I expected Everett to say no to me helping plan our next move. Of course I did, because he’s infuriating, overprotective, and just about the most pig-headed person I’ve ever met, only beaten by Storm. The thing is, he doesn’t have a say in the matter, and that’s all I can think about the whole way through my shower as he hovers by the door.
Every few seconds his shadow moves past the open door, which would have been closed if he hadn’t have barked orders at me that he wanted me in his sights at all times. If he wasn’t being such a dick, I would almost think it’s cute. But he is, so I don’t.
I take a long time washing my hair, shaving my legs, washing away the day from hell. The longer Everett has to stew about what I said, the closer his resolve will be to snapping. He may know me like the back of his hand, but he forgets that I know him just as well. I may not know what he’s been doing for the last eight years, or what he does to make him think he’s such a dangerous predator, but I know his soul.
When I finally shut the water off and wrap myself in a towel, I think about putting my robe on, but then I decide against it. If he wants to play a game, he better be ready to lose. I soak up some of the water from my hair before discarding the second towel and making my way back into my bedroom without sparing him so much as a look.
The towel I’ve wrapped around myself barely covers my ass, and so much as leaning forward will expose it to him, so naturally that’s the first thing I do as I approach my drawers. I’m not looking for anything in particular, in fact, I have no intention of getting dressed any time soon, but just knowing he’s staring at me, and that it’s torturing him is enough to have me opening every drawer and coming out empty-handed each time.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Everett finally asks when I move to my bedside table and open the drawer there. The contents are limited to my Kindle, a vibrator, and some lip balm, so I close it before answering.
“I’m sorry?”
“What. Are. You. Doing?” He takes heavy steps toward me, prowling across the room like a man on a mission.
“Oh, I’m looking for something.” I shrug, moving both hands to the knot in the front of my towel.
I turn away from him and back to the drawer, because I’ve never had a very good poker face and the moment he figures out I’m taunting him is the moment he’s going to snap… why did I turn away again? Don’t I want him to snap? To take me even though he shouldn’t.
“What are you looking for?” he asks.
I stop what I’m doing and think for a minute. Fuck. I should have actually had something I was looking for in the eventuality that he would ask. “My vibrator,” I tell him noncommittally. I’m quite literally poking the bear and hoping like hell he’s going to bite.
There’s nothing but silence for so long I almost look over my shoulder to make sure he’s still there, but then I feel him. His heat only a breath away from my bare back, the anger vibrating from his body only making the fire between my thighs rage hotter. I bend forward again and open the drawer and pull out the small pink bullet vibe I take whenever I spend a night away from home in case the mood strikes me. Luckily when I stayed here the weekend before my parents died, I left in a hurry and completely forgot to pack it. It’s been the last thing on my mind since I’ve been here, but right now I can’t think of anything else.
“What do you think you’re doing with that, little dove?” he growls, the question so low and deep it almost makes me drop it. His breath whispers across my back and an involuntary shiver makes its way across my skin.
“Thought I might do a little self-care.” I smirk to myself, barely able to keep a straight face. I want to get a reaction out of him, I want him to snap and take me the way he wants to, the way he’s denying himself.
A steel bar of a forearm wraps around my waist and tugs me back to him until I collide with solid muscle. His body is hot and hard against my back, and the towel I’m wearing does nothing to protect me from the burn.
“You’re playing with fire, little dove.”
I close my eyes for a moment to steady myself, his touch sends me to the edge of my consciousness until I’m teetering on the precipice like a tightrope. Every rational thought disappears, and all that’s left is Everett.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Before I can take another breath, he’s turned me to face the bed and pushed me face first into the plush mattress. His weight follows closely, and all I can feel is his heat and hardness against my back.
“You know exactly what I mean, Wynter,” he drawls right before his teeth clamp down on my shoulder.
I hiss out a breath, the pleasure and pain mingling together and making it hard to conjure a response. With anyone else I would be able to think clearly even as they play my body, but not him. Everett has always been able to render me speechless, even when we were still kids and had no idea of the attraction growing between us.
“The other night I told you your orgasms belong to me. You don’t get any pleasure, unless I say so, and I know for a fact I made myself very fucking clear.” Another bite right next to the last once, except this one stings more and for a moment I wonder if he’s broken the skin. His tongue laps at the sore spot, his lips brushing over the battered flesh sensitive from his assault. “So I’m certain you weren’t intending to get yourself off right in front of me, were you, little dove?”
Goose bumps make their way across every bare piece of skin and I barely withhold the moan teetering at the edge of my throat. Fuck. When he talks like this I want him to take me, I want him to do every dirty, fucked-up thing he wants to my body, and I’ll lie here and take every bit of it. But that doesn’t detract from the fact he thinks I’m too fragile to include in things that certainly involve me. That’s the problem with men in families like mine, they always see women as weak. We’re the lesser species, and that’s just the way it’s always been. There are positives to their reasoning. They think we’re so precious that putting us in danger is for the detriment of the family itself. We’re the ones that hold everything together, we’re the ones they come home to at night and forget about whatever horrors the day held.
But that’s not how it is anymore. Or at least it shouldn’t be. I’m just as capable of running both sides of this family as Storm is. I’ve trained for it, and while I haven’t been as involved in the darker sides of our family’s legacy, I have studied it. I know every detail about every man that works for us, right down to the runners on the corners. I know the ins and outs of every single facet of Frost Industries, and that’s what they seem to forget.
“That’s exactly what I was intending to do,” I say as steadily as I can manage.
The confession is a lie, but I’m hoping he won’t know without being able to see my face. It’s always been easier to lie to him without having to look him in the eye when I do it. That’s how I avoided telling him about Steve Dobbins who tried to touch me junior year. Everett was in college at the time, but we spoke every day, just the way best friends do. If my brothers didn’t find out and tell him I would have been free and clear on that one. I wiggle beneath him, testing just how much room I have to move, and I’m not disappointed when I find he has me pinned completely.
“I mean, you did basically just tell me that you’re not going to punish me because I can’t handle it, so really, what possible consequences could there be for a little self-care?” I smile to myself. It’s been too long since I could push him like this. Before it was innocent, I just liked to see the possessive, protective streak flash through his eyes, but now it’s more. I want him to unleash the monster he holds at bay.
