Page 6 of All He Wants

I was trying to be a good brother. Hell, a good person. But there’s only so much one person can take, especially when they’re painfully single and can’t get their dick up for anyone but their brother’s girl. It was becoming an issue.

Of course, Nick and Ember were blissfully unaware of my struggle. She was perched in his lap as they shared an armchair, his arms draped casually around her like getting to be that close to her was no big deal. Equally, Ember had an arm around Nick’s shoulders, giggling breathlessly into his neck as he murmured to her and I had to look away.

At first I’d thought maybe I was just jealous of what they had together, but it soon became very clear to me that what I felt went beyond a little loneliness. I wanted her, and it was useless denying it to myself. Better that I kept my distance and waited for these feelings to fade. I cared too much about the both of them to do something selfish.

Though, admittedly, there had been a strange vibe between them at dinner. Pleasant enough, but a little coldness or distance that surprised me given how cozy they now appeared in the chair opposite me.

“Right, are you ready to have your ass kicked?” Mom clapped her hands together gleefully and I couldn’t hold back my laugh at the shocked expression on Ember’s face. Sure, my mom might appear prim and proper, but she cursed like a sailor most of the time and was generally the furthest thing from stuffy or uptight you could imagine.

“What are we playing first?” Nick raised a brow as he reached for his glass on the table beside them and took a sip. The drawing room might have seemed ostentatious but was really one of the cozier rooms in the house, with a large fireplace in the central wall, crackling happily, two low-backed leather sofas, and a couple squishy armchairs near the fire. Long curtains muffled the room, making everything feel warm and safe when they were drawn, but slithers of the snow outside peeked through the small gaps around the side and in the center.

Mom, Dad, and Harper were sitting in a row on the sofa opposite mine, a stack of games in boxes crowding the low coffee table between us.

“Monopoly?” Dad suggested, voice rising hopefully as he glanced between us all. I tried not to roll my eyes. It was always Dad’s first pick, mostly because he always won.

Harper groaned. “Hard pass. Charades?” My nose wrinkled before I could stop myself and Harper caught the reaction and sighed. “Okaaaay… How about a quiz?” She nudged a smaller box into the centre of the table and, when nobody protested, clapped her hands together. “Four teams of two?”

“Alright, but I’m not being stuck in a team with your uncle. He has zero general knowledge,” Mom announced as she stood up and narrowed her eyes on Nick. “Ember, how about you go and team up with Oakley? I’ll work with Nick, and Harper you can be with your uncle.”

“Gee thanks,” Harper muttered as she passed around pens and paper. I barely noticed though, because Ember had stood up and was walking over to me with a smile on her face that made my throat tighten.

The seat next to me dipped, the warmth of her easing over me as the scent of sweet cinnamon and something floral permeated the air. I dared a glance to my right and the brightness of her blue eyes was like a punch to the gut, the low lights making them sparkle as she nudged me. “Dream team, right?”

“Totally,” I choked out and then reached for my cider on the side, gulping half of it back in one large sip before I forced a smile.

Harper had opened the box of cards and was reading a small piece of white paper before she nodded decisively and fished out a tiny timer. “Okay, so we can either have someone read the questions, or we can scan this QR code and our phone will read them out for us.”

“Phone,” I said, at the same time that Dad reached for the cards and insisted, “Give it here.”

“Oh, so you can cheat? I don’t think so, honey. Just let the technology do it for us,” Mom called from the armchair next to Nick’s. Predictably, my dad’s mouth dropped open to bemoan technology and the digital age, but thankfully Harper cut him off before he could begin.

“Good idea, that way there’s no funny business,” she said and shot mock glares at me and Nick in turn. “We have thirty seconds to write down our answers after the question is asked and there are twenty questions. Ready?”

I nodded and saw Ember do the same from the corner of my eye.

“Go!” Harper tapped her phone screen and a voice rang out, sounding vaguely like Siri.

“Question one: What is the largest organ in the human body?”

I tried to focus on the paper in front of me, balanced carefully on my lap, but it was difficult when Ember was leaning in close to murmur guesses in my ear.

“I think this is one of those, like, trick questions,” she said, warm breath ghosting over my skin. “Like, your tongue.”

My head jerked and our eyes met. Her face was closer than I’d expected, blue eyes wide and innocent as she looked up at me and bit down on her lower lip while she thought about the answer. “My… tongue?”

“Yeah, they’re, like, deceptively big, right?”

“Right.” I reached for my cider again, my mind completely blank, as I jotted ‘tongue’ down on the paper.

“Question two: What is the hardest natural substance on Earth?”

Ember’s breath hitched and her hand landed on my thigh, squeezing excitedly. “Oh! I know that one.” She leaned in and I could feel her lips just barely on me as she murmured the answer in a low voice that made my pulse jump, imagining the husky tones in an entirely different context.

Yeah. I had a pretty good idea what the hardest substance was — it was currently taking up residence in my fucking pants and would only get worse if she didn’t take her hand off my leg.

I forced myself to breathe as I brought the pen to the paper, but my whole body tensed when Em scoffed and gently smacked my leg. The pen punctured the paper as I jolted, glaring down at the small hole that revealed my loss of composure.

“Ugh, I’m an idiot. It’s diamond.”