“I am not your baby,” I breathe, but I can’t deny it. Three DNA tests and one quick look in the mirror is all it took to confirm that beyond a shadow of a doubt. “Not just your baby,” I amend, because I feel cornered. I feel fucking trapped.
“Mom,” Parrish starts, but Tess lifts up a finger to silence him, staring down at me with her raven-black eyes.
“Not just my baby?” she clarifies, her voice cooling from red hot to ice cold. Shit, shit, shit. I feel instantly like I’ve made a mistake, but where can I go with this now? Besides, I have a point. If Tess feels her biology allows her instant and permanent access to me—as well as absolute control—then what about my dad? Don’t I at least deserve to know his fucking name?
“I have a father out there somewhere, a man that you refuse to talk about.” I keep my eyes on hers, even as my blood pounds in my skull and I feel my heartbeat thundering a million miles an hour. “You say he was a random one-night stand, but I don’t believe you. The way you acted when I brought him up was … weird.”
Tess’ face pales slightly, and I feel an instant spike of guilt. What if she was … raped or abused? What if my father is a monster? The thought makes me so nauseous that I feel almost dizzy. I’m not out to hurt other people, I’m really not. What if Tess was trying to protect me by not bringing him up? What am I even doing right now?
“If your father cared about you, don’t you think he’d have stepped forward when our story appeared on every major news site in the country? Don’t you think he’d have found you on social media and reached out? That he’d hire a lawyer to fight for the right to see you?” Tess stands her ground, regaining that fiery rage, that righteous superiority. “You are grounded for four weeks, whether you like it or not. If your father steps forward to claim half his rights, you can take up your issues with him then.”
If your father cared about you …
I swallow hard, struggling to rein in my emotions. If I fully understood what they all were, maybe I wouldn’t have such trouble pulling myself together.
Instead, I turn to go and Tess grabs my arm, causing me to stumble slightly. My phone falls from my pocket and my face blanches just before she picks it up off the ground and stares at it. Her eyes lift to mine for the briefest of seconds before she throws it in the sink as hard as she can, shattering it the same way Parrish did Kimber’s.
This time, when I start to run, Tess doesn’t follow me.
But somebody else does.
Parrish grabs me from behind just as I step into my room, heeling the door shut behind us. His hands spin me around and then he’s crushing me into the sweet-smelling fabric of his hoodie. His fingers hold the back of my head, his other arm wrapped around my waist.
I’m crying without even realizing that I’ve started. Even though I should rightfully shove him away from me and tell him to get fucked … I find my fingers curling into his Whitehall Prep sweatshirt, squeezing it tight as tears and snot stain the fabric.
I’ve ruined Chasm’s and Parrish’s clothes in a twenty-four-hour period.
Chasm.
Something feels off as I snuggle into Parrish and he holds me close, stroking my hair and saying nothing. Is this wrong or … is it exactly right? He’s my stepbrother, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? What does matter is that he’s Tess’ son, more so than I am or ever will be her daughter. That’s the problem.
Also … also …
I lift my face up to find Parrish staring down at me with an inscrutable expression. His almond-shaped eyes are dark, the copper color of them obscured with anger. At who, exactly, I’m not sure. Tess? He couldn’t possibly be mad at Tess, right? Not on my behalf anyway …
“Why are you …” I start, but he doesn’t let me finish. Instead, he puts his hand on the side of my face and leans down, his eyes closing as he drops his lips to mine.
When we kissed before, there was anger. There was lust. There was curiosity.
But there wasn’t … this, this bone-deep ache, this tenderness, this compassion.
His mouth is hot, the taste of him irresistible. He’s fucking delicious and I’m living for it.
We stumble back, still kissing, and my arms go around his neck.
There’s tongue—a lot of tongue—and when I press my body to his, I can feel how excited he is through his pants. If Tess opens the door and sees this … I think, but there’s something about the inherent danger in this situation that makes it even more exciting.
“Break up with Lumen,” Parrish whispers, but his mouth is still so close to mine that I can feel every word as a gentle caress from his lips to mine. “Don’t let her kiss you anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” I whisper back, but then he’s kissing me again, and I feel like I can’t breathe. I can’t even feel anymore. I just am. I’m here in this moment, existing and taking it all in. If my emotions weren’t in a wild tangle already, they’d be an impossible knot. The more we kiss, the more my hands begin to rove down Parrish’s back, the more his hands creep down to my hips, the tighter that knot gets.
We hit the edge of the bed and I sit down, letting him brace a single knee on my right side. The mattress dents under his weight, but Parrish doesn’t break the kiss. Actually, he’s so good at it that I start to wonder if the rumors about him being a standoffish dick at school are really true. Does he pick up girls in secret and practice on them?
“Stop thinking so hard,” he murmurs against my mouth, sounding annoyed. “Just don’t think right now.”
I start to protest, but then … I’m always up in my fucking head, and I don’t feel like being there anymore. I don’t want to think about the Banks or about Tess or about some distant, random shadowy figure who’s supposed to be my father. At least whatever this is between me and Parrish is just that—ours. Nobody else’s.
“Tattoo me,” I blurt, before I can second-guess myself. “Somewhere that everyone can see. Somewhere that Tess can see.” Parrish pauses, his eyes flicking away for a brief moment. He’s indescribably beautiful right now, his foppish brown and gold curls falling across his forehead, his signature frown glossy with saliva from my own mouth. “I honestly don’t care what it is. You choose. Anything.”
“Anything …” he starts, and then he’s dragging his gaze back to mine and shattering me with it. Why is he so goddamn pretty? Why do I hate him so much? Why do I … not hate him so much? And why in the actual fuck does he go from being an asshole to acting like a savior, all in a single week?
Our mouths clash again, just before his hand slides up under my baggy sweatshirt. The zing of contact between his bare palm and my naked side is electric. A tingling sensation starts at the base of my spine and a heat takes over the apex of my thighs. Part of me wonders if I’d actually do it, if I’d sleep with Parrish.
Is that weird? To even consider that … If Tess found out, it would kill her.
Part of me likes that idea. The rest of me is horrified by it.
And yet, I don’t stop. Actually, it’s me that reaches down and encourages his hand to climb higher, to find my breast through the stupid lacey bralette I’m wearing, the one with all the holes in it that doesn’t even really fit. It’s comfy as hell though.