Fallen Crest Forever (Fallen Crest Series Book 7)(79)

“Hey.” Logan kept laughing, his shoulders shaking. “Oh, fuck. I just lost what I was going to say.”

“Thank you.” Nate’s eyes flickered upward, then back to us. He was smiling, though. “All right, guys. I asked before, but you didn’t answer. What’s the plan?”

They turned to me. The jokes were done, and slowly, everything started to come back to me. I remembered Adam. I remembered all the shit he’d done to us over the years, but I especially remembered that one time at Nate’s cabin. He’d been talking to Sam in a hallway, and I could see how he was moving in. He was grinning and flirting with her, and I remember how my blood went cold. Sam was mine, and I didn’t want to remind him of it. I wanted to show him.

I’d set him straight, going in for the kill. “What do you want here?”

I asked him that, and he had pretended to be surprised. Maybe he had been. Or maybe he was surprised that I was calling him out. If he wanted Sam, he had to man up and show me he was even a worthy opponent.

He hadn’t been. “What are you talking about?”

That had only made me more pissed. “What do you think, dickhead? What do you want? Her?”

I wanted it all out on the table. I wanted Sam to know who she was dealing with.

“What do you want? Yes, I want her. I want her, okay?”

I grinned now, remembering it like it happened yesterday. That’s what I wanted. I had wanted him out and exposed, where he couldn’t hide anymore. “How long have you wanted her?” I asked him then.

“Since seventh grade . . .”

I remembered Sam had started to become uncomfortable. She’d felt pity for him, but I wouldn’t allow it. No. I moved so she was behind me, and I did it slowly, smoothly, almost so Adam didn’t notice at first.

He tried to come back at me, saying I wanted Sam too.

Hell yes, you fucker.

Then I’d felt Sam behind me. She’d pressed her body against mine, and I felt her trembling. Her heart was beating so fast, but I knew it wasn’t because she was scared. I wasn’t going to let her claim that. She was trembling because of me, because I was staking my claim, because as I told Quinn she was going to be mine, I was letting her know too. And she was almost wet because of it.

Then Adam had started to squirm. I saw the hesitancy on his face. He was going to take it back.

“I’m not denying it,” I had told him. “But I’m not going to screw another girl wishing she were Sam. I’m not going to do that. You know why?”

I went in for the kill then and turned to Sam. I had been doing this for her too. She couldn’t deny me either. She couldn’t hide.

I had pressed into her. My knee wedged between her legs, and I felt her throbbing. She closed her eyes, feeling what I could give her. And I had moved closer, nuzzling against her cheek. She sagged into me so I was holding her up, and then . . .

Her hands had slid up my arms, over my shoulders, and began to knead the back of my neck. Even now, my heart picked up as I remembered. I felt it all over again. I could feel her in my arms as I pressed her against the wall back then.

I had cupped her ass, and she wrapped those long, toned legs around me. She pressed against me.

She was mine, then and now.

Quinn had been there, but that moment was all mine. I lifted her from the wall. I had wanted to feel all of her weight against me.

A tremor wracked through her, and I kissed her ear, her cheek, her neck. I was whispering to her about something else, but everything had been about her.

“Mason,” she had breathed out.

There. Right there, she had succumbed to me.

I turned to Quinn. “This is why I’ll never do what you have to do. I have her. I won’t have to dream about her.”

And it hadn’t stopped there. He’d still wanted Sam. He’d tried to be her friend, and he’d held her when she cried on his shoulder. That was the worst, when I heard how he’d been there for her, and I hadn’t. That one burned deep.

“He was our first, you know,” Logan said, pulling me out of my memories.

I looked over to him now. I knew what he meant.

Nate didn’t. He frowned. “Huh?”

“We had our fights and rivalries, but Adam was the first one we fought for Sam. He wanted her, and he kept trying to take her from us.”

From us.

From me.

We’d called a truce, but that had ended this past summer. We weren’t fighting Adam for Sam anymore—but I couldn’t help but wonder if we were. Did he still want her, in some deep part of himself? Had our dad’s beef been an excuse for him to make one more go at her?

I started forward. “Let’s go.”

There was no plan, but it was time to deal with Adam.