Gravity won the battle. She twisted, coming right down on top of him.
White, hot agony radiated through him as her knee connected with his dick. He lost all sense of strength or control, flopping backwards onto the carpeting with Rebel on top of him. His entire body seized up, and he couldn’t breathe. He barely even heard the sounds of concern coming from the others in the room.
Rebel tried to scramble up—only to have her elbow connect with his eye. Air came rushing back into him, and Ghost let out a shout as his head warred with his balls as to which was in more pain. Instinct wanted him to roll into a fetal position on the carpet, but a weight settled onto his lower abdomen.
And despite it all, his lizard brain picked up on the fact that Rebel, the woman whose voice he’d been obsessed with formonths,was currently straddling him while barely clothed.
His eye throbbing as his balls tried to shrivel their way back up inside his body, Ghost laid there for a moment just…stunned. Even flustered, completely embarrassed and red-faced, she was incredible. Curves and love handles with breasts he could squeeze and fondle. She wasn’t an overly tall woman. From the way her knees hugged his sides, he had to wonder if her knees could even reach the carpeting under him.
“I amso sorry!” she kept repeating, like her landing on him in this precarious way wasn’texactlywhat he’d envisioned happening from the moment he realized why he recognized her voice.
Only able to look up at her with one eye, Ghost drank her in. He had no idea what her real name was or why she was in Ranger’s house, but he honestly didn’t care. She was going to behis. He’d never been so sure of anything in his life.
He just had to find his balls first before he could make them useful.
For years, Ghost had watched his club brothers fall for their women. He hadn’t understood it, their immediate confidence that she wastheirs. He got it now. He understood with a certainty that bordered on insanity. There was absolutely nothing,nothing, on this planet that would keep this woman from becoming his.
“What the fuck is going on here?!”
Ranger’s voice cut through his thoughts, bringing back the reality that Rebel and he weren’t alone on some desolate island. No, they were in the middle of Loretta’s living room with Ranger’s sister and mother as the two of them also shouted concerns and queries about whether Ghost and Rebel were okay.
Rebel turned her upper body, leaving her legs still straddling Ghost’s middle. “Liam! Get over here, you need to help him!”
“Why the fuck are youonhim?” Ranger asked, clearly familiar with who she was.
“Language,” Loretta scolded. “I’ll get some ice. His eye is swelling.” The small, older woman rushed from the room.
Becks worked her way off the couch. Ranger, whose attention was still down on Ghost and Rebel on the floor, held out a hand to help his sister off the couch. “She tripped and fell on the blanket. She got him in the balls and the eye.”
The reminder did absolutely nothing to distract Ghost from the agony still raging in his groin.
Ranger stepped forward, a cheeky smile on his face. The guy was dressed only in a pair of jeans, like he’d thrown them on really quick to head downstairs when he heard the commotion. He also held his hand out to Rebel. “Well, you sitting on him likely isn’t helping, B. Get up so I can take a look at him.”
A groan that had nothing to do with pain left Ghost as she took Ranger’s hand and let him help her off Ghost’s abdomen. One hand on his eye, the other flew to his groin as he finally had access to cup his battered balls. Yeah, they were still there.He just wasn’t positive in that moment whether that was a good thing or not.
Once she was standing, Ranger leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Good job, sis, taking him down. Been a while since anyone’s done that.”
Ghost frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. Wait—did Ranger just call her ‘sis’? As insister? His eyes fell to her left hand as Rebel’s blush returned. A hand that had a large engagement ring on the third finger.
His eyes flew back and forth between the two women, and he realized his fatal mistake: the blonde wasn’t Ranger’s sister.Rebelwas. Rebel, a nickname for Rebecca. He was such a fucking moron. Because not only was the woman he’d just silently claimed Ranger’s sister, but she was also the bride at the wedding in two days.
CHAPTER 3
Wearing a pair of sweatpants, Ghost sat at the kitchen table with a bag of peas between his legs and a frozen steak on his left eye. Ranger, completely oblivious of the emotional turmoil Ghost was in, kept saying how proud he was that his baby sister had been able to take Ghost down. Under different circumstances, Ghost would have agreed with him. It was certainly a rare instance that he’d been caught off guard so completely.
Becks, aka Rebel, couldn’t stop blushing. Every time she looked at him, her cheeks threatened to light the house aflame. But shewaslooking. And not just at his eye, but all over. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he was sure she’d clocked every one of his tattoos. In his teens, he’d had his nipples pierced. Unfortunately, the military had made him remove them as it wasn’t regulation.
Libby, the blonde Ghost had mistakenly presumed to be Ranger’s sister, was also looking. Whereas Becks was trying not to be obvious about it, Libby was openly gawking. In the past ten minutes, Ghost had learned that Libby had been Becks’ best friend since middle school, but had moved across the country a few years back for a job opportunity. As maid of honor, she’dtaken the week off to help Becks get ready for the wedding, and had been staying in Ranger’s room until Ranger’s arrival.
It annoyed Ghost how openly she looked, licking her lips as she did. And sure, he could put a shirt on to cover himself, but he was vain enough where he wantedBecksto look.
Because what? He thought his abs and muscles were so great that they alone could make her fall in love with him and dump her fiancétwo daysbefore her wedding?
This might be the first time that he’d ever met Becks in person, but Ranger talked a lot about her, including that she’d been in a committed relationship with her fiancé for nearly a year and a half. His fucking tattoos weren’t going to change that—but he’d be damned if he would put a shirt on anyway.
Clearly Ranger didn’t know about her podcast, which made Ghost wonder why. Knowing that his best friend was a movie fanatic, wouldn’t he have told him if his sister started a movie podcast? There was no logical reason to keep it a secret, which made Ghost conclude that Ranger didn’t know. Ranger had told Ghost years ago that his sister was going to college for audio engineering, and later landed a job with an animation company as a foley artist, meaning she created sound effects for animated movies. Ghost had always thought that an interesting job, but had never put much thought into it. Animated movies weren’t his favorite medium, though he’d come across a few good ones over the years.
As Loretta made a massive breakfast spread, despite the fact that there were only five people in the house, Becks and Libby stood at the counter sipping their coffees. Ghost’s appetite was completely gone, though he wasn’t sure if that had to do with the fact that he’d just learned his perfect woman was about to get married or from the knee to the balls she’d just delivered him. If it wasn’t for the pain he was in, he’d wonder if this wassome weird, fucked-up dream. Hadn’t it been only last night he’d made a crack to Ranger about Ghost marrying Ranger’s mother?
