Page 32 of The Bad Brother

T HANKS TO JENSEN, I WAS ABLE TO HAVE my first real breakfast in weeks. Scrambled eggs with toast and bacon.

He even bought me orange juice.

Belly full, I stepped into the shower Friday morning, deliciously achy in all the right places.

That’s thanks to Jensen too.

After he left last night, I cleaned up—finally stripping off my gloves and bagging them up with the bloody towels that were so beyond salvaging that I just ended up throwing them away.

Putting buy more towels on my mental list of things I’ll dedicate my next paycheck to, I washed my hands and disinfected the countertops and island before I headed upstairs and threw myself into bed, sometime around 5AM, and didn’t wake up until I heard the distinct snap of the loft’s front door being closed.

Eyes open, the first thing I see is a drinking glass, half-filled with water, holding a bouquet of the same blue bonnets and black-eyed Susans that grow wild along the river behind the mill.

Scrambling out of bed, I look over the railing to find the downstairs empty.

Heading into the bathroom with a sigh, I find offering number two waiting for me on the bathroom counter—a neatly folded stack of plush bath towels.

Crossing buy more towels off my list, I used the bathroom before heading downstairs to start my day, more than a little disappointed that I had to do it alone.

Stepping out of the shower about twenty minutes later, I wrap up in one of my new towels, rubbing myself dry before hanging it on a hook.

On the counter in front of me are a few bottles of scented lotion, also courtesy of Jensen.

While not expensive, they’re a million times better than the tube of cheap, medicinal smelling lotion I liberated from one of the hospital supply closets.

Selecting one that’s supposed to smell like vanilla and night-blooming jasmine, I lift a foot to set it on the closed toilet lid. Smoothing lotion into my thigh, I notice a set of faint shadows between them, one on each inner thigh. Looking closer, I realize they’re bruises.

Dropping my leg, I turn around, aiming my backside at the mirror before peering at my reflection over my shoulder. More bruises, these slightly darker, brand my ass cheeks. Four them on each cheek, in a neat little row, roughly the size and shape of a man’s fingers.

Jensen’s fingers.

I’m not stopping until my filthy little peach soaks the front of my pants with her cum…

Nipples suddenly swollen and tight, cheeks flushed, I lift my gaze to find a woman I hardly recognize staring back at me.

Did I really lick the wet spot I left on Jensen’s pants last night after I came all over the front of them?

Did I really moan and whimper while he fucked my throat, so eager to swallow his cum that I was actually disappointed when there was nothing left to swallow?

Was that really me?

Did I really do those things?

Yes, I did.

And what’s even crazier is that I can’t wait to do them again.

Laughing softly to myself, I turn away from my reflection to finish getting ready for work.

LIKE YESTERDAY MORNING, RITA TEXTS me just as I’m locking up to leave for the hospital.

Rita: Given any more thought to the apartment I found? It’s not going to stay on the market for long. If you want it, we have to move fast.

Giving brief consideration to telling her that I know the owner and he’s already told me it’s mine if I want it, I decide against it. The woman’s done more than enough legwork to earn her five-hundred-dollar finders’ fee.

Me: Call him and see if we can set up a viewing for Sunday—that’s my next day off .

Even though Jensen made it clear he doesn’t want me to move out, and honestly, leaving the loft is the last thing I want to do, I have to be practical about this.

My stay here was always temporary and besides, just because Jensen wants me to stay now , who’s to say he’ll still feel that way a month from now.

A few orgasms—no matter how mind blowing they happened to have been—does not a relationship make.

We’re both just getting out of serious, long-term relationships.

He’s rebounding and so am I. I can’t let myself make more of it than that.

Not without getting hurt when it all falls apart.

Jensen is as far from Ethan as you can possibly get, Sloane. They aren’t even the same species. Who’s to say it’s going to fall apart? Who’s to say this can’t turn into something more?

Jamming my phone back into my bag without waiting for a reply, I bound down the stairs and land in a flurry of activity.

Along with the usual pair of revolving church ladies, there are no less than a dozen men with tool belts on ladders, mounting what look like security cameras in every visible corner of the bar.

A reminder that what happened between Jensen and me last night was proceeded by him getting attacked with a razor.

By someone sent by his own brother.

Throwing a look around the room, I find Cade in his usual spot behind the bar, despite the fact that he was standing outside my front door only a few hours ago, waiting for Jensen while we?—

Cheeks suddenly hot, I look away from him before he can give me one of his know-it-all, asshole smirks, to find Jensen talking quietly with a man wearing a pair of khakis with a clipboard, the name Frontline Security , stitched in red across the breast pocket of his polo.

Deciding to slip out without saying anything, I’m halfway across the parking lot when I hear someone behind me.

“I was kinda hoping you were done ignoring me, Peach,” Jensen says, the sound of his boots crunching across the gravel closing in behind me. “Since we played doctor last night, and all.”

Stopping at my car, I set my duffle on its roof with a laugh. “Is that what we did?” I ask while digging my car keys out of my purse. “I thought we?—”

Before I can finish, I feel rough hands close over my hips, turning me around to find Jensen suddenly standing over me, looking good enough to eat in a pair of worn-out jeans and a faded T-shirt from some local bar I’ve never heard of.

Pushing me back into the side of my car, he lifts a hand from my hip to slip it around the back of my neck.

Pressing the tip of his thumb into the underside of my chin, Jensen angles my mouth up to meet his for a slow, lingering kiss that turns my knees to water.

Pulling away, he smiles down at me. “Good morning.”

We’re just having fun.

Be practical.

Don’t get attached.

Knees still wobbly, I sigh. “Good morning.”

“Did you sleep good?”

I shake my head, staring up at him. “I didn’t.” After he left, I laid awake for almost an hour, hoping he’d come back .

The smile on his face goes quiet. “Me either,” he whispers while the thumb pressed under my chin slides down the length of my throat, a reminder of what he was doing to it only a few hours ago.

“How’s your shoulder?” I ask, my brow crumpling with concern. I should’ve made time to take a look at it before work.

“Good,” he says before giving me one of his smart-ass smirks. “The stitches held up, just fine.”

“Of course they did,” I say with a smirk of my own. “I am a surgeon, remember?”

Laughing quietly, he strokes his thumb down the length of my throat again. “Did you eat breakfast?”

“Yes.” I give him a nod. “Thank you for the towels. And the hot water.” I don’t mention the flowers because something tells me not to. That mentioning them might embarrass him.

“I promised you I’d be good, remember?” The hand on my hip slides lower to squeeze my ass. When I wince slightly, Jensen frowns. “Did that hurt?”

“You left bruises on my ass,” I tell him quietly, my cheeks going hot when I remember the way seeing them in the mirror this morning made me feel. “And between my thighs.”

The frown holds, even as his gaze heats before dropping to my mouth. “Should I apologize, Peach?”

“No.” Biting the corner of my lip, I stare up at him. “You should do it again.”

My answer lifts his gaze to meet mine, the sound he makes deep in his chest, downright feral. “From now on, you don’t leave without saying goodbye,” he tells me, the hand wrapped around my throat giving it a quick little pulse. “I don’t like it.”

“You looked busy,” I say, trying to ignore the fact that my nipples are suddenly so hard they hurt and my panties are soaked. What is this man doing to me? “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“I don’t care if I’m talking to the Lord Almighty, Peach,” he tells me, that thumb of his rubbing lazy circles against the uneven pulse bumping at the base of my throat. “You leave this bar, I want a proper goodbye.”

“Okay…” Nodding up at him, I give him a sweet smile. “Goodbye, Jensen.”

He growls at me again before leaning in to press an almost chaste kiss against my cheek, sliding past it, he whispers in my ear, “I know you’re wet, Peach, and if there wasn’t a pair of gossiping church ladies and a twelve-man work crew inside, watching us right now, I’d have you bent over this hood with your pants around your ankles so I could eat that filthy little pussy of yours.

Afterward, I’d fuck you from behind until my cock was soaked in your cum and you were screaming loud enough to raise the dead.

” Pulling back, he gives me another kiss, this one to the tip of my nose.

“Goodbye, Sloane.” Jensen smiles while dropping his hand away from my neck. “Have a good day at work.”