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My grip on her neck tightens slightly. “You really think I’d work with them? Fuck, Jordie. Heath beat me black and blue when you left. They branded me the same night as you. Mine and your scars are the same. Living without you, not knowing where you were, if you were ever coming back… it was killing me.”

Her face remains fixed, but something falters in her eyes.

I bring the smoke to my mouth again.

“God, I’m so fucking stupid. I wasted three years of my fucking life on you. And you betrayed me.” Every word is like daggers to that stupid fucking muscle in my chest.

23

Jordan

It’s not fair.

It’s not fair that every time I look into those brown flecked green eyes, my knees threaten to fold. Every invisible wall I’ve built to sever my connection to him threatens to crumble. And this is exactly why, right now, being under his grip, the grip that always feels safe, and looking into those eyes, the same sincere look twinkling in them as the night he told me he loved me, makes one of those walls crumble again.

And for some reason, I fucking believe him, even though I shouldn’t because there’s more evidence for, than against. But standing here, watching him stressfully inhale the smoke, his eyebrows desperately drawn together, it makes me want to believe him. So much so that my throat constricts with a lump I have to swallow down at his confession. And I’m flawed, so fucking flawed. I hurt him.

But what if I’m right? What. If?

“You didn’t even look for me!” I regret my words immediately. I imagine a much skinnier Kain, on the floor covered in bruises, cuts, blood—all by the hands of his father.

“I did!” he shouts, his hand hitting the door behind me, but I don’t flinch. “I fucking—” I slap a hand over his mouth, my heart galloping as I hear footsteps outside my door. I shake my head vigorously at him, pushing a quiet ‘shh’ form my lips.

“It stinks!” a female voice which sounds like my mother exclaims.

“It was probably Kain smoking again, he thinks I don’t know about it.” That’s Heath.

“Where has he been getting it from?”

“I don’t know, but we’re trying to find out. Whoever is spreading evil to the kids of this town will be punished.”

Kain glares at the door like he can see them through it, then down to where my wrists are still bearing tiny scabs from the ropes.

His eyes darken before they focus on the door again.

I shake my head, my hand fixing to his neck and squeezing, demanding him to focus on me.

They continue their conversation, but they’ve lowered their voices and it’s hard to hear them now.

Fuck. We’re fucked. We’re absolutely fucked.

Kain presses himself into me and something hard presses against my stomach.

Is he fucking serious right now?

Amusement dances in his eyes as he inhales the joint again, but doesn’t blow it to the side, this time, he blows it into my face. The smoke invades my nose, and I look him dead in the eye and inhale. I feel like I need it right now. His eyebrow kicks upwards as he silently communicates he’s impressed. It shouldn’t send a pang of satisfaction through me, but it does.

I glance down between us, pointedly looking at his once again erect cock. He shrugs, brings his mouth to my ear, and makes me stand a little straighter at his proximity.

“I have a stepsibling kink,” he whispers.

Like I didn’t already know that.

He licks up the column of my neck. “What if they catch us?”

Shivers run through my body at the thought, but I shake my head, poke my finger into his chest and try to get him away, but he doesn’t move.

Rhythmic bangs on the door cause us both to jump away. “Jordan!” my mother booms through the door.