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“Go back to sleep, darling.”
“Only if you’re here when I wake up,” he banters.
“I’m always here.” I watch him gently shut his eyes, and just as I ease away, I hear the crack of eggs and the slam of the refrigerator.
And Lo mumbles one of the greatest truths of our lives.
“I have the best brother.”
March 2019
The Avondale Hotel
New York City
DAISY MEADOWS
I sprint down the hotel hall with three paper bags labeled Ryke, Connor, and Loren. Running through empty carpeted hallways with less urgency and more fun. I extend my arms as I speed ahead. You can’t catch Daisy Meadows. Look at how fast she goes!
I veer to the door and slip my keycard in, panting a little, and with a giddy smile, I enter the Manhattan hotel room where the three guys chill out for a few minutes.
The photographer suggested leaving the “talent” in a warm hotel room while Rose, Lily, and select staff set-dress the rooftop pool area for a charity photo shoot.
My modeling days are over, but all of our husbands agreed to a wild idea.
“I come bearing gifts.” I shake the paper bags and slow my speed.
I’ve walked in on something.
Lo sits at the edge of the king-sized bed, Connor towering above. His hand tilts Lo’s head backwards, and he inspects Lo’s bloodshot eye.
“Did you bring the gift of sight?” Lo asks dryly. “Because my eye is burning.”
I toss both of their bags on the bed. “I brought the gift of underwear. Maybe you can fashion an eye-patch.”
“If I could fashion a fucking glare, it’d be on you.”
Ooh. He’s a whole lot less scary in Connor’s care, submissive and totally banking on the smartest person he knows to make his eye better. I’m guessing some debris is irritating the surface.
“Hold still, darling.” Connor examines him.
I notice Ryke doing sit-ups on the floor, and when he sets his shoulders on the carpet, I purposefully look away.
“Have you seen my husband anywhere?” I walk forward until my legs are on either side of his head. Standing right over his face. “He’s full wolf. Broody. And he has a very large co—” Ryke bites my ankle. I laugh, staring down. His unshaven jaw and thick hair calls to me, but not more than those darkened, dangerous eyes.
Hello there.
“You hear that, bro?” Lo says. “The love of your life married Sasquatch.”
Ryke props himself on his elbows. “How’s that fucking eye feel?”
“How’s that face feel? Gotta hurt being you.”
“We’re fucking related,” Ryke snaps.
Connor tilts Lo’s head towards the lamplight and says, “I assure you, Lo is better looking, and he uses more words.”
Ryke groans. “Come on.”
Lo tries not to blink. “At least your insides aren’t ugly like mine.”
Ryke groans more. “Shut the fuck up.”
I’m more used to infiltrating their guy group than I used to be. Paris was the start of it all, and I know every start must have an ending. I just can’t imagine one yet. I know I don’t have to.
Suddenly, Ryke catches me by the waist and brings me in his arms, rolling on his side and mine. My blonde hair tangles and frizzes some, and his large hand slides through the strands. In the background, Lo and Connor discuss the state of his eye, so it’s not entirely quiet.
Ryke says lowly, “Your husband must be the luckiest fucking man.”
I smile. “He’s definitely the kindest.”
“Yeah?” Ryke can’t hold out any longer. He kisses me strongly, and my body surges with tingling heat. His lean muscles wrap around my build, and I run my fingers through his thick hair and down his rough jaw, his gruff masculinity so, so attractive to me.
I whisper against his lips, “He’s going to be so mad.”
“Who?”
“My husband,” I tease. “I’m kissing another man.”
Ryke raises his brows at me, and then he slides his hand down the back of my jeans, cupping my bare ass. I have good days and bad where my sex drive is concerned, but lately they’ve been really, really good. Like now, my nerves nearly twitch in response, welcoming his advances and his coarse hands.
Ryke’s lips tickle my ear as he whispers, “How’d he fucking feel about this?”
“Very, very jealous.” I grab his wrist and push his hand deeper in my pants, and his fingers curve towards a more sensitive area. “I can’t be sure, but I think he likes another part of me more than my ass.”
“I know which fucking part.”
I smile at the danger of his hand, creeping lower and lower. My pulse races. “Which fucking part?”
He tucks me closer to his chest, and he murmurs, “The part that makes you come so fucking hard.”
I almost shudder in his arms. Go for that part…right…now.
“It’s out.” Connor’s voice nearly startles me.
Lo stretches to a stance, and neither Ryke nor I shift out of our tangled positions on the carpet. “What was it?” I ask all of them.
Connor answers, “A piece of a contact.”
I frown. “When did you start wearing contacts, Lo?”
“When I got a job that consists of staring at little words in little panels.” Halway Comics. Lo is on his way to the bathroom, and he suddenly sees me and his brother. He shakes his head. “My eyesight didn’t get fucked up enough for this.”
“You and your wife are fucking worse,” Ryke retorts.
“But I love my wife. I only kind of love you.” Lo gives him a half-smile, but then he laughs at his own joke, much more lighthearted than he would’ve been in the past.
Ryke even smiles, just as Lo turns into the bathroom.
Connor collects their shopping bags to change, not even batting an eye towards us. He just disappears into the bathroom and shuts the door. I dropped Ryke’s bag nearby, and he also needs to change clothes.
Rolling on top of him, I pull off his gray shirt, his dark eyes carving up and down my body. I tug his black track pants to his thighs and then playfully bite the waistband of his boxer-briefs to draw them off. I don’t get far.
His muscles flex. “Fuck.”
This is an urgent stop kind of fuck, so I stop.
“You’re fucking trouble.” He picks me off his lap and then stands. He must see the confusion in my eyes because he adds, “I can’t get hard right now, sweetheart.”
I mock gasp. “Men get erections?”
He finds a nearby thing to throw at me, which is his shopping bag.
I catch it on my lap and then toss my hands in the air theatrically. “He loves me; he really, really loves me.” I fall backwards.
Ryke snatches the shopping bag, effortlessly sheds his track pants entirely, and he chucks those at my face. I smile and pull them off while he finds his “wardrobe” for the photo shoot.
I have no idea what Rose picked out for each guy. She designed a really small line of men’s underwear for the summer, and all the proceeds go to charity. The marketing team said more women would buy the underwear for their significant other if Ryke, Lo, and Connor modeled them.
“I wasn’t involved in the choices,” I say. “I was just told to bring them to you.”
Ryke holds up a pair of white briefs.
He never wears briefs. He checks the label on the shopping bag, thinking I mixed him up with his brother or Connor.
I didn’t.
“What the fuck are you smiling at?” he asks, but if you saw Ryke, you’d see that a shadow of one begins to lift his lips.
“You.”
He gets naked and flings his boxer-briefs at my face. My smile stretches, and on the floor, I sit up against the bed. I give him a long once-over: his lean, sculpted body only rock climbers could share. I land on his cock, and my nerves stir awake.
He has to force his gaze off me. Then he puts on the white
briefs, tucking in his junk, and fixing the elastic band. They barely fit him.
“Do you want any modeling advice?” I ask to distract his penis.
“No.” This cemented word originates from hating what modeling did to me. Any memories I do have contain painful sentiments he wouldn’t want to dredge up.
I think about Sullivan for a second, but I try not to let it consume my focus. Frederick, my therapist, told me not to fixate on her health when I’ve left her in the care of family. I need to put myself first more and focus on my health too. Not just for me but for Sulli.
This is the very first time I’ve left her alone with my mom. I was only a little nervous when she kept saying, look how gorgeous and look at her eyes. This is the first granddaughter she’s had with green eyes, and I know it’s insane to think she’d model off my baby. I just hear my mom, petting my hair, and saying, your hair, look at this gorgeous hair.
I trust that she won’t take photos or post them online or even share them with her friends. Ryke told her really bluntly not to, and I seconded his declaration.
