EMMETT (The Corbin Brothers Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

drunk, not like the others were so prone to do. It was impossible to do a good job working the ranch with a hangover, even if it rarely stopped anyone else from trying. It just wasn’t what I was about.
    What I craved tonight was some kind of company.
    I didn’t go out seeking companionship. I just didn’t want to be in the trailer, alone again. I thought it would be better to be away from the tumult of the house, Toby underfoot, everyone coming and going. But all it left me with were my thoughts — my anger at my brothers, at the reality that they would never take anything I said seriously. Hunter and Avery already had what they wanted. Tucker and Chance were doing just fine, too. Why, then, was I the one who had to suffer all the time? I did the most work out of anyone, and the best work, if we were being completely honest, but that didn’t mean a single damn thing to any of them.
    When were they going to finally listen? What was it going to take for my ideas for the ranch to get an opportunity like everyone else’s?
    I didn’t know I’d been looking for Peyton Crow until I saw her at the table she always picked at the bar. I’d only had a drink and a half, but she looked like something I’d be willing to drink all night.
    It felt strange to think of her that way, even if it was the way she preferred to interact with men. She didn’t go to the bar for companionship or for fun or even just for a drink. She went there to work. It was common knowledge.
    She was dressed fairly casually tonight, at least by her standards. A low-cut top revealed the swell of her breasts, the dark line marking her cleavage even more pronounced in the shadow of the corner where she waited. A long silver chain traveled down between those sacred mounds, glinting against the light cinnamon of her skin, but if anything was on the end of it, I couldn’t tell. No one could — except, perhaps, for those who could afford to figure it out.
    Though her shirt was white and simple, it made her look coolly elegant, her face illuminated by the display of her phone, her supple thumb dragging along the surface. Her dark eyes flicked upward from time to time, gauging the traffic in and out of the door, exchanging lingering stares at men gaping and laughing about her, never once breaking her emotionless facade.
    She didn’t look a thing like her father.
    How many men had been with her? No one could tell. That was how she made her living. But how many men wanted to be with her — to caress that dark length of hair falling down her back, to cup her shapely ass through her jeans, to draw those long legs around their waists and pretend she was theirs, if only for a night?
    Every man in that bar had to have thought of it. Hell, I was thinking about it.
    I was a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them. I’d have been lying if I didn’t admit to myself that, walking over to that table in the corner, I didn’t wish I could toss a wad of money down in front of her and take her out of that bar for an hour or so. I’d seen it done before, Peyton Crow sidling back in, ignoring the titters and catcalls as she reclaimed her place at her table again, paging through her phone, glancing around, waiting for the next transaction. No one ever sat at that table except for her. No one dared.
    I set my shoulders and did my best to ignore the gossip I was sure was raging around me, wondering if news would make it back to the ranch that I’d approached Peyton Crow at the bar. What would any of my brothers have to say to that? What if one of them had already discovered what was on the end of that long silver chain, or what those legs felt like clenched around their rib cages? Jesus. What was I even considering here?
    I tried to rid myself of every impure thought as Peyton ever so slowly looked up from her phone, her eyes crawling up my thighs, lingering over my crotch, considering my waist and torso, and finally meeting my eyes in a gaze so searing I had to look