Chapter Two
? Isla ?
“They’re just coming to eat your food and shit in your bed.”
Jacob, Walker’s foul older brother drops the last nibble of crispy bacon down on his empty plate and rubs his fingers together to dust off the crumbs. He sighs with the same exhausting exaggeration he shows everything and leans back on his backless stool.
A tiny, malicious part of my brain giggles at the idea of it finally giving out from under him and sending him tumbling to the linoleum. The sleazy mountain of sweat and grease would deserve it.
Mom’s brand-new floors do not.
“I certainly hope no one shits in my bed,” Walker grumbles around the rim of his coffee mug, eyes fixed on the morning paper.
“No one is shitting in anyone’s bed, Jacob,” Mom mutters, rubbing the tips of four flour-stained fingers across her brow. “It will just be family, gathering around and enjoying the holidays.”
Jacob sucks at his back molars. When that doesn’t dislodge whatever’s stuck back there, he sends a pinky in to try and pick it free.
“It’s a waste of time,” he slurs around the wiggling digit.
Disgusting excuse for a human.
I don’t say it. It doesn’t need vocalization.
Everyone knows it. It’s anyone’s guess how someone as bland and unimpressive as Walker could possibly have such a swamp beast for a brother.
Walker, a painfully simple man, loyal to his beige khakis and wire rimmed glasses, is the very definition of nonthreatening.
His nonchalance alone could win an Oscar.
Whereas Jacob is a loud, filthy version with a gut that could shame the moon and an odor that should be studied.
Ill-mannered, lecherous and a walking fly farm, Mom’s brother-in-law defies basic human sense.
The fact that he went out of his way to try and look down my top every chance he got from the moment I started developing is a whole other matter Mom refuses to acknowledge.
Mom isn’t a neglectful parent. She’s not even a bad parent.
She just doesn’t cope well alone. Finding Walker was a Godsend for both of us, and I think she’s desperate enough to overlook anything if it means not losing that security.
Which is fine. I don’t live here anymore and the second I get my opening, I’ll leave and not have to see his disgusting face until the year after.
One week and counting.
But my excitement is short lived when the backdoor swings open and the remaining two members of the family stroll in.
Nicolas and Dominic.
My heart throws itself off a cliff and nosedives into shark infested waters. My stomach aches with a need so brutally violent, I can’t breathe. I can’t think. My head is a muffled wasteland holding nothing but the words spoken in private. Words I shouldn’t have heard but now can’t unhear.
“Let me fuck your little sister.”
I try not to squirm as the rush of molten heat soaks through my panties. Intensifies when I unintentionally lock eyes with the perpetrator.
Dominic Maddox.
Six feet of lean, powerful muscles and sharp, hard features closes the door behind him and Nicolas.
His eyes, deep pits of swirling darkness never waver off mine.
Never so much as blink. They carve into my very soul with a raw, ravenous warning that spikes up inside me where I need him most. The look alone is enough to send ripples along my vaginal walls with greedy desperation.
But then his eyes narrow. His lips quirk up on one corner. He cocks his head like he can read my mind, and I think for a panicked second that maybe he can.
“Morning, you two.” Jacob’s comment about shitty beds is forgotten as Mom hurries to pull both into tight hugs. “Did you sleep well?”
I would like to add that I never get a morning hug, but I also don’t expect one.
Mom and Nicolas have a weird relationship that I can only ever dream of.
Mom would never admit it, but I know she’s always wanted a son and got me instead.
Not saying she’s been a bad mother, or I somehow lacked in any way, but I wouldn’t mind being ushered to a chair and offered coffee in the morning.
It could also be that Nicolas isn’t the nicest person before his first cup. He’s actually a downright prick. I mean, he’s a grump regardless, but coffee tames some of that lawyer’s edge.
“Bring him the pot,” Walker teases as his son is nudged into the stool next to him.
Nicolas says nothing, but the unyielding slant of his jaw, the hard cut of his eyes is the only warning we’re given to leave him alone.
I think it’s hilarious.
I know I would not be this moody if someone fucked me the way Dominic fucks him. The man is a filthy, degrading beast with a beautiful dick that I know could solve all my problems. But Nicolas acts like he’s been edged for days with no relief.
Selfish fucker.
Tarts forgotten, Mom is slamming pans on the stove and whisking eggs. She’s going on about a healthy breakfast and the importance of not drinking coffee on an empty stomach, but it’s all a fuzzy hum in the background when Dominic claims the spot next to me.
Right next.
His knee nudges my hip. His foot is on the wrung of my stool. I’m practically between the V of his legs.
But it’s the predatory glint in his eyes, the watchful focus of a wolf daring the rabbit to run. I swallow — audibly — and he smirks.
“Hello, little sister.”
The lazy drawl scuttles along the curve of my spine, sending goosebumps across my skin and tightening my nipples through the soft cotton of my tank. I can’t look to check, but I know they’re visible points begging for attention; the built-in bra is a joke.
“Morning,” I manage weakly.
I don’t think he’s that close, but it feels close. Feels like we’re the only two in the room. Like he’s trying to steal my soul.
“Sleep well?”
It’s a taunt. A dare. If I wasn’t already paranoid, I would think nothing of it, but now I’m scrambling to think if he saw me last night. If I was somehow too loud. If I wasn’t careful.
Stupid, really, given it’s such a normal thing to ask, except…
He never sits next to me.
He never goes out of his way to make conversation. In all the years I’ve known him and Nicolas, we’ve never been close. Chatty. This whole interaction has my nerves on edge.
“Yes,” I force out.
I turn my head to the table and the small cluster of people surrounding it, curious to see if they’re as concerned as I am. But no one is. Mom is scooping scrambled eggs onto plates. Walker and Jacob are in deep discussions over the Christmas tree lighting ceremony later this week.
It all seems fine until I’m caught in the storm clouds of icy gray dominated by thick lashes on a face carved from granite. Displeasure weaves a groove between heavy brows. And familiar annoyance, trademarked exclusively by my brother.
Nicolas crushes me beneath the weight of his attention, the unspoken demand that drops straight to the pit of my stomach. That single laser focus cuts to my core and I tremble without meaning to. Without thought.
Next to me, the stool groans with the shifting of Dominic’s weight.
The motion is subtle but Nicolas has released me from his scrutiny to settle on his best friend.
To someone who hasn’t been diligently tuning in the last two nights to watch them commit the filthiest acts, I too would have missed the knot in Nicolas’s jaw.
The subtle tinge of color in his cheeks.
His fingers tighten around the mug in his hand, and I’m struck for a moment by the realization.
“Let me breed your sister or you wear a plug to breakfast in the morning.”
Did Dominic follow through? Is Nicolas wearing a plug or…?
My attention shifts to the man at my shoulder, arm resting casually on the counter as he meets his lover’s gaze with smug amusement.
Not me, I realize with dejection. Nicolas hadn’t given into the idea of letting Dominic have me. I doubt he ever will. It’s a reality I’ll have to accept. In fact, I deeply regret overhearing it in the first place. Ignorance is a luxury I’ve lost and now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
Nothing, the voice in my head mutters. What kind of crazy person thinks this is normal? They’re not even open about their relationship, but you think you can jump in and be the cream in the middle?
It’s true.
During that whole interaction, Dominic said nothing about me being a part of them.
He only stated he wanted to fuck me and let me have a baby for them.
Not even that I could keep the baby or have anything to do with it afterwards.
Maybe they didn’t even mean it like that.
Maybe that’s a kink they both enjoy like calling Dominic Daddy.
It definitely makes more sense than the idea that — out of the nineteen years of us being in each other’s lives — that they suddenly decided that I’m what they want.
Insane mentality.
Disgusting behavior.
Not once has Nicolas or Dominic made a single indication that I even existed in their orbit. From the moment Mom introduced us, I held the importance of a potted plant.
There, but zero worth.
Granted, I was thirteen and they were already in university, but I held onto my fledgling feelings, hoping they might notice me.
They didn’t.
Not once.
Why would they now?
Feeling stupid, all that warm, gooey feeling evaporates to ashes and I sit amongst them feeling defeated. Humiliated. Part of me can’t help the morbid satisfaction at my own pain.
It’s what I get for being such a horrible creep. For inserting myself in a place I don’t belong. This delusion was built on a house of cards that just collapsed beneath me and I’m winded.
“Didn’t we host last year, and the year before?” Walker states, breaking through Mom’s explanation of something I hadn’t been listening to. “Can’t we give someone else a chance to waste money?”
Mom bristles. “We have the nicest house. The biggest one. It makes the most sense.”