“No! I don’t want your bullshit apologies you’d only be saying for Christian!”
“Did I kiss you for Christian too?”
“Just tell me how many more times you’re planning on breaking my heart, you dickwad!”
He jolted back for the first time like I had hit him again, but this time it wasn’t by my actions—it was the reality of my words instead.
—Julian—
Tears slid down the sides of her face, cascading onto the dirt behind her. The guilt was eating me alive.
“I’m no good for you.”
“Oh yeah, Christian made that really fucking clear.”
“No shit, I heard him.”
Her eyes widened.
“And he’s right. I’m no fucking good for you. I’m hurting you when I’m with you. I’m hurting you when I’m not. I can’t win either way, and I hate seeing you cry over me. I should be the last man you’re crying over. Do you understand me?”
“What am I supposed to do, huh? I can’t be with you, and I can’t be without you. I’m in lov—”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“What? Can’t hear the truth? Well too bad! I’m in lov—”
Helpless to hear Autumn say those words, I crashed my mouth against hers. My lips immediately betraying me, I kissed her as if I had a right to, as if she was mine, as if I was hers—as if this kiss would change the course of our lives.
It was uncontrollable.
The urge.
The rage.
The desire to claim not only her lips, but her heart, her soul, her goddamn body were driving me to the brink of insanity. I loved and hated it. The emotions she stirred were ones I’d never experienced before. It was overwhelming, the thrill of her, the thought of her, the feel of her.
My tongue slid into her mouth, and she tasted like everything I ever wanted and didn’t think I deserved. Kissing me back like she was trying to prove she was indeed all the things that wreaked havoc in my mind.
She glided her tongue into my eager mouth, moaning, panting, clawing at my senses. My dick throbbed, aching as she writhed beneath me and enticed my cock to rock against her virgin pussy.
The mere thought of knowing she’d never been touched was fucking agonizing to every part of my body. I needed to stop, but I couldn’t help myself. The truth was, I did want her.
I wanted her innocence.
Her happiness.
Her love for me.
I didn’t deserve it, yet it still felt like it all belonged to me. Where things took a turn in our dynamic was beyond me. It seemed as though it was out of nowhere, hitting me like a fucking freight train. One day she was my best friend’s little sister, and the next she was this forbidden fruit I wanted to taste.
It was wrong.
We were all wrong for each other.
I’d spent the last two weeks trying to fuck her out of my mind. From one random girl to the next. It was no use. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way her mouth moved with mine. I was well aware of the crush she had on me—it was easy to see. At times it felt like Christian knew it as well. Which was probably why he’d threatened to slice my dick off if I so much as looked her way. I was laying our friendship on the line for his little sister.
What the fuck kind of best friend was I?
Everything with Autumn felt like it was new. It didn’t matter how many girls I had been with, no one came close to her. The emotions she incited in me were feelings I’d never expected. Never thought possible.
I didn’t believe in love.
But I believed in her.
Our movements became headier and more urgent since we were both searching for something. My hand started roaming, beginning at her hair, then traveled down to her face and breasts. Her nipple hardened against the palm of my hand. She pushed her chest further into my grasp, and I gripped it harder, earning me another moan.
The friction between us was intense, consuming, dry fucking the shit out of one another. Her hips moved faster against my cock, and it was only then that I noticed how frenzied her movements became, how precise her hips rocked, how warm her skin felt.
I opened my eyes.
Her face was flushed.
Her forehead perspiring.
Her hands fisting the grass.
“Fuck!” I stopped and pushed myself off her.
“No!” she shouted, instantly feeling the loss of another thing I refused to steal from her. “I was so close!”
“No shit!” I yelled out, pushing my hair out of my face and holding it back with my hands. Wanting to wring my own fucking neck.
She inhaled deeply and rapidly, trying to steady her aroused body.
“Fuck!” I shouted out again, only pissed at myself. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You did it because you want me as much as I want you.”
“Wanting you isn’t the problem, kid.”
She smiled, sitting up. Her toe was still bleeding, and I needed something else to focus my attention on. Taking off my tie, I wrapped it around her foot before looking up at her through the slits of my eyes.
“What am I going to do with you?”
“I have some ideas.”
“I bet you do.”
I just couldn’t believe…
I’d almost made her come.
Chapter FIFTEEN
—Autumn—
Day 5 of Press Tour
We were sitting in Locke’s private jet, and I was in the seat furthest away from him. Between everything that had happened at the photoshoot three days ago and then ending it with us running into the woman he’d brought to my seventeenth birthday party, I needed some serious space. The last two days were jam-packed with press interviews, and there was no time left over to discuss us.
Thank God.
Today was going to be hard enough. It was probably the hardest day we’d confronted on this tour so far. The timing was shit, seeing as I didn’t want to talk about the past, and there we were, going to face it head-on.
Fort Worth, Texas.
Julian Locke was coming home for the first time in over a decade.
A production crew was meeting us there to get footage of him in his old stomping grounds. Beginning with the group home he’d lived at in between his foster placements. I didn’t think it would affect me as much as it was, but something inside of me shifted at that damn shoot.
The outfit he was wearing.
The words he was confessing.
The way he was looking at me.
It was all too much to take in at once. Now, we were flying back home, where our tumultuous past existed, and it was breathing fire down my back. By the way Julian was acting in the last forty-eight hours, I imagined he was feeling the weight of our history on his shoulders like I was. Other than when he was answering questions from the press, he was quiet and distant.
We both knew how heavy the load of Texas would be, and the silence was deafening on his private jet. I swear I could hear his thoughts, and every single one included me and my family.
Particularly my brother.
I still hadn’t explained anything to them. I’d been dodging their calls and texts, trying to figure out what I would say. The flight was only two hours, and it felt as if an eternity was slowly passing us by. Although the anxiousness I was feeling wasn’t only about Texas—we’d be sharing the penthouse floor of the hotel we were staying at while we were in our hometown.