My Cone and Only Read online

  Wyatt was the only one I trusted enough to do any of the advanced swing steps with. I loved the athletic thrill of executing the moves, but more than that, I loved the opportunity to feel Wyatt’s hands all over me—not to mention all the tantalizing, exhilarating ways our bodies came into contact.

  My heart pounded as he lifted me into his arms. I had a split second to enjoy the sensation of being cradled against his chest before he bounced me, and I scissored my legs around his neck. He bounced me again with my thigh resting on his shoulder as he flipped me over in his arms, cradling me to his chest once more before setting me down.

  There was no other man I’d be willing to do this with. It wasn’t just the intimacy of the positions, it was the act of placing myself entirely in his trust, relying on him to hold me up and keep me safe—like Wyatt always had.

  He spun me out, and when I spun back to him he lifted my left leg, his right arm under my back as he swung me up and into the air. I draped my thigh over his biceps as we whirled, then he dipped me down low to the floor again, my head still spinning when those piercing blue eyes focused on me before he swung me upright again and my boots hit the floor.

  I nearly stumbled, but Wyatt held me steady until I’d found my balance, knowing instinctively when to let me go. As soon as I’d recovered, he spun me again, but this time his right arm wrapped around my hips, pulling my arm behind my back. He stepped back and bent down, scooping me up and flipping me upside down and over his shoulder.

  While I was flying through the air, my perception narrowed to the feel of Wyatt’s hand sliding up my thigh and the way my breasts were pressed against his arm. Then my feet hit the floor with a thump, and his hand grabbed onto mine, his strong grip grounding me as I found my footing.

  His eyes met mine again, flashing with mischief, and I saw his mouth twitch. I readied myself for something even more challenging, but instead he clasped both my hands and rotated me toward him. Lifting his left arm over my head, he curled it around my neck before lowering me back into a simple kissing dip.

  Except it had never been a simple move for me. Not with Wyatt, with his face so close to mine, our lips nearly touching and his arm tucked around my neck in a dangerously intimate position. Every time we did it, I couldn’t help wondering if he was actually going to kiss me—or if I’d finally crack and kiss him this time.

  His eyes bored into mine as he lowered me toward the floor, his breath hot on my lips as his hair fell forward, curtaining his face and narrowing the world to just the two of us. I was surrounded by him. Enveloped by his heat and the scent of sweat mingling with his cologne. We were so close, I swore I could hear his heart beating in his chest.

  I sucked in an unsteady breath as my eyes involuntarily dropped to his mouth. His lips parted, and something clenched deep in the pit of my stomach.

  Both his hands squeezed mine, and he lifted me back up into a standing position. Letting go of my left hand, he spun me away from him like a top. With our arms extended and his hand grasping mine, his gaze once again homed in on me.

  Slowly, I became aware of people clapping and whistling around us. Not for the first time, we’d made quite a spectacle.

  Wyatt spun me back into a basic dancing frame and led us into the flow of couples circling the floor again. “That was fun.”

  “Yeah.” My heart was still trying to beat its way out of my chest. Why did I do this to myself? Every. Damn. Time.

  His smile softened, shedding some of its usual cockiness. “You’re my favorite partner, you know that, Andie?”

  I looked away, my stomach twisting painfully. He didn’t mean what I wanted him to mean. He only meant for dancing. That was as close as he’d ever allow me to get to him. The rest of him was reserved for all the other women who managed to catch his eye.

  It reminded me what we’d been talking about before, and how eager he’d been to change the subject. My gaze returned to his face, narrowing. “Has something been keeping you busy?”

  It was as close as I would ever come to asking straight out if he’d been seeing someone. We didn’t talk about his love life much, which I was grateful for. It was bad enough that in a town this size I couldn’t avoid noticing the parade through his bedroom. Hearing about it directly from his lips would have been too much.

  “Me?” He gave an innocent shrug. “I’m always busy.”

  He was about the least busy person I knew. Instead of living off his family’s money, he took handyman jobs to support himself—but only as much as he needed to pay for his weed, beer, and shithole apartment. On top of that, he played occasional gigs at a few bars around town with the band he’d formed with some of his high school buddies. I highly doubted that both of Wyatt’s “jobs” put together came close to a forty-hour workweek.

  Which meant he just didn’t want to tell me what he’d been up to. Fair enough. If he’d been spending more time than usual with someone, I didn’t actually want to hear about it. I already had a sick feeling in my stomach just imagining the possibility.

  When the day finally came that someone managed to make Wyatt fall in love, my heart was going to break into pieces.

  The song ended and Wyatt let go of me to clap for the band. “Thanks for the dance. I’ll let you get back to your friends now.” Then he started to walk away.

  “Wyatt,” I said, and he stopped, just like I knew he would, spinning on the smooth floor to face me again.

  His eyebrows tilted, his forehead creasing slightly, and he lifted a hand to push his hair back from his face. I took a second to drink in the sight of him. The layer of stubble that covered his jaw. The languid cant to his hips. The way his jeans hugged his thighs.

  When I’d looked my fill I said, “You’re my favorite partner too.”

  For a second, his smile seemed to freeze in place, and he blinked at me the way Kaylee had blinked at him earlier. Then he seemed to come back to himself, and his lips twitched at the corners. Without another word, he sauntered away.

  Straight to another woman, no doubt.

  I didn’t know what I’d expected him to say. It wasn’t like he was going to suddenly profess his undying love for me because we danced well together.

  If anything was ever going to happen between us, it would have happened long before now. Maybe there’d been a window once and I’d missed it. More likely, he’d never seen me as anything other than a surrogate sister.

  I turned my back so I wouldn’t have to see which direction Wyatt headed and which girl he went to after me. There was a simple enough solution to my problem, at least temporarily.

  I needed to find my own company.

  Someone who could make me forget Wyatt King, at least for one night.

  2

  Wyatt

  It took all my effort to walk away from Andie Lockhart.

  I always had to force myself to walk away from her, and each time I did, it got a little harder. You’d think it would get easier after all these years. You’d think I’d have so much practice it would be a fucking piece of cake. Except it was the opposite of that. I was like that Sisyphus guy pushing the rock up the hill. Instead of me getting stronger, my rock kept getting heavier each time.

  So I distracted myself the only way I knew how. I headed straight to the bar and ordered two shots of whiskey, downing them both in quick succession. Once I was good and drunk, I’d find myself a woman to take my mind off my best friend’s little sister.

  The bartender gave me a knowing smile when I ordered another shot with a beer chaser. Her name was Mariana and I’d taken her home once, a few years back. Or maybe she’d taken me home. My memories of that night were fuzzy.

  I considered the possibility of a repeat engagement, but she probably wouldn’t get off work until three. I wasn’t in the mood to wait that long tonight.

  My dilemma solved itself when Brianna Thorne sidled up to the bar next to me and ordered herself a beer. She’d made her interest pretty clear earlier when she’d stuck her tongue in my ear. It wouldn�
��t take much effort to close the deal, which was exactly what I needed tonight.

  I leaned over, letting my hand skim the small of Brianna’s back, and told Mariana to put her beer on my tab. We took our drinks over to one of the nearby two-tops, and I pretended to listen as Brianna chattered about her cosmetology classes.

  While she talked about barbering and beard trimming techniques, my gaze wandered away in search of Andie. I found her almost immediately, my eyes seeming to know exactly which direction to look, like she’d been implanted with a tracking device wired directly into my brain. She was talking to two dudes I didn’t recognize. City boys down from Austin, by the look of them. Tourists checking out the local wildlife. Andie laughed, her dimpled cheeks pinking beneath her freckles, and one of them touched her arm.

  I grabbed Brianna’s hand. “Let’s dance.”

  She wasn’t as good a dancer as Andie, but then no one was. Brianna didn’t have Andie’s athletic physique or self-assurance. She was slimmer and more delicate, despite being taller, and too busy playing coy to match Andie’s quickness.

  Brianna wasn’t as funny as Andie either. Or as smart. Andie was way too fucking smart for me. Smart enough to skip a year of elementary school when I’d almost been held back a year. After graduating close to the top of her class, she’d gone off to college in Huntsville and come back an ecosystems biologist. Then she’d earned herself a master’s degree while working at the state park nearby, and now she taught a class at Bowman—the same local college I’d dropped out of.

  Brianna was much more my speed than Andie. She kept up with me fine on the dance floor, but I didn’t try any fancy moves with her. I moved on autopilot, my gaze locking onto Andie and her new city friends with every revolution around the floor.

  She wasn’t wrong that I hadn’t been around much. I’d been avoiding her intentionally, and I hated that she’d noticed. But then she always noticed everything. That girl saw through me like no one else alive ever had. She saw me so well, I had to be careful around her, or she’d figure out my secret. And I definitely couldn’t have that.

  I couldn’t let her know that I’d been half in love with her since I was seventeen years old.

  Me and Andie’s brother Josh, we’d been best friends since first grade, when we were assigned seats next to each other in homeroom. King and Lockhart—lucky for me, K and L came next to each other in the alphabet, or my life might have taken a whole different path.

  Josh and I were inseparable growing up. I’d spent almost as much time at his parents’ goat farm as I did at my own house. More, after my mom died. Josh’s family accepted me as one of their own and made me feel more wanted than my own father ever had. Josh’s little sister Andie had been tagging along with us for as long as I could remember, but Andie was cool, so I’d never minded. Even as a kid she was tough as nails and game for anything, with a nose for mischief almost as finely honed as mine. As far as I’d been concerned, she was just one of the guys.

  Until I hit puberty and discovered girls—or more accurately, girls started to discover me. I guess I went a little girl crazy after that. What could I say? I loved the attention.

  I loved the way their eyes followed me when I walked through a room. I loved the way they couldn’t keep their hands off me. I loved how smooth their skin was and how sweet they smelled. I loved kissing them and discovering they tasted even sweeter. I loved their soft parts and their hard parts and all their parts in between.

  I just really loved girls, okay?

  I was so busy loving girls, I might have been a little slow to notice Andie was one too. She was two years younger, so the girls in my class had a head start on her. But damn, when she caught up, she caught up with a vengeance.

  I don’t even remember when I first started to notice. It must have happened gradually. But at some point, my awareness of her changed. The way I thought about her changed. The things I wanted to do with her changed.

  Fortunately, as much of a dumbass as I was back then, I was smart enough to keep my hands off her. I knew instinctively it wouldn’t be cool. You didn’t hit on your best friend’s baby sister.

  Josh had always been hella protective of Andie. Because she’d skipped first grade, she was only a year behind us in school and younger than all her classmates. In fifth grade, Josh got in trouble for getting in a fight with some dickhead fourth-grade boy who’d pushed Andie down on the playground. In eighth grade I helped him fill Caroline Tingle’s locker with dead cockroaches after she shit-talked Andie to a bunch of her seventh-grade friends. Then there was that time, senior year of high school, when Bradley Squires ditched Andie at the homecoming dance to stick his tongue down Sienna McElwee’s throat. It was the closest I’d ever seen Andie come to crying, and the first time I’d ever seen murder in Josh’s eyes. The two of us cornered Bradley before school the next Monday, and without even laying a finger on him, Josh scared him so bad he nearly pissed himself.

  By that point, I’d been deputized as Josh’s second when it came to looking out for Andie. That was what you were supposed to do for family. You stuck up for them and watched their backs. You made sure everyone else knew there’d be hell to pay if anyone came for your people. And the Lockharts were as much my people as anyone.

  Nobody was allowed to fuck with Andie. Nobody.

  I knew exactly how fast Josh’s temper would turn on me if I ever defied that inviolable commandment. Every time I’d made an only sort of joking comment about asking Andie out—or so much as hinted that my interest might lie in that direction—Josh’s eyes had gone hard and cold, reminding me I’d find no forgiveness if I ever crossed the line.

  Which I never planned to do.

  Josh and Andie were the two best friends I had. They meant more to me than some of my blood family did. If I ever acted on my baser urges with Andie, I’d lose Josh’s friendship and probably Andie’s too.

  Josh didn’t think I was good enough for her, and he was right. If I’d been her brother, I wouldn’t have wanted a guy like me dating her either. I didn’t trust myself not to hurt her, and if I ever hurt either of them, I’d never forgive myself.

  That was why she remained my one unbroken rule. The one line I’d never dared to cross and never would.

  But I couldn’t stop torturing myself. I couldn’t stay away from her. Couldn’t stop thinking about her and craving her attention. Couldn’t resist imagining how it’d feel to tangle my fingers in her sleek, brown ponytail and tug her head back for a kiss. Couldn’t help the ache I felt every time I laid eyes on her.

  Dancing was the closest I ever got to be to her. The one way I could enjoy touching her without ruining everything. I loved it, even though it nearly killed me every time. The feel of her hand in mine. The warmth of her body, so goddamn close. Her strong thighs and generous hips brushing against me. The smell of her skin when it started to heat up—which wasn’t a smell I should have known by heart, but thanks to years of dancing together, I did.

  But the thing I loved most about it was the way she followed my lead, not just unquestioningly, but so reflexively it was like we were one person instead of two. Like she was an extension of my body, and I was an extension of hers.

  It wasn’t anything I’d experienced with anyone else. And let me tell you how badly I wanted to find out if that connection between us extended to the bedroom.

  But that wasn’t something I’d ever get to do, so I danced with her instead.

  Dancing was also the only time that girl ever did what I wanted without giving me shit or mouthing off. She was the kind of woman who could start an argument in an empty house. Not that I didn’t love bantering with her, because I fucking did. I got off on it big time when she smarted off at me, which probably said something twisted as hell about my psychological profile. But I didn’t care, as long as she kept looking at me with that fire in her chestnut eyes.

  I was a glutton for punishment. I always had been. Always doing shit I knew would get me in trouble. Maybe sometimes doing it becaus
e it would get me in trouble.

  Yeah, there was definitely more than one kink in that psych profile of mine.

  So I couldn’t just leave Andie alone altogether. I had to see her. I had to keep her in my life. I had to dance with her.

  I had to push myself to the very edge of my self-control again and again.

  And then I had to walk away, every time.

  After one dance, I led Brianna back to the bar for more shots and more beers. I needed to be a lot drunker than I was. Fast.

  By that point, Andie and the arm-toucher had moved to a table not too far away, and the arm-toucher’s wingman had peeled off. I positioned myself so Andie was in my line of sight, just over Brianna’s shoulder.

  That whole glutton-for-punishment thing was a powerful compulsion.

  Brianna was talking about hair again, and she reached up with both hands to comb her fingers through mine as she described how she’d cut it if I let her. My eyes flicked involuntarily to Andie, and I caught her watching as Brianna fondled my head. Our gazes locked for a second, and she wrinkled her nose at me before turning back to her tourist friend.

  “How about another round of shots?” I said to Brianna. Untangling her fingers from my hair, I headed to the bar again.

  “You might want to pace yourself,” Mariana said, raising an eyebrow when I ordered another round of shots and chasers for me and Brianna, plus an extra shot for me to drink on the spot.

  “This is me pacing myself,” I replied with a wink, and she laughed, shaking her head as she set out three shot glasses.