Page 205 of Things We Left Behind

“Fuck,” I rasped as she held my aching hard-­on in a death grip.

“Did you get what you wanted?” she whispered in my ear as her nipple taunted my palm. “Then go the hell home and forget I ever existed.”

As if that were physically possible.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” I said through clenched teeth.

She raised an eyebrow and gave my shaft another squeeze. She was so fucking beautiful when she was being diabolical. “Bullshit.”

“Shit. Fine. Okay. Ofcoursethis is what I wanted. You know how good it was between us,” I reminded her.

“I’m fully aware of how good the sex was. It was everything else that was subpar. I’m not settling for being someone’s weekend fuck buddy anymore. And I’m sure as hell not allowing some overgrown man-­child to cast me aside like I’m nothing because he can’t deal with feelings. I’m out of your league, Lucifer. This was your last freebie.”

I wanted to kiss her. And judging from the look in those heavily lidded green eyes, Sloane was having similar thoughts. I wasn’t above taking advantage of that.

“There a problem?” I didn’t need to look up to know the Morgans had entered the hallway.

“I love you two like brothers, but if you don’t leave now, I’m going to rearrange your faces,” I threatened.

Sloane rolled her eyes and removed her hand from my throbbing dick. “Man-­child.”

“Sloaney, which of us do you want to leave? Me and Knox or Rollins?” Nash asked.

She locked eyes with me, and I found that dark smudge in all that green. “I want Lucian to go,” she said firmly.

“Pix,” I whispered.

But she shook her head. “No more, Lucian. It’s time for you to go.”

My heart, if I actually had one, fell out of my chest onto the floor and was crushed under her boot as she turned and walked away from me.

“Let’s go outside, Luce,” Nash said in his cop voice. “You look like you could use a smoke break.”

Each brother grabbed an arm and hauled me through the kitchen and out the side door into the parking lot. For once, they were united, and perhaps for the first time ever, it was against me.

“You don’t get to treat her like that, Luce,” Nash announced when the door slammed shut behind us.

“I really wanna introduce my fist to his face,” Knox said through clenched teeth as his boots scuffed at the gravel.

“I get it, believe me. But we can’t,” Nash insisted.

“I hate not getting to punch people.”

“There’s nothing stopping you,” I said, deliberately taunting him. A fist to my face would feel better than the raw, jagged hole in my chest.

Knox’s fist relaxed, and then he was pushing a finger in my shoulder. “You’re lucky your dad was an abusive asshole. Otherwise, I’d be mopping the floor with your dumbass face.”

We’d scuffled as young boys always did. Thrown rocks at each other. Wrestled in the creek. But somewhere along the line, Knox and Nash had continued their pummeling of each other and I’d been left behind. They’d fought over toys, then bikes, then women.

“What does my father have to do with this?”

Knox looked to his brother for help.

Nash looked at his feet. “Why don’t we go get ourselves another round? Save ourselves the trouble,” he suggested.

“Not until you tell me why you make each other bleed on a weekly basis but you’re acting like I’m some delicate flower.” Using Sloane’s exact words made me miss the taste of her even more.

“Gettin’ hit doesn’t mean the same thing to us as itdoes you,” Knox said finally. “If I punch my pain-­in-­the-­ass brother in the mouth, it’s because I love him and he pissed me off.”