Chapter Five
Any asshole looking in would think we are just two guys enjoying the last sunny days floating in my parents' pool before fall sets in. Reclined on this inflatable chair Danny insisted we buy, it does look like I’m the picture of relaxed. Chill. Whiskey and sunglasses to fight the blazing sun.
But really, they just hide the way I’m staring up at her window.
I don’t know what I’m watching for. Her curtains have been shut the entire time, but something about knowing she’s trapped inside makes me hard. She won’t come down now that she knows I know her deepest secret.
Leigh's been a very dirty girl lately.
When Danny came sneaking back into my room last night, I didn’t think we’d find much on her stolen laptop. What fucking luck that she’d not locked it? Almost like fate, as if I was destined to know what her darkest desires were, word for filthy word.
She’s a fantastic writer, I already knew that.
I’ve been reading her journals for years.
But now? She’s making money from some very dark, very taboo fantasies and I could not fucking stop reading them until I’d been through a large portion of her backlog.
It’d taken most of the night, but it was like getting high repeatedly on my favorite drug.
Her. Leigh. The little demon inside me that’s been begging for me to come home and spread her out on that little lacy bed of hers was fucking delighted at the number of novellas she’d written about girls being hot for their stepbrother. Surely they had to be based somewhat on reality.
I thought maybe I’d been kidding myself.
That was until Danny and I reached the very last one.
The one she’s working on right now. An incomplete story about a girl whose stepbrother comes home from college for Halloween, and they finally cross that line with each other.
There’s some primal play, and lots of spooky shit.
It’s hard to believe she knows what some of these kinks are, let alone writes them so accurately. I’m sure it’s just from watching videos that she learned so much, because I fucking refuse to believe she’s already played them out with the idiot she just dumped.
A shiver of violence burns through my body, but no. Focus. Cracking my neck, I take a sip of my whiskey and pull back that rage.
Leigh. Her name centers me.
My only wish is to know how she would have ended it, because the story comes to a halt right as the step-brother catches the girl.
Fortunately, I’ll be the first to see anything she publishes from here on out because I’m now her number one subscriber.
I wonder if she already saw the large tip I’ve left her?
The thought makes me chuckle up at the window.
So she wants to be hunted? Oh, that is something I can do for her.
“What’s going through that devious little head of yours?” Danny’s raspy voice draws from across the pool.
“Just picturing all the ways we can help her finish that story.”
He laughs. “When we decided to come back here and fuck with her I didn’t realize it was going to be so kinky.”
“Liar,” I say, my eyes turning to take him in where he’s draped across a reclined pool chair, his tattooed muscles on display. “The last time I fucked you it was her name you were moaning.”
He scoffs, sitting up to pin me with a glare. “That was one time. Besides, it’s obvious this little fixation of yours is not disappearing. You should have done something about it ages ago and I’m just helping you light the fuse.”
“I don’t need a matchmaker. Once I get her in my bed she won’t question coming back to it.”
His laughter rumbles across the pool. “You do need me, you fucking idiot. You almost scared her to death earlier. She’s not going to come to you willingly if you keep coming off like such a creep.”
I sigh, head dropping back. “I just—for a moment I thought maybe he’d done something else…to her. It didn’t say how he’d broken her trust, just that he did. I mean, it’s her only relationship that I know of. It pissed me off.”
“Because it’s not you,” he adds.
“Yeah.”
“You can’t lose control like that again. What happened with that guy in high school can’t happen again, Chase. Your dad can’t get you out of another situation like that.”
Anger courses through me at the reminder of the jack-off who had touched her all those years ago. Pushed her into a locker, if memory serves.
As her brother, it was my job to push back. So I pushed him right off the road with the front of my car and straight into a bridge beam.
“I’m in control, Danny. I’m not a kid anymore. Neither is she. I really tried to forget about her the last few years, and hoped she was happy with this guy. Look how that turned out.”
Danny turns to me. “You didn’t try that hard to forget about her. Every girl you’ve brought home has been a clone of Leigh.”
I sigh, leaning back. I’ve already accepted this about me.
“I’m sick for her. Have been since that fucking party.
” He laughs as I remember her innocent face, trying to look older than she was.
“But I'm done fighting. I want her. I don’t want her exploring her fantasies with some piece of shit when she could do it with me.”
My best friend just shakes his head. He knows I’m down bad, have been for a while. So naturally, now we’re both here with the same goal in mind.
Take Leigh and make her ours. Just for one night. After that she’ll be desperate to be mine for good.