Page 3 of Cohesion

Jericho absently tapped the railing with his free hand and twisted his head to look out over the ocean. The waves crashing against the rocks was the perfect representation to how his heart felt. “You told me that after the fact.”

“Because I didn’t think you’d be so fucking stupid,” Hunter retorted. “My mistake, to think it didn’tneedto be said.”

“What’s done is done.” He couldn’t put his feelings back in the box even if he wanted to. He could only try to navigate what it meant going forward. “Send them here. I’m bringing Peyton in tomorrow morning, and he can spend some time with Six when I’m done.”

“I don’t agree with this.”

“You’re the one that wanted Peyton on the team. It wasyourjob offer.”

“I’m not talking about him, and you know it.”

He did know it. Hunter so easily forgot Jericho was the older brother. “I wasn’t asking permission.”

Jericho hung up and dropped his phone back into his pocket. He spun around, settling in for the long haul. Sleep wasn’t going to happen, and sinking back into Quinn’s warmth was too tempting. What happened if he let himself get sucked into that and he got used to it?

He’d spent his life taking risks. Risking his life, his sanity, his very identity every time he slipped into someone else’s. Risking his heart?

That was a new one.

Chapter Two

Sebastian woke disoriented. Heblinked at the ceiling, certain something wasn’t quite right. There were sounds of movement below him and lingering scents of the men who had shared his bed—cramped as it had been. Not something he was used to. That wasn’t the feeling of wrongness, though.

He rolled over and swiped up his phone from the nightstand, unplugging it from the charger. He rubbed his eyes as he checked it.

Six-thirty.

His heart skipped a terrified beat.

That couldn’t be right. He had to have read that wrong.

The second look showed the same time. Not a hallucination. Shit. It was almostsix-thirty. How the hell? He was usually on the road by now.Why was he still in bed?What had happened to his alarm?

He flicked it over to his clock app. The alarm had been cancelled, and one had taken its place, for ten minutes to seven. The alarm had been renamed to: get a better passcode.

Sebastian pursed his lips, unimpressed. Jericho. There’d been nothing wrong with his passcode, the sneak. How the fuck had he gotten in?

He dragged himself out of the tangled bedding, legs catching in the sheets in his haste. He half stumbled across the room, leaving the sheet on the floor in his wake. He could pick it up later. Or never. Whichever came first.

He ran into the wall beside his en suite, narrowly avoiding the corner of a framed artwork he’d bought at a random flea market he’d been dragged to by his sister, Charlotte, years ago. Eventually, he managed to get into the shower without doing any permanent damage to himself. A minor miracle.

He had a few lowkey meetings that day, so he switched the sleeper in his eyebrow to a barbell, before hanging his towel up and padding back out into the bedroom naked.

He left his belt and the top button of his pants undone after slipping them on and then tugged a white shirt up and over his shoulders, leaving that open as well. His glasses had fallen off the side table at some point, and it took a little detective work to find them just under the bed. He cleaned them off and slipped them on, the blurry world around him coming into focus.

With the black matching vest and jacket slung over his arm, and tie and phone in hand, he followed the tantalising scent of coffee and toast downstairs.

The cool tiling under his feet as he reached the landing soothed against the heat the day promised. It was getting closer to summer in Sydney, and the humidity was coming in early. Sebastian wasn’t looking forward to any of it.

Sebastian was greeted at the door to the open kitchen/dining area by an armful of hard man and wisps of soft hair against hisskin. His clothes slipped down his arm to catch on his wrist as warm lips settled over his. He chased the taste of caramel and coffee, licking it from the inside of Peyton’s mouth.

“Mmm, you taste like heaven.” Could he get coffee delivered like this every day?

“Yeah, you like that?”

Sebastian slid his palm over Peyton’s nape, the long strands of hair that were falling out of his messy bun brushing against Sebastian’s knuckles. “I should check again, just to be sure.”

Peyton was already slanting their mouths back together.

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