Page 132 of Cruel Lies

Instead, I pulled my hand back like her pussy was electric, reached outside the shower, and yanked a towel off the rack. With a practiced hand, I wrapped her in the damn thing, turned off the water, and carried her out into Rowan’s room.

"Put some clothes on while I get dry," I ordered her, setting her on my brother’s bed so I could grab her bag. "Don’t do anything stupid, you hear me?"

"I hear you," she replied weakly, her head hung low, hands already rummaging in her duffle for something to wear.

I took her at her word and rushed out of there like a bat out of hell.

Two minutes later, I found myself in my own shower, one hand pressed against the wall, the other around my cock as I pumped myself to completion, my mind a blank.

Well, except for the echoing sound of her moan for me and me alone, bouncing around on replay in the recesses of my consciousness.

I came to the memory of that sound, and fuck it all, I couldn’t deny it any longer.

I was in love with Harper Daniels.

And there was no going back.

FIFTY-THREE

ROWAN

Surgeon was not pleasedthat he had to restitch Harper’s wound. He was even less pleased when he found out who was responsible. He left in a tizzy, swearing he wouldn’t put our ‘broken little doll’ back together for us if we screwed up his handiwork again.

That meant Nash was on his best behavior—for now.

Lilly came over every day to check on our girl, which kept him from going too wild in the interim.

Speaking of . . .

Lilly and Harper had been shut up in the office for an hour alone. I was beginning to think perhaps my boss was planning to off my girl while we sat in the next room, oblivious.

She wouldn’t make it far if she did, not with the three men currently half-psychotic for Harper in the next room.

Nash, who for some unknown reason had taken to bringing a bouquet of flowers home with him every day, was currently flipping through the pages of a book he’d scratched the title out on. I suspected it was because he didn’t want us to know he was reading it, but it only served to make me more curious.

Because at heart, we were still boys.

"Whatchya reading, bro?" When he didn’t respond, I tossed a throw pillow in his direction, nailing him in the forehead.

"What thefuck,Ro?" he spat, setting the book on the couch. "Don’t you have something to do?"

The grin splitting my face was comical. "Bothering you is my life’s purpose."

Angel, leaning over the counter in the kitchen, knife in hand, didn’t miss the chance to get one in. "He was born last, Nash, so he has the fewest brains. Forgive him. He knows not what he’s missing."

"Oh, stuff it, kitchen bitch," I taunted, my eyes straying to the door of the office as a loudthudechoed behind the barrier. "The fuck are they doingin there?"

Nash had picked his book back up and was currently reading it . . . upside down. "Fuck if I know. Lilly said she wouldn’t let Harper overwork herself." He licked his finger to turn the page, and I had to stifle the laughter bubbling up in my throat. "I still wanna know what the hell is up with this newfound obsession of hers with our—with the—with Harper."

I knew exactly how he felt. I couldn’t think about her without stuttering in my head about what to call her.

Technically, she was our sister in the legal sense. Our step-sister, but still related nonetheless. Or did it make that null and void because her mother had died? And to that matter, could what we all had with her be called a relationship? Or were we just roommates fucking on occasion now?

Not that any of us had gotten anywhere near sex with her after the Nash debacle.

Angel still walked on eggshells around her, like she was poisonous. Nash treated her like a wilting flower. Every night, he put those flowers in a vase and turned to her for approval, but he never actually said they were for her or gave them to her directly.

He’d found a way to give her gifts without it feeling like a gift. I had to applaud his ingenuity. Man would do mental gymnastics that made an Olympic athlete jealous just to convince himself he wasn’t melting from the inside out.

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