3. Kaitlyn
THREE
Kaitlyn
JUST LIKE IN THE BACK OF HIS brOTHER’S TRUCK, AS soon as we’re settled into the back of Went’s fancy SUV, he reaches for me, pulling me into his lap. Unlike last time, I don’t protest. I don’t tell him to put me down. I’m able to admit, at least to myself, that I like the way being protected and taken care of by him feels.
Looking up at him, I think about all the things I’ve learned about him over the last several hours. Went isn’t just Went —Damien’s hot younger brother. He’s Wentworth Hawthorne-Fiorella—CEO of a billion-dollar hotel empire… and he showed up on our doorstep because he was hiding from the press and probably the police because his girlfriend accused him of being behind the wheel of her car when it crashed into a downtown LA bus bench and nearly killed a man.
I know it makes me a horrible person, but I don’t care about any of it. Not what he’s accused of or even that he, according to conflicting reports, has a girlfriend.
All I care about is that when he decided to leave Barrett Valley, he took me with him.
“What’s going on in that head of yours, Sunshine?”
Shifting my gaze, I find him looking down at me with a perplexing mixture of worry and amusement.
Nothing.
I almost say it, but then I remember that the only thing I’m not allowed to be with Went is a stubborn liar.
“How long will we have to stay in Helena?” I lift a hand from my lap to smooth out one of the wrinkles in his shirt because I’m nervous. I don’t want to sound demanding. Don’t want to give him a reason to regret asking me to come with him.
Worry edges out the amusement on his face. “I’m not sure…” He looks up, away from me for a second, nailing the chauffer in the back of the head with a hard look. Lifting his large, rough hand from my hip, he toggles a switch in his arm rest, instantly raising a dark glass partition between us and the driver. As soon as it’s raised all the way, Went looks down at me again. “Until this whole shitshow is behind me and Conner can get his hands on the proof he needs to prove I wasn’t the one driving Lexi’s car the night she hit Brian Maxwell.”
“ Hmmm …” I give him a nod while letting my eyes wander away from his to watch my fingers nervously work against the creases in his shirt. I don’t say anything or look away until I feel his hand tuck itself under my chin and lift to angle my gaze up to meet his.
“I wasn’t driving, Kait.” He looks down at me with another perplexing mixture of emotions. Disappointment and regret. “I wasn’t even in the car. I?—”
I feel the corners of my mouth move briefly into a flat, reassuring smile. “I believe you.”
I do.
Seconds ago, I didn’t care if he’d been the one driving or not. I didn’t care about anything except the fact that I’m here. That we’re still together and now, I know that nothing they’ve been saying about him is true.
The disappointment on his face deepens. “But?”
I shake my head. “No but ?—”
The lift of his hand underneath my chin relaxes a bit. “You can ask,” he says, his tone full of resignation. “It’s okay—you can ask me, Sunshine. Whatever you want to know.”
“Well…” I want to look away from him, but I can’t. “Some of Abbey’s magazines said that you and that girl broke up and some say you’re still together.”
“And you want to know who’s telling the truth?”
Disappointment is back, the sound of it stinging my cheeks with shame for doubting him even a little. When he learned about Brock—thought we were together by my own choice—he ended what had been building between us immediately. That’s not the behavior of someone who cheats on his girlfriend.
“No.” I shake my head, brow puckered. “I want to know how you ended up there that night if the two of you were already broken up.”
“Because she called me, crying, saying she’d just been in an accident and that she needed my help.” He says it like it’s the most logical, natural thing in the world. “It was only a few blocks away so, I?—”
“Your ex-girlfriend called you in the middle of the night for help and you just got up and went to help her?” I hate the way I sound when I say it. Jealous. Bitter.
“Yeah.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a quick, sheepish grin. If he catches the tone of my voice, he doesn’t react to it. “According to Delilah, I’m addicted to damsels in distress. She calls me a rescue ranger . I suppose it’s something I inherited from my grandfather—he was always a sucker for a woman in trouble.”
Unease curdles my guts, squeezing so hard that for a moment, I can’t breathe. Nodding, I roll my lower lip between my teeth while I contemplate my next question. “Did you love her?”
“No, Sunshine—I didn’t love her.” Went shoulders slump a bit while he shakes his head. “And she didn’t love me. I just ticked all her boxes.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “And what boxes would those be?”
“Famous. Rich.” He flashes me that wicked grin of his. “Devastatingly handsome.”
I laugh because I’m supposed to. Because if I don’t, the doubt and unease that’s suddenly taken up too much space in my chest with swell and grow. Make it impossible to breathe.
Fingers falling away from the smoothed-out creases of his shirt, I sigh. “So, you helped her because it was the right thing to do?”
When I ask it, the wickedness in Went’s smile is replaced by relief. “Yes.” He nods, lifting his hand to push my hair away from my face. “Even though it’s turned into a huge mess and could possibly end me, I don’t regret it. I’d do it again because helping her was the right thing to do.”
Like helping me escape Brock was the right thing to do?
“He’ll come for me.” I say instead. “My father—as soon as he finds out that I left with you, he’ll?—”
“Your father might run Barrett Valley, but he doesn’t run me.” Leaning down, Went skims the pad of his thumb along the curve of my jaw. “And he doesn’t run you. Not anymore…” He presses his mouth to mine and I’m ashamed to say that even though I’m sure that he asked me to come with him for all the wrong reasons, I feel myself respond to him almost immediately. The moment his lips brush against mine, I start to melt. Worry and doubt shoved aside by want and need.
Suddenly desperate, I lift an arm, winding it around his neck in an effort to pull him even closer while I open my mouth under his on a soft moan. “Went…”
The hand on my face slips into my hair, its fingers gripping and pulling, angling my mouth so he can deepen the kiss on a low groan, his tongue teasing and rubbing against mine until I’m not just desperate. I’m frantic. Wild and mindless with the need for more.
“Think it through...” Tearing his mouth away from mine, Went scrapes his teeth along the curve of my jaw, licking and nipping his way to my ear. “If I fuck you right now, there’s no way the driver doesn’t hear us. He’ll know I’m fucking you, Sunshine. He’ll be listening to you scream my name while you come on my cock...” The hand on my hip loosens its grip to slide across the curve of it to tease the strip of bare skin between the hem of my T-shirt and the waistband of my jeans. “Are you sure you’re okay with that? We can wait until?—”
“I don’t want to wait…” I suck in a sharp breath when I feel his hand tighten in my hair, pulling it so hard the sting of it tingles against my stiff nipples. “I can’t. Please, I need your?—”
Before I can even finish begging, Went’s switched our positions completely. No longer in his lap, I’m sitting in the wide, plush bucket seat on my own and he’s kneeling on the floorboard in front of me. “What was that?” Reaching for my foot, he pulls off one boot and then the other. Sitting back on his heels, Went flashes me one of those infuriatingly cocky grins of his. “You need my what ?”
Grabbing at the waistband of my jeans, I pull the button of it loose on a frustrated huff before ripping its zipper open. “I need your cock.” Pants loose, I lift my hips and start to shove at them desperately. “Inside me. Please, I—” The rest of my plea gets lost on a startled gasp when I feel Went jerk my pants down with a frustrated growl of his own. Tossing them aside, he wraps his hands around the tops of my thighs, spreading them wide to expose my pussy. The second the cool, recycled air of the car hits my throbbing, wet center, my cheeks go hot and my head starts to spin with an intoxicating mixture of embarrassment and need.
He’ll know I’m fucking you, Sunshine. He’ll be listening to you scream my name while you come on my cock...
Leaning into the space between my legs, Went sighs. “This can’t be healthy…” Hands still gripped around my thighs, he drags me closer, bringing my bare pussy to within an inch of his mouth. “How much I want to fuck you…” His tongue grazes along the inside of my thigh, licking its way, higher and higher. “It’s all I can think about. The feel of your tight, pretty pussy stretched around my cock while I fill it full of cum…” The tip of his tongue traces one of my pussy lips, the soft brush of it enough to drag a sharp, startled gasp up the rough line of my throat when I feel it reach the top of my cleft.
“Your pussy’s so wet it’s making a mess of these leather seats, Sunshine…” He circles my clit with the tip of his tongue, the teasing lick of it pulling a deep, desperate moan up the length of my throat. “Makes me want to find out if your perfect little pussy’s as sweet and salty and the rest of you.”
I want you. I want to get you naked, lay you out on this dock, and eat your pussy until my face is covered in your cum and you can’t remember your own fucking name.
“Went…” My hips try to lift off the seat beneath me, desperate for more, but he tightens his grip and holds me in place.
“ Hmmm …” he answers me with another soft, teasing flick of his tongue.
Anything.
I’ll give you anything you want.
All you have to do is ask.
“I want you to eat my pussy.”
His answering groan of approval vibrates against my clit. “I thought you’d never fucking ask,” he says before burying his head between my thighs. Closing his mouth around me on a ravenous growl, Went devours me, licking and sucking my slick, swollen pussy until my hands are buried in his hair and my hips are rolling and bucking wildly against the relentless assault of his mouth. The pressure building, tighter and hotter until I’m shaking and moaning uncontrollably, nearly blinded by the intensity of the orgasm that’s barreling down on me.
“Oh my god…” I tighten my grip in his hair because I feel like I’m spinning, faster and faster. Opening my eyes, I lift my head so I can watch while he fucks me with his mouth. Tongue pressed against the top of my cleft while he sucks my clit. The second our eyes connect, I feel myself start to unravel. “ Went ?—”
I come hard, back bowed on a long, shuddering moan. The blast of heat that rips through me so intense I can feel every one of my vertebrae melt. Fused together by the blast of it.
While wave after wave crashes into me, Went shifts his grip on my thighs. Flinging my legs over his shoulders, he raises himself to his knees, freeing his hands on another vicious growl. Still eating my pussy like a starving man, his flat black gaze never leaving mine, he works his jeans open.
Yes .
Jerking them down, Went finally tears his mouth away from me, entire face wet and glistening with my juices. “I wish you could see your pussy right now,” he tells me while he eases my legs off of his shoulders to set my feet back on the ground. “You want me to show you? Want me to draw it for you so you can see how wrecked it is from being fucked by my mouth?”
“Yes.” I nod, heart hammering in my throat while he finishes freeing his cock, stretching the waistband of his black boxer briefs over the long, thick length of it. “Yes, please.”
Boxers around his hips, kneeling between my thighs, Went grips the base of his cock, head bent while he gives himself a slow stoke, from base to tip, the head of it grazing against the seam of my wet pussy and I lift my hips in response, moaning softly when it notches against my entrance. “Definitely not healthy…” he says on a rough laugh that bleeds into a groan when, dark head still bent, he slowly pushes his way inside. “ Fuuuck …” Hands gripped around my thighs again, Went holds me steady while he rocks his hips against mine. Fucking himself into me, inch by agonizingly slow inch. “Play with your pussy for me, Sunshine.” It comes out low and tight, like he’s having a hard time breathing. When my hand slides down my stomach to brush a testing fingertips against the top of my cleft, he growls his approval. “Just like that… just like I showed you.” Pushing past my folds, I let out a sharp gasp when I make contact with my slick, swollen clit, the sound of it tightening his grip on my thighs. “There she is…” Went rolls his hips again, pushing his cock even deeper while he lifts his head to pin me in place with his devil black gaze. “There’s my greedy little cock slut.”
“ Yes .” My entire body begins to shake as his hips pick up speed, rocking against mine, hard and heavy. Every pump of his cock filling me. Stretching me. Fuller and wider. Each stroke turning me inside out until all I can see is him. All I can feel is this. “ Went …”
Letting go of my thighs, Went pulls me closer, burying himself inside me on a guttural curse. Legs wrapped around his hips, arms flung around his neck and hands fisted in his hair, I hang on while he fucks me, hard and fast.
“Your pussy feels so fucking good…” He groans it in my ear, every dirty word punctuated by the slap of his hips against my inner thighs. His mouth finds mine, his tongue sweeping in on another deep groan, the taste of myself on his lips unraveling something inside me.
I come again, my pussy starting to convulse, gripping and milking his cock while I come apart in his arms. Mouths fused together, tongues tangled, Went comes with a final, brutal thrust that nearly breaks me in half and flings me to the stars.
“WHAT DOES THIS MEAN,” I ASK, TRACING THE LINE of script inked into the side of his neck with the tip of my finger. Both dressed again, I’m back in his lap, Went’s arms wrapped around me, my cheek pressed against his shoulder.
“ Ars Longa, Vita Brevis. ” The hand on my back strokes down my spine and. “Life is short, Art lives forever.”
My fingers slide around to the other side of his neck. “And this one?”
“ Acta non Verba. It’s something my grandfather used to say to me.” Went looks down at me with a smile that looks like it might hurt. “It means actions, not words .”
“You miss him.” It’s not a question. I can see it, feel it, every time he talks about him.
“I do.” He answers me quietly. “I miss them both.”
“How—” As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I want to bite off my own tongue. “Jesus—I’m sorry.” Shaking my head, I struggle to sit up. “I shouldn’t have?—”
“It’s okay, Sunshine.” He tightens his hold on me and shakes his head. “You showed me yours, I can show you mine.” As soon as I stop struggling, Went loosens his grip, his fingers relaxing against my hip. “My grandmother had a stroke in the lobby of the Hawthorne where they lived. She and Lilah were going Christmas shopping and she just…” He gives me that smile again. “My grandfather went with her to the hospital, but she died before they could get her there. When my grandfather came home it was late, he tucked Lilah in, kissed her good night and went to bed.” Went shakes his head. “I flew home as soon as Lilah called me. By the time I got in, everyone was asleep. When I woke up the next morning, my grandfather was still in bed. He’d always been an early riser, so I went to check on him—he was gone too.” Lifting the hand he has wrapped around my hip, he shows me the pocket watch tattooed on the back of it. “It was 8:23 in the morning.”
I let what he’s telling me sink in. That he and his sister lost the two people they loved and relied on most in the world, all on the same day. “What about your mother? Where?—”
“Astrid was in Rome for Fashion Week and too devastated to travel.” He gives me a bitter smile while settling his hand back on my hip. “She made it back in time to play the grief-stricken daughter at their memorial—that’s the important thing.” The sarcasm in his tone is impossible to miss.
“Went…” I shake my head. “I’m so sorry.” Saying it sounds too small. Too trite for something so big and painful.
“My grandfather met my grandmother when they were seventeen. They’d been married for sixty-five years...” His smile turns wistful. “He’d always said that life wouldn’t be worth living without her. I guess he meant it.” Lifting a hand from my shoulder, he brushes the hair out of my eyes. “Everything sort of fell apart after that. Lilah went off the rails—she’s always been a handful, but without our grandparents to keep her in check, she got… lost. I do everything I can to keep her head above water, but she doesn’t make it easy.”
I remember the stack of tabloids Abbey flipped through like they were historical archives. More than half of them had Went’s sister on the cover, headlines screaming about how out of control she is.
Hurricane Delilah.
That’s what the magazines call her.
“What about your other sister?” I ask, remembering the drawings I found on the couch that first morning.
“Which one?” Went gives me another faint, bitter smile. “Constantina lives in Italy—my father left her and her brothers behind when he left their mother to come to America. She’s in her thirties and, from what I’ve been told, married with a family of her own. I’ve never met her and I’m sure she means to keep it that way. Dakota, Damien’s twin, lives in Helena with her mother and is going to the University of Montana—I haven’t seen her since I was in high school. Silver—the brunette in the drawing I showed you—lives in New York. She works part time in our father’s restaurant and goes to NYU. She’s the only one of us that he ever gave half a damn about. And bringing up the rear is Penelope—she’s thirteen. I’ve met her twice.”
I stare at him, mouth slightly open, trying to keep it all straight in my brain. “You have five sisters?”
“And five brothers—my father is a very busy man.” Went shakes his head on a scoff. “If marrying and knocking up women half his age was an Olympic sport, Davino Fiorella would be buried under a pile of gold medals.”
“The two of you aren’t close?” I think about my own father. How much he loved Luke. Abbey is his pride and joy, but Luke was his legacy. His only son—meant to carry on after he was gone. Run the ranch. Be The Barrett of Barrett Valley. Losing him was devastating.
He gives me another bitter half smile. “I’m one of the few things my parents have ever been able to agree on.”
The way he says it makes me want to apologize again for some reason. Before I can ask him what he means, Went leans down to plant a soft, lingering kiss on my mouth. “Try to get some sleep,” he says, gently closing the subject. “I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
“I have one more question,” I tell him while I settle deeper into the cradle of his arms.
“Okay.” He says it quietly, like he doesn’t want to answer anymore questions but can’t quite figure out how to tell me no.
“Does this count as riding in a limousine?”
Remembering my bucket list, a slow, sexy grin spreads across his face. “We just did a hell of a lot more than ride , Sunshine…” Lifting a hand off my hip, Went finds mine and lifts it to his lips. Kissing the inside of my wrist, he tucks it against his chest. “But, yeah—it counts.”