Chapter 26 Gabe
Gabe
I lean against the wood of her door, wondering what she’s doing in there. She came upstairs immediately after we got back in the house, and though she had dinner with us she hurried back to her room right afterward, leaving my father and me in the great room by ourselves.
I didn’t like that I had to spend time with him on my own.
I liked it even less when she deserted me without any explanation.
I pause and put my ear to the door, trying to hear what’s going on in there.
She’s humming to herself like she’s working on something, and I can hear the click of the buttons on the laptop she borrowed from me.
She’s typing quickly, then stopping to hum to herself and presumably think about what she’s just written.
What is she doing, writing a book?
I wonder if she’ll share it with me if I ask.
If she’ll invite me in and show me the laptop, laughing about whatever she’s doing.
If her eyes will light up the way they do when she’s excited about something, and if she’ll throw her hands all over the place, explaining, then ask me what I think of it.
When we were younger, we never kept secrets from each other. If I planned something, she was involved, and if she wanted to pull a prank, I was the first one she told about it. We were attached at the hip, inseparable. All in, all the time.
I guess things have changed.
My hand twitches, wanting to rise up and knock on the door, just to see if she’ll let me in and share whatever she’s doing.
I’m bored and edgy being stuck in this house, and if I’m being honest, with life itself.
I love the business and I think we can do great things, but part of me knows I never actually chose it.
I could have done something else with my life if my father hadn’t been depending on me to follow in his footsteps.
And though I’ve never faced that truth head-on, the last week has me rethinking things.
I feel incomplete, somehow, like something is missing.
Like I’m not living the life I’m meant to live.
And since Taryn showed up, it feels like she has the answer for whatever’s bothering me.
But I don’t know how to ask her what I should do.
Hell, I don’t even know what I would ask.
I might open my mouth to say something and find that I don’t have the words.
End up walking away, looking like an idiot.
Making myself vulnerable for no reason. I’m not even sure why she’d care what I’m thinking.
Her life is in the city now, not up here on the mountain.
She has friends and school and a career waiting for her down there, and I’m up here just.. .
Just...
Wasting away.
She can’t help that. Why would she even want to? I’m just the stepbrother she used to have.
The one she left behind.
I realize I’ve lifted my hand up to knock, my fingers curled into a fist and my knuckles almost on the wood of the door, and then realize how close I’ve come to making a fool of myself.
She doesn’t want me in there with her. If she did, she would have invited me.
Told me what she was doing and asked for help.
I thought I saw a glimmer of something in her eyes today out there in the snow, like she wanted to say something to me, but I must have been wrong.
Taryn’s never kept her opinion to herself. If she wanted to say something, she would have.
I pull my hand back and stick it in my pocket where it can’t get into trouble by having ideas of its own.
Then I lean in, listen to her humming for a moment longer, and close my eyes.
Hearing her humming makes me feel safe in a way I don’t understand.
Hell, having her here makes this place suddenly feel like home again—or like I have a reason to stick around.
But it’s not real. She said she means to leave again at some point, and I believe her. I can’t count on her staying, and I can’t afford to depend on her if she’s going to disappear again. That road will just lead to me getting hurt.
I open my eyes and stare hard at the door, wondering if I can send her the message that I’m standing here and want to be invited into her room. Want to be a part of her world, just for a moment. Want to feel like she needs me half as much as I need her.
But she must not get the message, because the door doesn’t open, and instead of just knocking and telling her what I want, I turn and stroll toward my own room, trying to put her and the ache she’s causing in my heart out of my mind.
It’s been years since I’ve let anyone into my heart, and I’m not going to start tonight.
Christ, I don’t even know if I remember how to love someone else. I’m sure as hell not going to start trying with someone who’s going to leave any day now.
* * *
When I wake up it’s still dark out, and not that pre-dawn sort of darkness.
It’s middle-of-the-night darkness. The you’re-still-alone-and-no-one-cares darkness.
The time when you’re left with nothing but your own thoughts and the damage they’re trying to do to your heart.
This is when all the worst things happen.
The memories of my mother’s death. The horror and fear that it might have been my fault.
The realization that I’m all alone in this world and that no one will come for me if anything happens.
The further realization that no one knows how badly I’m hurt, because I never show them.
I’m the only son of one of the leaders of the town, and therefore the closest Hawke’s Wood has to royalty.
I’m expected to be successful. Outgoing.
Happy.
And when they look at me, that’s what they see. Partially because that’s the mask I put on.
But in the middle of the night, when no one is watching, I let it slip.
Or rather… I tell myself the truth about it.
I used to tell Taryn as well, when we were kids.
She’d somehow know that I was awake and creep into my room, all sleep tousled and warm, to climb into my bed and hold me.
Tell me it was all going to be okay and that whatever it was, we’d figure it out.
Hell, she’s been in my room doing just that since she got back.
Not tonight, though. Tonight she’s doing something that doesn’t include me. In her room. By herself.
In that moment, I remember that I was dreaming about her being in her room.
Only I was there, too, and she wasn’t working on anything but me.
I was standing against her wall, and she was on her knees in front of me, my pants on the floor and my cock in her mouth.
Sucking me like her life depended on it, moving up and down my length until it was sliding down her throat, the head hitting the soft, wet skin there and her saliva dripping down to run over my balls.
I had my hands in her hair guiding her and my head thrown back, so hard that I was having trouble standing up.
I wanted to pull her up, turn her against the wall, and sheath myself in her, and I’d been about to do that when something woke me up.
And it’s in this moment that I catalog that my cock is hard and aching, straining against the sheets and begging to be let loose.
Fuck me.
I slide my hand over it, barely brushing the skin, and my toes curl with the absolute pleasure of it.
God, I don’t remember the last time I was this hard.
I’ve tried—with too many girls in this town—but I never quite get to my full length, and my skin never starts buzzing with the overwhelming need I’m feeling right now.
It’s like my brain just can’t do it anymore.
But one dream of my stepsister and I’m almost gasping with the need to stumble to her room, climb into her bed, and take her.
Slip between her legs, spread her pussy, and give her every inch of myself.
Watch her eyes when I’m balls-deep inside her.
I want to know how wet she gets. How tight she is. The way she sounds when I fuck her.
Only it wouldn’t be fucking, I realize. Never just fucking for my girl.
She’s been my best friend since I was thirteen, the one person who truly understands me.
I want us literally joined until there’s no more space between our bodies.
I want her with me, under my skin, my body inside hers.
I want to show her what real connection is.
I grasp my cock harder at the thought, unable to stop myself, and start pumping.
“Fuck,” I hiss, pumping harder. My hips start to rock with it and soon I’m jerking and moaning on the bed with the thought of taking her.
Turning her over, spreading her out, and taking her from the back.
Folding her small hands into mine and holding her there while I slide into her again and again.
Asking her to say my name.
Asking her to tell me that she wants it harder. Faster. Deeper.
That she wants me.
I have a split second of warning before the orgasm hits.
Just a breath before I’m coming so hard I nearly cry out.
I put my other hand over my mouth to keep myself quiet and let my body take over, spasming as it takes me over the edge and into that blissful place where I can’t feel anything but the mind-numbing pleasure of orgasm.
I dive off that cliff thinking Taryn’s name and seeing her face.
And knowing that when I come back, I’ll be so ashamed of myself that I can’t look in the mirror. And that I’ll have something hotter burning under my skin that I’m not allowed to look at again. No matter how much I want to.