“Lennon.”
It feels like I’m trapped underwater, unable to hear clearly. Arms wrap around me, pulling me against a warm, hard surface. I wake up with the tail end of my nightmare still ringing in my ears. Juliette. Juliette, no. We should tell someone.
I suck in an anxious breath, opening my eyes. No, no, no. My breaths are short and choppy, and my head is still clogged up with what little I remember of that night. Juliette and I had made a pact—we’d never speak again of what had happened. Juliette took our secret to her grave, leaving me with the burden of living out my life, having made her that promise. And worse, I was never certain what’d transpired because there’s a chunk of that night missing from my memory.
“You okay?” Duke pulls me close, his strong arms banding around me. I draw in an unsteady breath, recognizing that it’s his warm chest that I’ve been burrowing myself into.
“Um.” I shift, putting one hand to my forehead. “Just groggy from multiple afternoon naps, I think. What time is it?”
Duke shifts up onto his elbow, peering over me toward his nightstand. “Almost eight. Jeez.” He smiles down at me. “You wore me the fuck out.”
“Ditto, I think.”
He untangles himself from me, then playfully swats my ass. “Be right back.”
I haven’t moved a millimeter when he returns. Aside from the bullshit of what’d come to me in my dream, I feel mostly relaxed, whether it’s from sleep or sex, I don’t know. My entire body is pliant, like I’ve turned into clay and can be molded. This is proven when Duke rolls me to my back and opens my legs. I push all the ache of my memories away in favor of being in the here and now with him.
He kneels between my legs, taking in the swollen pink flesh. My assumption is he’s going to clean me up a bit with the washcloth in his hand, which is a totally sweet gesture … but then he sets it aside in favor of running a finger down my slit.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited to watch my cum drip out of your thoroughly fucked pussy?” My heart thuds in my chest because I’m picking up on emotion in his voice. I stare at him, wondering what brought this on. We’ve had sex before. I chew on the inside of my lip, my brow furrowing. But never just the two of us, not really. I have a feeling this thing that we’ve done together has been an eye-opener for him. I can practically see his mind going a million miles a minute when I search his eyes.
I slowly shake my head. “No. Um. How long?” I don’t know what he’s getting at. Since he kissed me down in the basement, maybe? I swallow, uncertainty rising within me.
His eyes are locked on my pussy, and a moment later his mouth is back between my legs. He groans, swiping his tongue over my hypersensitive flesh, and sucks on my clit so hard. The animalistic noises coming from deep within his chest have my back arching from the bed. “Oh, fuck.” My hands grip his hair, and I tug hard as his tongue laps up every trace of us, licking into my cunt and moaning. The sheer naughty factor of him eating me out after he’s come inside me sends me careening over the edge one last time with a confused shout. “Duke!” I wasn’t expecting it, but my body convulses as waves of pleasure ebb and flow over me. I didn’t even know I was capable of this many orgasms in such a short span of time. When my breathing finally regulates, I can do nothing but stare at him.
He looks away, picking up the washcloth and carefully wiping me clean. Just when I think he’s forgotten he asked me a question that I didn’t know the answer to, he rasps out, “I’ve wanted to know what it’d be like probably as long as you’ve been Stella Bella to me. Just didn’t want to admit it.”
My lips part, confusion rushing in, but he puts his finger to them, then scrambles from the bed. He snatches his boxer briefs from the floor, slips into them, then heads to his dresser. He pokes around, finally pulling out a T-shirt. He looks at it, nodding to himself before he brings it to me. His voice still rough, he murmurs, “Put this on.”
Giving him a curious look, I take it from him and shrug into it as I get up from the bed. The shirt’s like a dress on me.
“I wanna talk to you about something.” A line mars the center of his forehead as he frowns to himself. “Show you something. Sort of.” He runs an impatient hand through his hair—but the impatience has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. He releases an audible sigh, holding out his hand to me.
He opens the door, glancing to the right toward the stairs, but no one is there. I have no clue what he’s doing or thinking. Tugging me across the hall with him, he lets us into Mason’s room. “Hey, man.” He pauses only briefly, acknowledging that Mason is present, before bringing me in behind him and closing the door.
“Hey.” Mason’s brow furrows, taking in the state of the two of us, Duke in his underwear and me in his oversize shirt and nothing else—not that anyone would know unless they peeked. After giving us a once over, Mason’s scrunched brow gives a I-know-what-you’ve-been-up-to wriggle. His eyes twinkle. “Mi casa es tu casa. You know that, D. Everything okay?”
I give Mase a quick shrug because I don’t have a clue what’s happening.
Duke heads to the balcony, throwing an apologetic wince over his shoulder. “Sorry, man, I didn’t know if you were here. Just need to talk to Lennon outside for a sec. Need to show her something.”
If Mason is concerned, he doesn’t show it, turning around and flopping unceremoniously onto his bed. “No problem. I was just scrolling social media.” He goes right back to whatever he was doing on his phone, though the concentration on his face as he begins to read is a little off. I don’t have time to think about it now, but I’ll have to ask later if something’s going on. Duke isn’t the only one behaving strangely, that’s for fucking sure. They’re both making me anxious.
Duke and I step out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind us. He leads me over to the railing, and for a moment, everything seems normal. We stand side by side, looking out over the pool and yard. The sun has set, but it’s not quite full-dark, and the twinkle lights haven’t flipped on yet. I let out an unsteady breath and glance at him out of my peripheral vision. He looks … nervous. I wet my lips and turn my head to face him. “What are we doing out here, Duke?”
Clearing his throat roughly, he pivots, looking into my eyes. “When I was younger, I dealt with my parents fighting a lot. Then there was a mess with the divorce. I never wanted to be in the house.” He takes a deep breath. “So, I’d go outside and lie in the grass. Stare at the stars for hours. It made me feel better somehow.” He shrugs, his gaze casting upward as one by one, stars begin to twinkle to life.
There’s a slight breeze in the air, and it drifts past my bare legs, making me shiver despite the Georgia heat. I take a step closer to him, then run my hand up his bicep. “Okay.” I cock my head to the side, trying to figure out where he’s going with this.
“After a while, I stopped doing it. I don’t remember if I thought it was childish or if I just didn’t need the escape as much.” His voice hitches, and he runs a hand through his hair as a faint blush creeps up his neck. “B-but then Juliette died.” He pauses, and in the following seconds, our eyes connect. I can see clearly that he’s reliving every moment of grief after she was gone. Disbelief. Heartbreak. Rage.
My heart cries right along with his, and I nod my understanding, unable for a moment to come up with the right words. I press my lips together tightly in an attempt to control their wobble. “That must have been very difficult for you to go through. Not something you ever want to accept. To lose someone at all, much less like that.” Her death had rocked me hard, too. And I worry—because she and I didn’t talk much after that awful night.
He gestures upward. “I’ve always lost myself in the stars when I needed an escape.” Clearing his throat, he pulls me into his side. “After she was gone, I never expected to see you again.”
My brow arches. “Even though our parents got married?”
Duke gives me a funny look. “Didn’t know that was going to happen at the time. Certainly never thought it would last. I’ll be honest, I don’t know why or how they’re still together. I definitely made some assumptions about both you and Nikki, but we can talk about that some other time.” He heaves out a sigh. “Then, what was it, a year later? There you were. In my own damn house when I came home for the holidays during my freshman year at KU.”
“Is that why I used to see you roaming around outside at night? You were looking at the stars again?”
He inclines his head, his nod almost imperceptible. “Yes, Stella Bella. You were the brightest of them—the beautiful star who stole my attention.”
My lips part. Stella. Star. Oh, fuck. I’m so stupid. Blood rushes to my face, making it hot. My hands go clammy. Is he saying he—?
“I was in complete denial, lying to myself. I wanted you fucking bad. And I felt so fucking guilty about it.” He answers my question without me ever having to ask. Rubbing a hand over his stubbled cheek, he rips his gaze from mine, his jaw tightening. “It felt like a betrayal to Juliette’s memory. I let you think the issue was that I didn’t like you and your mom joining the family … kinda fucking let myself think it, too. Especially with the whole stepsister thing buzzing at the back of my head. I told myself over and over again that I didn’t want you. I let myself do and say things to you that I never should have. I’m so fucking sorry.” His face contorts with something that looks a whole lot like regret.
But what is it that he’s regretting, exactly? What he’s let me believe all these years? Being with me now? Or every damn bit of it. I just let him in. All the way in. And now he drops this bomb on me. For what purpose? It’s tearing up my heart.
With my lip full-on trembling and my eyes glassy, I blink. Then I blink again, trying to hold back a rush of tears. “We aren’t siblings.” I let out a stuttered, ragged breath. “But you let me feel like shit because you felt guilty. So you were awful to me. I thought you were making fun of me every time you called me Stella.” I feel sick with this revelation. All that time, he’d looked at me, and I’d thought he despised me. It’d been an act. “Y-you let me think I was repulsive to you. Because of who I was and where I’d come from. It was humiliating. Every family dinner where you wouldn’t look at me. Every time your father made you do something for me. Every time you rolled your eyes and turned your back on me.”
All that time. He wanted me.
Duke reaches for me, but I put up my hands. “Worse, you let yourself keep right on believing it, too, even once I was here in front of your face.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he works a hard swallow. “I needed you to know why I called you Stella Bella. It didn’t seem right to keep it from you, to have you continue to think I was using it as a put down. I never meant it like that.”
I bite down on my lip and take an unsteady step away from him.
Anguish spreads across his features at my retreat. “Fuck!” He sucks in a sharp breath. “It wasn’t my intention to hurt you. Not then, not now. That’s not what was in my head when I brought you out here. I wanted to be able to call you Stella because it means something to me.” He covers his face with his hands, but not before I catch the way his eyes crash shut. His chest heaves.
I shake my head, closing my eyes for a moment, as well, to give me a second to think. When I finally open them, his blue eyes stare at me, an unspoken plea in them. “You may not have intended it that way, but sometimes the truth actually does hurt. I need time to process how you could have treated me the way you did if you actually had a thing for me.”
He swallows hard, then brings a hand up, shakily cupping my cheek. “Are you mad?”
Am I mad? I glance down. Yes, I’m fucking mad. My hands tremble as I push away from him. “I’m hurt and confused and—yes! A little mad!” My voice has gotten louder, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Mase sit up and pay attention. “Ignoring me when I lived under your dad’s roof was one thing”—a rogue tear slips from the corner of my eye and I hastily swipe it away—“but why you had to come at me so hard when I got here instead of just admitting how you felt—to me and yourself—I don’t get.” I wet my lips, jerking my thumb toward the door. “Duke, I’m gonna need a minute. But thanks for clearing up the nickname. That was helpful.”
“I never meant any harm by it.”
I rear back, staring at him like he’s sprouted another head—and one that has lies falling from its lips, at that. “I don’t believe that. It was a way for you to lash out at me because you felt guilty about betraying your girlfriend’s memory. You figured it’d make me feel bad about working at Stella’s. It’d be your dirty little secret that you were using it in an entirely different way. That you had a hard-on for me that you were in denial about.” I shake my head, unable to look at him right now. Pain lances through me as I walk away, letting myself back into Mason’s room.
I storm past him on the bed, with no real sense of where I’m going.
“Hold up! Kin!” Before I can get to the door, he’s on me, gripping my shoulders and pulling me to a stop. Turning around, tears spill down my cheeks. His eyes widen. “Fuck. What’s going on?”
My breath comes in sputters and jerks. “A-ask Duke. I c-can’t right now.” My gaze shifts to the balcony where Duke hasn’t even bothered to turn around. He’s staring off into the night. At his fucking stars. “I’m sorry. I need some space.” I shrug away from Mason and hurry out the door.
The second I close it behind me, I come to a dead stop in the middle of the hallway. My heart sinks. I don’t want to be with Duke right now. Can’t stay with Mase. Refuse to set foot back in my own room. My eyes shift to the room across from mine, then to the door at the end of the hall, leading up to Mase’s sanctuary. Bear’s room or the attic. Bear’s room or the attic.
In the end, my choice is made simply because I don’t want Mason to come looking for me after he’s spoken to Duke. And I know he won’t bother Bear right now.
I knock lightly on Bear’s door and, hearing a slight grunt that puts a half smile on my face despite the situation, I let myself in. Bear’s sprawled across his bed on his back, one arm thrown across his eyes, the other tight to his side, hand resting on his stomach. There’s a book lying next to him that he’d obviously been trying to read and given up on.
Climbing into the bed with him, I curl up at his side. He mumbles a bit, then peeks down at me from under his forearm. “Lennon?”
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m sorry to bug you. I just needed a place to rest.”
Even with his face half-covered, I can tell he’s cautiously wondering what’s up.
I run my hand over the hair on his chest and sigh deeply. “I’ll be fine. Just need time to think things through.”
“You sure?” he grunts as he shifts to put his arm around me.
I nod. “I’ll let you know if I want to talk about it. What’s going on with the arm?”
“Doctor tomorrow. Couple hours away, so it won’t be anyone under my dad’s influence. Duke’s taking me.”
“I think it’s a good thing, Gid.” And it’ll give me some room to breathe because Duke will be with him. Absentmindedly, I trace patterns on his chest with my fingertips.
“Yeah. It’s been rough, but …” He lets out a deep sigh. “Coach says since I’ve been sick for so long, I won’t play this weekend anyway.”
“Shit.” I pull a face, even though he’s not looking.
“Yeah.” He stares at the ceiling. “It sucks. Not only is he right to bench me since I haven’t practiced and—as far as he knows—I’m weak from my fake illness, but my arm could use the time off. Depending on what this doctor says tomorrow … well, I may or may not end up talking to the team doc about it. I haven’t decided.” I physically feel the deep breath he takes, hating that he’s having to make these kinds of decisions, but proud of him all the same.
“And that’s okay. By the time that happens, the meds will be out of your system, right?”
“Yeah. It’s like four days or so, usually, unless they’re taking hair samples, but I’ve never heard of them doing that.”
I smile, pressing a kiss over his pec. “Well, whatever the doctor says, it’s going to work out. Your team needs you to be healthy to play effectively.” I connect my gaze to his, working a hard swallow as thoughts of how he’d denied my feelings the other night swarm inside my head. Be brave, Lennon. It was the meds talking. The pain. It wasn’t the Bear you’ve come to know and love. “And I need my Gideon back.”
Bear shifts again, rolling to his side so we’re face to face. He lets out a heavy breath before he skims his lips over my cheek. His gaze roams, eyes full of emotion studying me. “I’m sorry for the way I was with you the other night. I hurt you, and that’s the last thing I ever want to do. I fucking love you, Lennon. I don’t want you to ever question that.”
