More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The separation wasn’t nasty and cruel. It was cold and unfeeling. Mom went numb as Dad froze her out. I hated him for it.
I was ten when Dad adopted me. My home life up until that point had been harsh and scary at times. Worse than any physical pain I endured was the psychological torture I went through. I was a husk—unwanted and unloved. But then, Quinn Sommers was there with his gentle smile and big heart, saving me from everything that hurt and terrified me. It was too good to be true. I didn’t want to believe it. I still don’t.
Seeing Voss was like a match thrown on my resolve to behave. He was practically thrumming with pent-up rage, and I wanted nothing more than to release a little of my own.
As he reads the note, I admire his profile. I may hate the guy, but it doesn’t change the fact he’s hot as fuck. His jawline is sharp and seemingly chiseled from stone. I move my eyes from his jaw to his throat, where his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. The note gets crumpled into his fist, causing veins to pop up in his muscular forearm. I’d love to see his fist wrapped around something else, like his dick. My fantasies are often destructive ones. Thinking about your soon-to-be stepbrother whacking off is pretty fucked up.
Getting revenge through whatever means necessary is my new sport.
When I play music, much like when I sculpt, my mind goes to a numb, quiet place. Nothing exists except soft colors and warmth. I often wondered if it was what people called a “happy place,” but that wouldn’t be true. I’ve come here before when not at all happy. I think it should more aptly be described as “my safe place.”
“Then I’ll have to dial it up a few notches, bro. When you’re begging for my dick between your lips, remember this moment. You started this war. I’m just going to win it.”
He lifts one hand from the bed, grabbing mine and pinning it. I stare at him in shock as he grabs the other wrist too. Testing the limits of his restraints, I try and move my hands to no avail. When I lift my hips, he sits down on me, trapping me. A needy groan escapes my throat, ragged and wild, as his body rubs against my dick in an infuriatingly teasing way. “Except this.” His smile is vicious and victorious. “You want to be overpowered by me in this bed.” Fuck. This asshole just found my Achilles’ heel.
I hate Alister Sommers. But I also want to fuck him.
I study how his entire body is coiled and tense. Whatever is going on with him doesn’t really have to do with me, I don’t think. For some reason, I want to know. Why? I’m not sure. It’s not like I even like the guy. Liar.
Pain lances across my chest, only to be chased away by anger. This is his fault. Dad. He severed himself from our family, and Mom’s been on a downward spiral ever since. I’m left here to stitch it all back together again, and I can’t. I fucking can’t. I don’t know how to.
“I can’t break you. I don’t want to. I just want you.” His raw, honest words carve themselves into my heart. I’m supposed to be blocking this out, but I can’t. I don’t want to. I want to capture each thing he says to me, each tender touch, and hoard them. My life was rotten for so long, I crave to take some good for myself. To be selfish for once.
My mouth waters to taste that almost-smile of his. To bite it from his pouty fucking pillow lips.
His brown eyes are darker than usual, two portals in an abyss of lust and adoration. I don’t mind getting swallowed in his stare. I’ve never been watched with such hunger and need and desperation in all my life. It makes me feel powerful and also scared as shit.
The things I feel for Alister Sommers are too intense. Too fast. Too reckless and wild. All today managed to do was turn a slow-burning ember into a full-on forest fire. We’re an inferno now, and there’s no putting us out.
Despite the challenge in his voice, I hear the crack of vulnerability. He wants me to choose him. To make promises. Lay out a plan that includes him. Alister Sommers needs to be tethered to this world, or else he feels like he’ll float away, somehow ending up in the black void that is his biological father.
“Margaritas? Limes? Key lime pie?” Lately, he’s obsessed with describing how I taste, and I find it endlessly amusing. “You taste like mine.”
