I avoid the asshole as though he’s the black plague and will surely be my death. He sure as fuck possibly will be the death of me. Kenzie has stayed in her room all day, and every time I passed the room, I could hear her crying. This time, she was indeed shedding tears instead of bringing herself to pleasure.
I went in once and held her, as she screamed with her grief. The next time, I let her cry it out. I’m not sure when we’ll go back to school, but all our teachers are allowing us to take our exams after the Christmas break, and with both our grades, there’s no fear we’ll fail.
After sitting in the room Charles will fix up as a place where I can be alone with my music, I begin to jot down a couple chords and lines to my next song. It’s about death, grief, and unanswered questions. There’s a rage in the music, and with my favorite guitar, I strum some of the notes, with the lyrics.
I try to forget or replay last night, and then what I saw with Kenz, but as much as I try, I can’t. There’s so many conflicting emotions. Losing Mom and Dad. Regretting the many ways I’ve mistreated Kenzie along with the orgasm Isaiah claims will never happen again.
A knock pulls me out of everything attempting to take me under, and before I can answer, Kenzie opens my door.
“Riv?” She sniffles.
“Yeah, Kenz?” I ask, and my heart hurts; no, it’s crushed when my eyes fall on her face. It’s puffy, eyes bloodshot, and the sniffles from her day of pure grief has me broken.
“Um, I need to sleep and I can’t.” She pauses and then turns around. “Never mind, it was stupid.”
I erase the space between and stop her from exiting the door before she has a chance.
“What is it, Kenz?” I’d do anything to alleviate her grief.
“It’s stupid. I mean, I don’t even know if I can trust you, that you want to be my brother.”
I square her body with mine. “I meant it, Kenz,” I say and it’s a pledge.
“Um, I need sleep and I can’t sleep alone, because I wake to nightmares. Can you lie next to me? Maybe if I have someone near me, I’ll feel safe.”
I want her to be safe with me. I grab for her hand and pull her behind me to my room. I tuck her in, and I lie on top of the comforter. She instantly closes her eyes, and I stroke her forehead. When her breathing evens out, I know she’s asleep, and I follow suit.
My phone is in my hands. I’ve been asleep for two hours, and Kenz is still next to me, but her butt is backed up to my very happy erection. As I back away from her, she continues to push her butt into me. I don’t want to wake her up, but I don’t need my sister knowing she’s given me a woody.
I roll out of the bed and quickly move to the bathroom. I stand in front of the mirror with every image that normally would deflate my hard-on, but it doesn’t work. The only thing I can do is to jack off, or I’ll have too much to explain to Kenzie.
One hand is on the sink, grounding me, and the other is using all the images from the last couple of days to get off. I’m close, and a couple more jacks with long and hard pulls, I cream the hand towel that collects my cum. My eyes are averted from the towel to the mirror, and the reflection of Kenzie scares me.
“Oh, fuck.” She slams the door the second I see her. How the fuck had I not locked it?
I pull up my track pants, and she’s sitting on my bed, having found my stash. A joint is in my very innocent sister’s fingers, as she takes a toke.
“I figured we needed something to take off the edge.” I make my way to her.
“Sorry about that, Kenzie. I was trying to let off some…”
She passes me the joint, and I wonder if she’s done this before. She hasn’t coughed at all.
“I can tell you let out a lot of fucking steam, Riv.”
I can’t fault her, not after watching last night. Even though she doesn’t know it, we’re even.
Chapter 10
Isaiah
It’s been three weeks since the kids have moved in, and somehow, we’ve made it to the twenty-third of December. I’ve barely seen or talked to River since our night together. And I miss him.
My routine hasn’t changed, not since I moved into this house and Charles took over all of my day-to-day decisions, having my suit in the closet, ready for me by the time I wake at five a.m. Off my en-suite master is a home gym. I spend an hour working out my frustration with the weights and the treadmill.
It still hasn’t changed, not in the past three weeks since the kids have moved into the mansion.
Tension spreads through my shoulders, and to my back, with every worry I didn’t have five weeks ago before Robert tasked me with this impossible request.
Even the steam shower does nothing for my growing erection at the thought of Kenzie in her short skirt or River’s face of vulnerability as I told him how much I hated sending him away.
Why is it I can’t for the life of me get either kid out of my system when I have a line full of men and women alike who want me for one night?
Yeah, I know the answer to the question, though I cannot verbalize it out loud or even in my sick mind.
After longer upstairs than I typically take, I’m in the living room, faced with the many boxes I’d instructed the movers to deliver early this morning. Charles is busy with the new task, inventorying all the different items and packing them gently back into the appropriate boxes.
“Sir, Mrs. Phillips has your breakfast for you in the kitchen. Or would you like her to remake it since you’re a little behind schedule today?”
My eyes wander from box to box, with a few items displaced for Charles. The crystal merry-go-round Robert had given to Tanya their first Christmas together is a reminder of all I’ve lost. I run my hand over the top of my head, happy to see it’s survived all these years.
“I will take that as a yes, Mr. Woods.” He quietly departs the room, but my mind is on the memory of Tanya opening it. We lived together in a two-bedroom apartment. It was my own sort of hell, but I had both my best friends in my life. It was better than not having them within arm’s reach, even if I did hear them making love late at night.
“Wow, I’ve not seen this in a long time.” Kenzie appears out of thin air. My eyes had been glued to the item Tanya displayed on a bookshelf, as long as I remembered. Even after she died, Shannon kept it out until one year, Robert told me it was too hard to look at. Then he felt guilty that he missed Tanya so much when his love for Shannon was just as intense.
She steps in front of me, and I don’t miss the skirt that barely covers her ass. “Where did you find that? I was hoping Mom had kept it.” It’s always hard when Kenzie refers to Shannon as her mom. I adored Shannon; I really did. However, Shannon could never take the place of Tanya for me. And with Kenz being so young, she never knew anyone but Shannon as her mom.
“It was actually your father who put it up. Shannon never wanted to part with your biological mother’s items. But your dad carried this guilt with him for loving Shannon so much but missing Tanya at the same time. He always warred with himself over loving Shannon and still loving Tanya.”
With my explanation, I can’t seem to take my eyes off Kenzie’s ass.