Priceless (Forbidden Men #8)(68)

I scrubbed my hand over my face, my fingers shaking again, as I kept wearing out the carpet.

I hadn’t been able to help the memory. But my back had been to the wall, a mouth had been around my dick, and suddenly I was thirteen again, in that rotted-out trailer house with my mom kneeling in front of me, gagging as she fed her coked-out self too much of my cock.

“Fuck,” I muttered, fisting my hands and wishing I could beat the memory from my brain, scrub it free with a wire brush, burn it away with gasoline and a lighter.

Nothing about Sarah reminded me of my mother, so why had I been sucked back to that moment?

This was why I didn’t allow women to give me blow jobs. I knew it’d drag up stupid unwanted visions. Damn it. Why had I let Sarah— Because it had been Sarah, obviously. Like I could tell her no when she’d been wearing that and reaching for my zipper.

I hissed another curse and paced some more.

The night passed, I continued to feel crappy, and by the time morning came, I had a f*cking headache from hell.

I collapsed onto my mattress and slept a few fitful hours before dragging my ass out of bed sometime after noon. Glad it was a Sunday, so I didn’t have school and didn’t have to work that night, I shuffled barefoot from my room and down the hall, in search of food.

“Yes!” a voice shouted as I entered the kitchen, yawning and rubbing the back of my head. I dropped my hand to find Ten popping up from a chair at the table where he’d been sitting to spike his arms into the air in a victorious dance. He spun to Caroline, who was still sitting with Teagan in her lap. “You owe me twenty bucks, woman.”

Caroline rolled her eyes as she reached for another cookie to let her daughter maul. “Just because it looks as if he had sex all night long doesn’t mean he actually did.”

“Excuse me?” I frowned at the two of them and opened my mouth to demand what they were even doing here, when Ten pointed at me.

“Hot Wheels wore that silky black and red number, didn’t she?”

My jaw dropped. “What the f*ck?” How the hell had he known that?

“Oh my God! Brandt!” Caroline yelled, making Teagan startle and drop her cookie. “You did, you dirty little slut! You really did it. And here, I was so sure you’d resist her seduction attempt. I can’t believe my little brother is so freaking easy.”

“Wait. What?” Pressing my hands to my aching head, I counted to five with my eyes shut before dropping my fingers and narrowing my gaze on my sister and her annoying husband. “First of all...what the hell are you three doing here?”

“Teagan has a play date with Beau,” my sister answered as she brushed cookie crumbs from her daughter’s mouth while Teagan selected a new cookie to eat. “But he was napping when we arrived, so now we’re just waiting for him to wake up.”

“Nap?” Teagan lifted her face, looking worried.

Caroline laughed. “No, baby. We’re not making you take another nap.” It was a well-known fact Ten and Caroline’s daughter hated the dreaded n-word. “Beau’s taking a nap.”

“Beau,” Teagan cheered. “Beau-Beau play now?”

“As soon as he wakes his lazy ass up,” Ten told her.

“Lazy ass,” Teagan repeated solemnly.

“He is,” her father agreed, “Just like his daddy.”

“I heard that, *,” Noel grumbled as he strolled into the kitchen behind me and went to the refrigerator to get a bottle of Gatorade.

As he shut the door and cracked open the lid, his gaze scanned over me. “Are you just now waking up? Damn, Brandt.”

I folded my arms over my chest and glared. “Are you in on this too?”

After taking a sip, he blinked blankly. “In on what?”

Caroline snorted. “As if he could ever be as devious as Colton and me? Of course we didn’t involve Noel.”

“Colton?” I growled, remembering how he’d enticed me into visiting Sarah last night. Holy f*ck, I’d been played...by my own family.

By Sarah.

Oh my God. That deception was the worst. She’d cried, she’d gotten my jealousy stewing, and she’d worn that slinky f*cking lingerie. She’d known what she’d been doing the entire f*cking time.

I felt sick to my stomach.

“Involved me in what?” Noel repeated, beginning to frown.

“Well, Colton may or may not have learned from Sarah that she and Brandt were discussing...you know.”

Noel blinked. “No. I don’t know.”

“Sex,” Ten said, rolling his eyes. “They’ve finally been talking about doing it.”

Glancing at me as if confused, my older brother said, “You mean, you two haven’t already?”

My jaw dropped. What the hell? “She’s my friend. Of course we haven’t.” Was I the only sane, rational person left on the planet?

“So you didn’t last night either?” Caroline broke in. “Yes!” She punched Ten in the arm. “I win. You lose. Sucka!”

Ten rubbed his arm and scowled at me. “Damn it, what is wrong with you? You seriously turned down the black and red panty set? Dude.” He blew out a low whistle as if he was either impressed or severely disappointed by my willpower.

Unable to take it a second longer, I exploded. “How the f*ck do you even know what color of underwear Sarah was wearing last night?”