Page 14 of Crushing Clover

“That didn’t take long,” a man said. “You didn’t stay to eat?”

He didn’t live alone? Who was this?

“And break bread with that man voluntarily?” he sneered. “Shit went sideways, as it always does.”

A man with a towel wrapped around his waist glanced over from where he was flipping channels in an open-concept living room/dining room/kitchen. He did a doubletake, then stood there with the remote dangling from his fingers. Like Saint John, he was in his mid- to late- twenties. He was slightly shorter than him, with an undercut and a stocky, athletic build. Tattoos crept along his torso, along his limbs, up his neck, and there were even some on his face. He had piercings in both nipples, as well as two silver hoops in his eyebrow and one in his lip.

“Arabella. What are you…” He glanced from me to Saint John. “Who bruised her face?”

Arabella? Did the chick look so much like me thateveryonewas going to mistake me for her? This was going to get old fast.

“This is—allegedly—Clover, not Arabella.” He said my name like it was a joke. “Clover, this is Lucky.”

Lucky’s expression shuttered. “What in the actual fuck?”

“I don’t know, man. Warren gave me some story about finding an Arabella lookalike at one of those auctions he goes to. Apparently, he bought her to save her from certain death.”

“And he thought giving her to you would be better than certain death?”

“Right?” Saint John snorted. “And if we don’t—”

Before he could finish speaking, a third guy came down the stairs more quietly than anyone that big had a right to move. This one had long blond hair, a big beard, multiple ear piercings and two gorgeous tattoo sleeves that ran all the way down his fingers.

At the bottom of the stairs, he seemed to realize Saint John wasn’t alone. His eyes lit with unholy fire.

“What thefuck?”

“Rush, this isClover,” Lucky said.

He strode toward me, not stopping until I’d fallen back a few steps and bumped into Saint John, who promptly pushed me away as if I had cooties. Rush was uncomfortably close.

“Clover, huh?” His blond brows were drawn down in disapproval.

“Not Arabella.”

The three of them exchanged glances.

“Right?” Saint John agreed with the suspicion on Rush’s face.

“If it’s true, it’s fucking uncanny.” Rush stalked around me, checking me from different angles, making the little hairs rise on my nape.

Too bad I hadn’t gotten eaten by sharks while working at the resort.

“So, we’re supposed to believe this isn’t her?” Rush snapped. “If you wanted us back that bad, Arabella, all you had to do was ask. I’d gladly tell you to fuck right off.”

“I’m—” I tried to reply.

“Cut the shit. We’re over you, woman.” He headed back toward the stairs.

“Hey man,” Saint John called after him. “Clover is a new condition of our loan.”

He paused with his foot on the bottom step, but didn’t turn to look over his shoulder. “We don’t want her.”

“If we don’t want to go back to running a food truck, we do.”

Rush strode back to us. “And what exactly does he expect us to do with her?”

“She’s ours. We can do whatever we want.”

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