Page 13 of Play Fast (Brooklyn Dawn 2)

Instead, she yanked out the keys and deposited them inside her top. Between her fucking breasts. Tilting her head, she smiled sweetly. “Come and get them.”

“You are such a child.”

Those were the words my lips formed. Inside my head, there was a completely different dialogue taking place.

I wanted to call her bluff.

“Right. It’s super adult of you to be pissed at me for what, five years now? And to refuse to talk to me even though we spent years together.”

“We knew each other. We were not together in any sense.”

“Fine, Mr. Specific. We have a history. Kerry would hate what this has done to us.”

“Don’t,” I warned. “Do not use her as a chip.”

Her chin trembled. “I’m not. I wouldn’t. But that’s a fact, and you know it. She always used to joke I was as much your sister as she was.”

I rubbed my temple. “Flowers of the Attic style?” I muttered.

“What?”

“Never mind. Just give me the keys. If you’re so all fired up to talk, we’ll do it when I get back.”

After I’d jerked off enough to barely notice she had firm, perfect tits. My right hand would probably be in a cast, and I wouldn’t be able to play for a week, but it would be worth it to get this ache out of my damn system. One that had been there since last fall when she sashayed into our band meeting and wrecked my world.

Again.

“No. It has to be now. If you walk away, you’ll probably get an order of protection against me so I can’t bother you again.”

I scratched my chin. “Thanks for the idea.”

“Oz.” She dragged her hands over her face. “This is fucking me up. Seriously. I get that it’s nothing to you. Probably less than. But I don’t have anyone, not like her. She was so much of my life, and there’s no one I can talk to about it. The one person I could talk about it with hates me. And I get it. I blame me too. I hate—”

“No. Christ, don’t do this.” I gripped her wrist and yanked her hand away from her face. “Whatever you were going to say, just end it right there.”

Her lower lip quivered until she stilled it between her teeth. She wasn’t crying, which was a minor fucking miracle. Tears would’ve killed me. I couldn’t stand Kerry’s, and I couldn’t have withstood Daisy’s either.

Especially if I was partially—or entirely—responsible for causing them.

“I don’t want to be alone, okay? Not tonight. Any other night, you could send me off, and I’d go. I’d probably be hurt as hell, but I’d deal. You have every right to handle this any way you want. It’s just…I need…”

I didn’t interrupt. Maybe I was a sucker or a fool, because the idea of her saying she needed me was far too dangerous.

But I wanted it.

I wanted someone to still need me.

I wanted her to need me.

“It’s been five years.” I shoved a hand through my hair, then snapped a band off my wrist and tied it back. I could feel Daisy watching me with the kind of interest that meant we should not be alone in a cabin. Even if I was basically her brother.

Fuck me running.

“I know. But I’m not past it. Holding your best friend while she…” She shuddered. “I wanted to die too.”

Hearing her say aloud what I’d fought to never think was a release somehow. I’d always known it was the grief talking. It would solve nothing. I didn’t want to die. I just wanted my sister back. To get a chance to make a different choice. I wished like hell I’d been a better brother, one who’d had a clue how to handle his grieving sister. She’d skated close to too many edges after we lost our mom, and rather than actually talk to her, I’d buried myself in anything I could to avoid my emotions. And her emotions. I’d tried to blunt the pain in any way possible.

I hadn’t guessed it would get so much worse before it got better. That by the end of that year, I’d be the only member of my family left.

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