confess that he’d lied, had been the stupidest freakin’ idea ever.
Shoving down the gut-tightening fear that he was going to lose her, Jack kissed her
awake.
Please God, don’t let this be the last time she let him touch her.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. Her languid blue gaze, sated smile and catlike stretch
all jabbed at his heart. She wasn’t just beautiful to him, but perfect for him. He loved her
like…he’d never loved any woman. And if he didn’t play his cards right, she could walk
out the door forever. raised a mean-looking Browning Hi-Power and pointed it at Jack.
He held in a biting curse. “Now!”
“Morgan. Cher…” he whispered.
Now what? Where were his suave words. How the hell could he phrase this?
“I have to tell you something,” he murmured.
Her ginger brows sloped down in a tired frown. She yawned, covering her mouth with
the back of her hand in a gesture both womanly and childlike at once.
Tenderness jerked his heart as anxiety kicked him in the teeth. God, he’d almost
rather cut his balls off with a dull rusty knife than shatter the bond between them.
“Hmm.” She moaned. Her eyes drifted half-closed as she sent him a sleepy smile.
Behind her, Deke shifted, his hand lowering, curling around her hip. Then he let out a
snore. Morgan giggled.
Ignoring Deke, Jack took hold of her face, gaze delving down into hers. “I love you,
cher. I have to know something. You and Brandon…”
That brought her eyes open. Wide open.
She gasped. “Jack, I—”
“Do you love him?” he demanded.
Morgan hesitated, clearly searching for words. Pain stomped his gut. Damn it, this
was going to rip his fucking heart out to hear that she did.
“Yes, but not the way you think. He—”
Something—someone—pounded on the door. A moment later, wood splintered in a
deafening sound. The door crashed open, slamming against the wall.
Jack scrambled in front of Morgan and faced the threat that stood in their doorway.
Brandon Ross wearing a business suit and a snarl from hell.
“Get your fucking filthy hands off her, Cole.” Brandon
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Brandon!” Morgan cried, peering around Jack’s shoulder.
Her half-brother’s thin, elegant frame filled the doorway. Fury morphed into shock
when he realized she was in bed with two men. Mortification blasted open a pit of dark
dread in Morgan’s stomach. Too bad she couldn’t crawl into it and disappear, she
thought as she scrambled to cover herself with a sheet.
“Put the gun down!” she demanded.
He ignored her, instead scowling at Jack as if the fires of hell lurked in his eyes.
On her left, Deke had awakened and leaped in front of her, beside Jack, to protect her.
“This isn’t the way it looks, Brandon,” Jack assured.
“Yes, it’s exactly the way it looks.”
Morgan couldn’t mistake her brother’s growl, but it barely registered. Besides that
unnerving gun, she was stuck on one fact…
“You two know each other?”
“Oh, shit,” Deke muttered and eased off the bed to put on his jeans. “Here we go…”
Even Deke knew what was going on? Morgan frowned and shot Jack a questioning
glance, scrambling mentally to understand. Jack’s face tightened with anger, regret. And
unmistakable guilt. What the…? She was having as much success deciphering this
situation as she would watching a soap opera in Swedish.
“You didn’t tell her?” Brandon said incredulously. “No, of course you didn’t. That
would have made getting your revenge much harder. But this way, not only did you get to
fuck her and get back at me, you obviously shared her with your GI Joe buddy here for
payback with interest, since it beats the hell out of anything I did to you.”
Revenge? “What is going on?” Morgan demanded, frowning.
She couldn’t follow the conversation…but what she did understand seemed damn
ugly. Jack had taken her to bed to get back at Brandon? For…?
“Let me explain.” Jack turned and took her shoulders in his hands. “This is going to
look bad and sound worse, but I swear—”
“He’s a sneaky son of a bitch looking for any way to stab me in the back,” Brandon
spat. “Get away from him, Morgan. Don’t listen.”
“I told you how I felt, cher,” Jack vowed in a whisper. “Whatever you hear today, my
feelings are real. I didn’t lie about that.”
Until this moment, she hadn’t doubted it. Now, dismay infected every breath Morgan
took. She knew, just knew, something was really wrong. And that she wasn’t going to like