Page 15 of Gather the Storm

“Okay,” she said. “Well… I still appreciate it. I tried to write to you, but you never wrote back.”

“It was easier for us.” Wolf threw her a bone, probably because he was having as hard a time keeping his distanceas I was. “Not to have contact with the outside, I mean.”

“Or maybe we just didn’t want to talk to you,” Jace said.

She pressed her lips together and nodded, like the words stung but she understood where he was coming from.

Then again, maybe I was projecting, because god fucking knew I wasn’t an expert at reading expressions.

“I’ve been thinking about how I could help,” she said. “When you got out.”

I winced, because telling Jace you wanted to help him wasnota good strategy, even in the best of situations, which this definitely wasn’t.

His right eye twitched, the way it did when he was about to lose his shit. “What makes you think we need your fucking help,princess?”

She’d obviously had enough of his bullshit because her eyes flashed like purple fire. “You’ve been locked up for five years forkilling my brother. Everyone else has left — gone off to college or traveling or moved to a big city. What’s waiting for you?”

Ouch. That one hit me, because she was right: everyone else in our senior class had moved on during the five years we’d been in jail.

Now Wolf was really paying attention, which probably had less to do with the incoming shit storm and more to do with the fact that Daisy had been hiding a backbone.

“That’s none of your business,” Jace said. “The only thing you need to know is that we don’t need you.”

I wanted to raise my hand.Actually, I need you, Daisy.

Or put more accurately, since my dick was still hard:I fucking want you.

She’d always been appealing — something we’d all tried to hide because, duh, she was Blake’s little sister — but her pretty face and gorgeous body combined with that little glimpse of fire?

I wasallthe way in.

If we hadn’t agreed to keep our distance, I mean.

“All right then,” she said, folding her arms over her voluptuous tits, “what if I saidIneededyou?”

And I had to admit, that wasnotwhat I’d fucking expected.

Chapter 7

Daisy

Had there ever been a more obnoxious, bigheaded, stupid hot guy than Jace Kane?

I was guessing no.

He’d always been a dick, but I hadn’t had to deal with him much when I was fifteen. I’d been able to roll my eyes, go to my room, pretend he didn’t make me wet just by being in the same room.

Plus I’d been a card-carrying member of the little sister club. It had seemed annoying at the time but now I saw that it had offered me a kind of protection, a kind of safety.

Now Blake was gone and I was alone with the Blackwell Beasts, feeling anything but safe. I was practically lightheaded from the sex appeal seeping from their pores.

Jace shook his head and muttered, “Un-fucking-believable.”

Which, okay, I didn’t blame him. Because why would I need — or want — anything from the guys who had killed Blake?

“Why would you need us?” Wolf asked, like he had a window into my mind.

“I don’t know if you remember, but I inherited this house from my mom,” I said.

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