Dangerously Broken (13 page)

“Come on. Let’s walk it out like we always do,” Mick suggested.

Allie squeezed Summer Grace’s shoulder. “Come on, honey.”

Allie had only been back in New Orleans a few months, but Jamie knew she and Summer Grace had kept in touch while she was off doing her pastry chef gigs in Europe, same as she had with him—and now he knew they’d solidified their friendship in a whole new way.

He stayed back and watched the two women walking side by side, their heads close together in the stark moonlight, everything cast in monochromatic shadows. And he knew suddenly that
he
wanted to be the one walking with Summer Grace tonight. Soothing her. Making sure she was okay.

He’d spent too many years underestimating her. She’d been Brandon’s little sister for so long—a smart-mouthed temptress who’d tested his patience along with his resolve to keep his hands off her. But lately he’d found out so much more about her. Like how smart she was. How competent. How independent. Maybe a little too much so. He couldn’t count the times over the years he was certain her sass would get her in trouble. But she’d come through all right so far, and now that sass only added to the attraction.

But it was more than simple attraction. She made him smile, made him want to ease her fears—and instead he’d only proved them right. He’d told her he wanted to be with her, to see where things led, then he’d left her the next day. “Asshole” didn’t even begin to cover it. He was irresponsible, too. He hadn’t checked in to make sure she wasn’t experiencing subdrop, knowing full well that sometimes people in drop were unable to reach out when they needed to. And maybe most important of all, he hadn’t told her that when he’d looked into her eyes that night, he’d felt like he was finally home.

The group had started to move down the path and he hurried to catch up with them, staying quiet as they walked up one row and down another, past the wall crypts and mausoleums. This was part of their yearly ritual, to tread the ground for Brandon. Get drunk together. Celebrate him. Remember him.

It suddenly occurred to him that Brandon might not appreciate their yearly remembrance of him. He’d like that they all found a reason to get together en masse once a year, but he might say “Get over it, already. Move on. Don’t mourn for me—live for me. Throw a party, not a wake.”

Sometimes Jamie’s life felt like one continuous wake. A memorial to Brandon. To Ian. To the other young life he’d lost. Was he so afraid of yet another loss that he was pushing away someone he cared for before they’d even had a chance?

In silent meditation Jamie did his best to shift his thoughts from Summer Grace to her brother, but he was hyperaware of her presence at the edge of his vision, her arm linked through Allie’s. He couldn’t help but notice the gentle sway of her slender hips in her denim cutoffs, her tiny waist outlined by her tight black tank top.

He was definitely going to hell, because instead of maintaining his focus on the group’s silent meditation and their purpose there, all he could think about was tossing Summer Grace over his shoulder, carrying her off to some dark corner of the cemetery and kissing her until he’d gotten his fill of her lips. He remembered how beautiful she’d been in his chains. How much she’d loved it, and how perfectly she’d matched him, need for need.

And Jesus, this was not the time or the place. He subtly adjusted his tightening jeans and kept his pace slow, his friends ahead of him.

When they got back to their starting point, they all sat down on the ground, leaning against the iron gates and stone vases, some empty, some full of wilting lilies, and told their stories while they went through the beer until they were all at least a little buzzed.

Summer Grace was more than a little buzzed, he noticed, and too far away.

“You remember that time Brandon drove his car right across school campus?” Neal asked. “He tore the hell out of the lawn. I thought the dean would have his ass, but he managed to charm his way out of it, like he always did. That was
crazy
.”

“He always did have a wild streak,” Allie said. “But that was what the girls all loved about him. I don’t think I knew anyone—cheerleaders, stoner girls, theater nerds—who didn’t have at least a small crush on him.”

“And it wasn’t just the students,” Marie Dawn said, laughing. “Remember when he got caught kissing the art teacher’s aide in the supply closet at the end of senior year? That French girl, Gabrielle. He almost didn’t get to go to graduation. What was that art teacher’s name? She almost had a stroke when she caught them.”

“Mrs. MacGuire,” Neal said. “She was an old crone.”

“But the aide was hot,” Mick chimed in.

“Hey!” Allie protested.

“Well, she was. Hot enough that he kept seeing her until after graduation. Brandon got all the hot girls. Except you, of course, baby.” Mick leaned down and kissed Allie’s cheek.

“She was the last girl Brandon kissed,” Summer said quietly.

Jamie nodded. “Yeah, she was. Gabrielle . . . She came to the funeral, you know. She stood in the back and left before it was over. But I saw her. I saw her crying.”

They all sat silently for a moment, thinking, he knew, of the funeral. Summer Grace got up then and walked off slowly, as if no one would notice her absence. As if he wouldn’t immediately feel it.

“Jamie,” Allie whispered, reaching out to smack his arm. “Go after her, would you?”

“If I say no, you’ll just smack me again,” he muttered, already getting to his feet to follow her—as if he wanted to do anything else. The cemetery at night was no safe place for a girl alone, and he knew she was upset, thinking of her brother. Probably upset with him, too, and he couldn’t blame her.

But Jesus, the girl moved fast. By the time he peeked down the row she was nowhere in sight.

“Summer Grace?”

He moved quickly, peering down the side aisles through the dark, and was just starting to worry when he finally saw her leaning up against a stone urn in front of a moss-covered vault.

“Hey. You okay?”

She shrugged. “Marie Dawn was right. I love having Allie home again, but it makes it harder, too, you know? Now we’re only missing one.”

“I know.” He stepped closer. “And I know I’m probably the last person you want here, but I need you to know I
am
here. I know you’re missing him. Even more than I do.”

“Maybe. I’m not sure about that. He was really your brother, too. Neither one of us has much family left. And these anniversaries are so Goddamn hard.” She sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “As if we don’t remember every day. As if we don’t remember his smile or him waiting to walk me home from school. As if we haven’t heard that story about the last girl he kissed a dozen times.”

“Hey.” He moved in, steeling himself as he pulled her in close. But he could smell her hair, and her body felt familiar in his arms. So damned good. “It’s okay,” he told her. “It’ll be okay.”

“I can’t stand to think about that shit sometimes, Jamie. To think about who else he might have kissed after the art teacher’s aide. Who he would have ended up with. God, who knows? He could have married Marie Dawn. Or Allie.” She paused. “No, Allie was always Mick’s, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah. Always.”

It was true. Allie and Mick—that was pure destiny. It had taken some convincing for Mick to get over himself and see that. And Neal and Marie Dawn were right together, too. Out of the group it was just him and Summer Grace who still ran solo. Or not.

Can’t think about that now—not while she’s crying over her brother.

“In some ways it doesn’t get easier, you know what I mean?” she asked, her voice muffled against his chest. He hoped she couldn’t hear the hammering of his heart as he breathed her in. “He’s been gone for twelve years and I still sometimes feel like I can just pick up the phone and call him. Like I’ll walk around a corner and he’ll just . . . be there. Is that ridiculous?”

“No. I feel it, too. About Brandon. Even about Ian.”

She turned her face up to his and those big, blue eyes glistened with tears. It made his breath catch to see her hurting. “Really?” she asked.

“Yeah. Really.”

“But your brother’s been gone since you were seven years old. Do you even remember him that well?”

“Sort of. He was . . . Nah, this is really going to sound crazy.”

“Come on. Tell me, Jamie.”

When had he been able to deny her anything? Well, almost anything.

“The thing is, Ian was my twin, so my whole life I’ve had this weird idea that he’s grown with me, still looking like me. Like if I look hard enough into the mirror, he’ll be there staring back at me.”

“Wow.”

“See? I told you it was crazy.”

“No, I don’t think it is. I think it’s sort of amazing. And sweet.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Traci never understood when I talked about Ian like that.”

“Yeah, well, you guys weren’t married long enough for her to really get you,” she said.

It was true. He’d gotten hitched to the first girl he’d hooked up with after they lost Brandon, less than a year later. It had been a stupid move, and she’d left almost as quickly. He couldn’t blame her. For a lot of things.

Don’t think about her. Not here. Not now.

All he wanted to think of was the beautiful girl in his arms.

Summer Grace snuggled in closer and suddenly he was aware of the soft press of her breasts against his ribs. The fact that they were both a little buzzed on the beer and hurting. And maybe she’d missed him the way he had her this week.

“We should get back to the others,” he said, starting to pull away, not wanting to take advantage of the situation.

“Jamie, please. Just . . . hold me a minute.”

There was no way he was going to argue with her. He let his arms relax around her, pulling in a few deep breaths of the humid New Orleans air. But it was no good. Despite the ache in his chest, he was hyperaware of every soft plane and lusciously sleek curve of her body against his. He shifted so she wouldn’t feel him growing hard.

It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last—he was as certain of that as he was that he should never have touched her. Not Summer Grace. Brandon’s little sister . . .

She’d always been the little sister. In theory, anyway. But it was that theory that had allowed him to resist her until so recently. Because when she’d crawled under the blankets with him when she was fourteen hadn’t been the only time. No, that was just where it had started.

There was that time he’d gone camping with the Rae’s. They’d driven all across the country, and Summer Grace had done it again—slipped into his sleeping bag one morning when Brandon had gotten up early to go fishing with his dad and Jamie was too tired to join them. Her hands had slid all over his body. How she’d known to stroke his hardening nipples like that at barely fifteen . . . and before he’d really woken up and realized what was happening, he’d been lost in a dream where her long, silky hair was falling all over his chest, then dragging lower over his stomach, and his cock had gone so damn hard he could feel the come pulsing in it, ready to explode. When she’d touched him, her fingers tracing his erection through his boxers, his eyes had flown open and she was there—her hands and her hair on him
real
. He’d nearly come right then—he’d had to bite his cheek hard enough to draw blood to keep from grabbing her, tearing off her little shorts and sheer tank top, which had shown clearly in the dawn light that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He’d groaned, wanting to take those firm, pink nipples between his teeth and . . .

“Jamie,” she whispered.

“What? What is it, Summer Grace?”

She sighed. “When are you ever going to call me Summer, like everyone else?”

He smiled in the dark. “Probably never.”

She pulled back enough to tilt her chin, those long lashes coming down like a sooty shadow over her eyes as she blinked up at him. “Jamie,” she repeated, the rasp back in her voice.

“Yeah?”

She stared up at him, blinking again. There was so much going on in her eyes—more than he could figure out right then. And too much going on in his own head, too. In his body. Desire and the shared pain of what this night meant to them both. The guilt of having left her on her own all week. The deeper guilt of having violated his vow to her brother, and the really dark shit that ran even deeper. Being the survivor, both of their brothers dead and gone and him still standing there.

With his arms around the one woman he’d ever really wanted.

Too much. It’s all too fucking much.

But she was
right there
, in his arms. His hands gripped her tiny waist as he pulled her in and opened her soft lips with his tongue. Jesus, she tasted good. Like the beer, but behind it she tasted the way she smelled—like flowers and heat.

How was that even possible?

But he didn’t care. It just
was
.
She
just was. Hot and pliable in his arms, her lips and tongue as hungry as his. So many damn years of wanting. He deepened the kiss and she pressed closer, her breath a soft pant against his lips, into his mouth as he breathed her in.

He was hard as hell, hard enough to ache. He ground up against her. He couldn’t help it. She was all heat and need—he could feel it coming off her in waves, echoing his own need—a need he’d kept banked for years. Because she was . . .

Forbidden.

“Christ.” He let her go. They were both panting. “Summer Grace, I can’t do this.”

She shook her head. Her hair was mussed, her lips soft and swollen. “Don’t say it. Don’t. I’ve been Brandon’s little sister my whole life. But I’m still
me
. And I’m a woman, Jamie. I’m twenty-seven years old, for God’s sake! I’m not some kid who can’t make her own choices anymore. I haven’t been for a long time. How long are you going to run from me?”

He stepped back, braced his hand on the iron fencing behind him. “I’m not running anymore.”

“No, you don’t. Don’t lie to me. God
damn
it, Jamie. You haven’t even called me all week.” She pounded on his chest with her small fist, and he was shocked at the anger he felt from her—the anger and the power in her. “I was done with you. I was moving on. Why did you have to fuck with my head?”