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“Pretty Girl. I’ve got a new shirt for you,” Rad says, trying and failing to hold back his grin while holding up a dark shirt that says: Property of Whispered Words.
“Put it on, beautiful! I want to see our band name stamped over your pretty titties for the entire world.” “It’s to keep the other vultures away,” Asher says with a noncommittal shrug. “They’ll know who you belong to.” “Wear it to work, too,” Kieran adds, placing his guitar strap over his shoulders and settling it across his body. His fingers tweak the strings a few times, tuning it by ear. “Then everyone will know not to talk to you,”
“After this, I’m going to fuck you, and you’re going to take it,” Rad pants, raising his brow until I nod. “Good girl.”
“This last song goes out to a very special girl,” Kieran says, side-eyeing me from the side of the stage with a knowing grin. “We have a new song for you all! It’s called: The Roaring River.”
When I’m with them—all of them—I’m not River West, the overworked bar manager. I’m just River West—theirs.
“You’re the fucking queen of Whispered Words, understand? And next time, knock her teeth loose,” he chuckles, kissing the side of my lips. Callum’s face blooms red, and he shyly takes my hand, squeezing our fingers together. “You’re-you’re the queen, Little Star.” His eyes drop to the pavement, fluttering, his long lashes fanning his cheek. “Now, let’s pack up our shit, and then let’s go take a ride,” Asher smirks knowingly, cocking his head. “You’d like a ride or four, right, Little Brat?”
“I have an idea,” Asher says with a smirk, taking me in snuggling up to Callum. I raise my brow. “Oh, yeah? Like maybe getting off this ride?” I quip, and he grins more, shrugging. “Or you could be a good little brat and strip every piece of clothing off your body and then hand them over.” As he delivers the words, the phrase the woman was too stunned to speak bounces around inside my head.
“Be a good little brat and take your panties off for me,” he whispers with demand, wrapping his long fingers around my throat. My breath shudders when he takes control, tightening his hold around my throat and squeezing until my heartbeat pounds against his palm. “Take them off, and I’ll let them fuck you,” he whispers an inch from my lips, teasing me with the tip of his tongue. “Make. Me,”
“You are wet for us, aren’t you? Do you want them to fuck you, Little Brat? Do you want their cocks so deep inside you that you feel them for the next few days?”
“Jesus,” he rasps, breathing heavily into my neck. “Your pussy feels like a fucking vise around my cock. You’re going to milk every damn ounce of my cum. You got that? I’m going to spill so hard,”
“You feel that, Pretty Girl?” he whispers in my ear as his fingers roam over my naked body. Squeezing my breast, he groans, slowly pulling out. “That’s what marks you as mine. No matter how far you get, I’ll always find you.”
“Now, for being such a damn brat, you’re going to put this back on. You’re going to wear it home and remember what happens when you disobey me. Next time, I’ll bend you over my knee, spank your ass raw, and then fuck your tight hole.”
“Asher, Daddy,” I murmur half-jokingly, running my fingers down his jaw and drawing his attention to me. “I appreciate what you did.” I swallow hard when his fingers wrap around my wrist, holding my fingers against his jaw. “They scared the shit out of me,” I breathe my confession with careful words. “So, thank you.”
“For the love of God, please keep your dick in your pants,” I groan with exhaustion, leaning against the wall for support. “The little Rads are hot as hell! I have swamp dick—Swamp. Dick, Asher. They’re basically cooking in my jeans. My chestnuts are roasting! So, unless I want cooked swimmers, I need to cool them off,” Rad scoffs at me, pulling his jeans and boxers down, exposing himself for the fucking world to see. “Ah, that’s the stuff right there,” he mumbles, wiggling his ass around and allowing the air to flow to his fucking flapping dick blowing in the breeze. “Your ass is disgusting,”
...more
She’s this… annoying gnat, yet beautiful little brat who I want to choke… with my cock so she can’t utter another witty remark.
We went from zero to a million in five seconds flat. Now, I have a brother who sits in jail. Another brother who won’t listen to our words without music in his ears and tears in his eyes. Another brother who, as we speak, cries hysterically as he steers the car along the road, heading to the hospital. And at the center of it all, a broken girl who they’ve all fallen head over heels in love with—me included. Fuck.
“The Central Girl stays here,” she says, firmly pointing a finger down. “I know you’ve offered to take her with you, but she belongs where she is. Not out there.”
“Think it over, Asher. Watch the way she’s wearing each of you down. Soon, she’ll split you all up, and Whispered Words won’t be a thing anymore. In less than a year, you’ll be suited up under your father’s thumb. All because you couldn’t leave one girl where she belongs. You’re going to be famous. Do you want some lost, stray skank following you around?”
“I’ll be okay,” I murmur, grimacing when I lie in my cold sheets for the first time since getting home. A headache forms in the back of my skull, pounding until I squeeze my eyes shut. “It almost happened again. On my watch, Pretty Girl.” Deep anguish leaks into his low voice, and his eyes fill with tears. “I can’t ever let that happen again,”
“Listen, Pretty Girl! I woke up stroking Callum's…” “Rad,” Callum hisses, shaking his head with red tinting his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. He quickly covers his face with his hands and groans. “His leg! His damn leg! But it should have been you, Pretty Girl. Then I felt hair where hair shouldn't have been, and I freaked. I might have smacked him…” “In my-my dick.” Callum frowns, holding a hand over his boxers. “You punched my dick.” “But it was a sexy dick punch, right?” Rad beams, looking between the two of our fallen faces. “Right. There's no such thing as a sexy dick punch.”
“Can I kiss you, Little Star? I've been aching to put my lips on yours,”
Whenever his lips touch mine, it's like coming home, and the sun shines through, warming my entire being.
“I want to fuck you, Little Star. I want this memory to live with me for the rest of my life. I want to see this… your face when you come… and remember the feel of your pussy wrapped around my dick. It's you, River. I've been waiting for you,”
“I need you. I'm ready, Little Star. Please! Please fuck me. I've dreamed-dreamed of this moment for months. Since the moment I saw you… I knew. I want to remember this until the day I die. I'm yours, Little Star,”
“How does it feel?” I rasp through a moan when I lift my hips slowly and slam back down onto him, grinding my pelvis against his until he's crying out. “Like I'm meant to be here. Like I'm finally home,”
“We're off for the food and sex toys. Be naked when we get back, and we'll get the orgy started ASAP. Ouch!” Rad grunts when Callum knocks him on the back of the head with a smirk. “Shut up,” Callum says through a small laugh. “I'm serious,” Rad says, pointing a finger right at me. “This,” he says, waving his finger now, “is a group dynamic. We're all boning. Asher needs to let loose and discover how beautiful your…” Rad's brows furrow when Asher covers his mouth with a grunt. “Food. Now,”
You scare him. This band is the only thing he has, and here you are, bringing us happily to our knees. He's afraid to fall. He's afraid you'll tear us apart,” Kieran murmurs, leaning into me more. “But don’t worry, River Blue. Asher’s coming around, and once he does, you’ll be all he thinks about and obsesses over. I can see it now.”
“Fuck yes! You finally get it, don't you? We'll wait for you if you can't make it to California. Maybe we'll try the Chicago circuit. They're always looking for new talent, and it's only two hours away,” Rad says with a grin, grunting when he sets the groceries down on the kitchen counters. “We'll-we'll wait for you,”
“Who is in the salt circle now, Little Brat?”
“Don’t hold back, boys. We have all night to tie her up and come in her, on her, and everywhere,”
“So, do you understand now?” Rad asks, twisting me until my back hits the cold metal of the vehicle. “Understand what?” I ask, raising a brow. “That you're ours. Forever. There's no getting away from us now.” He grins, not giving me a moment to argue when his lips descend on mine, and his tongue eats my answer. “Exclusively ours,”
“Fuck off, Elf Ears,” Seger grumbles, returning to the phone. “Sorry, man. My brother is…” “Husband-in-law! I swear you're ashamed of me. It's been how many years now?” “Shut the fuck up, Elf Ears!” another person growls in the background. “He's in the middle of a phone call. You're worse than Dash when he wants a fucking cookie. Jesus. I have enough kids to wrangle. I don't need you, too.”
I will not let my brothers wake up regretting their life choices one day. No matter the consequences. No matter how much I'll hate myself and drown in my guilt, we're going to California. No. Matter. What. With or without River West.
No one prepares you for life without the woman who brought you into this world. She’s supposed to live for an eternity by your side, helping you as all mothers should. But now, River won’t have that opportunity.
“And uh, you know. I don't usually say this shit, but you guys have turned River around. She's been in this funk for years, working her ass off. And then you guys come into her life, and I've never seen her smile more. You guys don't know what a gift you've been to her. She's my best friend; all I want for her is the best. So, uh, thanks,”
What about us? Me? Our dreams? That’s what it all boils down to—our future. We can’t sit around here forever waiting for River to decide what she wants to do with her life. We need to act now while the iron is hot, and our talent is what they’re looking for—not three years from now when she graduates.
But as far as I'm concerned, in another week, we'll never hear from her again. We'll be too far away in California, living our dream. And she’ll be here, living hers.
as I drive back to Callum's, and we regroup, coming up with a solid idea on how to get us the fuck out of here and keep River here. Now all I have to do is break my best friends’ hearts.
It's like the moment I told them to leave me alone in the ER, they listened. Half of me is pissed off and conflicted because I wanted the solitude to process the immeasurable amount of grief pressing down on me. The other half wants them by my side, hugging me and telling me everything will be okay. I’ll be okay, right? Everything will work out, right? But fuck. Why aren’t they here?
It's like they're avoiding me for some reason, but I can't think of why. Did I do something to piss them off? I mean, I told them to leave me be, but I didn't actually think they would for this long.
“You-you kissed him? So-so, it's true?” His face twists more, pain tearing through him and, in turn, splitting me open with his visual anguish. “What? What's true? Callum,” I say, reaching for him. “Listen…” “Goodbye, River,”
River: I know what you think you saw… River: Please talk to me. River: He KISSED me… He did it against my will! I said no! I punched him for fuck’s sake. River: I didn’t want it. River: Please… can someone talk to me? River: Why’re you all ignoring me?
I expect to see the guys coming to pay their respects throughout the funeral, but they never show—not even a quick pop-in to say goodbye.
And they got into the Battle of the Bands and didn't bother to tell the one person who rooted for them since the beginning—me.
“How the fuck does this happen, Ode?” Tears burn down my cheeks in a fury, glaring at the three innocent pregnancy tests lining the shitty countertop, all coming up positive.
Not only did the guys stop texting and calling me weeks ago, but they also blocked me from every form of social media they had and changed their passwords and usernames so I couldn’t access them like I had before.
“I thought they were so good to you. And here they went and…” “Acted like every other Lakeview guy on the planet. Who would have predicted that River West would get screwed the fuck over by four fuck boys? They succeeded, didn't they?”
“They fucking told me they got close to me for my name, and what did I do? I got fucking knocked up by them. I let them in, Ode. I fucking…” My entire body trembles with rage, hurt, and disappointment. But mainly, my fucking heart shatters to the floor. “I fucking loved them,”
“As you can see, they ran from you, Central girl. They don’t want you anymore. They’re onto bigger and better things,”
They’re gone. They left me here. And they don’t fucking care about me like I thought they did. Was everything a fabrication for their benefit? Were all the things they said big, fat lies to capture my heart in their grasps and fucking crush it after they left? Who the hell does that?
