Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers, #1)

by Roxie Noir

I keep reminding myself over and over not to judge a book by its cover. People are invariably deeper and more complex than they seem at first.

It’s still too polite, too nice, because it’s been bred into me since I was old enough to say goodness gracious.

The hell was I thinking, a woman walking alone at night?

“Yes, sure, a life companion sounds nice, but at what expense, Adeline? At what expense?

I’m furious, and I want him, and I’m furious that I want him.

I want to knock him over and tear his shirt off and leave claw marks, and more than anything I want him to wake up tomorrow and reconsider what I’m capable of.

The softness of her lips paired with the brutal way she kissed me back. Her hands in my hair, hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, the way she grabbed me like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to rip me apart or hold me.

Birds will still sing. Rivers will still flow. The world will keep on turning.

Besides, dear God Violet is pretty when she’s mad. She’s pretty all the time, but anger sparks something in her eyes that makes her light up like a human flame, burning and flickering from the inside, dangerous and alluring all at once.

This feels dangerous in a way it never has before. Her anger’s always been dangerous, of course, but now there’s something about it that shakes me to the core. Violet makes me unsteady. She makes it feel like the ground under my feet is treacherous, like I’m exploring new and uncharted territory. I don’t hate the feeling.

But I can’t stop. If she’s the flame, I’m the moth, and despite myself, I want to see her...

I feel small, immaterial. I feel rooted like a tree, stuck in the ground, doomed to stay in the same spot from sunrise to sunset every day until I wither and die.

Before I go in, I take one last look at the stars. They’re bright out here, and even though they’re so far away, somehow they feel warm, friendly.

I’m blindsided by a sudden, irresistible thought: I want to leave here and take her with me. I want us to leave Sprucevale behind. I want to bring her somewhere new, somewhere exciting where she’s never been. I want to take her breath away and make her giddy with happiness, just like this.

“Touch it,” I say without thinking, the words borne of nothing but the desire to feel her skin on mine.

She still gets to me, but something’s changed. It feels like she’s lifting up my top layer and peeking underneath, examining, critiquing. It feels like she’s seeing me raw and naked. Exposed. The strange thing is that I don’t hate it.

I’m starting to like being seen the way only she can see me.

I want to see if she smells like home, like pine and dirt and rocks, or whether she smells new and wholly different.

“It’s the feeling that everything around you is slightly wrong and you can’t fix it,” I say, still staring at her. “It’s a bone-deep desire to bury yourself in the familiar.” She turns and looks at me, her face unreadable. “It’s wanting what you already know and can’t have,” I finish.

Besides, there’s no way in hell I could share a woman I like. I’d lose my damn mind.

No one else has ever looked at me this way, and I hope they never do.

I kiss him. It’s the wrong thing to do for about a thousand reasons, but it feels like walking out of the shade and into the sunlight, that warm full-body bliss.

I’m a puddle of desire, wet as hell.

I climb sky-high. I’m trying to tear Eli apart just to get more of him, more of him faster and harder and deeper until I can’t stand it anymore.

Violet leans down to kiss me when she’s finished. Right now she’s all softness and warmth, her prickles and hard edges gone. She’s willing and molten, practically gooey in my arms.

Tingles rush over my skin because we’re in public, because I like the way everything he does feels, because Eli feels like driving a pickup truck too fast over a narrow bumpy road, like every swerve and jostle might be the one that does me in.

This is dangerous. It’s dangerous the way drugs are dangerous, because it feels too good. It feels warm and right, soothing, like there’s a deeply tangled piece of me coming untwisted in this moment. It feels like the world outside my Bronco has stopped so that we can be here, together, warm and safe. But getting drunk feels good. Cocaine feels good. Heroin feels good, and everyone knows those are dangerous. I ignore the danger and don’t move.

Words have power. Labels have power, and right now, it all lies with me. I can name what I want and form reality.

“Does it matter what I want if it runs counter to reality?”

It’s not sweet and it’s not gentle, but my God, it’s satisfying.

I want him. I want him like I’ve never wanted anything before: I want to be taken, ravished. I want him to open me up and write his name on the inside of my skin.

We fuck. We don’t sleep together, we don’t bang, and we sure as hell don’t make love. We’re on the floor of a barn and this is fucking, pure and raw and simple.

It’s good. It’s nice. It’s better than nice; it’s a thousand things that I don’t want to admit to myself. It’s enough to make me wish that I was someone else, or that she was. It’s enough to make me wish this could actually work.

what if this was really what it feels like it could be

A quick, sharp pang of jealousy spikes in my chest, but I banish it.

I kept moving because nothing was ever like I thought it would be. Nothing interesting stays interesting. Everywhere has the same problems after a while.”

I force my mind to quiet. None of this bears thinking about it. It simply is, and that needs to be good enough.

maybe you don’t worry about what you think she deserves or what she’s earned. Just be kind because you like her and everyone deserves kindness sometimes.”

I’ve been holding onto anger like it’s my last remaining possession.

Violet, it’s okay to feel however you feel. Everyone’s wrong sometimes. It’s not that bad

It’s hard to change, period, and it’s even harder to believe that other people have changed.”

“But I want to be someone you can always trust. I want to always have your back. I want to always be there, behind you, and I want to be so constant you never have to think about whether I’m yours or not. I just am. I’m there. I’m there and I always am and you never have to wonder whether I’d hurt you, and can you believe I rehearsed this?” he asks.

“You’re it, Violet. You’re all there is for me. It’s you or a life of austere hermitude. Let me be yours.”

That night, I just hold her. It feels important, somehow, just being there. Just being with her. Just being hers.

She whispers my name like it’s a prayer and she whispers it like it’s a curse, and I never did know which I prefer.

I want her hard and fast and deep. I want to make my body a part of hers and I want to never let go.

This is love. I’ve known it for a while but the understanding flashes through me again as I move inside her, as I feel her body underneath me and worship it with my own. It’s love. It’s dirty and rough, physical and tangible, but it’s love. The way I need her like this is love. The way I feel her in my soul is love. The way she says my name, the way she moves, the way she shudders and moans and says come inside me is love. It’s hard. It’s deep. It’s ruthless, raw, primal and needy, but it’s ours and it’s love.