Sweet Ache

I’m still deciding what to do when I’m startled by a scuffing sound ahead of me. I look up to find Hawkin leaning against a pillar, arms across his chest and a condescending smirk turning up the corners of his mouth. “Well, well, well. So good you came back for more, huh?”

His words startle me. And not in a good way. I came in here willing to apologize, worried about everything, and he greets me like that? Pretending to be hostile is no longer a necessity because it’s a reality.

“Excuse me?” I take a step closer, eyes narrowed and disbelief undoubtedly written all over my face.

He straightens up some, and the smarmy look stays on his face but he drops his hands. I briefly notice he’s changed his shirt to a white button-up—and I can see the hint of another tattoo through the open collar—but my frazzled state leads me to not give it a second thought. I’m too busy watching how rejection doesn’t sit well with the rock god Hawkin Play.

Well, he’d better get ready for more of it if he thinks he can be an asshole to me. So what if I kissed him and then changed my mind? And standing here, eyes locked on each other’s, I’m dismayed by the way he’s handling this. Stupid me thought he’d be more hurt and less jerk. Guess I thought too highly of myself. The reality check that I really am just another in a long line of women to him is welcome.

Good thing I found out now rather than in a month when my heart’s already invested. I use my own hurt, the revelation of truths I didn’t expect—the spite in his glare—to keep my guard up. But guard or no guard, I become uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny when he just stands before me, posture in itself threatening, and doesn’t say a word.

“What do you want?” I snap, shifting my feet.

“You for a start.” He ghosts a smile and where before I found it sexy, right now, the sight of it mixed with the look in his eyes unsettles me.

“If my actions didn’t say it earlier, then my lips will say it so you can understand: Dream on.” I take a breath, eyes flickering over my shoulder to see if Axe is still there just on the other side of the door, because for some reason alarm bells are sounding in my head.

He laughs low and mocking and if he’s trying to freak me out, he’s doing a damn good job. I’m done here. Carla can pull my thesis for all I care but I refuse to work with this schizophrenic asshole. In the span of one minute we’ve gone from flirting to kissing and in the next making me uncomfortable.

I start to walk past him to go grab my bag I left when I ran away and he grabs my arm, fingers digging in. A shocked gasp falls from my mouth but I refuse to give in and meet his eyes.

“Believe me, any dream I have of you will be a wet one.”

I yank my arm from his grasp, disgusted by his comment and how far off the mark I was in judging him. How did he go from hot and desirable to cheesy and creepy?

I ignore his laugh at my back and all but jog to the open doors of the auditorium. I rush through them, head turning to glance back at him, and find myself colliding into someone.

“Jesus!”

I’m shocked by the voice, the scent of cologne, and the face when I look up to see Hawkin’s surprised expression.

What the hell?

“Hawkin?” His name comes out in a flustered gasp as I try to process the fact that he’s standing before me when I thought he was behind me. I push back from him, adrenaline hitting me now so that my hands are a little shaky and take in his black Def Leppard T-shirt and the hair mussed earlier from my hands.

How can? … And then it hits me. I recollect an article I read during my intermittent cyberstalking about Hawkin that he had a brother. It definitely didn’t say he had an identical twin.

He stares for a beat, trying to figure out what’s wrong, when his eyes lift to over my shoulder. Hawke’s gaze immediately turns hard, jaw clenched and shoulders squaring in irritation as he delivers an unspoken warning to his brother before falling back on mine and softening with concern.

“You okay?” His focus is solely on me, hands reaching out to touch my arm in a reassuring manner.

“Yeah?” I say it like a question, asking him if the man at my back is really who I think it is.

“I’m sorry.” Hawkin murmurs the apology, somehow realizing that his brother has unnerved me, and he positions himself so that he’s standing between us.

“What are you doing here, Hunter?” The two men stare at each other, animosity palpable between them as they speak without words.

“Wanted to see my big bro’s new gig. Got quite a nice surprise though when I came early and went looking for him. Alcoves can be fun places, no?” Hunter says with a chuckle, giving me the chills that he was watching us. He lifts his chin toward me and raises his eyebrows. “She yours?”

As much as a part of me wants to speak up, assert my position, the obvious discord vibrating between the two of them has me biting my tongue.

“New gig’s courtesy of you, right? If you wanted this for yourself,” Hawke says pointing to the auditorium behind him, sarcasm all but dripping from his voice, “all you had to do was have a little integrity.”

“Integrity is overrated. Contracts, a man’s word, family bonds—nothing holds anymore these days. But you already know that, dontcha brother?” Hunter chides him with a wink, and I notice Hawkin clench his fists. Hunter’s eyes glance over and meet mine, a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips.

“Leave her alone, Hunt. She’s with me.”

And I’m not sure if it’s the fact that he seems like he’s protecting me from his brother or if it’s him saying I’m his, but hearing those words pulls on some inherent female part of me, a part that longs to be someone’s. Despite the tension of the moment, I find it sadly comical that my resolve to keep Hawkin at arm’s length crumbles with that simple statement.