever forget, “Nine months before Joss showed up… it’s a perfect example of it being entirely your own fault.”
Sunday, October 23rd
That’s it. I give up. I’m humiliated. Confused and humiliated. And hurt. God… hurt doesn’t even cover it…
I was supposed to be spending my Saturday evening with Jenna and a few girls from uni sipping cocktails and talking about anything else but our degrees. Instead, I was in a taxi heading to Adam’s duplex apartment in Fountain Bridge. I could have walked there, but I felt a sense of urgency to get there and make sure he was okay.
And I really needed to thank him for having my back, like he always had my back.