Broderick (Sabine Valley 2)

Shiloh and I have a good time together.

But we have an even better time with Broderick in the mix.

Broderick strokes my bottom lip with his thumb. “That’s not the only thing we’re in alignment with, though. Is it, Monroe?”

“No. I guess not.” I try for a witty comeback, but his tough shorts out my thoughts. “I enjoy provoking you when we’re fucking, but it’s kind of nice having actual conversations sometimes.”

“Yeah, it is kind of nice, isn’t it?” He strokes my lip again. “I don’t like the thought of you dead.”

I swallow hard. It doesn’t mean anything. No matter how I push and provoke him, at his core, Broderick is a good man. Of course he wouldn’t want me dead. But I can’t leave this tiniest of olive branches unanswered. “I don’t want you dead, either.”

“Thought so.” He slowly drops his hand, but he doesn’t lean back. “Look at that. Two things we’re in agreement on. I think that’s more than enough to ensure some peace between us. Don’t you think so?”

I feel like he’s hypnotized me. I sway toward him before I can stop myself. “Yes.”

“Three things.” He leans down and brushes a light kiss to my lips. “We’re off to one hell of a start, Bride.”

My whole body is zinging by the time Shiloh makes it back to us. She got us all tacos, and it’s just as delicious as the smells promised. Or I assume it is. I’m so distracted, I can’t properly enjoy it.

It’s only reasonable for Broderick and me to officially call a ceasefire. I don’t want him dead, and apparently he doesn’t want that fate for me, either. Even as my rational side tries to convince me that it’s to avoid war, a small part of me can’t help replaying his soft words.

I don’t want you dead.

Maybe this really could be the start of…something.

The next two weeks pass in a strange, happy blur. My days are filled with reassuring my mother that she doesn’t need to take extreme measures against the Paine brothers, and all the millions of tasks that come with helping run a very successful corporation.

My nights are filled with Shiloh and Broderick.

It’s just so fucking easy. Broderick and Shiloh seem to have gotten over that bump from friendship to fucking, and if part of me was a little worried they’d move on without me, it hasn’t happened.

Every single morning, Broderick gets up before us and brings coffee back to the room before we go our separate ways, Shiloh and I to the office, Broderick to oversee most of the day-to-day stuff in the compound. Every single evening, he picks us up and we spend a little time exploring the Raider faction, revisiting places from his childhood, planting new memories of our own.

We make Shiloh come so hard she cries in the park where he and his brothers used to hang out and get up to mischief. He and Shiloh take turns fingering me at the old movie theater that used to be one of his teenage haunts. The three of us nearly get caught fucking in the truck at his old make-out spot near the train tracks that cut through the south part of the faction.

It’s fun.

The only blip is Shiloh.

Sometimes I catch her with a strange look on her face, something almost like fear. It’s usually in the office or on our way back to Raider territory after work. No matter how many ways I approach the topic, she won’t let me in.

I should let it go. Surely there are people in relationships that don’t know every little thing about each other, that don’t dig and dig and dig until they find out what’s wrong with their partners. It’s probably normal to let little things like this go.

I don’t have it in me, though.

Something’s wrong with her, something she’s obviously actively worried about, and I'm about climbing the wall trying to resist shaking her until the truth pops out.

“Stop staring at me like that,” she says as we walk into the compound.

Today ran long, and she’s been practically vibrating the entire drive back. For once, Broderick had a meeting and couldn’t act the part of chauffeur, and I catch myself wishing he was here to back me up. Sometimes his softer touch gets through to Shiloh where my brash nature doesn’t. I should wait for him to have this conversation, but I’ve never been one for patience.

I follow her up the stairs, biting my tongue, but the second we get into the room, I can’t hold the words back any longer. “What the hell is going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

Hurt lances me, made all the more potent by the sheer shock at her audacity. “You’re not even going to hesitate before you lie to me?”

“It’s nothing,” Shiloh repeats. She yanks her tank top over her head.