Chapter 14 William #2
"Then stop hiding behind them!" Knox's voice rises to match mine. "Just admit you want her and can't handle that we have her! That we can make her laugh and moan and—"
"Knox!" Carina's sharp voice cuts through his tirade.
"What? We're all thinking it. He watches us like some Victorian ghost, all repressed desire and judgment. At least we're honest about what we want."
The silence that follows is deafening. Carina's face is flushed, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
Travis looks tired, older than his thirty-five years.
Knox is breathing hard, fists clenched like he wants to hit me.
Maybe I want him to. Maybe physical pain would be better than this emotional evisceration.
And me? I'm exposed. Stripped bare. All my careful control shattered by my baby brother's blunt honesty.
"Fine," I hear myself say, the word coming out cold and final. "Do whatever you want. I don't care."
"William—" Carina starts, reaching toward me.
"I said I don't care!" The words explode out of me, loud enough to echo in the kitchen. "Fuck whoever you want, whenever you want. Turn this place into your personal love nest. See if I care!"
I storm out, my bare feet slapping against the floor, needing distance, needing air, needing to be anywhere but in that kitchen with their pitying looks and understanding eyes. I make it halfway to my office before I hear footsteps behind me.
"William, stop." Carina's voice, firm and uncompromising.
I keep walking.
"I said stop!" She grabs my arm, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so small. "We need to talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Bullshit." She yanks harder, forcing me to face her. "We're talking. Now."
I spin around, and she's closer than I expected. Close enough that I can smell her shampoo. Close enough to see the golden flecks in her green eyes, the determined set of her jaw, feel the heat radiating from her skin.
"What is there to talk about?" The words come out bitter, acidic. "How you've forgotten why you're here? How you're supposed to be our chef, not our—"
"Not your what?" She steps closer, challenging me with every inch of her small frame. "Say it, William. Not your what?"
"Not our shared toy!" The ugly words explode out, meant to hurt, meant to push her away. "Not something for my brother and best friend to pass between them while I—"
"While you what?" Her eyes are blazing now, fury replacing hurt. "While you stand in corners and judge? While you make everyone miserable because you can't admit you want something? While you act like you're above basic human needs?"
"I don't—"
"You do." Another step closer. We're inches apart now, and I can feel her breath on my face. "You want me. I know it. They know it. Everyone knows it. The only person pretending otherwise is you."
"And what if I do?" The words pour out like water through a broken dam. "What if I want you so badly I can't sleep? What if watching you with them is killing me? What if I dream about you every fucking night and wake up hard and aching and—"
She kisses me.
It's not soft or tentative like I'd imagined in my desperate 3 AM fantasies.
It's fire and desire and everything I've been denying myself.
My hands come up automatically, one tangling in her hair, the other pulling her against me.
She makes a sound that goes straight through me, part triumph and part relief, and I'm lost.
I spin us, pressing her against the wall with perhaps too much force, but she doesn't complain.
Just pulls me closer, kisses me harder. I kiss her like I'm drowning and she's air, like I might die if I stop, like I can pour weeks of frustration and want into this single point of contact.
She responds just as desperately, her hands fisting in my shirt, her body arching into mine.
"Will," she gasps when I move to her neck, finding a spot just below her ear that makes her shiver. "God, finally."
Finally.
Like she's been waiting. Like she's wanted this as much as I have. The thought breaks something open in me.
I pull back to look at her, both of us breathing hard. Her lips are swollen, eyes dark with desire, and she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Here. Real. Wanting me despite everything.
"Come to my room," I say roughly. It's not a question. I don't have it in me to make it a question.
She nods without hesitation, and I take her hand, leading her through the house. Each step feels monumental. This is happening. After weeks of torture, of watching and wanting and denying, this is actually happening.
My bedroom door closes behind us with a definitive click. She's here. In my space. Looking at me like she wants to devour me whole. The morning light streams through the windows, painting her in gold, and I have to take a moment just to look at her.
"Will," she starts, but I'm already kissing her again, backing her toward the bed. I need this. Need her. Need to know what she tastes like, feels like, sounds like when she's mine.
Her hands are everywhere—under my shirt, in my hair, mapping my body like she's been thinking about this as much as I have. When her nails scrape down my back, I groan, the sound embarrassingly desperate.
"I've wanted this," she admits against my mouth. "Wanted you. Even when you were being impossible. Especially when you were being impossible."
"I'm always impossible," I manage between kisses.
"Yes," she agrees, pulling my shirt over my head with efficient movements. "But you're also brilliant and protective and you look at me like—"
"Like you're everything," I finish, pushing her back onto the bed. "Because you are. You're everything I can't have and everything I want and it's driving me insane."
I follow her down, covering her body with mine, and it's perfect. She's perfect. The way she arches beneath me, the little sounds she makes when I touch her, the heat between us that threatens to consume us both.
My hand slides under her shirt—Travis's shirt, my brain supplies unhelpfully—and she moans, pulling me down for another kiss. Her skin is soft, warm, perfect. This is everything I've denied myself, everything I've been too afraid to want.
And that's when it hits me. Like a bucket of ice water over my head.
This is exactly what I've been afraid of—this complete loss of control, this desperate need that makes me weak.
If I do this, if I give in completely, how will I ever maintain any boundaries?
How will I function when she's all I can think about?
I'm already obsessed, already desperate.
If I have her once, I'll need her always.
I'll become possessive, needy, everything she escaped from with her ex.
I pull back abruptly, my chest heaving.
"Will?" Confusion clouds her eyes, her lips still swollen from my kisses. "What's wrong?"
"This is exactly the problem." I sit up, running my hands through my hair, trying to find words for the panic clawing at me. "This... I can't."
"Can't what?" She sits up too, adjusting her shirt with shaking hands. "Can't want me? Can't admit you have feelings? Can't share? What is it you can't do?"
"Can't lose control!" The words burst out, raw and honest. "Don't you understand? If I do this, if I let myself have you, I won't be able to stop. I'll want everything. All of you. I'll become... I don't know how to want someone halfway. I don't know how to be casual or easy or—"
"Who says you have to be?"
"You're with Knox. And Travis. You have these easy, uncomplicated connections with them—"
"There's nothing uncomplicated about any of this," she interrupts, frustration clear in her voice.
"You think it's easy for me? Wanting three very different men?
Trying to navigate everyone's needs and boundaries?
Trying not to hurt anyone while figuring out what I need?
It's messy and confusing and sometimes I feel like I'm drowning. "
"Exactly." I stand, needing distance from the temptation of her in my bed. "It's messy. I don't do messy. I can't. The last time I let things get messy, my whole world imploded."
"Your parents' divorce wasn't your fault—"
"I'm not talking about that." Though maybe I am. "I'm talking about what happens when I want something too much. I obsess. It's who I am."
"No, it's who you've decided to be." She stands too, anger replacing confusion. "There's a difference between being controlling and being careful. Between protecting something and suffocating it. You'd rather be miserable than vulnerable."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." Her voice is cold now, and somehow that's worse than the anger. "You're a coward, William. You hide behind your business and your rules because actually feeling something terrifies you. Because you might have to trust someone else with your heart."
Each word is a blade, cutting deeper because they're true. Because she sees me. Because despite that, I still can't let go.
"Get the fuck out," I say quietly.
"William—"
"Get. Out." I can't look at her. Can't see the hurt I'm causing.
She stares at me for a long moment. I can feel her gaze like a physical weight, but I keep my eyes fixed on the floor. I hear her intake of breath, like she wants to say something else. Then the soft sound of her footsteps. The door opens.
"You know what the saddest part is?" she says quietly. "I would have chosen you too. All of you. But you can't believe anyone would want you that much. So you'll be alone. By your own damn choice."
The door closes behind her with a loud click that sounds like an ending.
I sink onto the bed, head in my hands. The sheets smell like her now. The room feels empty without her in it. Like she took something vital with her when she left.
I'm exactly where I always am—alone and fucking miserable.
But at least it's familiar.
At least it's safe.
At least I can't destroy her the way I destroy everything I touch.
My phone buzzes. An actual supplier email this time, requiring immediate attention. I grab onto it like a lifeline, burying myself in work, in numbers, in anything that doesn't involve thinking about the devastation on Carina's face when I pushed her away. Or the truth in her final words.
This is better, I tell myself. Cleaner. Simpler. Safer.
I know it’s a lie. But I don’t care.
Some of us aren't meant for messy. Some of us are too broken to love without destroying everything we touch.
And if that means watching from the sidelines while Knox and Travis make her happy, then so be it.
At least someone's happy.
Even if it's killing me slowly, one day at a time.