He puffed his chest. “Oh, yeah, what kind of motives do you think I have for our stepsister who’s eighteen years younger than me and needs a babysitter?”
“You want to fuck her. I saw it in your eyes.” I didn’t beat around the bush.
“That’s not why I checked with Erika.”
“Right. Then tell us how you feel about her.”
“Let’s admit it, she’s not what any of us expected.” True to form, Atlas cut off any chance of talking about emotions.
Everest laughed. “Admit it, the second you heard she might be a sub, you were ready to ask her to strip naked, get on her knees, and present.”
“Fuck off.” Atlas paced the few steps across his end of the room.
“Fuck Pennyis what you wanted to do—without getting to know her.” Everest pursued the thread more seriously than he normally would.
“She’s here to have sex.” Atlas thought he was pointing out the obvious, but Everest shut him down…
“She’s here to explore kink, which may or may not include sex.”
“Where’d you get that quote, the dictionary? And how were you going to keep her safe? By occupying all of her time. A massage, car repair… what next?”
“We told Dad we’d make sure she’s protected from jerks, and after meeting people at the Ranch, we’re the only jerks.”
Everest was right, at least about him and Atlas… they needed to get themselves under control.
“I’m not being a jerk,” Atlas grumbled.
“Arguing over who spends time with her first… that’s missing the bigger problem. We need a game plan for telling her who we are.”
“Fuck no.” The reaction was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“Nice of you to join us, Phoenix.” Atlas turned his ire toward me.
“You can’t tell her who we are.” Was it possible to get through to them while they were both so worked up?
Atlas stopped pacing. “Why? Because you have the same fear as me… that if we tell her we’re her stepbrothers, we have no chance of getting anywhere with her.”
Shit! He’d actually come clean—moved past the babysitting facade.
“We’re notgetting anywherewith our stepsister.” Everest continued to protect her despite his own obvious desires.
“Am I the only one who can admit it? We all want her.” Atlas called us out.
The hum of the fan became wildly prominent as the arguing paused.
Atlas shrugged. “I mean, if I saw her on the street and she was closer to my age, I would date her.”
“Yeah, same, if it wasn’t so weird,” Everest mumbled.
Shit.Date her?That’s more than just having fun at the Ranch.
I wasn’t good at opening up and considered leaving it at that, but I didn’t want to be overshadowed—the curse of being the youngest of three brothers.
The sting of my recently rejected marriage proposal didn’t help either. Giving myself a mental shake, I questioned why I’d even consider a new relationship, especially when I’d have to fight the two of them for her. The good thing about being considered the grumpy brother was that I didn’t give a fuck if I pissed either of them off.
But Penny… how could she be so captivating when I hadn’t said a single word to her other than hello.
It must be because we’re at a kink ranch and she’s off limits—the unattainable rebound. It had to be. But playing it off as not caring about her didn’t seem right.
