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The Service Club 5
TONYA
RAMAGOS
Copyright
© 2013
Chapter
One
Erotic desire shimmered in the air,
joining with the red and clear lights caressing the night sky to create an
intimacy that seemed oddly out of place. Chelsea Landon blinked, her vision
blurry and mind foggy as she struggled to make sense of her surroundings. Male
voices carried to her softly on the gentle night breeze. One stood out over the
rest. One she recognized that sent her on a race of aroused excitement back in
time.
“There you are.”
Sensations prickled her spine like
centipedes crawling up her flesh. She jerked her head left at the deep baritone
drawl, gasping when the movement sent a dart of pain from her neck to her
cranium.
“Easy, darlin’. No sudden moves. Okay?”
Alarm zipped through her, mingling with
a sudden rush of adrenaline that sped her heart and quickened her breaths as
she stared at a handsome face from her past silhouetted by a bright white
light. Straight black hair brushed broad shoulders made for a woman to hold on
tight while he brought her pleasure of unimaginable heights. Full, pale lips shaped
to promise infinite passion as they cascaded over a woman’s bare flesh unfolded
in a comforting smile.
A handsome face from her past, yes, but
not the ones after her. Unless they had already found her and...
Chelsea swallowed and licked her dry
lips. “Am I dead?” Her voice sounded coarse, weak, almost as if it came from
someone else rather than her own throat. Goose bumps danced over her flesh,
colliding with feathers of heat that caressed every place his gaze slid as he
pointedly looked her over.
“If you are, darlin’, so am I.” He was
kneeling beside her, his right hand propped on the armrest of the open driver’s
door. He shifted slightly, blocking enough of the light that more of his face
came into view. Gray eyes, potent and intoxicating, stared back at her, showing
more reassuring life and heat than she had seen in years. Braden Chandler
covered his heart with a large hand and shook his head. “Feels like it’s still
ticking pretty good to me. You want to check for yourself?”
Did she want to replace his hand with
hers? Did she want to splay her fingers over his solid chest and feel his
muscles flex and his heart beat beneath her palm?
Yes.
God, yes.
What would he say if she told him she
wanted his hand on her chest as well? Would he think her insane if she told him
she wanted to feel his palm glide over her breasts, her already-hardened
nipples, skim down her abdomen, and continue until it cupped her pussy? Could
he sense the swift need coursing through her to have him sink his long fingers
into her slick channel and make her forget everything?
Chelsea would have laughed at herself if
she hadn’t been afraid it would hurt. Then again, it might be worth the pain
seeing as she hadn’t truly laughed in too long to remember. It was ludicrous. She
could barely speak, hardly move, or scarcely think. Yet her body reacted to his
presence as if no years had passed between them, as if she weren’t on the run,
as if he hadn’t come to her rescue.
“I’ll take your word for it.” Chelsea
tried to look around, to take stock of her surroundings, to remember how she
had gotten here. She heard the voices behind him, though she couldn’t make out
the words spoken. She saw blue lights chopping through the red and clear and felt
the warm evening breeze drifting into the car. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Braden
shot a look to his left toward the front of her car. “It looks to me like you
tried to chop down a tree with your car.” He pursed his too-kissable lips and
shook his head. “I don’t think it worked out so well for you, though. Knocked
yourself out cold is what you did.”
“Deer.” Chelsea briefly closed her eyes
as the memory played in her slowly clearing mind. “I didn’t see it. He ran out
in front of me. I swerved, but I think I clipped him before I hit the tree.”
Guilt made her throat tight. She gulped and looked at Braden imploringly. “Do
you think he’s all right?”
Bafflement shot through Braden’s eyes.
“He’s probably better off than you, at least until one of the folks around here
finds him and skins him for dinner.”
Chelsea grimaced. “Well, that’s
comforting.” The soft sound of Braden’s chuckle moved over her like a blanket
of silk, caressing her flesh and sending her system through a sweaty rush of
calisthenics.
“I would’ve thought you learned your
lesson the last time you went head-to-head with a deer.”
“That deer hit me!” Chelsea immediately
wished she hadn’t squeaked when the pounding in her forehead became more
pronounced.
Braden’s grin stretched, showing a full
set of perfect, gleaming white teeth. “That’s been your story since you were
sixteen and you’re sticking to it, huh?”
“Damn right I am. It’s the truth.” She
had been driving home on the back country road mere months after getting her
driver’s license, singing along to the radio without a care in the world. She hadn’t
seen the buck that had come barreling out of the woods until it slammed into the
front fender of her car inches from her driver door. The impact knocked her
side mirror through her open window into the car, and the deer had gone hooves
over head across her hood before landing on his feet on the other side and
disappearing into the woods.
“Well, I see your memory is still
online.”
“A little too well.” Chelsea couldn’t
continue to hold his gaze. Amnesia might have been a blessing right now. God,
if only she could forget the last year of her life, the things she had found, how
many times she had tried to get away and failed. If only she could forget what
it had felt like to be in this man’s arms, to be kissed by him, to be loved by
him. If only she hadn’t run then, the same as she was running now.
Braden chuckled again, and the sound had
the same intense effect on her system. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to
take even, calming breaths as everything inside her took an all too familiar express
train to Want-to-do-him Island.
“I bet.”
He obviously didn’t understand. Why
would he? He didn’t know anything about her life now. He didn’t know how she
had condensed everything she owned into the single suitcase in her trunk and fled
for safety in the middle of the night. He didn’t know how she had spent nearly
every second of the last year wishing she could rewind her life. He didn’t know
that, even when she had thought she had found happiness before everything had
fallen apart, a chunk of her had still yearned to be here with him and his
brother Micah. For every decision she had thought she made right, leaving Horn
Hill immediately after graduation was one that had haunted her and made her
wonder if she had been wrong.
“How about we see what else is still
online?” Braden’s left hand moved as if to touch her side, but he dropped it to
his powerful-looking thigh before making contact.
God, she wanted him to touch her. She
wanted to feel the comforting security of his arms wrapped around her, wanted
to close her eyes as she nuzzled her face against his chest and pretend she was
seventeen again, that life really did come with do-overs.
“Can you move your toes, feet, legs,
arms?”
Chelsea moved each part of her body in
question. Her muscles felt stiff, but everything seemed to be in working order.
“All operational.”
“Good.” This time, his right hand moved
and he did touch her, a tender brush of his thumb over her forehead.
She leaned into the touch as embers of
acute desire rained through her, twisting around her heart and igniting a
deeper burn in her pussy.
Awareness flashed in his eyes, and his
voice softened, turned huskier, and dripped with compassion. “You’re going to
have one hell of a goose egg on your forehead for a few days.”
“I hit the steering wheel.” The shoulder
strap of her seat belt hadn’t locked when she had slammed on the brake. When
she hit the tree, the impact had thrown her forward. The last thing she
remembered before blacking out was her forehead slamming into the upper part of
the steering wheel and wondering why the airbag hadn’t stopped her. “The airbag
must have malfunctioned.”
Braden’s gaze slid to the steering wheel,
and he slowly nodded. “Let’s get you out of this car before it decides to
malfunction again and deploy on both of us.”
“How’s she doing?”
Chelsea heard the second voice before
she saw the man. It should have served as a warning. It should have given her
the opportunity to brace herself before being overwhelmed with a second wave of
fervent erotic desire. Instead, it only tossed more fuel on the fire Braden had
already started inside her.
Micah Chandler’s movie-star-worthy face
appeared over his brother’s shoulder, and Chelsea knew she was in way over her
aching head. Arousal tugged between her legs as she gazed into a second set of
compelling gray eyes, eyes she had seen so often in her dreams, eyes a part of
her had always wished so desperately that she had never walked away from.
Anyone who didn’t know the Chandler
brothers might think they were seeing double, especially after being involved
in an accident and sustaining a head injury. They wouldn’t have been far off. The
Chandler twins were nearly identical and definitely unforgettable. Both had
thick black hair, though Micah wore his cut short and spiked rather than long
like Braden. Both had wide shoulders, stupendously defined torsos, and corded
arms made for holding a woman tight.
Hold
me tight. Please. Both of you. The plea nearly rolled from her lips,
but she managed to stop it. She couldn’t have that and couldn’t have them. She
had let them go, choosing to chase a dream rather than hanging onto the men she
loved, the men she had known loved her.
“She’s going to be just fine, aren’t you,
Sea?” Though Braden formed his answer as a question, his tone rang of
conviction and a power that promised he would do whatever it took to make sure
she would be fine.
Chelsea’s heart skipped a beat at the
high-school nickname. The twins had always called her Sea.
Don’t
go, Sea.
Stay
here with me, Sea.
I
love you, Sea.
Oh,
God.
She swallowed the lump forming in her throat and forced a halfhearted smile.
“Let’s hope so.”
Micah handed something to Braden and
flashed her a dazzling smile that melted what remained of her insides. Despite
Braden’s gentle nature tonight, Micah had always been the more benevolent
brother. While authority and pure male confidence pumped off both brothers in arresting
waves, Micah tempered his with a sensitivity and tenderness that had always
made him her ally when facing off with Braden.
“We’ll make sure of it.” Micah’s words
held the same promised assurance Braden’s had, and she knew she better gather
her tremulous resistance now or she would be done for.
“Hold still, now.” With skillful ease, Braden
slipped a brace beneath her chin and began wrapping it around behind her head.
“Let me get this on you, and then we’re going to lift you onto a backboard to
stabilize you for the ride to the hospital.” He fastened the Velcro to secure
the brace in place and straightened.
Unable to move her head now, thanks to
the brace, Chelsea’s gaze followed him up before dropping. Now eye level with
his waist, her mouth went dry as attention fell unwillingly to his narrow hips.
She couldn’t stop her gaze from moving over the impressive outline of his cock
his pants did little to hide. Erogenous zones she hadn’t known existed in her
body exploded as wicked whips of need slashed at her breasts and pussy. She
barely suppressed the moan that bubbled in her throat.
“Let me do all the work, okay.”
Gladly.
How could she even think that? She was
running from a man who attempted to control everything about her down to the
very breaths she took. Yet the mere idea of submitting to Braden Chandler,
allowing him to take control of her body, her desires, and her darkest needs
awakened a craving in her she hadn’t known she possessed.
She tasted it now, a sweet, intense
yearning that came from somewhere deep within her. The sensation did funny
things to her. Her belly fluttered in devious excitement. The arousal
slickening the folds of her sex thickened, seeping from between her feminine
lips to coat her panties with a layer of cream.
She snapped her gaze up but didn’t make
it to his handsome face. The Maltese cross insignia on his shirt stretching
deliciously over his left pec snagged her attention. “You’re a paramedic?”
“EMT. So is Micah. You’re in good hands,
darlin’.”
Memories danced down her back and ass
and encircled her waist, recollections of what it had felt like to have their
strong arms wrapped around her, their hands gliding down her flesh as they had
held her close. She had never made love to either man. Not allowing one or both
of them to take her virginity had turned out to be the biggest regret of her
life.
They had held her, though, sometimes only
Braden, sometimes only Micah, and other times they had blown her mind by
sandwiching her between them. As a seventeen-year-old girl, she hadn’t known
what to do with the cacophony of sensations being in their arms had sent
barreling through her. Equal parts exotic and terrifying, the wickedly
delicious commotion the Chandler brothers created inside her had instilled in
her a want to stay in a town she had desperately longed to escape.
A
want you didn’t give in to.
No, she hadn’t given in then any more
than she could now. She had run, truly believing she had to escape Horn Hill in
order to find herself, to grow into the woman she had wanted to become.
You
did that and look where it got you, on the run again, right back where you
started.
Chelsea dug deep within herself, latched
onto the precarious string of her restraint, and hardened herself against
Braden’s and Micah’s magnetic powers to draw her in. “I can get out of this car
myself, Braden.” She could get out of the mess she had found herself in, too.
All she needed to do was get as far away from Florida as she could, fast. Alabama and, more specifically,
the town where she had been born and raised, was definitely not far enough no
matter how badly she wished it were.
She sat straighter, started to swing her
left leg out of the car, and reached with both hands for the Velcro straps on
the neck brace. “And I don’t need this thing.”
“I see you didn’t leave your
stubbornness behind in Florida,” Braden mumbled as his long fingers curled firmly
around her wrists. He moved closer, caging her inside the car with the solid
wall of his body.
Chelsea fought the urge to lean against
him, to let herself drift off as she listened to the steady beat of his heart,
to allow herself to indulge in the security of the embrace she knew his strong
arms would provide.
“You were out cold when we got here,
Sea. You might be moving okay now, but that beautiful head of yours took quite
a blow.” His tone got firmer, sounding more like the assertive Braden she
remembered, though the years had deepened his voice, turning it sexier and all
the more damning to her resolve. “Getting out of his car without being strapped
to that backboard is not an option. You’re going to the hospital for a CAT scan
so we can make sure there’s no internal damage before I’ll let you even think
of going anywhere else. Got it?”
Deflated and knowing the quickest way to
get out of this town again would be to listen to him long enough to get out of
his and Micah’s presence, Chelsea slumped in her seat. “Then get on with it.”
* * * *
Braden paced the hospital waiting room,
his mind, chest, and cock stirring for a woman who had walked out of his life
fourteen years ago swearing she would never be back.
So
why is she?
He raked his hands down his face but
didn’t let them drop soon enough. Her scent still lingered on his flesh, an
irresistible blend of luscious wild berries and sugar-glazed petals. That
fragrance had captivated him in high school and aroused the hell out of him
tonight.
She hadn’t changed, at least not much. Her
curtain of long, silky hair the color of autumn leaves framed her oval face
with eyes the color of the deep blue sea. Eyes he had laid awake at night
envisioning looking back at him over her slender shoulder as she straddled
Micah’s cock and he pounded into her sexy ass from behind.
She needed to eat. Even at seventeen,
the woman had possessed a body that had made him sweat. She still did,
especially now that her amazing teenage curves had blossomed into full adult feminine
beauty, but he had known the instant he had looked at her tonight that she
hadn’t been eating right in a very long time.
Something
is wrong.
He knew it in his gut and felt it in his
bones. What else could have driven her back? He didn’t kid himself into
believing he or Micah had anything to do with her return. Neither of them had
played a part in the goals she had been hell-bent on reaching before. Why would
fourteen years apart change any of that?
He spun on the heel of his boot to face
his brother. Micah stood with one knee bent, his foot and back resting on the
wall behind him, his arms crossed over his chest. Though his posture appeared
relaxed, Braden saw the same questions and turmoil moving through his brother’s
eyes.
“Did you call the chief and let him know
we’d be hanging out here until we know for sure Sea is okay?”
“If we get toned out again tonight, we’ll
respond from here.” Micah hesitated then asked the question that was obviously
on both of their minds. “Why did she come back? She swore when she left she
never would.”
“She was seventeen.” Braden knew that
didn’t make a difference, but he couldn’t stop his heart from trying to
convince his mind of that. “Hell, we were barely out of high school. People
change. They realize where they belong and they come back. Look at where we
found her. That road she was on leads to the house where she lived with her
grandmother.”
Micah stared at him, surprise and a
faint trace of amusement evident in his expression. Braden didn’t have to ask
why his brother was looking at him like that. He already knew and it was
baffling the hell out of him, too. He was sounding like a love-sick, wounded
puppy, for Pete’s sake.
“A house her grandmother sold when she
gave into Chelsea’s wants and moved them both to Miami.”
“A house we now own,” Braden reminded his brother.
“I doubt she knows that.”
Yeah, Braden doubted it, too. He and
Micah hadn’t been able to afford the house at seventeen, but when it had gone
up for sale a second time five years later, they had bought it for a song. Not
just because it had once belonged to Chelsea. The house was set in the perfect
location for them, smack-dab between the stationhouse and their parent’s ranch,
with just enough country miles separating the three places for comfort and
privacy.
Micah pushed a hard breath from his
lungs. “Look, I know what you’re thinking. You’re still in love with her. So am
I. Neither of us ever got over that woman.”
“But you don’t think she’s back to
stay?” Deep down, Braden didn’t either. He wanted to with every ounce of his
being because, damn it, Micah was right. He hadn’t ever gotten over Chelsea. It
didn’t matter how many women he had dominated in bed the last fourteen years,
or how many women he and Micah had shared, not a one of them had filled the
void Chelsea’s leaving had created in him. Not a one of them had made his cock
burn, his chest tight, and his mind intoxicated by the sheer need to hold on
forever.
“I don’t know why she was driving down
that road at this time of night. The only way we’re going to know is to ask
her.”
“I hope the two of you have better luck
with that than I did.” Judy Chandler stopped inches from Micah, her eyes, the
same shade as her sons’, full of trouble and concern. “She won’t tell me
anything except that she has to get out of here.”
Braden briefly closed his eyes and sighed
as the hopes of the seventeen-year-old boy he had been slammed into the desires
of the thirty-one-year-old man he had become and plummeted to his boots. “How
is she?”
His mother’s gaze shifted to him,
compassion and understanding mingling with the anxiety on her face. “You
already know, son, without me having to tell you. You have nearly as much
medical training as I do.”
Braden opened his mouth to respond, but
his mother didn’t give him a chance.
“But you want to hear it from someone
else. I know.” Judy Chandler took a deep breath and let it out slow. “She has a
mild concussion. No internal injuries or even external ones beyond the goose
egg on her forehead. She got lucky. I would like to keep her through what’s
left of the night and part of the morning to monitor her. And to feed her. She’s
malnourished, obviously stressed, and I would bet our farm she hasn’t had a
good night’s sleep in months.”
“Why?” Everything his mother was saying
only added more weight to the hunch churning in his gut. Chelsea was in trouble,
and he would be damned if he let her out of his sight again before he knew why.
His mother lifted a shoulder. “Like I
already said, son, she won’t tell me anything.”
Micah pushed himself off the wall. “Can we go
in to see her now?”
Their mother nodded, reaching with both
hands to touch their shoulders. “Talk to her. Get her to tell you what’s going
on. Protect her. If anyone can, it’s the two of you.” She swallowed, emotion
filling her voice. “But be careful. I know both of you still love that girl. You
always have. I don’t want to see either of you ripped apart again if you can’t
convince her to stay.”
“I let her go once.” And regretted it every second of every day
since. Braden squared his shoulders, determination and sheer will
stiffening his muscles. “I’m not letting her go again.”
* * * *
Chelsea stared at the hospital ceiling,
her mind reeling. Braden had gotten what he wanted. She was here. She had been
examined. She had gone through the CAT scan. She hadn’t sustained any internal
damages. Yet she still didn’t believe he would think about letting her go
anywhere else.
That
decision is not left up to him.
No, it wasn’t. She made her own
decisions, always had, no matter how perfect or horrid they turned out to be,
and she knew there was only one option for her now. She had to get out of this
hospital.
And
do what?
She didn’t have a fucking clue how to
answer that particular question. Her car was totaled. She hadn’t needed a look
at it from the outside to know the front end was demolished. She’d been able to
see that much by simply looking through the windshield.
You
should have never got off the interstate.
I had to, she thought in defiance of the
reprimanding voice in her head. Except, maybe she hadn’t. She certainly hadn’t
had to pick Horn Hill, of all places, to make the detour. Surely Donnie hadn’t
caught up with her that fast. Horn Hill was a good six-hundred and fifty miles
from Miami. She had been on the road nearly ten straight hours before she had
taken the exit that had led her here.
Then
you hit a fucking deer.
Yep, no doubt that had been an omen she had
taken the wrong road. Not that she had needed one. Common sense told her Horn
Hill was the last place she needed to be. The fact that it would be the first
place Donnie would come looking for her aside, Braden and Micah were here.
And
wouldn’t you know they would be the first familiar faces you see.
She pounded a balled fist on the
mattress beside her, gritting her teeth so hard she figured it a wonder enamel
didn’t start shooting out of her ears. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!”
“Beating yourself up isn’t going to do anything
but give you a headache, Sea.”
She turned her head right as the door to
the hospital room opened, and Micah stepped inside with Braden at his heels. Comfort
and warmth she didn’t need no matter how desperately she wanted it moved
through her system.
God,
they’re so gorgeous.
Six feet of hard-toned muscles and ridged planes wrapped in sinful packages of
pure sex appeal, the Chandler brothers had always been her downfall. Especially
when she looked into their eyes, saw their love for her and the pain she had
put there. Even after all this time, storm clouds of that pain darkened their
gray eyes, the intensity of it broken only by the love that remained.
And
the promises.
She could see that, more when she looked at Braden than Micah, but it was there
in both their gazes. Wicked promises of erotic passion that hadn’t been so
acute before. Primal needs that turned Braden’s eyes smoky gray and spoke of
devious intentions and dark desires. She actually felt claimed when she looked
at him, as if he were already in control and she were powerless to stop him.
At seventeen, he and Micah had been
horny young men who had grumblingly accepted her firmly spoken “no” when they
had attempted to have sex with her. At thirty-one, both exuded a confidence and
authority that told her saying “no” wouldn’t be so easy for her to say or for
them to accept anymore.
Christ, the level of want she felt for
them terrified her to the bone. It was the reason she had left. The temptation
to stay, to toss all her dreams and goals to the wind in exchange for having
them, being with them, loving them, had been too great. The years that had
passed hadn’t done a damn thing to vanquish her feelings for either man. Simply
looking at them now had her body tied in knots even as it screamed to be
pleasured.
She frowned at both of them as well as
herself because, for Christ’s sake, how could she be thinking about sex when
her entire world teetered on a cliff of total destruction? She gingerly rubbed
her forehead. “I already have the monster of all headaches, so scolding myself
can’t do much more damage.”
“Then let us help.” Braden stepped
around Micah and stopped at the foot of her bed. He hooked his thumbs in his
pockets, drawing her attention once again to the one place she so didn’t need
to be looking right now. Flames ignited in her cunt as she tore her gaze from
his cock and forced herself to look him in the eyes.
Not that looking at any part of either
of them helped her to get her mind straight. She needed to think and definitely
not about how super sexy they both looked in their EMT uniforms. Damn, every
time she allowed her gaze to slide down either of them, her heart started to
race and she felt like she needed CPR.
Suspicion swirled with a calm
determination in Braden’s eyes. Chelsea forced herself to ignore it, to pretend
the cool authority that had always been this man’s driving force didn’t make
her want to throw herself in his arms and beg him to take control of her messed-up
life. She had managed to prevent herself from giving into that urge fourteen
years ago. She could do it again.
“I’ll let you convince your mother to release
me from this place.”
“She will.” Micah moved closer to the
side of her bed. “Sometime tomorrow.”
Chelsea shook her head, wincing when the
movement sent a dart of pain shooting through her skull. “That’s not soon
enough.”
“Will it kill you to stay a few hours?”
The hurt that moved over Micah’s face tore at her heart. “Maybe longer?”
Yes. Chelsea knew it
with a certainty that chilled her to the bone. Staying in Horn Hill would no
doubt spell her death in a multitude of capital letters. The longer she
remained here with them, the more she could feel her resistance crumbling. She
couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t bring them into the middle of this.
Donnie or, God, Diego Lorena, would find her, and neither would hesitate to put
a bullet through her already-aching head, or Braden’s and Micah’s if they got
in the way.
And
they will get in the way. You’ve got to leave.
She swallowed as fear and sorrow rose in
her throat. “I can’t.”
A muscle ticked in the square line of
Braden’s jaw and, when he spoke, a hard anger laced his words. “I’ll get Mom to
start on the paperwork. You’ll stay until our shift ends at seven. That’s less
than three hours. Then I’ll take you to the airport and you can go wherever you
want.”
“I can’t fly.”
Braden’s eyes narrowed. She wouldn’t
have been surprised to see steam start to roll out of his ears. “Fine. I’ll
take you to the train or bus station. Your choice.”
“Neither.” Any form of public
transportation would require a name and photo identification. Chelsea bowed her
head. Even if she stayed until the nearest dealership opened, she wouldn’t be
able to buy a car either. How the hell was she supposed to leave, hitchhike?
Like that wouldn’t be a very bad idea. Knowing her luck, the one car to stop
would be driven by Donnie or one of Lorena’s goons sent to knock her off.
“What are you running from, Sea?” Micah
asked, his voice softer and more compassionate than Braden’s had been.
Chelsea squeezed her eyes shut.
“Myself.”
“And attempting to do it without leaving
any sort of a trail,” Braden said. “It sounds to me like you’re running from
more than yourself, darlin’.”
Chelsea lifted her head and met Braden’s
powerful gaze. “Just let me go, Braden. Please.” She heard herself say the
words, heard the echo of her own younger voice as she had said the same thing
to him fourteen years ago, and remorse sliced through her heart.
Braden held her gaze, the same memory
keen in his eyes as he shook his head. “I tried that. It didn’t work. You’ll be
out of this hospital by the time we end our shift, and the only place I’m
taking you is home. You’ll explain everything to us, and we’ll decide what to
do next.”
Chelsea stared at him. For over a year,
a different man had attempted to dictate every breath she took until she had
grown to despise him even before she uncovered the secrets that were likely to
get her killed. Braden was doing the same thing to her now, attempting to take charge,
but rather than despising him, her mind and body were going all wonky on her.
Damn it, she couldn’t allow this to happen no matter how badly she wanted it.
“Home,” she repeated slowly. “As in your home?”
Braden nodded once. “As in the house
Micah and I share.”
Chelsea opened her mouth to argue and
nearly swallowed her tongue when Braden stepped to her bedside, leaned over
her, and hovered a breath away from her lips. “I didn’t give you an option,
Sea. I let you do what you wanted fourteen years ago. This time, we’re doing it
my way.”
And with that, he kissed the tip of her
nose, straightened, and walked out of the room with Micah at his heels before
Chelsea could make a sound, let alone utter a word of intelligible English.
