Page 34 of Pay the Price

Still, it pissed me off that he’d been fucking Daisy while I’d been making do with glimpses of her on the street when she didn’t change her route to head me off.

And hehadbeen fucking her. I’d known right away thanks to the smug expression on his usually unreadable face. Then he’d come clean, giving me all the details I craved, details that kept me up at night, wishing I was in Daisy’s bed too, that I was fucking her while she blew Otis like she had when I’d caught her snooping. That I was taking her luscious ass while Otis took her pussy.

Sometimes I even imagined Jace with us, Daisy’s lips locked around his cock while Otis and I invaded her body, the sweet little gasps she made right before she came, the way her tits bounced and her chest flushed pink.

Fuck me. Now I was hard, and I shifted on the couch, willing my dick to get a grip because Daisy was going to be here any second and greeting her with a hard dick after weeks apart wasn’t exactly romantic.

Turns out, I didn’t have long to get my body under control. A second later, Jace paused by the front window.

“She’s here.”

Chapter 21

Daisy

Isat in the car for a long time, fighting the urge to run.

This was a mistake. My head had cleared in the weeks I’d been living with Cassie, and it was one hundred percent because I hadn’t been around the Beasts for the past few weeks.

I didn’t trust myself around them, couldn’t think straight around them, as evidenced by my nightly fuck-fests with Otis over the last few days. That was how long it had taken me to agree to come back to the house, to agree to hear them out.

Otis had said they would tell me everything I wanted to know, except now that the offer had been made, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know anything. It was a total cop-out, but I was already running interference on my relationship with the Beasts, torn between wanting the truth and not wanting to hear anything that would push me away from them forever.

It was Cassie who’d finally talked me into hearing them out, probably because she was sick of listening to me fuck Otis in her guest bedroom every night.

I started up the pathway to the house, inhaling the summer air, heavy with the peaty scent of the river and sun-warmed treebark. When I looked up, the curtains in the living room window fluttered, and I wondered which of the Beasts had been watching me while my internal debate had raged inside the Mustang.

Wolf was the only one I hadn’t talked to since I’d been gone and my stomach turned over at the thought of seeing him again. I’d missed him, had missed his steady presence and the soft music from his guitar, and okay, yes, his inked muscles and full lips and heated gaze too.

I looked up at the house, surprised to see that the lawn was still mowed, the empty flower beds along the walkway leading to the porch clear of weeds. The Beasts had kept up the exterior while I’d been gone at least.

I’d missed the house, had been happy to pull up the long road leading to the top of the falls. I’d been right to come back. Whatever happened now, the house was mine. I couldn’t stay away forever. If the Beasts’ story was too heavy, too damning, they would be the ones to leave this time, and I’d have to find another way to finish fixing up the house.

I got out of the car and was hit with a blast of humid heat. It was almost Fourth of July weekend and the air had started to feel thick and oppressive. I’d gone to the river a handful of times with Cassie and Sarai to cool off, but I’d missed the falls, had missed knowing the river was right out my back door at the house.

I thought about the area at the back of the house where Otis had mapped out the future pool area. If I wanted to get it in with enough time to make use of it this summer, I needed to book the pool company ASAP.

I hesitated on the threshold of the house, feeling weirdly like I should knock, like the house no longer belonged to me.

But that was stupid. It did. Of course it did.

I opened the door and stepped inside, immediately enveloped by the not-unpleasant mustiness of the old woodfloors combined with the more powerful smell of new plaster and paint.

I set down my bag and followed the sound of Wolf’s guitar to the living room. The melody wound under my skin, like an invisible string pulling me home.

I found them lounging like a pride of lions in the sun. Wolf sat on the sofa, shirt off as he strummed his guitar, the ink on his chest and arms flexing with the movements of his hands and fingers.

He looked up at me, standing in the wide opening that led to the hall, and I felt like I’d been scalded by the blue fire in his eyes. I had a flash of everything that had passed between us: the sun on his face that first day in the truck, his expression as he’d looked down at me in his arms after saving me from Gray at the Mill. I heard his laughter as we’d tubed the river, felt his hand in mind as he’d led me to the meadow.

It all passed between us in a flash, and I felt the loss of it all over again, like someone had taken a melon baller to my heart.

Otis looked up when he realized Wolf had stopped playing guitar. “Hey, doll.”

Leave it to Otis to make nothing of the situation, like I was returning from the store instead of a month away, during which I’d seriously considered never seeing them again.

“Hey,” I said.

It was almost strange to see him in the light of day after our clandestine romps in Cassie’s guest bedroom. I’d spent the last few nights mapping his body with my hands, and I could almost feel the peaks of his defined chest, the flat plane of his abs, his hard dick in my hands as I looked at his face.

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