Crew stands up tall, circling the bed. His lean body flexing with each step. The demons on his forearms taunting me the closer he gets.
“What are you doing?”
“Stop pushing me away and pretending you don’t want me here.” He stops right beside me, so close the heat of his body sets my skin on fire.
He sinks down onto my bed next to me, my body moving with the weight of him on the mattress. My heart skipping twice as fast at his nearness. Reaching down,he picks up my hand and holds it between us, his fingers grazing the spot where my purity band used to sit.
“And stop pretending you still belong to my brother.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Crew leans in close, brushing my hair back, as his lips tickle the shell of my ear.
“Lie to yourself all you want. Hate me all you want. And tell yourself whatever you have to if it’ll make you feel better about what we’ve done. But when you close your pretty, golden eyes at night, the truth will still be there—you’d rather be my slut than his wife.”
Turning my face to his, he’s so close our noses are nearly brushing.
Steel eyes drive daggers through me. Spears he uses to pin me to the center of the earth while he spins in circles.
I should be offended by the crude words and his demeaning tone, but all it does is make me more desperate.
“You only want me to prove a point to your brother.”
His lips brush closer. “Does it matter?”
I don’t know, does it?
It should.
Crew brushes his lips over mine, and I’m once more aware I’m sitting in bed in nothing more than my bra and underwear, exposed to him. Even if he’s already seen it.
“Sweet dreams, Goldie.” He pulls back, climbing off the bed and walking to my bedroom door. “This isn’t over. Just say the word.”
“What word?”
Why did I ask that? What’s wrong with me?
Crew looks over his shoulder, the dark hallway cloaking anything more than his figure from my sight. It doesn’t stop his stance from coating my body in a shiver.
“Please,” he answers with a wicked grin, then he disappears.
19
Crew
Tattooing is my calm.The closest thing to peace for someone who barely believes in it.
When it’s me and my needle, thoughts dissipate. Nothing but color bleeding into skin matters.
While Adam controlled the Kingsley empire and Rhett mastered the art of faith and manipulation, I chased what felt good.
Fighting.
Tattooing.
Carving a path for myself outside of my father’s expectations.
As a kid, I’d fill blank sheets of paper with sketches. Mom hung them on the fridge, and it was the one thing that made our house look more like a home than whatever my father was projecting.
Until she died, and once more, stale darkness reclaimed those walls the way it reclaimed him.
