I’m not this guy.
Lust doesn’t make me lose my mind.
But I want her naked.
I want her naked and I want to take her against this door and make her eyes light up with that sparkle she had in Hawaii again, and then I want to tell her all of my secrets so I don’t have to carry them alone either.
I am so fucked.
This is not how this trip is supposed to go.
“Oh, god, Grey,” she pants, and my name on her lips makes me even harder. “There. There—no. Nope. Grandpa—my eyes—move. Move.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“My eyes. But your cock.” She flexes her hips and whimpers.
So do I.
Can’t lie here.
“I want your cock,” she whispers.
“Parking lot.”
“Cousin.”
I recoil.
“Other cousin. Triplet. Your hair is so soft. How is your hair so soft?” She strokes me behind my ears, then around to my jaw, her fingers skimming my short beard until she’s somehow managed to draw me in to kiss her again.
“Dining room?” I murmur between kisses.
“Windows.”
Shit. “The dog house?”
“Fridge. Against the fridge.”
Done.
I spin again and almost slam her into the prep table when she shifts, rocking her pelvis against my overachieving dick and sending me spiraling toward a head rush.
Shit.
Shit fuck shit fuck not now.
I blink, breathe deep, and will it to pass.
“Grey?” Sabrina whispers.
“You’re too fucking hot,” I force out, and as the words leave me, so do the impending dots in my vision.
“That’s why we can’t do it on the stove,” she says.
Know the last time I laughed while I was kissing a woman who was unbuttoning my shirt as I carried her across a kitchen to shove her against a fridge?
Never.
But I’m in.
Maybe it’s lack of sleep.
Maybe it’s lack of regular sex in the past two years.
Maybe it’s the constant visions of her pleasuring herself with a vibrator on the other side of my bedroom wall every time I accidentally hear her brushing her teeth.
Maybe it’s reminders of Hawaii.
Maybe it’s that I like her.
She finishes with my buttons while still kissing me and shoves my shirt off my shoulders, then roams cool hands over my chest. “It’s so wrong that you’re this hot,” she breathes against my collarbone.
And then she bites it.
My dick strains harder. A tiny gasp slips from her mouth, and she rocks her hips against me once more.
I tug her shirt.
She reaches between us and pops the button on my pants, then dips her hand inside and brushes the tip of my dick.
I whimper.
Cannot help myself. “More.”
She rocks against my shaft and swirls her thumb around my head again.
My eyes cross.
My head falls to her shoulder.
I breathe in coffee and snow and warmth, her hair tickling my cheek, and thrust into her touch. “Why—you?”
“Life’s a bitch,” she replies.
And then she lurches away with a shriek.
No more Sabrina in my arms.
No more Sabrina’s thumb on my raging erection.
No more Sabrina’s legs wrapped around my hips.
Just Sabrina gripping my shirt while the whole damn refrigerator rolls backward.
“What—” I start, lunging for her.
The fridge stops with a distinct crunch of cracking plaster or drywall.
She stops.
I smush against her.
The fridge rolls again.
And then something bashes me in the head, powder exploding in my vision.
I suck in a breath and choke on—cheese?
Is that cheese?
Bad cheese.
“Oh, fu—” Sabrina starts, and then she coughs.
And coughs.
I suck in another breath, and I come up choking too. “What—” I start again, but I can’t finish.
An orange cloud is eating us.
It has swallowed us whole, and it is devouring us, choking both of us.
“Drop roll,” I croak. “Drop roll.”
“Not smoke,” she gasps between coughing fits. “Outside.”
“What?”
“Cheese.”
“I do not want to know what I just walked into,” Zen says from somewhere beyond the orange haze.
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck fuck fuck.
“Fridge wall!” Sabrina shrieks, and then she doubles over coughing again.
I shove my dick back in my pants. “Mainte—”
Can’t get it out.
Can’t say call maintenance, because I’m choking again.
It’s up my nose.
It’s in my eyeballs.
It’s all over my fingers.
“Is that powdered cheese? Like on cheese puffs?” Zen asks.
I can’t see them.
My eyes are watering too hard, and if I keep coughing like this, I’m going to send myself into the bad kind of head rush.
“Maybe take the kinky shit to Sabrina’s house next time?” Zen says.
Their hand clamps on my arm and tugs, and a moment later, I get a face full of cold, snowy air.
Sabrina’s hacking up a lung next to me.
Zen got us both.
“One of you two rapscallions wanna explain what the hell I just walked into?” my twenty-three-year-old nibling demands like they’re the adult and we’re toddlers. “And exactly who thought orange powdered cheese belonged anywhere inside Bean & Nugget? Tell me you don’t use that shit when you’re cooking.”
“Chandler—obsession—leftover,” Sabrina croaks out.
Her frog voice is the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.
I clearly have a problem.
“Don’t—” I start, belatedly catching on to what Zen’s snicker means.
“So the Cheese Turd strikes again,” they say. “Uncle Grey, mark that down. He has one name now.”
“Make you—lattes—life—call him—to his face,” Sabrina rasps.
“If the Cheese Turd has the audacity to show his face in this place, I’mma call him a lot worse. Sabrina, give me your keys. I’m taking Uncle Grey home, and then I’ll be back with a couple gas masks. Mine’s for fashion. Yours is for cleaning up your mess. Not that either one of you can clean up the hot mess that’s yourselves.”
“Why my car?”
“It’s the Uncle Grey is coated in food car. Keys. C’mon. He’ll buy you a new one if I wreck it.”
“You drive in snow?” her voice is clearing.
Zen doesn’t answer.
I pry open my eyeballs, half expecting everything to be orange, but it’s not.
It’s a blurry white.
Snow.
“I…made it here…fine,” Zen says.
Ah, hell.
“Back inside,” Sabrina says. “You two aren’t going anywhere for a few hours.”
“You two aren’t allowed in the same room as long as I’m here.”
I don’t call them on telling me to bang her just the other night.
No point.
We all know the rules.
Just don’t do it where I have to see it.
14
Sabrina
The idea of being stuck in the café with Grey and Zen while I’m coated in orange cheese is too much to handle, so I break down and give Grey a ride back to the townhouse.
He doesn’t say much.
I don’t say much.
But when I pull up in front of his door—again—he looks me square in the eye and doesn’t even try to get out of the car. “Tell me another puzzle.”
“What?”
“Tell me another puzzle. About the people here.”
“No.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself. I’ll pick one on my own from what I remember in Hawaii.”
“That’s not—” I start, but my words leave me when he flashes me a grin.
Grey. Duke.
Flashing me the most impish grin I’ve ever seen in my life.
He swings the door open and pulls himself out of my car, then trots up to his own doorstep without looking back.
I think I lost that round.
Actually, I know I did.
And for that smile?
Worth it.
I. Am. In. So. Much. Trouble.
I take a fast shower before heading back to the café solo, where I get funny looks all day long.
Or possibly I don’t get funny looks and I’m imagining it all since I don’t know if Zen is the type to spread rumors about the cheese incident.
And it’s obvious to everyone that there was a powdered cheese incident in the kitchen.
That takes a lot of clean-up.
Saturday, the roads are clear, but Grey’s not at the café.
And finally, it’s Sunday.
I have an entire day to myself, and I can’t hide from the other thing I’ve been hiding from all week.
It’s time to work up the courage to go see Emma.