Rogue Devil (The Rourkes #11) - Kylie Gilmore Page 0,19

you turn into a pumpkin?”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“It’s kinda fun to hear you live up to your hair.”

I grab the ends of my shoulder-length hair and toss it in the air. “What is it with you and redheads?”

He claws at the air. “They’re passionate.”

“I can be passionate. Sex is just biology and completely natural. I have zero hangups or inhibitions about it.” Fact.

“Are you still drunk?” His voice sounds strangled.

“No, it seems to have worn off. I had fun tonight. Will you be around tomorrow?”

He stares straight ahead. “I leave early tomorrow morning.”

Oh. I guess this is goodbye.

Dammit. I don’t want the fun to end.

I study his profile. His jaw is tense, but then I get distracted by his sensual lips. I’m itching to touch his short beard. Soft or coarse? What would it feel like rubbing against me? I’ve never kissed a man with a beard.

Brendan’s earlier words come back to me: that would be like kissing my cousin. So wrong.

I turn away, looking out the window. I need to stop lusting for him. Tonight he acted more like an overprotective big brother than a guy who’s lusting for me.

We drive the rest of the way in silence, but it’s a thick silence, almost like a question hanging in the air—will the fun continue? Or maybe that’s just me. I’m not ready for our time together to end.

Once we’re inside the palace, we head for the stairs leading to our rooms, still quiet. I catch him looking at me a few times, probably because I’m sneaking peeks at him.

We reach his room first. He stops in front of his door. “I’d offer to walk you to your room, but you said you could make it there on your own. Before, I mean.”

I search his features, his thick lashes framing the bluest of blue eyes. There’s a scar by his right eyebrow, a thin line. The only visible imperfection. I suddenly want to rip his clothes off and check him over for more. Oh my God. Cool it.

Then again, he’s leaving tomorrow morning, and I’ll never have to see him again.

No. We said we were doing the friend thing. It’s just that he’s so hot and he’s making me hot.

“Goodnight, Chloe. See ya around Villroy.”

I rub the side of my neck. “Yeah. See ya.” I take a step back, even though everything in me wants to get closer.

Screw this.

I close the distance, grab his head, and kiss him.

He’s not kissing me back. At all.

I let him go, my face flaming. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” he mutters, grabbing the doorknob behind him and opening the door. “’Night.”

And then he’s gone.

I cover my face with my hands, so mortified I can’t even move. What’s wrong with me?

I drop my hands and stare off in the distance. Geez, he was a good friend to me when I needed one. Didn’t I learn my lesson with Michael? Friends with benefits ruins friendships.

I hurry down the hall to my room. I can only hope I don’t have to see him again until next Christmas. I’ll stay glued to Sara’s side the entire visit. I can’t bear to face him again one-on-one. Hopefully, a year will be enough time for him to forget all about that unwanted kiss.

6

Six months later…

Brendan

I don’t like living alone as much as I thought I would. My whole life I’ve lived with one brother or another. My current roommate, Beast, is house-sitting for our older brother Sean and his actress wife, Josie, while they’re off in Vancouver for a movie she’s in. Some kind of mystery, where she plays one of the suspects. That’s all she can share. Anyway, I can’t blame Beast for taking them up on their offer to house-sit. They live in a ritzy brownstone in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. They even have a theater room with a huge screen that drops down from the ceiling by remote control. So it’s just me on a Saturday afternoon, watching TV and trying not to dwell on the fact that I’m solo.

My mind drifts to Chloe, as it often does in a moment of quiet. Okay, I’m man enough to admit it, I haven’t had as much fun with a woman since Christmas in Villroy with her. There. I said it. (In my head. No one needs to know that embarrassing shit.) I don’t know why she lingers in my mind, considering how different we are. I mean, yeah, she’s damn nice to look at and I admire