Pay the Price: A Dark New Adult Romance

24. Daisy

It only took one trip to get my stuff from Cassie’s. I’d left the house at the top of the falls with one small bag and that was what I brought back. I didn’t tell Cassie why I was moving back in with the Beasts: the less she knew about what my dad was up to, the better.

Wolf insisted on carrying my bags up the stairs and I took the opportunity to walk through the first floor, trying to get my head back in the renovation game since I might as well keep working on the house if I was going to be living here again.

Except nothing was as I’d left it.

The paint I’d chosen had been rolled onto walls in several of the rooms, and fresh plaster awaited primer where before there had been holes. Peeling wallpaper in the hall had been removed, someone had installed the new toilet and sink in the first-floor powder room, and sanding had begun on the floors, which were in desperate need of a fresh coat of varnish.

I stood in the doorway of the library, shocked to see that the new wallpaper had been hung, the antique light fixture gleaming from a fresh polish. The cracked plaster crown molding had been recast and installed so seamlessly I almost wondered if I’d imagined it was broken.

“We didn’t want work to stop on the house while you were gone,” Wolf said behind me.

I almost fell into his eyes when I turned to look at him. “But… you must have worked night and day to get all this done.”

It was like looking into the clear waters of an untouched sea.

“I can’t speak for Jace and Otis,” he said, “but it felt like…” He paused, like he was looking for the right words.

“Like?” I prodded.

“Like a way to be close to you while you were gone.”

I wasn’t even surprised to feel the familiar lust spark between my thighs because if there was anything sexier than a muscly, inked bad boy in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his biceps, it was a muscly, inked bad boy in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his biceps who was willing to hang wallpaper and paint for you even when you weren’t around to ask. “Thank you.”

He nodded and the silence weighed heavy between us. I didn’t know what to say. I’ve missed fucking you but you killed my brother?

And that was the worst part: it wasn’t just the fucking I missed.

I missed him. I missed feeling his arms around me and knowing that he was thinking something dirty when the slow, sexy smile washed over his features. I missed hearing him call me sunshine and falling asleep with his heartbeat under my ear.

But it wasn’t like I could do that anymore. Not now that I knew he’d really killed Blake.

“I need to go shower.” I’d meant it to be an escape from Wolf’s closeness, from the smell of his cologne and sweat and the heat that emanated from his skin, but now I was just thinking about showering and Wolf, about being wet and slippery together under the warm water, his hands sliding over my skin while his lips—

Okay, enough of that.

I moved carefully past him, trying to avoid brushing up against his body.

By the time I got to my room I was breathing heavy, not because of the stairs — Locke had beat that out of me at the gym — but because of the thoughts swirling in my head about Wolf. I’d thought I’d be immune to his charm now that I knew the truth, but clearly my body hadn’t gotten the memo.

I’d moved back to the house for protection.

Now I couldn’t help feeling like I’d just leapt from the frying pan right into the fire.