Come Out Swinging (Reach for the Moon Book 2), Sam Hall [leveled readers .TXT] 📗

rude concrete wall. Light still poured in through the massive frosted windows, bleaching the other walls white and pooling onto the only piece of furniture here.

“I need to find where she bought the bed from,” I blurted out, staring down at the rumpled surface of a bed that looked like it’d been made of several king-size mattresses fused into one.

“Y-You…” Aidan stuttered. “You all sleep together?”

“Would you sleep anywhere else if you had the chance?” Micah asked.

I didn’t wait for his answer, seeing the evidence of my cousin’s interludes in the tubes of lube on the headboard of the bed and baskets of sex toys beside it, able to see those images my father had kept hidden playing out now, gasping lips, nubile bodies writhing…

It was the men’s hisses that jerked my attention away, and I turned my back on the bed, walking into the adjoining change room that someone had converted to a bathroom. Several stalls had been retained, but a much more modernised group shower had been set up at the end, capable of holding a great many of Selma’s lovers. I walked past that to the cabinets above and below the sinks, wrenched them open, then pawed through toothpaste and tweezers and cotton buds, Micah doing the same. But my eyes jerked up when he went stock still, then pulled back, a box in his hands.

“What did you say your father was given?”

“Coumadin.”

He moved so we could both read the label on the box, my heart pounding in my ears as I made out the words.

“Is this it? Is this what did it?” Aidan asked, peering over our shoulders, but I couldn’t answer. Every muscle was locked down tight, adrenalin pumping hard as my body readied itself for the fight it sensed coming.

My eyes flicked up to meet his, silently hating myself for what I was about to do.

“You want me, my time, my attention,” I said baldly, Micah shifting restlessly beside me.

“Fuck, Paige, you know I do,” Aidan said, readying his heartfelt plea, but couldn’t he see my heart was breaking in two right now?

“Ring Selma and get her here. Say there’s some kind of emergency or something.” My hands formed fists, too hard, too tight to be useful, but all that adrenalin had to go somewhere. “Do that, and I’ll owe you something.”

“Paige…” Micah rumbled.

I walked slowly over to the bed and perched on the edge, Aidan following hot on my heels, his phone already in his hand.

“Get my cousin here under false pretences.” I leaned in, almost speaking the words directly into his ear. “Let me interrogate her in this room, and I’ll give you one thing you want.”

I heard his snarl and Micah’s when Aidan’s head whipped around to meet my eyes, but it was his laugh that sent shivers down my spine.

“You think I’m desperate enough to accept shoving my dick down your throat and coming where I’ve dreamt of coming, over and over?” Aidan put a finger under my chin, Micah striding over to intercept us, but I held out a hand to stop him. “Other men might be stupid enough to be trapped in that admittedly luscious little honeypot.” He pushed his thumb between my lips, and my fangs clamped down on it. “I want what I’ve always wanted—an opportunity to work out what the hell this is between us.” Those weirdly amber eyes studied mine. “I want to know is this just nix heat or is this real?” He jerked his thumb from my teeth, then spread my saliva across my bottom lip before my jaws moved to snap down on him again. “Are you mine?” The tough guy bullshit fell away at that, the question coming out almost plaintively. “Are you her?”

“Do you want me to be?” I asked in return.

He shook his head, the smile returning as he lifted his phone.

“You like to play dangerous games, don’t you? Well, that’s OK, I like those kinda of games the best.” He jerked himself away from me, up and off the bed, inputting Selma’s number and then making the call, but Micah took his spot quickly enough.

“You need to be very, very careful,” Micah said, his eyes trained on the spot on my lips that Aidan had touched. “Or very, very not. Just make sure whatever you choose, you’re OK with.”

“I just need to know, Micah. I’ll play any fucking game you like for that.”

His arms went around me, hauling me up and against his chest, and he buried his nose in my hair.

“I have to remind myself you’re tough, fast, strong. You can take this and survive this.”

“And if I can’t?”

“I’ll beat the cunt into a bloody smear. There won’t be anything left of him, or anyone else who crosses you, but that you could spoon into a jam jar.”

Apparently, violent pronunciations were just what I needed. My arms snaked out and wrapped around him just as tightly, and it was thus how Aidan found us.

“I told her there was a water leak reported,” Aidan said, his voice filtering through. “She’s on her way.”

Micah and I stood flattened against the walls by the doorway, listening for the click clack of Selma’s heels, and my hand whipped out and slapped over her mouth when she opened the door. I hauled her inside, her feet stumbling in her stilettos as Micah shut and locked the door.

“Quiet!” I growled, throwing the full weight of my dominance at her, and my cousin went instantly still. I dragged her over to the bed and then shoved her down on it, the violence of the gesture not appeasing me at all. But just as Bridget said, the coerced order sank inside her as she clambered back on the bed, not one word escaping her lips.

“This,” I said, holding up the packet of medicine. “Tell me about this.”

Her face contorted, the muscles jumping and twisting as if she fought some kind of war inside her. I looked at Micah, then Aidan, and they looked just