Page 79 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

I touched her face, wanting to memorise the shape of it, because right now I reckoned I knew how Kendall felt when she decorated that cake. Like her heart was in her throat, pounding so hard it was difficult to breathe, until she just reached out…

“Take the apprenticeship, Kendall.” My head dropped down, my lips needing hers, but not yet. “Stay in our spare room. Get the qualification you were always destined to get, but also…” My hand covered hers, and I squeezed it far too tightly. “Take us.” No, that wasn’t right. “Take me. I promise to make everything right going forward. Whatever you need—”

“Whatever I need?” Her hand went around my neck, and with almost no effort, she tugged me down. The feel of her lips brushing mine was fucking everything. I went to deepen the kiss, but she pulled back slightly. “I think I need you, Van, and Connor and Gage. I never allowed myself to even think that before but…” When her eyes started to sparkle, I knew I was gonna cop it, but as she smiled, so did I. “Three guys who promise they’ll always put the seat down? What girl can say no to that?”

“Don’t say no.” I kissed her hard, almost getting lost in the feel of her mouth in mine, but I swept her up into my arms and then down the hall. “Just say yes, baby.” I stood at the door of her room, gazing down at her. Kendall didn’t know what we’d set to work on once it became clear she wasn’t coming home, but she would very soon. “Just say yes.”

To me, to us, to Gage and Connor, to everything that lay beyond that door. I waited for her response, needing her to say that one word. Her grip on my neck tightened and she glanced at the door, then back to me with exaggerated care.

“Yes, Van. Yes.”

Chapter 41

Kendall

My dad always said if you bite off more than you can chew, just keep chewing. Somehow, that made sense right now, because as Van opened the door and carried me in, I saw it. The guys hadn’t just asked my mother for the recipe of my favourite meal, they’d built me a damn bed. It was lucky the room was a large one because the frame now took up most of it. The width of several mattresses, I dimly made out its hulking shape.

And theirs.

The light was off, but enough filtered through past the curtains to reveal the two of them, the sounds of their long, slow breaths filling the air. I glanced at Van who set me down on my feet, then pressed a finger to his lips before he moved closer. That still hit me like a gut punch, that it was him, Van, who was edging into my space, his hands cupping my jaw. But when his mouth slammed down on mine, it felt right.

Of course it was him kissing me. Of course he tilted my jaw up, then parted my lips, to go deeper. Of course it was his hard chest pressed against mine, his arms like ropes of steel, not letting me go for a second. He was the only one who could feel anything like the desperation burning inside me. Our hands moved restively, touching, caressing, mapping each other’s forms, as if we were terrified someone would come along and snatch the other person away, right before we were forced to pull away. Our breaths were coming in rapidly and noisy as we grinned at the other person.

“You never had your dinner,” I whispered.

“I don’t give a fuck about food.” That was delivered hoarsely as he stroked my hair. “Just you, Kendall. Tell me I can have you.”

I was on the verge of begging him to take me if I was honest, but I didn’t need to tell him that. This might be Van 2.0, but he was still capable of being an arrogant prick, so I made a show of considering what he was saying.

“Kendall…”

That feral little growl, then the kisses that followed, each one deeper and more aggressive than the next… He left my lips stinging and my jaw aching, and yet somehow I just wanted more.

“Yes…” Little more than a breath exhaled, but he heard it all right, herding me backwards until my ankles hit the new bed frame.

“Yes?”

There it was, that cocky smile. His eyes felt like they burned in the dark, right into me, as his hands began to move. My work shirt was tugged up and over my head, then my bra clasp flicked open with expert fingers. It was eased off, but then he stopped, long enough for me to want to cover myself. I wasn’t like him, like Barbie, perfect and without a fold of skin or roll of fat in sight. I had lumps and bumps and it felt like he was staring at each one of them.

“Yes…” That little hiss, it was enough to stop the body-anxiety train from pulling away from the station. He pushed my shoulders back, forcing me to display my bare torso. He smoothed his hands down one shoulder, then the next. “If you had any idea how fucking much I fantasised about these tits…”

“What?” I giggled, then peered furtively over his shoulder when I heard a snort from Connor’s sleeping form. “You guys used to go on and on about the pinups stuck on Finn’s walls, saying how perfect their tits were.”

“But it wasn’t theirs that I dreamed about.” He brushed his fingers over the swell of one breast so softly it made me shiver. “It wasn’t theirs that got me so fucking hard.”

The tip of his finger traced the circle of my areole in lazy circles that got tighter with each revolution. Van’s mouth covered mine, bestowing little nipping kisses as he clamped his fingers down on my nipple. He swallowed my gasp, then worked to have me uttering more.

“I tried really hard not to stare when you were in your bathers or walking around the house in a tank top, but I failed. Over and over.” His mouth dropped down, kissing the side of my neck before going lower. “It felt like I was making it my life’s work to study your breasts.” A single kiss placed on the nipple. “But now the real work can begin.”

He was teasing me, his face pressed into the slope of my breast as his tongue flicked out, pressing the nipple up, only to pop back. The cool air of the aircon had my nipple pulling tighter, or was it just the anticipation? My hand slid down, tangling my fingers in his hair before pushing him right back where he needed to go.

“Better get started then.”

That might’ve sounded sassy if I could’ve managed it. Instead, I sounded breathy and desperate. He might have been uttering whispered confessions about how much he wanted me, but I knew exactly how it felt. That sharp tug of his lips sucking me in, the velvety slide of his tongue, then an explosion of sensation that had me panting far too loudly, right before his hand slapped over my mouth. He muffled my moans before pushing two fingers into my mouth. I sucked on them greedily, needing something to ease the growing ache inside of me, but that wasn’t it.

My body jerked free of him, shifting restlessly at everything I could see in the dark. I could fill in the dark shadows easily enough because I knew Van.

“You think you had it bad?” I whispered. “You three seemed allergic to shirts. Always walking around in the bare minimum with all of this…” I waved a hand at his chest. “On display. It was bad enough that I had to listen to every girl at school sigh over you, but when I got home…”

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