The Pact (The McGregor Brothers, #1)

by Karina Halle

I wanted Steph. My best friend. She was my baby blue and I was her cowboy.

“I’d give her up for you,” I tell her, staring at her relentlessly until she’s forced to meet my eyes again, if just for a second. “I’d give up everything for you.”

I also wish I could tell her that she is my type. My only type.

“But I do know, that things would be better if they had worked out differently.” I swallow and look her in the eye. “For both of us.”

“That felt like you, baby blue,” he says. “And it felt good.”

“That was more than just a dare,” he murmurs and as he speaks, his voice is so rough and low that I can’t help the shivers down my spine nor the heat between my legs. “That was real. That was something. Tell me you felt something, that you felt what I felt.” “What did you feel?” I whisper. He runs a thumb across my lips. “I felt you. The you I’ve always wanted.”

“Isn’t that the best person to want? The person that knows you inside and out. The person who has seen you at your ugliest and most beautiful and still wants to be with you. The person who believes in you and has your back, no matter what.” Then his smile fades and his brow furrows. “You’ve always been more than a friend to me, Steph. Always. You have no idea how I’ve felt, how I still feel about you.”

“Do you feel that?” his voice is rough as he presses himself against me, stealing my breath. “That’s how hard I am for you. All the fucking time.”

“I want you to know that everything I told you, I meant. I want you and I’ve always wanted you. Not anyone else.”

“Yes. I did. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t pretend.” “Pretend what?” she asks and I can barely hear her soft voice above the noise of the bar. “That I want nothing more than to put you on your back, on this table, and show you what it’s like to really get fucked.”

He goes on, leaning in again. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

“Aye,” he says, “I know I don’t. But it’s the truth. Do you know how long I’ve waited to tell you the truth? I’ve jacked off every day this week thinking about your perfect lips around my cock.”

“One minute we’re just friends and the next…” “The next I’m kissing you. And I realize I’ve been a fool for not doing it sooner.”

He leans in as if to tell me a secret. “I want nothing more than to get you out of here and bring you back to my place,” he murmurs, his voice so rough and dangerously low. “I’m going to take my time, slowly peeling off your shirt, your bra, kiss your nipples until they are so hard that you’re begging me to bite them. Then I’ll take off your jeans, inch by torturous inch, enjoying the show of your thighs before I reach your panties. I bet they’re ridiculously wet. Even right now, I bet they are soaked. I bet they’d taste good too. Then I’m going to fuck your wet pussy so good that you’ll wonder how you survived this long without me.”

I want to believe him so badly. I need to believe him. “What if you lose me?” He smiles at me, his grip hard. “Then I’ll just hold on tighter.”

“I’m going to relish every inch of your body until you’re begging for release. Then, I’m going to fuck you so hard, so good, that you’ll still feel me inside you days later.”

“You feel like honey,” he murmurs, biting down my lip before he groans again as he pushes into the hilt and holds it there for a few, torturous seconds. “So warm, so perfect. You’re so fucking perfect.” He pulls away to look at me “I can’t believe I have you.”

“Nine years. I’ve been waiting nine years for this. Nine years to finally have you the way I’ve always needed you.”

“And now that I’ve had you,” he says softly, his fingertip wiping away a tear that I didn’t know had escaped, “I want nothing else.”

I just want to be everything to her. I want to be the best and her only. I want to make her want me, crave me, yearn for me, all the fucking time. I want her to know what it’s like to want and I want to know what it’s like to be wanted by her.

I want to be the only man who witnesses that look. I want it to be mine forever.

“What are you smiling at?” she smirks from under me. “You,” I tell her, refusing to wipe the grin from my face. “The answer will always be you.”

“And you’re my girlfriend.” He reaches across and picks my hand off the stick shift. He kisses my knuckles gently. “But really, you’re my everything. And there’s nothing that will change that.”

Sometimes I wonder if I’m falling in love with her. Sometimes I wonder how long I can pretend I’m not.

“I think I’m losing myself,” I whisper to her after we’ve come, our bodies naked, sweaty and sated, limbs draped over limbs, hands holding onto hands. My throat feels thick, my breath heavy, my words weigh a ton. “Every time I’m inside you, with you, I think I lose a little bit more.”

“In the end you might have all my pieces,” I tell her. “Please be gentle with them.”

“Linden,” she says and her voice sounds like snow. “Please be gentle with me.”

I begin and then suddenly everything I was about to say – that one simple phrase – is stripped from me. I can’t continue. I don’t just love Linden, it is so much more than that. It’s something beyond words, beyond such a common, every day thing. You see ‘I love you’ written everywhere and I’m suddenly struck at how it’s just not enough. It doesn’t describe how I feel.

“Linden. There is a space in my chest that I’ve never noticed before. It’s like, all this time, I’ve had a whole other heart in there and that heart holds a whole other world. I never really noticed it because it was hidden. It wasn’t activated. It wasn’t shining and so I couldn’t see it. But now it is.” A tear trickles down my face but I don’t wipe it away. “You’ve made it shine, Linden. That new heart, that new world, it’s all you. I feel like it takes up every inch of my body, like I’m blooming each day. You’re in me and I can’t hide it or contain it or ignore it. You blind me. You are me.” I take in a deep breath. “I guess I’m trying to say that I love you.”

“And because no one has ever told me,” he goes on quietly, “I never had anyone to tell. I didn’t really know what love was because no one defined it for me. I only knew what it wasn’t. But you, Steph, you’ve always been different. You’ve had my heart from day one. James saw you first but I can guarantee you had my heart before you had his. I’ve never got to tell you this, because I kept this love to myself. If no one would share with me, I wouldn’t share with them. I was a greedy fucker.” He pauses. “But I loved you. Never as a friend. Always as something more. From the moment you walked into the bar, you owned the word and what it meant for me. I prayed and I dreamed that one day I would get to tell you myself. That no matter how you felt, I would tell you that I loved you and nothing could change that. That it was mine to give to you.” He inhales deeply and says, “And so, I love you, baby blue. I am in love with you. You are love to me. And I’m honored I’m finally able to tell you.”

“Speak for yourself,” I tell him. “We both took the roundabout way to say three words.” “But sometimes those words aren’t enough,” he says, kissing my hand. “No, they aren’t. But you are.” That whole new heart inside me is growing. I don’t think I could ever make it stop.

“I love you,” I tell her. I grab her face in my hands and peer deep into her eyes. “I love you so much. And these words still aren’t enough.”

She cries when she comes and I feel like I’ve given her every part of me and I never want it back. It’s hers to keep.

I’d never experienced it before. I hope I never do again. And the funny thing is, I know I won’t. Because I won’t ever give my heart to anyone else. It belonged to Stephanie. It always will. And because she has it, I am without one.

I leave my heart in San Francisco.

“No. Not this pain. The pain I caused when I left. I had your love and I threw it away, like it was worth nothing when it was worth everything. I broke my own fucking heart and I broke yours. Every day it feels like there’s another crack inside me and no matter how much I ignore it, it’s not fucking healing. It’s not getting better. Steph...baby blue…I’m so fucking sorry. I ruined everything we had.” He closes his eyes and nods to himself. “I deserve this.”

“Together we were the best. That’s why it hurts so fucking much.”

“Please don’t go,” he says hoarsely, trying to hold me to him. “I need you.”

It was after, when I woke up in the hospital, and realized I didn’t have the one person on earth that I needed. I was alone, maybe not physically – thankfully my father and brother were there – but I was alone in my soul. My heart still belonged to someone else and I could have died without ever seeing it, or her, again.

“Then you know that once upon a time, we made a promise to each other.” My chest feels tight but I push through it. “And I know that the promise was lost. Ruined. And it was my fault. But I can’t pretend it’s over. That it doesn’t exist. I want to know that there is still time. I want another chance to give you my heart. And of course, other things beside my heart.”

“I did a terrible thing. The worst thing. I had your love – it was all the love in the world – and I threw it away. Because I was an idiot. Because I was scared. Because I was afraid of doing the wrong thing and being the bad guy. But then I became what I feared and I lost the thing I cared about most of all. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for giving up on us and for letting go when I promised I wouldn’t. But I hope and pray that you can. That you will give me another shot. Because I’ve seen your soul, baby, and it’s real and it’s rare. And once upon a time, you were kind enough to give it to me. I want to have you again. I want what’s true.” I take in a shaky breath. “We are true. We always have been. I hope we always will be.”

“I have been your best friend for nine years. I want to be your whole world for ninety more. You are everything I could ever want – a friend, a lover, family – wrapped up in one fantastically hot package.” I grin at her and she blushes. “I’ve learned so much with you all this time and I want to learn more. I want to grow with you, evolve with you, laugh with you, and please you, until I’m old and grey, until I can’t speak or hear, until the only thing I can do is love. That’s the one thing that will never end – my love for you.”

“Oh my god,” escapes her lips and she’s starting to shake. I clear my throat, determined to stay strong. “Stephanie Robson, baby blue, my best friend and the woman with my heart. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” I take a moment to compose myself. “Will you marry me?”