33. Serena
Serena
I was in control.
Miles was under me, his body stretched out, eyes dark and dazed, lips parted as I rode him like I owned him. His hands gripped my thighs and his brown skin gleamed with sweat beneath me, his chest rising fast.
His mouth had been everywhere—my breasts still tingled, nipples swollen and aching where he’d sucked me earlier.
Miles usually took the lead, and I let him. I liked letting him take care of me.
I rubbed his shoulders, kissed his temple, whispered soft against his skin, “Let me take care of you.”
He didn’t say no.
Now he was under me, and I was moving slow, rolling my hips in deep, steady circles. And I could feel it—how close he was, how much he needed this.
“You awake now?” I teased, sweet and low, letting the rhythm slow just enough to make him whimper. His eyes fluttered like he couldn’t handle it.
He let out this deep, wrecked groan that made my pussy clench around him tighter. His voice rasped against my skin, “Hell yeah… Goddamn, baby. Pussy grippin’ me like she don’t want me goin’ nowhere.”
His hands locked around my ass, pulling me down harder, and I mewled—soft, desperate, needy. God, I needed this too.
“I just wanna make you feel good…” I whispered against his lips, kissing him slow, deep, tasting every inch like I was claiming him all over again. Then I picked up the pace, grinding down on him with purpose.
His dick curved just right, hitting that perfect spot deep inside me, again and again, until my whole body buzzed. And when his palm cracked against my ass, sharp and hot, I moaned loud, grinding deeper like it fed me.
I broke the kiss and trailed down his jaw, brushing soft kisses over his skin before I whispered, low and breathy, “Am I makin’ you feel good, Miles?”
My tongue flicked over his earlobe, then I nipped it lightly with my teeth—and that sound he made? Broke me open.
A whimper. A real, broken, raw sound.
“F-fuck, baby…yeah,” he panted. “You doin’ so good. So fuckin’ good.”
I felt it in my core—tight, hot, surging. My hips moved faster, chasing it. The pressure building until I couldn’t hold it anymore. Until my thighs were shaking, my fingers digging into his chest. “Miles?—”
And then I shattered.
Clenching around him, pulsing, crying out as the pleasure tore through me.
He groaned deep in his chest, thrusting up into me once, twice—and then he was gone too, head thrown back, body jerking beneath me as he came hard into the condom.
I collapsed on top of him, breath tangled with his, heart racing.
He didn’t say anything for a moment. Just wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. “If you want…I’ll come with you.”
I lifted my head, blinked down at him, still catching my breath.
But I shook my head slowly, brushing my thumb over his cheek. “You need to finish the renovations. You’re already behind.”
He studied me like he wanted to argue, but I pressed a kiss to his lips—soft and sweet—and that was enough.
My phone started buzzing on the nightstand.
I sighed, rolled off him, and reached over to grab it.
Mama.
I answered, trying to catch my voice. “Hello?”
“I’m at the office,” she said, curt and clipped. “Get here.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the screen for a beat before tossing the phone aside and slipping out of bed. I made it to the office in record time, and as I stepped into my office I said, “Mama, I?—”
I froze.
Erik was standing with his back to the door, staring outside the window. He turned slowly around, and he gave me a half smile. “Wassup, Rena.”
“Where’s Mama?”
“She’s here,” Erik said.
My knuckles went white as I gripped the strap of my purse tighter, the weight of its contents pressing into my side. Before he could speak, before I could think better of it, I walked up to him and my hand flew. The slap rang out, a sound like a gunshot that filled the room.
Erik’s head jerked sideways, spit flying from his mouth as he stumbled a step back.
“How dare you?” I asked Erik. “Why? Miles was your best friend and you brutalize him in that way? What? Is he an easy target for you? Like everyone else in this town thinks?” I glared at Erik.
“Don’t you ever put your hands on my husband again.”
Erik’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t respond.
“Oh, I get it.” I laughed, bitter and cold. “You didn’t do it for me . You did it for you. For your little ego. For the messed-up sense of brotherly affection you finally decide to have after twenty years because you have a vendetta.”
“He didn’t tell you?” he asked.
“Tell me what?”
“I have always loved you,” Erik said defensively.
“Miles makes me feel like a woman. Not like some toss-away in this family. It’s always been you. Then Laurene. And Gigi. Then me. I won’t let any of you run him away, and you need to get over yourself and whatever problem you have with him. Is it that bad you can’t get over it?”
I swallowed hard, blinking through the burn.
“You get everything! Let me have Miles. Treat him with respect. Did you even consider how that would make me feel? To always come last?”
“I didn’t ask for this, Rena,” Erik said quietly.
“Of course you didn’t ask for it!” I snapped. “But you took it. And Mama gave. Everyone gave and gave. ”
“All the shit I do is for you, Laurene, and Gigi to not have to deal with the bullshit. So you all can live your lives. You think I didn’t notice? I saw the way Mama treated you. I hated it.”
He dragged a hand down his face, like it burned to say this.
“You know who told Mama to start King Developments?” He stepped closer. “Me. ’Cause I saw you reading them architecture books all the time. You ain’t even know I was paying attention, huh?”
His voice dropped. “I didn’t want the company. She offered it to me, and I told her I was too busy. But I knew you’d kill it.”
I sucked in a sharp breath.
“You think I wanted to inherit all of this? I wake up every day wondering if I’m fuckin’ it all up. You know what it’s like to carry this family and have nobody ask if you tired? If you scared? If you can’t do it one more goddamn day?”
I looked away.
“I kept it together for all of us. I hold the line so you don’t have to,” he said, softer now, eyes rimmed red. “You don’t even know the things we’ve kept from you all. But some days, I don’t even know who the hell I am outside of holding this shit down.”
He exhaled like he’d been holding that in for years.
“When Laurene wanted to run off, who booked her flight?” He kept going. “When Gigi got picked up in LA for drinking, I bailed her out before anybody in the family knew. You think Miles the only one out here protecting you?”
He beat a hand against his chest. “Have you asked how I was doing? Just once in the last six years? I lost my best friend too.”
For so many years, I’d had this one-sided competition with Erik, and now for him to say he created King Developments for me?
“You really think this is about me being petty toward Miles?” Erik said. “It’s not. It’s because he’s hiding things from you, Serena. Big things.”
I crossed my arms, and gave him a sour look.
“Miles is doing business with a known criminal. Victor Raines.” Erik’s voice was clipped.
“He took money from him years ago. And a few weeks ago, I saw the bastard leaving Miles’s office.
” I stared at Erik like he’d grown a second head.
“No. No, that’s—no, you must’ve seen someone else. Miles wouldn’t—he’s not?—”
Erik’s expression didn’t change.
“He is. I know what I saw. And I know what I’m talkin’ about.”
I shook my head. “How do you even know this?”
“Miles told me years ago when he first got the money from Victor. I didn’t trust the man, so I looked into him. I told Miles, but he didn’t care.”
His eyes searched mine. “That’s one of the reason he and I fell out. I didn’t want his shit to affect us.”
My chest squeezed tight. Miles never told me. Not once. Not even when we were?—
“Victor’s name been tied to an open Fed investigation.
An employee died under mysterious circumstances and other bad shit.
I came to your office one night to talk to him about it, maybe put our shit to the side.
I found them together… We don’t really know Miles.
What if all this has been a big ‘get back’ at us because of what I did?—”
“What did you do?” I said darkly.
“You remember the whistleblower from back when Omar got exposed? The one who tipped off the press?”
His jaw flexed.
“It was me.”
“Erik!” I exclaimed, and I turned away from him, running a hand through my hair as I paced.
For years, I remembered the night it came on the news about Omar being arrested. They’d only said a whistleblower. Mama and Daddy were shocked. Everyone was.
No one ever said it was us.
That we did it.
That it was my family who took them down.
“That’s why he hated me?” I asked him. “That’s why you’ve both been at each other’s throats?”
Erik looked away and nodded.
“I did it,” he said. “I told them everything. I didn’t do it to hurt you or Miles—I did it because it was right. Omar needed help. I have a responsibility to this town and what it looks like. And no one else was going to step up.”
I stood there, reeling, my heart cracking wide open. I didn’t even know who I was mad at more—Miles for keeping secrets, or Erik for doing the same.
I remembered the way Miles looked after the scandal—hollowed out, humiliated. I remembered what people said about the Whitmores, how their name got dragged through every gutter in Lush. And all that time…it was us .
Erik.
My own damn brother.
My hands trembled, rage and betrayal coiling tight inside me like a snake about to strike.
“You never thought I deserved to know? Either of you?”
My voice cracked at the end, and I hated it. Hated how small I sounded.
The door opened, and Mama finally came in.
“Oh, you’re both here,” she said. “Let’s talk about your disrespectful behavior, Serena.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
I glanced at Erik, and he didn’t even look at me.