3:AM Kisses: 3:AM Kisses 1

Prologue

Prologue

Baya

Sometimes life has its way with you. It peels back the layers of your existence like the skin of an onion until the real you glows underneath, raw and painful to the touch. It's in those moments, in that hour, you look to those that give you strength-for me, that person was my brother. He was the one that put me on a pedestal after tragedy struck in our young lives. He promised to always look after me. To make sure that I wouldn't stumble in life and that the right people would land beside me along the way. It's no coincidence most of those people were of the estrogen card-carrying variety. My brother loves me so much he pinned me high on the good girl board long before I could have contested the effort, and, now that I'm admiring the view below, I'm not so sure I want to be the poster child for innocence anymore.

It's funny how something like death, which isn't funny at all, can shape your destiny. When my father was alive, all he talked about was his heyday at Whitney Briggs, and, of course, being little I imagined him stuck on a farm, pitching straw over his shoulder-but Whitney Briggs is a far cry from any countryside barn. Whitney Briggs University is billed as a cosmopolitan educational institution tucked in the blue mountains of North Carolina, and, so, after he died, both my brother and I set our scholastic compass in that direction. That's where destiny kicks in, and I meet him.

Bryson Edwards. Even his name makes me sigh.

He's right here, and I want nothing more than to close the gap between us until he falls into me. I'm boiling over, ready to have him, ready for him to have me any way he wishes.

I stretch my arms up over my head and wriggle my body into his mattress.

His chest ticks with a silent laugh. "Whatever it is you're doing, keep doing it." A seam of moonlight catches his features, exposing the fact he clearly approves.

"I'm settling in." I twist my hips into the bed. "I think I could get a good night's sleep here."

"Oh, sweetie"-he growls it out as the smile slides off his face -"if you spent the night in my room, there wouldn't be a whole hell of a lot of sleeping going on." His fiery breath sears over my mouth like a promise. "And, if you did happen to fall asleep, I'd be guilty of doing something very, very wrong."

My fingers run down his granite-like abs and unbutton his jeans. I glide down the bed and plant a kiss just above his boxers.

"I don't plan on sleeping," I say it low like a threat. "And neither should you."