“Um… Forgetting to breathe?”
He sighed and shook his head.
“I don’t want to hear you apologize again unless you do something that needs apologizing for. Understand?”
My brain lit up, stupidly excited about the way he took charge. I’d read too many dirty books because the things that were turning me on weren’t normal. I needed to clear my eReader and download some Christian romance, or something.
“You don’t want me to apologize?”
“Not for stupid shit. Do you know how many times you’ve said that fucking word since I met you last night?” He stepped closer. “No? A fuck ton. So, stop it. I don’t want you teaching Charlie or Lee they should be apologizing for simply existing.”
Properly scolded and horrified at the idea of influencing the girls that way, I wrapped my arms around myself. I had to fight the urge to apologize and instead bit my tongue and nodded. It didn’t mean anything that I wanted to cry. Some people spoke with less softness than others. It didn’t mean anything. I could handle someone cursing at me and being harsher with me. I was tough.
“Do not fucking cry.” He glared at me and then stomped ahead, leaving me to trail along behind him like a kicked puppy. If he didn’t want me to cry, he was doing a crappy job of helping me keep my eyes dry.
I gave myself a pep talk about being strong and by the time I got to their house I’d convinced myself I was an emotionally strong woman. I pictured myself squatting and lifting five hundred pounds of grumpy man over my head and it was enough to have me fighting a smile.
CHAPTER 12
Leon
I watched Sutton enter the house through the side door I’d left open for her, Theo and Charlie almost right behind her. The two had been creeping through the woods the way they liked to do. I was glad to see the sensitive woman wasn’t still on the verge of tears. In fact, it looked like she was laughing at something in her head and that annoyed me, too. What was she thinking? What was so funny?
Almost just as annoying was the way she jumped when Theo breathed down the back of her neck but then looked up at him like he hung the fucking moon. Since when did women fawn over Theo? Since when did Theo fawn over a woman the way he was Sutton? He was usually wearing something strange and doing something stranger, anything to blend into the walls.
I found the school teacher sexy as fuck and I wanted to ruin her just like any other red-blooded male would’ve wanted but she was too goddamned perfect to be anywhere near us. Especially me. It wasn’t hard to imagine the way she’d blanch and reach for her pearls if she found out I’d been in prison.
“You scared me.” Sutton laughed up at Theo and reached out to hold his forearm. “I might need to put a bell on you and Charlie.”
Charlie practically vibrated with energy as she stood there, gazing up at Sutton with the same focus as Theo.
“No way! Then we couldn’t sneak up on people. We have to have the element of surprise, Sutton!”
I cleared my throat, crankier than ever for some reason.
“Why don’t you go find Ollie and take him with you to find Naomi?”
Charlie frowned at me and then looked to Theo. She wouldn’t budge until he told her to. When he nodded, she stuck her tongue out at me anyway and stomped off.
I growled at Theo.
“She knows how to sneak up on people but when are you going to teach her about respect?”
Theo tilted his head and studied me. The asshole was a fucking creep. Or he would’ve been if he wasn’t closer to me than my real brothers. Because I cared about him, he was less creepy and more frustrating as fuck when he got that knowing look on his face and just stared at me for a bit before opening his mouth.
“At least she isn’t overly apologetic, right?”
I was ready to body slam the asshole when Sutton subtly shifted so she was between the two of us. She kept Theo at her back, clearly trusting him more, and forced a polite smile as she looked at me.
“This house is beautiful. Everything out here is beautiful, really.”
I considered throwing her over my shoulder before kicking Theo’s ass, but she was as nervous as a rabbit in a wolf pack and I didn’t like the idea of making her like me even less. Thankfully Dom showed up before I could decide what to do.
“The kids are with Naomi. Let’s go to my office and hammer out the details.”
I followed behind everyone and kept my eyes on Sutton’s ass. Every move she made sent the skirt swishing back and forth and it clung to the curve of her ass with each step. She was a delicious little treat but she seemed like a wilting flower. My attraction to her felt like a game of how long could I suffer because there was no way she could handle men like us.
She glanced back at me, saw me staring at her ass, and I watched the back of her neck turn red after she looked away. She was definitely a fucking virgin. We would absolutely wreck her if we touched her. There was no way.
