Page 110 of Just This Once

Damien only chuckled. “He’ll figure it out.” Then he studied me for a moment before asking, “What about you?”

“Whataboutme?” I asked, glancing around in confusion.

“You gonna stop hating her too?”

I scoffed. “I never hated her to begin with. I’m just rude and pissy to everyone.”

“True,” Damien agreed with a casual nod. “But you were pretty harsh with her last week at supper, though.”

“Was I?” I asked as I took another sip. “Didn’t notice.”

When he lifted his brows, silently entreating me to be honest, I sighed and relented. “Okay, fine. I can see now that she’s not evil incarnate. I’ll ease up.”

Nodding in satisfaction, he said, “Oaklynn likes her.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well, Vargas likes you too, so you gotta take her judgment with a grain of salt.”

Damien only snickered and shook his head. “Dick,” he murmured in amusement.

I smiled back and took another drink just as the back door flew open, and a laughing Hope spilled inside with Alec right behind her.

And just like that, everything inside me tightened almost painfully. I sat up straighter and stared hard.

But it’d been four days since I’d last seen her—since I’d last beeninsideher—and all the insistent yearning that had been plaguing me sprang back to life with a vengeance.

My central nervous system nearly fried itself out with the overload of sensory emotions I experienced. Prickling skin, accelerated heartbeat, dipping stomach, aching jaw, burning eyes, thickening cock. My body went fucking haywire. Yet the only outer reaction I displayed throughout all of it was to sit there like a dumbass as I stared her down.

She jumped and staggered to a halt when she spotted me, causing Alec to bump into her and laugh, catching her arm to steady them both.

Momentarily forgetting him, she stared back. Then her throat worked through a swallow, and her gaze went to Damien before shifting back again.

“Excuse us,” she said, waving and speaking collectively to the room as she hooked her arm through her brother’s to pull him across the kitchen and through the door to the rest of the house, laughing along with him again after they passed.

I didn’t say a single word in reply the whole time.

Releasing a breath as soon as she was gone, I unclenched my hands and took a measured drink, knowing that Damien had turned his attention to me.

After inhaling deeply, I set the glass down precisely and then finally glanced his way.

“See,” I said. “I can be nice to her.”

He threw back his head and laughed, having no idea how much I still wanted to race after her and drag her off to somewhere private.

God, I was screwed.

28

HOPE

Alec and I had been inside his room for a total of two minutes—him sitting at his computer chair checking his messages and me pacing the floor behind him without him noticing—before I announced, “We should go out. Let’s go out to eat. Aren’t you hungry?”

My brother glanced up in surprise. “You want to go to supper? Right now? We just had Froyo.”

“But you’re a bottomless pit who’s always hungry,” I pressed, jostling the side of his arm in encouragement.

He thought that through before lifting his brows and admitting, “This is true.”

“So let’s go out.” Because no way could I remain under the same roof as Parker for much longer without having a complete nervous breakdown.

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