“Darlin’, I’m no stranger.”

“You’re going to be if you keep calling me that.” She closed the distance between us.

I bent down like I was going to kiss her, but instead, I grabbed her legs and wrapped them around my waist. She latched on to me as I carried her into her bedroom.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, sounding only half-irritated.

“You keep talking back to me, woman, and I’ll have to put you in your place.”

Ari laughed at me. “Put me in my place? And where exactly would that be?”

“Do you want me to show you?” I asked, sliding my hand down her thigh.

She squirmed and tried to get out of my grasp, but I had her secured against me. Her eyes fluttered closed, and I chuckled softly at how easy she was to rile up. Her reaction was only turning me on. I’d be happy to show her exactly where her place was.

Lowering her until she was resting right over my dick, I bounced her up and down over it.

Her eyes flew open. “Grant—”

I kissed her lips to hold back whatever comment she had been about to throw my way. “That’s your place, Princess.”

Her pupils were dilated, and I could tell she was fighting with herself for the right reaction. She bit down on her lip to stop herself from spitting out whatever she was thinking.

“Come on, just admit it. You want my dick, and you want it bad.”

She flushed at my vulgarity, but she didn’t deny it.

I smirked and leaned forward to speak huskily into her ear, “Don’t worry. I’m going to give you what you want.”

Ari cleared her throat and hopped down from where I’d been holding her. Her body was on fire, and all I wanted to do was fuel the flames. She turned her cute, little ass toward me to try to compose herself. I took the opportunity to admire her soft body. Fuck me, I want to bury myself in that.

“You seem pretty confident in yourself.”

“When am I not?”

She finally faced me again, a mask of composure. “That’s a fantastic question.”

“I’ve got to go soon,” I said, inching toward her again.

“Oh, right, Sydney.”

“I just have one question.” I hooked my fingers into the loops of her jeans.

“What’s that?”

“Are you bringing something sexy for me?”

“That’s your question?” she asked, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, babe, I want to see you in some lingerie. Fuck, I’d die happy.”

“Even if I brought some with me, how do you know you’d even get to see it?” she asked, teasing me.

“Who else would you show it off to?”

“I thought I’d wear it to the show and see if I got any attention.”

The glint in her eye was fucking hot as hell. The very thought of someone else seeing my girl in lingerie got my blood boiling.

“Oh, you’d get some attention all right,” I said, yanking on her belt loops. “You’d be getting my dick spreading you open. I’d let every one of those fuckers who paid you any attention see who you belonged to.”

She rolled her pretty blue eyes at me. “Voyeur much?”

“I just want to be inside you.”

“I know.” Her tough-girl routine wavered, and she smiled up at me innocently. “I…I want you, too.”

“So forward, Princess. If we had more time, I’d let you have your way with me. Unfortunately, I have to pick up my crazy-ass cousin. You’ll have to wait to ravage my body.”

“Whatever will I do with myself in the mean time.”

“Masturbate while you think about me. It helps,” I said with a wink.

“Oh my God, why do I even like you?” She pushed away from my chest, but only made it two steps back before I had my arms around her again.

“Because you can’t resist my charm.”

“Is that what you call this obnoxious, persistent Neanderthal routine?”

“It worked on you.”

Ari shook her head and shoved me toward the door. “Go see your cousin. We’ll discuss your charm later.”

I arrived at the Newark airport at exactly eleven o’clock. Sydney’s plane was late, and I had to idle while she picked up her three enormous bags from baggage claim. She suckered some poor guy into carting everything out to my truck. He practically salivated when she smiled at him. I knew chicks had reacted to me like this, but seeing a dude act this way was fucking pathetic. Grow some balls.

After hauling all three bags into the bed of my truck, the guy nervously asked for her number.

“Oh, sorry. I’m here with my boyfriend,” Sydney said with a smile, pointing at my truck.

That was her go-to excuse. Sydney had had as many boyfriends as I’d had girlfriends. Well, I guessed I had one more than her now.

She hopped into my truck in the shortest fucking skirt I’d ever seen, not giving two shits if anyone could see what was underneath. Her chest was on full display in some tiny top, and she was in fucking cowboy boots. My born-and-bred Jersey cousin in motherfucking cowboy boots.

“Hey, cuz,” she said.

“Are you shopping in the kids’ section again, Syd?”

“Yeah, do you like it?” She uncrossed and crossed her legs.

“You look like a tramp.”

Sydney rolled her brown eyes to the ceiling. “Don’t start this shit with me again,” she said dismissively. “If one of your slutbag groupies wore this outfit, you’d fucking cream your panties.”

“You are not one of my slutbag groupies though. You’re my cousin—my younger, not-even-legal-to-drink, don’t-want-to-know-what-you’re-fucking cousin.” I shook my head. “I can’t take you to the Poconos wearing that. You’ll give every guy within a mile radius a hard-on.”

“Ever think that might be the point?”

“Oh, I fucking know that’s the point.”

“Then, shut the fuck up,” she said, jabbing me in the ribs.

“Will you just try to behave this weekend?”

I knew it was a lost cause to even ask, but I had to do it. She was still my baby cousin.

“Oh, Grant, I’ll try. I’ll try really, really hard, but sometimes, guys come on to me, and I just want to blow them. What’s a girl to do?” She batted her eyelashes at me.

There was no reasoning with her. We were two peas in a pod. We always had been while growing up. That meant I needed to let her know about Ari before she heard it from someone else. Sydney needed to get the jokes out on me. I didn’t want them getting back to Ari. Even though I was close with Sydney, I wasn’t sure how to tell her that I had a girlfriend. It had never happened before.

“Syd, before we get there, I need to talk to you about something.”

Her ears perked up. “Has Vin been asking about me?”

“What? Well, yeah, he has, but this isn’t about him.” I blew out a quick breath and just went for it. “I have a girlfriend.”

Sydney burst out laughing. She kicked her feet up onto the dash and leaned back. “Funny. That’ll be the day.”

“No, Syd, I’m serious.” I ventured forward. “Her name is Aribel, and she’s going to be at the resort this weekend.”

“A girlfriend?” she said the word as if it were new to her vocabulary. “But…you don’t do girlfriends.”

“Nah, I don’t, but she’s different.”

“Who the fuck are you? Are you sure that you’re my cousin?” she asked. “Where did we grow up? What street did you find me on when I fell off my bike in the sixth grade? How many doughnuts did we eat that one time before we both thought we were going to throw up?”

“Point Pleasant. Carter. Lucky number thirteen,” I fired back. “Still me.”