12. Rebel
Chapter 12
Rebel
I always imagined that the first time Celia saw me naked, we would be outside. Running from the cops. Caught in a rainstorm. Skinny dipping. The possibilities were endless little temptations that I rewrote in my head over and over again, anticipating that the real thing would be sort of… magical.
My brothers would give me shit for saying that.
But after spending a few weeks in her home, feeding her snacks, watching her offload from a day spent on her feet or surrounded by sketchbooks, listening to her chat about everything and nothing at all… I wanted something special for us.
Something that we could share without my brothers getting in the way.
A secret between the two of us.
Nothing about lounging on Rage’s bed while he pops a rage-boner—no fucking pun intended—and Ruin fantasizes about bleeding all over our girl screams special or secret.
It cries out with a wail of fucking pathetic.
That’s what I’ve been reduced to: patheticism. The middle brother isn’t expected to amount to much—that’s usually what I like about being a few years younger than Rage and a few years older than Ruin. Shit flies under the radar. I can get away with murder.
Literally.
But when it comes to Celia…
I stare up at the ceiling with this huge, heavy frown on my fucking face, because the last thing I want is for her to think that I meet the standard of middle-child-mediocrity out of necessity.
I only meet it out of convenience .
There’s a huge fucking difference.
Rage has his arms locked around Celia’s body like a cage. I couldn’t break her out if I tried. The man has at least fifty pounds of muscle on me and a whole lot more of that obsessive factor that tips people over the threshold of normal and into the insane category .
Pissing him off when he’s running on two hours of sleep, if that , will lead to something breaking, and I sure as hell don’t want my manhood on display when he starts swinging.
Which leaves me little choice but to lie in the dark and wait.
Six hours is a bitch of a time for waiting, though, and I’m not much use for being idle. I tap my fingers for a few minutes before that gets boring. Then I tug on my cock for a little while, but although it’s filled to bursting, I can’t bust a nut to save my life. Rage is awake, and although he should have his nose buried in Celia’s hair, he’s determined to make this situation miserable for all of us.
He’s fucking glaring at me, even while I’ve got my dick in my hand.
“ Bro, ” I deadpan, rolling my eyes. “Get a fucking grip.” There’s a joke in there somewhere about how hard I’m choking my chicken, but it’s lost on Rage’s humorless ass. He keeps on glaring.
I stroke my cock a little slower, hoping he enjoys the show.
“Put that fucking thing away,” Rage growls, somehow managing to pull Celia’s body another inch away from mine, “before I have Ruin cut it off.”
I glance at our younger brother sitting in an armchair in front of the door. Once Celia fell asleep, he dragged the chair in from the living room and plopped down for our six hour hold. “He wouldn’t,” I say dryly. “He actually likes me.”
Ruin plays with the edge of his mask, like he’s itching to take it off. The man never leaves the house without it, but sometimes when it’s just us, he takes it off for a breather. I bet he’s tempted right now.
“She’s asleep,” I offer, gesturing toward Ruin’s face. “You could…” I mime pulling the mask off. “…you know.”
He stares at Celia for a long, silent moment, before grunting in response.
The mask stays in place.
I give up on my cock and cross my arms behind my head, sighing. I should be sleeping right now, but I’m too wired. Celia is here. In our apartment! In Rage’s bed! Next to me!
It’s a fucking crime that Rage is keeping her all to himself.
Rolling onto my side, I watch as he idly strokes her back. In another life, maybe it would be me holding her instead. Maybe Celia and I would have been high school sweethearts. Laughing and cutting class and shit. Getting caught kissing beneath the bleachers or going to second base in the back of the theater. I never had a girlfriend in grade school, and I lost my virginity to a junior sometime during the ninth grade. But she wasn’t my girlfriend—she was just a girl looking for some trouble when she found me.
I had trouble written all over me, even back then.
I fiddle with my snakebite, rolling it between my teeth. Does Celia like bad boys, or is she only with us because Rage is shoving his cock down her throat?
“Maybe we need new rules.” I cringe from the way that sounds, but now that I’ve said it, I can’t take it back. Rage’s hand stills near Celia’s shoulder blade. The fucker loves rules just as much as he knows I love to break them.
“What do you have in mind?”
My eye twitches. “For starters, how about actually sharing her like we’d said we would?”
“You get her in the evenings,” Rage grunts, “that is sharing.”
I shake my head. “No, man, it’s not. We shouldn’t take shifts. Besides, by that logic, you took her during Ruin’s night. That’s not fair, and you know it.”
Ruin nods from across the room. At least he’s paying attention.
“Then what do you suggest, brother?” Rage’s smile is full of sharp teeth. “Letting her decide who she sleeps with?”
That’s actually not a bad idea.
Rage catches the look on my face and hisses.
“She won’t know where to find us.” Ruin props his foot up on the bench press. “Unless we leave her breadcrumbs.”
“You’ll probably leave her a blood trail and scare her half to death.”
He inclines his head. “She is not scared of blood.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled me.” The bloodied comforter’s been tossed to the floor and a new one brought in from the linen closet.
“She will not decide on her own,” Rage grumbles, “because she’ll choose wrong.”
Ruin and I stare at each other, then at our brother. Rage always thinks he knows best. Or, at least, he refuses to be wrong and manipulates the situation until he’s proven right about whatever’s got him bent. It’s usually something to do with the bratva, or the club, or all of the boring meetings he has to attend as an honorary city board member. He likes to be right.
But this isn’t something I can let him bulldoze his way through. I won’t let him lock Celia in a cage—the metaphor will turn real if we let it slide now.
“You don’t trust her?” I ask gently.
Rage’s face contorts into something pained. He glances down at Celia, shifts her weight in his arms so that she’s leaning more on the pillow than his chest, and presses his forehead to hers. Then he murmurs something too soft for me to hear, presses a tender kiss to her lips, and lets her go.
He actually releases his death grip.
A muscle in his jaw tics as he peels himself away from her, careful not to jostle her as he gets up from the bed. He crosses to the bench press and sits beside Ruin’s foot, then picks up one of the heavier dumbbells.
Then the fucker starts to pump iron.
I get it—he’s stressed.
At least it gives me room to slide up next to Celia and curl into her warmth. That’s the thing about her that’s different from most women—she’s warm. In all the evenings we’ve shared, I’m the one shivering once the sun goes down. She’s the one stripping into a tank top in the middle of winter. I get cold just looking at her.
Rage exhales slowly, pausing with the weight draped across his bare thigh. “I don’t know.” His gaze flicks toward Celia, and thankfully, he doesn’t flip his shit that I’m touching her. “She hasn’t done much to prove that she’s…” He presses his lips into a thin line. “ Happy about it . About us. ”
Despite how old Rage is—somewhere over the cusp of thirty and inching closer to forty every day—sometimes I think he has a lot of growing up to do. Like I’m one to talk— shit , our whole family’s kind of fucked in that department.
Our parents weren’t exactly role models.
“She won’t be happy if you keep suffocating her.” I level him with a stern look. “With your fist or your cock.”
“Or both,” Ruin murmurs, still keeping up with the conversation. “She only wants gentle suffocation.” He flexes his fingers, like he has experience with this.
I mean, strangulation , yeah, he does. But with Celia?
My eyes narrow as he idly reaches toward her and mimes grabbing her. I’m not sure what he’s imagining—his hand around her wrist or around her neck?
Either way, I’m not sure I like it.
Rage clearly feels the same.
“Hey. Look at me.” He snaps his fingers to get Ruin’s attention. “You can play with her, but you can’t suffocate her.”
“And no knives.” I slide my fingers into Celia’s hair. It’s soft as fuck, and I cradle her head against my chest. Warmth spreads from her body to mine, sending a shockwave of something heavy through my bloodstream. I lick my lips, enjoying the way she wiggles to get comfier. She’s passed out cold despite the conversation happening around her. About her.
The tiniest smile curves on her lips.
I find myself smiling, too.
It’s what makes Ruin’s interest that much harder to swallow. When he finds something he likes…
He breaks it.
“No knives,” I repeat, closing my eyes. They’re starting to ache from how long I’ve been awake today. Yesterday. Jesus, what day is it? “And she’s not allowed in your room.”
Rage nods in agreement. “Definitely not.”
Ruin leans back in his chair and doesn’t argue. That doesn’t mean he’ll listen, though. It just means he won’t put everything on display.
We’ll have to keep an eye on him.
“Anyway,” I sigh, “new rules. She gets to pick who she sees.”
“Or does not see.” Ruin tilts his head to the side and cracks his neck. “I like this.”
Rage puts the dumbbell back on the rack and picks up a lost one from the floor. Once it’s back in its proper place, he frowns at Celia’s reflection in the mirror. He clearly doesn’t like it, but it’s two against one.
“Meeting adjourned.” I bury my face in Celia’s hair and take a deep breath, ready for the next six—five— whatever hours left to be over. Once she wakes up, everything will be different.
Excitement zings up my spine and crackles through my bloodstream, better than any drug.
Maybe the next time Celia goes to bed, she’ll take me with her. We can burrow under the sheets in the middle of the afternoon, hide from the daylight, and pretend that at least for a moment, we’ve only ever been ours.