Forehead to hers, gasping breaths mingling between us, I stare at her mouth because looking into those eyes is just too much. “I would have fought for us, Sierra. But you wouldn't fight for me.”
“Yo, Everett?—”
Fuck.
Roman’s voice carries from the hallway outside the great room. Of course her brothers show up now, in the middle of the night, all careless cheer and zero timing.
I tear myself away from Sierra, my chest heaving, my cock a throbbing problem pressed against my zipper.
One. Two. Three gasps of air later and the door swings open. Roman strides in, Caleb and Nolan on his heels, tracking in mud and laughter.
Shaking his head at something Caleb says, Roman’s turns, his gaze swinging right to the opening of the great room and lands on us.
Sierra’s pressed into the corner of the window seat, flushed, lips swollen. I’m standing too close, breathing too hard, looking too guilty.
“Whoa,” Caleb says quietly. “Did we interrupt… something?”
“Nothing,” Sierra blurts, her voice too bright.
Ass on fire, she pushes past me, weaves around an easy chair, almost bites it clearing the sofa, before slamming her hip into an end table.
Smooth.
“We were just talking—planning really. Modernization meets preservation and all that.”
My hands curl into fists and my eyes sink shut.
More than a decade may have passed, but we’ve lived this pattern hundred of times before.
My tongue in her mouth, hers in mine, our hands exploring every bit of skin we could get our hands on. Just to have to break apart when we hear someone coming—usually her brothers.
She hides, and I have to choke back the confession.
I hated it then.
I resent the fuck out of it now.
And still I can’t bring myself to make the unilateral decision I know needs to be made and spit out the truth.
“Relax. If anything happened, I’d be smiling.”
Sierra squeaks—tiny, strangled, the same sound she makes at the first drag of my tongue when I disappear between her thighs.
It’s a good fucking sound.
Three sets of Barrett eyes swing to me.
Of course they do.
“That’s not what I meant.” Not even close, but it’s exactly what I did. I’m just not smiling because—cockblockers.
She’s lucky I’m having mercy on her after the way she pummeled me in front of the entire bar tonight.
But she’s teetering on the edge of a full-blown panic attack—something I’ve witnessed a time or two—and I prefer being the reason for her lack of oxygen, thanks.
Roman slips his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Then what did you mean?”
“Give me some credit.” I shrug with the ease of a man who has absolutely nothing to hide. “I don’t do secrets badly enough to get caught like this.”
