“Chip is the child they wish they had.”
I hold up a hand. “What the fuck kind of name is Chip?”
Isla laughs, and my chest unclenches at the sound. If snarky commentary will keep her from unraveling tonight, I’ll offer up line after line.
Isla’s laughter finally ebbs, and she takes a calming breath. “I secretly hated it,” she admits. “His real name is Albert Isaac Rutherford the Third, but he emulated his dad. As in he was a chip off the old block.”
“I’m not sure which is more pretentious.”
“That’s not the last time you’ll have that thought tonight, trust me.” She points out the front of the windshield. “It’s this exit.”
“Right. Shit.” I swing over two lanes of traffic to exit the highway.
“It pains me to admit it, but Chip is ridiculously smart. He graduated top of his class from Yale. He’s going to succeed my father one day and be the youngest CEO in the company’s history. The two of them are thick as thieves. Our divorce can’t keep them apart.”
Isla pauses from telling me her family history to direct me to her family’s home. We travel along several tree-lined streets, taking a few turns, before driving onto a cul-de-sac. Her house looks exactly as I imagined: a massive white building, large columns, a huge front porch, black shutters. Six of my childhood home could fit into the Covingtons’ estate. The enormous house is distanced hundreds of feet from the street with an iron security gate keeping anyone unwanted off their property.
She jabs the code into the keypad on her side of the car, and the gate swings open.
I clear my throat. “For the record, Chip isn’t with you anymore, so smart isn’t a term you should use to describe him.”
She flutters her eyelashes. “A week ago, you couldn’t stand being around me. I must be anexcellentkisser.”
“Satisfactory.” I smirk, reveling in how easy it is to be with her, how I don’t have to try to be anything other than myself. I ease my truck behind the last one in the driveway, but with sufficient space to leave in a rush, unimpeded. “There’s always room for improvement, Covington.”
“Maybe you haven’t seen the full scope of my skill set yet.”
My grip on the steering wheel tightens as those memories from the bar flood me again. My hands exploring her body, how right she felt beneath my touch. I can’t forget how ready she was for me, how she craved my hands on her. But nothing compares to the image of Isla working herself against my thigh, the sound of her moans burned into my brain.
I don’t know if I can survive more of her skill set.
She goes quiet again, staring up at the house.
“Hey.” I guide her chin to look at me. It’s puredevastationwhen she meets my gaze, when my eyes rake over her, dropping slowly down her neck, her chest, until they consume the vision that are her sculpted legs on display. “Is this how you always dress for dinner?”
Isla licks her lips, her tongue darting out briefly to trace over the bottom one. “Maybe it’s how I dress foryou.”
Fuck me.
A fist knocks against the glass, and we both jump.
“You decent?” Brooks’s amused voice jars us back to reality.
I open the door and Brooks backs up. “Gearing up for this shitshow.”
Brooks looks past me to speak to Isla. “You went over our family history, huh?”
His amused tone contrasts with the seriousness of Isla’s when discussing her family. They’re not that far apart in age to have such differing experiences, but some aspect of family life was worse for Isla. Or Brooks is better at hiding the damage.
“Only the surface,” she replies, before quickly changing gears. “No date for you, Brooksy?”
Isla reaches my side, and we walk toward the house in lockstep.
“Yeah, right,” Brooks says through a laugh. “Because Mom asking whether I’m doing lines of coke for breakfast would be such a ringing endorsement of me.”
“Looks like he’s here, as predicted,” Isla mutters, voice small and so unlike her.
I reach for her hand, threading our fingers. Her gaze bounces to our joined hands, then to my face. I keep my stare fixed forward, not ready to explain what the hell I’m doing.
