He reached for my hand again. “Those guys before…they were your brothers, right?”
I nodded.
“And you live with them?”
I nodded again.
“And that’s why you don’t want to go home.”
Another nod.
Wasn’t I oversharing tonight? Ugg.
He got off his swing and squatted in front of me, now holding both my hands. “I’ll go home with you. And trust me, they won’t mess with you again.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t know that. They’re assholes.”
He chuckled, but it was not a laugh of amusement; if anything, it was one of restraint. “Oh, trust me, I do know that.”
I wanted to say no, to tell him it wasn’t safe, but his confidence was so strong, and I was feeling so protected that I agreed. We walked back to my cramped apartment and went inside. My brothers looked at me then looked at him and then something changed. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I no longer felt threatened, not in the immediate future, anyway.
“They aren’t going to mess with you,” Gabe whispered in my ear.
“I need to take a shower. Wait here for me.”
That alpha had already spent so much time waiting, but he answered with a quick, “Absolutely.”
Normally, when I got home, one of the first things my brothers would do was have me take off my clothes outside because I was, “disgusting.”
But today, they didn’t even make a comment. They just watched as I walked toward the bathroom. I showered, scrubbing as best I could. I wanted to smell good for this man, this alpha.
When I came back, my hair was still wet, my shirt sticking to my back from my all-too-quick toweling off, and something had shifted in the room. Something had changed.
What had the alpha said to them?
Chapter Nine
Temple
“Did you want something to drink?” I offered, unsure what I’d walked into and what I should be saying. And I definitely walked into something. It wasn’t an argument. My brothers were subdued, not ready to shift like I feared, and all three of them exactly where I’d left them.
Before Gabe could say a word, Carl got up and said, “I’ll get it,” and went into the next room, coming back out with a beer.
“No, it’s fine, thanks,” Gabe refused. “I should probably be going.”
“Are you sure?” I grabbed his hand. I didn’t want him to leave, not out of fear that my brothers would do something, because something said they wouldn’t, but not wanting to be away from him. “Can’t you stay?”
He looked at my brothers. All three of them started giving some sort of excuse as to why they needed to go to their room, at the same time. That was so not like them. If anything, they would be telling me to go elsewhere. Giving me the living room? Unheard of.
“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Gabe asked me when they were already most of the way out of the room.
“I’d rather go with you.” And that wasn’t the question he was asking, not really. But it was the one I was willing to answer.
“Me too.”
“Is it okay if I bring a bag?” Never in my life had I been this forward, but I didn’t care.
Even if my brothers weren’t part of this, that was where I wanted to be…with Gabe. He wasn’t in town for long, and I was going to make the most of those moments he had. It didn’tmatter if we were compatible long term. That wasn’t a possibility for us. All we had was now.
