Tears and Other Fears Page 2

  And I was always going to ruin Young. That was my original purpose for meeting him in the first place, wasn’t it? I might be able to give him little memories of William, but in the end, I’d be stealing Samuel from him. Eventually, who would he be left with? The woman blackmailing him, and the manic sister of his deceased lover.

  Such shitty luck my Young had.

  “So what’s the plan, anyway? You said we’re going to see a drug dealer?”

  I nodded, wondering how I’d find Renon in the first place. We didn’t exchange numbers or anything. He was elusive and shady. The only information I had was that Samuel owed him money. Where there was blood in the water, there were sharks. “There’s this guy, named Renon? He was there when Samuel pulled the gun on me.”

  “He pulled a gun on you?” Young asked incredulously. He stared at me in disbelief, and I hated that people struggled to trust that I was telling the fucking truth. Everyone in this damn world was so used to lies that they got uncomfortable by the idea of someone purging harsh realities at their feet. No one believed me because they were conditioned to accept the easier-to-swallow pills.

  “Did I not mention that part? Everything is admittedly a bit fuzzy. In his defense, I would have pulled it on him if given a chance. The bastard was just faster than me. He distracted me with his Grade A cock and phenomenal sex skills. I didn’t even think to blame him.” I scowled while crossing my arms over my chest.

  Young turned to look at me and nudged me with his elbow. “You know, I’ve always wondered how he was in bed. I’ve seen girls practically crawling out of his bedroom for water in the middle of the night.”

  I sighed. Yes, Samuel was a damn good fuck. Shame really, all the craziest men were. “Oh, Young. He was simply the best. Knew just where to touch, could command an orgasm with his words.” An older woman behind me coughed, probably because she wanted me to speak louder. Okay, grandma, I’ll let you get off on thoughts of Samuel Smith, too. “And his hands, God, his hands. He made you want to beg for relief but also want to prolong it as long as possible.”

  A reasonable person might have been disgusted with themselves for sleeping with their brother’s murderer, but not me. I didn’t have the emotional capacity to really feel regret about what we did. We were two bodies fucking. It wasn’t like he stroked my soul.

  I let go of Young’s hand and rubbed my own up and down my thighs, creating delicious friction. My damn meds made it hard to come—fucking antidepressants. I spent a good four hours one night rubbing myself raw in my twin-sized bed at the institute, and nothing happened. Orgasms were the best medicine, and any “treatment plan” that inhibited my pleasure obviously didn’t fucking work. So even though I couldn’t get off, the need was still there. I’d just be looking over the edge of a cliff until they were entirely out of my system.

  I looked over at Young and smiled when I saw his dick growing hard in his pants. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was picturing William or me. I reached below the airplane seat and grabbed a blanket, throwing it over our laps as I settled beside Young. The flight attendant started saying her spiel, and I slowly moved my hand on his upper thigh. Young didn’t flinch, but he went rigid with tension. I kept it there, every now and then rubbing my thumb on his leg, but never drifting closer to the hard cock I just knew was aching for relief.

  There was an art to teasing that not many understood. It was all in the implications of things. I implied that I was going to cross that barrier and rub him off in first class on this damn crowded plane. I implied that I gave a fuck about him. I implied that I wanted to fuck him.

  The real trick to teasing was convincing yourself, really. Not the other person. And right then, I had myself convinced that I wanted Nathaniel Youngblood.

  His breathing went heavy, and I knew that he was all too aware of my hand on his thigh. I knew that he was imagining me getting him off. The thing with Young was that I wanted him to think of me, so maybe it was fucked up, but I’d tease him until he could think of nothing else.

  Was it wrong that I wanted my brother to be a distant memory? I was the only one allowed to miss someone that couldn’t come back.

  “You okay?” I asked him, keeping my voice calm and even like I wasn’t imagining touching him either.

  “You tell me. We playing a game again, Tav? Or are you going to finish what you started just now?” His voice was a low growl that made me claw through the little bit of personality I had left. I was too good at teasing; I played myself.

  “Do you want me to?” I asked. I’d make him tell me so. Memories of the last time our bodies clashed came to the forefront of my mind. I dared him, played sex chicken like it was a real thing and like feelings weren’t involved. And I fucking lost, not because I cared how I felt, but because I cared how he did. It was dangerous.

  Letting out a shaky breath while staring at the flight attendant, he replied in a voice so low that I almost didn’t hear him. “Yeah, Tav. I just got you out of a fucking mental institute, and now I want you to make me come on this damn airplane.”

  Well, there, that wasn’t so hard. I had to reward him for being honest, didn’t I?

  I moved my fingers to outline his cock in his pants while looking at the flight attendant who was sitting in clear view of us. She was a pretty little thing with bright blond hair and long legs. She looked like anyone’s wet dream, sitting there in her flight attendant uniform.

  “See her?” I asked Young while stroking him through the thin material of his pants. She crossed her legs, rubbing them together in the process. Oh yeah. She was totally getting off while imagining what my hand was doing.

  I leaned closer to Young and nuzzled his neck, breathing in his woodsy scent before kissing right above where his pulse was thudding. I rubbed him through his pants, knowing he was on the edge of it being uncomfortable and pleasurable. He wanted more. He wanted me to pull it out and stroke him thoroughly till his hot cum was spilling in my palm.

  But I’d never let it get that far. All of this reminded me of Samuel. Samuel motherfucking Smith once told me that he’d let me stare and imagine where all he could take me—give me a taste of what we could be but not give me his best. I realized, as I stroked Young under the blanket while the hot flight attendant stared blatantly at us, that I’d always be this way with Young.

  Teetering on the edge.

  I kept going, enjoying the look of him biting his fist and staring out the window. Muffled groans were escaping his chest but were covered up by the loud airplane. “You like that?” I asked, glancing again at the flight attendant.

  “You know I do,” he replied. A man in a business suit walked by, eyeing us suspiciously before continuing to the bathroom.

  I smiled, thinking I’d won, while pulling away. The plan was to give him blue balls. I’d been doing that a lot lately. But before I could get too far, he grabbed my wrist, keeping me firmly in place. “Finish what you started, Tav.”

  Okay. It was hot hearing him all needy and breathless. That low grumble in his tone as he demanded I get him off had me feeling all kinds of envious. “If I can’t come, neither can you,” I replied, hating the pills still in my system. I wanted to feel like myself again.

  “Fair enough,” he growled. Then we sat there, choking on the sexual tension until neither of us could stand it anymore. And the plane landed. And we were at his penthouse again. And I was imagining that flight attendant and her perception of the happy couple getting off on her airplane. Things always looked better from the outside, didn’t they?

  Chapter 2

  I always thought that people were predictable. That’s why I was so upset about Noah collaborating with the judge and my mother to get me admitted. It wasn’t his betrayal that bothered me. No, it was the fact that I didn’t see it coming. I thought that people made sense. I’d had an ego about my abilities to sniff out a person’s behavior for as long as I could remember.

  For some, intimacy was like a valve. They could control the pressure on their heart
s, twisting it to fit their needs. They let souls slip through their leaky roofs like raindrops. I didn’t know how to find the middle ground. I was all or nothing, letting intimacy in through a broken dam not worth rebuilding. I was burning for affection. I craved the gift of feeling something so badly that I didn’t care if my house was flooding or that I couldn’t keep my head above water. I was willing to drown just to say I lived. Noah mistook my inability to swim for love, and I had stopped looking for ways he could hurt me. Rookie mistake.

  I didn’t see his betrayal coming, because I was too busy keeping my head above water.

  “What are you thinking about?” Young asked. I was surprised when he announced that we’d be going back to his penthouse and not to a hotel. He didn’t suggest that I stay somewhere else. He just told the driver of his ostentatious limo to take us home. Home seemed like a funny word to me, but I didn’t comment on it.

  I thought that Young would want to keep Samuel and me separate, but maybe he wanted to see the showdown. Maybe he wanted to prove to himself that the little incident at the scholarship event didn’t happen.

  Or maybe he wanted me near him. Maybe he didn’t want the hotel because being separate was as hard for him as it was for…

  Hah. No. Young had an ulterior motive. And once these meds were out of my system, I’d be cynical enough to sniff it out. Maybe he wanted this thing I had with Samuel to come to a head.

  “Drowning,” I replied nonchalantly, egging him on to ask me more. That’s what I was good at, right? Giving little clues to the dark future I still had planned for myself. “When does the murderer come home?” I asked, changing the subject while looking around the apartment. There was a dirty magazine on the ground. Wasn’t this the twenty-first century? Who actually looked at porn magazines? Every modern person I knew used their phone. “And why is this place so messy; don’t you guys have a maid or something?”

  Young dropped his suitcase on the tile floor before going to the kitchen and checking for food in the fridge. “Ever since the scholarship event, Samuel’s been staying with his parents. And no, we don’t have a maid. Samuel does all the cleaning. It’s one of his compulsive needs. He finished his finals early and agreed to stay with them until graduation next week.”

  The murderer was in hiding. “So did he pass all of his finals? Or did you have to go down on Mrs. Robinson again?” I asked just as Young took a bite of fruit, making him choke.

  He answered after coughing up the apple lodged in his throat. “For the record, Mrs. Robinson and I are done.”

  “Are you too old for her now?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied while gritting his teeth.

  I plopped down on the couch and propped my feet up on the coffee table, admiring my worn down sneakers against the pristine wood. “Does she know you’re done, or is this just something you whisper to yourself late at night to feel better about letting her fondle your dick?”

  “I’m telling her tonight, actually. I’m done with school. Grades have been recorded. She can’t hold this over me anymore.” He sat down next to me, staring at the apple in his hand. I had to resist the urge to make jokes about forbidden fruit and the serpent in his pants.

  “I mean, not to call you on your bullshit, but was she ever really holding it over your head? I get that you were trying to do Samuel a solid, but you did that solid over and over and over—”

  “I get it,” he interrupted with a frown.

  “I’m just saying,” I replied while twisting on the couch to look at him. I reached out to grab the apple he was clutching and bit into it, digging my sharp teeth so far that I reached the core, and small seeds spilled into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed my food before responding, taking my time. “You didn’t have to do anything. I think you’ll feel better if you just admit that you liked it. I think it’s shit that you cheated on William, but what’s shittier is you’re taking a massive dump on his grave by pretending you were forced into this.”

  Young let out a slow sigh before responding. Running a hand through his dark hair, he looked like he wanted to run the fuck away from me and the reality I spat, but I wouldn’t let him get that far. “I liked it at first. It was fun and exciting, and the thrill of sneaking around with an older woman got me off. But it turned into more than that…”

  “More as in…” I prompted.

  “As in she started getting attached. She’s in a terrible marriage. President Robinson is an asshole to her. Her kids hate her. I felt...bad for her.” His beautiful face scrunched up as he spoke, and I knew the words felt as toxic as they sounded.

  “You’ve got an addiction, Young,” I said before leaning back and resting my hands behind my head. Staring up at the ceiling, I traced shadows with my gaze before continuing. “You like to save people. You wanted to save her. Save my brother. Save me. Sympathy is a disease far worse than what I’ve got, let me tell you.” Luckily, I didn’t feel the chronic need to save. Mrs. Robinson deserved to be punished.

  “So you’re going there tonight?” I asked, a plan already forming in my head.

  “Oh no, no, no. You’re not coming,” Young replied while shaking my shoulder, forcing me to look him in the eye.

  “It’s not polite to tell a woman she can’t come, Young,” I replied coolly. “You said yourself that she can’t hold anything over you anymore. Maybe you should stop letting other people’s emotions dictate your own happiness. It sounds like she manipulated you into feeling sorry for her. But you don’t seem strong enough to do right by yourself, so consider me personal security for your dick,” I replied with a chuckle.

  Young rolled his eyes, then reached over to wrap his arms around my waist, pulling me in for a hug that felt awkward but comforting and destructive all the same. “Are we on a cuddling basis now?” I asked while he stroked my back, tracing lines along my spine with his finger.

  “Just let it happen, Tav,” he grumbled in response.

  “You’re kidding me,” I snorted while looking around the shady as fuck motel. “You’re richer than God, and you meet up for sex in this dump? It looks like my old apartment.” I artfully avoided thoughts of Mrs. Mulberry, the kind woman I used to live with. And by artfully, I actually meant I stared at Young’s ass until I was thinking about sinking my teeth into those glorious globes instead of crying over her.

  “It’s secretive,” he replied before sliding his keycard into the door and letting us inside. It smelled like mold, bleach, and cum. I bet the sheets were crusted by past disappointments and cursed by the ghosts of unsatisfied women and their shitty sex.

  “It’s painfully obvious. You’re wearing a suit that costs more than all the cars in the parking lot,” I snorted before running my fingers along the dresser, which was coated in dust. Pulling my fingers up, I twisted it so he could see the grey shadow of dirt coating my skin. “If you wanted to be inconspicuous, you would have gotten a nice hotel. Or maybe even a mid-grade apartment.”

  “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind for the next time I decide to have an affair with a married woman,” he replied dryly before moving to sit on a side chair that had questionable stains on the seat. Brave, brave man. “What’s your plan, anyway?” he asked.

  Young acted like he didn’t want me here, but I knew better. He barely put up a fight, barely tried to sneak out. He wanted someone to rescue him from this fucked up situation. “I was thinking you could get her started. Do your thing. Hell, get at least one good blow job before it’s over. It’s the least she could do.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut at my crass attitude before letting out a puff of air. “Then what?”

  “Then I’ll storm in and take a few incriminating photos, concealing your identity of course, and send a mass email to everyone at Blackwood University,” I replied with glee while holding up his phone. I’d stolen it from his pocket when we got out of the car. Revenge was like a fucking drug, and I was buzzing with excitement. It was nice to finally feel like I was moving forward—getting retribution for William
’s death.

  “You’re going to what?” Young seethed, but it was too late. The doorknob was twisting, and I had disappeared into the small closet, shutting it closed with a grin. Revenge wasn’t refined. Maybe for some, it was filled with passive aggressive bullshit that took years to figure out, a chessboard with no queen, only pawns. But for me it was a battlefield. Nothing mattered unless blood was drawn.

  “Nathaniel,” a voice crooned, sounding weak and whiny. It was a calculated tone that only women who knew they could manipulate a man used. “I’ve missed you so much. I was worried you wouldn’t see me anymore. Richard has been…difficult.”

  I imagined her turning her head to the side, looking down at the ground like the actress she was. I’d seen this tactic too many times, used by my own mother. “I’m sorry, things have been busy,” Young replied in a curt tone, and my eyes rolled so hard they nearly sliced my brain.

  “Where did you disappear to?” she asked in a croak. I was half tempted to pull the door open and watch the performance, maybe even pop some popcorn for the show.

  “A friend of mine needed help,” he gritted. I could hear the backbone forming in his voice. Ah, good little Young.

  Her next words were breathy and muffled, and jealousy like a dead fish flopped around in my gut. The last nerve endings in its body were firing off with a fight it was going to lose. “I missed you. Take me,” she murmured, probably against his lips, smearing her sticky gloss over his pout like she had a fucking right to.

  Young grunted. I couldn’t tell if he was enjoying it or not, and I wanted to know. Maybe I should include his face in the photo. I reached for Young’s phone and turned the camera on.