I hated his casual confidence much more than his forcefulness. It was much easier to deny him when he was being a dick.
“Desire tastes like cherries, shame smells like olives, happiness tastes like chocolate, sorrow smells like roses…should I keep going, or do you get the point?”
Houston’s hands drifted underneath my sundress, where he placed his hand on my hips before backing and trapping me against the window behind me. “And what about me? What do I smell like?”
My heart skipped a beat as vanilla filled the air.
“How do you know I feel anything at all?”
“The same way I figured out you were a hundred times more complicated than you let on, Braxton Fawn. I haven’t stopped paying attention.” When he kissed me, he forced my lips to part and my mouth to accept his tongue. I moaned in response. It was a desperate, broken sound. Whatever emotion Houston was responsible for evoking, I was drunk with it by the time he let me up for air. “And I never will,” he warned me.
I shivered just as Loren sauntered into the kitchen, fully dressed and brazenly debonair. If there was ever a walking example of perfection, he was it. To my ears, I sounded like a love-drunk fool, but the way the three of them overwhelmed me, separately and definitely together, it was hard to care about anything other than giving in to them.
“Can you stop groping my girl?” Loren griped. His eyes weren’t even on us. He was focusing on fastening his expensive-looking watch as he stood by the door with a scowl. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”
“She’s not just yours,” Houston reminded him.
“Keep fighting over me like I’m a chew toy, and I’ll dump the three of you for me, myself, and I.”
Houston’s head swiveled back down to me, and his lips twitched as amusement lit up his eyes. “Damn, baby, Rich isn’t even here. He gets dumped too?”
“Yup.”
Just not for the reason the two of them believed.
Even now, Jericho was missing-in-action, and my pride wouldn’t allow me to ask. I didn’t want to know if he was avoiding me again.
Finished fastening his watch, Loren looked up, and then he leaned back with the bottom of his right foot planted against the wall. “What color panties are we wearing today?” he inquired with a smile.
Suddenly, I was standing in a field. There was grass as tall as my waist, and I could almost feel the flower petals slipping between my fingers as I walked. I knew the answer Loren was looking for because I hadn’t forgotten the day I became Bound, either.
“Black like my heart.”
I saw the pride in Loren’s eyes and knew I’d always be theirs.
Jericho still hadn’t returned when we left for the hour-long drive to Portland. To make matters more annoying Houston and Loren were pretending not to know where he’d gone or what held him up.
I didn’t want to be the kind of girl who didn’t ask the important questions because she was too afraid of the answers. Day after day, it seemed that was exactly who I was allowing myself to become. I wouldn’t know how to let them go if they forced me to, and it was obvious that Jericho had secrets.
Would we survive them?
My stomach filled with dread when the answer didn’t come. My mind couldn’t seem to settle on a single theory of what he kept from me because my heart refused to believe any of them. When I realized my hands were actually wringing in my lap, I forced them apart and swallowed past the phantom taste of sour milk.
Fuck this.
Disgusted with myself, I had my phone in my hand and typing before I even knew what I would say.
Where are you?
Green apples burst on my tongue when he answered right away. I hadn’t expected that.
Jericho: Home.
I scoffed, which drew Houston’s attention to me briefly as he drove with one hand and fiddled with the radio with the other. Finally allowing myself to ask the question that’s had my heart trapped in my throat since he first started to pull away, I typed my response.
Are you avoiding me?
My hands shook as I watched those fucking bubbles appear and disappear for what seemed like an eternity. Despite knowing the truth, I wasn’t as prepared for it as I thought.
Rich: Yes.
I didn’t get to figure out what I should say to that before he sent another text.
Rich: We need to talk.
Loren was saying something. I didn’t know whether it was to