Page 32 of Gather the Storm

“Feeling okay, sunshine?”

I felt the brush of his stubble against my jaw, his lips against my ear. His warm breath on my neck sent a delicious shiver down my spine and my nipples hardened under the new lace bra.

I closed my eyes for a second, the pull of temptation a current I didn’t really want to ignore. “I, um… I’m… Yep. I’m good.”

Oh my god, Daisy.

He chuckled, a low throaty sound that conjured moans of pleasure and rumpled sheets even though I didn’t know a thing about either of those things.

He wrapped his hand around mine on the handle of the coffee pot. “Glad to hear it.”

We were still standing like that — an inch apart, Wolf’s hand over mine, my body smoldering even though it was only eight a.m. — when Otis came down the back stairs.

“Is that coffee?” he asked.

“Yep,” Wolf said, prying the coffee pot from my hands. He looked down at me with another grin, like we had a secret he was more than happy to keep. “The cups are over there.”

Otis followed the tip of Wolf’s head and grabbed a cup and if I was hoping for a reprieve from sexy, sleepy manhood, I was sorely disappointed, because first-thing-in-the-morning Otis was every bit as appealing as Wolf.

“Where are you going all dressed up?” he asked, flipping his long blond hair off his face. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt, and he’d thrown on some loose faded jeans that hung low on his hips, a perfect V visible and pointing toward his dick like a sexy traffic sign.

My resolve to live with them, to figure out what had really happened to Blake, faltered. This wasnotwhat I’d pictured when I’d hatched my plan. In my mind it had been… civil.

Professional.

This was… well, this was not that, and I felt myself slip-sliding into a pool of warm water that looked inviting on the surface but was actually teeming with danger.

“Internship,” I finally managed to say. “Unfortunately.”

“Why unfortunately?” Otis asked while Wolf filled his cup.

I walked over to the table to look at the blueprints. Hiring an architect was the first money I’d spent from the fund my mom had left, and Meredith Larssen, the managing partner at Cooper Larssen Architecture, had done an amazing job of bringing my vision to life without sacrificing the house’s structural character.

“It’s for this real estate developer who’s buying some land from my dad,” I said, my gaze scanning the plans on the table. “I’m not really interested in that business, but it made my dad happy.”

Plus, I could use the money to feed you monsters.

I left that part unsaid. My financial issues weren’t their problem, and it wasn’t fair to expect them to be sympathetic. Jace called me princess because that was what I was to him.

To all of them probably.

Just a spoiled rich girl cosplaying interior designer.

They had bigger problems, had just gotten out of prison, were trying to figure out how to start their lives with Blake’s murder hanging around their necks.

I was surprised to feel a wave of sympathy.

I pushed it down. They’d confessed to murdering Blake. Had decimated my family. Sympathy was the last thing I should be feeling.

“Yeah, but it’s not that far off from what you like, right?” Otis asked, dropping into one of the chairs around the table.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Otis shrugged. “You like design and stuff. Don’t real estate developers need that once they buy or build a place?”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” I said. The piece of land Piers Cantwell had bought from my dad was undeveloped — two thousand acres on Blackwell Ridge that was surrounded by forest — but the plans did include a luxury hotel. “But I guess you’re right.”

The whole scene was feeling almost cozy, which of course, was right when Jace showed up, a scowl darkening his face, his green eyes flaring with disgust. “What’s going on in here?”

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