She holds me to her, and I think I register kisses on my hair, but the world spins too fast for me to be sure.
The vibrator still buzzes inside of us.
“Again,” she tells me, taking hold of my ass.
I look up, smiling before I kiss her lips.
“In the bed,” I tell her. “You on top. Fucking me backward.”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
I want to see her back move, her hair bouncing across her skin. And her ass.
I pull myself off the toy, wincing at the ache I didn’t feel a moment ago. I stand up, my legs wobbly, and she pulls the other end out of her. I take her hand and help her up.
“You okay?” she asks.
I think so. “Yes.”
Except none of this is leaving my system. I simply keep wanting more.
She holds one end of the toy under the spray, and I see the water turn a little pink from my blood.
I feel a blush cross my cheek and a smile begging to get out at the reminder of what she did to me.
How I can’t go back now.
Then, she turns it over and washes the other end.
Again, more blood.
I shoot my eyes up to her, but she’s not looking at me.
Wait…
“You never did that with anyone before?” I gape at her.
“No,” she says quietly, still not meeting my eyes.
But I thought that…
My mouth falls open, and I want to speak, but I don’t know what to say. There are too many thoughts.
It was her first time, too.
I grab her by the arm, turn her to me, and I hear the toy drop to the floor as I cover her mouth with mine.
I can never go back now.
“YOU CAN BORROW something from me,” I tell her.
She backs out of my room, the house still dark as only the faint hint of light pierces the clouds outside.
“I gotta brush my teeth and get my books.” She kisses me, both of us walking and holding each other. “And charge my phone and do my math homework before class and…”
I cover her lips, silencing her. She pulls away, smiling and laughing and looking playful as we jog down the stairs, but I’m not smiling. Everything hurts, and I don’t mean my body.
I’m falling. I hate seeing her leave, even though we’ll see each other in a couple of hours.
But I hold back as we walk past the living room to the front door. I don’t grab her again, even though my arms are screaming.
God, I got pathetic.
She stops, looking left, and I follow her gaze. Macon sits in the chair on the other side of the kitchen bar, his long legs in jeans, but he doesn’t wear a shirt, and his hair is mussed. His head rests in his hand as a stream of smoke drifts to the ceiling from the cigarette between his fingers.
He stares at us.
“Good morning,” she says.
I shoot a glance at her, seeing her approach him, and I try to stop her. “No, don’t.”
But she ignores me, and I wince like I’m bracing myself for a car wreck about to happen.
“I’m…uh,” Clay stammers, breathing hard as she stares at my oldest brother. “Um… About the…”
He blows out smoke, his eyebrows narrowed, and I’m caught between being amused at seeing Clay nervous, and being scared because no conversation between these two will end well. Macon is an ass.
Her mouth opens and closes, Macon eating her for breakfast without moving a muscle, and then she exhales and turns to me.
“Yeah, fuck this,” she says, kissing my lips once. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
I smile tightly and nod. Yeah, I tried to tell you. “Bye.”
Clay leaves, and I lock the door behind her, turning and meeting my brother’s gaze. “She was just trying to apologize for being in your room during Night Tide.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I give up. There’s no talking to him. I head for the stairs.
“Olivia?” he calls.
I stop, not in the mood.
I enter the living room again. “We’re not supposed to smoke in the house.”
His rule.
He drops the butt into a leftover beer bottle, the little sizzle of the embers extinguishing filling the silence.
He turns his eyes on me. “Finish with her.”
My muscles tighten. “It’s none of your business.”
“She’s using you.”
My eyes immediately sting, and I shake my head.
“She will always think she can use you,” he explains.
No. I can understand why he would think that, because I thought it too, but he doesn’t see what goes on when it’s just us. It’s not like that.
“Because you’re less to her,” he says, rising from his chair. “And she’s more.”
He moves toward me, all the feelings and doubts and insecurities I had when I started this with her flooding back. I’m not attached. I like her. It feels good.
I’m not attached.
“She thinks she’s more, because she’ll never want what you have,” he continues. “Because she thinks you want what she has. Because she thinks everyone wants to be her.”