Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
STERLING
“Another drink?” Dalton asks as we sit in the bar of the hotel, his gaze flicking to the empty bottle of whisky we’ve shared between us.
Ben groans, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against the table, whilst Drix releases the tight bite of his jaw and shakes his head, the soft glow of the sun rising outside colouring the side of his face in dappled pinks and oranges.
“It’s almost five am, I’m done,” he grinds out, his jaw clamping down on the anger he’s trying very hard to contain. I don’t blame him for it, he’s had a rough night.
“Me too,” I mutter, puffing out my cheeks as I blow out a steady breath that does nothing to soothe my inner fucking turmoil.
Then again, I’m not the only one fucked-up over a woman tonight. Just a few hours ago Ben propositioned the husband of his ex, offering him a substantial amount of money for one month with her. If the bastard agrees it will only cause Ben even more heartache, and make Elodie despise him. Scratch that, she probably does already just for the sheer fact he had the gumption to offer such a deal. I mean who, in their right mind, makes an indecent proposal like that and expects it not to blow up in his face?
Not only that, Drix's girlfriend, Lia, found out about his position as the town’s enforcer, and the violence that goes hand-in-hand with such a job. A job he’s reluctantly doing for Carl, Dalton’s father, to pay off a debt. The fact that she’s only just escaped an abusive relationship with a violent man doesn’t help matters. Despite Drix being the most honourable and decent man I know, she’s understandably questioning the choices she’s made getting involved with him.
To make matters infinitely worse, apparently a couple of hours ago Daisy accepted Carl’s offer of relieving Drix of his duties, and writing off his debt so long as she marries Dalton, who can’t keep his dick in his pants for longer than an hour. And let’s not forget my own fucked-up situation to add to the mix. To put it bluntly, we’re all screwed.
“Pretty sure I’m about to throw up,” Ben mumbles, as he turns his head to the side and presses his cheek against the table.
“Pretty sure you’re about to get into a shitload of trouble with that cunt John Hoxton,” Dalton adds, leaning over the table to give him a shove.
“Ah, fuck off, Dalton. You’re one to talk,” Ben groans, batting his hand away. “Are you really going to marry Daisy?”
“Over my dead fucking body,” Drix mutters.
“We’ve talked about this,” Dalton counters, his smile dropping. “As much as I hate the fucking idea, there’s no other way. We’re helping you.”
“First off, you’re not fucking helping me . Second, there’s always another way,” Drix counters. “You’ll speak with your dad and get him to change his fucking mind, and I’ll talk some sense into Daisy. I’ll be damned if I let her throw her happiness away for a decision I fucking made. My debt is mine and mine alone to deal with.”
“Have you forgotten that you’re in quite the predicament?” Ben says as he pushes up off the table. “As much as I hate to say it, Lia doesn’t need more violence in her life. It’s about time you got out from under that prick. No offence, Dalton,” he adds.
“Oh, I’m not offended, my father is a prick,” Dalton agrees.
“I am not a danger to Lia. I’ll never hurt her or Toby. I fucking love them!” Drix cuts out.
Ben winces. “We know that, mate, but you’ve got to see her point of view.”
“I do, but how the fuck can I let this selfish dick marry my sister just so that I can be happy?” Drix snaps, crossing his arms across his chest.
Dalton swipes a hand through his hair. “If it helps, I’m not all that happy about the situation either.”
“I don’t give a fuck about your happiness, arsehole,” Drix snarls, slamming his curled fist against the table, causing the glasses and empty bottle of whisky to shake. “If you go through with this arranged marriage you’re guaranteed to inherit a lot of fucking money, all my sister gets is a fucking divorce a couple years down the line, and a lifetime connection with your fucked-up family if she provides your cunting father with the heir he’s so desperate for.”
“Daisy agreed to it, and you know what she gets like. Stubborn little thing,” Dalton adds with a scowl.
“Daisy is a fucking saint, and you’d do well to remember that,” Drix strikes back in warning.
“Guys, damn it, do you have to do this now? My fucking head feels like it’s been hit by a sledgehammer,” Ben moans, his skin turning a dull shade of grey.
“Maybe you should sleep on it and talk again whilst this isn’t so raw?” I suggest, looking between Dalton and Drix and wondering how the fuck they’re going to navigate this.
No matter what either of them wants, or Daisy for that matter, Carl is just as much of a conniving bastard as my father, and he will make sure this arranged marriage takes place. It’s why Carl and my dad are the best of friends, they both know how to fuck people’s lives up to benefit them, and damn the consequences.
“Excellent suggestion,” Ben mumbles, his bloodshot eyes only serving to make the green of his irises even more striking. “Now, which one of you bastards is going to help me back to my room, because right now I don’t think my legs can carry me.”
“Not before you explain why you thought it was a good idea to buy a month alone with Elodie,” Dalton says, no doubt glad to move the focus of this conversation off him. “She’s married.”
“Never stopped you,” he counters darkly.
“But I never have to pay to get women to spend time with me,” Dalton says, clearly regretting his retort when Drix snaps his head around to glare at him. He definitely doesn’t need another reminder of Dalton’s philandering ways.
“It’s my money, I can do what the fuck I want with it. Besides, why am I the one suddenly getting grilled, Sterling here fucked his step-sister,” Ben replies.
“If you weren’t about to die of alcohol poisoning, I’d fucking kill you myself,” I snap, punching him none too lightly on his arm.
“Ow, fuck! I didn’t mean it like that,” he whines, turning puce as he gags.
“Like I already told you all, she wasn’t my step-sister when we met. We were strangers.”
“What’s the big deal, it’s not as if your blood related?” Dalton points out.
“Because, dicksplash, some people have integrity, unlike you,” Drix grinds out.
“Tell that to Sterling who was getting all up and personal with Harlow in my office right after the wedding ceremony,” Dalton replies, flicking Drix a glare of his own.
“That’s what you were doing?” Drix asks, cutting me a look. “You’re playing with fire, you know that right?”
“Give me a break, okay? It was the first time I saw her since we slept together. I couldn’t–”
“Keep it in your pants?” Ben says, his joke falling flat as I glare at him. “Sorry, you know humour is my way of dealing with shit. I don’t mean anything by it.”
“There’s nothing about my predicament with Harlow that I find amusing,” I reply, pinching the bridge of my nose, the headache that’s been threatening to develop into a full-blown migraine all damn night causing nausea to rise up my throat.
“Seriously though, Sterling, what the hell are you going to do?” Ben asks.
“Right now? I have no fucking clue,” I reply.
With my paintbrush gripped tightly in my hand, I look at the huge six foot by six foot canvas before me, studying it through narrowed eyes. I ache all over, and for the last few hours every muscle in my body has screamed at me to stop, to rest. But I can’t rest. I won’t rest until the piece is done.
As soon as I got home this morning I headed straight to my studio on the edge of my father’s property, knowing that I couldn’t ignore my synesthesia a second longer. Trouble is, even after almost ten hours of painting nothing feels better. Nothing .
“Fuck, something’s missing,” I muse, scraping a hand through my tousled hair and ignoring my growling stomach as I take a few steps back, my bare feet stepping into flecks of wet paint that cover the floor.
I haven’t eaten anything since last night at the wedding, despite it now being late afternoon the following day. The sandwich a member of staff brought to me a couple of hours ago is still sitting on the table where I left it, and the second lot of headache pills I took at midday are beginning to wear off. Yet despite the exhausted state my body is in, my cock hasn’t got the damn memo and is still rock fucking hard.
The truth is, I’ve been perpetually turned on ever since that hot as fuck moment I shared with Harlow in Dalton’s office last night. Fuck, the way she’d fallen into me, the way she’d tasted on my tongue, and her moans of pleasure have played over and over in my mind, keeping me hard for hours.
She’s mine. She’s mine. She’s mine.
Those two words have been circling in my brain over and over, and over again. I feel this intense kind of ownership and possessiveness towards her. It’s like nothing I’ve felt before. On top of all of that, I’m agitated as fuck.
This painting before me is a reflection of all the uncertainty that I’m feeling right now, though it’s not about my feelings towards Harlow, or the fact that I want her. I truly couldn’t give a flying fuck if my dad and Melody found out that we’ve been intimate, that we’re attracted to one another. What I am uncertain about is Harlow’s willingness to explore this connection between us now that we have parents in common. I don’t know whether Harlow will ever be able to get over her belief that being together now is wrong, despite how right it felt to hold her in my arms.
All that uncertainty has bled out onto the canvas in a display of frustrated and passionate brushstrokes that whip across the canvas in a violent storm of striking scarlet, bright crimson, and deep blood red. They depict every tumultuous thought I’ve had since I’ve laid eyes on her again, and right at the heart of the painting is Harlow. Her face is in profile, her expression one of orgasmic bliss. But around her, all that red? It may as well be the raw bloody mess of my heart, every stroke and every drop of paint baring my emotions for all to see.
Yet, it’s still not finished.
“Goddamn it!” I mutter, pulling up a chair, my tired body crumpling into the seat as my legs give way beneath me.
In sheer frustration I throw my paintbrush across my studio, causing more paint to scatter across the floor as it finds its resting place beneath a bench pushed up against the wall on the other side of the room. I’d hoped that painting would give me some relief.
It hasn’t.
I’m still wound up, coiled like a fucking spring. My muscles ache, my eyes sting, my brain is wired from almost twenty-four hours of heightened emotions and overstimulation. I know that I should eat, that I should try to sleep, but I can’t do either of those things until I’ve finished this damn painting.
My eyes trace over the paint strokes before me, lingering on Harlow’s lips that are parted in pleasure, then move across her jaw and the slope of her neck as she tips her head back in ecstasy. Her eyes are pressed shut on a moan, and her face is surrounded by a mist of red. This painting is profoundly sexual and deeply personal, but despite my efforts, I’m still not satisfied.
Maybe that’s the problem.
Harlow came on my tongue, but I’ve had no such relief.
My cock throbs against the zipper of my trousers, reminding me that my base desires have not been satisfied, and my hand falls to my crotch, giving it a tight squeeze.
“Harlow,” I mutter, her name strained on my lips as my cock jerks from the contact.
I’m well aware that if I don’t relieve some of the tension right now then I might do something stupid and drive back to the hotel to seek Harlow out. Which would be a bad fucking idea given how volatile I feel, and how uncertain she is about us. Instead, I widen my legs, unzip my trousers and pull my cock out through the opening of my boxers, grasping the base.
“Yes,” I hiss, my hips thrusting up shamelessly as my eager cock slides through my fist.
I stare up at Harlow’s expression, my cock growing in my hand as I tug on its length, the veins in the back of my hand and forearm thick beneath my paint-splattered skin as I jerk myself off.
“Fuck,” I groan, white-hot pleasure gathering in my balls as they lift high and tight against my body. But without any lubrication the friction soon verges on painful, so I drop my chin to my chest whilst gathering spit into my mouth, then part my lips and watch as my saliva drops onto the engorged head of my cock imagining it’s Harlow’s cum making me slick.
Pressing the pad of my thumb over my slit, I drag the wetness down my shaft as I lift my gaze, focussing on Harlow’s face before me, her captured pleasure matching mine.
“Damn it, Harlow,” I groan, cork-screwing my fist up and down my length. “I want to fuck your beautiful mouth… I want to bury my cock deep inside your throat whilst you finger-fuck yourself... I want to watch you swallow my cum…”
My hips jerk as I thrust upwards into my fist, the wooden frame of the chair I’m sitting on digging into the stretch of muscle beneath my shoulder blades. “I want you to sit on my goddamn face until I can’t fucking breathe!”
I’m fully aware how fucking crazy I sound jerking off over a painting and talking dirty to an empty fucking room, but that doesn’t stop me, and before I know what the fuck I’m doing, I’m pushing down my boxers and trousers past my hips, kicking them off.
Completely naked, I fist my cock remembering the way Harlow had kissed me with abandon, with passion, with greed, clawing at me as she pulled me close. I recall how she’d rubbed her pretty cunt against my face in Dalton’s office.
“Fuck, yes,” I groan, my cock jerking in my hand, precum oozing from the slit as I press my eyes shut and remember how it felt to hold her in my arms back in my apartment all those months ago, how her cheeks had flushed pink when I complimented the taste of her pussy, how she’d cried out my name when she came. Every moment is etched into my memory as my eyes snap back open and I stagger to my feet, taking a few shaky steps towards the painting.
“You’ll look so fucking pretty with my cum decorating your face,” I grind out, slapping my hand against the brick wall beside the painting, my hips pistoning into my fist. “Yes, fuck. Yes.”
Pinpricks of pleasure scatter over my skin and gather at the base of my spine as I drop my forehead against the canvas, not caring that the paint is still wet. I know I’m going to come hard, the oncoming violence of it matching the paint strokes surrounding Harlow’s bliss-filled expression. God, how fucking pretty she’d looked in the throws of an orgasm, how beautiful when she’d begged me to fuck her that night we met.
“Please, Sterling, take me…”
The memory of her voice is all it takes to push me over the edge, and I feel my release racing up my cock, euphoria painting the canvas in thick ropes of white as I come hard and fast.
“Fuuuuuuckkkk!” I groan, my chest heaving as I blink back the fog of my orgasm, and with each inhale of breath, I stare at my cum mixing with the differing shades of red, my agony and my ecstasy staining part of the canvas pink. I should probably remove every trace of it. Instead I release my cock, press my fingers against the canvas and paint my cum into her lips.