Celina (Connelly Cousins #1) (7 page)

“You can’t stop me.” She scooted out of his reach, moving to the other side of the kitchen so that the butcher-block island stood between them.  The words were spoken quietly, and she didn’t quite look him in the eye, but it was still a courageous move on her part.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m a grown woman, Johnny. I can decide for myself who I will and will not spend my time with.”

Johnny growled. “Correction. You are not a woman,
Celina
,” he said, deliberately using her full first name to emphasize his point. “You are my little sister.”
And Kyle has seen more pussy than the fucking SPCA.
“I warned you to stay away from him.”

She crossed her arms and stood her ground. “And I ignored you. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll throw you over my shoulder and lock you in your goddamned bedroom, Celina.”

For one blissful moment he thought he might have gotten through to her. Her eyes widened and she chewed her lip uncertainly, but then thrust her chin out with a defiant tilt. “Just try it, Johnny. And when you let me out – which you
will
have to do eventually – so help me God, I will walk right out that door and never look back.”

Sweet Christ, she was serious.
He was going to kill Kyle for this. Kyle was his friend, yeah, but he’d still rip his frigging head off and shove it so far up his ass he’d be able to rip it off a second time.

“What did he do to you? Did he try to...” He couldn’t even bring himself to say the words.

“He was a perfect gentleman.”

Johnny snorted. “No, really,” she insisted. “He gave me his jacket and opened the car door for me. He didn’t even kiss me goodnight.
I
had to kiss
him
.”

A red haze tinted his vision; the strangled, choking sound came out of his throat before he could suppress it. Surely he must have misheard. She had no idea the kind of fire she was playing with. 

Lina must have sensed he was one step away from making good on his threat to lock her up – he’d deal with the consequences later - because she quickly added, “It was just a little one, a tiny peck on the cheek.”

Maybe it was possible they were talking about two different people. Yeah, that had to be it. Because that sure as hell didn’t sound like the same Kyle Johnny hung out with. The Kyle he knew wouldn’t have taken a chick out on his cherry ride and he sure as hell wouldn’t have been satisfied with “a tiny peck on the cheek”.

Lina was by his side again, laying her head on his chest. She barely reached his pecs. “I know you worry about me, Johnny,” she said quietly, rubbing his back with the palm of her hand. He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down, relishing the soothing touch. As tough as he was, Lina had all the real power, able to tame the wildest of beasts with the gentle stroke of her hand. And Kyle was nothing if not exactly that – a wild beast.

“I love that you take care of me. But I’m not a little girl anymore. And I really want this.”

Ah, hell.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Johnny knew he couldn’t stop her if this was what she really wanted. He loved his sister fiercely, and couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. She had always been there for him, soothing away the hurt, believing in him when no one else had.

Didn’t mean he had to like it, though. “If he hurts you, Lina, I’ll feed him his balls for lunch.”

She chuckled against his chest. “Johnny, if he hurts me,
I’ll
feed him his balls for lunch.”

––––––––

W
hen the doorbell chimed at eight twenty-seven, Johnny opened the door. Sure as shit, it was the same Kyle.

Johnny’s big frame filled the doorway; Kyle stood tall on the stoop, his expression unreadable. They eyed each other warily.

“Kyle.”

“Johnny.”

“Something you want to tell me?” Johnny asked. Judging by the fact that Kyle did not seem surprised to see him, Johnny figured he had known who Lina was all along. The bastard clearly had a death wish.

Kyle met his gaze evenly. “I’d like to take Lina out for a ride tonight.”

If Johnny didn’t know any better, he’d swear Kyle was asking for his permission.
Son of a bitch.
 What was this, the freaking Twilight Zone? First Lina drops her bomb on him, then Kyle shows up at his fucking door acting like this is a real date?

And –
holy shit
– what if it was?

“I’ll take good care of her, Johnny,” Kyle rumbled.

The way he saw it, he had two options. One, he could break a few of his knuckles on Kyle’s jaw and drive Lina over to the convent in Dunns River. Or two, he could make Lina happy and trust Kyle to keep his word. It was a hell of a choice. He loved his sister, and when it came right down to it, respected the hell out of Kyle.

“Just a ride?”

“Yeah.”

“Got the custom?” Johnny tried not to look past him.

“Yeah. Want to check it out?”

“Hell, yeah,” said Johnny, who took a step out the door before he remembered he was supposed to be putting the fear of God into Kyle. “Hey, Kyle, man. She’s my little sister, you know?”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“She’s not like what you’re used to. She’s a good girl.”

“Yeah.”

“And if you do anything to change that, I’ll kill you, man.”

“Fair enough.”

Kyle’s easy acceptance surprised him. Had it been anyone else, Johnny would have had his doubts, but he’d known Kyle a long time. Underneath all that leather and scowl, he was a decent guy. If Kyle said he wasn’t trying to seduce Lina, then he wasn’t. Which begged the question, why was Kyle even here?

The only answer Johnny came up with didn’t seem possible. Then again, Lina had already achieved the impossible by somehow getting Kyle to take her out on his prized custom. “So... we good?”

“Yeah. We’re good.”

* * *

J
ohnny wasn’t happy, and Kyle couldn’t blame him, but at least he was being cool about the whole thing. Bringing the custom had been a stellar decision on his part; it was proving to be an effective distraction. Kyle didn’t need Johnny’s head filled with the possibilities of what
might
happen.

Nine times out of ten, sex was a foregone conclusion when Kyle decided to make time with a woman. Not so with Lina. She was his brother’s girl and his friend’s little sister, which complicated things tremendously. If he was smart, he’d hop on his bike, ride his ass out of there, and find an outlet for this ball-bluing madness.

Except he didn’t want to. Even knowing what would – and wouldn’t happen – he still preferred a moonlight ride and Lina’s company to a night of drinking and hooking-up with someone else.  And how fucked up was that?

Did he want to show Lina just how good it could be? Hell, yeah. But would he? No. He’d be going home alone, hard and aching, just like every other night this week. So why was he even here? When was the last time he made time with a woman just because he wanted to?

Lina came out a few minutes later with a backpack over her shoulder, and he forgot all of that. She was dressed for riding with slimming jeans, a soft cotton blouse – a light green to match her eyes – opened over a snug white tank, and miniature shit-kickers. She had her own leather jacket, too, hugging her curves as if it was made just for her.

He groaned. Lina in leather just took things to a whole new level of
fuck me
.  

Kyle spotted her first. Johnny was still checking out the bike, going on about something or another. Kyle’s brain took a mini-vacay there for a few seconds. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was beautiful, like a fucking angel. She didn’t walk as much as flowed. And since when had swallowing taken conscious effort?

“Stop drooling on the bike, man,” Johnny muttered out of the side of his mouth with a grimace, knocking him back into the moment.

Right
.
Get ahold of yourself, or you are going to rip the seam right out of your jeans.
How did she do that with nothing but a sway of her hips and a toss of that incredible mane?

“Ready?” he asked.
Shit
– did his voice just crack? On top of everything else, was he reliving puberty now, too?

She smiled at him, and just like that his heart pounded twice as hard, beating against the walls of his chest. “Yeah, I’m ready. If Johnny can take his hands off our ride, that is.”

“It’s a cherry bike, Lina,” her brother said in his defense, as if that explained everything.

L
ina directed Kyle to a secluded, but spectacular spot along the shoreline. Located in the mountains, the place had been formed by glaciers during the Ice Age, according to her. He’d heard about it, of course, but he’d never had a reason to see it for himself. Watersports weren’t his thing, and his light-sensitive eyes preferred darkness over bright sunshine and the reflective surface of the lake.

The full moon hung heavy and low in the sky, surrounded by more stars than he had ever seen. After pulling a blanket from her pack, Lina laid it out near a massive, canopied tree on a slight knoll overlooking the lake. The still water resembled a mirror, reflecting the sky in every detail. Acres and acres of forested lands surrounded them, with jagged mountain peaks rising up in the background. The air was cool but pleasant, blowing lightly across the surface of the lake, carrying the scents of the water, the pines, and the late-blooming honeysuckle and mountain laurel.

Celina sat down and patted the blanket beside her, almost shyly. Kyle’s heart did a little stutter thing. He rubbed his chest absently. That was happening a lot lately. Maybe he should go in for a checkup.

“How did you find this place?” Kyle asked, dropping smoothly next to her and extending his long legs.
Don’t say you were here with another man.
The unexpected plea popped into his head, surprising him.

“My father built a cabin about a mile from here,” she told him. “My family spent every summer here when I was a kid.”

“But not anymore?” he asked.

“No, not anymore,” she sighed, gazing out over the water with a wistful expression on her face.  “I haven’t been back since my parents passed.”

“Why not?”

“It’s so strange, being back in Birch Falls and not having them here. It’s different, you know? Everything looks the same, but it doesn’t
feel
the same, if that makes any sense.”

Kyle leaned back on his arms to prevent himself from wrapping her in them and making her forget anything that put that sadness in her eyes. She wasn’t looking at him, but he could still see the moisture shining there in the light of the moon. He knew that Johnny had taken over the construction company from his dad a couple of years back, but not the details behind it.

“I was away at college when it happened. They were flying down for a long weekend at the beach with some friends. One of the guys who worked for my dad had his pilot’s license, and had just gotten his own single-engine. They hit a freak storm and the plane went down. No survivors.”

“That sucks,” he said, knowing first-hand what it was like to lose your parents. He and Jamie had lost theirs to a drunk driver coming home from a New Year’s Eve celebration. He’d been sixteen at the time. Jamie had been twelve. It had changed everything.

“Yeah, it does.”

Celina leaned back, too, mirroring his pose. “After I got my degree, I did some traveling. Nothing exotic, just a few places here and there. I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back at all, but Johnny’s here. Staying with him in the house we grew up in is helping me finally deal with everything, accept that they’re gone and they’re not coming back.” She paused. “You lost your parents too, didn’t you?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah.” 

“Jamie said you were from Detroit originally.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever gone back?”

“No.”

There had never been a reason to, as far as he was concerned. The boy he’d once been was gone forever, and the only family he had left – his brother - was here. Thankfully, Lina seemed to sense he didn’t want to expand on that and didn’t ask for anything more. She shifted, and her hand inched over so that their pinky fingers touched, just barely. He wasn’t even sure she was aware of the slight contact, but he was.

“Now that I’m back, though, I’ve thought of coming back up here, staying for a long weekend or something, but Johnny says he’s too busy with the business.”

“He busts his ass.”

“I know he does, which is another reason why he needs to take a day off every now and then. He needs some downtime.”

Kyle knew exactly how Johnny got his downtime, but he wasn’t about to share that with Lina. “So why don’t you come by yourself?”

“I guess I could,” she said slowly. “There are a lot of memories there. Memories I’m not sure I want to face alone. And Johnny would probably have something to say about it, too. You probably didn’t catch it – it’s very subtle, actually, not many people would – but my brother tends to be a little overprotective sometimes.” Her mouth curved in an impish grin, and he couldn’t help but think what it would be like to kiss her at that moment.

“I did pick up on that, as a matter of fact,” he laughed. “I had to put my balls up for collateral just to take you riding with me tonight.”

“Oh my,” she said, handing him a cold beer from the pack. “I’m not sure I would have agreed to come if I had known that.”

Kyle swallowed hard. Was she flirting with him?

He twisted the top off and she took it, handing him another. She scooted closer, so that their arms were touching. Her skin was like satin. Warm, smooth satin that was giving him fiery chills up and down his spine.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” she said thoughtfully. “But it would be so much better if I had someone to share it with, you know?”

Kyle crossed one ankle over the other. It did nothing to help the ache in his groin. He should have taken care of himself earlier, but doubted it would have done much good. Nothing seemed to help quell this exceptionally powerful desire he had for Lina. He could have tossed off all day and she’d still have him ready to spill with just a look or a few words. Thing was, she never seemed to deliberately choose her words. He had the impression that they just sort of tumbled out based on whatever was going through her mind at the time.