Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79332 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“We could admit that we like her,” Micky says, taking a big bite out of an apple and chewing it like a horse. “I mean, we’re brothers. More than that. We were supposed to be one person, for fuck’s sake. And we’re all still pretending like denial is a fucking safe house. We’re as bad as Ellie.”
I gawp at Micky, trying to produce a funny retort but finding absolutely no inspiration. Nothing. Nada. To be honest, my absence of inspiration freaks me out more than his admittance. Because there have been times when I’ve wondered if it was just me who was lusting over Ellie, and I’ve been reading more into my brothers’ looks and body language than there actually is.
“Close your mouth,” Micky says, winking as he takes another loud crunch of his fruit. “I know you do,” he says. “Although, out of all of us, you’re the least obvious about it. Colby, on the other hand…”
“What about me? You think you know what I’m feeling? You think you have an insight into my mind because we share the same DNA?”
“I have an insight into your mind because you wear your heart on your sleeve, Colby,” Micky says. “You might not want to accept it with your gruff, angry-bear persona, but you do.”
I stare at both my brothers with utter fascination. The vein on Colby’s temple throbs through the thin skin and he clenches his jaw so tightly I worry he will fracture his molars. Micky just seems smug, as though he’s relishing this new role of getting us to admit the shit we’ve kept private until now.
“Doesn’t matter what we want, though, does it?” Colby says eventually. She’s our sister, and we just have to find a way of putting everything that happened in that closet out of our minds."
“But she isn’t, is she?” Micky says gently. “She’s just a girl who’s the daughter of someone our dad married. We’re not blood. We don’t share even a sprinkling of DNA. So apart from it being a little weird that all three of us have the hots for the same girl, and the fact she lives under the same roof, there’s nothing really stopping us, is there?”
“You’re forgetting one very important thing,” Colby says. “It doesn’t matter because Ellie sure as hell doesn’t feel the same. And now she’s at the center of a huge scandal, there is no way she’ll even consider doing anything that’ll add fuel to the fire.”
6
ELLIE
I’ve been dreading working on the presentation with Colby for many reasons. I tell myself it’s because he’s an arrogant ass and a suck-up to my mom, but those are the easy excuses to cover a more complicated truth.
The reality is that being forced to sit near a man who whispered in my ear as I came at the hands of another man has me hot and flustered. Truly, I don’t want to have these feelings. I want to hold the anger and resentment against my stepbrothers close to my heart. I want to hate them but hate and lust are strange bedfellows. How can I fantasize about them and want to avoid them simultaneously?
I know how.
It’s like I’ve separated the closet men from the real men in my head. And that’s easier to do when I don’t see them. But we can’t work together without sitting in the same room, and sitting in the same room will mean proximity, and proximity will mean remembering what that sweet release felt like and applying it to the real person. Or one of them.
Would it be harder to sit next to Mickey now that he knows how I taste between my thighs? Or would it be more difficult to sit with Seb, whose tongue flicked against my shamelessly tight nipples?
I don’t think so. Each of them played a role. Each of them is as guilty as the others.
They are as guilty as me.
A knock on my door is so loud and sudden that I practically jump out of my skin. Like the day after I stumbled into that closet, unaware of who was going to take me to heaven; when I open the door, I find Colby looming on the other side. “Are you ready to study?” he asks in a voice that sounds gruff and unused. A sexy, husky voice that trails hotly over my skin, searching out my most sensitive place.
“Sure,” I say, even though the reality is NO NO NO!
No, I can’t sit next to you.
No, I won’t be able to process the boring topic we have to discuss with you sitting next to me.
No, I can’t pretend that you don’t affect me.
My whole body feels like it’s vibrating, disturbing the air around us in rippling sex-waves that I’m convinced Colby can sense. He looks at me strangely, with a question in his eyes that never makes it to his lips.