Stepbrother Inked(23)

"Stop telling me you love me like I'm your sister, Flor." I glanced down  at the wood floor and tried to remember to breathe. "It's more than  that. It has to be more than that."

"God, Abi, shut up," he said as my eyes snapped back to him and found  him bowing over the table like he was in pain. "I don't want to hear it.  I don't want to hear any of this." He flicked his gaze suddenly up to  mine, glaring at me through narrowed eyes, cutting so deep into me that I  was certain if I looked down, I'd be bleeding. "Why the fuck do you  think I cut you off before? I don't want to hear it, so please stop. You  think I don't know? That you've been keeping this secret from me for  all these years? I know, Abi. I'm fucking well aware."

Flor stood up suddenly and reached out, cupping my chin much harder than  he had the night before, much less gentle. He gripped me with rough  fingers and forced my gaze to remain on his, leaning over and getting  close again, close enough that I could smell the slight whiff of  peppermint and cigarettes on his breath.

"You're hot, Abi," he told me, his pupils dilating and his tongue  running over his lower lip. "You have a good body, curvy with legs for  days. Of course I want to fuck you. What guy wouldn't? But I've resisted  for years because, obviously, there's a little something standing  between us. We're family and you don't fuck your family, Abi. How would  you feel if I took you home for a night and let you go? Would you still  be able to look at me over the dinner table at home without cringing? Is  that what you want?" Flor released me only when he realized other  patrons were staring. Tears stung my eyes, but I bit them back with a  choking breath.

"You don't mean that," I told him, but he was staring down at me with  nothing in his eyes, just a blank expression that belayed little. The  smell of your skin, your hair, your breath  …  it undoes me. Who says that  to someone they just want to sleep with, that they care nothing about?

"So in one breath, you're telling me that you love me like a sister and  the next, you're saying you want to fuck me like one of your groupies  and let me go. Is that it?"

Flor said nothing.

He continued to stare at me, curling his fists so tight that the tattoos  on his knuckles were stretched and distorted with the motion. I  followed them up his arm, to the girl with the wolf skin thrown over her  head and, for the first time in forever, realized that if I looked at  her just right, she sort of reminded me of  …  well, me. I swallowed hard  and dragged my gaze back to the table, focusing on the menu instead of  my stepbrother.

"I'm not saying anything has to come of this, Flor. I just want to be  honest, for once in my life, about my feelings for you. I love you,  Flor." The words hurt, almost physically, forcing themselves from my  suddenly tight throat as I struggled to catch a breath. Why did this  have to hurt so much? Because it didn't matter how I felt, how he felt?  Our love was doomed from the start.                       
       
           



       

I stared at the menus until my eyes went blurry and I had to blink back  tears. I found my hands reaching for the box and nearly tumbled out of  my chair when Flor's fingers wrapped around my wrist, branding his  fingerprints into my flesh like hot irons. I could feel each ridge, each  swirl, like it was engraved on my skin.

And I loved it.

Florian's touch was like a drug, one that I'd had but a brief taste of  but had stuck to the back of my tongue, always reminding me of how good  it felt to have that one, single hit, stolen in the dark that fateful  night.

Grr.

I clenched my fingers around the cardboard and tried to drag the box to me, but Flor wasn't letting go.

"If I let you have me, Abi, if I gave you what you're asking for, I  think you'd change your mind. Do you even really know what it is that  you're saying?"

"I'm not a kid, Flor. I haven't been a kid for a long time. Maybe you  still see me as that fifteen year old girl you dragged out of a party  she wasn't ready for, but I'm long past that." I lifted my eyes to his  and found him frowning down at me, green eyes dark and unreadable, full  of shadows and ghosts that I couldn't figure out. What are you hiding,  Florian? Whatever it is, you can tell me. I want to know everything  about you.

The air around us felt moist, like we'd somehow managed to infuse the  molecules with our desperation, drenching our surroundings in desire. I  imagined a cloud enveloping the two of us, obscuring us from the world  for just a brief moment. I wanted to lean over that table and kiss him,  hard and fast and furious, but I didn't. Because I was coward. I'd  always been a coward, and my true colors were starting to show.

I dragged the box into my lap as Flor yanked his gaze from mine and  flopped onto the bench, grabbing a menu and slamming his elbows onto the  tabletop with a sigh. He stared down at the text like he was reading  it, but his eyes never moved out of their fixed position.

"I found some kittens," he said instead, randomly, his tone of voice smooth and expressionless.

Great.

We were letting it go, again, and I just didn't have the energy to keep  pressing the matter. I'd said what I needed to say and that was that.  Soon, I'd start to feel better. Soon, I'd get the release I'd been  waiting so long for.

"Flor," I began, but apparently he was done listening to me.

"Three of them, actually. They were in the dumpster behind the shop."

I cringed as Flor glanced up at me with a frown on his face.

"I watched the security cameras and found the guy who dumped them. He  lives across the street from the shop in an apartment. I waited until it  got dark and I saw him coming home from work."

"Flor," I warned, squeezing my fingers around the cardboard edges. My  stepbrother had this sort of twisted justice that I both loved and  feared. It was nice to know he cared so much about certain things; it  was scary to see what he'd do when faced directly with them. "Please  tell me you didn't do anything stupid."

"I jumped him in the stairwell of his place and beat the shit out of him."

I stared back at him, at the guy I'd seen with more girls than I could  count, who was covered from shoulder to wrist in tattoos, who inked  bodies for a living, and I thought about him beating some guy up for  dumping kittens in the garbage.

It made me want to kiss him again, even harder than before. I wanted to  shove the water glasses and the menus onto the floor and crawl across  the table, straddle him and find out exactly what it was that kept all  those women interested.

I swallowed hard and kept my grip on the box. I still had to ask him about this, about where he found it and why he'd taken it.

"The kittens are okay; the guy isn't." Flor sat up and took a sip of his  water, apparently satisfied that we weren't going to address the issue  of my passionately intense and long-term love for him. "They're at my  house now. I wanted you to know in case I get arrested. I was pretty  careful to keep my face hidden and I didn't see any cameras, but if I  do, I need you to check on the cats for me. They're little and you've  got to feed 'em, like, every four hours or something." He raised his  hand and placed it on the table, the crescent moon etched into his skin  staring back at me like a pale blue smile.

"Flor," I began again, and he visibly cringed. I decided to lead into my  questions about the box by leaning down and digging something from my  purse. I tossed it across the table and watched him catch it  single-handedly. He stared down at his palm with a frown.

"The fuck is this?" he asked me, and I couldn't hold back a smile.

"It's a toothbrush," I said, "for your cat." I felt my smile turn into a  grin and my left hand unconsciously rise to finger the locket. After  he'd gotten such a thoughtful gift for me, something that represented  him and me, and all I could do was fall back into our old routines with a  gag gift. Well, after the intensity of our conversation, I was kind of  glad for it. "I got it at the pet shop. You can buy tuna flavored  toothpaste, you know."                       
       
           



       

"Screw you," he said, but at least he said it with a smile. "This  probably takes the cake for the worst anniversary gift ever." I thought  about mentioning the vibrator he'd gotten me one year and then decided  it didn't seem so funny anymore, not with the moist droplets of desire  coating my forehead and lower back. If Flor were to touch me now, lay  his fingers against the nape of my neck, press his lips to my forehead,  I'd melt. The heat between my thighs would consume my body and leave me  nothing but ashes.