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“I didn’t like finding you in the bar either,” he admitted, turning us slowly so that we were more in the shadow of the corner.
“Reed. What’s your problem? I’m having drinks with my friend. And it’s not like you have a say-so in my life.”
He held me tighter, his hand on my waist sliding to my hip. “What if I wanted a say-so in your life?”
“Are you kidding me right now? Last night, you said”—I gestured between us—“thiscan’t happen. I clearly remember.”
He winced, but his hold on me didn’t ease for a second. “What I want is different from what we actuallycando.”
“Do you see me as a child or something?”
He huffed out a sad laugh. “No.” He shook his head so emphatically that a wayward lock of dark hair fell into his eyes.
“Hey, Reed!” Jonah and Emma twirled by us. Reed tensed. “Keep your hands higher, bro, or I’ll have to break them.”
Then they whirled away, which was weird because it was a slow song. Then again, my brother was weird.
Reed sighed but didn’t move his hands from where he’d already had them—low and tight on my body. If anything, he clenched me closer.
“You afraid of my brother?”
He looked away. “It’s not that. Not really.”
“So if it isn’t my brother, then what?”
He kept silent, clenching that perfectly square jaw, which only gave me thoughts of kissing and biting it and then down his muscular throat.
“You won’t even tell me why?”
Jaw clenching, he finally looked down at me, his expression a mixture of anger and frustration. “Anna, I don’t want to have casual sex with someone I’ve known my whole life and will likely know the rest of my life.”
“Who says I wantcasualsex?”
If possible, his body coiled tighter, flexing and gathering me infinitesimally closer. Then the scowl returned with a vengeance.
“I’m not your type for anything but a casual fuck. And trust me”—his voice dropped to a rusty, gravelly tone—“there’s nothing more I’d like to do than fuck you good and hard. But you’d regret it the second you brought your next boyfriend home.”
I scoffed. “Now you’re telling me what I want and how I’d feel?”
“I know you, Anna.”
“Not well enough,” I snapped, because this jerk had no idea that I’d compared every single guy I’d ever dated to him. And when each one of them fell short because they never looked at me the way Reed did or spoke to me the way he did, like I mattered, like my thoughts and beliefs and dreams mattered, I ended up letting them go.
“What do you mean?” he barked back.
“I mean you’re an idiot.” I pushed out of his arms and stormed my way through the crowd toward the bar where I’d left my purse hanging on the bar stool.
Jonah was laughing with Hale and Emma about something. I quickly screwed on my happy face so my brother wouldn’t detect anything.
“Em, I need to get going.” I grabbed my purse and strapped it on my shoulder. “I totally forgot I’ve got to help a friend with this thing tomorrow.”
I was lying, but Jonah didn’t seem to notice. Oblivious, that one.
“Sure,” said Emma. “No problem. Let’s get going.”
“So soon?” whined Jonah to Emma. “Come on, Anna. Don’t be a drag on a Saturday night.”
Emma read the warning loud and clear. “You can try unsuccessfully to get into my pants another night, Hebert,” she told him before giving him a rough pat on the face.
