I flipped my hair over my shoulder like I had seen endless annoying girls do only I practically fell off my stool because suddenly that last drink was letting me know just how bad an idea it had been to chug it. I grabbed the edge of the table and Rule reached out a hand to steady me. I felt like it burned where he gripped my upper arm. Definitely should have listened to my flight response a minute ago. I put a hand on my forehead it was warm and suddenly clammy. “I need to go.”

I tried to climb to my feet but the room started to spin around all crazy. I was so glad I opted for my boots instead of heels because as I involuntarily grabbed onto Rule’s biceps to stay upright I knew I would have ended up on my face otherwise. It was too hot, too loud and if I didn’t get out into some fresh air like yesterday I was pretty sure I was going to puke everywhere.

“Who drove?” Rule’s voice was coming from far away and he smelled really good. With a sigh I leaned into him and buried my nose in his throat. He was so tall I had to use my leverage on his arms to reach. “Seriously Shaw, how did you get here?”

“Ayden and I, we took a cab.”

“Where is she?”

“With a banker. I need to go home.” I feel my boozy legs start to wobble and his locked a heavy arm around my waist to keep me anchored to his chest. It was nice. Not bothering to think about it I wrapped both my arms up around his neck. He felt as good as I always knew he would.

“Her roommate is running around somewhere; wanna see if you can grab her. I’m gonna walk her to our place.” I wasn’t sure who he was talking to but a familiar voice rumbled an affirmative and the next thing I knew I was being half marched, half carried out the front door of the bar. The cold January air made me snap my head back as Rule moved me from his front to his side and secured me with an arm around my shoulders. I hooked an arm around his lean waist and cuddled into his side. I knew logically it was the vodka making me act crazy, but I couldn’t stop it.

“We’re only three blocks from my place. I’ll pour a gallon of coffee down your throat and shove some chips or a frozen burrito in your face and get you a cab. You’re even paler than normal and if you try and get in a car right now you’re gonna puke everywhere. Why are you drunk and dressed all sexified tonight anyway?”

I shivered a little as the wind breezed across my bare legs. I turned my cold nose into his ribs and inhaled. He smelled like the antiseptic from the shop, like cigarettes from Nash, like the hair product in his mohawk and underneath it all the warm, earthy smell that was all just Rule. In eight years I had never been this close to him for this long. It was enough to send my deprived and alcohol soaked system into overdrive.

“You think I look sexy?” That seemed like the important part of the conversation. We stopped at a stop sign and he looked down at me with exasperation clear in those pale eyes.

“Shaw, every guy in the bar was circling you like you were bait in the water during shark week. You know you look good, what I think shouldn’t matter. What should matter is why your suddenly dressing, looking and acting like a different person? What’s going on with you?”

I wanted to scowl up at him but that seemed too hard especially when his t-shirt rode up in the back and my arm was brushing against nice, warm skin. I stumbled off the curb as we made our way down another block and a familiar Victorian came into sight. He pulled me in tighter to his side and I didn’t even try and hide the soft sigh that fell out of me. “Everyone thinks I need to act a certain way, you, my parents, your parents, the girls from work, Gabe. Everybody always wants me to be this, do that, walk this line, toe that line and I’m sick of it. Maybe for just once I just want to act how I want, feel how I want to feel without someone judging me and expecting something from me.”

He was quiet as we walked up the front steps to the apartment. Maybe he was trying to translate my drunken speech because even I could hear that I was slurring between my chattering teeth. He pushed the door open and twisted the lock. It was warm inside so I shook off my jacket and pushed my shaking hand through my hair. I turned blurry eyes on him and almost swallowed my tongue. He was leaning back against the door watching me with hooded eyes. He wasn’t throwing sarcastic barbs at me, or ignoring me he was just watching me. I blew out a breath and tasted the tartness of the cranberry juice across my tongue still.

I took a few unsteady steps towards him. He was tall and I was not so I had to stand on the very tip of my toes to reach his ear as I put a hand on his shoulder and one on the door beside his head. I expected him to move away, to gently shove me to the side but he uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on my either side of my waist.

“It’s my birthday Rule.”

Those pale eyes flared for a second and his mouth twisted down. The hoop on the side on his lip glinted at me in his frown. “Shit, I’m sorry Shaw. I had no idea.”

I shrugged it off and moved a step closer to him. “It okay, my own family doesn’t even remember it.” I pressed so close to him that my chest was flat against his and I could feel that the close proximity was having an effect on him. If I hadn’t had to concentrate on my balance since I was on my toes I might have grinned at that. All I had ever wanted in life was to affect him, to get him to feel something, anything other than simple tolerance for me. “I know what I you can do for me to make this officially the best birthday ever.” I wanted to sound sure, to sound sexy and sultry but I’m pretty sure I just sounded horny and drunk. I didn’t care. I was here, the real me, the one that wanted him so desperately and always had and now there was no chance at putting her back in the cage.

I didn’t think, didn’t reason just used the grip I had on him to pull myself up even taller and plant my mouth solidly over his. The ring in his lip was shockingly cold against my own; the rest of him was undeniably hot and hard. It was everything I had ever wanted and even though he didn’t kiss me back I still ranked it up there as the best birthday gift ever. I went to settle back down on my booted feet when something shifted, something changed and Rule went from the pliant recipient to something else entirely.

Chapter 5

Rule

Shaw was drunk, really, really drunk. She was also dressed like something out of a retro fantasy and had on those boots that made me want to drool. I had been grumpy and moody all week, my friends had noticed, my clients had noticed, the chick I walked out on Saturday night noticed. I couldn’t put my finger on it. At first I thought it was Rome, I was pissed he wouldn’t just tell mom to grow the fuck up and get over her shit. I wanted him to spend time with me, to have some good times before shipping back out to the desert but he wasn’t ready to give up hope that he could fix our fractured family and I didn’t want to fight with my brother the freaking war hero. I thought maybe I just needed to get laid, but the hot blond I went home with on Saturday had started to annoy me in the car there and by the time we got to her room the last thing I wanted to do was see her naked so I bolted. Sunday came and went and the darker and darker my mood got. They guys suggested going to the Goal Line, thinking maybe I needed a dose of verbal ass kicking from an ice cold blond to get me out of my head, but I refused and instead spent the day brooding and playing Call of Duty. I had no idea what my problem was but with Shaw all but plastered to the front of me I was starting to get an idea.

I hadn’t been able to get the sight of her and her ruffle covered ass out of my head for days. Call me shallow, call me a chauvinistic pig, but there was just something about seeing her all sexed up and barely dressed that made me look at her in an entirely new light. It was like being introduced to her all over again and the prim and proper little lady that Remy had worshiped was overtaken by a sexy co-ed that had me up and night thinking X-rated things. Now with her looking at me all big eyed and swaying unsteadily I knew the right thing to do was fix her up and send her on her way, but then she kissed me and I was pretty sure I forgot my own name. I was too stunned to react at first, I mean I had kissed hundreds of girls and there was always something nice about it, but Shaw kicked nice to the curb and went right into coma inducing.

After I got enough blood back from below my belt I realized that she was pulling away, or rather falling away and yes I was a certified asshole because I knew she was sauced and I knew she was for all purposes still my twin brother’s girl but none of that stopped me because she also tasted sweet and tangy, felt better than anything I could remember in my entire life and had on some kind of slinky top that was rubbing erotically across my chest, plus her hand where wrapped around my neck was playing with the last pointy spike of my new haircut and it was all going right to my dick which was screaming at me to do something. So like a bastard I did.

I picked her up because she was short and I was tired of bending over. Her skirt was tight so I had no problem moving it up her shapely calves so that she could get those legs wrapped around me. She made a gasping noise and I maybe, possibly would have stopped what I was doing to her mouth if she hadn’t used her new position to grind against my hard on and to get her hands up under my t-shirt shirt. Of all the things I had ever thought about Shaw, the fact that she would go off like a bottle rocket when touched just right would have never been one of them. She always looked so cool, so collected but now she was tugging my shirt off over my head and doing something with her tongue on my lip ring that was making my eyes cross. I knew logically Nash was probably only a few minutes from walking in the door with her roommate and this had to stop. There was no way I would be able to live with myself if I let this get out of hand while she was drunk, so I let go when she pushed away from me so that she was on unsteady feet on the floor in front of me and I thought maybe, just maybe even wasted she would be the voice of reason.

She just looked at me through hooded eyes the color of jade and licked a mouth that was very thoroughly worked over curiosity of yours truly. Nothing on this planet had ever been hotter. She started pulling at the ties on the top of her silky top and moved past me down the hall. I forgot that she knew where my bedroom was, that she knew her way around my place, that she had a damn key. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to stop, to tell her I would just put her to bed and she could just sleep whatever this was off, but as I followed behind her the blue top hit the floor followed by the black tank top and the skirt that did amazing things to her ass. I picked up the discarded clothing and tried to talk myself off the ledge. I couldn’t do this, wouldn’t do this, it was bad enough I had kissed her like a sex crazed lunatic. I needed to get control back like yesterday. This was Shaw, not some bar bimbo. Not someone I could mercilessly kick out in the morning and never speak to again.

“Shaw,” she turned to look at me over her shoulder and I think I blacked out for a second. I dropped the pile of clothes in my hands on the floor and tried to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I had seen a lot of girls naked but none of them were this girl, none of them came anywhere close. Somehow she managed to get out of those tall motorcycle boots without falling on her face and she was staring at me with big green eyes clad in nothing more than a few scraps of black lace that were designed for aesthetics rather than function and every good intention, every idea that I should be the good guy, do the right thing went out the window. She was all ice cool hair, perfect pale skin, tiny little waist and high, touch me, please God touch me breasts. She had a body made to make men stupid and I wasn’t immune. I took a fumbling step toward her after kicking the door closed behind me. Somewhere my conscious was whispering I should just put her to bed and go find a giant bottle of Crown to crawl into and a cold shower to get my libido back in check, but none of that was going to happen because she met me halfway and her little hands went right to my belt buckle.