Brothers of Paradise Series

His gift makes it feel like we’re something more. Something I’ve dreamed about for longer than I can remember. An us. A tangible unit.

I can see the same storm in his eyes, too. He can hide many things, but not from me.

My lips tingle at the memory of his touch. I’d felt like I was close to combusting under his insistent mouth. His hands on me… I thought I had been so familiar with them. Having held hands with him as a kid or seen them working, skillfully shucking oysters together in the summer.

But they had felt entirely new when they were wrapped around my waist.

“Hayden…”

He reaches out and grips the doorpost. To a stranger, he might have looked unbothered. But I can see how hard he’s struggling to keep his expression neutral.

“Lily, we can’t.”

“You keep saying that. Don’t I deserve to know why?”

He shakes his head, but it doesn’t feel like a no. It feels like despair.

I don’t understand why. He had been so responsive last time-he’d kissed me with reckless abandon. I know what I’d felt in those touches.

I know he wanted me too.

“It wouldn’t be right.”

I get up from the sofa. Hayden looks good in a suit. Unusual. Different, even though the scowl on his face is the same. “Because we grew up together?”

“Yeah.”

Reaching out, I run my hands up his lapels. The chest underneath is solid to the touch. “But I don’t see you as a brother.”

His low exhale of breath washes across my lips. “Thank God for that.”

Putting a hand on his neck, I bury it in his dark hair, the way I’ve seen girls do before. My breasts are pushed against his chest-I made sure of that. Last time, he’d groaned into my mouth when he skimmed them with his hands.

“And you don’t see me as a sister,” I murmur.

“Absolutely not.”

His pupils are massive, the heart underneath my palm beating fast. “Hayden,” I beg.

He closes the distance between us. The kiss is bruising in its intensity. My lips mold to his obediently, savoring the warmth.

Hayden sighs into my mouth and wraps his arms around me, pulling me closer against his body until there is no air at all. I don’t want there to be, pressing closer still, my arms around his neck. We kiss like we’ve never done anything else and never want anything else.

He nips at my lower lip with his teeth and laughs when I draw back in surprise. “Can’t help it,” he whispers.

I smile and do the same to him. I’m rewarded with another bruising kiss, his tongue slowly finding its way into my mouth. I kiss him back, my hand lost in his hair and my nipples hard against his chest.

I’ve never felt anything like this before.

We end up on my sofa, somehow, both of us pulling down the other. I land on his lap, a thigh on either side of him, my dress riding high. Hayden presses kisses along my jaw and neck, down across my collarbone, setting my body on fire. Everything feels hot-too hot.

His hands cup my breasts, reverently, and I gasp as he smooths his thumbs over my nipples. His lips travel upwards again, back to my jaw and my ear.

I reach down to the zipper at the side of my dress, feeling brave. This is going to happen. I want him, and he wants me, and I have him here with me. I want to feel his skin against mine. Nerves race through my system as I grab ahold of the zipper.

Long fingers circle my wrists. “No.”

“No?”

Hayden shakes his head. “No. We’re not going further than this, not right now.”

I frown at him. This burning feeling, the one I’m falling in love with, pulses throughout my body. I don’t want to stop touching him, and I don’t want him to stop touching me.

“Why?”

“Because it would be too fast.”

“But-”

He leans in closer, putting his lips right next to my ear. “You have nothing to prove, Lily.”

I sigh, relaxing against him. “You know I hate it when you say no to me.”

“I know,” he says, laughter in his voice. “But I’m not pulling rank. Just slowing things down.”

“Fine. You’re too moral for your own good.”

“Only for your good.”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“If people knew,” I say darkly, pressing a kiss to his neck, “just how moral you are.”

“I’d never be able to show my face in these parts again,” he murmurs against my cheek. His voice is husky, the warmth between us still there. Just because we’ve stopped doesn’t mean our bodies have stopped desiring. And I can feel his arousal, thick underneath me.

Hayden Cole is hard because of me. The simple fact makes my mouth dry. He wants me.

I move off his lap, sitting to the side of him, and press my lips to his neck. “But you want me?”

Hayden swallows. “You know I do, Lils.”

My hand creeps across his thigh. I’m so nervous I can barely get the words out, but there’s pleasure in that, too. In knowing that I’m the reason his breath comes fast. That he’s as lost to this as I am.

“Lily…”

I pause, my hand by his zipper. “We don’t have to go further than this. I just want to…” I can’t say it. He’s silent, hanging on to my words, amber eyes gazing into my own. It takes me a minute to find the courage. “I just want to see how much you want me.”

Hayden swears, and I take it as encouragement. I run my hand over the hardness in his jeans and his head falls back against the couch. “Shit.”

“Do you want me to stop?”