Challenge (Harris Brothers, #1)

by Amy Daws

Tears slide down my temples and into my hair over the realisation that I’ve never felt this level of devotion before, both for him and from him.

the entire act is not mind-blowing. It’s life-ruining.

Then, just when I think things can’t get any worse—when I’m certain I can’t possibly feel anything more—he lies down beside me, pulls me into his arms, and softly whispers into my ear, “Thou art mine.”

INDIE LETS ME HOLD HER until she falls asleep. She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t ask for space. She doesn’t even go to the bathroom to clean up. She just curls up inside my arms, silently asking me to hold her. To be close to her. To not give her space.

I roll on my back to assess my injuries. Knee feels fine. Head feels groggy. Heart feels fucked.

In the early morning light of day, with no tears in her eyes, and no roaring desire to comfort her and make her feel special, I still want her.

Ready to lay all my shit bare, I pierce her with my eyes and say, “I want you, Indie. For more than five days. I want what I feel when I’m with you.”

“Bloody hell, I’m falling for you!” I yell.

“Indie,” I exhale, pulling my hands from her face and clutching hers to my heart. “I’m wide open on the table, bleeding all over the bloody place. Stop holding back and feel this.”

I whisper and huff out a pathetic laugh. How could I have gotten this so wrong? The one time I open myself up and allow myself to care about something more, it all implodes in my face.

THE DOOR SLAMS AND I wait for the tears to come. I wait to feel bad about what I said or did. I expect regret and remorse to consume me. I wonder when what he said will begin to bother me.

I’m charting. “I’m falling for you.” I’m setting a bone. “I’m falling for you.” I’m eating lunch. “I’m falling for you.” I’m having a conversation with Prichard. “I’m falling for you.”

Just for a moment…I let go. Guilt consumes me as I recall how I let him hold me—how I let the warmth of his body comfort me instead of terrify me. I allowed myself to feel him, skin against skin, inside of me, and it didn’t send me into a panic like I thought it should have. It felt…right.

He knew I had a plan, yet he tried to bulldoze himself right past it without a thought about what I needed. I wouldn’t be taken advantage of like that.

I turn back to him and look right up into his eyes. “No, Cam. I’m done. You’re making me feel small and silly and stupid and childish just like they did.” “Who’s they?” he snaps. “Those girls! Those girls from school I told you about in confidence because I thought you cared.

“Indie, I hurt you because I was angry. But you hurt me because you don’t care enough. One is certainly worse than the other.”

want to ask him, “what’s enough,” because I genuinely don’t know.

accepted him, rejected him, and then slapped him.

She eyes me skeptically. “Shag ‘em and bag ‘em is more my gig…But hey, you are officially deflowered, so who the hell am I to judge? Just call me your wing-woman, darling.”

She’s just retreated completely inside of herself and blocked it all out.

Is she trying to bait me? I shouldn’t have to remind her that she’s the one who told me to fuck off before.

I’m turned the fuck on by Specs and the possibility of her being jealous.

She’s fixating on this girl. I’m torn between being honest with her and telling her that she was the girl, or letting her stew with curiosity.

“So I went to hug my mum and she stopped me in my tracks like this.” She reaches across the table and grips my biceps. She looks at the physical representation like she still can’t believe it. I can’t much either.

“I bet you a million pounds I bury my parents before I hug them.” I feel like I was just shot in the face. Like a million times. Or kicked in the ribs after they’re all broken and I’ve been bleeding internally for hours.

Tears continue to slide out over and over, but I still don’t say anything. Words aren’t what she needs right now.

Her shoulders shake every once in a while and I know she’s crying. All I want to do is take away the pain.

My desperation to do this for her trumps football.

“Just go find one of your hundreds of girls at your beck and call. Or that girl you punched Tanner over. If she’s worth fighting your brother for, she’s who you should be with.” “She was you,” I growl, stepping back into her space.

His advances are becoming more and more obvious.

“He was. And do you know how I got him to not be scared?” “How?” “I had him sing a song,” I lie. I can’t very well tell him that I snogged his face off. “Do you like singing?”

suspect he does have a hairline fracture but, depending on the location, he could get by with a brace and not a full cast.

Thinking about Tower Park evokes a most unwelcome memory of how Camden held me on the dance floor as I cried the other night. How embarrassing and humiliating.

Here one minute, gone the next. No goodbye hug. No thoughtful words. No grand gestures. Just a departure. That is what Camden Harris would have turned into if I gave too much of myself.

She rears back from my attempted embrace. “Fuck. Off. Indie.” Then she stands up and storms out of the room, leaving me completely shattered in her wake.

My Momma-Bear Ninja is strong.” I smile, but her words don’t bring me comfort. They bring me jealousy. Acute, heavy, surprising jealousy.

Actually laying eyes on her is like a bolt of lightning.

But one injury and a sideways glance from a pretty doctor and Camden Harris turned into an emotional pansy.

eyes that are telling me he’ll drive the getaway car.

Okay Taylor swift

“I am thine.”

“Thou art mine.”

But realisation of what we’re doing and where we’re doing it dawns on me much too quickly. I regrettably pull back. “What did you just do, Specs? You’re going to lose your job.”

“If you walk out there and tell my brothers I needed a kiss before surgery, I’ll make you pay.”

“I think I was the one who needed the kiss. But I will say, if I’m going to lose my job over a kiss, that one was definitely worth it.”

With that, she walks out with her shoulders held high and I do nothing to conceal the Camden Harris proud-as-fuck-smirk on my face.

One public display of affection doesn’t make up for all the heartache I caused.

I think I’ve got the hang of this spooning bit, I think to myself.

“I’M NOT KIDDING, TANNER. You need to put the fear of God into the team. If anyone even makes a backhanded comment that could be remotely toward Indie, Camden Harris Fists of Fury will fly,” I bark,

Then I add, “First they’ll get your fists. Then Booker’s fists. Then my fists once you guys get back to London and I get a hold of whoever had the nerve to look at her funny.

I look at them with wide, horrified eyes. “There’s more where this is coming from, Hayden and Vi. Just you two wait ‘til my niece is born. She’s not going to have a bloke get within a mile of her without the Harrises bringing the pain!”