Page 79 of Winning Brynn

She smirks, lifting the beer to her mouth and wrapping her lips around the rim. My gaze flies to Alex, who is thankfully distracted by trying to make Salem say his name, before zeroing in on the flick of her tongue against the glass.

When I discreetly adjust myself inside my sweatpants, her lips tip into a smug, knowing smile.

"Stop it," I mouth silently.

She responds by doing it again.

"You'll pay for that later."

"Promise?" She mouths back, and it's all I can do not to take her right here on the couch, with Alex here or not.

I don't understand how she can flirt with me so obviously in front of her brother when I'm sweating with the effort of keeping our new relationship concealed.

Relationship?

The word hits me out of nowhere. Like a battering ram, it tears through my mind, ricocheting across every ridge and dent in my brain. Brynn is the first woman I've slept with in over a year, and now I'm thinking of us as being in a relationship?

The thought should scare me.

And yet, more terrifyingly, it doesn't.

Maybe it's because I'm so used to having her in my space that integrating her into my life wouldn't feel like much of a change. Or maybe it's because I've already found myself visualizing a future with her in the moments before I fall asleep and dreaming about what life would look like five or ten years down the line.

I don't do it on purpose.

But it happens, nonetheless.

There's a knock at the door, and I use it as an excuse to tear myself away from Brynn's hypnotizing stare.

"I'll get it," she says softly, pushing off the sofa before I have a chance to stop her. When she returns with Roman in tow, she's got a bottle of kombucha clenched between her slender fingers.

Presenting it, she grins teasingly. "Roman bought the good stuff. Who wants a glass?"

Alex and I grimace. Even Roman looks turned off by it.

"Nobody?" she asks again then, with a shrug to Roman, says, "Sorry, Ro."

He grumbles, throwing himself down into the armchair across from Alex. The only spaces left for Brynn and me are at each end of the sofa. Highly inconvenient of him to do that to us—and most definitely deliberate.

I shoot daggers at him as I plop down onto the sofa cushions closest to his chair with Brynn taking the side closest to her brother. She's so calm, so nonchalant—as if tonight is a night the same as any other, as if I haven't been buried inside of her at every opportunity over the last week—whereas I am feverish with anxiety, sweating under my ball cap, from the effort of keeping our secret.

Roman knows it too.

And evidently, he's already trying to make this as difficult for me as possible.

"Oh, Leo, I forgot to ask something." She turns to me, her eyes glittering in the warm lamplight. "I have a friend visiting in a couple of weeks. Is it okay if she stays here?"

"Which friend?" Alex cuts in.

"Isabella."

"Oh, she’s nice." He perks up. "I like her."

Which says a lot, actually, considering he hates most people Brynn dares to socialize with.

"You’ve never even met her."

"Yeah, but she’s a good influence, unlike that other friend…what’s her name? Beth something?"

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