CHAPTER THREE
I throw my arms around him.
It’s a hard reach when he towers over me by two feet, but I’m caught in his big arms and lifted onto my toes. His hands close into my hair, cradling the back of my skull.
“Hey, little one.”
I know it’s wrong to smell a married man, but I’m tipsy with the musky scent of Labdanum coming off him. The way his heat only intensifies the warm, woodsy smell.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I breathe into the side of his neck.
His arms tighten with his deep inhale. His fingers fist in my hair. The prickle sends tingles down my spine that tightens my nipples and makes me too aware of my soaked panties.
The surge is so out of pocket. A reaction I’m not used to feeling that I almost struggle to tug free, but I do before I do something really embarrassing, and offer him my best smile.
He’s still so rugged. So masculine in that way cowboys are with their sun kissed skin, five o’clock shadow and hands that can fix just about anything ... including a woman’s leaky faucet. It almost makes me want to hate his wife. Whoever she is.
But I pretend like I’m not itching to run my fingers through all that thick, dark hair falling around that chiseled face to his broad shoulders. A reaction I haven’t had ... in years.
Next to him, hair shorter, frame slightly smaller, Roan meets my eye. He gives me a lopsided smirk that flashes me the single dimple in his cheek. His hands stay in the pockets of his black jacket but he cocks his head to the side as if in a challenge.
It’s so painfully familiar I have to bite back the hot well of tears as I hurry to him.
I’m caught up in his embrace. In the tangle of cedar and sandalwood. Both his arms go around my middle and I have to resist the urge to swing my legs around his hips.
“Roan,” I breathe into his shoulder.
“Fuck, baby,” he growls into my neck, the gruff rumble shooting down my spine, eliciting a shiver. “Missed you.”
I sniffle into the stitch of skin between his neck and shoulder. Arms tight enough that I’m sure I’m suffocating him.
“Missed you, too.”
He pulls back to peer into my face. His eyes, a tone lighter than his older brother’s, search mine. The corner of his mouth quirks in that impish smirk that coaxes out my own.
“Prove it.”
I snort at his teasing, but plant a kiss to his cheek out of sheer impulse.
“I better get one of those.”
“I didn’t get one at all,” Kellen grumbles.
Roan continues to hold me, but shoots his brothers a raised eyebrow screaming of smug arrogance. “Told you she likes me best.”
That earns him a playful smack on the chest from me. A harder punch in the shoulder from Lukan.
“It’s pity, because you’re so ugly. She feels bad,” Lukan retorts with no heat.
Both men ignore my gasp of outrage even while I stifle my laugh.
“I think I need a do-over while you two fight it out in the snow,” Kellen decides, capturing my wrist and tugging me back towards him.
Lukan grabs my other elbow the same moment Roan snatches me around the waist. Both men shout their outrage simultaneously.
“I’m not done!” Roan snaps.
“You can’t have her twice,” Lukan huffs.
All three stand so close I’m in the middle of their triangle. The feel and weight of them wedging me between them has my stomach doing flips. My cheeks warm to match the giddy flutter in my chest. I’m so happy to see them, I can’t stop smiling.
Lukan catches my eyes and their bickering halts as I’m forcibly detached from Roan and folded in the warm scent of campfire smoke that clings to him. I’m locked around the middle with both arms and lifted so my feet dangle.
“Been waiting to do this for so long,” he groans into the arch of my throat.
His breath is so hot, so thick across my skin. His teeth. His hands across my back, bowing me into him. His lips on my pulse. It’s all so intimate. So familiar I want to cry.
It makes no sense because they have never held me like this. And the few hugs we’ve shared were quick and friendly. Never like this. Never so tight all my broken pieces start to fuse together.
“Lukan...”
I hadn’t meant to moan, but it escapes with the drag of my head back using my hair. I’m captured in the hard glint of his eyes. In the mouth inches from my parted lips. The scent of him whispers through me with the aggressive punch of whiskey on an empty stomach.
Had he always smelled so ... good?
I can’t seem to remember anything when he’s holding me with such purpose. Such control.
“Come with us,” he urges, momentarily distracting me with the graze of his lips on my chin. “Can’t be without you again.”
My heart is thundering wildly in my chest. The erratic patter I know he can hear when there is no space between us. When he’s holding me like I’m the most fragile thing he’s ever been trusted with. Eyes the warm red of tea peer into mine with urgency and a plea that steals what’s left of my oxygen.
“Where?” I barely manage.
Because he can’t be serious. Clearly, he’s joking and he’ll break my heart by laughing and telling me I’m so silly for falling for it.
But his face drops into the line of my neck, into the vein beating beneath my skin.
“Home, Rina. Come home with us.”
It’s the broken whisper that catches in my throat. The desperation as he nuzzles my skin and makes me too aware of my damp crotch still slick with my release.
“To Vancouver?” I guess, trying not to squirm when he inhales deeply.
He hums quietly before setting me down on my feet.
“We can go anywhere you want.”
Now, I know he’s messing with me. While cute and funny, there’s no way he’s serious given all the circumstances.
“Stop teasing.” I force a chuckle and detach myself from him. “You know that’s not possible.” I move away from him. Them. I need space to think and that’s hard to do when everything about them is overwhelming. “Come on. You can keep me company while I finish my list.”
Leaving them to shrug out of their coats and kick off their boots, I hurry in the direction of the kitchen. I figure it’s the best place to calm us all down.
Mainly me.
I need to distract myself from all those muscles and those faces. I know they were always beautiful to look at, but the reality of them in the flesh is a different kind of torture, especially given that at least one of them is married.
Plus, they’re brothers. How would that even work?
I give my head a shake, relatively irked by their teasing.
“You don’t want to stay here, baby.” Roan slips into the room.
Lukan follows with Kellen right behind him.
The kitchen was a mistake.
They are much too big, too imposing for the cramped space. Even with a whole island between us, I’m too aware of their presence. Their eyes. The way they never leave me.
I take a deep breath. “I mean, of course not. This place gives me the creeps.” I motion to the entire cabinet stocked with jars containing items I can’t even pronounce. “You should see the book of skins.”
Maybe they’re as confused as I am because glances are exchanged.
Kellen has a deep crease between his brows that make my fingers itch to smooth out.
Roan is anxiously rubbing the back of his neck and casting sideways peeks at Lukan who hasn’t taken his attention off me.
All the humor is gone from the chiseled lines of his features.
His mouth is drawn into a downward frown that mirrors the contemplation in his eyes.
“Why are you here?” he asks, which has me puzzled and raising my own questions.
“Why are you?” I quirk an eyebrow. “We both know Aunt Laura wasn’t your favorite person. You didn’t even come to her funeral. So, why are you all here? Why now?” I plant my fists on my hips. “How did you know I would be here?”
The discomfort amongst them is only mildly amusing when I have to bottle down my irritation.
I know they mean well. I get that they missed me and want to catch up, but ... they left. They walked out of my life and never looked back. But now, suddenly, they want me to run off into the sunset with them? Eight years of silence and this is their solution?
“What do you want?” I bark without thinking, my hurt a freshly picked scab bleeding into my heart. “You took off without a goodbye, couldn’t be bothered to send a single text in eight years, but now you think I’m going to pack up and go wherever you want?”
I stare into each of their faces in turn, waiting for an answer to the questions that have plagued my mind for years.
“Let’s not forget that you’re married. How do your partners feel about you asking some random woman to move in with you?”
It’s a lot I’m unpacking all at once, but they started this. They could have simply shown up and had a nice chat. Caught up on news and gone back to their business.
Instead, they want me to forget their betrayal and fall into their arms.
I’m not that desperate, pathetic or weak.
“You misunderstand, Rina.”
Unwilling to face them with eyes full of hurt, I turn to the cabinets. I haven’t gotten to inventory the items inside yet so I’m not wholly certain what I’m going to find, but the first one I throw open is stuffed with crumpled boxes of dried goods damp with water damage.
“We never wanted to let you go.” Lukan comes up next to me. The heat of his body burns the side of mine as he leans in just enough to capture my attention without touching me. “We waited for you to come back to us.”
I twist to face him, confusion forming a knot with my annoyance. “What are you talking about? You know where I live. You had my number.”
Facing him was a mistake. He’s too close. His warmth brews with his scent and balloons me. A rich bubble that makes my senses go fuzzy when they’re supposed to remain strong.
The fact that he’s clad in a gray top that his no business being so distracting doesn’t help. The flimsy fabric pulls tight across muscles designed to make a woman stupid and vanishes down the narrow waistline of his pants.
A deliberate distraction tactic if I’ve ever seen one because I’ve never had to work so hard to focus before.