Page 41 of The Devils of Saint City

Yet as she walks toward me, I watch her eyes soften. Her shoulders relax as she takes steady steps toward me, and when she wraps her arms around my neck and rocks up on her toes to reach me, I don’t care why she’s doing it.

I catch her lips with mine and grip her ass, losing myself there for a few seconds before opening my eyes to meet his. How angry he looks about it urges me to slide my tongue against hers, and I almost ruin the whole thing by laughing when his whole body tenses with jealousy. This is his doing. “I missed you too,” I mumble against her mouth when we start to pull away. “Believe it or not he did too. I think you two should hug.”

Maybe I’m not helping, but fuck him if he thinks he’s the only boss around here. “Like a real hug, both arms around each other. Don’t be a little bitch about it.”

Asher chuckles like I’m joking, and Rhea looks like I just asked her to lick dog shit off my boots. I can’t say I blame her, but nothing will change if they don’t start showing each other a little bit of compassion.

With an expression that screams I’m betraying her, Rhea stomps over and almost violently wraps her arms around Asher’s stomach.

His arms hang limp at his sides a few seconds too long, and then finally he wraps them around her shoulders and pins their bodies together. “Happy?”

“Not yet.” I make a show of checking a watch that doesn’t exist. “Hold that position, and don’t back away until neither of you are frowning at me anymore.”

Rhea’s body is so taut I can see every muscle she’s got flexed and ready to fight. This could fucking take a while.

But only a couple of minutes later, she relents. Her tense shoulders slump and she buries her face nearly in his armpit, and from the way his t-shirt rises up, I think she’s hugging him tighter.

He’s relaxing more too, his face is buried in her hair, and when he closes his eyes to inhale her scent I know I’ve got them. Fucking hardheads. “See? That’s nice, huh?”

The frown Ash tosses me this time has much less bite to it, but I can’t see her face at all until she leans back enough to look at him. “You’re squishing my boobs.”

“You’re squeezing my stomach, and yet I managed not to complain.”

They make it easy to remember they’re siblings sometimes. Step or not.

“Alright, I think that was a good exercise. Next time I’ll make you two kiss it out.” The look they both give me has me holding up my hands in surrender, but even though I know they’d fight it I can see how badly they both crave it as well. I swear these two are going to age me. “Go shower, Ash. I’ll take one after you and then we’ll have a drink. Sound good?”

He reluctantly pulls away from Rhea and leaves without another word, leaving me to deal with the aftermath of that damn hug. “You’re frowning again.”

“Forgive me for not wanting to hug him after he shocked the fuck out of me,” she says quietly. “I’ll get to work now.”

With bruised arms, she gathers the first pile of laundry and disappears down the hall. I can hear her slamming the doors around, and take it upon myself to clear off some trash I left out last night and order us a pizza. I know we’d all prefer a home cooked meal, but this is a way we’ll all be fed much faster and less hangry.

When she walks out from the laundry room I have to force myself to look up from her perfect boobs to let her know. “I ordered pizza so you don’t have to worry about cooking.”

The way she flinches tells me we’ve done more damage than I thought. “Oh. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I respond, watching her closely as anxiety seems to build inside of her. “What’s wrong? I thought I was helping.”

“You are,” she assures me. “It doesn’t hurt that bad. I’ll be okay.”

“Your body? Yeah, that’ll probably be sore for a bit.” The shower turns off, making both of us spin toward the hallway in anticipation. “Don’t look so nervous. I think that hug threw him off balance, but that’s why I did it. There’s no way he’s still angry.”

“Until he finds out I weaseled out of cooking.” She scrambles over to start cleaning the kitchen as I realize what she meant earlier — she wasn’t talking about her body. She thinks he’ll shock her for this.

Nodding in understanding, I rush over to his room and grab the remote for myself, spinning around just in time to run straight into Asher. “What are you doing?”

Shit. I won’t lie, but I was hoping to keep him in a good mood tonight. “I wanted this.” I show him the remote. “I’m allowed to use it too.”

He has no argument there, but now I’m actually gonna have to use the fucking thing which is exactly what I was trying to prevent. At least I can give her a heads up and keep it on a low setting.

He’s grouchy about it, but relents, stepping aside in his towel, and once again I have to fight the urge to check out another naked person. Why am I in clothes? “You should stay that way.”

I nod toward the towel, and relax when Asher chuckles. “Yeah? Think so?”

He tosses it aside to give me a peek, and I take the longest mental picture I can muster before turning away. “I vote threesome.”

“I vote food. I’m fucking hungry, and the last thing I need is for Rhea to see me struggle to perform again.”

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