In Heat for My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: Nobody Can Smell It

Judd didn't say anything for the whole drive into town.

He drove with both hands on the wheel this time.

At the stoplight on Main Street, he looked over at me once, and the light turned green, and somebody behind us honked.

I laughed.

He didn't.

My stair light was working again.

I'd fixed the breaker on Sunday.

He followed me up the steps, and the old wood groaned under him, and I unlocked my door with fingers that wouldn't quite work.

Then we were inside.

My room was very small with him in it.

He had to duck under the bulb cord.

He stood in the middle of the floor with his coat on and looked around at the narrow bed, the hot plate, the sink, my hard hat on the chair with NEW across the front.

"This is it?" he said.

"This is it."

"It's yours," he said.

It wasn't a question.

I shut the door.

We stood there for a second with four feet of floor between us.

"Judd," I said. "If we do this..."

"I know."

"No, listen. If anyone finds out, it's the household law. You know it better than me."

"A mating inside the Alpha's house," he said. "Exile."

"I'm already exiled. You're not."

"I know what I'd lose."

"You'd lose the mountain."

He took his coat off and laid it over the chair on top of my hard hat.

"I've been heir since I was born," he said. "Nobody ever asked me if I wanted it. You're the first thing I ever picked for myself."

My throat closed up.

"And it's not the rut," he said. "I need you to hear that. The rut's done until spring. I don't touch anyone in a rut, Liesel. Not once in ten years. This is just me."

"I know it's just you."

"Do you want this?"

"Yes."

He didn't move.

"Say it," I said. "You've been wanting to anyway."

The corner of his mouth went up.

"I'm done pretending I don't want you."

"I've been sure for four years," I said. "Yes. I want you. Tonight. Here."

He crossed the four feet in one step.

He pulled the bulb cord.

The room went dark except for the streetlight cutting through the window.

I couldn't see his face.

I could feel him.

His hands found my jacket first.

He pushed it off my shoulders and let it drop.

Then his mouth was on mine and he was backing me toward the bed.

My calves hit the frame.

"Four years," he said against my lips. "Every dinner. Every argument. You'd look at me across the table with that face."

"What face?"

"Like you hated me." His fingers went to the buttons of my flannel. "And I'd think, she wants me so bad she can't breathe."

"Arrogant."

"Tell me I'm wrong." He got the flannel open and shoved it off my arms. His hands found the hem of my tank top. "Tell me you weren't sitting there wet for me."

I grabbed his belt.

"I was sitting there planning how I'd fix the generator," I said. "And you were showing up late to everything."

"To watch you." He pulled the tank top over my head. The cold air hit my bare skin and I shivered. "Liesel. I've been showing up late for four years because I couldn't walk into a room you were in without needing to know where you were standing first."

His mouth dropped to my collarbone.

My head went back.

I got his belt open.

"Your boots," I said.

He laughed against my skin and sat on the edge of the bed to pull them off.

I stood between his knees in just my jeans and socks.

He looked up at me.

"You're shaking."

"I'm not."

"You are." He pulled me down into his lap, thighs straddling his. His hands slid up my bare back. "Cold?"

"No."

"Good." He kissed me again, slower this time, and I ground down against his cock through his jeans and he groaned into my mouth. "You know how many times I've imagined this?"

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