Free LUST: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch Book 2) by Sienna Valentine

even, but chock full of spunk. “Easy there, love,” I told her, and instantly regretted it. Love was one of those pet names I threw around without any regard for how it might be misconstrued. It was how I referred to Hannah, and as far as she knew, it was a moniker reserved only for her. But now I’d shattered that illusion. Now she knew how meaningless the word was.
    Only it wasn’t meaningless when I said it to Hannah. I… I cared. Maybe not as much as she deserved, but… don’t we all have to start somewhere?
    “You told me to meet you here!” Tanya continued, hitting me with her purse. I flinched; might as well do something to make her feel good about herself. “You told me to wait for you, that we’d check out this little hideaway behind the mirrors and then steam them up together. Why?” She balled her hands into fists at her sides. “So I could see you with her ?!”
    I was about to respond, clumsily, when Hannah butted in. “Not a player, huh?” I looked at her over my shoulder. She was leaning against the wall, arms folded across her chest, a distance in her eyes that hadn’t been there a moment before. At the drop of a hat, she’d refortified the same wall between us that I’d been so desperately trying to tear down. My heart clenched. Goddammit…
    “It’s not like that,” I insisted, trying to find my footing between two majorly pissed off women. “Look—she’s not…” I turned to the girl in question. “You’re not my girlfriend. You know that. We’ve talked about this. Repeatedly!”
    “And that makes it okay ?” Tanya sneered. Where Hannah was cold as ice, Tanya was a ball of flame. She was shaking with fury, her beautiful face contorted with the magnitude of her indignation. “We’re not dating, or whatever, so you can just… humiliate me? With… with her ?!”
    The way she spat out the word, it was like even acknowledging Hannah’s existence was insulting. My expression hardened. I should’ve known this was going to be a problem. Tanya and I had enjoyed a “friends with benefits” relationship for months now, which wasn’t something I normally did—I didn’t want to accidentally give anyone false hope. She’d insisted that wouldn’t be an issue. She’d told me, over and over again, that I could go as I pleased. Do as I pleased. Who I pleased. But there was always a look in her eyes, a faraway sadness she did her best to cover up. And the last couple weeks, she’d made attempts to get me to commit to something other than a good time. Little things, like going shopping with her or hanging out with her and her friends. Boyfriend things.
    I had refused every time. And I’d told her why. This just wasn’t our lot. Tanya and I were never meant to be real, honest-to-God lovers.
    That didn’t excuse what I’d done just now. But it sure as hell didn’t give her any license to talk to Hannah that way, either.
    Before I could intervene, Hannah waved a hand. “Whatever,” she said, stepping around me and heading for the exit. “I’m really not in the mood to deal with your man-whore bullshit, Ash. Or your hysterical tramp.”
    Shit. She shouldn’t have said that. And I shouldn’t have let her.
    This was not deescalating the situation. This was not smoothing things over at all.
    Just as I stepped forward to try to put myself between the women, Tanya reached out and grabbed Hannah by the arm, pressing hard with her nails. “Who the fuck do you think you’re calling a tramp, bitch?”
    Hannah stopped. Just slightly, she inclined her head. Looked at Tanya’s hand on her arm. Then looked in Tanya’s eyes. “You really don’t wanna do that,” she said way too quietly. Too evenly.
    I seconded that sentiment. “Tanya, don’t…”
    “Fuck you!” Tanya replied. I wasn’t sure who she meant—me or Hannah. Probably both.
    She yanked Hannah toward her, digging those sharp nails of hers in deeper to her flesh, and I watched helplessly as Hannah went with the