What the hell is wrong with me?
I’m screwing some chick.
In a damn boat.
In the middle of a lake.
And yet there are only two thoughts crawling through my head.
One is this is taking way too long.
The other…
Not going there.
It’s been weeks since I’ve gotten laid. Weeks. It honestly surprised me when I realized just how long it had been. I haven’t even touched a chick since that day with Cadence and the piano in the theatre…
Hell.
Maybe I’m out of practice. Or maybe I’m not much of a sex-on-a-boat guy. Or maybe this squirming, naked girl with her mouth currently open and screaming my name isn’t doing jack for me because she’s not the squirming, naked girl I want.
The chick grabs my neck and rakes her fingers through my hair.
It feels good, but it’s fleeting and then I’m bored again. It doesn’t take long before my head is a million miles away.
I flip her over.
Maybe a different position will…
The boat rocks. She’s grunting and breathing hard, but my mind is with someone else and it’s not coming back.
Damn, this is some freaking B.S.
My body’s awake, but the rest of me might as well be sinking deep into the inky black water.
I’m tempted to throw this chick off me, but I’m not a selfish lay. I wait until she’s finished before I push her off and discard the condom.
She looks hurt when I grab my T-shirt, like maybe she wanted to cuddle or something. Ridiculous. I’ve never in my life cuddled after sex.
I zip up my pants and the sound of metal teeth snapping into place is loud on the water. Moonlight drenches my head and the stars are close enough to touch. It’s a beautiful night and yet I feel empty and miserable.
The chick gets up. The boat we’re on wobbles as she moves toward me. She flails a bit, but she keeps her balance.
My eyes slide over her. She’s totally naked, her tits bouncing and her body looking soft and inviting in the moonlight. She’s all natural, which she made sure to tell me when I first started undressing her and repeated again as if she wanted to hammer me over the head with it.
Her fingers brush against my shoulder and curl around my arm. I jerk back and her hand falls limply. She’s hurt. I don’t have to look at her this time to know that. I can tell by the way she folds her arms over her torso as if she’s trying to cover herself.
“Dutch, I didn’t expect this to mean we’re dating or anything.” Her Barbie pink lips wobble. “You don’t have to act like I’m going to cling to you now.”
“Never said you were.” I march to the wheel and start the boat.
Damn.
I should have never agreed to do this in the middle of the lake. Now I have to stick around and have a conversation.
The chick gets dressed while I focus on the water. When she comes closer, I see she’s wearing that ridiculous shimmery dress from earlier. The thing is wrapped so tightly around her legs she can’t even walk.
She does a weird little hop to me. “I’m sorry about Christa crashing the party. I never invited her.”
The boat roars. Water sprays from the motor, slicing the waves as it propels us toward land.
“But you didn’t have to step in,” the chick continues. She must really like hearing the sound of her own voice.
My eyes remain steady on the pier at the back of her property. Just a couple more minutes…
“Are you dating her?” The chick moves closer.
I grit my teeth
“Cadence.” Her tongue slides over her bottom lip. “Are you…”
“Say another word and you’re gonna have to swim back to the dock,” I growl.
She clamps her mouth shut.
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel as a vein bulges in my neck. Yeah, I’m a bastard. But I’m not going to sit around and let her bring up the very girl I spent the past hour trying to screw out of my system.
When I get to the pier, I hop off the boat, tie it up so it doesn’t float away and stalk off. The chick is still on the boat, but she has two legs. She’ll figure it out.
My car is the only one still parked outside the house. I get in and slam the door shut, releasing a deep breath through my mouth.
Well, that was a freaking bust.
Scratching that itch only confirmed what I’d dreaded—I’m more messed up in the head than I thought.
I was hoping for a different outcome when I called an Uber to take me from Cadence’s neighborhood to this one. I thought that if I could find someone to vent my frustrations in, maybe the hold Brahms seemed to have on me would disappear.
Damn waste of time.
If that disappointing performance in the boat is all I have to look forward to in the near future, then I really am screwed.
I tilt my head back, feeling just as torn up now as I did when I saw Cadence going off with Sol. Their connection is real and it’s irritating as hell.
More irritating is what it does to me. When I saw him taking her away, it was like something deep inside me was coiled and waiting. Waiting for that moment to spring.
I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing her. I couldn’t stop myself from claiming her.
She’s still got her pretty little hands on the darkest parts of me.
As much as I hate to admit it, the only time I feel anything other than numb is when I’m with Cadence. Whether it’s fighting with her or listening to her play piano—it’s only her.
It’s not going to be anyone else.
And that pisses me off.
She’s nothing but a servant. A little scholarship kid who wormed her way into Redwood and thinks she’s more than she is. How do I break her hold on me? What can I do to dig her out from under my skin?
The answer doesn’t come until Monday when I’m walking into Redwood Prep with Zane and Finn.
The crowded hallway makes a path for us. Students step back. More than three years and their eyes haven’t lost their terror. Their reverence. Their envy.
But one pair of eyes don’t dart away or glitter with adoration.
Cadence’s.
Her short skirt flares around her impossibly long legs. She’s wearing sneakers which makes her look sportier than usual.
She slams her locker shut, shooting me a look of disgust. It’s unique to me, that fiery glare. It wasn’t always that frosty, but she’s perfected her ‘tough girl’ expression in the short time she’s been at Redwood Prep.
A zip goes straight down to my pants when I see her. It’s a hell of a lot more than that chick on the boat could do for me while she was on her hands and knees that night.
Brahms whirls around. She throws her backpack over one shoulder and weaves her way in the opposite direction to get to class.
My body floods with heat as I watch her defiant shoulders and bouncing brown hair.
Yes. Yes, damn it, it’s her.
The key to getting over Cadence… is Cadence.
I see it. My fingers running down the inside of her thigh. Her lips on my neck. Her body heat scorching my skin…
Sex with random chicks isn’t going to make up for the fact that I’ve yet to get inside her tight little body. She’s stuck in my head because I have unfinished business with her.
Once I sleep with her, the magic will be gone. The mystery. The anticipation. This little game we’re playing is nothing but a tease before the main event.
And once the main event is over, the tug I feel toward her will be too.
My lips curl up.
It’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The one I’ve been searching for. And it all leads to me having some fun with her before I cut her out of my life the way I was supposed to from the start.
“She looked pissed,” Finn observes.
“Didn’t you walk her home last Friday because Christa got loose?” Zane asks, noticing the way I’m standing immobile in the middle of the hallway. “Why is she still angry at you?”
I shrug and keep walking.
My twin doesn’t drop the subject. “I thought you were with her that night.”
“I wasn’t.”
Finn smirks at me. “Was it Paris then?”
“Who?”
“The girl who threw the party Friday night.”
“Her name is Paris?” My eyes bug. That’s a simple enough name to remember.
Finn and Zane start laughing.
“Like you remember all the girls you’ve slept with,” I mutter.
Zane wipes away a tear. “I don’t, man, but you were literally at her house Friday. She was grinding on you while you were listening to Cadence play piano. I’m pretty freaking sure her name came up.”
Did it?
Zane’s right. I did have a girl rubbing all over me while Cadence was on the piano looking like my every dirty fantasy come to life. But I wasn’t paying attention to that girl as much as I was using her to hide how my body was responding to the mere sight of seeing Cadence in costume again.
I glare at Zane, feeling exposed. “Did you work on that drum solo like I told you?”
His face drops. “You’re obsessed.”
“November Bash is in a couple of weeks.” I press my pass against the scanner beside the practice room door. It turns green and admits us with a beep. “Halloween is coming up too. We’ve got gigs lined up all the way through. There’s no time to—”
“Hey, I was waiting for you.” Sol’s voice drags me out of manager-mode.
I stop short, my good mood shifting on a dime. There was a moment that night at the party when I was telling Sol to let Cadence go and he considered not listening.
I saw the glint in his eyes. The stubbornness.
And it made me wonder if I would have to turn on my own best friend.
It didn’t come to that, but the impression lingered.
I owe Sol. I don’t want to fight him, but I’m also not going to let him waltz in and mess up what I’m doing.
Cadence is mine.
Mine to torment.
Mine to own.
Mine to break.
I don’t share.
“What’s with the tension?” Zane jokes. He saunters in and hooks an arm around Sol’s neck. “We should hit another party tonight, Sol. You’re out of practice. I didn’t see you dancing once on Friday.”
“I still had fun.”
“Fun?” Finn saunters to the mini-fridge and pulls out a water bottle. “I didn’t see you having fun.”
“I had fun with Cadence,” Sol says, his eyes swinging to me.
My brothers go still.
Tension thickens in the room.
Zane lets out a nervous laugh. “You and Dutch have very different relationships with Cadence. But whatever, right? It’s bros over hos.”
No one laughs or responds.
Sol’s eyes remain trained on me.
I pick up my guitar and strum a chord. “Let’s get started.”
Zane and Finn exchange a look. My brothers remain where they are, not bothering to advance on their instruments.
Irritated, I snap around. “What’s the holdup?”
“Are you going to pretend the party never happened?” Sol asks pointedly.
“Exactly what happened at the party?” I tip my chin up so he can see how much I don’t care for this line of discussion.
“I offered to take Cadence home after Christa went ballistic. Then you threw her over your shoulder like she was the animal that you’d hunted for dinner.” Sol’s expression turns firm. “What’s going on between you and Cadence?”
“Why does it matter to you?” I fire back.
My phone rings, cutting into the tense moment. Giving Sol a warning glare, I answer without checking.
“What?”
“Hi, is this Dutch?”
A voice that sounds unfamiliar and girly fills my ears.
Who the hell is this?
“You got the wrong number,” I growl.
I’m about to hang up when the voice says, “Wait. Wait. I’m Cadence’s sister Vi.”
That gives me pause. I remember Cadence’s little sister from the homecoming dance. She was cute—small, brown hair, big smile. A hell of a lot more cheerful than Cadence.
“You gave me your number that night at the dance and said we could collab on one of my makeup tutorial videos,” Vi says in a rush.
Someone in the background laughs and I realize that she has me on speaker.
I straighten my shoulders. “Yeah, I remember you. How’s it going, Vi?”
The moment my brothers hear my tone softening, their eyes widen and they give me curious looks.
“Do you think we actually believe that?” someone in the background snaps.
“Stop wasting our time.”
“She’s lying.”
“I’m not lying,” Vi defends. “Dutch Cross walked my sister home last Friday. My sister plays in his band sometimes.”
“How do we know that this is Dutch Cross?”
“He’s right here on the phone!” Vi shrieks.
“This must be a trick.”
“I bet he’s some guy she paid to act like Dutch Cross.”
“No, he isn’t,” Vi argues.
There’s a sound of a scuffle and then Vi starts groaning in pain.
“Vi?” I grip the phone tighter.
A moment later, the call shuts off.
She’s gone.
