An awkward silence passed, but then he noticed something behind me and jerked his chin. “Uh-oh.”
I looked over, seeing Arion walking toward us through the water. She’d let down her hair and had her hands tucked behind her back. I had geared up all week to be in the mood for something far different tonight, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay.
But my plans fell apart, I had nothing better to do, and if she wanted to play, maybe I could get my head in gear, after all. She was pretty enough, even though she had a set to her eyes that made her look a little mean and her jaw was more square, making her look too thin and giving her an air of hardness I didn’t like. She wasn’t sweet.
But whatever. I wasn’t the one who would fuck her.
As she reached us, she pulled her fists out from behind her, eyeing us coyly, and opened the left, revealing a turquoise triangular pill and handed it to Will.
X.
“Hell yeah.” He took the pill and washed it down with his beer.
She then looked at me, opened her right hand, but it was empty.
I darted my eyes up to meet hers, but she just smirked and then opened her mouth, revealing my pill already on her tongue.
She rose up, moved in for my lips, but I turned my head away.
“I don’t need help to get crazy,” I told her.
Plus, this wasn’t middle school.
Her eyebrows rose with the challenge, and she took my beer out of my hand and took a drink, swallowing the pill herself.
Licking her lips, she plastered her body to mine, and I let her stay there. For the moment.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered up at me. “I’d like to see your crazy.”
I reached up, holding her chin between my thumb and fingers.
Would you?
It no longer worried me that there were things wrong with me. That over the years I developed different tastes than other people, or that I was harder to please than other men.
The only thing that worried me now was that it was getting harder to please those tastes. It was like I was developing an immunity to kink, and I constantly needed to up the dose.
I stroked her jaw once, trailing the sharp ridge with my finger. “I want you to go into the hedges,” I told her in a low voice. “Over there.”
I gestured to her right with my eyes where there was a hedge line around the property before it gave way to the forest, the cliffs, and the ocean beyond. There wouldn’t be anyone back there.
Her eyes fell to my mouth, and she looked like she liked that idea. “And what are you going to do to me behind the hedges?” she asked.
“I’m going to watch you.”
Will laughed quietly at my side, and while a sliver of guilt nipped at the back of my mind, making my gaze falter, I dug my fingers into her jaw a little tighter, feeling the heat I needed coursing through me all of a sudden.
“I’m going to watch someone touch you,” I told her. “I want to watch someone have you.”
She paused, her face falling a little as realization hit. Her gaze shifted, looking unsure, and she was probably wondering if this was a joke or if she should back out now. Surely, she’d heard the stories.
She probably just thought she was so hot that how could I not want to fuck her myself, right?
Her blue eyes flashed to Will. “Him?”
I shook my head once.
Her eyes then wandered hesitantly, landing on someone behind me.
“Kai?”
I shook my head once again.
Will shook his head, too, sounding amused as he finished his beer. “Jesus.”
“Marko Bryson,” I said, eyeing the guy on the patio behind her.
He stood with a group of people, no shirt on, and a half-full bottle of Fireball in his hand. Arion looked behind her, seeing him for herself, and turned back to me.
“He has a girlfriend,” she said under her breath.
“That’s what makes it hot.”
I’d already watched plenty of people have sex in my short lifetime. All the men hanging around my father’s house and the whores they kept. The secret lives of the mothers and fathers in this town. The girls who ruled the underworld of our decadent little school just as much as the guys did.
Yeah, I’d seen some shit.
But now… Stronger, harder, more. Always more.
“But I want you,” she protested.
“And I want you to like what I like.”
She stared up at me, the wheels turning in her head, but she closed her mouth and didn’t argue further.
She could leave. She could say no. It wouldn’t break my heart, and she knew that. But she also knew if she said no, that would be the end of it. I wouldn’t want her otherwise, and I certainly wouldn’t make her my first girlfriend if she didn’t accept everything I was about. I wasn’t going to change.
“Someone will find out,” she finally said.
And I couldn’t help but tilt my lips in a little smile. It was the last protest. Her final attempt to find an excuse out of it. Or a reason to give in.
“He won’t say no to you,” I told her.
It was always subtle, but I could see when it happened. The last argument dying in her eyes like it did with anyone I played with.
She started to open her mouth to agree, but then her eyes shot up, above me. “What?” she barked, and I realized there was someone standing behind me.
“Arion, can you help me find the snow village in the basement?”
Snow village? That voice.
I closed my eyes, the little hairs on my neck rising.
Winter. She was home, after all.
“What? Now?” Arion whined. “Have Mom help you when she gets back.”
Get the fuck out of the pool and get her what she wants.
“I don’t know why you want it.” Arion took my beer again. “It’s not even Halloween yet, and you can’t see the damn thing anyway. What’s the point?”
Bitch.
But even as my aggravation with Arion Ashby rose, the skin on my back warmed, knowing Winter was right there behind me.
And even if I tried, I couldn’t think of anything else right now.
What was I about to do to her sister just to get that same, exact feeling?
How did she get out here anyway, and how did she find her sister? I wanted to turn around, but I just stayed planted, listening.
“It has music,” Winter said, her tone growing defensive. “I like it, so what do you care?”
But Arion didn’t answer, and after a moment, her gaze dropped back down to me. Winter must’ve walked off.
Now that I knew she was home, any lukewarm interest I was able to muster for Arion had all but disappeared.
It has music. I like it.
I didn’t know if I felt responsible for the fact that she now only had four senses by which to experience the world, but it was a strange feeling to want to protect someone from others when I knew I’d be worse for her health than anyone.
I nudged Arion off and turned around, hopping out of the pool. Walking over to the table, I grabbed a fresh towel and glanced around, finding Winter near the pool house. Her hand was hooked around the arm of another girl about her age. That must’ve been how she made her way out here and found her sister.
Girls swarmed around her, and she looked overwhelmed but happy. Her mouth changed a lot, showing that she was a little nervous with all the commotion, the music, the people in her backyard… Folding her lips between her teeth, pursing it to one side, various hesitant but sweet smiles… She wasn’t used to this at all.
What kind of parties did she have at her blind school in Canada? And why the fuck did he send her all the way to Canada, as if she’d needed to be buried behind the curtain of some foreign country, so everyone would just forget about their less-than-perfect daughter? A wealthy family like hers could afford tutors for her to stay home if they thought regular school was too much. And if not, there were schools in the city.
Hooking the towel around my neck, I sat down at the table, instantly patting my shorts out of habit.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
I needed to find a cigarette.
“Get your sister a sweatshirt,” I heard Kai say to someone. “Everyone can see through her shirt.”
I shook my head, about to laugh.
“So don’t look at her tits,” Arion replied as she reached over the table to grab a towel. “She’s a kid.”