Page 71 of Off Limits

“What do you mean?”

“It was just one more strike against me. Of course the weird emo kid would be gay.” He rolled his eyes. “Your dad asked me if I’d ever slept with a girl one night after he’d had a few.”

“Really?”

“Yup. I told him no, and he asked how I could know I was gay if I’d never tried to be straight. He didn’t appreciate it when I asked him if he’d ever slept with a guy.”

“Oh my god.” I shook my head, knowing exactly where this was going.

“He definitely didn’t appreciate it when I asked how he could possibly know he was straight if he hadn’t.”

“You really do have balls of steel.”

“Just used to their bullshit.” He shrugged and looked down, his expression clouding over.

16

ASA

I cutmy gaze to the floor, my good mood lifting as the reality of the situation hit out of nowhere.

I’d just told him more in one conversation than I’d shared with anyone, ever, and I’d done it without thinking.

I’d never talked to anyone about my dad, my custody arrangement, or that night four years ago, and opening up to Dex about all of it was fucking with my head and bringing all that crap back to the surface after years of repressing it.

I needed to think about something else so I could pack all that trauma away and go back to pretending like none of it bothered me and I was over it.

Spotting one of Ruby’s dolls, I scrambled off the couch and went to grab it.

Dex looked at me curiously when I sat next to him, the doll still clutched in my hand.

“Do you want me to show you how to French braid?” I asked, my voice remarkably calm, considering the mess of emotions still swirling around inside me.

He nodded, thankfully going along with my abrupt topic change.

I put the doll between my knees to hold it still and finger-combed the long strands of plastic hair until it was relatively tangle-free.

“Real hair is a lot easier to work with than this stuff.” I gathered and smoothed out a section of the doll’s crown and split it into three tails. “If you can do it on a doll, then doing it on the girls will be a piece of cake.”

He shifted closer, his outer thigh pressing against mine as he leaned in to presumably see better. The heat from his body was familiar, and some of the noise in my head calmed.

“It’s pretty simple,” I continued, unable to stop babbling at his proximity. “Just braid like usual, only you add some to each tail before you cross it over.” Going slow, I demonstrated what I meant.

“That seems easy enough.” Dex held up his hands and looked dubiously at them. “But I fumble with normal braids. My mitts aren’t meant for delicate weaving.”

My chest and neck flushed hot as I unconsciously looked at his hands. They were big and strong, with long fingers and wide palms, and made mine look small in comparison.

I liked his hands, and especially liked how they felt on my skin, around my dick, and inside me.

I tore my gaze from them and focused on the doll. What the fuck was wrong with me tonight?

I’d spent the entire time Dex was here trying not to think about him as anything other than my stepbrother, especially in front of our siblings, but that hadn’t stopped my thoughts from straying to places they shouldn’t, or the comments and innuendos I’d dropped without even realizing I was about to say them.

I couldn’t even blame the trauma dumping session because that crap started the second I saw him at the door and realized he wasn’t just dropping something off and wanted to stay.

I knew he was there to see the kids and not me, but my stupid brain was way too happy to see him and way too excited at the prospect of getting to spend some time with him outside the apartment. And watching him with the kids had done things to me it had no business doing.

Clearing my throat, I wove a few more lengths of the braid. “Like I said, if you can do a regular braid, you can do a French braid. It just takes practice, even with banana hands like yours.”

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