Escalation Clause by Liz Crowe Read Free Book Online Page B

fine.” She cocked her head and batted her amazingly long eyelashes.
    “Are you flirting with me?” He croaked out.
    “No. No way. Why would I do that?” She sank back below the water, and then climbed out, giving him a breathless glimpse of the strength in her arms and a flash of pink…dear Jesus. He sank into a chair, hand over his eyes. When he looked up, she loomed over him, the pool water dripping on his still towel-covered legs, flicking water into his face. “Seriously, Brandis, I’m not interested in messing up our friendship and somehow it feels…weird. You know? And I don’t want that.”
    He squinted up at her. Her face was backlit and hidden, but her gorgeous shape highlighted just enough. He grabbed the chair arms. “Yeah, you’re right. Who needs weird. Let’s take a breath and start over.”
    She smiled, and held out her hand. The drip-drip-drip of cold water hit the towel and shorts covering his aching cock. He tried to let it cool him. “Hey, Brandis, long time no see. I’m hanging at your parents’ house this summer but that should be okay since you live over on Church Street and Jack’s one of your roommates for the next two months. Want some help with those cans this morning? I don’t have to work until noon.”
    He smiled back at her, got to his feet, thrilled beyond measure at the way her face relaxed when he took her hand and shook it once. Then, as if he had no control over himself whatsoever he tugged her close in a quick embrace. “We always hugged hello and goodbye. No need to stop that, is there? Go all formal?” His words were lost in her jet-black wet hair. Her breasts mashed into him, and he tilted her chin up, a little alarmed to see tears in her eyes. She shook her head and when he finally touched his lips to hers, it felt like he’d been kissing her forever.
    She shifted in his arms, molded herself against him and yanked his towel off in one motion. Surprised but not unhappy about it, he deepened the kiss, parted her lips with his tongue. He groaned, cupped a breast, ran his hand down her back to her ass and up, unable to settle. He felt like a rookie. How did she do this to him? He could maneuver himself between the legs of the hottest girl in any room in an eye blink. Why did this moment with his friend Maureen…the very young sister of his over-protective friend…make him fumbling and breathless and ready to plow into her like a sixteen-year-old kid?
    “Wait, stop,” he broke away, trying to get a grip. She stared, breasts heaving, the glorious hard peaks of her nipples poking through the wet bikini top making his mouth water.
    Trying to remember his manners and fighting the voice in his head reminding him to get the hell away from her, he angled his hips away, reducing her contact with his poor, aching shaft. But she grabbed him and shoved their bodies back together, all the time staring at him as if she wanted to speak but had no words.
    “Don’t look so surprised,” she whispered. “You want this as much as I do.” She ground against him, and he bit back a moan. She kissed him then, and he let her, allowed her to lead as his brain spun with the odd twin sensations of horny and a strange sense of protectiveness. She broke away, breath ragged and eyes wild. He could smell her, the heady pheromone of her desire making him dizzy. He put a shaking palm against her face, and stepped away.
    She glared at him, arms crossed. He forced himself not to stare at her breasts, her waist, the glorious curve of her hips and thighs. This. Was. His. Friend’s. Sister. He closed his eyes a split second then opened them just as she was stepping back into his space. He moved away, maintaining the distance between them. “Mo,” his voice broke. “Mo, listen to me. I…I don’t know what’s happening here, but you know as well as I do it can’t. We can’t. We…we,” he looked up at the sky and called on every ounce of will power and self-control in the known universe.