It had to be.
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS PIZZA NIGHT for the Garrett family, and it should have been somewhat enjoyable. Usually, Eli liked the routine of them assembling in the main house for an evening.
Even though there weren’t a whole lot of sunnier times for their family to be reminded of, they’d always had each other.
The three of them, and sometimes Jack, against the world.
But tonight he wasn’t enjoying it to the degree that he should, and all because of Sadie. Because of Sadie and the fact that, only four hours ago, they’d had sex against a wall, which he’d never, ever done in his life.
Because that spoke of a lack of control he didn’t even think he was capable of. Never before had a kiss just turned into sex.
When he had sex with a woman, they both knew it was on the agenda and things followed careful steps. Living room couch to bedroom. And then out the door again because he didn’t spend the night, but it was okay, because they didn’t expect him to.
It did not just...happen like that. Almost against his will, and certainly against his better judgment. But one minute they’d been shouting at each other, the next they’d been kissing, and then...then he’d been about knocked on his ass by the intensity of his orgasm.
Before he knew it he’d been upstairs in her bathroom, totally naked, pouring cold water down his neck so that he could get back downstairs and out the door again without popping wood when he saw her.
He’d spent the rest of the day riding his horse around the pastures, doing essentially nothing but trying to pound his balls into submission with tight jeans and a punishing day in the saddle.
Unfortunately, he’d just ended up replaying the scene in Sadie’s house over and over.
“Why are you scowling?” Connor asked from his position at the counter, where he was sitting on a bar stool and inhaling his pizza. “Scowling is kind of my thing, and I feel like you’re edging in on my territory.”
“Scowling is your thing? I thought the Robinson Crusoe look was your thing,” he said, indicating Connor’s beard and hair, which were both starting to get a little long.
“I can have more than one thing.”
“What’s my thing?” Kate asked, leaning forward on the counter, speaking around a mouthful of cheese.
“Bad table manners and objectifying construction workers, apparently,” he said, his words a little testy since, in fairness, it was Kate’s fault that he’d gone looking for her in Sadie’s house. It was his sister’s damn sex drive that had put him in this position.
Her cheeks turned pink and she looked down. “Thanks for ratting me out, bastard.”
“Objectifying construction workers?” Connor said in mock horror. “That’s shocking. Did you whistle at them and say, ‘Hey, baby! Why don’t you drop that hammer so I can watch the view’?”
“I did not,” she said, looking like she was about to fold in on herself.
“Missed opportunity,” Connor said.
“Whatever,” Kate said, pulling a piece of pepperoni off her pizza and putting it in her mouth. “You would lock me in my room if I ever did that.” She stuck her thumb in her mouth and sucked the grease off it loudly.
“Honestly,” Connor said. “I don’t worry much about you and men.”
Kate looked genuinely offended by that. “Why not?”
“I have my reasons,” Connor said.
Relationships, or hookups, which was the veiled content of the conversation, were not Eli’s favorite topic just now, so he was keeping his mouth shut.
“So what happened the other night?” Connor asked, his focus on Eli now. As if his older-brother sense told him that Eli was clamming up to avoid talking about something.
“Which night?” Eli asked.
“You dragged Sadie out of the bar and returned ten minutes later. She looked like she’d been scolded. You looked like you’d accidentally branded your own ass instead of a calf’s. What happened?”
“Why are you choosing this moment to start paying attention to what I do?”
“I always pay attention. It’s just you don’t usually have anything happening. And I want to know what’s happening with Sadie.”
He thought about earlier. Soft skin under his hands, her full breasts...what it had been like to take one of those perfect nipples into his mouth. How wet she’d been.
Mind-blowing, cock-busting sex.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Yeah, I don’t believe you.”
“They’re avoiding each other,” Kate said, looking at him almost apologetically. “Well,” she continued defensively when he shot back a mean glare, “it’s what she said when you were at the house earlier. When you busted us creeping on those guys.”
“I’m avoiding her because she’s a pain,” he said.
“And yet you told Jack to keep his hands off.”
Kate’s head whipped around to Connor. “Jack is interested in her?”
“Jack,” Connor said, “is interested in tits. Whether they’re attached to Sadie or not is immaterial. They are the new breasts in town, and therein lies the attraction.”
