Free Sweet Seduction by Nikki Winter

There Are Moments
     
    “Lena Nicole Ramos, get that pillow off your brother’s face right now!”       
    Twenty year old Lena looked up from the task of slowly smothering her older brother, Felix, but wasn’t exactly quick to get up. “But Mama-”
    “Little girl…”
    “He called me ‘wide-ass’ again,” Lena whined, ignoring the way Felix was starting to flail and kick.
    Her mother sighed, leaned into the doorway of the den and looked over at a very calm Archer who seemed to be quite entertained by the fact that his best friend was close to death. “Did you even try to help him?”
    He shot her his signature charming grin, the one that’d had him sitting at her dinner table for the past ten years with no problem. “Mama Mona, I would if I hadn’t warned him twice not to say it.” He shrugged. “He didn’t listen, so now he is suffering the consequences” Waving a hand at the pair, he sat back again.
    Mona looked back over at her daughter. “How long have you had him under there?”
    Lena shrugged. “I dunno. About fifteen minutes maybe. Every so often I let him up for a sip of air then push him back down again.”
    Mona had been telling her boy for years that one of these days Lena would end him if he didn’t quit with the name calling. “I’ll give you five more minutes then you gotta let him up because he’s not fighting as hard as he was before—which means he’s losing consciousness.”
    When the doorbell rang everybody stopped. Lena hopped up. “No need. Paige is here so my torturing is done.” She walked past Archer and popped his Stetson off because it was his favorite and she knew it.
    He mumbled something that sounded like, “Brat” but she ignored him and headed for the front door of the house. She was too excited to pay the prick any mind or show concern for the fact that Felix was on the floor gasping for breath and calling them all psychotic and unstable. Not too long after that, she could hear her Daddy telling him, “Get off the floor and have some dignity boy. You insult Lena and you’re bound to get a foot in your ass.”
    Lena giggled and swung the front door open. “Took you long enough to get here.”
    One of Paige’s eyebrows rose over the rim of her glasses as she stated dryly, “I’m so sorry, oh ruler of the world, that I didn’t get here at the exact time you demanded.”
    “Well as long as you’re repentant I suppose I can forgive the transgression.”
    “Move outta my way before I kick you.”
    Lena grinned and moved to the side. “Uh...Paige one warning...”
    “What?”
    “Felix is home.”
    When Paige made a run for it, Lena was there to block her.
     

     
    Breathing deeply and slowly, Felix stared across the dinner table at his sister’s best friend, Paige Matthews. Was there anything more uncomfortable than trying your damnedest to not get a hard-on in public? He really could kill Lena for letting Paige just walk in like that!
    Gorgeous, smart-ass, mean as a diamondback, Paige. Those light green eyes always seemed to soften for everything but Felix. He couldn’t understand why but he could say that no matter how she looked at him she made him think bad, bad things.
    There she sat, toffee skin glowing, hair freshly cut in a pageboy style that framed her pretty heart-shaped face, wearing a sundress that made him question exactly how much control he had. The damn thing wasn’t even overtly sexy it was just that the yellow color against her skin looked so good he wanted to lick her...and other stuff.
    Felix shifted in his seat and tried to focus on everything but Paige.
    Baseball...Bass fishing...the time you got a broom taken to your ass for ruining your Mama’s bed of tulips! Think man! Think!
    After dinner everyone just kind of disappeared, because they had plans, leaving Felix and Archer to clean up the kitchen since it was their night. Well Felix cleaned while Archer watched.
    “If you scrub that plate any harder you’re gonna break