Page 45 of Knot So Fast
I have to keep the narrative. Have to follow the rules we applied to our pack the moment the doctor announced she was alive and would make a full recovery with the potential for memory loss.
"No contact. No interference. Let her heal without the complications of our presence."
We vowed we wouldn't involve ourselves with her again, wouldn't risk her recovery by trying to force memories that her brain had locked away for her own protection. And of course, my brother fucked that up within weeks, leaving the rest of us drowning in envy as the woman we all loved has lived a year without our existence while he got to play pretend that their toxic relationship was all that ever existed between them.
I open my mouth to speak, to correct her assumption and maintain the careful distance I'm supposed to be keeping. But standing here with the rain turning her into every wet dream I've ever had, all I want to do is kiss her. To fuck her against the hood of her car until she forgets the fear that's nagging at every nerve ending. To steal the tension from her limbs that I'm well aware is thriving at its peak, replace it with the kind of exhaustion that only comes from being thoroughly claimed.
The proper thing would be to introduce myself, explain the situation, send her safely on her way back to the city where she can continue living her carefully constructed life without complications.
But I've never been as good at playing by the rules as everyone thinks I am.
Before I can stop myself, before rational thought can reassert itself, I'm already doing what I swore I wouldn't. My hands frame her face with the kind of desperate gentleness that comes from touching something you thought you'd lost forever, and then my lips are taking hers like my life depends on it.
The kiss is nothing like the careful, controlled interactions I've forced myself to maintain for the past year. It's raw and desperate and full of every word I haven't been allowed to say, every touch I haven't been allowed to give, every moment of connection that's been stolen from us by circumstances and good intentions and the crushing weight of other people's decisions about what's best for her.
Thunder and lightning boom through the sky in perfect unison, nature providing a dramatic backdrop to this moment of absolute insanity. The rain pours harder, turning from a steady downpour into a deluge that threatens to wash us both away. But I'm so gone in this sinister kiss that dares test every limit I've set for myself that I barely notice we're both getting drenched beyond salvation.
And she kisses me back.
Fuck, she kisses me back.
Not with the careful confusion of someone kissing a stranger, but with the bone-deep recognition of someone whose body remembers what their mind has forgotten. Her hands grip my soaked shirt like she's trying to anchor herself to something solid in a world that's spinning out of control. A small sound escapes her throat—half sob, half moan—and it nearly breaks what's left of my self-control.
For a single moment, we're not strangers on separate paths because of past trauma and promises to stay as far away from the Vale heir as we professionally could. For one perfect, impossible moment, we're just Lachlan and Auren, Wolf and Sugar, two pieces of a whole that were never meant to be separated.
But reality is a cruel mistress, and the weight of everything I'm risking crashes down on me like a physical blow. Caspian calling me to check if Auren was going to the mountain top. The fact that I was the closest to it, seeing as I wouldn't sell the mansion I'd bought along with the rest of the mountain top with my last Formula 1 winnings. Too stubborn to let go of a dream that only taunts me instead of giving the satisfaction and fulfillment it once promised.
The place I was confident would be where my pack and I would stay with our Omega, Auren Vale. Instead, it sits empty except for me, when I'm not training, racing, or finding some way to pass the time for my own sanity. Coming here tonight and seeing she wasn't at the top, staring out at the city lights far below, proved she must have forgotten the past we'd shared.
Yet here she is, and now I'm kissing her as if she can recall who I really am, and not my copycat brother.
I break the kiss with the kind of abruptness that probably gives us both whiplash, stepping back just enough to see her face but not enough to completely break contact. We're bothbreathless, panting in the rain like we've just run a marathon, and the confusion in her eyes has deepened into something that looks almost like recognition fighting to break through.
She frowns, and when she speaks, her voice is barely audible over the rain. "You don't kiss like Lucius."
I can only wonder what that means, and I dare to ask her, the words coming out rougher than intended. "How do I kiss then?"
I want to know what the comparison could possibly be, what she's noticed in this moment of insanity that her conscious mind is trying to process. Her confusion is still evident, written across her features like a question she doesn't know how to ask, but she's willing to answer.
"You kiss like..." she pauses, searching for words while rain runs rivers down her face, "like you've lost your whole world and have one shot to regain even a pinch of it back."
The accuracy of her assessment hits me like a punch to the gut, and I have to fight not to show how much those words affect me.
"Versus Lucius," she continues, seemingly unaware of the emotional destruction she's causing with her analysis, "kisses with desperation, similar to a race car fighting to reach the finish line before anyone can pass him."
It makes me smirk despite everything, because that's possibly the most accurate description of my brother I've ever heard. "That sounds like my brother for sure," I murmur, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
She gawks at me, her eyes widening impossibly further as the pieces start clicking together in her mind. "Brother? Wait... no... hold on... you're a twin?"
I sigh, knowing this conversation is about to get complicated in ways I'm not prepared for. "Maybe we should get off the road before more cars come up here."
It's a lie, of course. I own this road, every inch of it, and no one else would dare come on it or it would be marked as trespassing with consequences severe enough to discourage even the most determined trespassers. But if I don't move this conversation somewhere else, she'll get sick from standing in the rain, and I won't be able to ignore how irresistible she is in this dress that's so drenched now I can see her nipples pressing against the fabric.
One of my weaknesses.
I dare imagine how I'd suck them, playing with them with my tongue and sucking hard until she's a whimpering mess of moans and pleas for more. The fantasy is so vivid I can almost taste her skin, feel the way she'd arch against me, hear the sounds she'd make when I?—
I have to physically shake my head to snap out of it, forcing myself to focus on the present moment instead of the heated memories that threaten to overwhelm what's left of my self-control.
