Page 28 of Accidental Baby For My Brother’s Best Friend

Gemma huffs out a breath but she doesn't pull her wrist away, and after a couple of false steps trying to find the exit, I drag her past the roulette table and out into the parking lot. It's not the same lot we drove into, because the red tour bus is nowhere to be found, but we're outside and the air feels cool on my forehead. Maybe out here, I can think.

"What is going on with you, Kincaid?"

Her voice seems to come from a tunnel, the tinny sound of the music from the casino fading out as we stand in the parking lot.

"You shouldn't drink so much," I say, and she makes this face like she's just eaten a lemon.

"Don't tell me what to do! Besides, you're more tequila than man right now."

"I just…I want you to be safe." I try to keep my thoughts together but I'm struggling to focus.

"Axel is here to keep me safe."

"Axel," I scoff. "You're never safe with him, Gemma, don't you see that?"

"Why? Because he sees me as a woman instead of Jack's little sister?"

Despite her slurred words, they cut through the fog in my brain.

"That's not what I mean. He'll only break your heart."

Gemma looks confused for a moment before her face hardens again.

"I'm not a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush, Locke. I can make my own decisions about who I spend time with."

"Why him?" I demand to know, unable to stop my mouth from running.

Being outside hasn't helped my brain to move any faster. In fact, I don’t realize that she’s stepped forward until she jabs a manicured nail between my pecs.

“You’ve been hot and cold for this whole tour, and now you’re dragging me out of this very nice casino because-” She pauses and I stare down at her, thinking that there is a ring of blue around her pupil, making the pale green of her irises look almost like sea water.

Shit. I’mdrunk. Maybe even a little more drunk than I was in Tucson with that blonde bartender.

“Because why? You don’t want me to have any fun? You wanna keep me in a bubble just like my brother?”

To my horror, I see tears forming in those beautiful eyes of hers, and tequila tells me to do what I want, to follow my impulse, and I’m powerless to stop myself.

I tilt my head down slowly and cover her mouth with my own.

I wait for a long moment for her to hit me, to shove me backwards, but instead, her lips part, and she melts against me, bracing both of her palms on my chest now, moaning into my mouth, and a heat that has nothing to do with anger or tequila builds in my abdomen.

When she pulls away, I make a distressed sound in the back of my throat, chasing her lips, and she giggles, melodic and sweet.

I don’t think about how I shouldn’t be gazing at her the way I am. I don’t think about how she’s a decade younger than me, or how her brother will pound me into the ground if he finds out.

All I think about is how even though we aren’t kissing anymore, my arms have somehow become looped around her waist, that hallowed space she has between her hips and the outer swell of her breasts. It seems so small, like I could almost span it with my hands. I tilt my head down again, pressing my forehead against hers.

“We could get out of here,” I suggest, and surely now she’ll hit me. Except, she doesn’t. She takes my hand.

When I peel open my eyes the next morning, I don’t remember anything after taking that double shot of Casamigos, and I’m alone in a hotel room I’ve never seen before.

The floors are white and gold instead of black and brown like my hotel room, and there’s a big picture window. This isn’t even the hotel we booked, because instead of looking out over the city lights, this one just looks out into a small alley. This was certainly not Aphrodite’s Cavern.

My head pounds as I move my eyes around the room to search for clues. There aren’t any, just my discarded clothes and boots on the floor. I’m in my skivvies beneath the scratchy, hotel blanket.

Something catches between my index and middle finger and I look down and see an auburn strand of hair curling around my palm. I’m struck with a memory so vivid I squeeze my eyes shut, as if someone has hit me.

All that auburn hair, curling just at the ends, spread across the white pillow, manicured nails pressing into my shoulders.

"Oh. Oh. Oh, Locke," she breathed, her head turned to the side, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

"Look at me," I commanded, moving only my hips against her, feeling the silk of her panties brush across my cock.

Her eyes popped open, as pale and deep and sea green as the ocean.

“Motherfucker."Aword I didn't use often because my mother had hated it when I was a teen, but totally merited here.

I'm in a city I know nothing about other than what I've seen in the movies, in a hotel room I don't remember checking into, with memories stitching together of the barely twenty-one-year-old little sister of my best friend arching up beneath me, moaning out my name. Not only that, but she's nowhere to be found and I can't find my phone after twenty minutes of searching.

Tequila is not and has never been my friend.

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