Watch Your Back (Devil's Backbone, #2)

by Tate James

“Carter,” I said softly, “you keep calling me Ashley and I don’t like it.”

“I don’t deserve to call you anything else. Ashley…”

“You didn’t hurt me, Carter,”

“One thing I am absolutely certain of when it comes to you? You’d never hurt me like that. Not physically. My feelings, yeah, sure, you’re pretty brutal there, but this? It wasn’t you any more than it was Heath or Royce or Nate or fucking me for that matter. So don’t you dare feel guilty for something you had no control over.”

“I understand what you’re sa...

doesn’t change facts. I hurt you. Me. These bruises were left by my hands. How can you not be terrified to be alone ...

“I’m not scared of you, Carter, because you stopped. You snapped out of it when you realized you were hurting me. No matter how firmly the hypnosis had its claws into your head, you stopped.”

Rising up on my toes, I brushed my lips over his to show him in action what I was trying to get across with words—that I trusted him implicitly.

“Carter,” I breathed, kissing him again. “You don’t scare me.”

“I should scare you,” he whispered

“You should simply be with Heath and not give me a second thought.”

“That’s the problem,”

“I think about you all the time…even when I’m with Heath.”

“Fuck,” he whispered in a hoarse voice, his dark lashes fluttering as I stroked his cock. “Fuck…Ashley…”

“Carter, I’m not tall enough. You’re gonna need to pick me up because if I don’t get this dick inside me within the next three seconds, I’m going to⁠—”

My hips rocked, and I moaned into his kisses, begging him to fuck me. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Yes,” I hissed, then bit his lower lip. “Fuck me until you remember who the fuck I am.”

“As if I could ever forget,”

“Again?” he teased, already dipping a hand between my legs. “Four times last night

wasn’t enough? Spark, you’re insatiable.”

“I could stay like this forever,” he confessed,

“This is where I feel most at home, balls deep in your sweet cunt.”

“Fuck, Spark,”

“I want to fuck this so bad, I actually had a dream about it.”

“You want me to, hmm? Dirty li...

“Not without lube, ...

“What happened to your arm?”

“No, I didn’t burn it. Don’t worry, Spark, it’s just a scratch. Coffee?”

“Show me,”

“What the fuck did you do?”

“Exactly what I needed to do, Spark,”

“Exactly what I d...

Spark. He’d cut my nickname into his arm just as I’d threatened to do if he didn’t stop calling me Ashley.

“You’re insane,” I whispered,

“I’m in love.”

“I’m yours now. It’s permanent.”

“What about Heath?”

“I’m still with him and⁠—” “We’re both team players. I reckon we can make it work,”

“In fact, I bet you’d have a lot of fun with a l...

Not just a sexual three-way—he was offering so much more. Love. He was offering love, just as Heath had. It scared me.

She’s mine now, and I’m never letting her go. Can I share her with Heath? We’ll see, I guess.

I just never expected him to confess that much. To freely admit he’d

pushed me into suicide and to sound so fucking smug about it. Like he knew we were decent people and would never actually hurt him. Well. I guess I proved him wrong.

The idea of talking out our odd little three-way relationship was actually a lot worse than the reality of it. Both Heath and Carter had already come to terms with it on their own and had just been waiting for me to come around. They were both shockingly mature about the whole thing, but I had to wonder if their own brother-love

love played a part in that adjustment.

“What the… Carter, what did you do?”

“I canceled your dorm room and it got reassigned, so we needed to move all your stuff today before the new student moves in. Carly helped.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You live here now. Surprise!”

“Just deny him sex,” Royce suggested with a sly smile. “He’ll very quickly learn his lesson.”