12. Ky
Chapter Twelve
Ky
I stood in the middle of the living room, naked. Hayat’s come mixed with Jamie’s and mine soaking my cock that was still hard, even though I’d just had the best release of my fucking life.
Jamie and Sparks sat on the floor across from me, backs against the sectional, their gazes glued to the door of the bathroom that Hayat had just locked herself inside with her clothes and her phone. A ball of lead sat heavily in my stomach. Dread that this would be the only time I ever got to be with Hayat. Fear that we were going to lose her.
Already, I knew she was meant to be ours. Not just as Autumn’s Slumber’s drummer, but as our everything. She was the missing piece I’d been waiting my entire life for. A glance at my friends told me they felt the same way.
But because of who I shared DNA with, we were at risk of losing the best thing to ever happen to any of us.
“Damn it, I was hoping we could cuddle on the couch afterward,” Jamie grumbled, pulling his shirt over his head. “Your brother is still fucking us over.”
“Should have just let me kill the little prick when we had the chance.” Sparks stepped into his athletic shorts before glancing around the room at the mess we’d made. The scent of sex was thick in the air, and I wasn’t ready for it to fade. But Hayat wasn’t likely to be as enamored of the smell as I was when she came out of the bathroom.
If she ever did.
“We moved too fast,” I muttered, mentally kicking myself. “We should have taken this a lot slower. Eased her into who I really am, then let her know we are interested.”
“Or you could have told her about your Renchford connection right away, and she would have said fuck off. Then we wouldn’t have had a chance at all,” Sparks reasoned. “Now, she knows how good we can be together. On and, especially, offstage. She just needs to get it all straight in her head. She’s ours now, Ky. Not just our drummer, but ours in all senses of the word. I’m not losing her. We aren’t losing her.”
Jamie walked over to the closed guest bathroom door and knocked. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
“I need a minute,” I thought I heard her mumble in reply.
“No, baby. No minutes. Let me in.”
“One minute!” she shouted, making sure all the occupants in the building would have heard her if the penthouse weren’t soundproof so well.
I technically owned the entire building, Carver Towers. I was my mom’s only child, and she’d come from a loaded family. I was the last of the line, which meant I had all those billions to myself, but I would have given them all up to have her still with me.
Her financial situation was what had attracted my deadbeat dad to her in the first place. She’d funded his start-up business. But then he’d started fucking his secretary and gotten her pregnant with Holden.
When Mom found out she was sick, she was already divorced from the scumbag. But after she died, I had to live with Peyton Renchford and his perfect Stepford family. Hadley hated me just as much as I did her, and as soon as I turned eighteen, I was gone.
Which pleased my stepmother, until she found out that all that Carver money was going with me. It had been mine from the moment my mom passed away. Not even my father had been able to touch it. All the money was put into a trust until I was a legal adult, and then it was mine to do with as I pleased.
Grown women throwing temper tantrums was not something that amused me, but I’d had a huge grin on my face as I’d driven away from that house with her stomping her feet and screaming at me for being so ungrateful.
Jamie and Sparks moved in to the penthouse apartment with me that same day, and we all changed our last names to Carver the following week. Most of the people who lived in the building owned their apartments, which they’d bought when my grandfather built the complex decades before. Anyone else who leased paid through an agency, which also kept up maintenance and other repairs so I didn’t have to worry about it. Or deal with annoying tenants.
With the money I had, we could have started our own music label. Instead, we wanted the world to see us for our skills, not our last names. So, we were taking the slow and painful way of getting to the top. But no one would ever have a reason to question our talent when we got there.
“Hayat, open this door so I can take care of you.” Jamie raised his voice, using the tone that told us all he meant business. He was a marshmallow most of the time, but when it came to sex, he turned into a different person. Chicks loved that part of him, and that made it hard for him to get rid of the clingers when he became bored with them. “You have to the count of three. If I get to three and you haven’t done as I’ve instructed, I will break the door and then spank your gorgeous ass.”
“Jamie.” Sparks’s voice had a bite of warning in it. “We’re going to let her digest this for a little while before we start making demands.”
“Fuck that shit,” Jamie snapped. “One. Two. Three.”
Before he finished the last word, the door flew open. Hayat, dressed in everything but her shoes and hoodie, stood there glaring at Jamie. “Fuck you, Jamie. All I wanted was a few minutes to myself. All of this?” She waved a hand in my general direction, and I knew she didn’t just mean finding out who I was, but what the four of us had done together. Which made me feel a little better, but not by much.
We all knew what she was feeling right then was ninety-five percent because of me.
Fuck.
I ate up the sight of her, the sheer beauty of this woman who was going to change my entire life. Not just Autumn’s Slumber, but every other aspect of it too. Hayat Cutter was mine—ours. And I’d fight the fucking world to keep her.
She growled in a sexy yet adorable way that made my cock even harder when Jamie crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for her to continue. “Everything went at hyperspeed, and my mind is still stuck on a few things. But God fucking forbid that I need a minute to adjust to what I did, what I learned, and what I still want. Even though I know… Fuck, I know I shouldn’t want it.”
Slipping her feet into her shoes, she pushed past Jamie. Her gaze barely flickered over me before landing on Sparks for a few seconds longer. Licking her lips, she clutched her hoodie and phone to her chest. “I-I have to go.”
Sparks’s shoulders dropped in disappointment, but he nodded understandingly. “Take some time to get your head straight. We’ll still be here. All of us.” He stepped toward her, and she tensed. Stopping midstep, hands balling into fists at his sides, he forced a smile for her. “We’re going to give you some time, but you don’t get to hide from us forever. You are ours now, Hayat. In all ways, you belong to us. Just as we belong to you.”
Her pulse beat like a hummingbird’s wings at the base of her throat. Licking her lips again, she glanced at the three of us one more time before practically running for the door.
As soon as we heard the elevator, Sparks glared at Jamie. “You’re going to have to cool it for a while, dude. She isn’t like other girls. She’s not going to submit easily. That’s not even the appeal here. We want her because she is so different from every other girl. She’s utter perfection for us. Chill out for a few days so we don’t drive her away.”
“She wants to give in. She just doesn’t like that she wants to. Yet.” Jamie grimaced as he picked up the boxes of food from the floor where Sparks had tossed them before laying Hayat on the table. “I’ll give her a week but not a minute longer.”
“Agreed,” Sparks and I said in unison.
I wasn’t sure I could last even that long, but Sparks was right. She needed time to think about us. And then she and I needed to talk about the Renchfords. Maybe then, I could finally put them in the past where they needed to stay.