Chapter 7:Family secrets

Mabel

The blanket lay in a puddle at our feet. The spotlight had dimmed to a soft amber glow, but it still felt like we were the only two people on earth. Adrian’s hands were still on my waist, fingers curled tight like he was afraid I’d vanish if he let go.

I couldn’t stop shaking.

He swallowed hard enough that I heard it. “Say something, Mabel.”

My voice came out small. “I’m freaking out.”

“Same.” A rough laugh escaped him. “I thought I was imagining the resemblance. Then you said your mom’s name is Claire and it hit me like a truck.”

I stared at the second button on his shirt because I couldn’t look at his face yet. “So you really remember me? Little kid Mabel with the crooked pigtails and the lisp?”

“I remember carrying you on my shoulders at the Fourth of July picnic when you were six. You kept yelling that you were taller than Daddy now.” His mouth twitched. “You still have the same eyes.”

I groaned and dropped my forehead against his chest. “This is so messed up.”

His arms came around me automatically, pulling me in. I could feel his heart racing just as fast as mine. “Yeah,” he murmured into my hair. “It really is.”

We stood there for a long minute, breathing each other in. The room smelled like melted candle wax and sex and the faint trace of my own arousal still on his fingers. I wanted to die. I also wanted to climb him like a tree.

He was the first to move. He stepped back just far enough to see my face, hands sliding up to cup my jaw. “Here’s the thing. We’re adults. No blood relation. We’ve spent maybe twenty total hours in the same room our entire lives. Legally, morally… nobody gets to tell us what this is.”

I laughed, wet and shaky. “Tell that to my mom when she finds out her brother-in-law made her daughter come in front of an audience.”

He winced. “Okay, fair. We’d have to be careful. Insanely careful.” His thumbs brushed my cheekbones. “But I need to know if you’re feeling even half of what I’m feeling right now, because I’ve been half-hard since you walked into my exam room yesterday, and after what just happened…” He blew out a breath. “I’m not noble enough to walk away unless you tell me to.”

My stomach flipped so hard I felt dizzy. “I don’t want you to walk away,” I whispered. “I just… I don’t know how to do this.”

“Me neither.” His smile was crooked, almost boyish. “But I know I want to try.”

The kiss started slow, careful, like we were both waiting for the universe to smite us. His lips brushed mine once, twice, testing. When I didn’t pull away, he groaned low in his throat and kissed me for real. It wasn’t polite. It was months (years) of pent-up want pouring out all at once. His tongue slid against mine and I made this helpless noise that would’ve embarrassed me if I’d had room for any emotion except need.

He backed me up until my spine hit the velvet table. His hands slid down to grip my hips, lifting me so I was sitting on the edge, legs parting so he could step between them. The same position we’d been in ten minutes ago, only now there was no audience, no pretense. Just us.

I clutched his shirt like I was drowning. “Adrian—”

“I know,” he rasped against my mouth. “I know.”

His hand slipped under my sweater, palm flat against my bare back, and I arched into him without thinking. He kissed down my neck, teeth scraping just enough to make me gasp. When he reached the spot where my pulse was hammering, he paused.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” he said again, voice ragged.

I answered by tugging his shirt out of his jeans and sliding my hands underneath. His skin was hot, muscles jumping under my palms. He made a broken sound and kissed me harder.

We didn’t have sex on the table. We came really, really close (his hand was under my skirt, fingers tracing the edge of my panties, my legs wrapped around his waist), but he pulled back at the last second, breathing like he’d run ten miles.

“Not here,” he said against my forehead. “Not like this. You deserve a bed and about six hours and me not thinking with my dick for once.”

I laughed, breathless and shaky. “You’re thinking with your dick right now?”

“Exclusively.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Come home with me.”

I should’ve said no. Should’ve taken the night to process the fact that the man currently hard against my thigh was technically family. Instead I heard myself say, “Okay.”

He locked up the room in record time, fingers tangled with mine the whole way to his car. The drive to his place was twenty minutes of torture (his hand on my knee, my hand on his thigh, both of us pretending to watch the road).

His house was a small Craftsman a few miles from the clinic, porch light on, leaves skittering across the driveway. The second the front door shut behind us, he had me against it, mouth on mine, hands everywhere.

“Upstairs,” he muttered between kisses. “Bed. Now.”

We didn’t make it.

Halfway up the stairs he pushed me against the wall, knee sliding between my thighs, and I ground down on instinct. He cursed, dropped to his knees right there on the landing, and shoved my skirt up to my waist.

“Adrian—”

“Tell me no,” he said, looking up at me with wild eyes. “Tell me no and we stop.”

I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.

He hooked his fingers in my panties and dragged them down my legs. Then his mouth was on me (hot, wet, perfect) and I came again in under a minute, fingers tangled in his hair, sobbing his name into the dark hallway.

When I could stand again, he carried me the rest of the way to his bedroom, laid me on the bed like I was something precious, and kissed me slow and deep while he undressed me. Every inch of skin he uncovered got worshipped (collarbone, breasts, the soft skin just inside my hipbone). By the time he finally slid inside me, I was begging.

It was slow the first time. Achingly slow. He kept stopping to kiss me, to check my eyes, to whisper things like you’re so beautiful and I’ve wanted this for longer than I should admit. When I came again, he followed right after, groaning my name like it hurt.

Afterward he pulled me on top of his chest, fingers tracing lazy patterns on my back. The room smelled like us. I was sticky and sore and blissed-out and terrified.

He broke the silence first. “So… private sessions.”

I lifted my head. “What?”

“The six-week course.” His smile was soft, sleepy, wicked. “You’re failing the public version spectacularly. I’m going to have to tutor you one-on-one.”

I snorted. “You’re expelling me for coming too hard?”

“Something like that.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Every Tuesday and Thursday night. My house. No clothes allowed after the first ten minutes.”

My whole body flushed. “That’s not how therapy works.”

“This isn’t therapy anymore.” He kissed my forehead. “This is whatever the hell we decide it is.”

I laid my head back on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow. “My mom’s going to kill us.”

“We’ll be careful,” he said. “Insanely careful. And when we’re not careful…” His hand slid down to cup my ass. “We’ll be incredible.”

I laughed into his skin, shaky and overwhelmed and stupidly happy.

Outside, the wind rattled the windows. Inside, I fell asleep wrapped around the one man I was never supposed to want, and I didn’t regret a second of it.