Page 43 of Sinful Like Us

It feels wrong.

So incrediblywrong.

But if they’re coming for my boyfriend, then I’ll have no choice.

“Do not cower,” I coach quickly. “Do not avoid their eyes. Do not show fear. They’re little fiends that will chew you up like you’re nothing more than a three o’clock snack.”

A shadow of a smile plays at his mouth.

“You smile now but they can smell blood in the water, and the second you cut open a weakness, they will poke and prod until you’re bleeding out.” My mind whirls inside a new sort of apprehensive alarm. I’ve never been in this position with my siblings. I’ve never felt like we’re on a battleground and I stand opposite all of them. “They could make you jump naked over a fence for all I know.”

He cups my hot cheeks, his large hands cocooning my face, and it helps me breathe somehow. I curl my fingers over his strong wrists.

“Five teenage boys can’t hurt me, point-blank,” Thatcher proclaims. “I doubt a hundred could.”

I ease some. “Your cockiness is helpful.”Because the sky and Earth know that most of my brothers are tremendously arrogant.“But you do realize that Charlie and Beckett are twenty-one?”

He nods once. “I’m all good. I have this.” He drops his voice lower. “They can’t make me do anything that I don’t want to do.”

I quirk my brows, lips parting. “You would jump naked over a fence for me?”

His complete unwavering, sexy self-assurance sayshell yeah.

I rest my chin on his chest, looking up. Could I do the same? I’m not 100% sure, but I want to believe I can make this equal. I have it in me—I know I do.

Somewhere.

And so I say, “As I would for you.”

He gives me a stern look, his hand tracking down my back. “You’d be in tabloids.Naked.”

“A sacrifice,” I whisper, my heart flops on a treadmill set at the highest speed. “One I’m certain I can make.”

He shakes his head, his thumb stroking my cheek. “One you’d beuncomfortableto make. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong.” I lie, for some reason. I shouldn’t lie. It feels morbid and nauseating, and I’m not positive he can tell I’m being untruthful.

He just stares at me. “We’re not competing for jack shit, you and me.”

“We’re not,” I agree. “This is just something we do together.”

“Getting naked and jumping fences?”

“Oui.”

He blinks and breathes hot breath through his nose. He’s straight-forward and direct. I talk like I’m taking every roundabout, side-street, and detour on a map, and lately we haven’t always crossed paths. He’s trying not to be lost inside metaphors and subtext.

“Dude, it’s like a morgue in here.”

Tom.

We turn, just as Tom trots closer with buckles clinking on a black rocker jacket. Golden-brown hair artfully styled, mouth in a corkscrew smile, charm and mischief melded together.

He’s eighteen and I’ve seen him grip a microphone like a second heart. Singing with every ounce of power and feeling inside of him. Captivating a screaming, frenzied audience with such tremendous ease.

But in this moment, he’s not a lead singer of an emo-punk band.

He’s just my little brother.