His Best Friend’s Sister

The text came through at 11:47 on a Tuesday morning.

*Outside. Come out.*

Savannah stared at her phone, heart doing that ridiculous flutter it always did whenever Horace's name lit up her screen. She glanced around the preschool classroom—finger paintings on the walls, the faint smell of apple juice and crayons, toddlers napping on their mats. Her coworker Dana was handling story time, so she slipped out the front door without much fuss.

And then she saw it. His Mercedes, gleaming black under the November sun. But it wasn't the car that made her breath catch—it was the man leaning against the hood, arms crossed over his chest, watching her like she was the only thing worth looking at in the entire parking lot.

Horace had that way about him. Fifty years old and somehow more magnetic than men half his age. Silver threaded through his dark hair, and the lines around his eyes only made him look like someone who'd lived enough to know exactly what he wanted. He wore a fitted charcoal henley, sleeves pushed up to his forearms, and slacks that did absolutely nothing to hide how well he took care of himself.

"Got you something," he said when she approached, nodding toward the hood of the car.

Savannah looked down. A small white bakery box sat on the warm metal. She opened it—beignets, still warm, dusted with powdered sugar. Her favorite, from the place across town that nobody else knew about.

"How did you—"

"Marcus told me. Years ago." His voice softened on her brother's name, just slightly. A ghost of grief passing between them like it always did.

She picked one up and bit into it, letting the sugar melt on her tongue. "You drove forty minutes to bring me beignets?"

"Drove forty minutes to see you. Beignets were the excuse." His mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile but made her stomach flip anyway. "Get in. I want to show you something."

She should have said no. She had a classroom full of kids, a shift that didn't end for another four hours. But Dana owed her a favor, and Horace was already opening the passenger door, and Savannah had never once in her life been able to say no to that man.

His penthouse sat on the thirty-second floor of a building downtown, all floor-to-ceiling windows and exposed brick, a bachelor's kingdom that somehow felt more like a home than her apartment ever had. He poured her wine—something red and smooth that she didn't know enough about to name—and they sat on his leather couch, the city sprawling beneath them.

"You left early," he said. Not a question.

"Dana's got it covered."

"Good." He swirled his glass, watching her. "I don't like you working so much."

"I'm a teacher, Horace. Working is kind of the point."

"You know what I mean." He set his glass down and turned to face her fully. "Since Marcus passed, I've been thinking about you. More than I should."

Savannah's pulse thudded in her ears. "More than you should?"

"He was my best friend. You're his little sister. I spent years keeping my distance because that's what loyalty looked like." His jaw tightened. "But he's gone now, and I'm tired of pretending I don't want what I want."

The air between them thickened. She set her wine down because her hands were shaking.

"I've had a crush on you since I was sixteen," she admitted, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. "Marcus would have killed you."

"Marcus would have understood." Horace reached out, his thumb brushing along her jaw, tilting her face toward his.

She didn't say anything.

His mouth found hers, slow and deliberate, nothing like the clumsy kisses she'd endured from men her own age. He kissed like he had all the time in the world, like he was memorizing the shape of her lips, the way her breath hitched when his hand slid to the back of her neck. She melted into him, fingers curling into the fabric of his henley, pulling him closer.

He groaned against her mouth—low, deep, a sound that vibrated through her entire body. Then his hands were everywhere. Sliding down her sides, gripping her waist, pulling her onto his lap like she weighed nothing. She straddled him on the couch, her skirt riding up her thighs, and she could feel him through the fabric of his slacks—hard, thick, patient.

"You've been driving me insane," he murmured against her throat, his teeth grazing her pulse point. "Walking around that preschool looking like that. Every time I pick you up, I have to sit in my car afterward and remind myself that I'm a grown man, not some kid who can't control himself."

"Maybe I dress like that on purpose," she breathed, and he laughed—actually laughed—before his mouth crashed back into hers with a hunger that made her dizzy.

He stood up with her still wrapped around him, carrying her down the hallway to his bedroom like it was nothing. She'd always known he was strong—she'd seen him lift tires at the dealership like they were pillows—but feeling that strength beneath her, knowing he was holding her up without strain, made heat pool between her thighs.

The bedroom was dim, the bed massive, and he laid her down like she was something precious before stepping back to pull his henley over his head. His body was ridiculous for a man of any age—broad shoulders, chest dusted with dark hair that thinned to a line down his stomach, the kind of definition that came from decades of discipline rather than vanity.

Savannah sat up and reached for her own top, but he caught her wrists gently.

"Let me."

He undressed her piece by piece, pressing kisses to each new expanse of skin he revealed. Her collarbone. The curve of her breast. The soft plane of her stomach. By the time he slid her underwear down her thighs, she was trembling, and when his mouth found her—hot, wet, devastating—she arched off the bed with a sound that wasn't quite a word.

He took his time. His tongue moved in slow, deliberate circles, reading every twitch and gasp like a map, adjusting until he found exactly the rhythm that made her fall apart. Her fingers twisted in the sheets, then in his hair, and when she shattered, his hands gripped her hips and held her steady through every wave of it.

She was still catching her breath when he kissed his way back up her body and settled between her thighs. He paused, looking down at her with an expression that was equal parts tenderness and hunger.

"Tell me you want this," he said.

"I want this. I've wanted this for years."

He pushed into her slowly, letting her feel every inch, and Savannah's eyes rolled back. He was thick—thicker than anyone she'd been with—and he filled her completely, stretching her in a way that walked the line between pleasure and too much before settling firmly into the former.

And then he moved.

Savannah had expected him to be quick about it—a man his age, she'd thought, probably had a limited window. She was so spectacularly wrong that she almost laughed. Horace moved with a controlled, relentless rhythm that seemed to have no expiration. He changed angles, adjusted depth, read her body like he'd been studying it for years instead of minutes. When she clenched around him, he groaned but didn't falter, didn't rush, just kept that same devastating pace until she came again, harder than the first time.

"Horace—" His name broke in her mouth.

"I know," he breathed against her neck. "One more. You can give me one more."

He shifted her legs higher, changed the angle again, and the new pressure made her vision blur. She lost count of time, lost track of anything that wasn't his body moving inside hers, his mouth on her skin, his hands mapping every curve like he was claiming territory. When he finally let himself go—his rhythm breaking, his grip tightening on her hips, a groan tearing from his chest that sounded like her name—she felt the warmth of him spill inside her, and the intimacy of it made her chest ache with something she wasn't ready to name.

They lay tangled together afterward, her head on his chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on her back.

"You're mine," he said quietly. Not a question, not a negotiation. A statement. "You understand that? Anyone tries to court you, Savannah, I'll make them wish they hadn't. I'll make them wish they'd never learned your name."

"You can't just—"

"I can. I am." His arm tightened around her. "Marcus would have wanted you taken care of. I'm taking care of you."

She wanted to argue. She wanted to say something about independence, about not being property, about how this was moving fast even by her reckoning. But his heartbeat was steady beneath her ear, and his hand had stilled on her back, and she felt safer than she had in a year.

Then her phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Horace reached for it before she could move, glancing at the screen with an expression that shifted from contentment to something cold and sharp in the space of a heartbeat.

"Who is Kyle?" His voice was flat. "And why is he texting you a heart emoji at two in the afternoon on a weekday?"

Savannah propped herself up on one elbow, suddenly very aware that she was naked, in his bed, with a man who had just threatened hypothetical suitors with violence.

"Kyle is the gym teacher at my school," she said carefully.

Horace's eyes didn't leave the phone. "The gym teacher sends you heart emojis."

"It's probably a group text—"

"Then why does it say 'Savannah, are we still on for Friday'?" He looked at her, and something possessive flashed across his face. "You're not going to that."

She bit her lip to keep from smiling, because his jealousy was ridiculous and overbearing and somehow the most attractive thing she'd experienced all day, and she'd experienced quite a lot.

"Horace, Kyle is gay. He's inviting me to his engagement party."

Horace stared at her. Then at the phone. Then back at her.

"Still," he said, setting the phone down and pulling her back against him. "I don't like the emoji."