Page 15 of The Reluctant Siren (Texas Sirens: Legacy #2)

Jensen looked around the house he grew up in and wondered why it felt so damn small now. And why it felt awkward and weird being here after all these years.

When he was young it had been him and his brother and his mom and whoever his mom was shacked up with that week.

How the hell was he back here, and what was he doing with Niall and Harlow?

How had it all gone so fucking wrong?

Or maybe right. Maybe this was the first time in years he was actually in the right place at the right time with the right people.

Was he thinking about what Niall had said?

“You want a beer?”

Niall walked in.

They’d stopped at a convenience store at the edge of town. It had security cameras but no Wi-Fi. There were still whole parts of Bonnet, Texas, that didn’t have Internet, and this was one of them. Like his mother would have paid for Internet. She was far too busy paying for drugs and spending time with the men she brought home.

“It’s morning. I think the time for beer is over.”

The last thing he should do is start drinking. A couple of beers in and he would be sitting outside Harlow’s bedroom door, begging to be let in. Hell, if he thought for a moment that begging and groveling would work, he would get on his knees now.

“And I think we’re probably going to need one if we’re going to deal with the Valkyrie in there.”

Jensen huffed. It was an apt description of Harlow Dawson. At least he was aware. Harlow also seemed so sweet and kind and nice. She was kind, but he would argue about sweet and nice.

“Did she lock herself in? I mean it’s nothing we can’t get through.”

“She slammed the door in my face, and then I heard the sound of her moving something. Probably the dresser,”

Niall admitted.

“Hope she doesn’t throw out her back. Although at least then we could be sure she’s not going to run away.”

“The good news is there’s not a lot of places to go to. The nearest town is five miles away. The rest is all ranchland,”

Jensen explained like he needed to. Niall lived here from tenth grade until they left for the military. Even before he moved in, he had slept in a sleeping bag on the floor on the nights his dad got too drunk and decided to take it out on him. Jensen sighed. It was hard to stay angry at the man who was seriously the only family he had left.

“Why did you have to date her? You knew how I felt, man.”

Niall had the grace to flush slightly. He popped off the top of his beer and took a long drink.

“I didn’t mean to fall for her but she’s…she’s pretty much my dream woman, and I include all the yelling she can do in there. The truth is I want a woman who isn’t going to let me walk all over her.”

“You’ve never walked all over a woman in your life.”

Niall was one of the best people he knew—poaching aside.

“No, but I have taken a couple for granted. Look, I’ve never felt for anyone the way I do Harlow, and part of it is how fucking fierce she is. Tell me that wasn’t what attracted you to her,”

Niall challenged.

He couldn’t. It was exactly why he’d fallen for her.

“She was mine first.”

“She isn’t a possession, Jensen,”

Niall said quietly.

“She’s a unique woman who deserves to get everything she needs.”

He wasn’t going to pretend to not understand what his friend was saying.

“She has never once mentioned to me she wants a relationship like her parents have. In fact, I’ve never seen her flirt with two guys, much less ask them on a date.”

“I’ve seen her with her friends who are in those relationships. You know her when she’s under pressure. I know her when she’s relaxed. Your entire relationship with Harlow was about adrenaline and lust. I’m not saying you don’t love her. I’m saying the time you’ve spent with her is incomplete. You know the highest highs and the lowest lows, but you don’t know what it means to sit around and watch TV with her. She likes home improvement shows and the worst reality dating crap known to man. But she makes these cookies with toffee chips and then I don’t care that I’m watching a bunch of people potentially breed who should not. They should not.”

He wanted to laugh because the idea of his manly buddy hanging out watching dating shows with his girlfriend was pretty funny. Except he should have been the one watching with her. Also, she’d never baked for him. Probably because they spent every night undercover, and the days had been about going over and over their case. Or fucking like bunnies.

Was Niall right? It wasn’t like there had been quiet dates. They didn’t sit around watching movies. They had talked a lot. Way more than Jensen normally talked.

“So you think because you watched some TV with her you have more of a claim?”

“I think you need to stop using words like claim, brother.”

Niall sat down on the fairly uncomfortable sofa.

“I also think you know a part of Harlow and I know a part of Harlow, and we should team up like in the comic books. Come on, man. Team ups were your favorites. We would save up quarters and sell cans and crap so we could see what happened when Superman and Batman took out a bad guy together. What would have happened if they took down Wonder Woman together? I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. Let me tell you in my time at The Hideout, I’ve seen some crazy shit.”

“You liked it? The lifestyle?”

It was the first time he’d truly thought about what he’d asked his friend to do. He told himself Niall was doing his part to help avenge Tommy, but what Niall had really done was uproot his whole life and throw himself into another. One he had never contemplated before.

“I fit there,”

Niall said quietly.

“At least I did. I probably will find my membership revoked, and since most of my business is people from the club and their family recommendations, I’ll likely have to give that up. Or we can try to save this whole thing. We can decide that she’s worth going against the norm.”

“Don’t you think that’s why she doesn’t want this kind of relationship? She had to live with it all her life. She had to put up with people judging her and her parents.”

It was one of the things they’d talked about. How hard it was to be a kid when you called two dudes dad and they were twin brothers.

“It wasn’t that hard,”

a feminine voice said, and Jensen’s heart threatened to constrict.

“I know my dad is a paranoid asshole from time to time, but he does love me, and I have to admit that sometimes we butt heads because we’re a lot alike. I don’t like to reveal that truth.”

She was so fucking gorgeous. He thought he remembered everything about her, but he’d forgotten how that colorful hair contrasted to her sun-kissed skin and how plump her bottom lip was. How her eyes seemed to glow in the low light.

How she could look at him like he was a walking piece of crap. Well, he didn’t entirely not deserve it.

“Can we get you something, princess?”

Niall stood, an overly eager Golden Retriever who was not reading the same signs he was.

Or his friend was being optimistic.

“You could get me a ride out of here,”

she replied sarcastically.

Sometimes he had to deal with her by using logic.

“I’ve got some burner phones. You can call Uber.”

She frowned, the light of battle hitting her eyes.

“Oh, you want to be cute?”

“Hey, maybe we shouldn’t piss her off more,”

Niall said out of the corner of his mouth. He set his beer down.

“Harlow, you know why we had to do this.”

Oh, he was opening himself up to some bitchy comments.

“Logic isn’t going to work.”

Harlow ignored him, zeroing in on Niall.

“I know why I had to do this. I know why Jensen had to do this. Why are you here, Niall? You are not under some death warrant by mobsters.”

“You know why I’m here,”

Niall tried.

This was going to be a long, drawn-out fight. Oh, hey, Niall might know what TV shows she watched and how good her cookies tasted, but had he not met Harlow’s inner bitch? Had he never been flayed alive by her incredibly sexy and sharp tongue? He must not have topped her much. As he watched them bicker…well Harlow bickered and Niall looked mostly confused…he realized he knew parts Niall hadn’t met yet.

Parts he brought out in her.

And he didn’t know all the parts Niall brought out in her.

She might never have talked about wanting the kind of relationship her parents had, but didn’t everyone learn from the people who raised them? Right or wrong, a childhood prepared one for adulthood. Had she learned she could have different parts of her personality and expect to have all her sides fulfilled?

Yes, he was thinking about it. Sharing her. Not in the long term. Maybe in the long term.

He didn’t know. He didn’t have to fucking figure this out tonight. He didn’t have to set the path of his life over the course of one evening. They had all been through trauma and needed to heal, and she was practically begging for one of them to take control.

Harlow struggled to let out her anxiety. It bubbled up and then she shoved it deep, and it shut her down.

“I know I didn’t tell you the whole truth,”

Niall was saying.

“But I had to talk to Jensen first.”

“I don’t care,”

Harlow shot back.

But she did or she wouldn’t be standing here. She would be in her room plotting how to murder them both and where to bury their bodies.

He wanted their first time back together to be tender and loving. He’d envisioned it a thousand times, those dreams of her his only consolation in the last few years.

But it looked like it was going to be hate sex, and he could handle that.

Could Niall?

“Feel free to walk out, baby.”

Jensen pulled on his bad-boy persona. She didn’t want to hear him apologize right now. She didn’t want sweet words. She wanted dominance and confrontation.

“Town is to the east. All you have to do is follow the road, though I wouldn’t expect to get a ride from strangers. There’s a prison not far from here, and we’re taught not to pick up hitchhikers.”

She turned his way.

“Oh, you don’t think I can walk a couple of miles?”

“I think you’ll need to jog because the minute you leave, my vow of silence is over and I’ll call your dad,”

he promised with a nasty smirk. He meant every word. If he wasn’t going to be around to watch her, then her dad could do the job.

In some ways he almost hoped she would do it. Then he could go back to stalking Hamilton and likely get his ass killed and it would be over.

Was he thinking that way?

“You wouldn’t,” she said.

“Try me.”

Now she needed some honesty, and it was going to make him vulnerable, but it didn’t matter. She could tear him apart, and he would let her.

“I’m only hiding here because of you, Harlow. If you walk, then I will call your family and feel safe knowing that you’re with them. And then I’ll go and finish the job.”

“You fucking will not,”

Niall protested.

“This is serious.”

“You think I care?”

Harlow challenged.

“I stopped caring the second you chose your revenge over me.”

“I chose you over everything else,”

Jensen shot back.

“Do you know how much trouble I got in when my girl got arrested? It set me back for months, and I had to compound it when I got your client out. They thought I might have had something to do with it. It would have been so much simpler to keep you with me. I did it to save you, but I don’t expect your forgiveness.”

“Good, because it’s not forthcoming, motherfucker.”

His eyes narrowed on her.

“But I do expect you to not run off recklessly and force Niall and I to put ourselves in danger to save you when it’s safe here. So that’s it for you. Here or with your parents in Colorado. And if you keep cursing me, we’ll talk about punishment since that’s what you’re honestly here for.”

“Excuse me?”

Harlow asked, her brows rising.

Jensen held his ground.

“If you didn’t want to start a fight that’s absolutely going to end with my hand on your backside and likely two cocks in your pussy at some point, you would be sulking in your room. Or you would already be walking. No. You came out here to start something.”

Niall watched them both.

“Jensen, she just wants to talk.”

Jensen didn’t take his eyes off her, and she stared at him.

“She doesn’t want to talk, man.”

“You think you know me?”

Harlow asked in a challenging tone.

“I know this much,”

Jensen said with confidence he shouldn’t have.

“Niall and I were discussing the fact that we know two different yous, but it’s the you I know that’s showing up tonight. I know the gorgeous bitch who takes no shit from anyone. She also has trouble with shoving her anxiety and anger and sorrow down. Really any strong emotion.”

“You think a cry is going to fix this?”

She moved into his space, her face flushing a pretty pink.

She was so gorgeous when she was mad. Maybe that was why he poked her so often. Or he could accept that he didn’t always know how to handle her since she was more complex than he liked to admit. Niall was right about that. His relationship with her was born in fire, and it would burn them both if they couldn’t turn the flames down.

But not tonight. Tonight she needed the burn, and fuck all, so did he.

He put his hand around her neck, a gentle reminder of who would be in control if she continued down this path.

“I think a good cry followed by an orgasm would do you a world of good. It doesn’t have to mean anything beyond we’re stuck here and both our lives were completely upended today and we need something to comfort us. I doubt you want me to hold you and tell you everything is going to be okay.”

She moved closer, pressing her neck against his hand.

“It means nothing.”

At least she was done pretending.

He tightened his grip, though it was still gentle. He would never hurt her in anything but a pleasurable way, and he wasn’t the type of Dom who lived to see his mark on a sub. But then his sub had always been her. He got into the lifestyle for the job, but he lived it for her.

“Do I have to rip your clothes off? Or is it acceptable for Master Niall to pull those pants down so I can spank your ass?”

“I’m confused, actually,”

Niall offered.

“I don’t have any other clothes, asshole,”

she shot back, a dark look in her eyes.

“Are you all about sharing now, or are you going to have him do your dirty work and shut him out?”

How little she thought of him. Although it was plainly what he’d been considering a couple of hours ago. The long ride and being back in this place had him rethinking. He should have known Niall would fall for Harlow. Maybe he had deep inside. Maybe there had been a part of him that wanted to know someone would love her after he died.

It hit him so forcibly that deep down he never intended to come out of this mission alive, and he had to find a way to deal with it. He hadn’t truly planned on a life after this, and he wasn’t sure of anything except that any life without them would be hollow.

“I think you require two of us tonight. He doesn’t know this part of you. Have you played?”

Niall suddenly seemed less confused.

“Light play only. No heavy scenes. We haven’t even played publicly yet. From what I can tell she hasn’t had sex in the months I’ve been around her. I think it’s been going on since she came back from LA.”

“Just because I’m picky doesn’t mean anything. Or maybe I needed time to get over some asshole setting me up to potentially die,”

she said but she didn’t move. She didn’t walk away because she wanted what he was offering.

His cock tightened in his jeans.

“We’ll talk about that at another time. I certainly didn’t want you dead, but I accept that what I did hurt you. Do you want a sincere apology?”

He didn’t think so, but he needed to give her the option. If he could do this with tenderness, he would.

“Fuck you, Jensen, and fuck your apologies.”

Hate sex it was then.