Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132657 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132657 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
She couldn’t help it. It felt nice to be naked. She liked it. Sue her. She only did it at the club or the nudist place in Colorado. Actually, now that she thought about it, Mountain and Valley was secure, and her fathers wouldn’t come in if they knew she was there. Of course they might send in other people.
“It makes you crazy because she’s not wearing your collar,” Jensen countered.
Niall’s collar. She didn’t want to think about the fact that it felt like something they were working toward earlier tonight. Nope. She wasn’t letting that in. She hadn’t talked to Ruby and Gigi about what kind of collar she would want—because it wasn’t like Niall would pick one out without her input. That sounded more like Jensen.
“Probably,” Niall agreed. “I’m insanely jealous when it comes to her. Current company not included, of course.”
She huffed. “Sure.”
That brought another round of smacks that took her breath away. Jensen wasn’t holding back. “Hush. We are working things out, and honestly, what do you care what we say since you’re going to leave the minute you can?”
That was true. “Maybe I don’t like listening to whiny men talking about their feelings.”
“Don’t,” Niall said, his tone darker than she ever remembered him using. “You can handle her bratty parts, and I’ll deal with shit like this when she crosses a real line.”
What the fuck line had she crossed? She was the one laying over Jensen’s lap.
And then she wasn’t. Niall hauled her up, and she felt herself flush at the hard look in his eyes.
“I understand that you are frustrated with the events of the day, but you have no idea what you just did to him. You sit around and moan about the patriarchy, and then times get tough and you reenforce it for the one person in this room who is utterly yoked by it.”
A pit opened in her stomach and she looked at Jensen, who frowned Niall’s way.
“She doesn’t want to listen to feelings? I get it. I wasn’t talking about feelings. I was talking about sex. No feelings involved,” Jensen said with that smirk he got when he needed a mask.
Except he did have feelings. A lot of them, and he didn’t know how to handle them because he’d been told his whole damn life that he wasn’t supposed to feel anything but anger and maybe lust. Niall had found his way out of the mindset, but Jensen hadn’t.
“You could cut him a thousand other ways and I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but that was too far. That isn’t who you are. I understand you’re angry. Are you so angry that you would say something that will send him back into that shell of his? He lost a lot tonight, too.”
This was why trios sucked. There was always the reasonable one who made the two dumbasses look at everything in a different light.
“Are we playing or is this revenge? I kind of thought the revenge would be leaving at the end, but you could hollow him out,” Niall said in that all too reasonable tone. “You can take every bit of progress he’s made, and at the end he won’t open himself up to anyone again. Ever.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jensen asked.
But she knew. Jensen had been “the man” for so long he sometimes forgot he could be human, too. She didn’t want to think about this, but Niall made it impossible. Jensen worked hard for his revenge. He’d given her up, and then in the course of one night he lost it all and she shamed him for talking about his feelings. Not that she wanted to be his freaking sounding board, but she didn’t want to be yet another person telling him he was nothing but abs and a good time in bed.
Sometimes it sucked to have to be the bigger person and live the actual lifestyle which required her to be open and tolerant and accepting. She could walk away. She didn’t have to be kind if she was locked in her room. In the room where Jensen grew up and she was surrounded with evidence that he’d been a kid with dreams of getting out of this place, who loved his brother and wished his mom could be different.
Stupid fucking empathy.
She walked up to Jensen and put her hands on his cheeks. “Sir, I am emotional tonight and angry, and I still should never have said that to you. I am sorry. Please forgive me.”
He stood there, a muscle in his jaw ticcing like a pulse. “I can handle some words, Harlow.”
But it was so plain he couldn’t. Or rather he would pretend like they didn’t mean anything but they did, and they would send him into his shell. She’d gotten him to open up the first time around. Their relationship had been marked with incendiary passion and some spectacular fights, but there had been moments when he talked about his brother and his family and how much it hurt when his mom would bring home some guy and forget he and Tommy existed. How many times had she told him to suck it up and be a man?