Wanted Dead or In Love: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 3)

by Giulia Lagomarsino

  “I know, but to read about how much this is hurting my family…I kept thinking there had to be some way that I could contact them. Something I could say or do to let them know I’m okay.”

  “You didn’t try anything, did you?” I asked, panicked.

  “No, I knew that if I tried, it would put them in danger.”

  He had no idea.

  “It hit me when I was walking home how lonely I was, to never joke around with my brothers again, or have one of my Ma’s hugs. I know that sounds pathetic, but they’re my family. They’re all I’ve got, and now I’ve got no one.”

  I slipped my hand into his. I knew exactly what he was thinking. I felt that way all the time. The difference was, I didn’t want to be in touch with anyone from my past. If I never saw anyone again, it would be the best life I could ask for.

  “So, when I got home, I realized that I had you, and even though I don’t know anything about you, we can still help each other.”

  “Is that what that was?” I asked with a smile on my face.

  He rolled his eyes and huffed out a laugh. He rolled back to me. “So, you’re not pissed at me?”

  “Pissed? I’m thinking that we’re living together, pretending to be together. It would be silly for us to not practice having some kind of chemistry together.”

  His hand slid over my shoulder and pulled me closer. “So, strictly for research and practice,” he mumbled, his lips sliding over mine.

  I nodded against him and opened for him, sliding my hands through his hair again. “Lots and lots of practice,” I gasped as his cock slipped back inside me.

  Not too much changed between Josh and I over the next few weeks. He was spending a lot of time with his boss at his house, practicing with his gun. He was also working out a lot at the gym, and I had to say, I was really reaping the benefits of his new, more muscled and toned body. We didn’t sleep together all the time, but when one of us was feeling the need, all it took was a knock on the other’s bedroom door. Everything was pretty much the same between us, and it was nice that nothing became awkward after that first time together.

  We both worked long hours and our savings was slowly growing. The rent was a little higher than what I was used to, but with both of us having jobs, it wasn’t too much of a problem. But the more I slept with him, the more I wished that maybe we spent just a little more time together. Maybe just talking or hanging out. It was just weird that we hadn’t been doing that.

  My bedroom door opened on Sunday morning and I had just woken up. I sat up slightly, thinking that Josh was coming in here for sex, but he just stood awkwardly in the doorway.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Um…so, my boss is having this sort of party at his house.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  “And…I was thinking we could sort of…go together.”

  I tilted my head and hid my grin. “As a couple?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Not…” He sighed and ran his hand along the back of his neck. “Just for us to get out and do something, other than work and pretend that we’re leading these totally normal lives.”

  I nodded, biting back my smile. “So, you’d like me to go with you, but then wouldn’t I have to be your girlfriend?”

  He thought about that for a moment. “I guess?”

  “Well, what did you tell your coworkers?”

  “Uh…nothing.”

  “You mean to tell me that you’ve been working with them, but you haven’t told them anything about me?”

  He shook his head slowly, a wary look on his face. “I might have mentioned you to my boss.”

  I finally let my grin slip free. “This is going to be fun.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You are under no circumstances allowed to fuck with me.”

  “Oh, I’m gonna fuck with you.”

  “No, I have to work with these people. They already make fun of me and call me Cortisol.”

  “That’s all on you,” I laughed.

  He rushed to the bed, jumping on top of me, pushing his body into mine. “I’m about to be all on you,” he grinned, right before he tore the sheet away and pounced. I squealed with laughter as he dug his fingers into my stomach, not immediately going for sex like I thought he would.

  “Are you going to behave?”

  “Yes!” I screamed with laughter.

  “You’re not going to run your mouth?”

  “No, I promise!” But he kept tickling me. My sides hurt and tears were streaming down my face from laughing so hard. “Stop, please!”

  He immediately stopped tickling me and looked at me with fake seriousness. “How do I know I can trust you?” he asked, his fingers moving up my body to cup my cheek.

  Suddenly, this didn’t feel so funny anymore. It kind of felt like he was really curious. I swallowed hard and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing a light kiss to his mouth. “You can trust me. I swear it.”

  Josh

  Things had turned way too serious way too fast with Hannah. One minute I was tickling her and teasing her, and the next, it was like she was asking me to have complete faith in her. Of course, I trusted her. She had kept me alive this long. And I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that I would have made it this far on my own. I would have been dead within an hour if it weren’t for her.

  But now we were on our way to my boss’s house and things were awkward again. It was probably that I was nervous. Keeping lies straight when it was just me was easy, but what if our stories were different? People would catch on fast and then it would turn into a clusterfuck. We might have to run. Maybe this was a bad idea.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Huh?” I asked, only partially hearing her.

  “Your leg is bouncing like crazy. What’s wrong?”

  I sighed. “I’m just worried I’m going to fuck something up. I’m not the best at lying.”

  She grinned. “I hadn’t noticed. What have you told them so far?”

  I cleared my throat. “Uh…the guys? Not much. Not really anything. But my boss knows that I’m running from something, but he also knows that I didn’t do anything wrong. Oh, he thinks I’m from Kentucky.”

  “Kentucky, really?”

  “Yeah, well, I also told him I was from Grant, and apparently there’s no Grant, Kentucky. Just a county.”

  “Okay, so we say you’re from Grant county.”

  “What about how we met?”

  “We met when you fixed my car after I broke down on the side of the road.”

  I frowned. “Isn’t that too close to the truth?”

  “The best way to make a lie believable is to make it close to the truth. There’s less chance for you to mess it up later.”

  “Okay, what about our first date?”

  “You bought me Chinese food and we watched TV.”

  “Wow,” I snorted. “I sound like a real charmer.”

  She grinned over at me. “I’m very low maintenance. I don’t like going out a lot.”

  I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Okay, I think I can handle this.”

  “I know you can. It’s not a big deal.”

  I nodded to myself and pulled down my boss’s driveway. This wasn’t a big deal. It’s not like everyone would gang up on us and ask us a bunch of questions. We were all just here to hang out, nothing more.

  “Hey, Cortisol!” one of the guys yelled. They all burst into laughter and Hannah walked around the car and took my hand in hers.

  “Relax, Cortisol,” she grinned. “It’ll be fine.”

  My hand felt clammy in hers. I had never actually held her hand before, not like this anyway. We had slept together since the last time I held her hand. What did this mean? Was she trying to pull off being my girlfriend or was she taking advantage of the situation? I didn’t mind fucking, but the last thing we needed was for her to start thinking that this was something more. We were on the run for Christ’s sake!

  I tried to pull my hand from hers,
but she held tight and pulled me over to all the guys.

  “Baby, why don’t you introduce me to your friends,” she smiled up at me, leaning her head against my arm.

  My eyes widened as I stared down at her. What the fuck was she doing? She never acted like this. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I tried to come up with a way out of this. She was just acting, right? But if she wasn’t, anything I said or did tonight could be used against me in the future. It was just like with the police. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. And she was the court of law.

  “Baby?”

  I shook my head, clearing my throat. “Uh, this is my boss.”

  She forced a smile and nodded slightly to my boss. “And his name is?”

  “Uh…”

  I stared at her, trying to remember what the fuck his name was. She was fucking with my head by having her hands on me like this. And when she slipped her hand around my waist, I jumped, sure that she was fucking with me on purpose.

  My boss shook his head and stepped forward, holding out his hand. “Cyrus Nicholls. People call me Cy.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Cy.”

  “And that’s Timmons with the hot blonde wrapped around him. Porky is the guy eating the sandwich like it’s gonna run away from him. And Scruffy, well, you can guess which one that is.”

  “It’s so nice to finally meet some of Josh’s friends,” she grinned. “I keep telling him that we should get together with someone, but he just wants to keep me all to himself.”

  I started to laugh, trying to go along with what she was saying, but then her hand slid to my ass and she gave a squeeze. My laugh turned into a terrified yelp and I jumped away from her.

  She gave me a quizzical look and I chuckled, running my hand along the back of my neck. This was torture. Cy looked at me funny and jerked his head toward the grill.

  “Josh, why don’t you give me a hand with these steaks.”

  “Right, yes! Good!”

  I hurried after him, glancing over my shoulder to see Hannah finger waving at me.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re so fucking jumpy. What the hell?”

  “Did you see her touching me?”

  “Yeah, she’s supposed to be your girlfriend, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, touching is part of the gig.”

  “Yeah, but…” I swallowed hard, glancing back at her talking with some of the girls. I sighed. “I fucked up. I slept with her.”

  “And?”

  He set the steaks on the grill, hardly paying attention to me.

  “And it wasn’t supposed to be anything other than sex. Now she’s touching me and holding my hand and stuff.”

  He slowly looked up at me. “Because you’re supposed to be playing a part,” he said slowly.

  “Yeah, but what if she thinks it’s more. What if she thinks….” I widened my eyes to stress my point, but I had the feeling I was just coming off as psychotic.

  He set down the grill tongs and turned a glare on me, lowering his voice. “Cortisol, you need to get something through your head. She’s all you have. Whatever the fuck is going on with the two of you, whatever you’re running from, she’s all you have. She may be all you ever have. Do you get that?”

  “I know, but-“

  “No, no buts. Either accept that she’s all you’re gonna get and deal with it, or stop fucking her. The longer you fuck, the more complicated this gets. There is no halfway on this. You’re either in or you’re out.”

  I glanced back at Hannah. She looked so natural around everyone. She was nice, not that I knew that much about her, but I did like her. I didn’t know if I could have an actual relationship with her though.

  “Let me ask you this,” I turned back to him. “Let’s say that I give this whole thing a shot. Let’s say that I keep fucking her and it turns into more. What happens when we get sick of each other? It’s not like there would be a normal breakup where we would go our separate ways. If this goes south, I still have to see her all the time. So, what the fuck do I do then?”

  He shook his head. “Is there any way you can figure out how to stop running?”

  I sighed. I wished I could. “I’ve been through every scenario possible. I can’t figure out a single fucking way to get out of this mess.”

  “Then I guess you need to ask yourself how much you want to fuck this girl. Unless you plan on bringing random women home to fuck, she’s your only option. Anyone else can never know who you are. So, make a choice, but then stand by that choice, because if you choose to stop what you have, she may not want to start up again if you change your mind. And if you do decide to keep fucking her, you’re in it for the long haul.”

  Frankly, I didn’t like either option. It’s not like I chose to date her and I wanted to see where this could go. It was all a matter of convenience and loneliness, but was that enough to keep this going?

  Hannah

  Josh was silent the whole way home. In fact, at the party, he pretty much ignored me the whole time. Truth be told, I was fine with that. I was used to being on my own. I thought we would have fun going to this party together, but honestly, Josh was just weird about everything. He didn’t know how to play the part. He kept moving away from me and getting jumpy anytime I tried to pretend to be his girlfriend. If it weren’t for the fact that all those guys already figured something was off with him, our cover would have been blown.

  “Can I talk to you about something?” he asked as we walked in the door.

  “Can it wait? I have to be at work early tomorrow.”

  “I think we need to clear the air on something.”

  Sighing, I tossed my purse down and walked into the living room, plopping down on the couch.

  “I’m not sure if you noticed, but I was a little…uncomfortable with you touching me at the party.”

  “No,” I said, feigning shock. “Of course, I noticed. Everyone at the party noticed.”

  “Yeah, about that…so, I was talking to Cy and he said that we should either decide to go forward with our…relationship or end it.”

  “Our relationship? Josh, we fuck. That’s not a relationship.”

  “I know, which is exactly what I was thinking, but then you had your hands all over me and I started thinking What if she thinks this is real? What if she wants this to be more? And the thing is, Cy pointed out that it would be hard for us to continue in this way without feelings eventually getting involved.”

  “I could see that,” I conceded. “So, you want to stop fucking?”

  He sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know what I want. I mean, the sex is good between us, but it’s not like we know each other.”

  “So, what’s your suggestion? We date?” I snorted.

  He cleared his throat. “I was thinking we could talk. You know, get to know each other better. Then we’ll know if this is a good idea or not. Who knows, it could turn out that you would get to know me and decide you don’t really like me.”

  “Or vice versa.”

  He nodded. “So, what do you think?”

  “Honestly, I think all of this is strange, but maybe that’s the smartest thing to do.”

  “Right,” he cleared his throat. “So, where do we start?”

  “You could tell me something about yourself,” I suggested.

  He nodded, his brows furrowed as he thought. “Uh…well, you know I’m a mechanic….my favorite color is blue. I love Mexican food.”

  I stared at him, waiting for something better to come along. This couldn’t be the best he was going to give me, was it? At this rate, I wouldn’t know anything more about him than I already did.

  “Fuck it,” he said, practically flying across the room. One minute he was staring at me and the next he was on top of me. His hands slid under my shirt and gripped my breasts almost painfully. It was so hot. His hot mouth trailed across my jaw until he was nibbli
ng at my ear. “Fuck the details. You know I want you.”

  I spread my legs wide and gripped his jeans, yanking down the zipper. “I want you too,” I breathed heavily. “I love your cock inside me.”

  “Yeah? What else? Tell me something else about you,” he said as his teeth clamped down on my ear lobe.

  I shoved his jeans down and then gripped his face between my hands, kissing him hard. “I wanted to be an artist when I was in college.”

  “An artist,” he said, kissing down my neck, licking across my collarbone. “Painting?”

  “Sculpting,” I panted, positioning his cock at my entrance. “Especially nudes.”

  “Nudes,” he said, sliding hard inside me. “Men or women?”

  “Men. Full frontal.”

  He groaned and pushed inside me again, fucking me hard. “From pictures or live subjects?”

  I rolled him over, flipping us off the couch in the process. “Live subjects. Nobody can get good detail from a picture.” I rose up on my knees and slammed my body down on his. He sat up and tore my shirt over my head, then yanked off my bra. His lips closed over my nipple as his arms wrapped around me.

  “What about you? Did you always want to be a mechanic?” I slid my fingers into his hair and closed my eyes as his tongue licked at my nipples.

  “Always. Love it,” he moaned around my breast. I convulsed around him, slamming down on him several times.

  “Why?”

  “I like getting my hands dirty,” he chuckled, slipping his hand around to my ass. His finger slipped into my asshole and I groaned.

  “I love your hands,” I moaned.

  I was soaking wet. I could feel my cum dripping between us, sliding all over his body as I rode him harder, chasing every orgasm I could snatch.

  “Why did you stop sculpting?” he asked, flipping me to my back as he lifted my leg and shoved himself hard inside me. Over and over, he slammed his cock inside me. I could feel the carpet burning against my skin, but I didn’t care.