In reality, I walked away before I did something that had Rubi banging on the windows and hiding jumbo rubbers under my pillow again.
6
LOCKE
I woke to the sound of running water.
A thump and a muffled curse.
My face was pressed into a pillow I’d somehow convinced myself smelled of Orla and Nash combined. Already resenting whatever fuckery was going down, I wrenched my head up, listening as I reached on autopilot for my discarded T-shirt and the golf club I kept in a child-safe place under my bed.
Another thud rattled the floorboards.
From the top of the stairs.
Nash’s room.
Orla.
I dropped the shirt, grabbed the club, and rolled off my bed, on my feet and to the door in a blink of my sleep-heavy eyes.
The door was ajar, on purpose, so I’d hear people coming. I nudged it further open with my knee, the club at my side, arms loose, griptight, listening harder.
Running water remained the primary sound. No voices since the curse that had woken me up. I glanced up and down the landing, doing a mental headcount. If everyone was where they were supposed to be, Rubi and River were asleep in the room opposite mine, Cam, Saint, and Alexei were downstairs on guard, and Nash and Orla were in his room doing whatever.
The last time I’d seen them, Nash had been passed out face down on his bed, a towel around his waist, his tattooed back still wet from the shower that had finished him off. Orla had been about to take her clothes off, so I’d bid a rapid retreat, but she’d given no indication that she’d had plans to do anything but crawl into bed beside him.
I stepped onto the landing at the same moment the door to Embry’s room eased open.
Rubi peered out, hair like a messy model, gaze the perfect combination of bleary and sharp as he took in the weapon in my grip. “What is it?” he mouthed.
I pointed down the hall. “Bathroom.”
Rubi frowned. Then he sighed, tension leaving him as fast as it had arrived. “The Lord gets rowdy when he’s upset. Give him a cuddle and put him back to bed, would ya?”
He ducked back into the room behind him before I could answer, shutting the door in my face.
Nonplussed, I continued down the hall, taking note of Nash’s open door and the dark-haired beauty tangled in his sheets.
Orla was asleep.
But Nash... he wasn’t there, and as I breached the bathroom doorway, I saw why—Ifeltwhy in the hot puddle that swamped my feet. In the wicked fear that clenched my heart the second I stepped into the steam-filled room and spotted Nash hunched over the counter, wide-eyed and emptying a tobacco pouch into the sink.
Fuck. I ditched the golf club and barged into the small space, prying Nash’s hand from its death grip on the countertop, easing my giant self between him and the sink, and shutting off the hot tap.
The silence was sudden. Loud. But wherever Nash was, he didn’t hear it, and I realised he wasasleep.
Fuckin’ hell.
“Nash.” I reached for him with one hand, unblocking the plughole with the other, soggy tobacco clinging to my fingers. “You with me, brother? You okay?”
Nash shook his head, eyes still wide and distant. “Protect her... love him. She loves him.”
“All right, mate.” I dried my hand on a nearby towel and slid my arm around him. “Orla’s safe in your bed. Where you should be.”
Nash muttered something else. Then his head jerked up and he looked me dead in the eye. “Want him too.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure he doesn’t mind. You wanna come to bed?”
