Noah-
"You're going to have to kill me to keep me down here." Creed’s tilted brown eyes shot glares in my direction.
She looked like a wild woman with her dress tied around her thighs, her hair standing on end, and mascara running down her cheeks.
I frowned.
"You're being dramatic right now.
The only thing I'm going to hurt is your pussy.
Now put the weapon down and answer my question."
"Come here, and I'll show you dramatic," Creed yelled as she circled the coffee table, trying to get to me.
I was standing behind the chair it faced.
All morning, she'd been acting like a child.
She was holding a toilet plunger, trying to hit me with it.
I was amused at first, but now she was annoying me.
We'd only been here two days, and she was acting like years had passed.
"Answer the question, Creed, and I'll leave you alone for today."
She jabbed the plunger in my direction.
"I'm not answering shit.
You're the one who needs a therapist, Dr. Jekyll."
I had asked her if she thought she would have benefitted from more attention from her parents.
Creed needed some introspection.
It helped me.
I was now very well aware of my own issues and had the tools to deal with them constructively—not in this situation. This situation didn’t count. Creed had pushed me to this.
Sighing, I walked over to my duffel bag, keeping Creed in view so she didn’t charge me.
I stuck my hand into my bag and pulled out my bottle of pills.
They rattled inside the bottle as I did.
I turned back to Creed, who had inched closer.
I raised them so she could see them.
"You see these?"
"I'm not fucking blind, asshole," she shouted.
I continued as if she wasn’t being obnoxious.
"These pills keep me even, stop me from doing all the things I think about doing to you, keep me patient.
They give me a few seconds to think first before reacting."
I turned and walked over to the kitchen sink and dumped them down the drain.
"What are you doing?" Creed yelled, sounding frantic.
"Getting rid of my restraints." I hit the garbage disposal.
I had been taking mood stabilizers since I was ten.
Hearing them being destroyed was kind of freeing.
I turned and grabbed Creed around the waist as she approached me from behind.
"Let me go.
You need those pills with your crazy ass.”
She struggled.
I sniggered.
"I haven’t taken them since you've been back.
They kept me from showing you how I truly feel."
I carried her to the bed and placed her down on it.
Straddling her waist and thighs, using my full weight to keep her still, I pulled her hands above her head.
"I knew you were going to give me trouble.
That's why I installed these." It only took seconds to pull out and cuff her right hand. I cuffed the left in the leather restraint, then rose off her. She screamed and called me all kinds of names.
Pain exploded in my head when her foot connected with my ear.
I sighed, swallowing my anger, as I continued to restrain her.
"Let me fucking go, Noah.
You're going too far."
I paused as I was about to open the nightstand next to the bed.
Was I going too far? Maybe kidnapping her was a bit much, I thought, but then I remembered how she had told me she would take my baby away after forcing me to impregnate her.
I could go a long way before I caught up with her.
"No, not too far."
She went still when her eyes connected with the shears I pulled from the drawer.
"Wha...
What are you about to do with those, Noah?" she choked out, licking her dry lips.
A smirk curved my lips.
"I specifically bought this dress here to cut you out of it.
I've been thinking about it obsessively since you wore it on that date with Devon that summer.
He’s so fucking perfect for you, you know that? If not for that little mishap with Maine, y'all would have been the perfect power couple. I hate him for that. I'm so glad he fucked up." I hated this dress. It was a white sundress with flower shapes. It made her look angelic. She had worn her hair spread like a halo on her head for him. I had been fuming that night while she was gone. I would have gone after her if Ashley hadn't distracted me.
"Don't do that." Her voice had a hitch in it.
She was scared.
I shrugged.
It might do us some good if Creed was a little frightened of me.
She was so used to running over me.
I leaned down and untied the part of her dress that kept it sitting at her thighs, then raised the scissors to my lips.
"Be very still and quiet unless you're answering my question.
Then, by all means, talk, but remain very still.
Wouldn’t want to leave any marks on your pretty skin," I said, purposely mind-fucking her.
She closed her eyes, her nails biting into the palms of her hands.
I reached down and moved a few strands of hair behind her ear, and her entire body started to tremble.
My heart was thundering in my chest.
Fuck, I might have a new kink.
She might also.
I noticed her nipples had started to strain against the fabric of her sundress.
I snaked my hand out, cupped her breast, and massaged it until she moaned.
"Why—" She swallowed hard, cutting herself off.
She must have remembered my rules.
Going to my knees, I started at the hem of her dress and cut upward.
The material cut like butter.
I repeated the same on her left side.
She only had a bra underneath, and when I pulled the fabric from her body, I used the scissors to travel down between the valley of her breasts and then snipped her bra. A sharp, hard breath left her mouth when her breasts bounced free.
"Absolutely beautiful," I murmured, leaning down to brush my lips against the skin of her neck, making her back jolt off the mattress.
Moving further down, I pulled her nipple into my mouth, drawing a soft groan from her.
My dick leaked precum.
Standing straight up, I removed my T-shirt and boxers.
"I'm impressed by your stubbornness." I situated myself on the bed so I could suck on her pussy.
It was glistening with her juices and begging me to taste.
I dipped my head between her thick thighs, using my tongue to lick, then circled her clit.
She moaned, bucking against my face.
I slipped two fingers inside her, sucking and finger-fucking her until she was panting.
Then I stopped.
She bucked her hips, trying to push her pussy back into my mouth.
She finally spoke when she realized I wasn't going to finish.
"What the hell, Noah?"
I chuckled.
"If you want to cum, answer my question."
"Then I won't cum."
If Creed wasn’t anything else, she was stubborn, but I was even more persistent.
I used two fingers to circle her clit until she squirmed and panted again, then stopped.
It took three times before she rushed out an answer.
"I was the fucking third child of a famous couple obsessed with each other.
Of course, I would have benefited from more attention."
"We can unpack that later."
I latched onto her clit with my tongue, and less than a minute later, she was cumming.
I drank her juices down, savoring it.
Then I stood over her and jacked my dick while she regained her composure.
I gave my dick long, languid strokes until I spun cum like silk all over her body as she lay prone. That was another thing I had always wanted to do—to paint her in my cum. She watched me with half-mast eyes.
"Should I fuck you now?" I asked, voice trembling.
Without hesitation, she nodded.
Jason-
My foot wouldn’t stop tapping as I waited for Maine to open her front door.
The keys in my hand were useless; seems she’d changed the locks.
This bitch was about to have me crease my Jordans.
The door creaked open, slowly.
She looked a mess.
Hair matted to her head, makeup smeared, wearing a sparkly red club dress that had seen better nights, and she smelled like expensive hookah.
I wondered where DJ was, along with where her mind had been.
It was like finally being able to be with Devon had made her lose what little bit of it she had. And I told her that wasn't a good idea. I'd been friends with him since the fourth grade. I knew he was only going to take Black girls seriously after that time when Kelly, a little blonde girl in class, tried to kiss him. He'd pushed that girl halfway across the park. He'd been raised in a staunch Black Love family. You married a Black man or woman, and you made it work. Devon didn't even like white girls talking to him for too long. In college, he would date them, but that was it. The problem was, Maine thought she was the exception because our mother was Scarlett Rose. She was the BLM, "fuck you, I'm a Black woman despite who I married, as a matter of fact, he's Black too,”
type of momma.
I told Devon not to go to her graduation party because I knew she would be persistent, but he wanted a shot at Scarlett and planned to take it before he decided where to go to law school.
I had also told him Creed and he would not work out.
Our little Creed is chaos, and he was the opposite. And look where that got us.
"Why in the hell is your mammy in my house, Maine?"
Maine leaned against the door, blocking me from seeing inside.
“She needs a place to stay because her place is infested.”
"Get her a hotel.
Move," I said, shoving past her, and immediately, I was hit with the smell of weed and sour sex.
My eyes landed on a pale, naked ass.
I spun around to stare at Maine.
She knew she was in trouble.
"If my nephew is in this house, bitch, I'm on your ass this morning."
She sucked her teeth.
"Do you have to be this gay, this early?"
I scoffed.
"Bitch, I'm not gay.
I'm bisexual.
And you didn't answer my question. Where is my nephew while you have some random person laying up in your living room with their ass out?"
"He's with Scarlett and Troy."
I gasped.
"Since when do you call Mommy Scarlett?"
She rolled her eyes.
"That ain't my momma." She walked past me, heading for the kitchen.
I wasn’t even going to try and make sense out of her sudden animosity against the woman who raised her and our sister.
She needed counseling or a fucking exorcist.
I followed behind her into the kitchen, raising my hand to cover my nose.
There were moldy dishes in the sink, and the smell coming from the refrigerator was rank.
"What is going on, Maine? Why are you suddenly living like this, acting like this?"
"Because I'm fucking tired," she snapped, raising the bottle of water she pulled from the refrigerator and taking a long swallow.
We both took a seat at the kitchen island; it was the only clean space in the industrial-sized kitchen.
I wanted to laugh.
"Tired of what?" She didn't have a job, she spent our parents' money however she wanted, and she could have easily hired a cleaning service for this mess.
DJ was either in daycare, with a nanny, or with Mommy and Troy.
What was so tiring about her life?"
"Every fucking thing.
There are too many fucking expectations.
Too much to do, too much of everything."
I sighed.
I kind of understood what she was saying, and I wanted to sympathize.
We were kids of famous people, always in the spotlight and being scrutinized.
I was planning tours for my parents, Scarlett had inherited her godfather's multimillion-dollar empire before she was barely twenty-one and had no problems making her new life work for her. Our names stayed in the blogs, on TikTok, and Instagram. Then there was Maine. She was barely mentioned anymore. When we were younger, she was the young, blond-haired, thin, beautiful blue-eyed socialite mentioned every day. I think her issues had more to do with the lack of attention than anything else.
I was going to go easy on her.
"How can I help? Should I start by calling you a cleaning person and getting your mother a hotel?" I asked sincerely.
She cut her eyes at me.
"She needs a few months.
Your house has been empty for months."
She was right.
I never stayed home, at least not in the duplex I shared with her.
I rented a loft in downtown Orlando, where there were a bit more people my speed, but that was beside the point.
I chuckled. "Keyword, my house. You can't just welcome people into it. What happens when Mommy and Daddy find out?"
She glared at me across the island for a few seconds.
"I don't care."
I pulled out my phone and flashed it.
"Then you won't care if I call them and tell them she's here."
She pushed long blonde strands of hair behind her ear.
"If you want me to tell them that you've let Uncle Vance bend you over for the past five years, nightly," she threatened.
I grabbed for my imaginary pearls.
"Bitch, first of all, I don't do the bending—" I started, but she cut me off.
"Or how about I tell Creed that your little cancer scare was bullshit, and you used her money to send your old lover's adopted daughter back to some province in China to have your child without him knowing?"
I gritted my teeth.
She had me between a rock and a hard place.
I had been involved with my parents' ex-bandmate since the summer I graduated.
We clicked. I love how he called me "Papi" when he came. It was so messy and fucking beautiful.
What he didn't know is that I'd been fucking his adopted daughter, Ana, since I was fourteen and she was nineteen.
She got pregnant, but it ended up not being by me, though she threatened to tell the news and my parents it was.
It would have been a clusterfuck.
It was easier to help her just leave the States like she wanted than to explain to everyone. It wasn’t as messy as it sounded. When you grow up with famous parents, there's a small circle of people you deal with. Shit happens. My parents didn’t know I was bisexual or that I was fucking Vince, who happened to be married. I didn’t need the drama.
But I didn’t really care if they found out.
What would they do, ground me? It was Creed I was worried about.
If she found out what I really used her money for, she would probably hit me with her car.
Creed had an epic anger issue, as evidenced by her recent blow-up at the family. I needed to pay her back her money before she found out what it was used for and that I had lied. I was pretending to be madder than I was at her so I wouldn’t have to be around her when she was home. She made me feel guilty. The smirk that curved Maine’s lips let me know she knew she had me boxed in.
“Fuck you, Maine.”
I pushed away from the counter.
“Don’t come looking for me for help when your no-account mammy fucks you over and nobody else wants you around.
You know that bitch don’t have any bugs but the ones in her pussy and probably got evicted.
I don’t care where you send her, but get her out of my house before the month is over.”
I stood, smoothing my hand over my Nike tech, before leaving her kitchen.
On the way out I stopped and leaned down into her guest's ear, and as loud as I could without risking blowing out his eardrum, I yelled, “Get your lazy ass up!”
Then I walked out, slamming the door behind me.
I was incensed.
Maine and I had been close, but too close, it seems, because now she knew too much of my business.
After getting into my truck, I dialed Vince.
He answered on the first ring.
“I can’t talk right now,”
he whispered, a sign he was with his husband.
I smoothed my hands over my waves and sighed into the phone before pulling it away and pressing the end button.
Maine wouldn’t have Vince to hold over my head for too much longer.
Getting involved with a married man was stupid.
I wasn’t under the illusion that he’d leave his husband when I started the affair with him, but he started making promises, and like a dummy, I listened and started expecting things. But I was kind of over it. I didn’t really see spending the rest of my life with a man anyway.
Backing out of mine and Maine’s shared driveway, I looked back at the house in time to see Tiffany peeking from behind my curtains.
I turned north, headed back to Orlando instead of south to my parents' house.
I’d be back in a few months, but not too soon.
I wanted no part in the blow-up that was about to happen.
I hoped whatever Maine was doing with her momma didn’t end up with her out on the street too, because there was one thing for certain and two things for sure.
If Tiffany was involved, it had something to do with Troy and Scarlett.
And Troy and Scarlett weren’t going to be torn apart by anything and damn sure not by anybody.
They were for life, and they would steamroll anybody in their way.