Broderick (Sabine Valley 2)

“No, silly man. Drinking games are best done with shots and a determination to get into trouble. This is just a fun little game for friends.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“I couldn’t begin to say. That sounds like a you problem.” She holds up a hand, her expression the very picture of innocence. “Don’t you want to play with me?”

Shiloh makes a choked sound. “You’re so much sometimes, Monroe.”

“You aren’t the first person to say it.” She tucks a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “It strikes me that neither of you had a proper childhood.” She pats the spot next to her. “Stop looming and sit down.”

“I’m not looming.” But I sit, curious on where she’s headed with this. “I had a childhood.”

“You had Bauer Paine as your father, a dead mother, and five younger brothers that you mostly raised.” She snorts. “You had to grow up fast.”

Monroe isn’t exactly wrong. My mother died a long time ago, and my father was hardly the poster child for good parenting. Abel did his best, but he always had his eyes on the role of leading the faction. It inevitably fell to me to supervise my younger brothers. Considering my brothers, that was a full-time job.

It's still a full-time job, even if I’ve been shirking my duties since coming back to the city.

She leans against me as she turns to Shiloh on her other side. “And don’t even try to tell me that you had anything resembling normal teenage years.”

I tense, but Shiloh just shrugs. “It was normal for me.”

I don’t like the shadows that flicker across her face when she talks about the past. She survived horrific things at the hands of her parents. We’ve touched on the subject enough for me to know that, even if I don’t know all the gory details. Her parents were religious and abusive, and they hurt her terribly. I clear my throat, determined to bring the conversation around. “You’re the Amazon heir. You can’t honestly tell me your childhood was normal.”

“Normal enough.” She tilts her head back to lean against my shoulder. “I’m sure most children don’t have weapons training and the various things my mother required of me, but Amazons take childhood very seriously. There was plenty of fun, too.” She gives a sexy little wiggle. “We can work on recreating other memories later, but today I was thinking of a tried and true experience.”

Even though I’m technically in on this, my stomach goes a little hollow. “What experience?”

The satisfaction in her voice is nearly overwhelming. “Truth or dare.”

Chapter 21

Monroe

This is all technically part of a plan for Broderick and me to seduce Shiloh, but there’s a reason I decided to go about it in this way. Truth or dare is a silly game, and it was sort of a rite of passage within my friends when I was a teenager. I want to share that experience with these two people who are rapidly becoming…important to me.

Neither of these two had much in the way of “normal” childhood experiences. Best I can tell, Broderick was second father to his brothers. It’s no wonder he’s got such a stick up his ass after being responsible for so many people for so long. And I’ve been training to be queen long enough to be able to identify a person’s fault lines. Broderick wants to protect the people he cares about, the people he feels responsible for.

We have that in common.

Truth be told, we have a lot in common.

And Shiloh? When I look at her, at the wariness on her face, I suddenly want to give her new memories to overshadow the old ones. The bad ones. My heart gives an uncomfortable thud, and the sensation only gets stronger when I shift my attention back to Broderick. He watches me with a contemplative expression on his handsome face. Serious. Oh, so serious. Was he born that way, or did it happen after his mother died and he was forced to share the parental load of raising his five younger brothers? I bet it was the latter.

Oh fuck, I’m in trouble.

I grab my drink and take a long pull. Another time, I’ll ask Broderick how he knew I like Old Fashions. Right now, I’m hunting larger game. “Some ground rules before we begin. There are both penalties for lying and for taking a dare and then backing out.”

“Of course there are,” Broderick says. A small smile pulls at the edges of his lips, a true smile. “What penalty?”

“Sleeping on the couch for a week, with no Monroe-induced orgasms.”

He snorts. “Who says that’s a deterrent?”

“Me.” I bump my head against his shoulder. “Both of you were having excellent orgasms last night because of me. Don’t try to pretend you’re not counting down the hours until you’re inside me again.” I nudge Shiloh with my knee. “And don’t lie and say you want to do anything but come all over my face again.”