Page 20 of Knot Just A Fan

The words are a knife in my chest as I rev the engine at a red light and floor the gas at the green.

I will let her down as easy as I can. Just please let me be the one to do it.

CHAPTER 9

Briella

I can’t describehow I feel other than on fuckingfire. My limbs feel electrified, my head feels vague and fuzzy, like it’s been detached from my spine and is floating in space.

My aching breasts feel full, and my nipples are hard enough to cut glass. They’ve always been the most sensitive part of me, to the point of painful, on the regular. I imagine this sensation is what it feels like to need to nurse an infant but there’s no infant ready to feed.

In short, I feel like anyone could come up to me right now and offer to suck my tits off and I’d let them.

But the rest of me? Just a raging bonfire of need, of emptiness inside waiting to be filled. And this is just the pre-heat. Jesus.

“Cam, I need your pill. You’ve got enough to lend me one?”

She scoffs as she locks her arm around mine. We hustle out a back door of the venue. “I’m notloaningit to you. I don’t want it back. I’ve got plenty.”

I can only hope that Cami’s pill, which is a different brand than mine, will fill the gap until I get seen tomorrow to find out what’s going on. She’s suggested that the efficacy of mine hasworn off because I’ve been on them nearly a decade and a half, and she could be right.

The night air slices into me as we brace for the walk to the nearest bus station. Luckily the venue is only a twenty-five minute ride from our flat.

Before we reach the path to the road, however, the sound of running feet from the direction of the front entrance stop me in my tracks. Cami jerks to a halt, her elbow accidentally brushing my chest.

“Don’t touch my boobs,”I growl. “They’re going to explode.”

“Sorry!” she hisses. “I’m not trying to! They’re all over the place though!”

I wore a strapless bra with tonight’s strappy dress and as it turns out, the only one I have is definitely not the right size.

As the figures come into view, it’s clear they’re specifically coming after us, and I recognize Enzo and Ronan’s outlines. Shit.

“Briella,” says Ronan, his full lips curved in a wide smile, contrasting with the flat line of Enzo’s mouth. Something’s not right.

“You guys swap faces?” I say. Cami elbows me. Anything that might come across as rude isn’t my usual banter. But I want my body locked in my bedroom until tomorrow morning.

“Can we help you gentlemen?” Cami asks, voice a half-octave higher than normal. She’s returned to locking my arm in hers, while trying to button her coat with her other hand. My coat is flapping open in the air in an attempt to cool my body down. I sense both men stealing glimpses at my chest, which is probably flushed as red as the sun. My breasts feel like swollen melons, and a dangerous pulsing between my legs calls itself to my attention.

Ronan drags his eyes away up to my face. God, he does look good tonight. He isn’t my typical type, which tends to be darkhair and usually a scratchy beard or goatee. With his blonde hair in a tight thin bun, brown eyes, and full lips, he looks damn good to me.

Maybe it’s his usual stoic standoffishness that’s appealing all of a sudden. Sort of a blonde, Irish Mr. Darcy.

Without thinking, I lick my lips. Does he cock his head at me? Even slightly?

I turn to Enzo, who has always been on the handsome radar, in a roguish way that right now makes me want him to pull me into a dark corner and across his lap.

I shake myself out of this but I still feel enveloped in a hazy cloud that’s settling around my ears. I hear Cami talking and realize I missed something.

“So whatever you’ve got to say to Briella needs to be fast, and it’ll be in front of me, too. Spill it. What can we do for you on this lovely fresh first of January morning?”

Her voice drips with ire. She’s only spoken to Enzo and Ronan briefly on a handful of occasions when meeting me after work. She only knows what I’ve said, that Enzo’s always friendly and Ronan’s always brooding.

I straighten up. They have something to say to me?

“What is it?” I say, suddenly knowing it’s about Grayson trying to kiss me on stage. Or whatever it was he was about to do.

“It’s simple,” says Ronan. I notice Enzo grimace, but I focus on Ronan’s full lips in the cold, as his breath steams on the air.

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