Brothers of Paradise Series

“Is she home?”

I shake my head. “She’s out of town tonight again, visiting my aunt.”

“Good. Text her about him,” Parker says. His voice has dropped into the steady, confident one. It brings back memories of him instructing junior sailors. Strapping kids into life vests. “Tell her not to come back home to the house until you give the all-clear. Okay?”

“Yes. Good idea.”

“Did you sign the papers I gave you?”

I nod. “They’re in my house though.”

“We’ll get them tomorrow,” he says. A strong hand smoothes over my back. “Don’t see him without me, James. Please.”

A grateful breath escapes me. “You want to be there with me?”

“God, yes.”

“Thank you,” I say.

His eyes, thoughtful and sharp, meet mine. There’s calculation there. “We can get ahead of this. Bluff about the custody papers.”

There are dark shadows beneath his eyes. I smooth my hands over his cheek, against the stubble. “Thank you,” I murmur. “But he won’t bother us tonight. You need sleep.”

“I need a shower,” he mutters. “And one of these. Emma really wanted you guys to make them?”

I nod, watching him take a bite of the cookie. “You must be hungry.”

“Starving,” he says. “I don’t know what I want most. A meal or sleep.”

I stear him toward a chair and re-heat the dinner we’d had a few days ago, still in his fridge. He eats while I put Emma to bed in his guest bedroom. She walks sleepily from the couch and murmurs something about not having to brush her teeth. Not tonight, honey. She smiles happily at the exception and snuggles into the guest bedroom.

“The captain?” she murmurs.

“He’s back,” I say. “He really liked your cookies, too. You’ll see him when you wake up.”

“Good,” she whispers, turning into her pillow. “He makes you happy.”

My heart is full when I rejoin Parker. He’s heading to the shower and I join him, washing his hair beneath the hot water. He bends and rests his head against my shoulder when I dig soapy fingers into the tense muscles around his neck.

“Never stop,” he says.

I don’t, but I take the opportunity to notice the added bruise on his right arm, the cut along his left ankle. And when we’re done, when we stand together beneath the hot water, I let it take my worries and fears with it.

Parker traces my collarbone with a calloused finger. “Thank you, Jamie,” he says.

“For what?”

“For being here. For being you.”

And tears blur my eyes again. I blink them away and tug him out of the shower. We towel off the bare minimum and pull back the sheets of his bed. Parker groans as he lies down.

“You’re hurting,” I say.

“Every damn muscle in my body,” he mutters, and extends an arm to me. “Come here.”

“I won’t hurt you?”

“No.” He curls his arm around me, pulling me against his body, and I tug the sheet up around us. Carefully, I put a hand on his chest, and he snorts. “I’m not close to death.”

“No, but you’re sore, and it’ll be worse in the morning.”

“Don’t remind me.” He sighs deeply and his eyes close. “If I wasn’t about to pass out,” he murmurs, “I’d spend the night showing you just how much I wanted to get back to you.”

I press a kiss to his chest. “Sleep,” I say. “No one is going to dispute your manliness.”

“Good,” he whispers. I listen to his breath evening out into sleep, the strong chest rising and falling steadily beneath my cheek, and I whisper the words into his skin.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

I love you.

PARKER

Across the kitchen counter, Jamie’s digging her teeth into her lower lip. She’s reading through the document I’ve put together with a pen in hand. “This’ll work,” she murmurs. “It has to.”

“It will,” I say.

Behind us, Henry and Hayden talk quietly, sitting on Vera’s couch. Giving us privacy.

Jamie had protested my idea first, when I’d suggested calling them. There had been embarrassment in her eyes. Trust me, I’d said. There’s one impression I want her ex to have after today, one impression he’ll carry with him out of Paradise and Jamie’s life.

He’ll never be able to fuck with her again.

He’s never raised a hand to me, she’d reminded me quietly, in the early hours of the morning. I’d draped her over my chest and closed my eyes at the simple pleasure of her fingers tracing across my skin. A deep blue bruise had spread over my left shoulder from the beam, and she’d kissed it gently.

He hurt you in other ways, I’d said, eyes still closed. My anger leashed tightly. And he never will again.

Jamie had stayed close to me all night, and in the darkness of my bedroom, she’d told me just how scared she’d been for me. That I wouldn’t come back.

I haven’t admitted to anyone quite how bad it got. Worse than I’ll ever tell her or my family. The boat will need a few repairs to make it out of the marina safely again.

The ocean is a fickle mistress.

Jamie’s thumb skims over the custody papers. “I’m ready,” she says. “God, I’m so jacked up on adrenaline, I need him to come now.”

I round the counter to her. “You’ll do great.”

“There’s so much I need to say… I don’t know if I’ll remember it all.” She looks up at me and lowers her voice so the guys won’t hear. “How are you feeling? Really?”

I lift a hand to smooth her hair back, ignoring the protesting muscles in my arm. “Don’t think about me today.”