“Could we go somewhere away from the crowd so we can talk?”
Mother. Fucker. I know Ellison will be safe but I still don’t want to leave her with these horny bastards. “Can’t talk here?”
“I was hoping to have a word privately.”
I can predict with one hundred percent accuracy that this conversation will include her asking me to choose her over Ellison. She doesn’t understand that will never happen.
I take the whisky Kenrick has poured for me. “Fine, but make it quick.”
Aye. I sound like an arse but it’s impossible to be nice when she’s taking me away from Ellison at this pivotal moment.
Adaira leads me away from the canopy toward the guest house. I suspect this conversation is about more than a job. And truth be told, it isn’t about a conversation at all.
I stop when I see her intention is to take me into Thane and Isobel’s guest house. “I think this is private enough. We can talk here.”
“The only reason I’m in nursing school is so I could become your assistant. You knew that, but you chose her. She’s not even Fellowship.”
Neither Adaira nor her father approached me to ask if I wanted or needed a nurse. They went straight to Thane with their plan. Thane approved her request to go to school, but my uncle has never told me I have to take her as my assistant. I owe them nothing.
“I’m sure you’ll make a fine nurse when you finish school, but I need someone with experience at the infirmary. I can’t waste valuable time teaching you how to be a nurse. I need someone who already knows what they’re doing.”
“I have experience. Lots of it. And I know exactly what I’m doing.” This conversation is going in the exact direction I expected.
“This is about the brothers and their well-being. Ellison was a better choice because she has worked in a busy emergency room where they had a high rate of gunshot wounds and trauma. I need someone with that kind of experience. You’re a first-year nursing student, and although I’m sure you’re doing well, I don’t have time to train you.”
Adaira steps forward and her hands go straight for the button and zipper of my pants. “I’m a fast learner, Jamie. And I give a quality blowjob. You’ll like the kind of skills and knowledge I have. Promise.”
A year ago, I’d have let this girl suck me off—and I’d have probably fucked her afterward—but not today. Not after Ellison.
I push her hand away. Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever turned down a blowjob. “No.”
Adaira laughs. “Well, hell. She’s been helping you less than a week, and you’re already fucking her.”
“We aren’t fucking.” What Ellison and I are doing is far more than that.
“I don’t believe that for a second. And those horny fuckers out there squabbling over your girl’s pussy are dumbasses if they believe you aren’t fucking her.” Adaira takes my whisky from my hand and downs it before returning an empty glass. “Just so you know, I didn’t want to blow you anyway. I’m into girls.” What the hell?
Not what I was expecting from the lass who just tried to undo my pants. “Why did you try to suck my dick if you’re into pussy?”
“My dad’s health isn’t great. He’s convinced he’s going to die soon, so he’s trying to push my sisters and me into being claimed and married as soon as possible. He wants to know he’s giving us over to husbands who will protect and care for us after he’s gone.”
Bruce Lowry has six daughters. I can see why he’d feel the need to encourage them to marry if he isn’t well but some of them are still very young, including Adaira. “What kind of health problems is he having?”
“High blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglycerides out the roof. He thinks he’s going to have a stroke or heart attack any day now.”
Sounds like he could. “I can see where he’d be anxious about leaving so many daughters without the protection of husbands.”
“I’ve told him I don’t need a man to protect me. I do just fine on my own.”
“Does he know you like women?”
Adaira groans. “Yes, but he still wants me to be married to a man. He said I could have my womanly fling on the side. Can you believe that?”
“From Bruce? Yes.” He’s set in his ways—like most Fellowship men. “What about nursing?”
“I care nothing about it. My girlfriend wants to be a nurse so we enrolled at the same school. It’s an easy way to spend time with her without causing an uproar with my dad.”
“Your girlfriend isn’t Fellowship?”
“No.”
She’s dating a woman and she’s an outsider. Interesting.
The role of brothers have been defined within a relationship based on gender so what happens when a couple isn’t male-female? I’m not sure. There’s never been an open female-female or open male-male relationship within The Fellowship.
“Ellison is hot as fuck. I bet you shag her every chance you get.”
I’ve had her four—no five—times in twenty-four hours. Aye, I definitely shag her as much as possible but that’s no business of Adaira’s. “No comment.”
“Whatever. I don’t need your confirmation. I already know you’re burying yourself between her legs.” If Adaira makes this assumption, does that mean everyone else probably does too?
Adaira gestures toward my empty glass. “Let’s go get you another drink. You’re going to need a few of those to keep from turning possessive alpha when you see your brothers going after your girl.”
I won’t argue with that. I already want to clean some clocks.
Adaira and I part ways and I return to the party. I’m irritated as fuck when I see Ellison dancing with Lyle Campbell, the brother who opened the topless dance club. The same brother Leith threatened with a slow, painful death if he let Lorna anywhere near his stage again. He has no business putting his filthy hands on Ellison. They aren’t fit to touch something as beautiful as her.
I place my empty glass on the bar. “Another whisky. Make it a double.”
“Coming up.”
This is so much worse than I expected. I’m not tolerating seeing Ellison with my brothers, and it’s making me fucking crazy.
“Fuck the double, Kenrick. Give me the bottle.”
Kenrick chuckles and passes me a half-full bottle of Johnnie Walker. “That’s the last of Sin’s whisky. He won’t be happy it’s gone.”
“Fuck. Sin.” This is his fault. He’s the one who insisted on doing this introduction tonight—presenting the woman I love as fair game for our brothers while I’m forced to sit back and watch in agony.
I take the bottle of booze and retreat to a table in the corner where I can wallow in misery as I watch Ellison with her many suit
ors.
I’m going to feel like hell tomorrow at clinical.
Bleu bumps my hip with hers and I nearly topple over in my four-inch heels. “Boy, do The Fellowship brothers lovvve you. I knew they would.”
I grab her arm to steady myself. “I’ve never felt more like a piece of meat in my life.”
“I was afraid they might make you feel that way.”
“Oh my God, Bleu. The last brother I danced with was so creepy. He had a kill tattoo. He took his jacket off, unbuttoned his shirt, and pulled his arm out of his sleeve to show it to me. It was a winding staircase that wrapped around his arm and each step represented a rival he had taken out. There were a lot of steps, Bleu. A whole staircase.”
“You have to remember that this is a different way of life, Elli. He’s proud of that tattoo and probably thought you’d be impressed by it since Fellowship women are attracted to a fierce fighter.”
A different way of life. That is the understatement of the millennium.
“I swear I may scream if one more man comes up to me and says he’s interested in claiming me.” Claiming. Marriage. Those words have been thrown around far too loosely tonight. Frankly, I’m sick of hearing about it.
“Would you scream if it was Jamie?”
“I don’t even know how to address that right now.” Not after he let Sin offer me to his brothers. Not after he happily handed me over to Logan. And definitely not after seeing him leave the pavilion.
With. That. Woman.
I wanted Jamie to see me with his brothers so he’d get a taste of what me with another man felt like. I never imagined it would provoke him into reaching out to another woman.
“I’m sorry, Elli. Sin and I were so certain Jamie would tell him to not make the announcement.”
I’m gonna come inside you.
I need to know you have a part of me in you when you’re with the brothers tonight.
“I could tell by the things he said before we left that he had no intention of stopping Sin.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Hurt. Angry. Confused. Very confused.” I lower my voice and lean in to whisper to Bleu. “We’ve been together.”