Sinner (Shelter Harbor #1)(226)

This is fucking ridiculous.





Chapter Twenty





Reagan




P A S T



“Hang on, are you serious?” Quinn glances at Chelsea, and they both turn to look at me skeptically.

“Yeah, I’m serious.” I roll my eyes at them, “What, you don’t think I can do it?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that Ray!” Chelsea says quickly, shaking her head. “It’s just, uh, I mean it’s just that you’re-”

“You’re twenty-two, Reagan.” Quinn says evenly, frowning slightly.

“So?”

She rolls her eyes. “Ok, you’re twenty-two, and you have zero political experience. That might be a problem here.”

“Quinn, I do have a degree in political science, and I’ve spent the last two years working with Chet on his campaign stuff.”

Quinn snorts and Chelsea opens and closes her mouth quickly as if she’s trying to figure out what to say to that.

“OK, OK, laugh it up, I know. Chet’s…Chet, but the experience with the campaign is real, guys. It - I don’t know - it got me moving and got me thinking about stuff like I never have.”

“But Ray, the Senate?” Chelsea looks worried.

“State Senate, but yeah.” I shrug. “If you’re gonna dream, dream big right?”

Quinn grins. “You’re actually going to do this, aren’t you?” I nod and she rolls her eyes. “You’re fucking insane, you know that right?”

“Well, with endorsements like that!” Chelsea laughs and turns to look at me. “So when do we start?”



PRESENT



“So I told you about getting my amateur pilot’s license, right?” I raise my eyebrows towards Chet, nodding as I plaster a dopey, fake smile across my face.

I’m not really listening to a word he says though, since I’m concentrating on not looking at the scowling Hudson standing right there with us. Hudson who’s alternating between rolling his eyes at practically everything Chet says and glowering at me every time I very purposely laugh at it.

I might be laughing on the outside, but inside I’m scowling just as hard as he is now. I mean where the fuck does he get off being so possessively alpha about me talking with Chet when he’s the one that had Samantha and her tits hanging off of him barely hours after we’d slept together. It’s classic fucking Hudson.

But if anything, I’m more scared than pissed, as much as I don’t want to admit it. In fact, I’m doing my damnedest to ignore it, since I’m scared what me being jealous of Hudson with another girl really means, especially after what I talked about with Quinn and Chelsea.

“So what do you think, Hud?” Chet’s nodding his head and wagging his eyebrows at Hudson, who’s piercing scowl and pointed silence he seems to be oblivious of. “Pretty soon you and I can get up there together and do a little ace piloting, huh Iceman?”

“Why would I do that.” There’s almost a humor in the way Hudson does nothing to hide the disdain in his voice or the plaintive ‘I don’t fucking care’ look on his face when he speaks to Chet, but I bury that humor with a scowl instead.

Chet sighs dramatically. “Well hell man! I thought they taught you guys how to fly planes in the Air Force!”

Hudson’s eyes narrow at Chet. “I’m sure they do teach people to fly planes in the Air Force,” he says, his voice icy.

Chet snaps his fingers and shakes his head. “Right, right! Ranger, right?”

Hudson’s fist clenches at his side. “Marine.”

“Ahhh, well, I was close!”

Hudson’s eyes very plainly say ‘no, you weren’t’ but he mercifully keeps his mouth shut. Unfortunately, Chet doesn’t.

“Well you’ve still got planes with the Marines, right? Don’t they take you up in them to to get pushed out or something?” He chuckles and I see Hudson’s jaw tighten. “I thought that was your guys’ thing!”

Hudson smiles broadly at Chet, his eyes like a shark’s. “Oh it is! I’d be happy to show you sometime if you wan-”

“Don’t you have some other place to be,” I hiss at him.

“Whatever you say, Princess,” he mutters sarcastically to me, and I jump as I feel his hand quickly swat at my butt behind me where Chet can’t see. He narrows his eyes like he’s about to say something to me, but he turns sharply on his heel and walks away instead, without another word to either of us.

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry about that.” I shrug and try to smile at Chet’s smirking face. “He gets-”

He gets, what, possessive? Dominant? My body hotter and my pussy wetter than anything I’ve ever felt before?