Chapter 21
It’s official. I’ve finally snapped and lost the last marble rattling around in my skull.
The second I escape the break room and the man inside it, my composure shatters.
The walls close in, and the air ripens with the stench of my fucking shame. I can’t breathe.
Congrats to me. Certified lunatic. Straitjacket queen. Not that anyone’s lining up to take the crown, but hey, I wear it well.
Like seriously.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I should’ve spent the morning interrogating Jag Rath about his intentions with Dove. Should’ve been protecting her by pressing him, punching through his lies, and ripping the truth out of him with my bare hands.
But no. What did I do instead? I played with his dick.
Now I can’t stop replaying it, every filthy inch of him sliding in my grip, every aggressive lick of his tongue rubbing in my mouth.
And the part I’m choking on the most? The absolute rock-bottom truth?
It was hot as fuck.
Dove deserves better.
I know she and I aren’t together together, but I’m working on that. I want her to be my girl.
Fucking around with her stepbrother after she told me he hurt her… Yeah, I’m the literal scum of the earth. No better than her cock-gobbling ex-fiancé.
I fucked up. Frigid gods above, grant me strength and bigger balls. She won’t forgive me for this.
Who can blame her?
The reel won’t stop spinning in my head. Jag’s mouth. Jag’s body. My hand on him like it belonged there. And now it’s all tangled with Denver’s mouth, Denver’s body, the old sickness howling in surround sound.
Heat and cold sweep through me. Sweat slicks my temples, and I grip the counter’s edge for balance.
“Hey, man.” Declan approaches. “You okay?”
My heart jackhammers, and blackness creeps in at the edges of my vision. Can’t gather my thoughts. Can’t pull in air.
Fuck this.
Declan’s relentless voice pellets my back as I shove open the front door and stumble outside.
Rain slams into me, soaking through my shirt in seconds. Good. Maybe it’ll wash the filth off me. Maybe it’ll strip away the dirt ground into my bones.
I hit the sidewalk at a run, eyes locked on the distant harbor lights. I need the yacht. The safety of the island. I need to get the hell out of here before I turn the town square into a psych ward circus.
Grinding my teeth, I force myself faster, faster as rain plasters my hair to my face. My lungs burn. My hands tremble, and the voice in my head spits one word.
Stupid.
Stupid to let Jag manipulate me. Stupid to desire him like a twisted fucking sicko. Stupid to let another man use my body like a dumping ground for their toxic fluids and waste.
Such a sweet little boy.
My legs lock up, and I stagger, one step short of the docks, chest heaving, vision tunneling.
So small and tight.
My knees give out. The ground rushes up, and I’m back in the hills. The same loop. Same panic.
You take your daddy’s dick so good.
I’m eight years old again, curled up on my bed, shivering under thin blankets, skin too small for my body, and breath raging with fear as Denver’s shadow fills the doorway.
I see you, Son. I’ll never stop wanting you.
His hand clamps over my mouth. His weight crushes me. And that sickening part of him, it jabs and tears and invades, and oh, hateful God, it hurts. I hear his husky Good boy on repeat and feel his calloused fingers in places they should never touch.
The shame burns hot, and I curl in tighter, trying to disappear, trying to dissolve. The world fractures. My chest cracks open. Nothing exists but him and his hurt and his hurt and his hurt and his hurt and…
I’m back.
Back in Sitka, crouched under the pier, hunched against the concrete embankment where it meets the water. My arms wrap around my knees, my forehead pressed to my soaked trousers. Rain drips through the cracks above me. My body shakes, from the cold, from the memory, from the haunting pain.
How long have I been here? Minutes? Hours? No one noticed me. No one stopped.
I drag in a breath, shallow and searing, but it’s air. I’m here. Not in the hills. My fingers flex against my pants, proving I exist. I didn’t die. I’m not a child. The pain is old pain. I escaped.
Swiping rain and tears from my face, I swallow down the acid in my throat and push to my feet.
I fucking hate this. Hiding under the dock like a sewer rat. Falling apart where anyone can watch me sob. Pathetic. Broken. I need the island, just until I can patch myself back together and be normal.
As if I know how to be normal.
The pier thrums with bodies, umbrellas stabbing the air, and boots slapping against wet wood. I cut through them too fast, head down, tunnel vision on the yacht. Just a few more steps. Just a few—
A shoulder collides with mine, and a man’s hand clamps on my arm to steady me.
I detonate.
White-hot panic knifes through my stomach, flays away skin and muscle, and exposes the child trapped inside my rib cage. Denver’s hand cinches around my arm. My throat rips open, and a raw, ear-splitting wail spills out before I register that I’m screaming.
I careen sideways, knees cracking against the boards, palms scraping slick planks. People crowd in, hands reaching, voices clanging, too close, too many.
Don’t touch me. Don’t fucking touch me.
Another hand grazes my shoulder, and I lose it, thrashing and kicking and biting at the air.
“Get off me! Get the fuck away!” Spit flies, and rain streaks my face, salt from my tears. My body folds in on itself, wild and shaking, trapped in a nightmare with no exit.
The crowd recoils, their revulsion giving me space to crawl, to shove, to claw my way through legs and umbrellas.
Dragging myself upright, I wheeze, shove out of the shadows, and break into a run. Across the gangway and aboard the yacht, I don’t stop, desperate for the lock of the door and the distance that will put the mainland behind me.
Fading in and out of a mouth-breathing meltdown, I steer into the Sound. My hands shake on the wheel, but I don’t let go. I can’t. If I stop moving, I’ll implode.
Somehow, I manage to hammer out a message to Dove’s security team, instructing them to bring her home when she’s finished. Straight to the island. Tell her I need her now.
My thumb hovers over that last demand. That’s not fair. She doesn’t need my shit. Delete. Send. Done.
As I reach the island, I remember my family is still in Sitka. No witnesses. It’s for the best.
I don’t remember docking or walking to the guest house.
All I remember is Jag.
His name hits like a fist. Jag, the asshole.
Jag, the fever-burned sex god, stretched out beneath me.
I can’t stop replaying it. Trying to line it up in my head.
Line it up with Denver’s hands on me, the way he pinned me and hurt me.
And today, Jesus Christ, me on top of Jag, my body betraying me, straddling him like I was the predator. Like I was Denver.
Bile scorches my throat.
Jag didn’t touch me. Didn’t force me. He kept his word. He fucking let me. And that’s worse. That’s what’s killing me. Because it wasn’t him. It was me. My body, my hunger, my sickness clawing to the surface like it never left.
Who’s the villain now?
My chest constricts, breath cutting short, eyes going blurry. I stumble into my bedroom and drop face down on the mattress. My brain slams against the same wall over and over, sparks flying in the cracks.
I gave him a hand job. I made him come. Made us both come. Then I licked up our seed like a depraved, unhinged animal.
And I want to do it again.
“No.” I gnash my teeth. “No, fuck you. That’s not me.”
But it is. I’m fucking hard just thinking about it. Hard and grinding my aching dick against the mattress.
Frantically, I hump the bed, overcome by the warzone in my head as graphic images explode in every direction. Jag’s body beneath me, Denver’s groan in my ear, Jag’s cock in my hand, Denver’s rotpiece in my ass, and my eight-year-old sobs threaded through it all.
I can’t want a man that way. I didn’t want it with Denver. But what if I did? What if all I’m meant to be is another man’s fuck boy? What if I let myself believe it?
I’ll break. I’ll break so hard there won’t be anything left to patch.
Doesn’t stop me from pushing my skull into the mattress and muffling my roar as I free my erection and squeeze it. Fighting the breakdown. Fighting the urge to jerk. Fighting the impossible need to fuck my fist like a beast with teeth.
I kept it leashed for so long. Kept it hidden where it belonged. And just like that, one orgasm with a man on a creaky cot, and I can’t stop the sudden, rapid, uncontrolled release of impounded sexual hunger.
The dam has broken, and there’s no going back.
I can’t kill this gnawing, bottomless need for sex. For intimacy. For deranged rutting in every body hole. I crave it. I fucking need it. In the name of Freddie Mercury, I. Want. To. Fuck.
But not with these feelings. Not these sucking, unrelenting, painful godsdamn memories.
I want to fuck like a regular guy.
I want to fuck Jag and Dove.
You’re a horny bitch. That’s all this is. Nothing new there.
Yeah. Just horny.
With great effort, I release the chokehold on my dick, push off the bed, and tuck myself away.
This need is maddening, more than I can bear. I’ll starve it out. Let it dry up and shrivel.
So I throw myself into work, scrubbing the guest house until my knuckles split. Then I drown in the Internet, mindless scrolling through black holes of nothing. Then I fill page after page of my sketchbooks until the pencils bleed down to nubs.
But no matter how many distractions I choke on, the truth keeps stabbing through.
I want him.
Man or not. Enemy or not. Even with the manipulation, the murdering, and all the pain he caused Dove. I want him.
And I want Dove, too. My prickly, runaway princess bride.