“Playing through?” I asked, trying to keep my face serious and failing miserably. Josh and I burst out laughing again.
Sam’s mouth dropped open. “I would almost think this was funny if I didn’t just catch your little sister in a room down the hall with Tyler Rozly.”
“What? April is here? How the hell did she get here? She’s underage!” Lame, but it was the only thought I could get out.
“She’s naked, Ember, and those boys have a camera.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Oh, God.” Everything in my head shut down for a millisecond. Those boys could have naked pictures of my sister. She was only seventeen. Seventeen with naked pictures. If they got posted on the Internet she’d never escape them.
“Sam, give us a sec.” Josh pulled his shirt over his head as she nodded and shut the door.
April didn’t have time for me to freak out. I pulled my bra up and tugged the neckline of my dress to where it belonged. Untangling from the covers, my heels fell to the floor, and I slid my dress down from my waist. “Where are my panties?” I panicked, throwing back the covers.
Josh held up the purple pair, and kneeled down so I could step into them. He slipped them over my thighs, and though I knew sex wasn’t on his mind, it was still pretty damn hot when he met my eyes.
“You okay?” I couldn’t believe I’d left him in this situation again.
He nodded. “Let’s help your sister.”
I rearranged my dress again, then flung open the door.
Sam leaned back against the wall. “This way.” I secured loose pieces of my hair as I followed her down the hall. Three, no, four doors down, she pounded on the door. “Open up!”
“Go away!” a gruff voice answered.
“April?” I called into the door, trying the knob anyway. It was locked. Too bad they hadn’t locked it in the first place. Then again, Josh and I hadn’t, either. I shoved the handle again, like my sheer determination to get my sister out of there would magically open the damn thing. “April!” I shouted, pounding on the door.
“Get the hell out of here!” The guy yelled again. I didn’t know Tyler Rozly, but if he had my sister in that room, he was on my shit list.
A pair of hands gently pushed me aside. Josh was here. He pounded once on the door. “Tyler, open the door now.”
“Hell no!” The giggle that accompanied the declaration was enough to tell me April was in there.
“Tyler, it’s Walker, and if you don’t open this goddamned door in twenty seconds, I will get your ass thrown out. Now. She’s a minor.” The veins in his neck pulsed.
A muffled curse made its way through the door, and I mentally counted each of the seconds Josh threatened Tyler with. In eighteen seconds, the lock clicked, and the door swung open to reveal a shirtless guy I assumed was Tyler. “What the hell are you cock-blocking me for, Walker?”
I slid between Tyler and the doorframe. “April?”
My sister sat up in the bed, clutching the sheet to her bare top. “Ember?”
All of my rage toward April turned on Tyler. “That’s my little sister!”
Tyler crossed his arms, but standing next to Josh he couldn’t pull off intimidating. Josh dwarfed him. “She didn’t seem too ‘little’ to me.”
Josh stepped in front of me before I could get my hand across Tyler’s smirking face. Asshole! “She’s seventeen, dude. Last time I checked, you’re twenty-one, which makes her jailbait.”
Tyler paled. “No, you’re wrong. She looked young so I asked to see her UCCS ID when she came in. Her name was on the list and everything.”
April sat silent in the bed, giving me a guilty look I knew all too well.
“You took my ID.”
“It’s not like you needed it.” She went from contrite to accusatory in a breath.
“You’re December?” Tyler blanched, all of his earlier bravado discarded on the floor with April’s underwear. Shit. Her underwear was on the floor!
“Apparently. And you’re an asshole for sleeping with my seventeen-year-old sister.” Before I could launch any further, the foghorn sounded down the hall. I’d almost forgotten. “Josh?”
He nodded. “I got this.” He slid past Sam and took off.
April still hadn’t moved. “Put. Your. Clothes. On.” I seethed on each word. She grimaced like she was going to argue with me. “What? Do you want more naked pictures?”
“Naked pictures?”
My fingernails bit into my palms. “Those guys had a camera!”
That got her moving.
Tyler slid down the back of his door, defeated. I couldn’t blame him, not really. He’d questioned her, she’d given him my ID. She’d duped him.
“Hell no, Walker! The pics are ours!” The shouts came amid pounding feet in the hallway.
I stuck my head out of the door and saw the golf-clad freshmen racing around the banister and down the center steps. They were going to get away with those pictures. Josh slid around the corner, took one look at the distance, threw his legs over the banister, and jumped. He landed right in front of the freshmen.
My breath caught and couldn’t seem to catch back up.
“Give me the fucking camera.” He snatched it away, ripped the SD card out of the side, and threw it back at them before they could sputter another protest. “If I ever catch you taking pictures of any females without their consent again, you won’t have to worry about making it as a brother. You won’t have to worry about taking another breath. No arguing. No second chances. Understood?”