Endurance (The Sin Trilogy 4)

Westlyn hinted a while back that she was interested in a guy at uni but I never heard anything else about him. Guess it didn’t pan out.

Lorna lifts her hand. “I had the most cobwebs last time we had this conversation. I still have those same cobwebs plus a new accumulation.”

“And it’s guaranteed that won’t be changing anytime soon since Leith put out word with the brothers that none of them are to touch you.”

“He’s such a bastard.” Lorna can call him every name in the book but she likes that Leith has declared her off limits to the brothers. I can tell every time she tries to hide her smile. Just like now.

“A bastard who loves you enough to come on stage and drag your near-naked ass off a stripper pole. As he should have, by the way.” I know Lorna was retaliating against Leith after he hurt her, but I still can’t believe she went on stage to dance topless. Good thing he got her down from there only minutes into her first performance.

“And now I’m jobless. Again.”

“Not because you have to be. Leith wants you back at Duncan’s.”

“I don’t want to go back. It would feel like I’m giving in. Or forgiving him.” Lorna breathes in deeply and sighs. “But I’m approaching a point where I may not have a choice. My bank account is shrinking fast since nothing’s coming in.”

“You should go back and let him grovel. I bet he’d be very accommodating both in and out of bed.”

“I would love a good shag—and believe me, Leith is a damn good lay—but I’m not ready to go there. I still hear the echoes of what he said about me to Sin.”

“That makes me so sad because we all know Leith was blowing smoke. You two belong together.”

I’ve never understood why Leith called Lorna a whore, and I’ve been too afraid to ask her. Maybe Jamie knows what went down between them.

Lorna shrugs. “I may forgive him one day but it won’t be today.”

“Fair enough.” Westlyn twists in her seat and faces me. “Spotlight moving back to you. Did any of the men who voiced intent at the party interest you?”

I’m not a fan of being beneath this spotlight. “No.”

“Not even one?”

“No.” They both look so hopeful, like they’re waiting for—and wanting—me to elaborate.

Aside from Bleu, Westlyn and Lorna are my best friends. They accepted me into their circle when I wasn’t Fellowship, and I’m certain we’re going to grow even closer once I become one of them. They’ve told me their secrets. I want to tell them mine. “It’s impossible to be interested in any of the brothers who spoke up with intent to claim me when I’m already in love with another.”

Westlyn throws her arms into the air and shrieks. “Finally! She’s admitting it.”

Lorna leans forward, all her attention focused directly on me. “We want to hear you say it.”

“Say what?” They can’t possibly know I’m talking about Jamie. I’ve been so careful all these months to hide my feelings.

“Do it. Admit that you are in love with my brother so we can finally talk about it.”

Well, shit. I guess I wasn’t hiding it as well as I thought. “I am. I’m in love with Jamie.”

Westlyn falls over on the patio sofa and beats the cushion with her hand. “Oh, shite. My mum hates your guts. She is going to be so pissed off when he claims you. Looove. It.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Westlyn, but Jamie doesn’t plan to claim me.”

“What! Why would that ass-monkey not claim you? He loves you. I know he does. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.”

“He says I’m the sister-in-law of a leader and will need extra protection he can’t provide.”

“What the fuck does that mean? He’s Fellowship, born and raised. The son of Abram-mutha-fucking-Breckenridge. He was taught from the time he could hold a gun that when people come to kill us we kill them first. That’s how we roll.”

“I told him I was confident he could protect me but he says he’s either been in a classroom or at the hospital the last several years instead of the battlefield. He doesn’t feel capable of protecting me, and he’d rather see another brother have me then risk my safety.”

Lorna touches her hand to her chest. “That’s sort of sweet but really tragic and fucked up at the same time.”

“He’s going to let one of the brothers have me. There’s nothing sweet about that.” The thought of another man crawling on top of me is nauseating. I nearly lose my breath when I imagine what it will feel like. “I don’t know if I can go through with the claiming.”

“You’ve come too far to turn back now. Leaving The Fellowship isn’t an option.” Because people don’t leave The Fellowship alive.

“You have to change his mind, Ellison.” Westlyn says it so matter-of-factly. Like it’s so easy. Do they think I’ve not tried?

“I’m not begging any man to have me.” I shrug and shake my head. “I’m just in it for some good sex now.”

“Then use that to change his mind.”

Wish it were that easy but my vagina ain’t magic. “Sex is sex. It isn’t going to convince him to marry me no matter how good it is.”

“Maybe not but a baby would. I know my brother. He’d never let another man raise his child.”

“I’m not pregnant.”

“Not yet but you could be if you tried. Do you use condoms? Does he . . . you know?” She lowers her voice. “Inside you?”

I can’t believe Westlyn is asking me that about her brother. Or suggesting I do such a horrid thing. “No way. I’m not trapping Jamie into marrying me by getting pregnant.”

“Would it really be a trap if you love him and he loves you and you both want to be together?”

I want Jamie to marry me because it’s what he wants. Not because he feels he has no other choice. “I can’t do that to him. It’s dirty and lowdown and shameful.”

“So you prefer to lie on your back with some man you don’t love pumping away between your legs? That’s not dirty and lowdown and shameful?”

“Lorna, tell her she’s wrong to even suggest I do that to Jamie.”

Lorna winces. “I would say it’s a horrendous thing to do under different circumstances but in your situation I don’t think it’s that bad. It would probably make Jamie really happy.”

He admitted he’d thought about and liked the idea of me being his wife and giving birth to his child. Can’t say that didn’t feel good.

“I know my brother. He would be thrilled if you were having his baby.”

“I can’t do that to him. Even if I thought it was a fantastic idea, I’m on the pill. There’s no way I could get pregnant and have a positive test before I’m on the block for claiming.”

Westlyn laughs as she points at me. “You did the math in your head. You’re thinking about it.”

“Only so I could prove it isn’t possible.”

“Okay. I threw the idea out there. What you do with it now i

s up to you. But I’d like to put in a request for a niece. Girl clothes are so much cuter.”

I can’t.

Can I?

I shouldn’t.

Should I?

Would I look at Jamie down the road and feel guilt or regret forcing him into marriage if we’re together and happy? I’m not sure.

If I got pregnant and forced him into a marriage, I would be looking at him down the road. Not someone else. And I know I would never regret that.

“Your kids are little cockblockers.”

“You think I don’t know that? They blocked you two nights, Jamie.” Sin holds up a pair of fingers in a V. “Two. Nights. They thwart me almost every night. I’m lucky if I get to fuck my wife twice, maybe three times, a week. And that only happens if the moon and stars align perfectly.”

I’ve been under the impression that Sin and Bleu are leading these perfect lives where they’re on top of the world, but stepping into their roles the last couple days has shown me otherwise. They have it rough with those babies. “I didn’t know bairns could be little arse kickers like those three. Well, really two; Lourdes was pretty good and slept most of the night. It was those damn little twin hell-raisers who had no mercy on us.”

“My boys can raise hell when they don’t get their tit.”

“Well, I can raise hell too when I don’t get mine.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Back it up.” Leith puts his drink on the table and leans closer. “You’re getting tit from somebody?”

Sin brings his hand down on my shoulder and shakes me. “Our boy here is fucking my sister-in-law.”

I wasn’t planning to keep our relationship secret from Leith but this isn’t the way I planned to tell him. “It’s way more than that.”

“Is this the same sister-in-law who’s on the claiming block? The same sister-in-law that every unmarried arsehole coming through this bar is talking nonstop about?”

I immediately suspect that Logan has been running his mouth about his suspicions. “What are they saying about her?”

“They want her. Every last one of them. Kenrick had to come across the bar last night and break up a brawl between two brothers because they were arguing over which one of them was going to win her.” Win her? She’s not a fucking prize for a winner at the end of a game.