“Got anything in there for me?” Gaz asks as he nods in the direction of the grocery bag, ever the consummate prick.
“Unless you like tampons, no,” I say with a smarmy smile of my own. “Maybe you need one? To put up your ass? You seem to be in a bad mood, so I figured you were on your cycle or something.”
My brother knocks the bag from my hand and then snatches my wrist in hard, strong fingers. He yanks me close to him, leaning over me in a pathetic attempt at intimidation. Thing is, I fucked Beast who, by anyone’s estimation, is about a thousand times scarier than stupid, thickheaded Gaz.
“One day, that mouth of yours is going to get you into serious trouble, little sister.” He shoves me back before releasing me and leaving through the front door, passing Sin as he storms out. The latter follows him with eyes made up of storm clouds, gray and wary and near to bursting. There’s anger there, but it hides like lightning in a tempest.
Sin turns back to me.
“Who was it?” he asks belatedly, in a voice that’s too detached to take seriously. I ignore him as I bend down to retrieve the bag. “A guy from school?”
“Jesus,” I snort, shaking my head and shoving up to my feet. “That’s what you think of me? That I’d sleep with you and Grainger, then run off and start banging guys at school? Maybe that’s how you operate, but I’m not like that.”
The problem here is: the guys at school do nothing for me. How could they? I’m surrounded by big, beautiful men dressed in ink and leather and crowned with glorious pain. Undeveloped teenage puberty monsters don’t have the power to make me ache inside my bones, to turn my blood molten, to make me hurt so good that I start to like the feel of it.
Besides that, we have nothing in common.
Really, I have nothing in common with anyone my age. Other sixteen-year-olds spend their days fantasizing about crushes, about drivers’ licenses, about future college plans. They’ve never seen their mother ride a man’s dick in front of them, never seen their dad shoot one of his dealers in the knee, never seen their pregnant sister shot and killed.
I choke on the feelings and storm up the stairs with Sin still following along behind me.
I turn on him at the top of the stairs, my eyes threatening to burn with tears that I would rather die than shed. That night was … well, it held dark magic for me. I let myself fall into the shadows of the world, so I didn’t have to pretend there was any light left. When I did that, when I tumbled and twisted through the void, they caught me. The four of them.
It’s hard to deny that I felt something then, something akin to belonging in a way I’ve never felt before. I was a queen with four knights who were mine and mine alone. They served me. They rode their chrome stallions into battle for me.
Of course, it was all a fantasy. I know that. I knew it even then but seeing the guys’ reactions after that night is hard for me to deal with.
“Does it matter who it was?” I ask him, nearly breathless. I shouldn’t allow myself to keep hoping, but it happens anyway. Maybe I just enjoy the taste of discontentment? Say something to me, I beg in my mind. Say something stupid like ‘I wish it were me’ or ‘You’re mine, Gidge’. Instead, Sin looks away toward the wall, his left hand tight around the banister.
“It does. Because he deserves to get his ass kicked. You don’t need a baby, Gidge; you need to go to college—”
“Don’t tell me what I need,” I snap back at him, wishing I could just Sparta kick his ass down the stairs. “Leave me alone, Sin. Fuck off.” I turn away and storm toward my bedroom.
When I fling the door open, I’m surprised to find that it isn’t as empty as I thought it would be.
Beast is here.
I swallow hard and shift uncomfortably as his blue eyes lift up to find my rust-colored ones.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice even. Beast looks at me in a way that I don’t quite understand, and then rises to his feet. He moves over to stand in front of me, reaching past my trembling form to push the door closed. Then, he locks it.
“We should talk,” he drawls, and I feel sweat glistening on my forehead. Hastily, I scrub my arm across my face.
Shit.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This is pretty much the last thing I expected today.
“You want to talk now?” I query, choking on the words. It’s so hard to concentrate with his huge form taking up so much space, the smell of him—that stupid tea and books scent—wafting around the room. He adjusts his gaze back to me, and I panic, ducking past him and heading for the bathroom like I’m on a mission.
