More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
But mostly, I guess he’s my favorite character because he was a good father and my father… My father wasn’t.”
“Jet Li is Chinese, you racist fuck. Do I look Chinese to you, man?” Atticus fought the urge to smile at the loaded question. “How the fuck should I know?” Trevor wailed. “You all—” “Jesus, please, don’t say all Asians look the same,” Atticus begged. “Die with some fucking dignity.”
Atticus hopped up on the sturdy wooden table, fishing through his bag until he found what he was looking for, making a satisfied sound as he pulled out a granola bar. He tore into it, suddenly ravenous, taking a bite and chewing it slowly while they watched. “What? It was a long walk from the road.”
“So, just out of curiosity, what was the right answer? Where are you from?” The stranger grinned, revealing perfect teeth and a smile that went straight to Atticus’s dick. “Me? San Diego.” Atticus snorted. “He was way off.” The man floated closer until there was only a few feet between them. “Not really. I’m half Chinese. I’m also half Mexican. But I wasn’t about to give that racist prick the satisfaction. Besides, it added a little something, don’t you think?”
“I’m a psychopath,” Atticus blurted. The stranger leaned forward, his whisper conspiratorial. “I’m a Scorpio. I still like banging dudes.”
He had a plan for his life and it didn’t involve jerking off beautiful murderers in creepy cabins. No matter how intense his orgasm had been.
He’d been in a dating slump since his brothers had decided to start mating for life like psychotic penguins.
“My sister died.” It was weird to say that out loud.
Mercy disappeared when she was seventeen. When she went missing, they said she ran away from home to do drugs. My parents believed it because they always believed the worst about her and she did do drugs. But my brother and I didn’t believe it. She wasn’t that far gone on drugs, not yet. And she wouldn’t have just disappeared without telling Felix and me, since she knew we’d never rat her out to our parents. Then today, out of the blue, they pulled her out of the bay, looking completely healthy on the outside—minus the…bloating—but inside, she was a disaster. They have no answers for me. They
...more
“I watched you cut a guy’s fingers off during a racist game of Jeopardy. I guess I thought there was a cone of silence thing happening here.
“You’re not a mirror with me, Freckles… No matter how much it annoys you.”
“Thomas and Aiden…you know…” Noah trailed off, nodding like that would somehow make them connect whatever dots lingered. When none of them finished his vague statement, he scoffed. “Oh, my God. They’re hot for each other.”
“Dad would never cross that line,” Avi snapped. “He’s not a pedophile.” Noah shook his head, raising a hand. “Nobody’s saying that. Teen boys have unreciprocated crushes on older guys all the time. Hell, I totally wanted to bang my math teacher. Older men are hot. Part of me thought I’d end up with some older sugar daddy who’d pay all my bills,” Noah teased.
Lucas shrugged. “It makes total sense when you think about it. Aiden develops a crush on Thomas, confesses his interest, Thomas spurns his advances, Aiden leaves humiliated and never comes back. Thomas wallows in his guilt.”
Archer sighed. “Aiden isn’t a psychopath. Surely, you must have noticed that. Whatever problems he had, it didn’t come from a lack of empathy or remorse. It came from trauma.”
“This family’s a fucking nightmare,”
“Come on. I wanna feel you come on my cock before I breed this tight little hole.”
“No, Freckles. It’s my favorite movie because when he said, ‘fear me, love me, and I will be your slave,’ I realized that I had a very specific kink.”
“I’m not letting you go, Freckles. I’m just not. You can call it a business arrangement, an affair, a kidnapping, some kind of midlife crisis. But whatever you call it, you’re mine. And I protect what’s mine.”
“I’m the oldest and Adam is the youngest, barely, but the rest don’t really refer to themselves by birth order. We go by order of adoption, not by age.”
“Thomas taught us to be human. He showed us we could exist in society. He pulled most of us from horrific situations and gave us everything we could ever want. We only became a family when Thomas picked us, so that’s what we focus on. Most of us don’t even know our real ages, and half of us don’t remember our original names.”
Jericho: Fuck sanitary, Freckles. I want to get you dirty. Really, really dirty. I want to stuff you so full of my cum that you feel it dripping out of you all day while you’re in your office trying to cure cancer and shit.
“You going to cooperate?” “Man, fuck you, fa—” Jericho slipped the blade between the man’s lips. “I highly recommend you don’t finish that sentence.”
“You like being a whore for me, don’t you?” he rasped. “Yes,” Atticus said, his voice a barely-there whisper. Jericho couldn’t help the almost feral sound that fell from his lips. “Just for me. My perfect fucking whore.” “Yes,” Atticus hissed. “Say it. Say it’s just for me.” Atticus’s skin grew hot. “It’s just for you. Just you.”
Atticus shook his head. If Adam brought up that fucking meat clever incident one more time, Atticus was going to use it dissect Adam’s head from his body.
“That’s not true. Felix… He just doesn’t do well with change. I’m all he has left, and whenever he feels threatened, he reacts…sometimes violently. He’s afraid you’ll take me away from him.”
Atticus snorted. Good luck getting Felix to be just a coffee boy. “A word of warning. He looks dainty, but he’s definitely a force to be reckoned with. He’s killed. More than once. He has a look that tells me he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.” “Stop, you’re turning me on,” Avi snarked. “I work in fashion, I know my way around feisty twinks.”
“You really love my brother?” he finally asked. His heart squeezed at the thought of Jericho. Before he could answer, the boy rolled his eyes. “Ugh, never mind. The dopey look on your face tells me enough. If you hurt him, I will literally take a butterfly knife to your testicles.”
Avi was an asshole. A total pain in the ass, who ran his fashion label like a military operation. Felix didn’t strike Atticus as the type to take orders. He wasn’t sure who he felt more sorry for. Actually, no. It was definitely Avi. Felix was going to blow through his brother’s life like a pint-size wrecking ball, and Atticus couldn’t help but smile. The clash of egos would be legendary. They’d either kill each other or take over the world. Either way, it was bound to be entertaining.
Nico’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t question Jericho, just walked towards the back of the shop. Carlos’s head rolled towards Jericho. “Who are you fucking people?” Jericho’s smile unnerved even Atticus. “Neighborhood watch.”
“You’re telling me that these clinics—clinics you deliberately put in poor neighborhoods—are screening centers for this piece of shit to find and kidnap research subjects and once they’re too mentally incapacitated, then you sell off their internal organs?”
Atticus patted his face lightly. “Don’t think of it as dying, think of it as being scrapped for parts.”
Felix looked like he was going to literally burst into flames. “I could surgically remove your testicles without so much as smudging my eyeliner, you cretin.” If he was looking to make Avi mad, he clearly didn’t know him. “God, that’s hot. Just remember, kitten, in the office you have to call me Mr. Cretin. I wouldn’t want anybody to think I’m playing favorites.”
Lucas beamed, his hand lifting to rub August’s back. “Let’s do this, quick and dirty.” “Kinky,” Seven snickered.
Jericho turned his head, kissing Atticus behind the ear. “I gave a bunch of queer kids a place to feel safe.”
Jericho laughed, lips dragging across Atticus’s. “I do okay for myself, Freckles, but my name’s not Rockefeller.” Atticus’s mouth went desert dry. “But it could be Mulvaney.” Jericho’s whole body went rigid for a split second, then Jericho peered up at him. “Did…did you just propose to me, Freckles?” Atticus gave a stilted nod. “I think I did, yeah.” “Did you mean it?” Jericho asked, a tension in his tone that matched the sudden panic seizing Atticus’s heart. What if he said no? What if it was too fast, too soon? Jericho had said repeatedly that he’d never let Atticus go, but that was a far
...more
“You’re always so tight, so hot inside. I’m not going to last, but I swear I’m going to bend you over and fuck you again before we both go to sleep. Hell, I might just stay up and fuck you all night long. Would you like that, Freckles? Want me to fill you up? When we’re done, maybe I’ll let you fall asleep nursing my cock. You fucking love that.”
