Bad Boy Brody(37)

Then there was a beautiful waterfall and a hot spring.

She showed me all that treacherous beauty.

She didn’t hide out there. She lived out there. She thrived out there. She wasn’t some mystery to be used to toy with the seasonal tourists, or even a story to be talked about.

She was real. She was so goddamn real.

“You okay?”

“What?”

The therapist had been watching me. She turned toward the forest too. “You see something out there?”

“Nah.” Too much. “Nothing at all.” I’d seen everything.

“Well . . . anyway.” She started for her car. “You obviously don’t have a problem with horses. I don’t know why they had me come out, but if you need to talk to someone, you should probably see a real therapist.”

“Yeah.” I muttered, wanting nothing more than to ignore her as she turned back to me. “I’ll do that.”

“And, uh, could I get an autograph? Maybe a selfie with you?”

I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Not a fucking chance.”





Morgan



It wasn’t even a full day.

I couldn’t last that long.

I felt his touch all day.

I could feel how his lips slid down my throat, over my body. How I felt in his arms, the weight of him above me, the pressure of him filling me. How he gripped my legs and slid inside, over and over again.

I spent the day with Shiloh, but my mind was with him. He never left me. He was whispering to me, beckoning to me, pulling me back to him until I could no longer stay with the herd.

I swung my legs off Shiloh and walked back to him.

She started to follow me, but when she realized where I was going, she trotted up to me and dropped her nose onto my shoulder. I reached up, my hand rubbing over the front of her face where the gray faded to a soft white. I always loved the look on her, and I glanced up, looking into her eyes. She was watching me, a sadness there.

She knew I was being pulled away.

I flattened my hand and ran it all the way up into her mane. Dropping my forehead to rest over the bridge between her eyes, I sighed.

So did she, lowering her head even more so we were almost on equal footing. Almost.

She’d always tower over me, and I pulled back.

I ran my hand through her mane again before moving over her strong cheek and down over her soft nose. “I love you, girl.” I bent my forehead back to hers. “Sister to sister.”

But I needed to go to him.

There was a stirring in me, and it was alien, but he would calm it. I knew he would, because he’d been the one to awaken it.

I turned back, and it wasn’t long before I felt her absence. She’d returned to the herd.

It was late when I climbed to his second-floor patio. He’d left the door open, but the curtain hung there to keep any bugs out. I walked through to his room.

He was there, sleeping. His chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

A part of me was tempted to curl up on the floor. I would’ve been content just to listen to him sleep the whole night through, but then, as if sensing my presence, he woke. His breathing quieted, and he sat up in bed.

“Morgan?”

His voice was alert, as if he hadn’t been sleeping at all, but I knew he had been.

“You wake so alert.”

I couldn’t see his eyes or mouth in the darkness, but I wanted to. I stepped forward, needing to know if he was smiling at what I said.

He murmured, “I was hoping you would come. I must’ve just dozed for a little bit.”

Another step.

This felt right.

One more step. I was by his bed and able to see his eyes. I saw what he said was true. There was a look in them. He had been waiting for me. Silently, still looking into me as I was looking into him, he lifted his bed sheet, and I curled up next to him.

When his lips touched mine, it felt so much like the right thing to do that my heart broke a little.

Something was changing.

I didn’t want it to, but I couldn’t stop it.

Because the thing changing was me.





Matthew



He was at his desk when someone knocked.

“Come in.”

Finn opened the door. “Got a minute?”

“Always for you.” He stood, gesturing Finn to come in. “Close the door.”

His younger brother, who was usually carefree, seemed off. He’d been working as a developer for their father’s company, a new branch for them, but even the high pressure of that job hadn’t seemed to bother him that much. His brother had fallen in love. For the first time in a long time, Matthew had seen his brother truly happy.

That look was gone.

Matthew frowned. Tugging at his cuffs, he ran a thumb over each to make sure his cufflinks were in place. It was a habit he’d acquired years ago.

“What’s going on?”

Finn motioned to his chair. “You can sit for this.”

Matthew’s smile tightened a little, but he tried to joke. “Am I in trouble?”

Finn sat across from him, his legs stretched out toward him and his hands in his lap. Matthew took note of his body posture.

This should be interesting.

“I want to know what’s going on with Morgan.”