I wake up feeling like dog shit.
The entire night was spent tossing and turning, too aware of Story, right across the hall. Sleeping. It doesn’t feel natural or right that I spent all those hours over here when she was over there. But she’d given me a look last night—something weary and earnest—and asked if she could sleep alone.
“For just one night?”
So I disappeared behind my door and left her be, but only because she asked so politely. Maybe it’s a bad idea to let her think she has that power. That she can just put those eyes on me and say ‘please’ and get whatever she wants. For some reason, the thought of sneaking into her room and taking her sat heavy in my gut.
So I lay here. Alone. Restless. Hard.
It puts me in a foul mood from the start, too pressed for time to even jerk it in the shower. It doesn’t help that Tristian still hasn’t come home or told us what the hell is keeping him away. To top it off, his gun isn’t in his room, so I know he’s taken it with him. He’d only do that if he was on edge about something—not that he’s told us. Tristian is just like that sometimes, especially when it comes to his sisters. Always wanting to handle things himself, be the hero.
I try to be understanding about this shit, but the truth is, I can’t actually understand. When it comes to Rath and me, we just have each other and Tristian. Rath has his mom, but he’s always been distant with his actual brother, and my dad has never been Ward Cleaver. But Tristian has this completely separate sense of family—people he cares about and feels responsible for. People he has blood ties with. People more important to him than us.
Back when they were babies, I fucking hated them. We were only eleven at the time, but I knew they were ugly, wrinkly little things. Loud and needy. Always taking up his time and attention. He’d ditch us to take care of them, even though they paid people to do it. It never made sense to me. Worse was when we got older and I realized the twins were actually two little humans comprising all these fucking reasons.
They were reasons for him to leave us.
But one day, our senior year in high school, we were over at his house. It was after all that shit with Genevieve went down—after Story had left—and he might have pulled himself together and clicked that mask back into place, but Tristian was still a fucking mess about it. I wasn’t in the best place myself, knowing the room next to mine was empty all of a sudden, every trace of Story wiped away.
We’d been in his kitchen when Lizzy walked in, a phone clutched to her chest. Chin wobbling, she explained to Tristian that she couldn’t get it to work, and Izzy wanted to watch some kid show, but now the phone was broken, and their dad was going to be mad because it was still new, and I got the sense Tristian wanted them to have the phone, but their dad? Not so much.
So he’d put his big hand on her shoulder and pointed her in my direction. “Go ask Brother Killian to take a look. He’s good with those things.”
She’d presented it to me with those big, wet eyes, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning. The twins aren’t competition for Tristian’s loyalty. They’re just a new part of this thing we’ve been building since grade school.
Family.
His family, but ours, too.
I’d probably maim and kill for them.
By the time I get downstairs, Rath is already there, looking grumpy and a little hungover. I’d heard him playing into all hours, so he must be on some kind of creative binge. At least, that’s what I think.
And then Story walks in.
I freeze with my glass of orange juice halfway to my mouth, eyes taking in the outfit she’d chosen for the day. I’m used to seeing Tristian’s Sluts-R-Us wardrobe on her, and occasionally she’ll throw in something that’s clearly meant to appeal to Rath. But she never dresses for me anymore. Not since that day down in the basement.
Not until right now.
She’s wearing a pale yellow dress, the fabric soft and comfortable looking, skimming right above her knees in a gentle sway as she walks to her seat. Something that’s probably meant for summer, even though it’s getting cooler now. Her hair is pulled to the side in a loose, thick braid, locks of hair framing her face in a way that looks messy, even though girls probably spend forever getting it the perfect amount of tousled.
“Morning,” she says, perching on the edge of her chair.
I look at Rath, but his eyes are glued to his phone. When Ms. Crane walks in with Story’s Tristian-approved meal of something gross with way too much granola, I stop her. “Bring the Lady something edible. Tristian’s still out.”
Ms. Crane heaves this gigantic sigh and walks out, muttering, “…not a goddamn meal service…”
I only meet Story’s gaze for a second, but when I do, she’s giving me a small grin. That’s how we eat breakfast—the tension and animosity between her and Rath palpable. No skin off my back. Story eats sausage with syrup and hash browns, looking so goddamn cute in that dress that I think I’d probably just whip it out and jack off right here, if time permitted.
I know this thing between her and Rath is serious when he takes shotgun instead of sliding in the back with her. If there’s one thing he loves, it’s teasing her on the way to school, skating his fingertips up her bare thighs, always acting like he’s trying to get something going even though he knows damn well we don’t have time. They spend the entire drive silent and avoidant. If Tristian were here, it’d be bearable. He’d be giving Story orders for the day and telling Rath to cool it with the booze at night. But me?
I tighten my fingers around the wheel and keep my mouth shut.
Forsyth’s Joseph M. Hale New Media building gets evacuated just after class starts on account of a busted water main. There’s a good ten minutes where they have us all waiting out front, the sky above us overcast and threatening rain, before some harried professor steps out and tells us classes are cancelled for the day.
The other students are buzzing about it, acting all annoyed and inconvenienced even though we’re all secretly rejoicing over the day off. For me, this would usually mean an extra two hours spent in the gym. But when I see a flash of yellow lingering around the fringe of faux-grumpy co-eds, I realize Sweet Cherry had a class in the same building.
The idea comes to me like some dirty, forbidden thing.
She and Rath are on the outs, and Tristian isn’t here. She’s dressed for me. I organized the thing with the books, and I left her alone last night, and I let her eat a disgusting breakfast. At this exact moment, she doesn’t hate me, because somehow, I’ve pulled ahead.
And I plan to keep it.
Her face doesn’t light up when she sees me, but her eyes also don’t fill with the hardened coldness I’m used to.
Well, that’s something.
We stare at each other for a long moment, my eyes dropping to that tantalizing patch of skin above her neckline. The fabric of the dress is almost—but not quite—sheer. I can perfectly envision my fingers pushing those straps down her shoulders, the way the fabric would catch on the swell of her tits, how I’d have to slowly peel it down to reveal those pretty little nipples of her.
I raise my gaze to hers. “Want to learn how to shoot a gun?”
When her face does light up, I know I’m in trouble.
Fuck, maybe we all are.
I take her past the city, past the suburbs, farther north than I’ve been in years. It’s wilder out here, a little patch of rural fuck-all before the county limits shift over into another territory. This one is ours, though.
My dad used to take me out here, back when I was barely eleven, and then when we were a little older, Rath and Tristian, too. I remember the first time he mentioned maybe marrying a woman who also had a kid if he planned to bring her out here, too, and I remember feeling pissed off about it. Fucking ridiculous notion, my dad treating her like one of his kids instead of one of his whores.
Story spends the drive quiet and coy, but I can tell she’s excited. She keeps fidgeting with the hem of her dress, the tail of her braid, the straps over her shoulders, her bright eyes taking in the scenery as I turn down a back road.
The truck jostles with the bumps in the dirt road, rough and uneven, and from the corner of my eye I can see her tits bouncing along, perky and free beneath that fabric as she grips the roof handle. It’s about half a mile to the clearing in the trees, revealing a field of tall weeds and not much else. I park near the tree line, peering up at the sky and wondering if the weather will hold for an hour or so.
Story is already out of the truck.
Rolling my eyes, I jump out with her. If I’d known she’d get this easy for a little target practice, I could have been making headway a hell of a lot sooner. She watches silently as I reach back into the truck, hand shoved beneath the driver’s seat, and fish out the gun and some ammo. Then I reach into the back for the bottles of water I keep back here for after practice.
I jerk my head toward the field. “It’s over here.”
There’s a makeshift log shelf about fifteen yards out, a little rotted and worse for wear, but still sturdy enough to balance five bottles of water on. Once I have them all in place, I stride back to where Story’s waiting, an arm curled around her middle, hand grasping her elbow.
“They aren’t very far.” She squints into the distance, mouth pursed dubiously.
Snorting, I unload the clip with a flick of my fingers. “Let’s learn to crawl before we learn to walk.” When I’ve got the clip loaded, I slide it in. “First rule of gun safety: Never point a gun at something you aren’t looking to kill. It doesn’t matter if your finger’s not on the trigger. It doesn’t matter if the safety is on. It doesn’t matter if it not’s loaded. It doesn’t matter if god him-fucking-self comes down to say nothing bad will happen. You understand?”
Unblinkingly, she nods. “I understand.”
I hold her gaze for a moment, just to make sure she’s taking me seriously before I slide in behind her. “I didn’t bring ear protection, but it’s loud. Really fucking loud. Be prepared for it so you don’t freak out.”
Again, she nods. “Okay.”
I pull her against me, her back to my chest, and lift the gun in front of us. “You see this?” I ask, thumbing the little lever. “This is the safety. There’s no red dot, so—”
“It means the safety is on,” she guesses.
“Right. And this is the hammer. You cock it right before you shoot. Hold it like this.” I arrange her soft hands around the grip, pleased to see that she rests her finger against the trigger guard. I give it a light tap, murmuring, “That’s called trigger discipline. Never put your finger on the trigger unless you’re ready for it to discharge.” I raise the gun toward the bottles of water on the log. “Look down the sight, get a feel for it.”
I see her cheek scrunch when she closes an eye. “I can see them.”
“Good.” Reluctantly, I let go of her hand, skimming my palms up her smooth arms. Resting them on her shoulders, I continue. “It’s going to have some recoil, so you have to brace your arms and shoulders. Hips too.” I move my hands down to her waist, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t hunch. Make sure your footing is solid.”
She nods, adjusting her stance a bit. “Okay.”
I fix my eyes to the creamy patch of neck below my chin. “You think you can handle it? The loudness and the recoil?”
Her chin rises and falls. “I can handle it.”
I duck my head, brushing my lips against her ear. “Then release the safety.” Her throat bobs with a swallow, but her stance remains firm and steady as she thumbs the lever. “Cock the hammer.” Her thumb comes up and pushes it down. “Now put your finger on the trigger.” She slides her finger onto the trigger, back going tense, because she knows what the next instruction will be. “Shoot.”
The pop is loud, and this might just be a .22 cal, but the kickback is real. She flinches, but holds her stance, exhaling a slow breath and taking her finger off the trigger.
She lowers the gun. “I missed.”
I hide my grin behind her head, because she just sounds so fucking incredulous, like she was expecting to pick up a gun and be an instant sharpshooter. “Of course you missed. It was your first time. Try it again.”
Sighing, she lifts the gun, remaining still even when I lean in close, explaining, “Don’t duck behind it like that—it’s not a shield. Focus on the front sight, not the back sight. Align the top of that notch with the middle of your target.” When I feel like she’s aimed it, I instruct, “Now inhale. Exhale. Hold it…and shoot.”
She’s more prepared for the recoil this time, only her eyebrow flinching. “Missed.”
“Again.”
She gets it on her third try, the water bottle in the distance flying off the log. She yelps a laugh, but doesn’t lose her posture. “Again?”
She sounds so breezily delighted that I have to fight back my own chuckle. “Again,” I agree.
She hits the second bottle, but the third takes her two tries. “It’s sprinkling,” she says, frowning as her eyes flick up toward the sky.
“Keep your focus,” I command, giving her hips another squeeze. “You’re not always going to be in ideal conditions when you’re defending yourself.”
Nodding, she aims for the fourth bottle. That’s when I step back, letting her brace her own body, watching with heavy-lidded eyes as she effortlessly takes it out. The sprinkle has turned into a steady shower and the weight of her dress’ fabric is sitting heavier on her tits. She’s an exercise in contrasts. All that smooth, delicate skin inside that pretty little dress as she cocks the hammer of the pistol.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been harder at some point, but for the life of me, I can’t remember it.
Without asking for direction, she aims at the last bottle and buries a bullet right into the middle. Just like I taught her, she slides her finger off the trigger before thumbing the safety, turning to me with a breathless grin.
“How’d I do?”
I want to tell her she did really fucking good, but before I can deal with the conflict of giving this girl a compliment, the sky opens up and begins fucking hammering us. I get the gun out of her hand before grabbing her wrist and sprinting back to the truck. She slips halfway there, the ground soft and muddy, and almost falls.
Except I catch her.
She looks up at me and laughs in a way that’s so carefree and buoyant, for a moment it stuns me. I’m shocked back into motion at the sudden crack of lightning, hauling her to the passenger side and giving her a boost to the seat. I slam her door and get to the driver’s side, wrenching it open and flinging myself into the cab.
The inside is almost as loud as the outside, the rain beating into the roof and our harsh breaths filling the silence. I empty the chamber of the gun before bending to tuck it back beneath the floorboard under my seat.
When I rest back in my seat, I can feel her eyes on me.
“Thank you.” Her voice is so gentle that it almost gets lost in the cacophony of rain and thunder. “Not just for—I mean, thank you for last night. For letting me sleep.”
Looking at her, I drag a wrist over my mouth, catching a drop of rain before it meets my lips. It kind of seems counter-intuitive to say, ‘you’re welcome’, and it’s not like I’m going to sit here and pretend it was no problem. Instead, I respond, “Whatever,” and act like my eyes aren’t as glued to her tits as that dress is.
When I see her chest hitch with an inhale, I look up, just catching the rake of her teeth against her bottom lip. I still remember with perfect clarity the way those lips had looked around my cock a few nights ago. The way they felt on my fingers when I pushed my sticky come between them, leaving myself on her pink tongue.
As soon as our eyes meet, lightning cracks in the distance.
We meet over the distance between us in a confusing flurry of mouths and hands, my fist grabbing her hair as our lips crash together. She makes a small, desperate sound that I swallow with my own grunt, surging over the console to deepen the kiss.
I know I can be too aggressive, and I know she hates that about me, and I know that I could have her over this console and in my lap so easily that it wouldn’t even faze me. But I don’t have to.
She’s the one to climb over the distance, and if I help her along by yanking her across it, then for once, she doesn’t mind. She fucking burrows into my lap—there’s no other word for it—and then it’s all just weight and teeth and the sweet, crazed way she’s rocking into me.
What I’m getting at is this:
It’s not my fault.
There’s another crack of lightning and my hands are shaking with restraint, because that’s what it takes to shove those straps down her shoulders instead of ripping them right the fuck off. Her skin is damp and warm, and if she were sleeping, I’d take this slow, really soak in the soft give of her tits, but she’s so awake that it hurts, her teeth clashing painfully with my own.
She can blame it on the way I’m fisting her hair, lip curling up at the energy coursing through my veins. But it wouldn’t be honest. She kisses me like it’s a punishment and a reward, all wrapped up into one delve of her tongue. It doesn’t let up.
Not even when I fumble between us to get my pants unbuttoned.
She rocks into me, these small, gnarled breaths creeping from her throat, and when I frantically shove my jeans down my hips, she just bounces up to give me space.
“Knew you fucking wanted this.” I’m not proud of the way I touch her, fingers fisting the crotch of her panties. I grind my knuckles into her slick clit and revel in the groan she makes. “Tell me,” I demand.
She gives a short, distracted nod, chanting, “I want it, I want it, I want it…”
The way I jerk her panties to the side is bordering on violent, but I can’t stop it now. It takes one twist of my hips and a hard shove of her shoulders to impale her on my dick. She makes this shocked, bitten-off cry, right into the cavern of my mouth, and I capture it like an animal.
I fuck her like one, too.
Punching my hips up in short bucks, forearms pressing hard into her shoulders, I make her take me deep and hard. She responds by gasping the same air being knocked from my lungs in low, angry grunts.
“You get it now,” I growl, and there isn’t enough space between me and this steering wheel to fuck her the way I want, but I don’t think it matters. At her frantic nod, I demand, “Tell me you get it.”
There’s nothing soft here—nothing but her. Her tits and dripping cunt, the damp expanse of her skin as I drive her down onto my dick. Something about her softness just makes me want to crush it. Not out of hate or anger, but this raging impulse to use it all up before it gets snatched away.
“I understand now.” She opens her glazed eyes, answering, “I belong to you, Killian Payne.”
I barely even recognize the sound being ripped from my chest—a vicious, guttural, inhuman sound—and I know I’m hurting her. I’m pulling her hair and our noses are crushed together, and Tristian is going to dress my ass the fuck down when he sees the bruises I’m pressing into her delicate shoulders, but it’s unstoppable.
She comes with a strangled cry. I can feel it, her walls clenching around me, the rush of her slick, hot pussy trying to keep me. I push her head into my neck, teeth gnashed as I jostle her closer, arms crushing her to my chest.
I drill up into her once, twice, three more times before going rigid, filling her pussy up with my release. The whole time I’m pumping into her, I just hear her voice, over and over.
I belong to you, Killian Payne.
The urge to say something back is strange and new. I feel it in my chest, not in my head, and I guess that’s why I can’t get the words to form on my tongue, too foreign and mystifying to give shape to. She lifts her head, and our faces are so close, her breath fanning over me, that I can see every speck of color in her eyes. Brushing a piece of wet hair off her cheek, I find that I don’t even need to try. The words come unbidden, without effort or thought.
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful.”
Her breath stalls and maybe mine does, too. But even though I should take the words back, shove them deep inside and never let them see the light of day, I find I don’t want to. I’ve made her declare herself to me, give me her everything, and I’ve taken every piece for my own. But if there’s one person in the cab of the truck who owns the other, it’s her.
I belong to Story Austin.
And I’m pretty sure I always have.
