The passenger door swung open.
“Dude,” Troy said. “Did you just adopt those kittens?”
I turned to find him standing there, shirt back on but still disheveled from the photoshoot, an expression of amused disbelief on his face.
“Their names are Olive and Cheeto,” I said, as if that explained everything.
“And you adopted them because…”
I frowned, eyes trailing down to his flat stomach, imagining the body beneath his shirt. “Olive and Cheeto?”
“Fuck, is this some sort of kitten-induced trance? They hypnotized you?” Troy teased, shaking his head as he walked around to the passenger side. “Move the cat box. I’m coming with you to get supplies.”
I lifted the carrier as Troy climbed in and set it in his lap. He raised an eyebrow at me as he took it.
“Just to be safe. They might get scared in the back seat.”
The kittens mewed from inside their temporary home, tiny paws occasionally visible through the air holes.
I watched as Troy scratched a little nose and smiled. He might act tough, but he was falling for the kittens, too.
“Have you ever even had a cat?” Troy asked.
Had I? “Nah. My parents said pets weren’t good in a doctor’s household. Wouldn’t even let me get a fish.” Their house had been spotless, quiet, and lonely as hell. Two surgeons who worked eighty-hour weeks and one kid rattling around a big empty house, trying to be smart enough to be worth their time. “Not to worry. My sisters used to pick up strays and try to convince my mom to keep them. I know the basics.”
“Did she let you keep them?”
Troy shook his head, looking sad enough that I wondered if he’d wanted to keep the cats, too. “Naw, she said we had enough chaos with all the kids.”
“I still can’t believe you have ten siblings. How did they even keep track of you all?”
Troy’s jaw ticked, and for a second I wondered if I’d hit a nerve. Then he laughed, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “They didn’t, that’s how.”
“Well, since you already have four brothers, you don’t… have to treat me like I’m your brother, you know.” I bit my lip, trying to think of how to explain how I really wanted to be treated. Pinned to the kitchen counter and devoured like I was something he craved. When I looked at Troy, his jaw was set, his face a stony mask.
“We’ve been best friends for years. If you’re not my brother, not my ride or die, what the fuck are you doing, Rhett?”
I could tell from his low voice and stony expression that he’d taken that completely the wrong way, but I didn’t know how to explain myself without directly asking him to fuck me. I opened my mouth to say something, anything to fix it, but for once, no jokes would come. So we sat in silence as I navigated toward the nearest pet store, my mind spinning out of control. Why didn’t he just… know I wanted to?
Maybe I should have moaned more during the kiss.
I glanced his way, wishing we could just go back to before I’d made the brother comment. Before the walls had gone up. Before the kiss.
No. That was a lie. I didn’t want to go back to before the kiss, because now I knew what it felt like to have his lips on mine, his hand around my throat, his body pressing close as Aimee’s breath caught in the background. And I wasn’t about to let that sexy memory go.
Chapter 6
Aimee
Istuffedmywettowels into the building’s dryer with a little too much force, taking my frustrations out on my laundry. The cyberstalking was getting worse.
But there was no fucking way some idiot on the internet knew where I lived. And even if he did, he wouldn’t have the guts to come here and confront me about my podcast content.
Would he?
No. This was his plan. He wanted me to question everything. He wanted me to be creeped out by the eerie flicker of the laundry room’s fluorescent lights, or to worry that the footsteps in the hall signaled danger.
But I knew the truth: shitty light fixtures and another resident with some clothes to wash.
