Broderick: A Sabine Valley Novel Katee Robert (bts books to read txt) 📖

of her jeans with my thumb. “This fucking enough for you, Monroe?”

“This is hardly foreplay,” she snarls.

I don’t hesitate. It takes half a second to unbutton her jeans and drag down the zipper. Then my hand is in her pants and, fuck, she’s so goddamn wet. I know it’s not for me. This is the aftermath of what Shiloh did to her last night. The jeans are too tight to do what I want, so I curse and move back enough to shove them down her hips. I don’t give a fuck that we’re in the middle of the hallway. I don’t care who might see. I just need to put this siren of a woman in her place, just one single fucking time.

I shift to the side so I can spear two fingers into her pussy from behind and rub her clit with my free hand. For her part, she hasn’t moved her stance, her hands still plastered to the wall where she caught herself. I stroke her, tormenting myself with how fucking good she feels. “Did she lick your pussy, Monroe?” The words feel dragged from me. “Did she fuck you with her tongue?”

“Yes.” She arches her hips, trying to take my fingers deeper. Monroe lets her head fall forward as I circle her clit just the way she likes. “She made me come so fucking hard. I can’t wait to do it again.”

I don’t give in to the temptation to increase my pace. I just hold steady as Monroe starts to shake in my arms. For all her shit-talking, she does come sweetly. She whimpers and clamps around my fingers hard enough to make me groan. I lean down and nip her earlobe. “You might have me for a week, Monroe, but make no mistake—I’ll be having you during that time. Over and over again.”

She barely lets me get my hands out of the way before she yanks up her jeans and fastens them. It’s only when her clothing is back in place that she finally looks at me. “Can’t wait.”

For the first time since I met her, I can’t shake the feeling that she just lied to me.

Chapter 12 Monroe

I have never run from a fight in my life. What just happened with Broderick can hardly be called a fight, and yet I feel like I’m fleeing it all the same as I step into the library with him shadowing my steps. My body still tingles with the aftermath of that orgasm, only made stronger by the few I had last night with Shiloh.

They’re using me as a battleground between them.

It was what I intended all along. The moment I realized how deep the emotions ran between those two, how determined they were to avoid stepping on that particular landmine, I planned to dance all over their buttons.

What I didn’t intend?

To feel…strange while doing it.

Neither of them really want me. They want each other, and I’m the inciting event that will end with them fucking. I’ll go down at the footnote in their relationship, assuming they both survive what comes next. Sabine Valley is not a peaceful city, and the forced truce between the Raiders and the other two factions will only hold the year.

If that.

There are no guarantees in this life, especially in this city.

I just… I didn’t expect to like Shiloh so much. I meant every word I said to her about being the conductor of justice for the harms committed against her as a child. Even thinking about it has anger simmering inside me. I have few lines—one can’t be precious when they’re going to be the next queen of the Amazons—but harming children is an unforgivable offense. Shiloh was right; we’ve had our share of predators in the Amazon faction. But we do not victim-blame, and we do not make excuses for them so they can harm more innocents.

We make fucking examples of them.

Obviously I know the greater world isn’t like that. I can’t say the rest of Sabine Valley conducts itself in the same way. But knowing that Shiloh experienced torture at her parents’ hands…

I clench my fists. I want to see them burn.

“Monroe?”

I give myself a mental shake and have my expression under control by the time I turn to face Broderick. “Yes, husband?”

He searches my face. I’ve never seen a person so conflicted with themself. His identity seems to be so wrapped up in being the calm Paine, the rational brother, that he doesn’t seem to realize that he loves being harsh and brutal. No one can fake how he is with me. Especially when he seems to hate it so.

Right now, he’s feeling irrational guilt and wondering if he pushed me too far in the hallway. I should leave him hanging, should twist the knife every chance I get and use that guilt to manipulate him. It’s what my mother would do, what I’d advise any other Amazon to do in this situation. I am not without weapons, but I’d be a fool to turn away from one so potentially lucrative.

I don’t know why I open my mouth and say, “We’re good, Broderick.”

Instantly, his expression shuts down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh? You weren’t just whipping yourself for being a big, bad villain and forcing yourself on poor, defenseless me?”

He flinches. “That’s nothing to joke about.”

“You’re right. It’s not.” I can’t quite help myself. I close the distance between us and run my hands up his chest. I lower my voice, until he has to lean down to catch my words. “Broderick, if I didn’t want what you do to me, I would gut you and leave you to bleed out in the hallway. No one, not any of your brothers, not a single Raider in this faction, not even Shiloh, could stop me.”

He doesn’t relax. “I’m bigger than you. Stronger.”

Gods, this man’s respectable streak is tiresome.

Even knowing it will give away my edge, I bend down, dip my hand into the