Page 43 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

"Sutton." His voice is even.

"Nothing is happening with Sonia. Nothing has ever happened with Sonia."

"I didn't say it was." I say the words, but even I don't convince myself.

"So..you're jealous?" he says with a smirk.

My jaw tightens. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like you know what I'm feeling when we don't—" I catch myself. Breathe.

"We don't talk about feelings. That's not what this is."

"What is it then?" He asks.

"I don't know," I say.

I stop talking and I turn away from him. He moves toward me. I take a step back. The backs of my knees find the edge of the bed and I stop. He reaches for my hand. I move it.

"Sutton—"

"Don't." I shake my head. I keep my eyes away from his because I know what happens when I look at him directly from this distance.

"I need you tonotdo that right now."

"Why?"

"Because I can't think when you—" I pressmy lips together.

"Because it's not fair. To just—" I gesture between us.

"To just do that when I'm trying to say something."

"Then say it."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

I look at him and the honest answer is sitting right there — that I spent twenty minutes at a conference pretending I wasn't watching a woman lean into him, that it bothered me in a way I don't have the right to be bothered, that Maggie's questions from the other night are still sitting in the back of my chest alongside the teeth of something I haven't named. That for almost two months I have been telling myself thatundefinedis fine, that hotel rooms are enough, that the absence of a conversation means we're both equally free, and that standing in that conference room watching Sonia, I understood for the first time that I have been lying to myself about all of it.

I don't say any of that.

"Forget it," I say.

He looks at me for a long moment. Then he reaches for my jaw this time — just his fingers, tilting my face up, and the touch is so careful that it does more damage than anything aggressive could. I see something in his eyes I haven't seen before. Something underneath the hunger and the dominance. Something unguarded and quiet that he pulls back almost immediately but not quite fast enough.

My exhale comes out unsteady as his hand slides to the back of my neck. He pulls me toward him and I'm already leaning in before I've made the decision to andwhen his mouth finds mine there's nothing careful about it. I stop resisting.

His mouth is still on mine when he pulls back just enough to look at me — his breathing uneven, his eyes dark and focused entirely on me. Whatever was between us ten minutes ago — the resistance, the words we couldn't say, the space I kept trying to put between us — is gone. Burned through. There is only this.

His hands find my arms and he kisses me again, feverish and consuming. His fingers move to the zipper at the back of my skirt — one smooth pull — and the fabric loosens and falls to the floor. His hands push my blouse off my shoulders next, sliding it down my arms until that's gone too. I reach for his shirt — my fingers working the buttons from the top down, my hands spreading against the warmth of his chest as each one comes undone. I push it back off his shoulders and he shrugs it the rest of the way off without breaking the kiss.

He pulls back long enough to unbuckle his belt. The clink of it. The zipper. He steps out of his pants and kicks them aside and then he's back — his hands on me, his mouth on mine, his skin warm against mine everywhere we're touching.

His other hand slides between my thighs, stroking my clit as we move toward the sofa, and I gasp into his mouth at the contact — already sensitive, already wound tight from everything that came before. He sits down and pulls me toward him, his hands spreading my legs as he lifts me, positioning me over his face.