Page 40 of Gather the Storm

A lazy grin slowly turned up the corners of his mouth. “If you say so, sunshine.”

The grin brought to mind all kinds of activities that were forbidden with your brother’s best friend and weredefinitelyforbidden with one of your brother’s murderers. A lightning bolt of heat went straight to my pussy and I forced myself not to squirm on the sofa.

Living with the Beasts was a necessity. Letting them know they made my panties wet would be a catastrophe.

“Where will we start?” Otis asked without looking away from the game. “On the house?”

“Demo,” I said. “We’ll try to preserve as much of the old plaster as possible, but some of it needs to be torn out so we can start fresh.”

I thought of the third floor where Willa and the Kings had stayed when they’d been in hiding. The third floor had been the servants' quarters when the house had first been built and it was the floor most in need of a fresh start.

The rest of the house was mostly intact, thanks to my mom’s care of the place over the years and the fact that none of the teenagers from Blackwell had dared to use the house for parties and sex, knowing it belonged to the Hammonds.

That work would be mostly cosmetic — removing old wallpaper and the outdated renovations from the 1980s, restoring the original details and modernizing the kitchen while keeping it aligned with the rest of the house.

“Demo sounds fun,” Otis said, an anticipatory shine in his eyes.

Color me surprised the Beasts would look forward not to building something but to tearing something apart. “Yeah, but we’ll have to be careful not to damage the stuff I want to keep. I’ll go over the plans with you tomorrow so we can get started.”

I was mesmerized by Otis’ hands on the game controller. His skin was tan, a series of leather bracelets entwining his wrists. His fingers moved effortlessly over the controller and I suddenly wondered what they would feel like on my body.

What they could do to me.

“Got something to add about Otis’ game, sunshine?” Wolf asked from the end of the couch.

I looked over at him and realized he’d caught me staring at Otis.

Fuck me. I was going to have to be careful with these guys. I was seriously outnumbered, and while that gave me plenty of fodder for my fantasies, it also meant I couldn’t assume I was going unobserved. It seemed one of them was always watching.

Otis glanced at me. “You want to play?”

I shook my head. Thankfully, Otis wasn’t a read-between-the-lines kind of guy. When Wolf asked if I had something to add about the game, Otis took it at face value.

I set my phone down and curled up on the couch. It was chilly in the old house despite the fact that it was June, probably owing to its perch at the top of the cliff. I was eager for the temperatures to get warmer so I could open the windows at night. Then we'd be able to hear the Falls while we fell sleep.

Nobody had bothered to turn on the lights when the sun went down and my eyelids started to feel heavy, the game flickering over the darkened room while Wolf strummed the sad song at one end of the sofa.

Jace hadn’t said a word and Otis’ focus was on the game. I felt comfortable, and against all reason, safe.

I sunk lower into the sofa and let my eyes flicker closed. Just for a second.

Bliss.

I was warm, wrapped in a solid cocoon that smelled delicious.

Voices drifted to me in the darkness behind my eyelids.

“She’s cold as ice…”

“Can’t have our doll cold. I’ll turn up the heat…”

I startled awake, flailing as I floated through the air.

“Shhhh, it’s okay.” Wolf said. I realized he’d picked me up, was carrying me toward the stairs, the TV now dark, the video game off. “I’ve got you.”

“I can walk.” My protest was weak, my arms already going around his neck. I was still half-asleep, the feeling of being held in Wolf’s arms delicious.

I felt weightless. Not just rid of my physical body weight, but of all the stuff that had been weighing me down for the past five years.

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