by Stacey Lynn
I held out my key, gripping the small end of it with my thumb and finger. “Here.”
Jaden blinked, saw the key, and reached for it. Except his entire fist closed around it, including my fingers, and he tugged.
Hard.
I stumbled right into his chest. The only thing between us was our hands.
“Delete the photos.” He frowned.
I smiled and hoped like hell he couldn’t feel the thundering in my chest. I could barely hear him over the storm raging in my ears.
“No way in hell.”
His hand tightened and his nostrils flared.
“Jules.”
I grinned wider and arched a brow. “Jaden.”
“No one sees that shit.”
I could agree to that. Mostly. “No one but her. She’ll love them.”
His hand released mine as if I’d made him remember something. My hand, empty of the key and his warmth, prickled. I rubbed it against my thigh to erase the odd feeling.
“Next time, though, smile.” I darted around him, scooped up Sophie and her dolls while completely avoiding Jaden, and hauled my butt inside.
By the time I’d packed our clothes and the rest of her dolls, I hadn’t yet gotten to and loaded up my car. The men were long gone, and it was just me and now sleepy Sophie making the quick trek across town to our new house.
“Wow!” I exclaimed right as Olivia launched her arms around my shoulders. “You guys move fast.”
Olivia pulled back and grinned. “The guys are doing it all, but Faith and I thought we’d stay after they were done unloading and help you unpack.”
Perfect. I grinned and looked at the truck, half empty. Jaden, Daemon, and the rest of the men couldn’t have been there for longer than thirty minutes. They’d be done in no time at all.
“Awesome,” I told Olivia, and opened Sophie’s door to unbuckle her from her car seat.
“Home?” she asked, her eyes moving to the apartment building in front of us.
It wasn’t much, but the two-bedroom place would be good for us. Simple, not fancy, but close to a daycare center and town so we could walk in the summer if we wanted. It even had a pool in the courtyard out back, with a small grouping of picnic tables and outdoor grills for the summer.
I nodded and reached under arms. “Home.” Patting her gently on her bottom, I scooted her toward Faith’s arms. “The men are still unpacking so stay out of the way, but you can go check out your new room.”
Faith grinned and scooped her up. “We’ll be inside.”
“Thanks, Faith!” I called after her. She flashed me a smile over her shoulder.
“What else are friends for, than to be your little bitches on moving day!”
“Little ears!” I jumped at the masculine shout.
I laughed as Ryker stood at the top of the stairway, hands curled over the railing, and smiling down at us. When he caught up to Faith on the stairs, his hand cradled the back of her head and he pulled her in for a quick but scorching kiss.
“Come on.” I linked my arm through Olivia’s and pulled her toward my new house—a home where Sophie was meeting the men who knew her dad. A home where I was once again close to my parents. A home that was safe and far away from Rob. It almost felt too good to be true. “Help me unpack.”
“Your wish is my command.”
I shoved my hip into hers as I laughed. “Shut up, twerp.”
“You got shit in your car?” Daemon asked when he hit the bottom stairs.
“Yeah, some clothes and toys. Oh, and a cooler full of beer for you.”
Daemon nodded, heading toward my car. “Fuckin’ sweet.”
Olivia laughed and shook her head. “Men.”
We hit the front door of my new apartment right as the twins set half of my sectional couch down in the living room. When they saw us walk in, one of them pointed at the couch.
“This okay here?”
I took in the small room and the corner where my television would go. “It’s good, thanks, Jimmy.”
He flashed me a grin filled with a small amount of shock. I shook my head. “The rest of these idiots might not be able to tell you apart, but I can.” I pointed my finger at his cheek. “You have a freckle next to your nose.”
He almost looked bashful as he rubbed the side of the nose. “Right.”
“You didn’t tell us apart the other night.” Johnny grinned and stood in front of me, arms crossed over his chest, flirtatious smile in place.
Silly boy. He was too young for me, and too skinny. I also knew that when he and his brother were together, they couldn’t focus on crap. The fact that they’d hauled my couch inside without breaking it was a miracle.
“You had some chick’s face smashed to yours and my vision was blurry from beer.”
He took a step forward, flirtatious grin widening. “Jealous?”
I winked and moved to the side as Daemon came in, setting the cooler on the floor.
“Drink up!” he shouted, grabbed a beer and turned back outside.
“Back the fuck up, Jimmy.”
I jumped from the harshness of the masculine voice. When I looked over my shoulder, Jaden stood in the doorway, three heavy boxes of plates and pans in his arms.
Damn.
“Johnny,” I corrected him and rolled my eyes to Johnny. “They’ll figure it out.”
Johnny’s eyes dropped from mine and he headed back outside. Jaden moved around him until he stood next to me in the kitchen and slid the boxes onto the counter.
I instantly felt caged-in by the heat pouring off him—not only from the outside, but from his anger.
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. Fortunately I had the sense not to do it directly at him.
With one hand on top of the boxes, he leaned in, towering over me. Sweat beaded along his hairline and glistened across the top of his eyebrows. His brown eyes deepened and narrowed.
My hands balled into fists to prevent me from reaching out and running a finger across his skin to remove the sweat beads.
That’d be gross.
But I still had some undeniable urge to lean in and lick his skin. My cheeks warmed at the thought and I looked away.
“Don’t fuckin’ flirt with the men.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard me.”
My nose twitched and I scowled. “I wasn’t flirting.”
“Not what it looked like to me.”
“Then maybe,” I said, leaning up on my toes so I could glare at him more closely, “you should get your eyes checked. I was being nice. There’s a difference.”
“Not when you’re one of us and we freely take any available woman we want—and some that aren’t.” He grinned in satisfaction. Whether at the fact he’d fucked a married woman, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to find out, either.
I did know that he smelled good. Really good. Sweat with cologne and pure, raging masculinity. I leaned in further, inhaling his scent while trying to stay pissed.
“You’re an asshole. And I don’t know why you care who I flirt with anyway.”
“Don’t push me, Jules.” His breath was heavy and thick. My brain instantly fogged, taking me back to the day he’d plastered me against his truck and ran his lips over my skin.
A low hum escaped my throat and Jaden’s hand instantly went to the back of my neck.
“You want this?” he growled. His grip on my neck tightened and my eyes widened as he held me firmly in place.
I tried to shake my head but could barely move.
He sneered. “I think you do.”
God, yes. “Go to hell.” My words lacked impact due to the needy, breathy tone of my voice. And the fact I was lying.
“If I go… I’m meeting you there.” His lips crashed into me and I gasped, instantly opening my mouth in shock. He pressed against me, pulled me to him by his grip on the back of my neck until my chest brushed against his.
Fire exploded in my veins and on my skin. It flared out from my pores until my own bo
dy felt covered in heat, completely consumed.
The kiss wasn’t nice. It was angry, and I could feel the battle and the rage within Jaden seeping into my mouth as his tongue devoured me. Our mouths dueled in an intense fight. Fighting for what, I didn’t know.
Our attraction to one another?
The fact that I was in love with Scratch but wanted Jaden, too?
The fact that he hated me?
I didn’t question it. I just leaned in, pressed up further on my toes until I was as close to Jaden as I could get. He swallowed my next moan and my hand came up, holding myself to him by wrapping my small fingers around his bicep.
“Oh! Crap!”
Olivia’s voice slowly broke through the lustful fog of Jaden’s kiss.
His hand immediately fell from my neck and he pushed me back. I stumbled into the counter behind me, bracing myself while trying to regain control of my breathing and my brain.
“Sorry!” I caught her grin before she covered her mouth and fled from the room.
My eyes widened as I took in the room—men walking in and out of the hallway and doorway, everyone averting their eyes away from my kitchen.
Where Jaden and I had just been making out. Blood rushed from my brain, and my skin cooled as it paled. What in the hell had I just done?
“Oh my God.” I turned around, slammed my elbows on the countertop, and dropped my head into my hands.
No answer came. Jaden certainly didn’t say anything to make me feel better about the fact that half his club had just seen us making out like horny teenagers. I felt the heat from his stare and his body leave the room, along with the soft thuds of his booted feet when he walked away from me.
Hours later, I stood in the center of my new living room surveying the small but newly decorated space. My hands on my hips, I spun in a slow circle and smiled.
“I can’t believe we’ve unpacked it all.”
Faith raised a bottle of water and tipped it in my direction. “Place looks great, and it’s perfect for you and Sophie.”
I exhaled slowly, feeling the tension and stress from a full day’s work leave my body. My L-shaped sectional fit perfectly into the living room, leaving just enough space for a bookshelf full of Sophie’s toys, hidden in baskets on the shelves, and my TV stand.
We’d unpacked every single box, with Daemon, Ryker, and Jaden insisting on not leaving until everything had been emptied, and the cardboard broken down and thrown in the dumpster outside. Ryker had even found my pink-handled hammer and hung various artwork and picture frames we found as we unpacked.
It felt like home and I hadn’t even spent the night there yet—although Sophie had crashed two hours earlier, and had fallen asleep easily enough in her new room with her old Cinderella bedspread and various other movie posters of her favorite characters on the walls.
I felt like crashing, too. But the men still had boxes to take to the dumpster, and no way was I getting ready for bed with Jaden anywhere near me.
My body still hadn’t fully cooled from his maddening touch earlier.
Olivia snickered from her sprawled-out view on the couch.
“So how was he?” She smirked and took a quick sip of her red wine. My red wine. I wanted to snatch it out of her cute little hands and dump it over her head.
“Shut up.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That good, huh?”
Goodness. Better. Between the roughness of his hand on my neck and the way his tongue plundered my mouth, I’d be feeling and tasting that kiss for days.
I shook my head, wanting to forget it. It was a mistake and shouldn’t have happened.
I couldn’t control my body’s reaction to Jaden. His domineering kiss earlier told me he felt the same. But that didn’t mean we were good for one another.
Hell, we didn’t even like each other.
And there was still too much he didn’t know—didn’t want to know.
“I don’t know what happened,” I explained as I headed to the kitchen for a new wine glass. “But it won’t again. I guarantee it.”
Faith snorted and looked at me doubtfully. “Sure, sweetie.”
I bared my teeth at her.
She threw her head back and laughed. “You’re not scaring me.”
“No matter,” I said. My skin crawled with pleasurable memories as I set the wine glass on the counter and poured the wine. I stood in the exact spot where Jaden had taken me earlier.
Possessed me. Consumed me enough to make me forget we had been in a room with a dozen other people.
I tipped the glass to my lips as I heard the guys hitting the top stair, their stomping boots echoing along the outside wooden floor until they reached my door. Daemon and Ryker entered first, Jaden behind them.
He hadn’t looked at me since he’d walked away from me. Six hours of unpacking, unloading, and cleaning my apartment, and he hadn’t left or spared me a glance. When he’d left the kitchen earlier, I didn’t expect to see him come back at all.
But there he was, standing just inside my doorway.
“Let’s go, ladies,” Ryker said, and waved his arm toward Faith and Olivia on the couch.
Both of them shot me a grin as they crawled off the couch. They wrapped their arms around me as the three of us embraced.
“Give me all the details tomorrow,” Olivia whispered.
“Oh, God. I hate you, but thank you for the help today.”
“Be careful,” Faith said.
When they dropped their arms, I shook my head, knowing my cheeks were already flushed. They both had knowing looks on their faces.
I mouthed “I hate you” to both of them before they turned, met their men in the entryway, and were escorted down the stairs.
Jaden still hadn’t looked at me. He stood like a sentry posting guard until the light clicking of the door shutting behind him had us both snapping our heads in the direction of the door.
We were in my new house.
Completely alone.
My legs trembled with nerves as I sipped my wine, pretending Jaden’s presence didn’t affect me.
That I didn’t want him to wrap his hand around my neck again, pull me in and ravage me—
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
But then he spoke and I remembered he hated me.
But it didn’t change the fact I still wanted him.
Crap.
Her blue eyes felt like they burned my skin. Kissing her earlier had been one of my bigger fuck-ups.
Unfortunately, my dick still thought the idea was wonderful. I would have adjusted myself if Jules wasn’t staring directly at me.
I didn’t even have an excuse to offer her as I stood just inside her doorway, eyebrows pulled in and my lips pressed into a thin line. Mostly because I still didn’t understand what had happened.
I hated this woman. At least I wanted to. Somewhere along the way I’d begun admitting to myself that I didn’t despise her as much as I declared to.
But what had happened earlier in her kitchen, in a room surrounded by a dozen Nordic Lords and her two friends—not to mention Sophie?
I had no excuse.
Lust hijacked my common sense.
Jules blinked at me and looked away—probably because I was staring at her like an asshole and hadn’t moved since the door closed.
I couldn’t remember if I’d said anything, or just thought it. For safety’s sake, I repeated myself. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“I agree.”
Her quick response rattled me. Pissed me off somehow. Which was dumb: it had been a mistake. And just in case I hadn’t been clear before, I planned on it now.
“I don’t like you.”
Her lips twitched, like she wanted to argue with me but thought better of it. Shame. My body buzzed with adrenaline and needed a fight—or a different kind of outlet—in order to erase the energy flooding my veins.
“I’m well aware of your misplaced hatred of me, thanks.”
Misplaced? Who
the hell was she kidding?
My feet moved forward until I stood on the other side of the counter, palms splayed flat on it and my arms locked straight.
“You kiddin’ me?” I practically snarled it at her. I wanted her to fear me. Because damn it, regardless of how fucking cute she looked in her short shorts that showed her toned, tanned skin, I still blamed her.
Jules stared back, unblinking and unmoving except for the slow tilt of her wine glass to her lips. She sighed as she set the glass back down on the counter. “Aren’t you ever going to ask me about the truth? Don’t you want to know it?”
“I know the truth.”
“You know what you saw. And what you saw was bullshit.”
I glared at her, kept glaring as anger began making my skin boil. Screw her.
Not a bad idea.
Jesus. I couldn’t even be angry with her for seconds without my blood flowing to my hardened dick.
This was stupid and pointless. There was nothing she could ever say that would make me think differently about her role in Scratch’s death.
But hell if she didn’t look sexy as fuck, her tiny little body and her wide blue eyes shooting off confidence and anger in equal measure.
I pushed off the counter, intent on leaving, because I was two seconds away from wanting to hit something or fuck her. Throwing her against a wall in her new apartment would probably not be the best way to end the night.
I’d find a different outlet.
But then she called my name and I looked at her over my shoulder. I watched her as she walked toward me, arms crossed over her chest, sly grin on her face.
When she reached me, she rested one shoulder against the wall.
“What?”
“You can be pissed at me all you want, take out your anger and shit on me. That’s fine.” She shrugged like she meant it. The fact that she didn’t care what I thought of her anymore had me grinding my teeth together. “But don’t take it out on Sophie.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” Because damn it, the kid was cute as fuck. Ten minutes in her room earlier, helping unpack her dolls and books, and I could admit that at the very least. Besides, Scratch would want me in her life—and if she wasn’t a pain in her ass like her mom, I could do that for him.
