Page 106 of Outlaw

He wasn’t the boss anymore, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a Hughes. Right now, I didn’t care. He’d said something I wouldn’t allow. No one got to claim her. She was already claimed.

“Good,” he finally said with a sigh. “Fawn assured me as much when you left here. I had my doubts, seeing as how you treated her, but my wife reminded me of my treatment of her in the beginning, so I was giving it time. Having Luther update me on how things were going with the two of you.”

I narrowed my eyes as I let that process. Luther had been telling him shit? That motherfucker!

“And what has he said?” I asked between clenched teeth, ready to go break another bone in his goddamn body.

Garrett sighed and then laughed. “That you’re so fucking messed up in the head over her that you’re showing signs of insanity.”

I sank back into my chair, feeling most of my rage fade. I opened my mouth to argue, but closed it. What the fuck was I going to say? That it wasn’t true? Because the fact was, Luther’s words had described the way I was feeling so damn accurately that I was tempted to laugh.

But I didn’t.

Because he was an asshole.

Fifty

Branwen

This would be the third night I didn’t get enough sleep, it seemed. I kept tossing and turning, my brain refusing to shut off. If I wasn’t thinking about how Linc had sat beside me at breakfast, engaged in conversation with me, made me laugh, then I was thinking about him reaching down to hold my hand today when he’d taken Stevie and me to go see a colt he was looking at buying to keep at his stables here. I was struck speechless and let him hold it while in shock. By the time I’d snapped out of it, yanking my hand away would have caused a scene, so I’d…endured it.

“God,” I muttered. “You’re so full of shit.”

Nothing would have made me take my hand out of his.

It had been all too good to be true, which meant that it was going to crash down around me in the light of day. I’d wake up, and—poof—the other personality that Linc had would be back,and he’d ignore me. Or worse, he’d be cordial to me and treat me like someone he had to speak to, but didn’t want to.

Rubbing my face with both hands, I groaned, then dropped them to my sides and stared at the ceiling. Linc Shephard would be the death of me.

It should say on my tombstone,Died because she loved a man who shouldn’t be loved.

The click of my lock caught my attention, and my eyes dropped to the door as it opened. The tall, dark shadow that entered didn’t frighten me, but it should have. Because I knew he was more dangerous than anything else when it came to my well-being.

My eyes followed him as he walked silently over to the other side of the bed. The moonlight coming through the window illuminated him. He had something in his hand that he laid on the nightstand. It was papers.

I then watched as he pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it. His ribs wrapped up didn’t even take away from his perfection. When he began to take off his jeans, I started scolding myself for letting him get this far, but said nothing. I tensed up, as if preparing for a battle, while he slid beneath the covers, then moved his body over to mine until the heat of it sent shivers through me. I tried to put up walls. Forge a backbone or willpower. Something to protect myself from him.

“What are you doing?” I hissed between my teeth as his arm wrapped around me, tucking me against his chest.

“Holding you.”

I…that…was not what I’d expected.

“Linc, what are you doing? And I don’t mean just right now.”

He reached up to brush hair away from my face and pressed a kiss near my ear. “Holding you. Enjoying you. Letting myself have what I’ve wanted since you came storming back into my life, waving divorce papers in my face,” he whispered huskily,then ran his nose along the curve of my earlobe.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm my racing heart. “I don’t understand,” I breathed. “And stop doing that. I watched you shoving your cock down another woman’s throat.”

“Mmm,” he hummed. “I was drunk. Trying to get some relief from the constant ache to be inside you. I was imagining you in my head. Pretending that it was your mouth taking me deep. Then, I opened my eyes to see you standing there.” His voice dropped. “Your hair mussed, messy blonde curls draped over your bare shoulders, with only small scraps of satin touching your skin. I could see your hard nipples. Then, I looked at your face and unloaded.”

His hand slid over my stomach, and a pleased rumble came from his chest. “I shouldn’t have brought her here. It was one of my many mistakes.” He nuzzled my neck. “Forgive me.”

There wasn’t a nerve in my body that wasn’t buzzing.

Grasping at any ounce of sanity I could muster, I blurted, “The STD test results. I can’t…” I couldn’t what? Let him touch me because I would spread my legs and let him take me without a condom again?

His arm left me, and his body rolled away. I almost cried out and reached for him to come back. But he didn’t sit up. He reached for the papers he’d brought in and handed them to me.

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