“Thank you,” I say, a little stunned, as he brushes past me and starts walking down the hallway in the direction of low chatter. I hurry behind him, because I've never been here before, and I have no idea where the hell anything is.
Roman isn't exactly great at hospitality, but I am still grateful he didn’t force me to sleep outside. He turns into what appears to be the living room, and I freeze when I see the two large shirtless frames belonging to Jace and Colton sitting back on the couch playing video games. Their wide-eyed gazes are locked on me, beautiful and as unreadable as ever.
Okay. Breathe, Bailey.
Roman throws my bag on the floor beside the couch, and walks over to sit in the only other available spot, picks up a controller, and without a word, continues his game with the guys like I'm not standing here.
Well, this is…awkward.
I look around for somewhere to place my textbooks, and I decide on the side table nearest the couch. I walk over, slightly unnerved because this is the strangest interaction I think I've had with anyone in my entire life. But, then again, that’s always how Roman is with me.
The house is a mix of modern luxury and masculine bachelorhood, and I’ve got to say, it's actually clean. I mean, it's immaculate, which isn't at all what I expected whenever I’d imagined their home. Keith, Roman’s father, bought this house for Roman to live in while he attended college. Despite my stepdad’s efforts to convince me to take him up on his offer to live here with the guys, I knew that would be the worst idea.Not only did I want the full college experience, but living here with my stepbrother, as hot as he may be, would only be the end of me.
He can barely tolerate me as it is. Imagine what living in close quarters would do to my sanity.
“Is it okay if I take a shower?” I ask, but it's Jace whose gaze leaves his game to meet mine. I do my best to keep my eyes trained on his, and not his sculpted, muscular body, but almost every inch of him is hard to ignore. They all look like they’ve just stepped out of some sort of tattooed, bad guy magazine, and I loathe the effect they’ve always had on me, especially since I’m pretty sure Roman warned his best friends to stay away from me.
“Third door on the right, otherwise there are three bathrooms upstairs. Take your pick,” he says, his deep, husky tone filling the living room, and my knees weaken when his hazel eyes roll over my body, before they settle back on the large flatscreen. Heat pricks at my cheeks as I reach for my bag and walk as fast as I can to the lower-level bathroom, wishing that the earth could open up and swallow me whole.
What the fuck was that?
DidtheJace Archer just check me out? Or am I hallucinating? Tonight wasn’t exactly the highlight of my year, and I suppose with the weight of everything that happened earlier, I’m probably not thinking straight. Not to mention, there’s enough tension in thishouse to cause even the most sane person to lose their grip on reality.
Jace and Colton have been friends with Roman for as long as I can remember, and they haven't said more than a sentence to me in years. While I wouldn't call that a conversation, Jace was much more helpful than my stepbrother. Their cold, nonchalant, dangerous demeanor has only ever added to the allure of them, and I've spent way too many hours imagining all the ways the three of them could ruin me.
I've got to get it together because I have to go back out there and face the music at some point, and I'd rather not make a complete fucking fool of myself because I wouldn’t live it down.
I can do this.
It's only for one night. It can’t get much harder than this, right?
CHAPTER TWO
JACE
Bailey Asher is in my fucking house.
She was just standing no more than two meters away from me, and I had to muster as much strength as I could to keep my eyes focused on the screen, and not on the woman I've been obsessed with since junior high. In fact, we’re playing like shit, which only tells me I'm not alone in this.
Her being here is affecting Colton and Roman as much as it's affecting me, and even though Roman doesn’t talk about it anymore, he's still gone for her. He has been ever since he first laid eyes on her, and hey, who can fucking blame him?
Bailey is the one woman we've always wanted, butswore under oath that we’d never touch. The moment I realized that I had fallen for her, I was already sworn in as an enforcer, and it was too late. Now we're forced to live with that regret for the rest of our fucking lives.
The society, otherwise known as The Order, is made up of different contingents meant to serve, defend, and honor our members by any means necessary. Roman’s family is a legacy, and since he is our best friend, and we lived with him and his family for most of our high school years, Cole and I were roped into it.
They dictate everything we do.
Who we date.
Who we marry.
Who we fuck.
Like most things, we only learned about this after we were initiated. Not even Roman knew, and he’s a founding family member. They keep their shit locked down real tight, I’ll give them that, but not tight enough that they could ever get in the way of us fucking each other.
They can try to take my guys from me, but they’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead fucking hands.
Bailey was and always will be the only woman for us, and we vowed to each other that we wouldn’t touch a single hair on another female’s body again unless it belonged to our girl.
