Chapter 16 Sev #2
Because when you start to say things like don’t fuck other people, the natural next step is to be exclusive.
To date. Be boyfriends. Be committed. And that’s something I’ve never, ever wanted.
How could one hot frat boy be altering my architecture so much that I’m thinking about things I’ve never even considered before?
The panic starts to hit slowly. My whole life, I’ve only believed one thing: getting involved with anyone is a bad, bad road to go down.
I begin to jog off, and even as my head is spinning, my cock still aches like a goddamn weight between my legs.
Running away from him? As if that’ll stop you from having feelings for him?
I’m at war with myself, and I’m certain now that I’m going to lose.
When I feel my phone buzz in my pocket a minute later, I pull it out fast, desperate for a tether back to reality.
But it’s him.
Of course it’s you.
If you’re going to fuck with me like this, you should know something about me.
What’s that?
I’m needy. And impatient.
My cock throbs and I have to pause for a moment as I’m jogging, leaning up against a half-wall with a bed of colorful tulips below it. I’m still so desperate for him it hurts even as my mind is melting down.
Needy for…?
If no one else is allowed to fuck me, then you better give it to me. Anytime I want it.
Fuck.
Fuck, he’s perfect.
He’s perfect even when I’m acting like a complete basket case, making demands of him out of nowhere and then fleeing the scene because intimacy is the one thing in my life I have zero control over.
And that’s what’s different about him, I realize.
Intimacy scares me, but with him, it doesn’t feel difficult at all.
It would be harder to ignore it than to give in.
It’s always right there crackling between us, and the moment I let slip that I didn’t want anyone else touching him, it became clear that it’s a need.
I’m practically vibrating out of my skin as I tap out a reply to him, my heart slamming inside my chest.
I have a Double Daggers house meeting tonight. Find me afterward, and I’ll give you the cock you need so badly.
Nope. I’m needy. I want you sooner than that. I’ll come to the Daggers house before the meeting, so be ready.
I get back to the Daggers house and the front door slams behind me even though I don’t mean for it to.
Everything feels off. Like I’m not myself. Maybe like I’m coming down with something bad.
I head to the kitchen, needing hydration.
I know what it feels like to go too far, because I’ve done it many times, usually when it comes to taking physical fights further than they need to go.
But this is different.
“Berlant,” somebody says from behind the fridge door, where I’m currently leaning my head in to catch the cold air. “How’d it go?”
I lean back and swing the fridge shut, seeing Kieran leaning on the counter. I wipe at my mouth with the back of my hand.
“My run?”
He rolls his eyes. “Your run with Weston, dude.”
Shock hits my nerves like ice.
“What?”
“You were running with him. I just walked back from Econ class. Saw you jogging alongside him.”
Fucking Christ.
“It was just a run, Kieran.”
“You must be getting some kind of dirt if you’re friendly enough to go on runs with the guy. Does he trust you yet?”
He really shouldn’t.
“I think he does,” I tell Kieran.
“Did he say anything about the alumni dinner next week?”
My chest tightens as I chug more of the water, looking away from Kieran. A couple other Daggers guys just headed downstairs and are filing into the kitchen now, raiding the fridge behind me.
I think of the note I saw scrawled over Noah’s planner.
VIP - Private table - Onyx Only. Talk with Roman and Wes beforehand.
It’s something I would normally divulge to Kieran, but I can’t bring myself to say it. It’s possible that Roman is using his mafia connections to pay off some of the alumni, but it’s not guaranteed from what the note says.
And I don’t want Kieran fucking with Weston.
The thought of him touching Wes makes me murderous.
“We didn’t talk about the dinner. I’ll try to talk to him sometime this week. Don’t you have better things to be worrying about?”
Kieran furrows his brow, suddenly going serious. “You know why it matters to me, Sev. I need a good internship this summer, and I want it to be with the Callahan firm. It’s not like I have opportunities handed to me like the Knox brothers do.”
A knock comes from the front door and my blood pressure spikes.
“That might be the sandwich I ordered,” Kieran says.
“No. I’ll go get it,” I tell him.
I head straight for the front door, pulling it open.
Weston is there.
And my stomach drops like I’m free-falling on a roller coaster.
When I see his flushed face outside, my panic doubles. Kieran’s behind me in the house. Weston’s out on the porch in front of me.
“The fuck are you doing?” I ask.
“You know what I’m doing,” he says. “Told you I was coming over.”
He has the same look in his eyes that he had right before I fucked him, half-lidded and impossible to ignore.
“Thought you meant later. Aren’t you at least going to go home and shower first?”
He just shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll shower here. With you.”
It’s maddening.
This cocky, suddenly confident attitude emanating from him is hot as fuck, and I also have no clue how to handle it.
I turn around to look back down the hall toward the kitchen. Kieran’s there, but right now he’s caught in a conversation with the other guys.
I look back at Weston and nod, opening the door for him. “Get in here and just go upstairs, okay?”
“I want something first.”
He pushes me up against the wall near the front door and crushes his lips to mine the same way I did outside earlier.
I should push him away, but I don’t. He slides his tongue along mine for a moment and then puts his teeth on my lower lip, pulling it, retaliating in every possible way for what I did earlier.
He palms my cock through my shorts and then quickly pulls away, giving me a look before turning and heading up the staircase.
My eyelids flutter shut for a moment as I stay leaning back against the wall.
Each beat of my heart feels like a wartime drum.
And I feel like he deserves some sort of warning about me.
But how the hell can I warn him about every goddamn thing inside me that makes me who I am?
How could I tell him that I learned quickly growing up that I didn’t believe in promises?
Or that every man who passed through my childhood home and promised my mom something different would be yet another reason I believed in nothing?
Or how I picked up on the little ways in which my mother was living with a broken heart, and I etched it into my brain? That hollowness. Like she was a piece of trash people discarded along the way, teaching me that love only meant pain.
Broken promises leading to broken years.
None of that is easy to explain.
It’s why I never bother explaining it. I keep my distance from people. I stay far away emotionally.
But I’m starting to realize that might be impossible for me with Weston Knox.
My stomach twists. My muscles are still twitching from the run.
But before I head up the staircase, I glance down the hall and I’m looking right at Kieran.
He’s standing there at the edge of the kitchen, looking right at me, and I know what happened in an instant.
He saw us kissing.
And he looks like he just saw a fucking ghost in the house.
“Bro,” Kieran says, walking over toward me. He glances up the staircase, then at me. “You’re getting that personal with him?”
“Leave me the fuck alone.”
“No judgment, my man,” he says. “I respect it. Got to do what you got to do.”
When he puts out his fist I don’t even know what it means for a moment.
Then I realize he’s trying to fucking fist-bump me, waggling his eyebrows.
“Kieran,” I say.
“I knew his ass was curious about dudes. After his bestie ended up with his brother, he looked like he was about to cry at every party for a while there.”
I fist bump him so that he’ll put his damn hand down.
“The thing with his brother and best friend didn’t bother him that much,” I say.
Kieran is acting… normal.
Too normal.
Too good to be true.
He shakes his head. “Nah. Weston’s a lover, not a fighter.
You know that. He’s searching for Prince Charming, and it’s painfully obvious.
We’re going to be able to take him down if you’re actually willing to get close like that.
Knew you’d be a good undercover guy, but you’re full-on. Fuck yeah, Sev.”
Holy shit.
Kier still thinks I’m faking it.
He thinks my kiss with Weston was an undercover act, and that we’re going to use this against Onyx somehow.
Never going to fucking happen.
“We aren’t taking him down,” I say, vicious bitterness seeping out into my tone. “He isn’t involved in any bribery.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure. And I’m not pretending to be his Prince Charming. Say that again and I’ll put you out of commission.”
He holds up his hands in innocence. “Chill. It’s fine. Thought you hated Knox anyway.”
“Doesn’t matter how I feel about him. He isn’t a bad guy. Understand?”
Kieran nods, but he’s frowning at me now. “Okay.”
He doesn’t sound convinced, though.
I head upstairs without looking back at Kieran. My head is swimming. I can’t handle shit like this, and that’s precisely why I don’t get close to anyone.
Mistake after mistake.
One bad decision after another.
But when I arrive at the edge of the first bathroom door upstairs, I glance in and see Weston already naked through the crack in the door, getting ready to step into the shower.
Golden-tan skin, even after the long winter.
Endless planes of muscle he builds like it’s his full-time job.
And I’m so fucking tired of resisting him.
I push the door open and he gives me a smile that hits me straight in the chest.
“Get in here,” he says.
And he pulls me in.