“Then you can pull away, let her undies snap back into place, pat her skirt down, and no one’s the wiser.
“I haven’t worn a skirt since year eleven,” I said, shaking my head. “I forgot about that. I couldn’t, after you. Feeling the fabric flow around my legs, it took me right back there and I couldn’t…”
“You know I’m gonna wanna take you out, feed you that steak I promised, take you there wearing one of those cute little sundresses you used to wear and—”
“I wouldn’t do any of that,” Mason said bluntly. “I want you the same way I always have, with everything I’ve got, but I’ll be damned if I make it some kind of furtive thing, no matter what games you’re playing, brother.” Mason’s eyes met Zack’s over my shoulder, holding them, but they came back to me quickly enough. “When it happens, when I’ve proven to you that I’m serious, when I make amends for all the shit I did, then I want all the fucking time in the world to acquaint myself with you. With every curve, every swell, every inch of a body that’s plagued my dreams and nightmares since you became an adult. I wouldn’t rush a fucking thing.”
“Fucking Mase, always gotta top us,” Declan said with a snort, turning back to the wheel.
“That’s why he’s the man,” Micah said with a grin and a chin tilt.
“Did that achieve what you wanted? We’ve got a job to do today, and you just sidelined that,” I told Zack, but he just grinned remorselessly.
“No, you sidelined us. I know why,” he replied, holding up a hand when I began to splutter. “You’re going to need to. Your dad…” He just paused, looked down at where our fingers were linked, then shook his head. “You’ve been betrayed by this fucking town in so many ways, but this is the worst, but I’m not gonna let you forget this, us. We work out what the hell happened, then we bury the past and move forward to the future, our future.”
For a second, you could’ve heard a pin drop in the car, only the muffled sound of the street outside filtering through.
“So is he always a pompous, overly controlling arse, or is this something that’s cropped up recently?” Lorcan drawled, softening his words with a wicked grin.
“Definitely pompous arse,” Mason said with a sigh. “You should’ve seen him trying to arbitrate playground disputes. You’d have thought the prick was gonna run for parliament.”
“Total arse,” I agreed with a grin, enjoying watching my mate lose just a little of his composure. “But what a splendid arse it is. Firm, biteable…”
I leant in for a kiss, but he smacked his hand down on my hip, grabbing my glutes before bestowing one upon me.
“I’ll give you biteable.”
“Cool, so now that group sex is firmly back on the menu, we go to Selma’s, yeah?” Declan asked, turning the key in the ignition.
“Group sex, one on one, or some tastefully orchestrated threesomes,” Zack whispered into my neck. “I have so many ideas.”
“You’re having way too much fun with this,” I muttered back. “We aren’t sex dolls for you to play with.”
“No, you’re so much better.” He pulled back, staring into my eyes so I could see everything he felt in those molten coffee dark eyes. “There’s love here, Paige. Lust and need and desire too, but that gets boring after a while. What we have here? This is a pack, something eternal that’ll last a lifetime, and it’s gonna make you fucking invincible. I just thank the goddess I get to play a part in it.”
“An overly invested, totally overbearing part of it,” Lorcan snarked from the front seat.
Chapter 7
“Hey… Paige!” Bridget stood in her doorway looking stunned to see me, but she quickly rallied, moving to wrap me in a hug. “Shit, are you OK to hug? Should I…? Fuck, Mum said…”
“I’m OK,” I said, completing the hug for her, and as I did so with my favourite cousin, I hoped like hell she had nothing to do with any of this. I felt like a prick listening in to her heart rate, her breathing, feeling for any tension in her body, but when she pulled back, looking me over closely, she just seemed like the same old Bridge.
“And these…” She moved to one side, letting the guys come in, but when I went to join them, a hand shot out, grabbing me on the shoulder. “They’re yours, aren’t they?” she hissed.
“Yeah, I—”
“You did it! You crazy fucking bitch, you’re living the dream! We fantasised all those nights ago, about taking a harem from the enforcers.”
“We did?”
“All that taut delicious flesh, getting covered in lathers of soap in the showers?”
“Ah, I’ve been in there and seen them do just that. It was fucking hot,” I replied.
“Each body stronger and harder… Hang on, what?”
My cousin’s focus was often fairly scattered except where it counted, and right now, it counted. I felt like I could hear her brain kicking into gear, putting what I just said together and all the implications therein.
“So you got hit on the fucking head, ended up in hospital, where everyone was kept back by a positively savage Mason Klein, and you got to see that crew in the nick? Mum can get fucked, I’m moving into the estate today. I’ll pace around the kitchen in the middle of the night and be bait for anyone else who decides to come trawling through. Something, anything if it gets me that!”
“You realise I could’ve died,” I said.
“Quibbling, all of it. This, you’ll do this if you have any love for me.”
“Bridge…” I grumbled when she finally let me in, the guys pacing around the lounge room she shared with Selma, inspecting things a little too closely to be passed off as casual interest. “I actually need to talk to Selma.”
“Selma? What do you wanna talk to her for? A bunch of hot enforcers is no good to her.”
