Page 112 of Undeniably Enemies

I can feel Jack’s gaze penetrating down on me, but I can’t meet it. Not with everyone here. Not with what they’re talking about. Since when do people try to set Jack up? That’s a new one.

“Maybe we should get Wren a guy, and we can all go out.”

“Ha. Very funny, Keegs. I’m going to shake up some more drinks. Anyone want to join me?”

Jack looks like he’s about to volunteer as tribute, but Owen isn’t having that. He turns to Jack, and the two of them start talking the way best friends do, in serious and low voices, and I head for the bar so I won’t try to hear what they’re saying or get jealous.

My grandmother is wrapped in discussion with my mother, Katy’s mother, and Keegan’s mother, and while it’s tempting to go join them, they’ll start asking me a million questions I’m in no mood to answer. I’m not mad at Jack. I’m the one who asked to keep it quiet, and I’m not changing my mind on that either. The buzzards that are swarming all over him are reason enough for that.

Right now, what Jack and I have is fun. It’s spicy. It’s new and a secret and I want to keep it between us. I want it to have the chance to grow, and I want us to discover what this is, who we are to each other, and where we can go without opinions and pressure that would inevitably come from everyone else.

But I don’t have to like them trying to set him up with a hot, curvy woman either.

I shake up my drink and refill my glass, and just as I take my first sip, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I slip it out and see a text from Jack.

Jack: Bathroom by the back staircase.

Everyone seems preoccupied with whatever they’re doing, and I meander my way through the house toward the back stairs that lead up to the guest quarters. A thrill hits my pulse as I reach the door, tap lightly on it, and open it without waiting for an answer.

Jack pulls me in and shuts and locks it behind me. My drink ends up on the sink, and he has me pressed into the edge of it.

“I told them no.”

“You didn’t have to pull me in here to explain. I wasn’t worried about it.”

“You weren’t?” His eyebrows bounce in surprise.

“Not really. I mean, I didn’t love hearing about it, but I didn’t think you were going to agree to a date with another woman when I was right there.”

“I wouldn’t agree to date her or anyone else whether you were right there or not.” His hands shoot up my shirt and tug down my bra, where he immediately starts palming my tits. “These are what I like. These are perfect to me. I don’t know what the fuck Alden is talking about, other than that’s clearly what he’s into. It wouldn’t matter to me if you were tall?—”

“I am tall.”

“Shut up, woman. I’m making a point.”

I smile and nod for him to continue.

“It wouldn’t matter to me if you were tall or short. Curvy or slight. Big-boobed or small-chested. I don’t care, Wren. Seriously, I don’t. I love you for you. Fucking brat that you are. Iknow it’s only been a couple of days and you like our secret, but I don’t. I don’t like keeping things from Owen. I want to be a man and tell my best friend, your brother, that I’m in love with his sister and that I don’t give a fuck if he doesn’t like it.”

“It would be rather hypocritical of him if he didn’t.”

“I agree, which is why I’m not worried about it. But I want to tell them that they don’t have to set me up because I already have the girl I want, Wren.” He breathes out a heavy breath. “I hated—fuckinghated—how Owen and Estlin kept their secret from me. It felt like yet another betrayal. It’s partially why I went so crazy that night. I need to tell him.”

Guilt claws at my chest, but I still think about how it’s been for everyone in my family when they go prime time with their relationships to my family. They have no peace. No quiet. It’s as if the world suddenly is holding a microscope on your relationship, and they immediately expect marriage and babies.

“I’m not ready. I want this as my own. I want this as ours. For just a bit longer. I know you want to tell Owen and I get it, but you saw them. They’re relentless, and they’d be like that with us.”

His gaze is hard for a very long, intense moment. “It’s wrong, Wren.”

“Just a few more weeks. That’s all I need.”

“I think that’s all I’ll be able to do. Because, sweetheart, sooner or later, we’ll get caught, and that’s not how I want us to get found out.”

33

“Why don’t you have an office?” Wren moans as I trail kisses along the back of her exposed neck while I palm her tits beneath her shirt and scrub top.

“I’m an emergency room physician. We don’t have offices. Unless I get chief, that won’t change. Fuck, you’re soft.”

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