His Brothers Wife Read Free Page A

calm her. She seemed less tense as I spoke. Her breathing had slowed from frantic, near-hyperventilation to an even flow.
    “Did you know it was going to storm?” she asked suddenly.
    “I saw the storm rolling in over the lake. I didn’t think it would be this bad. Shit—!”
    Briony stifled a shriek as I swerved to avoid a tree limb that had fallen across the road. The car slid toward the gully on the opposite side of the route, skidding out of control as if we’d hit a sheet of ice. The engine roared as we caught traction and shot forward, narrowly missing the pit as I manhandled the car back the right direction.
    “We’ve got to find someplace to stop,” I said. “This isn’t slowing down and this road is a deathtrap.”
    “There’s nothing here.”
    “I’ll find something.” Though I had to admit, being alone with her in a secluded location was at both the top and bottom of my list of things to do. It would be torture—but hell, I wanted to touch her, to fuck her, and if she said yes, there would be no stopping me. I didn’t give a rat’s ass if she was Chad’s. He didn’t deserve her; he’d proved that the first time he’d struck her.
    “So what did you plan to do after you kidnapped me?” Briony asked out of the blue. I suspected she chattered to divert her attention from our peril. Unfortunately, with these roads, I couldn’t afford distraction.
    “Can we save this for later?” I asked through gritted teeth. I leaned forward in an attempt to better see where I was going. Again, I considered what a horrible hero I was turning out to be. I’d had a loose plan—apparently, not a very good one by any means. Within ten minutes of leaving the house, I’d put our lives in jeopardy, gotten lost in the middle of nowhere and stranded us on the far side of ravine opposite the highway.
    Each blinding flash of lightning caused Bree to jump. Too bad it hadn’t taken her mind off my botched “rescue”.
    “Does that mean you actually had a plan, and this isn’t spur of the moment?”
    “Yes.”
    “How long have you been thinking of this?”
    “What?” I flipped on the defroster, unable to carry on with keeping us alive on the slick roads and process her questions.
    “Did you plan this?”
    “Yes,” I repeated.
    “How long?”
    I sighed. “This can’t wait? Fine. Formally?” I swiped my hand across the fogged windshield. “Since this morning.”
    “This morning? That’s rather fly by night. Have you ever been institutionalized?”
    I swung my head toward her. “ What? ”
    Fuck this hero stuff. Maybe I should pull over and dump her ass on the side of the road. And then the thought of her slipping in the mud led me to ideas of leaping after her and tackling her into the muck and rolling around until we were all coated and slippery—
    Damn it! Driving with a hard-on in this crap wasn’t what I wanted to do.
    “For instability? Insanity? Dementia? Do you have medication you’re supposed to be taking and haven’t been?”
    “No,” I snapped.
    “So you’re an undiagnosed crackpot. They’ll think I ran away—No, Chad will, maybe not everyone else. He’s gonna hurt me when he finds me.”
    Though I focused on the road, I could see her bowed head as she fought the trembling that had come over her. This wasn’t about me and what I’d done. It was her fear.
    I turned on the hazard lights and pulled to the edge if the flooded street.
    “Hey,” I murmured, pulling her into my arms. I rubbed small circles on her back, comforting her as if she were a small child. But she didn’t feel like a child. She felt like a full-grown, fantasy-inducing woman. My teeth gritted. Bus. We were going to the bus.
    My hand cupped the back of her head while I pressed it against my chest. “It’s okay,” I soothed, trying to convince myself of that too. “Everything will be okay.”
    “You don’t understand!” she moaned. “Do you have any idea what he’s done to me since we married?” she