“You rang?” Bram stepped into the room from the hallway and came toward me with his arms open.
I stepped into them and leaned my head on his giant chest, enjoying the moment of sibling togetherness before he committed homicide against the Hawks.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” I said. “How was Bali?”
“It was good,” Bram said. “The place we rented was perfect. I’ll send you sometime if you want.”
I laughed. Bram was always trying to give me things, buy me things, pay for vacations and anything else he thought I needed, like he thought I was a still a ten-year-old who needed lunch money.
“You don’t have to send me to Bali. I can take myself if I want to go.”
He smiled, something he did a lot more often now that he had Maeve. “That’s right. You’re all grown up."
I wondered how anyone could be afraid of him.
Okay, I knew how people could be afraid of him. He was the biggest man I’d ever met, well over six feet tall, with shoulders like a Mac truck and muscles that could easily have crushed me to death in one of his hugs.
The scar — running from under his left eye all the way down his cheekbone — didn’t help, but it still made me sad. The scar wasn’t his fault, and neither were the scars he had on the inside.
“Sit down,” Maeve said. “Want some coffee? Tea? Something else?”
“I’m good.” There was no point, I wouldn’t be able to stomach it and it would probably become a casualty of Bram’s fury anyway.
“Hey, Cass!” Remy entered the room in front of Poe, tripped over Lucifer, who’d parked himself right in the middle of the floor to carefully lick his paws, and barely managed to keep himself from going down.
“Fuck!” Remy flipped his blond hair out of his eyes and glared at the cat. “Why does he always do that?”
“I saw him and I was behind you.” Poe looked at me. “Hey, Cass.”
I laughed. This was a familiar scene. “Hey. I heard you guys had a good time in Bali?”
Poe walked into the kitchen and stopped to kiss Maeve full on the lips.
“The best,” he said when he pulled away.
Their displays of affection with Maeve had taken some getting used to. I’d never met a single woman they’d dated before Maeve, and it had been weird to see my brother and his friends so obviously head over heels for someone.
But I loved seeing them so in love, and while it usually made me squirm a little to see their naked affection for her, now it made me squirm for a different reason.
I knew what they were feeling. I mean, not the love part. Definitely not that.
But the lust? Oh yeah. I definitely knew what that felt like because I wanted to get naked with the Hawks all the time. And I knew how Maeve felt too, knew why her cheeks flushed when they kissed her or grabbed her ass.
It was the way I’d felt when Jagger had kissed the top of my head after he’d made me come in his bed, the way I’d felt when Vigo had casually kissed me on the lips outside, when Hawk had grabbed my face and kissed me roughly in the kitchen the night before.
“So what’s up?” Bram asked. “Everything good with you? You need something?”
I knew why he was asking. First, he was Bram, and he always wanted to be sure I was okay. But also, I didn’t usually come to the loft. I’d been visiting more often since Maeve started living there, but before Maeve, Bram had always visited me. His determination to keep me out of Southside had become unspoken, and I’d gotten used to all of our visits happening on my side of town.
“I’m good.” I felt lightheaded, blood rushing in my ears.
Bram’s jaw hardened. “Somehow I don’t believe you. What the fuck’s going on, Cass?”
36
CASSIE
“You’re going to be mad,”I said. “But I’m asking you to hear me out.”
