7. Etta
7
ETTA
H indsight is a wonderful thing. If I’d known that being drawn back into my stepbrother’s world would result in me being naked in the shower with him while he washes my hair, after he just washed my body so thoroughly that there isn’t an inch of me that wasn’t coated in soap, I’d have stayed in Vegas.
I don’t know how we got from him silently ordering me into his car like he hated me so strongly he wouldn’t have cared if I’d have dropped dead on the spot to him barging into my room in the middle of the night and declaring I was his.
Oz is the incarnation of every nightmare I’ve ever had come to life. He’s a beautiful devil, luring me in with his rugged good looks, then ensnaring me with his huge dick and whispered praises.
I’ve been an idiot, but I’m not stupid enough to not realize how bad it would be to allow myself to stay in his house right now. We’ve had unprotected sex four times. There is a real chance his cum could be swimming toward my womb, intent on ruining my life right now, and there isn’t a thing I can do to stop it.
I have to get to a pharmacy. I need a Plan B and something that will stop me from wilting every time he praises me. Good girl . Those two words affect me more than any others in the entirety of my life.
It’s only two words, but the power they have over me is jarring, and I’m incapable of fighting against their thrall. Because since the first time he said them to me, I’ve craved hearing them again.
The truth is, I do want to be his good girl. I want him to whisper his filthy affirmations to me while he fucks me hard and fast. I want him to tell me how proud he is of me, even if it is only for my ability to make stupid decisions that could change the course of my life completely.
I want it all, but I can’t have it because he is the enemy. He’s everything bad that happened in my childhood. He’s why I was friendless for over a decade. He’s why I can’t travel. He’s why I fled from the house he tortured me in the moment I could. He’s why I’m so scared of everything.
So why aren’t I scared of him?
Why is my sore sex still dripping with arousal? Why am I desperate to get on my knees and beg for a taste of his cock? Why am I eating when he says, texting when he says, and calling when he says?
Once he’s done rinsing the conditioner from my hair, he washes himself, then lifts me out of the shower and wraps me in a huge towel. The fabric smells like him, and I inhale deeply before I can stop myself.
Lifting me off my feet again, he carries me into the bedroom and then dries my skin.
“Can you take me again?” he rasps, fisting his hard cock as he reaches out to cup my mound.
“Fuck,” he growls before I have a chance to speak. “No, you’re too sore. I’ll wait, I can cope for a couple of days until I see you again.” Inhaling sharply, he releases his hold on his cock, then strides to the dresser and pulls out boxers and a pair of cargo pants.
Instead of closing the drawer, he unzips my case and starts to unpack my things, placing them on the right-hand side of the dresser alongside his own clothes.
“These go in the trash,” he says, holding up my vibrator and the small suction dildo I bought, hoping it’d be fun to play with while I was in the tub.
“You can’t throw out my toys,” I protest.
“I already told you, nothing goes in your cunt except me.”
“It’s my body.”
“And now it belongs to me,” he says sternly, his eyebrow arched like he’s begging me to argue.
Wrapping the towel tighter around myself, I step forward, determined to grab the sex toys out of his hand as he goes through the rest of my toy bag, clearly dividing them into two piles. I don’t have a massive amount of sex toys, but when Octy and I first became friends, I confided that none of my boyfriends had ever made me come, and she bought me what she called a self-love kit that had pretty much anything the solo orgasm enthusiast could need to find the promised land.
“These you can keep and play with whenever I’m not here,” he says, pointing to a pile that includes a couple of vibrating bullets, a toy that sucks your clit, some nipple clamps, a grinding toy, and a couple of butt plugs. “These are off limits.” He points to the vibrator and dildo.
“I can order myself new toys.” I try to protest, but the argument is weak at best.
“But you won’t, will you?” he purrs, closing the distance between us and pulling the towel from me. “You want to please me, don’t you, Little One? You want to be a good girl for me and you know I’ll be disappointed in you if you push anything into your tight little pussy. Filling your needy cunt is my job now. Once I fuck your ass, I might make that off limits too, but for now, I like the idea of you stretching yourself with one of these little plugs while you flick your clit.”
“I don’t like anal,” I blurt without thought when I should be insisting that he can’t tell me what to do.
“You don’t? Why not?”
“It hurts,” I whisper, remembering the one and only time I tried it. It hurt and I bled, and I haven’t even considered trying it again.
“Don’t worry, we’ll go slow, and I won’t take you there until you’re begging me to.”
I’m relieved at his easy acceptance, but then I question why I’m even thinking about this because I won’t be here.
“Find something to wear. No underwear,” he orders, taking the last of my clothes from the case and hanging them on the rail beside his own. Once he’s content that my case is empty, he presses a kiss to my forehead before he disappears from the room, taking my suitcase with him.
Am I really going to get dressed without putting on underwear? Even after a shower, I can still feel the aftereffects of multiple rounds of unprotected sex and all of the bodily fluids he pushed and fucked into me. But defying him seems impossible. I might be scared of him and our history, but it’s not fear that will keep me obeying his rules. It’s because he’s right, I don’t want to disappoint him. I know the moment I go downstairs, he’s going to see if I obeyed him, and I want to hear him call me his good girl, especially if it’s for the last time.
Because once he leaves, I need to, too.
Stepping into the closet, I glance at my clothes hanging next to his and sigh. I’ve never shared space with a guy before. With the handful of guys I’ve dated in the past, it’s never been serious enough to move in together. Being here in his home, especially after last night, is the closest I’ve ever gotten to living with a man, and even though it’s only been a handful of hours, if I had the chance, I know I could get used to it.
Sex before we get up and start our day, showering together, him insisting I don’t wear underwear while he cooks breakfast for us both. It sounds too good to be true, and that’s because it is. Because what he and I did last night, it’s all just a fantasy, because in the real world, he’s my estranged stepbrother who hates me.
Dragging a pair of soft gray sweatpants and a fitted, cropped shirt out of the dresser, I pull them on, grabbing my hairbrush from the pile of stuff he dumped on the bed after he emptied my case.
Tugging the brush through my wet hair, I quickly style it into a high ponytail, then exhale before I leave the bedroom and head downstairs. The scent of bacon gets stronger as I descend the stairs, and my stomach turns. I’m not a preachy vegetarian, I just don’t like meat or the smell of it cooking.
“Come and sit,” Oz orders the moment he sees me.
“I might sit outside,” I say politely.
“I want to be able to see you,” he says, a hint of a growl in his voice.
Trying not to breathe through my nose, I take a seat at the dining table.
“Why are you all the way over there? Come and sit at the breakfast bar,” he orders.
Squeezing my eyes shut for a moment, I stand and cross to the breakfast bar, slipping onto one of the stools and forcing a smile to my lips.
“Do you want eggs with your pancakes?” he asks, humming to the quiet music he has playing.
“No, thank you.”
“Tell me about your job,” he says, happily flipping pancakes on the griddle while the bacon he has cooking sizzles in the pan on the hob.
“There’s not much to tell.”
“You said it was something to do with marketing?” he questions.
“Yes, that’s right.”
Pursing his lips, he turns to look at me. “What the fuck is going on, Etta? Why do you look like you’re going to shit a brick? And why the fuck aren’t you answering my questions?”
“I’m fine.”
“Clearly, you’re not. So, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine.”
Sighing, he slides the cooked pancakes onto a plate then circles the counter, storming over to where I’m sitting. The moment he’s close enough, the scent of him or his shampoo fills my lungs, and I find myself relaxing. Cupping my cheek with one hand, he collars my neck and tips my head back so I’m looking up at him. “What’s wrong, Little One?” he purrs.
“I’m not great with the smell of meat cooking,” I whisper, bracing for his reaction.
Exhaling, he sighs. “Fuck,” he murmurs beneath his breath. “You should have said.”
“It’s your house.”
“It’s our house now. I’m sorry, baby, let me open the door.”
“Oh no, you don’t need to do that,” I rush to say, panic heating my cheeks as he steps away from me and opens the back door, carrying the pan of cooked bacon outside. “No,” I gasp. “I didn’t…you don’t have to…this is your home you shouldn’t?—”
“Stop,” he snaps, closing the distance between us again and curling his palm around the nape of my neck.
My mouth snaps shut, and I hold my breath, wondering what he’ll say or do.
“I didn’t think the bacon would bother you. Is it all meat or just bacon that you don’t like?”
“No, it’s fine, it’s a me thing, you don’t need to?—”
“Henrietta,” he hisses angrily, interrupting me.
Clamping my lips together, a tremor of fear ricochets through me at the anger in his voice, and a memory of him and Bruce fighting flashes into my mind. Back then he rarely used my name, instead he referred to me as her or Maureen’s kid . But when he did use my name, he’d drag it out, the sneer and revulsion so clear in his voice that I feel goose bumps rippling across my arms just from the memory. Henrietta. Until Oscar had said it, I’d never heard my own name used as an insult. It’s one of the reasons that I started asking people to call me Etta.
“I’m sorry,” I instinctively say, unsure what I’m apologizing for but doing it anyway, just like I did when we were kids.
“Etta.” This time when he says my name, it’s softer, and when I lift my eyes to his, there’s regret shining in his depths. “Jesus, I really fucked you up, didn’t I?” he asks bluntly.
“You were my monster under the bed,” I confess, then immediately wish I could swallow the words back down again.
“Fuck.” Sighing, he leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “It might take me the rest of our lives, but I’ll make it up to you,” he promises reverently.
Reluctantly retreating, he goes back into the kitchen and finishes making the pancakes in silence.
We eat in uncomfortable memory-fueled quiet, and any hope I’d been secretly harboring that this could work between us fades away. From the very first time he kissed me, I’d known there could never be a future for us, but feeling the tension bouncing between us now has cemented it.
This isn’t a romance book where the bully falls for his victim and changes into her hero. This is real life, and even though Oz and I aren’t kids anymore, the memories of the anxiety, fear, and trauma I felt back then have never really gone away.
It’s possible that I was always destined to be a quiet, reserved person. Maybe Oscar’s short time in my life wasn’t the catalyst that activated the anxiety that has plagued me ever since. Maybe my fear of being heard and seen was always inside of me, dormant, just waiting for a trigger to be switched. Maybe I’m just a huge scaredy cat, and I’ve built him up to be a bigger monster than he actually was.
Or maybe he’s every bit the monster I remember him to be, and I’m just trying to alter my own memories to convince myself he’s not as bad as I remember him to be.
But whether he’s the reason I’m the way I am or not doesn’t change the fact that his time in my life was damaging to me. So many of my adult issues stem back to him, and I can’t forget that or brush them under the rug simply because he tells me to.
Once we’re both finished eating, he takes our plates into the kitchen and places them in the sink. Lifting his wrist, he looks at his watch and exhales. “I have to go back to work.”
“Okay,” I whisper, knowing that this is it. That once he leaves, this will be over. Just one more strange, life-altering event that will impact me more than it should because of him.
His brows are drawn down low as he strides back toward me. “Just because I’m not here, the rules don’t change. I expect a picture of each of your meals, no skipping. If I text, you reply, if I call, you answer.” Pausing in front of me, I expect him to head for the stairs or to go back into the kitchen to load the dishwasher, but instead he lifts me off the stool, carries me to sit on the sofa, then lowers himself to kneel at my feet.
Reaching up, he cups my cheek in his huge palm. “Fuck, Little One, I’m sorry. I wish I could take back all the shitty things I did when I was a kid, but I can’t. I don’t know if I’m still the monster I was back then. But I’m not your monster anymore. You don’t need to be scared of me, because I’d kill myself before I hurt you again.”
I try to find the words to accept his apology, but I can’t, and instead the only thing I can say is his name. “Oz.” I shake my head.
“Listen to me, Etta. Our past is fucked up, and I’m guessing your opinion of me is pretty low right now because it’s tainted with all the memories of the messed-up things I did to you. But I take care of the things that are important to me, and you’re the most precious thing I’ve ever owned. I promise I’m going to take the best fucking care of you, you just have to give me a chance to prove that to you. You and our baby”—his hand covers my stomach—“are the best fucking things that have ever happened to me. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you, but I must have done something right to bring you back to me, and now that I have you, I’ll fucking cherish you and our kids until the day I die.”
“Oz.” I try to deny his words, but he covers my mouth with his, silencing me.
“I’m sorry, Little One, I can’t wait, I need you again,” he growls, lifting me and running up the stairs with me in his arms. Placing me down in the middle of the bed, he pushes my sweats down my legs, kicking them off my feet with his foot. Unfastening his pants and pushing his boxers down, he shuffles between my legs, then spears his tongue into my sore sex.
Pushing his tongue in and out of me, he finds my clit with his thumb and works it until my hips are jerking against his mouth and my core is flooded with arousal. I come so fast I barely even realize it’s happening before my back arches off the bed and a cry is wrenched from my lips.
Positioning himself between my thighs, he forces his dick into my swollen core, relentlessly pushing forward until his hips touch mine. Instead of pulling out and slamming back into me, he fucks me in slow, languorous slides that hit my G-spot every single time. Each time he fills me, a surge of pleasure starts to build inside of me, only to fade away as his dick retreats. The hint of pain that follows each thrust somehow only heightens the pleasure, and before I’m even aware, I’m tumbling over the edge into bliss.
The orgasm isn’t an explosion like the others he’s given me. Instead, it’s a slowly mounting tide that splinters into fissures that elongate along each of my nerve endings, making it feel like my entire body is tingling with pleasure.
“Oh fuck, Little One, you’re so fucking perfect, you feel so fucking perfect. Your tight little pussy is drinking up my cum, and I couldn’t leave you without knowing you were full of me. You’re such a good girl, so fucking good,” he rasps against my ear as he pumps his release into me for the fifth time since he barged into my room.