Page 18 of The Reluctant Siren (Texas Sirens: Legacy #2)

Jensen woke up as the early morning light snuck in through the cracks in the curtains, and it took him a minute to realize he wasn’t alone in his bed in Dallas. At first a bit of panic set in. He reached for his gun. It was always close.

He couldn’t find it.

“Hey, it’s okay,”

a soft voice said.

A familiar voice. Harlow. He heard her voice in his sleep all the time. In his head. But this time she was real, and she was laid out next to him.

The events of the previous day flooded his brain.

Seeing her again. Knowing something big was about to go down. The fuck-up at the apartment. Finding out Niall was in love with her.

Her dads. Oh, he’d met her dads, and he had not made a good impression. Not at all.

Bringing her here. Watching her fuck Niall.

Fucking her.

Losing everything.

“It’s okay,”

she reiterated, her hand on his chest. She stroked him in a soothing fashion.

“Niall’s making coffee. He apparently got up early and went into town and got some groceries and picked up some clothes for you. I wouldn’t expect much. I think it’s probably sweats and T-shirts. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

It was only a waking dream, something he dealt with a lot. Those nasty worries that struck him when he was waking up. How he would lay there for a moment, wanting to make sure he was alone before he gave away the fact that he was conscious.

She was still for a moment and then turned away. He immediately felt the loss of that hand on his chest.

“I’ll go see if Niall needs anything.”

He was barely awake and already screwing up. After all the sex the night before, he’d lain awake and tried to figure out how he felt about going from hardcore dude, ready to murder for revenge, to confused dude who was suddenly somehow in a threesome. Or was it more technically a throuple? Maybe they were only called that after they were together for a longer period of time. He was pretty sure what happened last night was a devil’s three-way since most of society thought two girls and a guy was more like heaven.

Last night felt pretty damn close.

But as he laid there he realized if he wanted any kind of chance with Harlow—with or without Niall—he would have to open up. It was what put her off about him the first time around. They’d fought about his unwillingness to ever admit anything was wrong. Right up until the moment he exploded. Their fights had been spectacular and sometimes his words were cruel, and he wasn’t doing that to her this time around.

It was more than simply being with her. It was being in this house and remembering all the crap his mother put up with so she could say she had a man. Always just a man after his father left, never a husband or a real partner. They didn’t talk about their feelings.

Harlow had been so open when she’d apologized. He hadn’t taken her complaining about his delicate feelings the way Niall thought. Or maybe he had because it shut him down. Maybe his only chance was to open up.

He reached out and touched her back, noting the line of her spine, the softness of her skin.

“I’m sorry. I sometimes wake up and worry that Hamilton will have put a dead girl in bed with me. It’s one of the ways he solidifies his higher-up men. I’ve heard he makes some of them kill and some he simply ensures that it looks like they did it. So sometimes I wake up and for a moment I think it’s happened to me.”

She turned, shifting back into bed and gazing down at him, her hair brushing the tops of her shoulders and her breasts on display. She was comfortable with her body, and it was one of the sexiest things about her.

“Jensen, you have to know you would be one of the ones he had to trick. You would never have hurt someone.”

And her kindness and generosity was one of the other. Her kindness was the part that made his freaking heart beat like he was an actual human being. He brought her hand back to his chest, laying her palm against his skin and feeling warm again.

“I’m glad you think that way. There have been days when I wondered.”

She frowned.

“I don’t want to feel for you.”

“You can’t help it because you feel for everyone, baby,”

he replied quietly.

“Just tell yourself that it’s part of playing the role of my sub. You liked this part. You liked being a comfort.”

Her nose wrinkled.

“You make me sound all gooey.”

He chuckled. It felt so good to be here with her. He should be way more upset. He worked for years to get to the top of Hamilton’s organization, and now it was all gone and he wasn’t going to get his revenge. And yet he was lying here feeling safer than he felt in years.

“You are extremely tough, but you have a gorgeous, gooey center.”

She huffed but she laid back down, shifting to her side and holding her head on her free hand. She made no move to take her hand back.

“Yeah, there’s a reason I chose the career path I did. I thought about going into the military. I thought about talking to some people I know and seeing if the CIA needed someone like me.”

He shook his head.

“You would have been miserable. You wouldn’t be able to deal with the moral compromises you would have to make. What you do is perfect for you. Dangerous as fuck and might get you killed one day, but it’s what you do.”

“Then why did you push me away?”

His heart clenched because she didn’t ask the question with anger. This time there was a wistfulness to the query that made him feel far more guilty than he ever had before.

“Because while I know your job might get you killed one day, I couldn’t be the reason for it. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t watch them come after you. The truth of the matter was I was going to get us both killed. I couldn’t let them touch you.”

“I want to believe you.”

She sighed.

“Not that I think we should get back together, but I don’t want to go on being so angry with you. It’s held me back for years now, and I can’t anymore.”

He breathed for a moment, his hand over hers.

“If the only thing that comes out of this whole debacle is you aren’t angry with me anymore and you can move on, then it’ll be worth it.”

He meant it. It surprised him, but he truly meant the words.

“Jensen, I’m not dumb. You have to be pissed off. I marched in and everything you worried would happen came to pass. You got caught because of me,”

she pointed out.

“That was not my worry.”

He closed his eyes. When was the last time he felt this relaxed? He’d gotten used to his whole body being tense and having to force his muscles to relax. How long had he lived in a state of anxiety, his whole soul placed in an unrelenting stress position? “My worry was you would die and I would have another person to avenge.”

“Or you could have had another person to fight with you.”

He opened his eyes and turned so they were face to face. She was so gorgeous in the dim light, the sun peeking in under the curtains making almost a halo around her.

“Baby, I never thought I would get out.”

Her eyes widened.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I knew when I went in that the only way I got out was in a body bag or handcuffs.”

He finally admitted the truth out loud.

She was quiet for a moment.

“Then why would you send Niall to watch me?”

“I suppose when they moved into the Dallas territory and brought me with them, I thought there was a chance,”

he said with a sigh.

“Or my brain wasn’t willing to accept the truth. I wonder if somewhere down there I really did want the two of you to get together. So I would know the only two people I loved who were left on this earth had each other.”

“I’m not ready to hear that word from you.”

She pulled her hand away, but she didn’t leave.

“And I can’t trust Niall any more than I can you.”

It was odd. Only last night he was thinking about how the hell he’d gotten himself into this position, and now it felt fairly easy to back his friend up.

“But you can. Niall is the most honest person I’ve ever known.”

“And yet he lied to me,”

she pointed out.

“He might have lied about the whys and hows, but not what he felt.”

He reached out and brushed back a strand of purple hair. So pretty.

“He didn’t sleep with you because he didn’t want to start what he felt was the real beginning of a relationship with untruths between you. He tried calling me. I ignored him for days because I was getting ready to meet Hamilton, and then you showed up. If I had answered him, none of this would have happened. He would have told me he was going on a case with you, and I would have figured out how they connected.”

“But you didn’t and everything fell apart.”

“It did,”

he agreed.

“It fell apart at the worst possible time. Or you could say it fell apart at the best time. It fell apart before I had to truly make the decision about what I was willing to give up for my revenge.”

“You gave up me.”

“Not for revenge.”

If there was one thing he wanted her to understand, it was this.

“Baby, think about how much easier it would have been for me if you stayed. I wouldn’t have been questioned about whether or not I knew you were a PI. Yeah, they figured that out, and I knew they would.”

“I didn’t think about that. What happened?”

“Nothing important.”

Nope. That wasn’t going to work. He let his head fall back. She deserved the truth, and he deserved to say all this shit so he had some chance of purging it from his system. He was so tired of carrying this load alone.

“They beat the shit out of me. I got my ass sent to what passes for a cartel prison for a couple of days. I told them I discovered you were lying to me right before you called the cops in, and I only barely managed to get away. I think the only reason they didn’t kill me was I worked with a supplier who wouldn’t talk to anyone else.”

“Rick? The guy who made X?”

He nodded.

“It was their best seller at the time, and they decided scaring the shit out of him didn’t work. The only thing that worked was me. He died, you know. Got caught in the middle of a firefight when he was delivering a shipment.”

He thought about Rick a lot. Smart. Had everything to live for except a couple of undiagnosed mental health issues caused him to slide into criminality. He could have been a chemist or a researcher if his parents had the money for college, or hell, even a damn doctor. Instead he made money the only way he could, and he died for it.

“There was also the fact that I texted my direct superior. I had to let him know or it would have looked bad. I know you think I up and decided to dump you one day, but I carefully planned it once I realized they were coming after you next and you wouldn’t leave me behind.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“You could have talked to me.”

“Really? Because I remember several conversations that ended in screaming matches about the subject.”

Of course those screaming matches had turned into long sessions in bed where they solved nothing but the sexual tension between them. He wondered how Niall would have handled it. Niall likely would have sent them to their corners and said no hot sex until we can leave the word hate out of the mix.

Would they be here if Niall had been with them back then?

“Yeah, I remember that, too. We were always way too passionate. I don’t suppose that would have lasted. My dad figured out it was a guy who I got into trouble for and he told me passion like that always either burns out or burns the people caught in it. So the truth of the matter is it wouldn’t have worked. You were like a drug to me. I got addicted fast, and I was willing to do anything to get another hit.”

His heart ached that she thought of him that way.

“I don’t remember it like that. I saw you as the only real thing in a world I didn’t want to be in. You were… Sometimes I wish I met you before Tommy died.”

Her head shook.

“You still would have investigated.”

“Investigated. Not given up my whole life because I didn’t think I had one. Because I know I should have been there for him.”

“You were in the military,”

Harlow argued.

“You couldn’t exactly come any time he called. We’ve talked about this.”

“Not this way. Not when I’m calm and looking at my life in a different way. It’s odd how clear things become when you have no more options. Or I guess I have most of the options now.”

He sighed. It was overly dramatic but true.

“It’s weird. Now I have to figure out how to live a whole life. I have to find a way to not feel like I failed. I meant what I said. If your cousin can take down Hamilton, I’ll be at peace with it. Even if it means I have to testify and admit everything I’ve done.”

Even if it meant going to jail. Hell, at least in jail he could moon over her without the option of stalking her. Although that was another way to get his ass thrown in jail. Or dead, if her dads got hold of him.

“It won’t come to that,”

she replied.

“I get the feeling Jack will work with the prosecutor to get you immunity. You never killed anyone. Anyone you hurt was likely self-defense.”

She was leaving out so much.

“And the drug running? The deliveries I made that I have no idea what was in the package?”

“Are peanuts compared to what you know about how the organization runs,”

she replied.

“You’re not going to jail. You’re not going to die. So it’s time you figured out how to live. You think I don’t know what goes on in your head? You might never have said the words to me because you didn’t trust me enough to show me your soul, but I still knew.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is,”

she insisted.

“Or maybe you don’t trust yourself. Either way, there’s a lack of trust, and that will kill any chance at a relationship. What I was trying to say is even though you never said it out loud, I know you think it should have been you. You think Tommy had more to offer the world, and if anyone could die and have no one notice, it’s you.”

She’d summed him up perfectly.

“It never helps to tell the woman you’re in love with that you’re a worthless piece of shit. One tends to want to hide the fact.”

She laid back, her gaze going to the ceiling.

“I can’t fix you, Jensen. Thinking you love me won’t fix what’s empty inside you.”

He wasn’t letting her off so easy. He’d gotten to know her, too.

“Tell me you don’t think your sister is more important than you. If something happened to your sister, you wouldn’t want to take her place.”

She was silent for a moment, and he worried he’d lost her.

“Of course I would. Greer is… Well, she’s ridiculously talented. She got all our mom’s artistic skills. She’s smart.”

“She’s not smarter than you. Maybe she’s better at you in art, but she’s not smarter. I would bet she can’t sit down and figure out a puzzle the way you can. I bet she doesn’t throw her damn body into battle the way you do,”

he replied.

“Yeah, and while Tommy might have been smart, he was na?ve and he was stubborn,”

a familiar voice said.

“You told him not to take those loans. You sat him down and found a school you could afford for him. Harlow, did you know he offered to pay his brother’s way through college?”

Harlow sat up, the sheet right below her breasts as she turned to Niall, who stood in the doorway.

“No. He only told me his brother went to college and took out some predatory loans.”

“Which I wouldn’t have let him sign if I had been around.”

He should have kissed her instead of talking. Now he felt weird because he was naked and Niall was here.

Did he feel weird? Or was it weird that he didn’t care, and that’s what he was worried about. Or not worried about. He wasn’t sure, and honestly, he didn’t want to think about it right now. Fake it ’til you make it. Wasn’t that his motto when it came to becoming walking vengeance? He was such a douche, but it was true. He’d decided to play Punisher and he’d done it by sinking into the role and not coming out of it until he met a gorgeous girl with electric blue hair and eyes that brought him back to the real world. Or showed him that there was another, better world. What if he sank into this role? What if he tried?

“Like I said,”

Niall continued, “Tommy could be stubborn. He wanted to be a doctor.”

“Yes, I knew that. He was smart,”

Harlow agreed.

“But he still got caught by Hamilton.”

“He thought he knew what he was doing,”

Niall explained.

Jensen shook his head.

“He was ashamed. He knew damn well something was wrong with his new job. It was why he tried to hide it from me. It took me a while to untangle what happened to him. According to my brother, he was just working to save up money for medical school. What I realized was he was trying to pay off his loans at first, and then he was underwater with the cartel Hamilton was working with. His undergrad degree cost one hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars. I paid fifty of it. So my brother’s life was worth seventy-three thousand dollars. I thought my life was worth way less. I meant to stay in the Army until I retired because it was the only place for me. Lately, I’ve been wondering about that.”

“Lately?”

Niall asked, moving to the bed. He sat down but not before he laid a kiss on Harlow’s forehead.

It was intimate, being in this room alone with them. It felt…right.

“Well, since last night. I’ll admit that until last night I was very focused. I was close, and I didn’t want to think about anything except achieving my goal. Now I kind of question the goal. Turns out I don’t particularly want to go to prison or die.”

Harlow sighed.

“Now you decide this.”

“We can talk about this after breakfast. I made some pancakes and bacon and eggs,”

Niall announced.

“Jensen, there’s some sweats and underwear and a T-shirt in the bathroom waiting for you.”

There was this piece of him that wanted to tell Niall to fuck off. He wasn’t in charge here. It was the part of him that liked to start fires just to see them burn.

He wasn’t letting that place rule him anymore.

“Thank you.”

“What about me?”

Harlow asked, her chin tilting up in that sexy, stubborn expression of hers.

Niall leaned over and brushed a kiss on her lips.

“You don’t need clothes, princess.”

She growled his way.

“I am not wearing your shirt all day. Also, I need a laptop.”

Jensen had bad news for her.

“Uh, there’s no Internet out here.”

Harlow fell back on the bed, pulling a pillow over her face and screaming.

So she was going to be fun today.

Niall looked at him.

“She’s going to be fun.”

Damn. They’d always been in synch.

The sound of tires crunching on gravel made every muscle in Jensen’s body go tense, and he reached for the gun he’d placed on the bedside table the night before.

“Harlow, get in the…”

When he turned to order her to hide in the bathroom, he noticed she already had a gun in her hand, the sheet wrapped around her body.

A brow rose over her eyes.

“Get in where, Jensen?”

Yep. That was a trap he needed to stay out of.

“I meant Niall. Buddy, you should get in the bathroom. Harlow, watch my six.”

Those gorgeous eyes rolled.

“You watch my six.”

She strolled out.

“I am not hiding in the bathroom.”

Niall followed her.

He had lost all control.

He hoped they weren’t about to lose everything.