“No, he was too busy getting in Megan Hawthorn’s pants to care he had people waiting to wish him happy birthday,” a voice that was so sweet I almost missed the bite to it said.
I glanced over Luca’s shoulder to see the girl he was normally with shoot daggers at his back as she walked by. He clenched his jaw, muttered something under his breath I didn’t hear, and shut the front door with unneeded force, causing his father to shoot him a hard glare.
“Excuse me while I go set the record straight. Again,” he said before turning and following Violet Stevenson. “It only makes the two hundredth time.”
“That girl can make that boy sweat without even trying,” Nik said with a deep chuckle as we walked farther into the house.
Halfway across the living room, I caught sight of Nevaeh’s mom, and she quickly left the group she was talking to. She hugged me tightly. “This is the best surprise,” she said as she pulled back, a beaming smile on her beautiful face. “Nev is going to be so happy you made it.”
“Where is she?” I asked before I could stop myself, needing to see her, touch her.
“That is a good question. She was supposed to be home by now, but knowing Jordan, it’s hard to tell what kind of trouble those two got into.” She grimaced. “If she doesn’t get home soon, I’m sending out the big guns.”
“Aunt Gabs is here?” Mia asked as she glanced around.
Lana shook her head. “Not yet. She and Liam are on their way, though. Or so he told Drake about fifteen minutes ago. If she gets here and Jordan hasn’t shown up, I’m going to sic her on him.”
I barely paid their conversation any attention. Jealousy was eating through me, and I was two seconds away from pulling out a few big guns of my own. Mia’s best friend visited us every few weeks. I liked him… Until he flirted with Nevaeh. Then I wanted to rip his arms off his body and beat the living hell out of him with them.
Now she was out with him, doing fuck knew what. She was legal now, could do anything she wanted, with whomever she wanted.
“There you are,” a deep voice said from behind me. “Do you realize how hard it is to find you, woman?”
Turning, I saw Jordan coming toward us, with no Nevaeh in sight. He walked up to Mia, threw an arm around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head. Barrick clenched his jaw but didn’t say anything about it. He was used to their relationship and trusted Mia, but I knew just how jealous he was right then. That same jealousy burned through me whenever the guy so casually did the same with Nevaeh.
“There’s this thing called a phone,” Mia sassed him. “You use it to call, text, even send social media messages. It’s all the rage these days. Maybe you should try it.”
“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to see your beautiful face, and that really should be considered a crime.”
“Um, excuse you,” Lana said with a mock glare at him. “You should have had my child home half an hour ago at the latest. Where is she?”
“Sorry, we lost track of time. She’s changing now.”
“Perfect.” She touched my arm, then pushed me. “You should go help her with her zipper,” she suggested with a grin. “She had the worst time with it when she was trying it on at the mall earlier.”
—
The first time I’d ever set eyes on Nevaeh, my heart had stopped.
I was sitting on the couch with Sasha beside me, and Mia answered the Skype call from her cousin. Her beautiful face appeared on the laptop screen, and even as she was yelling at her sister, I’d felt something wake up inside me for the first time in my life.
It was like she’d hit pause on my heart because it didn’t beat, while other parts of my body came alive for the first time since I’d lost my leg. She’d blinked, her blue-gray eyes looking huge behind her glasses, like some animated kitten about to pounce on her unsuspecting prey.
Then she’d started vomiting words she hadn’t wanted to utter but was helpless not to, and it was so adorable, I found myself laughing. In that moment, with her beautiful face flushing with the most adorable shade of pink and her dropping her head into her hands, I knew.
She was mine.
Then Mia had dropped the biggest, most painful bomb in my lap. The helpless feeling I got when she said Nevaeh wasn’t even sixteen yet was worse than when I lost my leg. I felt sick to my soul, because I’d instantly wanted her and knew I couldn’t have her.
Then I’d met her in person, and I fought my feelings tooth and nail. I ached for days after, wanting her. Just to hold her, touch my fingers to her baby-soft cheek, brush my lips over her plump lips, and inhale the scent of her skin. I knew if I saw her again—fuck, if I just heard her voice again—I would be lost completely. It was why I’d practically begged Mia to talk her cousin out of attending school with us. I needed distance, as much as humanly possible, to keep my sanity, to protect her from all the thoughts I had rioting through my head on a marathon loop of all the things I wanted to do to and with her.
And then I found out about what happened after I left her in New York, and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know exactly what had gone down—not until she told me months later—but I knew something had upset her. Someone scared her, took something from her they had no business taking, and I wanted to break his fucking neck.
I couldn’t stay away after that. Couldn’t get past wanting to protect her from everything life could throw at her, my sweet little kitten who never should have to know the dangers of the outside world. As long as I could be beside her, I would find the strength to hold my feelings in check.
Just until her eighteenth birthday.
As I walked up the stairs to her bedroom, I felt my heart jackhammering in my chest. I was moments away from seeing her, and now I didn’t have to hold back. I could hold her, touch her, kiss and taste her all I wanted. I had two years of wanting, aching, and craving her to catch up on, and I was going to get my fill.
Stopping outside her bedroom door, I inhaled deeply and slowly let it out as I lifted my hand and knocked.
“Just a sec,” she called out, and I braced myself by putting my hands on either side of the doorframe.
Closing my eyes, I waited, blocking out the sounds of the party from below so I could savor every moment of seeing her. I heard the doorknob turn and felt the air shift as it swung inward. Her soft gasp had my eyes snapping open, and I took in all of her slowly.
Her feet were bare, as were her legs. I lifted my gaze hungrily, pausing at the hem of her dress that started mid-thigh. Up and up I went, past the flare of her hips, over her flat stomach and her perfect tits. Her hair fell over her left shoulder as she stood there with her hands lifted to fasten an earring in her right ear. There was no makeup to enhance her angel-like beauty, and even though she wasn’t wearing her glasses, her blue-gray eyes still had that animated kitten quality to them as she blinked at me in utter surprise.
“Braxton,” she whispered, her chest heaving as she met my hungry gaze.
“You’re so goddamn beautiful, baby,” I rasped, my voice full of the need that had been gnawing at me for years.
Nevaeh instinctively took a step back, and then another, until I was inside her bedroom and was able to close the door. Then I grabbed her hips, my fingers biting desperately into her flesh through the material of her dress as I swung her around and pressed her against the door.
“Brax,” she moaned, her back arching, pressing her chest into mine as I lowered my head slowly until my breath was bathing her plump lips. “Please.”
“Tell me what you want, Kitten,” I commanded, brushing my nose over hers. “I need to hear you say it.”
“Kiss me,” she begged. “Please, just one kiss. P-please.”
Her voice broke on the last plea, and I couldn’t have held back another second even if our lives depended on it. Cupping the back of her skull in one hand, I tilted her head so I could take as much of her mouth as I wanted while my lips sealed to hers. Her fingers twisted in my black button-up, pulling me impossibly closer as she sighed into my mouth.
I swallowed it, then thrust my tongue deep, tasting every inch of her sweetness. I felt more than heard her moan and pressed her harder against the door.
When I lifted my head an indeterminate period later, we were both gasping for breath, and her mouth looked as though I’d ravished it. Panting heavily, she rubbed her thighs together unconsciously, and it took every ounce of self-control I had left not to carry her to her bed and spread her open for me so I could taste her pussy and relieve the ache she felt that was making her squirm against me.
Instead, I cupped her chin and angled her head so she was forced to meet my gaze. “Happy birthday, Kitten.”
Chapter 10
Nevaeh
I could still feel his lips imprinted on mine. Every time I licked my lips, I tasted him, no matter what I drank or ate.
After that amazing, bone-melting kiss—the first kiss I should have had and not the one Dax had forced on me years before—he’d helped me zip up my dress then taken my hand. Kissing my knuckles, he’d opened the door he’d just had me pressed up against and walked me downstairs.
My legs had still been shaky, so I was glad to have him to guide me because I knew I never would have made it down on my own. My family and loved ones surrounded us the instant we reached the first floor, and he stayed beside me over the next two hours. Putting drink after drink in my hand, feeding me from the plate Mom pushed into his hands at one point, loaded with all my favorite finger foods.