62. Bay

SIXTY-TWO

bay

A warm barrier covers my mouth, cutting off my sleep and breathing and prompting my eyes to fly open to meet a shadowy figure hovering over me.

I jolt upward, solid weight pinning my body to the mattress just to be shoved back down by another strong set of fingers and into my springy bed.

Panic surges through every inch of my frame as my mind flies to Mae and Ellie in the other room before it crashes back into me with the reality I’m currently held prisoner to.

They’re not here. They’re gone.

“I told you this wasn’t done, Wildfire.”

Torin.

With a clenched fist of unadulterated fury, I ram it into his ribcage, not getting the momentum I would’ve wanted in my position, but I still hear him grunt.

It’s enough.

Releasing my mouth, he captures my hand and pins it over my head. I fight him with the other, not allowing him an easy fight or the power to hurt me.

He’s done that already.

He captured the only things left in my world that he could’ve fucked with. He meddled with my family and left me behind to allow loneliness and despair to creep laggardly through my veins.

“Get the fuck off me,” I scream in his face, struggling with him to give up on seeking my other hand. He finally latches onto my wrist, and we arm wrestle with each other to keep the other not without the upper hand here.

“Holler all you want,” he taunts me. “No one is going to hear you. No one’s here.”

I thrust my knee upward to slam it in his balls, but only hit his ass. “ Fuck you.”

“Oh, baby, I want to.” Torin leans over my body. The smell of bourbon wafting between us and it’s then that I know he’s drunk off his ass, but still strong as hell. “Your dad’s not here.”

I freeze because it’s as though those words suck all the energy out of me.

He’s forever gone.

I’ll never hear his voice again. We’ll never get to play Connect Four and watch football. He’ll never see Mae and Ellie grow up.

And he’ll see all the stupid shit you do.

Torin’s fingers lace through the locks of my hair and puts some of the weight of his chest on mine. “I’m sorry, baby.”

I shake my head because I don’t want his sympathy. It’s too late for all that. My life is in ruins because of him, and he won’t give it back. He refuses to make it better.

“I need Ellie and Mae, Torin. They have to be here.”

“Did he die alone?”

My brows knit in the dark, because I’m unsure if he means my dad or Judah. “Who?” Torin doesn’t answer me, tucking his face into the crook of my neck as my fingernails dig into his bicep. “Get off me.”

“How did you do it, Bay? How did you get both my brother and I to fall for your trap?”

“I didn’t set anyone up,” I carp out. “I wish I never would’ve met either of you.”

He freezes at my words, almost as though he didn’t think I’d ever say it or think it. Yet, he leaves me no choice to feel it. “You mean that?”

No.

Not whole-heartedly.

Ellie and Mae are gone, Bay. He did this.

“You’re crushing me.” That’s a lie, but I want to see if Torin has any bearings on reality or if he’s just living this drunk-filled scene in his head.

He lets off me a bit, looking down at me through the small streams of moonlight piercing through my room. “Do you mean that?”

“Does it even matter?”

“Maybe it should be the other way around,” Torin retorts softly. “That I never met you in the first place.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Maybe it is.”

There’s heartbreak in his voice, and I can feel it. I’m living it. But it’s not too late to fix all this. Torin can somehow get my sisters back and Levi out of jail.

The latter might not be the easiest, but it has to happen.

Or I’m marrying into his family to obtain what I need with the limited amount of time I’m given.

“Listen,” I cajole, holding my tone firm and gentle. “Judah fucked everyone who walked. He didn’t like me, which I knew of before. So, I moved on. Matteo showed interest, the rest is history. It wasn’t until your brother followed me out to the woods that he tried?—”

“Did you lure him there?”

“What reason would I have to kill your brother?” I retort. “You’re not thinking right. It makes no sense.”

He shakes his head before his free hand slides down between the elastic of my shorts. “Nothing makes sense, Wildfire. Not a goddamn thing.”

“Torin…all this, what you’re doing…I know you’re hurting and I’m sorry. It was out of character for Judah. I don’t understand why he lost his shit, but?—”

“When did your dad die?”

My whole body coils into this uncomfortable knot of the reality I’m sitting in, and I’m starting to run out of words to describe how I’m feeling.

I’m all over the place.

This house brings back every memory. It’s the home he raised me in.

And I want nothing to do with it one moment and everything in me wants me to keep fighting for it somehow.

“I don’t want to talk to you about that,” I mutter.

“Why, because I’m nothing to you anymore?” he sneers out. “I know I’m not Judah, but—” I immediately begin thrashing around to throw him off me, but to no avail.

I’m trapped under another Wildes man for the second time, and I’m in love with this one. It doesn’t matter how much Torin did and what he conjured up in his head, I know the feeling of grief, and we’re both doing it at the same damn time.

“Go ahead,” I taunt, still yanking on my arms. “Do exactly what your brother did.”

“I’m nothing like my brother, Wildfire. I’m worse.” His hand glides and descends my ribs in a gentle brush. “You’re addictive and beautiful. You’re so fucking raw and sinful that I’d go through hell just to know what it feels like to be inside you. You’re an addiction…a hard one to kick. I don’t know if I want to kill you or fuck you into next week.”

“I want to kill you,” I whisper with zero steel in my town because my vital organ that still beats for him clinches onto what we had. It was starting to fall for the person my brain told it repeatedly to stay away from. “You took Ellie and Mae from me.”

“You took Judah.”

“I told you?—”

“You wanna kill me, Astor?” His fingers dip underneath the waistband of my cotton shorts. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Fix it,” I reply instead through the tingles that begin to form all over my body. “Fix your fuck-ups.”

“Can you fix mine?”

He knows I can’t, but I wish I could.

It was never supposed to go down that way; however, his brother had other plans. I don’t know if he was so high that his decision-making was non-existent or if he truly wanted to take me out, except I wasn’t going to hang around for the so-called rational part of him to show up.

“Did Judah ever fuck you?”

My nostrils flare at the completely inappropriate and unhelpful question, though I answer it anyway. “ No .”

Torin pulls his hand free from my shorts. With his palm still keeping my hands secured together, he tears them down my legs.

He has an easy night, because I’m not wearing panties and the appreciative growl that rumbles from his chest shows how grateful he is for that fact.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare , Pretty Boy,” I leer though my body burns at the thought of him fucking me and conjuring all the negative thoughts to flee my head. Even if just for a moment. “You think I’m going to fuck you after everything you did?”

“I don’t need you to fuck me, Wildfire,” he emits low. “I can fuck you all by myself, baby. I need this.”

My empathy latches onto him too easily, but my brain still won’t allow me to forget.

He’s taken everything.

“Yeah?” I snarl back. “And what do I get to give you?”

“What do you want?” His question licks up my body and causes my nipples to pebble. Torin owns me and I need the title back to my heart. Even after being thrown and ejected into the unknown of what’s going to happen, I’m still riding the road with Torin driving the damn car to my heart.

“Let me go and find out,” I press, testing to see how much he gives a shit about how I feel with him touching me.

For a split second, I’m surprised as hell when both of his hands show up at his sides, but the warmth of his fingers still splay around my wrist as a reminder of what he just did.

And what he did before that sent my life careening into this unforgiving dark hole.

Leaning up a bit to give myself some space, my fist slams into the side of his head so hard that the pain that comes after it is imminent.

Torin’s face goes to the side a little bit, but he doesn’t react. He doesn’t even grunt or groan this time. As if he was expecting it.

Two peas from the same pod.

“You good now, baby?”

Tears—I’m literally getting so exhausted of them—form and I can’t form another word or action.

I want him to take this all back.

I still crave him in this addictive, senseless way that speaks to me on another level that no one has ever reached but myself.

He hates me, but he still desires me as well.

And that’s two things we share in common that neither of us knows how to bring back to before.

“I’m going to fuck you, Wildfire.” I see him begin to unbutton his jeans. “And you’re going to scream my name when you come.”

Everything in my head screams to tell him to stop. That we don’t need this. That there’s no way I need to keep drowning in Torin Wildes.

He’s not good for me.

With every fight that we have, is he going to destroy something of mine?

This is grief. His brother.

Shut up. He’s nothing but a selfish asshole.

“Leave me alone, Torin,” I profess half-ass, my thighs mindlessly spreading a little more to invite him in.

“I can’t,” he replies, almost pained. “I’m going to make us both forget, baby. Just for a second. I need you. And I hate that I need you right now.”

I don’t know what to say to that, other than I feel the same.

Torin is me so he knows exactly what I want and how I need it.

The tip of his cock slides against the slickness of my cunt and I hold my breath. I’m conscious that this could end badly, make things worse.

But my stupid decisions never seem to cease when he’s around.

“Tell me how much you want to see me beg, Wildfire? It’s absolute torture to want and hate you at the same time.”

“I’m not going to—” He slides into me, my traitorous cunt already wet and ready for him.

Torin fills me to the hilt, seizing a broken exhale from my lips.

“God, I love how perfect you fit me,” he grinds out, pumping into me in steady lunges. “Are you made for everyone else, too? I swear sometimes I wished it was just you and me and then I think of Reeve and could never think of prying you away from him.” He lowers his head, loading some of his weight on me. “He loves you, you know? He absolutely is obsessed with making you happy.”

“I…I love him, too.”

“Do you?” Torin grinds into me, his pelvis grinding into my clit. “Do you love me, Wildfire? Have you ever given a shit about me?”

He doesn’t deserve those answers. But I can’t help but relate to him in every single way right now.

“Yes.” Though, I don’t specify which question I’m answering.

“How would we ever fuckin’ be able to go back to what we were before? How do I forgive it, Bay? How do I make this all go away?”

I don’t know.

I asked him if he would go to war for me, and he gladly—quickly—told me he would. But now that I’ve stolen a piece of him that I can’t offer back on a silver platter, he practically did the same thing to me.

I took hold of his life and blew it up into smithereens.

“I was,” he mutters. “I was in love with you. I wanted to give you everything, and I feel stupid. I’m never going to be able to look at you the same. I’m never going to be able to get over the fact that you murdered my brother.”

“I’m sorry, Pretty Boy,” I reply through waves of pleasure as Torin pounds me into my bed. “You don’t know…how much.”

“I can’t say the same,” he says honestly. “I fell in love with someone my brother wanted. I saw the appeal and shoved it away. I took a chance…” He grates against me harder, making it hurt as he hate-fucks me. “Geezus…”

I reach up to touch his face, but he jerks away from me, not wanting me to touch him, but use me.

“Torin,” I start. “We can?—”

“There is no we ,” he seethes through his teeth. “There’s no me and you. Just me. And then there’s you. You’re an enemy. My brother’s… girl. ” His breathing heightens as his body kicks up to the next level of being closer to an orgasm. “Do you know how much I hate myself for still wanting you?”

“Why do you think Judah wanted me so much? I don’t get it.”

“He wrote about you. He told me how much I’d like you. That he wanted me to meet you one day.” A mirthless rumble of a disgusted chuckle comes off Torin’s chest then. “That you were my age. The fuck were the odds that it was you. That I’d ache for you like no one else.”

“It wasn’t like that with us. Judah and I didn’t have a relationship.”

Torin tucks his face into my shoulder and gains a new angle to make my pussy respond back. “I would’ve loved you for the rest of my life.”

My heart collapses because his words kill me. They absolutely slay me in every which way.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” I quip through his muddled thoughts because I’m still contemplating this arranged marriage with Ramsey.

If Torin doesn’t fix this, I have no other choice. I lose my whole fucking family to his petty-ass actions.

I lose Reeve.

My chest tightens as Torin continues his assault on my throbbing pussy. And I wish it’d stop the orgasm that creeps up into my lower spine, craving to break free and combust around Torin’s cock.

I hate him.

I loathe that I can’t decide what to do with him.

That I don’t want any of this and the past has finally decided to come for me after I thought it was over.

And now I’m reliving it again like it was yesterday—with his kid brother.

“I don’t want to ignore you, Astor,” he levels out through bated breath. “In fact, I’m never gonna leave you alone.”

“Don’t hurt me.” The candid remark leaves my lips before I can stop it.

I’m becoming too vulnerable in his presence, and that’s a major problem. Even though I want him, I can’t permit that kind of capability. Look where it’s gotten me thus far.

“Give me your cum,” he breathes over my lips, our broken exhales mingling into one. That entitled, sexy, goddamn haughty ass demand sends a shudder of uncontrollable pleasure coursing down me.

“Torin—”

“Fuck, baby, give it to me,” he sneers above me, but his tone doesn’t hold any detached animosity behind it, just a pure carnal need to have me explode into pieces. He plunges deeper into me, summoning my climax like he has the power to. “Let me hear you.”

His free hand locates my clit, moving it along his body as he delves into me and my toes curl from the severe buildup in my stomach.

I want to scream how frustrated and disappointed I am in him. That he devastated me with betrayal when I allowed him in my home, my family and still had my sisters taken away into a stranger’s house.

But none of that happens.

My scream is of sensual gratification at how Torin fucks me like he owns me. Searching for his own high as he delivers mine underneath him. It only drives him to go faster, finding his own climax seconds later, as he strokes his cock and finishes on my stomach.

My hands are promptly released as he lets go of me, the feeling in them half-gone as he crawls off the bed to clean himself up.

He plucks something off my bedroom floor as I work to regain my breathing, but I’m fully not given that opportunity when his next words seep into my lungs, my veins, my muddled brain, and even my fucking heart.

“This changes nothing,” he issues out. “I’m only going to break you down until maybe one day you shove a knife into your own gut and pussy out from the pain created in your head because you’re dead to me. But, don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll break one day and come back to fuck you so hard that we’ll both forget what happened for a few moments.” A shirt hits my face then, sticky with residue of his cum. “Thanks for the fuck.”

Normally, I’d jump out of bed and pummel him to the floor. I’d unleash all my pent-up anger on his body just to discipline his sorry ass into believing that he has no right to punish me the way he did. To rip my whole existence into two.

However, that doesn’t happen as well.

My whole body shuts down in defeat as I hear him walk down the hallway toward the front door of my soon-to-be old home.

All of this will be gone.

My family is gone.

Dad is dead.

Loneliness slithers up my frame as I curl into a ball, ignoring the aftermath of Torin on my body. A broken sob follows as my body feels it all the way to my bones.

Torin Wildes ruptured my heart and left it to die in his wake. He abandoned me with him still on my skin and the sensation of his release still inside me.

He crushed me and left.

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