Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 701(@200wpm)___ 561(@250wpm)___ 467(@300wpm)
He smirks. “I don’t roll that way, stray. I’m pretty sure you know that after last night.”
My heart drops out of my body.
He didn’t seriously just say that.
His smirk grows, the evil glinting in his eyes as he acknowledges wordlessly that he won this round.
Desperate to change the subject before it registers with Milo what he just said, I turn to Jet. “What are you working on?”
“What did that mean?” Milo asks levelly.
Panic gathers in my chest. I raise my gaze to meet Jonathan’s as Jet distractedly relays to me the details of what he’s doing. I don’t understand any of it, but I’m only half paying attention, anyway. My gaze is fixed on his older brother.
Jonathan watches me, visibly debating how destructive he wants to be this morning.
Please don’t.
I don’t know if he can see it in my eyes, but it feels like I’m screaming it, even though I don’t say a word.
My mind torments me with thoughts of what he could say next. How easily he could collapse everything.
He doesn’t have to take this battle any further.
Probably just telling his father about last night would be enough to ruin things between us. He could lie, too. Say I was into it. Say it went further than it did. He doesn’t have to tell the truth about how it went down. I probably damaged my believability by not going to Milo immediately and telling him what happened. Sure, I could tell him after the fact that I was afraid to, but Jonathan would insist I’m full of shit and just trying to cover my ass. Who would Milo believe if it came down to me vs. Jonathan?
I feel sick.
Then Jonathan speaks, and it feels like a rug being pulled out from under me.
“Kennedy came downstairs for a drink of water last night,” Jonathan says smoothly, glancing over at his father. “You were on the couch, weren’t you? Maybe you heard her.”
Milo remains silent, cracking an egg and discarding the shell.
“Anyway,” Jonathan continues. “I thought I heard noise downstairs. Woke me right up.”
He didn’t tell me that part. Did he really hear us? I’ll die.
“Must’ve been Kennedy getting herself a drink. When she came back up, I was awake, so, like any good brother-in-law, I popped out to say hi.”
Oh my god.
Jonathan’s gaze drifts back to me. “When I saw her with bedhead, wearing that slutty little sleep outfit, I guess I got a bit confused.”
“Hey,” Milo says, a warning in his tone as he looks over at his son.
For a split second, I feel happy that he’s at least standing up for me when his son openly calls me a slut, but the feeling doesn’t last long.
Jonathan smiles at his dad. “Hey, I’m just telling you how it looked to me at the time, half asleep and stumbling out into the hall. I saw a scantily dressed girl just outside my bedroom, and…”
Tension fills the room as Jonathan strategically falls silent.
Milo looks back at me, a look on his face I can’t quite place. Is he concerned? Angry? His shoulders look tense as he looks back at his son. “And?” he demands.
Jonathan holds my gaze for a moment instead of his father’s, torturing me with the dread of knowing what he’s about to say.
He’ll give an edited version of the story, of course. He already has. Whether we woke him up or not, he damn sure wasn’t half-asleep when he “stumbled” out into the hall. He was so awake, I don’t even know if he had been asleep yet.
A faint voice whispers that maybe I should take away his power and just cut in right now with the truth. Maybe Milo won’t react how I’m afraid he will. Maybe he’ll believe me, and Jonathan will be the one he punishes.
But what if that little voice is wrong?
How could I ever look at Milo the same way if I found out he wasn’t willing to protect me from his own son?
That’s probably the biggest fear I have about all this. It’s not what Jonathan could do to me, it’s losing Milo, or losing my respect for him because honestly, both have the same result.
He’s the only man I’ve ever been able to count on in my whole life, and I’m not ready to lose that.
I wish I hadn’t stayed for breakfast. I could’ve just told them I had to go, but like an idiot, I thought I could squeeze in a few more minutes here.
I should have known better.
Jonathan finally answers. “And my cock was a little confused, too. She caught me sporting a hard-on. Must’ve been embarrassing because she ran straight to your bedroom without so much as a ‘goodnight, Jonathan’.”
I let out a breath of relief. My ears buzz, I’m so fucking relieved.
“Sorry, little brother,” Jonathan says to Jet. “Didn’t mean to get all up on your girl.”