Page 41 of Broken

I glare at him, and the cheeky prick has the audacity to smile at me. He’s fully clothed too, so I have no idea what the hell they were just doing. “We haven’t met.” He holds out his hand for me to shake.

I glare at his outstretched palm. “What the fuck were you doing with your hands on my wife?”

Melanie covers her mouth but doesn’t manage to stifle her snicker, and I train my glare on her. Does she think this is fucking funny? I guess the ferocity of my gaze stops her giggles in their tracks because her eyes widen, and she drops her hand. “Nathan, this is Tyler. My cousin. I told you about him, remember?”

I search her face for any hint of deceit. She’s talked about him several times, but this giant tattooed fucker is not the man she described.

“Yeah, man. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the wedding.” Tyler stands tall, all six foot plus of him. He’s as wide as a linebacker, but I’ll still knock him on his fucking ass.

I bare my teeth. “What the fuck were you doing to mywife?”

He just stands there and fucking blinks at me, and I launch myself over the couch at him. He steps backward, an amused grin on his face.

“Nathan!” Melanie steps between us, her face a mask of horror. “I had a cramp in my leg. He was massaging it out. He’s mycousin.” She pulls a disgusted face.

I lick my lips and glance between the two of them.

Tyler holds his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, buddy. That is definitely not my deal.” He laughs. Cocky fucker.

Melanie puts a hand on my chest, directly over my racing heart. “I get that must have sounded bad,” she says softly, herlips twitching. “But I told you that he’s a physical therapist. His hands are like a magician’s. He was just getting rid of my cramp.”

I narrow my eyes at her. Is she fucking with me? Her lips are still curling like she wants to laugh, but I’m sure she’s aware that I’m seconds away from tearing Tyler’s head off.

She tilts her head. “There’s nothing going on here, I swear to you. He just got back in town, and I invited him over for pizza and movies.”

“And even if she wasn’t basically like my twin sister, I’m all about the dick,” Tyler adds.

I shoot him a warning glare, but he merely shrugs. My pulse slows to a less alarming rate, and I direct my attention to Mel. “You were fucking moaning.”

“Ugh. That’s not your sex moan, is it?” Tyler balks, his face wrinkling with disgust. “Gross.”

Her cheeks flush pink. “No, that is not my sex moan!”

Tyler arches an eyebrow at me. “Is it?”

How the fuck would I know?I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes for a moment. This wasn’t at all what I expected to come home to.

“Tyler!” Melanie admonishes him.

“What? He’s gotta know what your sex moans sound like. Unless—” He gasps dramatically. “Unless you’ve been faking it!”

Melanie picks a cushion up from the sofa and hits him over the head with it. “I have not been faking. Now stop.”

Laughing, he ducks away from her before she can land another blow. “Then why doesn’t he know the difference between the sounds you make getting a massage and the ones you make getting your rocks off? Have you two not even…” His mouth snaps shut, and he looks from me to Melanie with a wide-eyed expression. “Oh.”

She closes her eyes and takes a breath, then fixes her gaze on me and shakes her head. “I’m so sorry. He’s kind of a lot to deal with.”

Tyler scoffs. “I’m a fucking prize.” Then he snatches the pizza box from the coffee table. “But I think I’d better leave you two newlyweds to get better acquainted.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “You don’t have to go.”

He grins and tucks the pizza box under his arm. “Clearly I do. Because there is some veryunresolved tensionin this room.” He leans in and whispers the last part like it’s a secret.

As he walks past me, he holds out his hand again. “Real nice to meet you, buddy.”

Finally convinced that I walked in on something that sounded filthy but was in fact entirely innocent, I shake his hand.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Goose,” he shouts over his shoulder on his way out the door.

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