“This feels like way more than petty work shit. Do you think whatever’s troubling Heavenly is the reason she suddenly left us?”
Liam had warned them over a month ago to “peel her open fast.” They hadn’t succeeded, hadn’t even come close. He had a bad feeling that the looming darkness shrouding her with trouble had already come.
“I don’t have a fucking clue and I wish I did.” Beck sipped his beer, too. “Any idea what you’re going to say to her tonight? This might be our last chance, you know?”
Oh, Seth was well aware of that. She was like sand slipping through his grasp, and no matter how tightly he tried to hold on, she kept falling right between the cracks of his fingers.
“I’ve already tried so many tactics. Small talk gets me nowhere, and she doesn’t respond to confrontation. She just shuts down. What about you?”
“Same.” He raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “She trusts me. I think she trusts you, too. But only to a point. She’s closed off.”
“Yep. And I have to wonder…” Seth sighed. “If whatever caused her to put up barriers is the reason she thinks she can’t have a future with either of us, despite her obvious feelings.”
“I don’t know. But we can’t let this party end before we figure it out.”
“Amen. First, we have to find her.”
A flash of golden hair caught Seth’s eye through the kitchen window. He leaned left for a better view, eyes narrowing. There was Heavenly. Finally.
She and River were deep in conversation. It didn’t look like party chatter. In fact, she looked decidedly uncomfortable as she sipped her wine. River pressed closer, got in her face.
What the hell?
“Are you seeing this?” Seth elbowed Beck, then pointed to the window.
The doctor turned his head and froze. Silently, they watched Heavenly’s brow wrinkle as she tried to back away. River wasn’t having it.
“Enough to know I’m ending that fucking conversation.” Beck made a beeline for the patio door.
“Damn straight.” Seth was right beside him as they filed into the kitchen, shoulder-to-shoulder.
“Sweetheart, you don’t know squat about satisfaction,” River began. “Here’s what I think happened. You haven’t so much as flirted with another man. You don’t understand why ‘lovely’ sex is bad because you’ve never had it. In fact, not only did you not have sex with this mysterious ‘stud,’ you haven’t offered the virginity you asked me to take to anyone else.”
A visceral, hot rage pinged through Seth. Heavenly had asked River Kendall to take her virginity? When? And fucking why? Seth was more than willing. Beck, too.
Beside him, the doctor stiffened. “What. The fuck. Did you say?”
“Get out,” Seth snapped at River. It didn’t matter that Raine’s brother obviously hadn’t followed through on Heavenly’s offer. He still wanted to strangle the bastard for not bothering to mention a word of this to either him or Beck. He and River would be having a conversation later that wouldn’t require words. “Now. While you can still walk.”
River held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, just so you know, I turned her down because I like my balls where they are.”
At least River had been that smart.
“That’s the only reason you’re getting to keep them,” Beck insisted. “Seth told you to get the fuck out.”
Raine’s brother didn’t need to be told twice. After wishing Heavenly good luck, he beat a hasty retreat.
As soon as he’d gone, the silence in the kitchen turned deafening. He and Beck both leveled pointed glances at Heavenly. They wanted answers. She stepped back like she was trying to shrink into herself. Her expression held a motherlode of guilt.
That expression fucking gutted him.
Finally, Heavenly drew in a shaky breath and pasted on a too-bright smile. “Hi, guys. Can I get you a drink?”
A drink? Was she kidding? Oh, she had guts. He’d give her that, but her piss-poor attempt at redirection only made him want to light up her ass, demand answers…then fuck her senseless.
He stood, arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed, fury pinging. Beside him, Beck adopted a similar stance. But she was too innocent to understand the hard, uncompromising Dom in their demeanors.
“I don’t want a fucking drink,” Beck growled. “I want to spank your ass until I get some answers.”
Seth snorted. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“What the… Why in the holy, ever-loving hell did you…” Beck sputtered, obviously too stunned—or too pissed off—to string a sentence together.
“Offer River fucking Kendall your virginity?” Seth couldn’t keep the snarl out of his voice.
“What he said.” Beck tossed a thumb his way, giving Heavenly the brunt of his displeasure.
She glanced down at her drink, the vino trembling against the glass as her hand shook. “You shouldn’t care if I’m a virgin anymore.”
Seth froze.
Beck grabbed her wine and slammed it on the island, then he lifted her chin and pressed his thumb in, forcing her gaze to his. “Are you saying you’re not? If you didn’t give it to River, who fucking took it?”