Chapter 31
Ipushed harder, propelling my body faster through the water. Sinclair was gliding at my side, trying to reach the wall before me.
I managed to edge him out and touch just before him. I planted my feet on the bottom of the pool, panting with exertion. “When you said you wanted to work out with me, I thought you meant you’d actually be giving me a contest,” I teased, eyes snagging on the drops of water clinging to his perfect pecs and shoulders.
God, I wanted him every minute of the day. Even now, wet and tired, I wanted to climb his body and cling to him, letting him thrust inside me until we were moaning each other’s names.
His mouth hitched at the corner, and he shook his head. “Despite you trying to sass me with that fucking mouth of yours… I’ll do anything with you, if it means being near you.”
I stilled at his words, studying him. “Who knew Sinclair Aston was such a simp?”
He closed the space between us, my body instantly heating when he crowded me against the side of the pool, caging me with a hand on either side of my head.
I wasn’t about to push him away. Being trapped beneath his strong body was one of my favorite places to be.
He stared down at me, gaze filled with his usual intensity. “I keep my circle small and protect what’s mine. If that makes me a simp, then I am.”
I stared up at him, biting my lower lip, my heart pounding so hard against my sternum I was suddenly lightheaded.
“And yes,” he said, gaze trained on my mouth. “You’re part of that circle now. You’re mine. And nobody fucks with what’s mine.”
A slow smile spread across my face. If you’d told me months ago that the stepbrother who I thought more likely to fight me than fuck me was calling me his, I would have dropped dead.
Sliding up the pool wall, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my slick body to his, our mouths fusing. Wrapping an arm around my waist to hold me against him, he stood tall, and my legs closed around his waist.
“You still kiss like you’re mad at me,” I said, breaking away from him only to dive back in for more.
“I am mad.” His lips landed on my throat, sucking on my skin and making me shiver. “Mad that we haven’t been doing this since the day you got here.”
His hand slipped between us, but I stilled him.
“I want you. All the time. But I want this to be more than just sex between us.”
Those intense green eyes studied me. “It is more than sex between us.”
I could feel it. Just like with Dacre and Presley, something had shifted between Sinclair and I the same way. Our connection was deeper than anything physical we could share between us. I cared about him, and I never wanted to be without him.
I prayed my mother and Byron never found out about us, because there was no way I was giving any of them up. I belonged to them. And they were mine.
But I wanted to know Sinclair. I needed to know what made him who he was and the way he was.
“Come to the hot tub with me?”
He nodded and I slid down his body, both us wading towards the steps. He climbed them, offering me his hand to help me out. Walking around to the other side of the pool, we moved behind the rock wall that held up the slide, stepping into the grotto cave beneath and slipping into the hot tub.
Hot water enveloped me, instantly warming my skin, and I groaned.
Sinclair levelled me with a flat stare. “Don’t do that again or I’ll have you naked up against the wall and then you’ll never believe me when I say that I want you for more than how good you fuck.”
I laughed. “I know you want me for more than that. But I feel like I barely know all three of you beyond what I’ve been told, or what little I’ve learned since I got here.” I dropped down onto one of the bench seats under the water across from Sinclair. “And I want to know everything.”
He leaned back, his head resting against the side of the tub, his dark hair falling into his eyes in a way that made him deeply irresistible. “Ask me what you want to know.”
I stilled, studying him and weighing up whether I should ask what I wanted to.
“What was it like here before your mom left?”
Something flickered behind his eyes. “Way to ease into it, D.”
“I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“I’ll talk about it.” His gaze dropped to the rippling water between us. “It was better when Mom was here. She cared about each of us, took the time to learn what we each needed from a mother.” He glanced up at me. “Don’t get me wrong, she could be self-obsessed and a raging bitch when she wanted to be, but she was a decent mom.”
He ran a hand through his wet hair, lost in the memories.
“Presley was the most attached to her. Dacre was too, in his own way, but Presley has always been desperate to be loved. When she left… it broke him.”
His face pinched with pain, and I pushed off the bench, gliding over to sit beside him and taking his hand under the water.
“Presley was young when my parents adopted him, but still old enough to remember his birth parents. Not fully, but enough to know he’d had a mom and he’d loved her. He latched on to Mom like a life raft, so when she and Byron split and she disappeared, even at sixteen, Presley lost it.”
I shifted closer, desperate to hold him while he was lost in the memories. “Is that when he started drinking?”
He let out a humorless laugh. “Presley started drinking when he was thirteen. But when Mom left, he hit the bottle harder than ever, drugs too. What he’s like now is nothing like he was then. He was coming home wasted every night. His football suffered and he would have been kicked off his high school team if Byron hadn’t intervened and convinced them it was a bad move. But he sent Presley away because of it.”
He stared down at his hands, swiping across the water.
“It was the first time since they’d been adopted that the three of us were apart. Dacre and I didn’t know where he’d gone, Byron wouldn’t tell us. We’d just lost our mother, and then our brother was taken away from us, too.”
He looked at me, those intense green eyes haunted by feelings he’d buried.
“I’d handled it when Mom left, but when Presley was sent away, I shut down. I was freshman at Triple C, and I was supposed to be this model fucking son, but a part of me had been ripped out and sent away with him.”
I cupped his cheek, pressing a kiss to his mouth. He kissed me back, his tongue sliding into my mouth, his kiss possessing.
There was nothing I could say to change the past or take the pain away. All I could do was be here for him. Offering him any small piece of comfort I could.
I pulled back, kissing him once more, my thumb stroking his cheek. “He’s here now. And he’s fine.”
Sinclair let out another humorless laugh. “He’s here, but is he any better?”
“He will be,” I said firmly, voice filled with confidence. I didn’t think I had the power to be some miracle balm that solved Presley’s abandonment issues, but I’d be there for him. Make him feel so loved and included until there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he was safe.
A question gnawed at the back of my mind.
“What happened to Dacre when Presley was gone?”
Sin stared at the rippled water again, eyes unseeing. “Dacre was no better than me. He was suddenly thrown into high school politics without his ally. Pres was always the outgoing one, the life of the party who people flocked to. They still do. So, without him as an anchor, Dacre was aimless.”
He blinked, shaking his head.
“He had friends, he didn’t suddenly become an outcast overnight. But he disengaged.”
He looked up at me, expression tortured.
“I could barely reach him, Dempsey, even at home. He locked himself away in his room, barely speaking. Just worked out, studied as much as he needed to get passing grades, and avoided life as much as possible. Byron couldn’t stand it. He tried berating him, threatening to take things away from him, nothing worked. Dacre didn’t care. He was so withdrawn, he was a shell.”
My heart broke at the idea of Dacre barely living.
The three of them were bonded deeper than I’d ever realized. Even if they weren’t connected by blood, they were more than brothers.
“Eventually I lost it. My family was torn apart and both my brothers were lost. I confronted Byron, told him to bring Presley back or I’d crush the fucking picture-perfect illusion of family he’d created for his precious image. It took two weeks of raging at him, but eventually Presley came back, more broken than before.”
I pressed my lips together, willing away the tears that pricked the backs of my eyes.
“He didn’t trust Byron anymore, none of us did. Screw up and you’d be sent away. All three of us were living in fear of being torn apart again. Presley had been betrayed by yet another adult who was supposed to care about him, which is why he does what he does now.”
It made sense why Presley felt the way he did about Byron. And why his reactions to him were so volatile.
Sinclair’s head dropped to his chest, and he scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I feel like I can’t fucking breathe sometimes with the weight of it all. Because if I stop, if I take a fucking breath, it’s all going to fall apart.” He shook his head. “My brothers need me. Without me, Byron would be unchecked. He doesn’t understand them or me. Doesn’t understand how any of us think or what we’ve ever needed from him, even when we were kids. My brothers have always been there for me, and I’ve been there for them. It’s why I work so hard, so I can protect them. If Byron ever decides to send Presley away, I’ll be able to get him back. If Dacre wants to go to art school or open a damn gallery, and Byron cuts him off, I’ll be able to cover it. My brothers have never let me down, and I’ll never let them down.” He looked up at me, a broken, battered boy staring back at me. “But the pressure of carrying this family, Dempsey… it’s slowly fucking killing me.”
I moved closer, climbing into his lap until I was straddling him. I took his face in my hands, his expression tortured.
“I just need them both to be okay. Because if they aren’t, then I can’t be okay.”
Stroking his cheek, I stared down at him. “They will be okay. Presley has you, and Dacre. And he has me. And together we’ll make him feel so loved, he’ll wonder why he ever questioned where he belonged in this world.”
Those green eyes had never been filled with more intensity than they were in this moment. “Where the fuck did you come from? And where the hell have you been?”
I offered him a small smile. “All that matters is that I’m here now and we’re together. And we’re going to stay together, no matter what Byron or my family or the world does to tear us apart.”
His large palms smoothed over my waist and up my back, bringing me chest to chest with him.
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to us.” He buried his face in my throat, murmuring over my skin. “You’re exactly what I need to finally be able to fucking breathe.”
I held him close, arms circled around his shoulders and held him against me.
We stayed that way for a long time, him wrapped in my arms, his lips caressing my skin. I’d made a promise to him out loud and I made one to myself now.
I’d never let anyone or anything come between us.
Because they needed me. And I needed them just as much.