Page 103 of Insta-Family (Forbidden Descendants 3)

My stomach immediately tensed. I didn’t want to know this information, and yet I inched closer to the door, eager to hear Vaughn’s answer.

Snorting, he muttered, “I don’t even fucking know. But it had to be at least a year or two before Duke died.”

“What?” Luke cried in shock as a couple of the other guys winced and hissed out their sympathy.

Gracen went as far as to murmur, “Ouch.”

“Dude.” Luke pointed at Vaughn. “We need to get you laid. Like immediately. This is a crisis situation. Ooh...” Snapping his fingers, he sat up straighter. “I know the perfect person who’d have sympathy for your plight and probably throw you a pity fu—”

“Seriously… If you say my sister’s name as the go-to, sympathy-sex giver,” Beau spoke up, “I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“And I’ll hold you down while he does,” Vaughn added.

“Okay, alright, fine,” Luke answered, lifting his hands in apology. “Though, honestly, I think you and Lucy should just legit get married already.”

As Vaughn coughed and choked on his drink, Gracen slugged Luke in the gut. “What the hell, man? You can’t just say that to him.”

“Why not?” Beau wondered. “I like the idea myself.”

“Hell, everyone likes the idea,” Fox stated. “We just know better than to say it out loud.”

“Seriously? All of you?” Vaughn finally cleared his air passage enough to send the men around him an incredulous glance. “You must be joking?”

“What?” Beau shrugged. “I could do a lot worse in the brother-in-law department. I mean, look at what I have to work with now.” He swung his arm over and smacked the shoulder of his wife’s brother who was sitting beside him.

Fox sent him a dry glance and then shrugged. “You know what? I’m not even going to be offended by that. Gracen’s my favorite brother-in-law, anyway.”

“Score,” Gray murmured unenthusiastically from the other side of the fire and lifted his fisted hand to give a vague triumphant wave.

“Bastard,” Beau grumbled, punching at Fox’s thigh.

“Butt muncher,” Fox shot back, punching back.

“See,” Luke told Vaughn as he motioned toward Beau. “You’ve got big brother’s—along with everyone else’s—blessing. So what’s your problem?”

“Really?” Vaughn sent him an incredulous glance. “You just sat there, swearing you couldn’t share anything with Trick, whom you have no biological relationship to at all, and you want to know what my qualms are about a woman who’s had a child with my brother?”

“Okay, sure,” Luke mumbled with a thoughtful nod. “That would be pretty unsettling if your woman had carnal knowledge of both you and your brother and could quantify which one was better in the sack.” Then he lifted a finger. “On the other hand, I almost hooked up with my brother’s wife before they got together, and that’s never been an issue with us. I mean…” He shrugged and grinned. “It’s only an issue when I want to piss him off and make it one.”

“Except you didn’t almost sleep with Teagan,” he was promptly told by numerous sources. “Not even close.”

“What do you mean?” Luke cried in offense. “It was me who she thought she wanted, and it was my tent she climbed into that night. If JB hadn’t switched with me, Teagan and I totally would’ve banged on that canoe trip.”

But every guy surrounding him made a face and openly disagreed, shaking their heads before Beau came right out and said, “Meh. I don’t think so. Something would’ve happened there to stop it because you two were never gonna happen.”

“Oh, whatever…” Luke waved that protest aside and turned Vaughn’s way. “The point is that Teagan and JB were meant to be together, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I had nailed her that night or fifty times after. They love each other, and nothing from their past was going to keep them from eventually getting together. Not even me. The same thing would be true for you and Lucy too.”

Silence followed his words, and then Gracen clasped Luke’s shoulder, murmuring, “Damn, man. That was actually pretty deep for you. I’m impressed.”

Luke brightened at the compliment. “Really?”

“Very nice,” Fox echoed, clapping and cheering him on.

“Yeah, but the only reason I’ve even gotten to know Lucy at all,” Vaughn spoke up, breaking the cheerful moment, “is because my brother stuck his dick in her.”

In the dark, I flinched at his crude words and hugged myself, trying not to feel ashamed about that fact.

“She had his baby,” he murmured, stressing the word. “And I never would’ve seen her again if I hadn’t wanted to meet my niece. I never would’ve talked to her, or spent any time with her and gotten to know her as I do now, I never would’ve moved into her fucking garage if she hadn’t slept with Duke. And none of that even would’ve happened if he were still alive today.”

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