Page 131 of Deviant Need

I frown. “Why?”

“We don’t have time for it.”

What is he on about? We have plenty of time for whatever we want. The beach isn’t going to disappear.

“I’ll fuck you at our rental though,” he says, licking up my neck and biting my earlobe. His mouth crashes to my lips again, and he kisses me fiercely. I try to rub up against him, but he puts me down.

“Stop teasing me,” I mutter.

He grabs my watermelon soap and lathers us up, hands sliding over my skin in a way that’s definitely not helping my situation. I reach down to stroke myself, and he slaps my hand away.

“Hands off.”

Ugh. “Fine.”

We rinse off, and he pushes me out of the shower. We get dressed and head for the door, picking up our bags on the way out.

We make our way to my car, and he takes the keys out of my hands, pointing toward the passenger seat. He got his license back two months ago, and now I’m not allowed to drive anywhere. Not that I care, I like watching him drive.

Once we’re in with our bags shoved behind the headrests, I look over at him. “So why the hurry?”

He grins. “Secret.”

He’s acting suspiciously, but fine.

“If this involves anything illegal, I’m waiting in the car so I can drive us away when it goes wrong,” I mumble.

The car takes off, and he speeds down our driveway, gravel crunching under the tires. We pass through the big gate, and he turns onto the main road, one hand on the wheel and the other reaching over to rest on my thigh.

“It’s not illegal,” he finally says.

His hands keep rubbing slow circles around my crotch, and I push into him again, trying to get more friction, more anything. He just smirks and speeds toward the city, ignoring my attempts to grind against him.

We’ve both been going to therapy. More me than him at first, until he caught on to what I was doing, dragging him to all those appointments. Then he got his own therapist, but he always asks me to come with him. He still struggles to open up about everything he went through.

Some sessions he sits there silently for forty minutes. Other times he’ll say one thing that cracks both of us wide open. I think we’re going to be working through this for a long time. Healing isn’t linear or whatever therapists say. It’s a mess of good days and bad days, just like everything else.

Things escalated after Father’s funeral, but everything’s better now that he’s gone.

All the idiots still argue with Mikhail about who should have gotten to stab him. Yulian brings it up at least once a month like he’s keeping score, claiming he had dibs or some other ridiculous reason why it should have been him. Mikhail usually tells him to fuck off. It’s become a running joke at this point.

Our mother is happier now. She’s redecorated her house so it’s brighter and warmer, with new curtains and lighter paint on the walls, flowers in every room. I think he was draining the life out of her too, sucking all the color and air from everything he touched.

He comes to a stop outside a building, and we get out of the car. My eyes narrow when I see the sign for the animal shelter hanging above the entrance. Oh.

A grin spreads across my face. “Seriously? We’re getting our border collies?”

“Yup. Kelly told me they have two, female and male, that arrived yesterday.”

“I’m so excited.”

“Me too,” he says with a grin.

We make our way into the shelter, and the woman at the desk walks us back to the kennels. We come to a stop in front of the cage where they keep the puppies. Both of them are the typical border collie coloring, black and white with bright alert eyes that track our every movement.

“They’re so cute,” I say, crouching down to get a better look.

The woman opens the kennel door and gestures us inside. “You can spend some time with them, and then we’ll handle the paperwork. They can go home with you today.”