46. Reeve
FORTY-SIX
reeve
I hate it here.
I loathe the overabundance of vases of roses that literally sit on every flat surface in this fucking house. I detest how she’s changed it, how it’s erased my father and transformed into some floral-decorated nightmare of too many pastel colors and expensive decor that some interior decorator placed in here.
This place became less home when Rosalie committed suicide. This environment became unbearable when Dad disappeared into thin air. It influenced the dramatic gap that separates me and my mother.
I don’t come here anymore.
We never see each other.
I’ll spend weeks ignoring her text messages until she gets tired for a few months and does it the fuck again. And she chose the wrong time to start back up because I’m in a doozy of a high right now, ready to fuck with anyone who decides to piss me off just so it entertains me.
And tonight, Mother Dearest wants to have tea.
Tea.
As if we live in the fucking 1800s or England.
Who the fuck in Connecticut drinks hot tea in a perfectly picked pattern of china wear?
Elaine Stanton does, ladies and gents.
“Reeve, do you still like sugar in your tea?” Mom leans over the vintage timepiece of the coffee table in front of us. A whole tea set placed precisely in the center with—what do you know—pink roses on the bottom.
I wonder how many times she had a maid move it to make sure it was to her liking. And I’d sit here and worry about it, but I’d rather toss the whole thing across the room and have it match my mood.
Especially since I had a close encounter with Bay the other night.
More than a fucking close encounter, I got to smell a mixture of peaches and violets.
It smelled amazing.
It made my cock so fucking hard, and there was nothing that I wanted to do more than bend her over and fuck her until I lost the rest of my fucking high.
But Vivian fucked all that up, and Ozzy was having a panic attack.
So, I took to what I always said and put him first. He’s my brother, someone I’m supposed to look after.
And I’m doing a hell of a job right now.
However, no one said or ordered him to marry Bay.
I never would have.
It would’ve happened over my dead body, so maybe I’m overdue for that to happen.
“Zero.” My mother’s hazel eyes bounce up to mine, and I can’t miss the crow’s feet next to her eyes. The time that has passed and the evil that remains inside her and this fucked-up house. “I don’t want any fucking tea.”
She immediately frowns but quickly rids it when she asks the redhead at her side, a young twenty-something-year-old, who just happened to be here when I arrived with a perfect set of tits in a baby blue dress. The hem a dangerous inch higher than what my mother would deem appropriate for a lady, but Mom must not give a fuck tonight.
“You gonna introduce me to your friend, Ma, and tell me why the hell I’m here, or are we just gonna just hang out?”
This time, Mom doesn’t bother to hide the look of pure infuriation she holds for me and my mouth. “Reeve Stanton, do not speak like that in front of a young woman.” She gestures at her side. “This is my friend’s daughter, Fisher.”
My brows crash into each other. “Did your parents hate you?”
A spoon crashes against the glass teacup Mom just poured, announcing her diminishing patience with me and my attitude. “ Reeve …”
“I apologize, Fisher,” I begin, kicking one ankle over my opposite knee. “I’m just highly confused as to why you’re here unless you’re visiting or…”
“Just visiting,” she says, her voice a sliver of sweet and shy. “Your mother was kind enough to invite me over for dinner.”
Mom carefully hands her over the cup of tea she prepared. Her navy-blue suit jacket-skirt ensemble makes her look more aged. Her hair is still upkept with blonde dye and dark roots. She also tries to hide each wrinkle with fuck knows what kinds of products they have these days floating around, but she kinda failed today.
“How thoughtful of her,” I drone. “My mother must keep you around to feel young.”
“I had your favorite made,” Moms says to me.
I’m immediately confused. “My favorite what?”
“Meal,” she deadpans, preparing her cup of tea next.
I scoff, not bothering to hide that she doesn’t know shit all about me. Well, the stuff that matters. “And what’s that?”
“Lasagna.”
My whole jaw bolts down in a tight strain as I stare at the woman who thinks this is all a fucking game.
That I’m a puppet she can still jack around with.
And good ol’ Fisher over here is a marriage prospect—been there, done that.
And, the kicker, lasagna isn’t my favorite meal.
“That was Rosalie’s,” I leer through my teeth, demanding the only sliver of rationality to remain seated, or I’m about to launch this whole coffee table at innocent Fisher and my devious mother.
Mom’s focus comes up to mine. “Was it?”
This bitch.
She does this shit to bring me down mentally. To bend me to her will. To keep fucking with how she doesn’t approve of my sexuality. Every time she nitpicks at something, it’s to control me.
“Yeah.” I flick my sole focal point to poor Fisher who’s never going to come to this fucking house again after the shit I have to say. “I mean, I’m seriously surprised you don’t remember since you literally watched the two of us like a hawk. Especially since you were always trying to force me to fuck my own twin sister all the time.” Fisher’s green eyes widen in unflawed shock the moment my words leave my mouth. “You for the gays, Fish? I’m bisexual, and honestly, Ma can’t stand that I like dick.”
“Reeve, keep your dirty mouth shut,” Mom snaps, boring her ineffective hatred at me. “Stop spreading lies in this house about?—”
“Oh, it’s not lies,” I continue to the oblivious chick in the room. She didn’t know what she’s getting herself into when she decided to accept my mother’s invitation to come here. “I’ve fucked my own sister because Mom over here was trying to get the gay out of me. No son of hers?—”
“ Enough !” Mom shrills out, half in desperation and the other in sheer rage that I’m spilling our family secrets to a complete stranger who will probably have Snapchatted or Facebook statused this shit by the time she’s out the door.
“Was going to be a homo,” I finish, but then chime in with, “I mean, I think I love dick more than my mom does.”
A loud rattle of glass sounds through the room, and Fisher has already pried her embarrassed stare from me, looking for any excuse to get the hell out of this weird-ass conversation I started.
“You’re such an ungrateful bastard,” Mom barks out, those hazel eyes boring hatred into me. “I’ve done nothing but love you and?—”
“Damn, Ma, if I knew it would’ve consisted of a gun to my fucking head or screwing my sister, I could’ve done without.”
She points toward the front door. “Get the hell out!”
“I’m hoping this means you’ll stop texting me to come over here again?”
“ Out !”
Perfect.
I shouldn’t be here.
I’m just fucking up left and right tonight, and along with literally slaughtering my family’s reputation, I thought, in my hazy cocaine bender, that I’d continue with the trend and landed here.
But through all that, I feel the most comfortable I’ve been. My dealer is good and makes sure I’m supplied with the good shit to keep me functioning like a somewhat normal human being because if I were sober, I’d never be in this fucking house, let alone city.
However, I can’t help but stare at Bay laid up in her bed, curled into a ball as if to hide from the world and the things that have changed since Torin found out that she murdered his brother.
The jury’s still out on that one.
I’m not sure if she did or didn’t, in all truth, all I cared about was her not marrying anyone who wasn’t me when I should’ve cared about what Torin was going through.
But while he’s been shutting down and spiraling—I’m not sure if you’d even call it grieving—I’ve been keeping myself occupied with my own depression and loss. I try to remain strong and away, but there’s this pull. It’s only stronger when she lands in my space and my wanting to fuck her to get the attraction out increases.
When she showed up at the house and beat the living shit out of Vivian, which was hot as all fucking hell. Now Cairo is on a binge about protecting her.
Protect.
For what, and why…yeah, dude, it’s really not our problem anymore. She’s Ozzy’s wife, and at the end of the day, the only family I have. The only human being who had my back when I needed her safe and us protected.
I can’t forget it, and I won’t. So, in my head, I chalked it up as supporting him and not her.
However, it still doesn’t stop me from being here like a dumbass.
I crawl in bed next to her and slowly slip underneath the covers so I don’t wake her. My arm wraps around her middle, and I pull her into the front of my body with ease.
She shifts, snuggling deeper into her pillow, and I settle into an immediate state of relaxation, closing my eyes and breathing her in like she’s still mine.
And maybe right now, in my state, she is.
No one has to know; I can keep my own secrets and just hold her like nothing’s changed. Like she didn’t rip out my heart and slice it up into a million pieces just to discard them and not give a fuck.
She doesn’t seem to. She just doesn’t want me with anyone else.
I’m about to drift into the bleakest slumber I have had in weeks when a sharp elbow stabs me in the chest, immediately putting me on alert that she’s fucking awake.
Bay attempts to pull herself out of my grasp, but I’m already rolling on top of her, capturing one flaying hand and placing it over her head while a closed fist catches the side of my ear.
I inhale through my teeth, quickly able to seek out the last weapon of hers and place it with the other one.
“It’s me, baby,” I coo, settled between those sweet thighs and loving how her chest heaves unsteady and strained breaths. “No need to exert yourself.”
“What in the fuck?—”
“Shhhh… go back to sleep.”
“Get out of my bed, Reeve,” she whisper-yells with zero heat or animosity to her tone. “You scared the living shit out of me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I answer honestly. “Who did you think I was?”
She’s silent, still gasping for breath as I hold her captive underneath me.
“Fucking Matteo?”
She scoffs then. “Fuck him.”
“Did you?”
“Would you ?” she snaps back.
I chuckle because that’d be a no on her part. “I wouldn’t touch his dirty ass with a dildo and a six-foot pole.”
“Then stop asking me stupid-ass questions. What are you doing here?” I can respect this chick because she never wants to wake her family.
“Had a shit night. I wanted to keep it shitty, so I came here.”
She pulls a bit on my hold, alluding to the fact my comment pissed her off. “How did you get in?”
“Window.”
“I locked it.”
“I broke it.”
“What the fuck,” she sneers. “Reeve?—”
“Ozzy will fix it.” I lean closer to her, smelling that intoxicating-ass peachy smell and feeling her soft curves press against mine. “And I want you to fix me, Bay Bay McQueen.”
I can’t see her expression much, the curtain is still closed over most of the windows, and I didn’t bother to fix it when I got in.
“I’m done with you, Reeve.”
“Are you?” I hear her sigh, and that’s a no. “Let me fuck you so I can put us both to sleep.”
“ No .”
That answer is hard and without hesitation, but I know that what once lay between us is still there.
I’m not that fucked up-ish.
“He’s not going to fuck you,” I mutter, referring to Ozzy because he won’t.“You’re gonna deny me this, too? You signed a marriage license in front of me after I begged you to let me take care of you. That I loved you and would make sure we’d get your sisters back. But you allowed Ozzy to do all that for you and all so…what does he have that I don’t?—”
“No,” she quickly steps in. “You’re not doing that. We’re not starting that bullshit. You know how I felt about you.”
“Felt is past tense. And I’m too fucked up for the right tenses right now, Bay. So, tell me you don’t want me, and we’ll just spoon tonight.”
“I don’t spoon.”
“Nah, you fuck and cuddle, my bad.”
“Why are you here ?” she presses, forcing me to give in the reasons and why they led me to her room.
Hard pass.
The last thing I want to talk about is my fucking mom and her stupid attempts to match me up with a girl I wouldn’t look twice at based on how she doesn’t know how to keep good company. If you correspond with my mother, it means you’re either an idiot or you don’t know a good person from a shady one.
“I missed you.”
And that’s not a total lie to my ultimate irritation.
But there’s no denying it led me here. However, it’s a nice little smack to reality that my brain just doesn't want to divulge in.
“I need you to forgive me,” she whispers, so soft and fucking delectable it’s hard not to give her what she wants.
But it’s not about what she wants but what I need.
Rolling off her because—I was right—this was a really bad idea, I realize I must be a masochist for emotional pain. To keep going back to something that will never be fully mine.
I can’t just forget what she did.
What she’s doing.
Ozzy has her, and he isn’t even capable of fully being with her. That’s what bothers me the most. I have a brother who threw himself into a very uncomfortable situation and didn’t talk to us about it. To even offer if someone else wanted to marry her to save her from marrying Ramsey.
I would’ve volunteered in a heartbeat.
I would’ve beat Torin’s ass for her to stamp my last name on the back of hers. He could fuck her, I shared her, it didn’t bother me, but that last name…
It’s amazing how old-fashioned I am in that respect when I’m not in anything else.
“I need this, Reeve,” she quickly gets out. “I can’t bear the thought of you hating me for the rest of your life…and not looking at me like you used to.”
I get off the bed and stand. “This isn’t about you this time. This is about me and how I feel. What you fucking did to me.”
“I’m so sor?—”
“I don’t want your apology because it doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t take back what you did.”
“I had to get my sisters back. Torin was already pissed at me, and he?—”
“I would’ve gotten them back for you,” I rebuke, pacing the floor next to her mattress. “You just don’t fucking get it, do you? I loved you. I wanted you forever. I wanted you first, since the first time I saw you.”
I see her move toward my side of the mattress. “I know, but I needed?—”
“I’m glad you got what you needed while you wreaked havoc through everyone else in the process. Do you know that Torin doesn’t sleep in his own bed? That he drinks himself to sleep? He can’t focus on anything?—”
“I didn’t murder Judah,” she yells then quickly rights the volume of her tone. “I didn’t put a bullet in him.”
“We didn’t see that.”
“Have you ever heard of editing videos? It’s done, Reeve, we’re in the twenty-first century.”
“That’s your problem with him. Mine is you shitting all over me.” I move for the window because spending another moment with her is going to kill me. It’s going to make me overdose. I have enough coke in my car to do a line, and I’ve already got way too much in my system right now.
“Please don’t leave.”
A mirthless chuckle rumbles from my chest because that please bullshit sounds awfully familiar.
There’s never going to be another Bay Astor. Another love story like this for me.
And even then, I’d call it a self-sabotaging tragedy.
I literally jumped off a cliff and free-fell all the way down into the abyss of reckless love and passion. I fell in love with a girl who I thought was beginning to love me back.
However, it wasn’t strong enough. I never would’ve done what she did to me.
“How do I make this better?”
Her plea halts my climbing through the window because my fractured heart desires another moment.
Another second with her.
“I want to fuck,” I answer honestly. “I want to fuck you so hard, McQueen. I want your lips on me. I want your tight pussy milking me dry. I want to feel something other than this fake happiness and contentment that runs through my bloodstream. I want something I thought was real. Something that I know was real for me.”
“It was real for me, too,” she whispers. “All of it. Every single fucking second.”
“It wasn’t. You didn’t love me, McQueen. I loved you. And that’s not enough.”
“You’re enough. I know you don’t believe me. I know it’s too little, too late, and that it means jack shit right now. But I didn’t marry for love. I married for survival.”
“I don’t wanna hear another fuckin’ word about how I couldn’t?—”
“I love you. You know I do. I would do anything to fix this. I would jump off Peer Pressure Point or run myself over with my own car. I love you…Reevie. I’ll always—” I’ve already spun around and sprinted back to the bedt, jumping onto the mattress, careful not to crush her with my weight.
Her legs instantly widen for me to settle in between them while I zip down my jeans and pull out my already hard cock.
She’s only in an oversized tee and cotton panties that I shove to the side and immediately enter her before I hear her mouth open again to say anything that might fuck it up for me.
She squeezes her thick legs around my waist, and my mouth falls down to hers, punishing her for what she did and how I’m feeling about what she said. How I’m spiraling into a fucking dark hole of depression and relying on shit that is only a temporary fix.
My tongue demands entrance into her mouth, and she lets me in, as I taste her again for the first time in what feels like fucking forever and a day.
I’m addicted to this woman. I need the twelve-step program to quit her. She feels too good for comfort. The way my dick can’t get enough and how perfectly she feels as I thrust in unplanned and unsteady pushes and pulls.
Bay moans into my mouth, and I only increase my speed.
I want her to come.
I need my name on her lips.
I want to come so hard inside her that I never leave when I can’t be with her physically anymore.
“Baby, I missed you,” I say against her mouth and between kisses. “I’ll miss you.”
“Please,” she whispers.
“Please what?”
“Please forgive me, Reevie. I can’t stand watching you like this.” Her admission creates a tightness in my chest. It’s what she wants. What’s good for her, not me.
“Maybe one day…when I find something else to focus on. But…I can’t watch you with him when I know you belong to him.”
“I belonged to you and Torin,” she counters.
“But you married him . It was never a conversation It was a choice you made alone and were adamant about keeping me out of. And I didn’t even know it was going to be him.”
“Reeve, I didn’t?—”
“Shut up and let me have you,” I bite out. “Don’t take this moment from me again.” A lapse of quiet surrounds us, and I don’t like that either. I hate all of this, but this is what my reality is. “Did you miss me inside you, baby?”
“Yes.”
“Use words,” I emit. “You’re sounding like him.”
Ozzy.
A man of little or no words, depending on his mood.
I roam my hand up her ribs and feel a slight shudder creep up her body peppered in goosebumps. “What I wouldn’t give, McQueen, to go back to what we used to be.”
She leans up and takes my lips, kissing me deep and slow, and trying to wrap me around that pretty little finger of hers.
To forgive her.
“I’m not yours anymore,” I vouch. “I can’t be yours again.”
“You’ll always be—” I bite down on her lower lip, the one that drives me fucking crazy and get her to stop talkin’ shit.
“You don’t get to decide,” I growl with her soft lips still between my teeth. “You don’t get me.”
“My pussy says differently.”
I release her wrists and capture those fucking rattling lips.
She keeps talking, and my brain might listen. I might re-rationalize this whole fucking scenario when I know better.
That’s the thing with being in love.
You ignore things you know you shouldn’t. You’re paralyzed in a state of comfort when, really, it’s a fucking shitshow of a storm where you begin to change and become lost. You start to lose yourself.
Except, I feel more lost without her than I ever felt before.
My balls tighten so hard, I groan between kisses and tongue battles with the woman who’s never gonna leave my head for the rest of my life. I’m stuck with her. One way or another, I’m so fucking fixed in place when it comes to how I feel and will always feel for her.
“Oh, Bay…you were made for me, baby. I swear to God, you’re with the wrong?—”
“Don’t say the wrong guy,” she clips out desperately. “I’m with you.”
I shake my head to keep her comment from fully entering it. There has to be a limit, a line that can’t be crossed. I’ve allowed myself time to live in agony and mourn the loss of us. Now, I have things I have to do in my personal life. “Let’s talk about this pussy and how tight it’s squeezing me. This is what I needed, baby.
“You’re shutting me out.”
“I have to.” My lips clasp around hers. “Let me. Let me go, McQueen, so I can be me again one day.”
She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me closer, my chest weighted more on hers and her ankles pressed into my jean-clad ass. She takes over the kiss as a broken sob mixes between our mouths.
She’s crying, and I’m dying.
I never minded fucking another man’s girl before—I mean, I’m doing it now—but she’s different.
She’s everything.
Wiping away a hot tear with my thumb, I kiss away her sadness for the moment. I drive into her hard, breathing her in this close, aware I’m going to miss how she smells different all the damn time. That raspy voice when I’m balls deep inside her and her body invites me in.
“Nothing is ever going to feel like this,” I admit out of nowhere and why I have to voice everything out loud, I blame the coke. “Never forget me.”
“Never,” she whispers. “Ever.”
I lean over to clasp my mouth around her warm neck. “I’m always gonna want you so bad, baby.”
“I love you, Reevie.”
Her repeated confession causes me to have a lack of judgment because I’m only going to admit this one more time before it never leaves my mouth ever the fuck again.
“I love you, too, baby. I’m sorry for everything I’m going to do to get over this.”
And I thoughtlessly drive into her tight cunt and push away every bad fucking emotion that’s trying to reach us.
I don’t want to think about Torin, Cairo, Ozzy…how I have to move forward and leave this behind.
I get this moment.
It’s mine, I own it. It’s the last of our love story.
My beautiful fucking disaster who seduced unknowingly and destroyed me.
“I want me dripping out of you, McQueen, when I’m done. Don’t wash me off.”
“Are you going to come deep inside me, Reeve? I think you should stay and?—”
“Can’t stay,” I retort. “My high is gonna come tumbling down, baby. However…” I hit a spot that makes us both groan deep in our chests. “I don’t want to be the tool that passes the fuck out.”
“Maybe I’ll fuck you while you sleep.”
“Ow, a sleep fuck while you use me…I can’t say I’d hate that. I’d want to hear everything you fuckin’ do to me.”
“I’d keep that dick so deep inside me, all the time.” She brushes her lips against my cheek and adds, “I’d use every single inch to get off.”
“Fuck…yes, baby.” The muscles in my lower stomach acquaint me with the orgasm that’s about to take hold and take away my next breath of air. “Are you going to come all over it?”
“You’re gonna be drenched with me, Reevie.”
Fuck me.
“I want to wear you all the fucking time, McQueen. I want to smell like you. I want that cunt in my face and—” She begins to scream, and I cover her mouth to keep it from waking up the whole house as I follow her right down the path I was guiding us down.
My release is violent as I keep pumping inside her, milking everything she’s giving me, stamping this memory into my brain.
When she’s done, I loosen my grip on her mouth and roll off her, needing to get out of here. I don’t want to hit it and quit it, but this is for me.
This is so I don’t get trapped again.
I put myself back in my pants and quickly decide against kissing her again. The strong desire to get back home stabs at me repeatedly.
It has to be done.
I need it to be finished.
Getting to the window, I climb through and land surprisingly on my feet when a black figure looms amongst the bushes, startling me for a second.
Then it doesn’t.
With the sole remorse of how I’m leaving this situation, he’s the perfect target all around for my going through this. And even though I have to get over it, accept what he did, and learn to function with the reality—I don’t tonight.
My weight demands to be present in my swing and the hard punch that lands into Ozzy’s jaw. He counters back a step from the blow, and I continue forward to my car.
I hate that motherfucker.
But tomorrow, I’ll have to remind myself he’s my brother, and he’s always been everything to me.
That I’m forced to get over it.
That I’m forced to allow him ownership of her.