54. Bay
FIFTY-FOUR
bay
“You need more shit.” Torin tosses some wooden spoons in a box and opens up a random cabinet. He almost sounds disgusted; however, I’m not offended.
I’m too distracted to even let it settle in my head. My main concern is getting Dad, and the girls settled and ready for their new surroundings. Mae and Ellie are going to spend a few days with Juice and Hot under the pretense of a sleepover. And, thankfully, since Dad hasn’t woken, I don’t have to worry about where he’ll stay.
As for me, Nessa is bunked up with her psycho dad and I wasn’t accepting that invitation when she offered it. And Torin has bunkered down on staying with him for the last few days.
It’s ideal—for a second—but I’m not sure how much he’s going to be up my ass. I’m still getting used to him being around, looking after me, it’s…I’m adjusting. The only man I’m used to being so around is Levi, and that’s second nature. And with experiencing Reeve’s other side, I’m not looking to acquire two bodyguards.
“Bay.” I glance up at the sound of Torin’s, already watching me and cocking his head to the side through my day stress. “Where you at?”
“I’m here.”
Torin strides toward me, swagger and Pretty Boy vibes all in his arsenal with one hell of a mouth on him. He doesn’t buy my quick answer. I’ve been quiet and sulking, stressed and beside myself. “You know…we’re gonna deal with Vivian, right?”
I do.
However, I still shake my head. “Don’t. I got her ass.”
“Do you?” He quirks a brow, but it’s not questioning, just curious. “Do I want to know?”
“I dunno, Pretty Boy, do you?”
His lips quirk in a slight smirk. “I want to know all about it, Wildfire. Yet, I don’t want you to waste too much energy on the bitch.”
“I’m just going to leave a few bruises.”
“I was thinking something more permanent.” The crook of his index finger grazes underneath my chin and my skin lights up like a Christmas tree. “To remember you by.”
I’m starting to realize that Torin likes taking care of those around him who he cares about and I’m within that inner circle. And, even though he’s right about not putting too much energy into Vivian, I’m wishing for him to do the same.
“I appreciate it. But I think I’ve got it for now.” I pull from his ginger touch and round his frame to go pack a fucking box and get the hell out of here. I have to go pick Mae and Ellie up from school, because Levi is moving Dad’s car to the garage today and I don’t want pity soaking into my skin.
However, Torin has other ideas.
The tips of his fingers graze down the side of my arm before latching on firmly to my wrist, forcing me to turn around to meet him again.
To face this.
It’s been hard to keep it at bay. That I’m living the last moments in this house. That I’ll never walk through it again.
And it kills me.
“I know you don’t want the help,” he mutters softly. “I also noticed how much you don’t want to talk about it, so we won’t. However, I do need to ask a few things.”
If he asks me about Levi and my routine right now, I might lose my shit.
“Like?” I solicit, holding his tawny gaze.
“Like what shampoo you use and?—”
“Torin, I have my own shampoo.”
“And what breakfast foods do you like?”
“Whatever is in the house.”
His arm snakes around my back, and he pulls me closer. “I want to know what you like, baby, so you can thank me properly when Cairo cooks it.”
One of my brows pop. “Cairo? He cooks?”
“And loves it.”
“And I’d thank you because…”
“Because I made sure the shit was there.” He gives me one of his award-winning smiles. “And because I was being thoughtful.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t want my shit, trust me. I can barely make cereal.”
“Rich boy problems.”
“You’d be surprised at how not rich we were when I was growing up. My mom was a…pill popper.” He forces the last two words out like he doesn’t like to speak about it. “Ramsey and I took care of ourselves.”
“So you know the struggle.”
“Until she married Emilio. However, the house you’ll be staying in, Reeve, Cairo, and I bought ourselves. I don’t get shit from Emilio. I haven’t since I was an early teen.”
“Well…I like blueberry pancakes.”
“In bed?”
“No—”
“I want to bring them to you in bed.” His fingers splay across my spine possessively. “So that when you’re eating them…I can eat something, too.”
His words are dangerous. Torin has this way of bending my current chaos and filling it with promises and dirty little fantasies.
A distraction.
“You’re dumb.” It’s all I got. But Torin still smiles anyway because he’s fully aware I’m thinking about it.
“I’ve never spoiled a girl before…let me do it for you a little bit.” It almost sounds as if he’s begging me to lay off the prideful independence and give him some of the weight.
“Maybe once in a while,” I divulge.
“I noticed that when we asked you to move in that I barely knew shit about you. Then I got pissed.”
“Chill, Pretty Boy.” I pat his hard chest softly. “I’m not hard to please.” He’s silent for a minute, which never hits well with me as he searches my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like this.”
It’s those things again. The small slivers of vulnerability. The way he and I fit so well together. It’s easy to fall into it with him and not feel weak.
Stupid.
We share more than what I believe we’re bound to open yet.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I meet his tawny irises and give him the best smile I can. “I know something you can do for me.”
“Mhm?”
“I need parts for the Nova. I’m going to be spending a lot of nights on that thing after school. And even then…I might drop out.”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head as if the idea doesn’t sit well with him. “I heard Wallace say that your dad likes you in school. He’d want things to be normal. He’d want you to better yourself.”
“Things are different?—”
“Shit happens, but do this for your pops. We’ll help. Make me a list of shit you need, and I’ll make it happen. Reeve has some connections too.”
“That’s all I need. Oh, and food. I need you to bring me food to the garage.”
“How late are we talkin’ about staying at the?—”
“Oh, no.” My head rocks back and forth, because I’m going to be nipping this in the bud right now. “Don’t start bitching about how long I’m going to be out.”
“I’m not. I just want to make sure you get home at a safe hour.”
“Which would be, what, six ?”
“Five.”
“Torin…”
This dude actually bats his damn eyelashes at me for a hot second. “Yes, baby?”
“You’re a straight pain in the ass.”
“Speaking about ass…” He leans closer and hovers those plush lips over mine. “Who gets it first?”
Leave it to him to flip this shit right back into something safely amusing.
“Whoever lets me stay out the latest.” He scoffs at that, inducing a chuckle to rumble from my chest. “Re-thinking that, Pretty Boy?”
“No.”
I roll my eyes. “Stubborn.”
“Sometimes.” He peers down between our bodies and a look of something more dangerous passes over his face. “When you gonna put me out of my misery and fuck me, Wildfire? I haven’t had you in days.”
I shove him back a bit, getting him to pass through the threshold of the foyer and into the living room.
Getting him to the plush couch, I deliver another gentle shove as he willingly falls to the cushions before straddling him on both sides of his broad body.
“This feels oddly familiar,” he muses, leaning back and starting at the button of his jeans already.
“Does it? I don’t remember.”
Torin grips the front of my shirt and heaves me against his chest. “I have no fuckin’ problem reminding you.”
Then his lips crash onto mine to fill in those memories that still live vividly in my mind.
However, we didn’t kiss that day.
I just rode his cock and enjoyed every second of it while he believed he was screwing Levi’s girl.
Torin’s tongue demands entrance, which I gladly give him, lacing my fingers through his soft hair and grinding my cunt against his hand that’s currently trying to free his cock.
“I could tell that day that you didn’t belong to anyone,” he mutters against my lips. “You were too wild, too much into yourself and your own release.”
“Maybe I’m just a selfish bitch.”
Torin squeezes my thigh and starts to grapple at the fabric of my leggings. “Maybe. Or my fucking stepsister, who I still want to fuck every single day of the week.”
I smile against his kisses and raise up on my knees so he can peel the fabric down my ass. “You’re sick.”
“You’re sexy.”
“This pussy worth the weird looks, Pretty Boy? I’m a fucking Wildes.”
“And I’m a Morrison by blood, but I’d still tell people I’m fucking my stepsister because it’s raunchy and hot.”
My leggings and panties get to the back of my knees, and Torin positions himself to enter me, making us break out kiss so he can get around the rest of my pants.
“Do you remember what you told me?”
I shake my head. “Which part?”
“The part where you were gonna fuck me until I was madly in love with you.”
I feel the slight blush of crimson heat my face because I did say that stupid shit. “I was mirroring your cocky.”
“You’re starting to succeed.” Then he enters me, filling me entirely to the hilt as I squeeze the fabric of the couch for stability.
His words, mixed with the way he’s slowly fucking me to get used to him, only intensifies the need to lose myself with him.
I never thought we’d end up here.
I never believed that I would start feeling such sharp feelings for the man who was supposed to be my enemy. Born on the wrong side of everything South Shore, I’m fucking him into the family’s couch with zero shits and a whole lot of need to hear Torin tell me everything he’s been feeling.
“Don’t promise me that you’re going to tell me that you love me one day,” I quake even though I really want to hear it. “I’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“Will you, baby? I wouldn’t want to do that.”
“We don’t have to?—”
“I know Reeve is crazy about you…and wants to marry you one day, but I want a piece of you all of my own. That no one can have. We share a fucked-up last name, but I need you to know that I’m just as much in this as he is. That I might not openly say it all the time, but you’re embedded in here.” His palm begins to beat on his chest, where his heart lies. “I’ve never wanted to give someone all of me before to the point where they could shatter me into a million pieces.”
“I’m never going to do that.” My palm cups one side of his face, and he leans into it, kissing the inside of my palm as those russet browns peering up at me with so much adoration and contentment that I’m almost taken back.
“You’ll kill me if you do.”
“I wouldn’t?—”
“You would.” He drives into me harder, showing me how serious his words are and how seriously I need to take them.
I will.
And I’d never purposely destroy him in any way, shape, or form.
“If you’re falling in love with me, Pretty Boy, then you should know that I’m?—”
“Don’t tell me,” he emits softly. “Not until you’re entirely sure.”
But, I am.
I think.
Maybe he’s right. I’m not totally prepared to give out my heart when the thing is a little leery to put itself out there.
But I have with Reeve without a doubt in my mind.
And Torin scares the shit out of me in ways that remind me constantly that he’s the inner workings of me in male form. Which states clearly that he could work me from the inside out, strip me bare, and dismember me all in one go.
Torin doesn’t seem to be bothered that I don’t reply, too interested in sinking himself in me at different speeds and depths.
His hands find my upper thighs as he grounds me in place so he can fuck me the way he wants. I get the best position because I’m open to him, enjoying each moment he’s entering and leaving me.
I’m not going to last long. His remark already tipped my brain and soul to careen over and become his.
Becomes part of the Wildes.
Yeah, he might be a Morrison, but his stepfather is my worst nightmare.
And I want to know if he’d protect me from him. Emilio has an agenda that I’m not all the way privy to yet, but I know it’s there.
I look down at Torin, watching me this whole time as I work myself into a mixture of pleasure and worry.
Is Torin playing me?
He’s saying all the right things. He’s fully aware I like Reeve. He’d need to step his game up to gain my trust.
Bay, stop.
“Why do you look like you’re conflicted, Wildfire? You lookin’ to break up with me already?”
I mindlessly shake my head and meet his light stare. “Would you go to war for me?”
“Yes.” And I don’t miss that he doesn’t ask me why or what for, which I can perceive—in my stupid-ass mind—as shady or sincere. Question is, which one?
“Against South Shore.”
That’s a lie, and I feel bad for tricking him; however, I can’t move past this until I know he’s with me with me.
Torin’s brows knit. “Why would you want to do that?”
“My own reasons.”
Pretty Boy halts his movements, keeping himself deep and leaving me to squirm against his thickness. “Did someone else hurt you?”
“Not physically.” His nostrils flare. “Do you need to know all the?—”
“No,” he manages to say before arching himself back into me and working us back into a steady rhythm. “No, I don’t need to know anything.”
“You sure? Because there’s more.” He shakes his head and bites down on his lower lip. “I want to go against Emilio Wildes, too.”
“Get in line, baby,” he growls at a spot he hits inside me and appears unconcerned or bothered by what I’m saying. “Fuck me. I want that sweet cunt to milk me dry.”
I follow his orders, up and down, and with a slow swivel of my hips. Torin urges me on by meeting me thrust for propel, running his hands all over my body.
I might have him exactly where I could destroy him.
However, all I want to do is protect and…eventually, love him.
“Shit, right there,” Torin snarls out. “You’re gonna kill me, baby.”
“Deeper you said?” I slam into him, causing us both to gasp as I go full throttle. My body and movements get sloppy and uncalculated, but Torin loves it. His breathing is so fucked up that I can hear it over mine.
Torin cheats and finds my clit, rubbing torturous circles around it before I crumble and keel over, giving him a new angle to drill inside me.
When he’s ready, he pulls out of me, spilling himself into his hand as we heave in well-needed oxygen.
I move to the side to sit beside him and that’s when he grips me by my t-shirt to place a long and slow kiss to my lips.
“In case you were confused, Wildfire…I’m in love with you. Fuck Emilio Wildes, South Shore, The Landings, everything. It’s me, and you…and that stupid motherfucker, Reeve.”