18. Jamison
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JAMISON
It was after three in the morning, closer to four when I walked into Marcel’s house. I stood outside his room and considered whether waking my brother and his wife because I had developed a sudden, violent allergy to feelings was appropriate.
It wasn’t.
I went in anyway.
Marcel’s house was dark, but not cold. It never was anymore.
Before Emmie, his estate had been black stone, and silence that made staff nervous.
Now the hallways had warmth under the floors because Emmie hated waking up with cold feet.
There were flowers on side tables. Soft blankets folded over chairs.
Books stacked where she had abandoned them.
Little pieces of her everywhere, ruining the place in the most disgusting way possible.
Making it a home.
Their bedroom was at the end of the private wing, behind two carved black doors I had absolutely no right to open. I opened them.
Marcel woke before the door even finished moving.
He came up on one elbow, body half over Emmie before his eyes had fully adjusted, one arm locked around her waist and the other already reaching beneath the pillow.
There was a gun there. I knew because Marcel and I were raised by the same kind of men, and neither of us slept in rooms without weapons.
Emmie made a sleepy sound against his chest.
“Daddy?”
I stopped in the doorway.
For a second, the whole reason I had come twisted under my ribs and made me feel sick.
They were tangled together in the dark like the world had ended and neither of them had noticed because they had each other.
Emmie was curled against Marcel, her black hair spilled over his chest, one leg caught between his.
Marcel had a hand on her back even while half-asleep, holding her there.
Keeping her tucked into him, and safe from a threat that turned out to be me.
Disgusting.
Marcel’s eyes sharpened when he recognized me. He moved his hand away from the weapon.
“Jamison?”
I stood there in my coat, still smelling of smoke...feeling like something had cracked open in my chest and all the wrong things were spilling out.
“I’m having an emotional crisis.”
Marcel stared at me. Emmie lifted her head from his chest. No one spoke.
“I said,” I repeated, harsher, because apparently I needed the room to understand I was in a fucking emergency, “I’m having an emotional crisis.”
“I heard you,” Marcel said.
“And?”
“And I’m deciding whether I’m still asleep.”
“I’m serious.”
“That is what’s concerning me.”
Emmie blinked at me, still drowsy, then her expression changed. Her eyes softened first, her mouth trembled like she was trying not to smile.
I pointed at her immediately.
“Don’t.”
She pressed her lips together.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“No.”
“You found your heart.”
“I found nothing,” I snapped. “Something is wrong with my chest, and I came here because Marcel is occasionally useful.”
Marcel reached to the side table without taking his eyes off me, grabbed a shirt, and helped Emmie sit up. The sheet slipped down her shoulder, and he pulled it back up with a possession that made me look at the ceiling because for fuck’s sake.
“Arms up for daddy,” he murmured.
Emmie lifted her arms. He pulled the shirt over her head. I walked deeper into the room like the idiot I had apparently become.
The bedroom smelled faintly of lavender, and Marcel’s expensive cologne. The bed was a disaster of black sheets and tangled pillows. One lamp glowed low on the far side, giving just enough light to make everything feel too intimate.
Then I noticed her throat.
The collar was different. This one was black. Solid. Heavier. It sat snug around her throat, with a hoop at the front.
I looked at it.
Then at Marcel.
Then back at the hoop.
Unfortunately, I knew my brother too well.
Marcel had been a beast before Emmie. He had a history. Women. Private preferences. The kind of reputation a Crow man built before he found the woman who made the rest of them irrelevant.
I knew exactly what that hoop was for.
His hand.
Apparently, my brother’s wife had fallen asleep in her sex collar.
I stared at him. “Is that a different collar?”
Marcel looked at me like I had asked whether water was wet.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she has different collars.”
“Of course she fucking does. I’ve seen the cabinet.”
Emmie touched the black metal at her throat, chin lifting a little. She was blushing, but there was pride under it. Offensive levels of pride.
“This is my night collar,” she said.
Marcel’s mouth twitched. “One of them.”
I looked toward the bedside table and saw another collar resting beside her water glass and a half-finished cup of tea. That one was softer. Smaller clasp. Made for comfort rather than display.
Emmie glanced at it. “Well…that one is my sleeping collar.”
I stared.
“He forgot to change it before we fell asleep.” She added, very helpfully,
Marcel’s eyes moved slowly to her.
“Baby.”
“What?” she said, a little too pleased with herself. “You did.”
“You also have the option of not explaining my wife’s collar rotation to my brother at three in the morning.”
“I didn’t invite him in.”
I gestured at the collar on her throat. “So that is normally for his eyes only?”
Marcel’s gaze cut to me. “Yes.”
“And yet here we are.”
This would be under his skin burning him that I was seeing what was only for his eyes. The possessive bastard would be on fire inside.
“Because you let yourself into my bedroom.” His voice lowered.
“I’m having an emotional crisis.”
“That excuse is losing value.”
Emmie lifted her chin again. “I like my night collar.”
“I bet you do.”
She smiled. Smiled. Like the collar made her happy, and the weight of it around her throat made her feel held instead of owned badly.
“Daddy cares for me perfectly,” she said.
Marcel’s hand moved to the back of her neck, fingers resting just beneath the black metal. His thumb stroked once. Emmie leaned into him. That was when the sickness in my chest got worse.
I stood at the foot of their bed and looked at them.
At the way Marcel held her. At the way she sat against him.
At the collar. At the spare one on the table because of course Marcel had options for her comfort, for her mood, for sleep, for sex, for whatever her softness required from him that night.
The thought hit so hard I nearly stepped back.
I wanted that with Sienna. I wanted Sienna to lift her chin because my hand was near her throat and she trusted it there.
I wanted to know what she needed before she asked.
I wanted to be safety.
Me.
Jamison Crow. The man Harlan moved away from in corridors. Sienna had learned to flinch from. I laughed once, but it came out wrong.
Marcel noticed.
“What?”
I rubbed a hand over my jaw. “This is the problem.”
Emmie’s excitement vanished into concern. “What is?”
“This.” I gestured between them. “You. Her. The collar. The way she looks at you like you are the safest thing in the room when you are, objectively, a fucking nightmare.”
Marcel did not take offense. He only watched me.
I paced once, then stopped because the room did not have enough space for whatever was happening inside me.
“I see this, and I want it with Sienna.”
My own words made me feel like I had stepped off a building and had not hit the ground yet.
“I don’t deserve it. But I want it.”
“Jamison,” she said softly.
“No.” I pointed at her. “Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look hopeful. I’m not in the mood.”
“You came into our bedroom at three in the morning to announce you have feelings. I think hope is appropriate.”
“I did not say feelings.”
“You said emotional crisis.”
That was the problem with brothers. He had known me too long for lies to land properly.
I paced again.
“I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. I can’t sleep. I cannot stop thinking about her. Weston touches her back and I start considering whether St. Cross needs structural collapse.”
Emmie tucked her face partly into Marcel’s shoulder, but I could still see her smile.
“Emmie,” I warned.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. “It’s just… you really do care.”
“No, I don’t.”
Both of them stared at me. I hated how unimpressed they looked.
“I don’t,” I repeated, weaker.
Marcel said nothing.
Emmie said nothing. The room did not believe me either.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Maybe I give a fuck. Slightly. In a manageable way.”
Marcel lifted one brow.
I dragged a hand through my hair. “It is not manageable. It is consuming. Why is it consuming? Why do people allow this? Why would my brain choose now to realize I like her?”
“Because you were about to lose her,” Marcel said, “That is usually when stupid men notice value.”
My jaw tightened. “Marcel—”
“You came here because you need the truth, not because you need me to be careful with you.”
We were not gentle men, but we had always been honest with each other in the ways that mattered.
He had stood beside me when Harlan first learned my name.
I had stood beside him when his merger made him worse before it made him better.
We had carried bodies together. Buried problems together.
Pulled each other back from edges we never named in daylight.
He was the only person alive who could look at me half-dressed in his bed, wife tucked under his arm, and call me stupid without losing teeth. I hated that I needed him. When it came my brothers. I’d never not needed them.
“If the review goes through, two outcomes become likely.” Marcel’s voice went quiet.
“I know.”
“Say them.”
“I don’t need—”
“Say them.”
I looked at him. He held my stare. Fine.
“Damius marries Celeste to me.”
Emmie’s mouth tightened.
Marcel nodded once. “And?”
“Sienna goes elsewhere.”
“To Weston,” Marcel said.
I looked toward the windows because looking at Marcel made it harder not to react.
“You know what that means. Weston puts his ring on her finger. His name goes into the ledger with hers.”
“Stop.”
“No.” Marcel’s voice stayed calm. “Then comes the claiming rite.”