Having Tyce with her, in The Den, made her feel like they were imposters, acting a role. They were sleeping together; they were not in a relationship and she didn’t like all the side-eye she’d received from her family whenever Tyce put his arm around her shoulder and his hand on her knee. They were not a couple and he had no right to give her family the impression that they were.
Sage looked around at the faces she loved best. Beck had his arms around Cady’s waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. Jaeger was holding Ty and Piper was tucked into his side. Tate’s hand was on Shaw’s head and Ellie was asleep, her beautiful face on Tate’s shoulder. Love streamed out of Tate’s eyes every time she looked at Linc.
Oh, damn, every time she spent time with her brothers and their wives, she started to think that she might want the love they’d found. And that was the real source of her irritation. She started thinking about how it would feel to walk out of this house with her hand in Tyce’s, heading back to their place, content in the idea that they were creating a family within a family.
Even if she was prepared to take a chance on love—she wasn’t but this was all hypothetical—Tyce wasn’t the man to give it to her.
He didn’t want to immerse himself in a relationship like her brothers had; he didn’t want the day-to-day interactions, the ups and the downs. He wanted to be their baby’s father and, for as long as it worked between them, for them to sleep together. When that stopped, when the passion faded away, he would too.
But the more time she spent with him, the more she was at risk of feeling more for him than she should, the more she wanted what her sisters-in-law had: a strong, sexy man standing at her side, ready to go to war for and with her.
Too many mores, she thought.
She had to readjust her thinking. Pronto.
Sage looked at Lachlyn and saw that Linc had his arm around her shoulders. Her big brother was scooping another lost Ballantyne chick under his arm. It was what he did so why was her throat closing, why did she feel like she was being pushed out of her own family?
Oh, God, how old was she? Thirteen?
“I need to go home,” she muttered, walking toward the front door.
“Sage, wait!” Linc said and Sage heard the note of excitement in his voice. Wondering what he was about to slap her with now, Sage briefly rested her forehead on the door before turning around. Linc stood on the first step of the staircase and Lachlyn, tiny and blonde, stood next to him.
The hallway fell silent and Sage looked around at the faces she loved best. Sage darted a glance at Tyce and saw that his obsidian eyes were looking at her with a small frown. He seemed to be trying to look into her soul and she didn’t like it. He had no right to do that; his having access to her body didn’t mean that he was allowed to walk around her mind.
She didn’t like any of it. Her world wasn’t just changing, it was morphing into something different right before her eyes and she had no control over what was happening.
“So, as a welcome-to-the-family gift, Lachlyn,” Linc said, “we thought that you might like Connor’s favorite ring.”
We? What we? She hadn’t been consulted about giving anything of Connor’s to Lachlyn! And his favorite ring? The one Sage and Connor had spent hours together designing and making since the bands of amber, pieces of an ancient meteorite and platinum, had required careful workmanship?
What the hell?
“He said that it was his all-time favorite ring,” Linc continued. “He designed and made it and wore it every day.”
Excuse me? She’d spent as many hours on that ring as Connor had. Maybe more. Sage watched as Linc handed Lachlyn the ring and blinked back tears.
So this was sharing, she thought. Her home, her brothers, the memories of her father. Frankly, it sucked.
God, what a day. She’d had enough.
Sage yanked open the door and stepped into the dark, tossing a cool, general good-night over her shoulder. She’d barely made it to the wrought iron gate when she felt Tyce take her hand. She immediately jerked her hand away and shoved it into her coat pocket.
“I didn’t give her the ring, Sage.”
“You brought her into our life,” Sage whipped back. Direct hit, she realized, but she took no pleasure in the color draining from his face, the danger sparking in his eyes.