Page 154 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

He stood. “No more discussion.” He stalked around the corner to his bureau. I heard drawers opening and slamming shut. He came back into my view with jeans and a hoodie on.

I tried to fight my way out of the wrecked sheets. “You don’t get to give me orders.”

He leaned on the bed, a fisted hand on either side of me. “You don’t take risks like this. You’re not stupid.”

I leaned back as if he’d slapped me. “Excuse you.”

“I said you’re not stupid. Stop acting like it.” Then he stood and snapped his fingers. Brutus scrabbled up from the floor and followed him.

I flopped back onto the bed. When I heard his door downstairs slam, I slapped the mattress. “Fuck.”

I knew he was right. I just didn’t want to have a wall of security around us every time we left a venue. I hated seeing the disappointed faces of fans who didn’t have an opportunity to talk to us.

Because that was security’s job. They were our first line of defense. They treated people like they were already guilty.

I pulled a pillow over my head and screamed. How had my delicious morning gone from bliss to shit in less than ten minutes?

I rolled off the bed and took my time in Nash’s sumptuous bathroom. It was male to the extreme with slate-colored tiles and matching grout. And the water pressure was divine. I needed all the help I could get to combat too little sleep and the soreness from conforming my body to two different sleeping partners.

Both of them infinitely stubborn.

Luckily, the dog was adorable.

Being without my usual hair products meant it was a messy bun kind of day for me. I repurposed my jeans and went commando. I felt a little weird doing that since we would be visiting my boss for all intents and purposes, but better than twice-worn undies. I rummaged in Nash’s bureau and found a stash of U.K. band shirts. I had to dig a little to find one that didn’t float on me.

My nails scraped over a piece of paper on the bottom.

“Don’t look.” I even said it out loud to make sure both my endlessly curious side and my moral side got the message.

Curiosity won.

It wasn’t like he’d told me not to look around.

I mean, he knew me, right?

I pulled out the paper to find it was a photo instead. Two grinning idiots hanging on one another. Nash was so much younger. No lines were dug into his brows. He even had his tongue sticking out like Jamie did all the time when we tried to take a picture of her. Even a pair of devil horns for good measure.

I almost didn’t recognize the man with him.

Kyle.

The scars had changed the map of his face so much. In the picture, he had thick shaggy hair much like Nash’s. In fact, they looked so much alike, it was eerie. Both wearing underground band shirts, beers in hand, obvious laughter in the air.

I flipped it over. London and a date over ten years ago were scribbled on the back.

The hard scrabble of a dog’s feet on hardwood made my heart race. We’d already had a rocky start to the day. I really didn’t need him to find me snooping. I tucked the photo back under the shirt. Actually, the same shirt he’d been wearing in the photo. There were two of them, one in much worse shape.

I looked at the one I held—a matching one.

I didn’t have time to dig for another. I quickly tugged it over my head and slid the drawer shut.

“Duchess? Shake your ass.”

I came around the corner to find him making the bed. So oddly domestic and yet so very Nash. He really didn’t like things to be untidy.

He looked up as he was tucking a mangled pillow back into its case. His eyes darkened, and the pillow fell out of his hands. “Where did you find that shirt?”

“It was the only one in your drawer that wouldn’t make me look like I was—”

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