Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)(216)

“This,” I say, flipping the bird to the laptop in front of me.

Bryce chuckles. “Mind over machine, Hudso-”

“I’m not a fucking accountant, man.” I growl at him, standing to walk over towards the big windows looking out over the river that bears my name; or the opposite, I guess. “I mean we’re soldiers, Bryce. This?” I turn, pulling at the lapels of a suit that costs more than I used to spend on food in a year as I shake my head at him. “This isn’t us man. What the fuck was he thinking putting us in charge of shit like this?”

Bryce is quiet, looking at me pointedly in that zen way he does that’d be infuriating if he wasn’t my brother. “No one ever said you were an accountant, Hudson.”

“Ok, then what do you call looking at numbers all fucking da-”

“I call it problem solving.”

I arch my brow at him, “Excuse me?”

“Problem solving. You’re not ‘being an accountant’, Hud, you’re looking for problems and finding solutions, which is what you’re good at.”

I laugh. “You’ve met me, right?” I shake my head; “Dude, I am the problem most of the time.”

“Ok, who figured out how to get us past that roadblock on the Chinese border?”

I roll my eyes. “It’s called bribing, Bry-”

“Who got us out of that detention center in Cairo after all that shit went down where they were going to sell us to the State Department?”

“Oh, you mean the shit that went down because of me?”

He rolls his eyes. “Somalia, Angola, the DRC; dude, you’ve saved our butts like two dozen times, and it’s because you know how to think your way out of a box.”

“Bryce, you don’t know what you’re-”

“Oh fuck off, Hudson.” He stands and walks over to the window. “When will you just admit to yourself that you’re a whole new man, and that the fuck-up you were died back there in the desert?” He looks at me with cool, stony eyes. “And when will you just learn how to take a fucking compliment, man?”



P R E S E N T



We’re back inside the house camped out on opposites sides of the sofa in the library looking out over the moon-lit grounds of her father’s house.

If I had my way, she’d be on my lap, and preferably naked, instead of four feet away across the giant expanse of couch. But I know she’s right that we need to maintain distance. I know what this can’t look like.

Of course, being this close to her when I can still taste her on my tongue is driving me nine different shades of crazy, and I shift again uncomfortably as my cock presses rock hard against my pants.

She’s glowing in the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Her whole face lighting up in a way I’ve seen so rarely since walking back into her life as she grins at me from the other end of the sofa;“So, is that what you do to all the young female politicians that Archer Holdings funds?”

“Oh, absolutely” I say with a totally straight face. “Although most of them don’t try and yank my hair out by the roots when they come on my tongue.”

I can see the shade of red her face goes even from here, and even through the white light of the moon as she rolls her eyes. “Dick.”

“Oh, is that what you were after?” I’m teasing her, but I shrug and start to reach for my zipper.

“Hudson!” She hisses, her eyes darting to the wide open library doorway before her concerned look drops back to me and she sees the smirk on my face. “Asshole,” she says with a wry grin. She swings her feet up into the couch as she turns to face me. “So that’s how you used to get all those girls you’d parade around with? Just whip out the fishing rod and see what bites?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” The banter is making me grin, and I can see her roll her eyes as she tries to hide the flash of smile on her face. “Of course, it helps to have a big rod.” I say with a sly wink, and I love seeing her face instantly get even redder as she buries it in her hands.

“Well, I wouldn’t know.” She says primly, mock sophistication in her voice.

I arch an eyebrow at her and she bites her lips and rolls her eyes, and I know she’s thinking about walking in on me in the bathroom. “I mean I wouldn’t know what it feels like.”

“But you’re dying to, right?”

My hand slides over her foot and up to her calf, and I can hear her sharp intake of breath. “Mayb-”

“There you are!” Reagan jerks her feet away from me at the sound of Donald’s voice behind us as if she’d just had them in hot coals. I frown as I see her relaxed body instantly stiffen back to formal, political Reagan.