Page 46 of The Bad Brother

T HIS TIME, I DON’T MAKE HER A GRILLED cheese and tomato soup. I make her a BLT and a root beer float, after which she insists on checking my stitches to make sure we didn’t open them up.

We didn’t.

According to Sloane everything looks good and the cut is healing nicely.

After she interrogated me about my antibiotics and did the math to make sure I’m taking them on schedule, I fucked her again on the kitchen counter.

And then again on the floor between the living room and the staircase on our way to bed.

I didn’t think of my brother once.

Not one time.

Not until she mentioned him.

“I did something today…” She whispers it against my shoulder, her voice heavy with the exhaustion she’s un doubtedly been fighting against since she walked through the door. Hearing it makes me feel guilty.

“Tell me tomorrow,” I say, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. When I say it, I feel her brow pucker against my lips before I pull back on a quiet laugh. “You’re fading, Peach. I should’ve put you to bed an hour ago.”

“This is too good to wait,” she says before hooking her leg over my waist, rolling us both over to straddle me. I go rock hard the instant I feel the heat of her bare pussy pressed against me. We’re both naked. I could be fucking her inside of a second if I wanted to.

I want to.

My cock jerks at the thought.

“Peach…” Dropping my hands to her hips on a warning growl, I do my level best to hold her in place, not sure which of us I’m actually warning. “You need to go to sleep.”

“I will...” The hands braced on my chest dig their fingers into my pecs, her restless hips shifting under the weight of my hands.

She feels how hard I am and even though it’s closing in on 4AM and we’ve already done it a half a dozen times, against nearly every flat surface we could find, Sloane wants to fuck as much as I do. “After I tell you what happened.”

“Talk fast.” Groaning softly, I loosen my grip on her hips, letting them roll against mine because there’s no use in fighting it.

“After I told my mother off at lunch and got up to leave, I saw Ethan and Amy—” She’s looking down at me, the shape of her face softly illuminated in the hazy, predawn glow that’s barely strong enough to push itself through the window. “I already told you he was there, right?”

“Yeah.” I nearly choke on the word, feeling like the biggest prick that ever lived because hearing my brother’s name come out of her mouth doesn’t change a thing.

I’m still hard for her. I’m still going to lift her up and impale her on my cock so I can watch her ride me until she comes all over it, as soon as she stops talking. “You told me.”

“Well, on my way out, I ordered them the bananas foster.”

I swallow hard, my hands gripped tight around her hips again. “You did?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the best part,” Sloane tells me, laughing a little. “I paid the waiter to tell them that it was with compliments from Jensen and Sloane.”

Shit.

“Sloane—”

That’s as far as I get before she’s leaning over me. Her long, dark hair closing around us like a curtain, a single, breathless moment before she’s kissing me, hips rolling against mine, silently begging me to do what we both want. What neither of us can seem to stop doing.

God help me, I want her.

I can’t stop.

Can’t deny her.

I don’t even try.

I KNEW.

As soon as Sloane told me what she did at the club, how she humiliated Ethan—I knew.

So, when my phone buzzes on the nightstand about twenty minutes after she finally falls asleep, I’m not surprised. The only surprise is that it took so long for him to hit me back.

Colt: come downstairs

Me: coming

Heart in my throat, I lean down to press a kiss to Sloane’s cheek before carefully easing myself out of bed.

We made plans over root beer floats. Since we both have the next two days off, we were going to drive down to Austin.

There’s a brewery there I’ve been wanting to check out.

We were going to stay overnight. Maybe catch some live music somewhere.

We were going to do things a normal couple would do. I was going to tell her I’m in love with her, right before I do my damnedest to explain to her who I am.

What I am.

But that was before I knew what Sloane did.

That she said my name to Ethan. Linked it with hers in a room full of people.

Pulling on my jeans, I zip them up before taking the stairs as quietly as I can because I don’t want to wake her. She’s had a long day and?—

That’s not why you don’t want to wake her up, you goddamned liar. You don’t want to wake her up because she’ll ask you where you’re going. Why you’re sneaking out of her house in the middle of the fucking night and you’ll have to tell her the truth.

The truth you should’ve told her the second your brother’s name came out of her mouth.

Downstairs, I snag my T-shirt off the floor and shove my feet into my boots before walking out the door, every step of the way praying that it isn’t River. Isn’t Cade or Sera. That whatever Ethan did to hit me back, it’s not something I’m going to have to walk myself into traffic over.

By the time I disarm the system that’s turned my bar into Fort Knox and open the door, I’m so sick to my stomach with worry that I almost throw up on Colt’s boots, the second I see him. It’s not just him.

Cade’s standing behind him.

That leaves River or Sera.

“What did he do?”

Neither of them says a word.

I look at Cade because he’ll tell me, even if it hurts. “ What did he do?”

Cade doesn’t answer me. Just stares at me, fists clenched like he wants to put me through a fucking wall.

Shaking my head, I feel my guts do a slow roll, bile surging up to burn the back of my throat before I can swallow it back down. “I need one of you assholes to either start talkin’ or start swingin’ because?—”

“Don’t temp me with a good time,” Cade growls at me, practically vibrating with rage.

That makes it Sera.

Fuck .

“Neither one of you is swingin’ on shit,” Colt says, his tone telling me he’s already tired of dealing with us. “You’re coming with me. Cade’s staying here to make sure things stay quiet.”

In other words, he’s here to watch over Sloane to make sure my psychopath brother doesn’t try to do something stupid while I’m gone.

Stepping aside, he makes an exaggerated, after you gesture at his brother. Cade strides past him, shoulder-checking me on his way through the door. “I hope it was worth it,” he practically snarls at me, not even bothering to stop on his way across the bar.

Swallowing hard again, I look at Colt.

“Come on,” he says motioning me outside. “We got somewhere to be.”

Even though I don’t want to go anywhere until I get some answers, I reset the alarm before locking up and following Colt to his truck. As soon as we’re in and on our way out of the parking lot, he puts me out of my misery.

“Sera’s fine. So’s Riv,” Colt tells me before I can ask. “I went to her place, first thing, and made sure.”

The relief that knocks into me is so strong I feel myself start to gray out a little before the reality of the situation slaps me back into the here and now. Maybe she isn’t hurt, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stay that way. “She can’t be alone. It’s not safe. I need to go get her. I need to?—”

“It’s already done.” Colt looks at me like I’m slow and stupid. “Contrary to what you and my asshole brother might think, I’m actually good at my job. Riv’s at my dad’s place. She’s fine. ”

Before Colt, Cal Montgomery was Barrett county sheriff. I know without asking that my uncle is sitting on his front porch with a shotgun, hoping my brother is stupid enough to try him. The visual should make me feel better but it doesn’t.

“What about your mom?” I ask because I can’t help myself. “Sera and the kids?—”

“If your brother’s stupid enough to try my mother, he’s gonna meet God on a bright, Sunday morning,” Colt says on a rusty laugh.

He’s not wrong. If my choice was between Cal Montgomery and his ex-wife, I’d take Cal.

Even with the shotgun. Hell, if my choice was between Aunt Penny and a bear, I’d take the bear.

Every time.

“Okay.” Marginally relaxed, I give him a nod while he drives past the sheriff’s and fire station, sitting side-by-side on Main. Both are brightly lit. The only other building showing signs of life is June’s, right next door. “So if everyone’s safe, then I don’t under?—”

“Orton Redford was attacked a few hours ago,” Colt says, stopping me cold. “Can’t be one hundred percent, but best I can figure, he tried to stop someone from setting fire to your truck.”

My truck.

The truck Tank gave me.

The truck Ethan and his buddies put in the Barrett a few weeks ago.

The truck I paid Red to fix for me.

That sick gonna puke feeling comes roaring back.

“Jesus Christ.” I swipe a rough hand over my face just as Colt turns the corner and Red’s lot comes into view.

It’s surrounded by fire trucks, their emergency lights bouncing around.

The thick smell of acrid smoke hanging in the air while people stand in their front yards in their night clothes, staring in blank shock at the chaos that’s enveloped their neighborhood.

I already know my truck is a total loss.

I don’t even have to ask and to be honest, I don’t even care.

“Is he okay?” Red was one of Tank’s closest friends. He cried like a baby at his funeral. “Is he?—”

Dead.

I wouldn’t put it past Ethan.

Killing Orton Redford wouldn’t even be the worst thing he’s ever done.

“Dead?” Knowing exactly where I’m going, Colt shakes his head.

“No—but he’s not okay either.” Slowing the truck to a stop, Colt shifts into park and kills the engine before looking at me.

“He’s in bad shape, Jen—really bad shape.

He’s got some pretty bad burns on his arms like he was trying to put out the fire when he was attacked.

Whoever it was that went after your truck stabbed him enough times to make it pretty clear they were aiming to kill him for his trouble.

Reese and Billy are with him now. They’re trying to stabilize him enough for surgery. ”

Reese, Colt’s deputy—the one who busted Ethan’s dickhead friends for drunk driving a few weeks ago, on their way back over the bridge—is Red’s daughter.

“Look—” Colt shakes his head because he’s looking right at me. Can see the look on my face. Knows what I’m thinking. “I need you to let me do my job.” That’s why I’m here. Because he knows me. What I would’ve done if I’d found out what happened without a babysitter. “Whoever did this?—”

“Ethan.” I say my brother’s name out loud. What we’re both thinking. What we both know for a fact but can’t prove. “It was Ethan.”