Page 24

Well, I’d been curious what he’d be like. And I’d gotten my curiosities appeased.
But now I ached for seconds.
“Way to go, Caroline¸” I muttered aloud. Way to not get him out of my system but to embed the craving for him even further into my soul.
Studying the ceiling of my room, I blew out a slow breath. The sheetrock was painted white and had a delicate-looking ceiling fan hanging directly over my bed. There wasn’t a hole or even a water stain of an approaching hole in sight. This was the best ceiling of the best bedroom I’d ever had. It was my room alone, too. I didn’t have to share it with my two younger brothers, who rolled over constantly at night and always managed to jack me in the face with an arm or elbow.
It was all mine.
The trailer house we’d lived in before really couldn’t even be classified as a home. The morning Noel had arrived on our front steps and seen how we were surviving, he’d bundled the three of us up and brought us all back to college with him. I hadn’t seen my worthless mother once since then.
Though I knew how much Aspen and Noel squeezed and budgeted to keep us here and cared for, everything I had in Ellamore was a million times better than what I’d had back home. My big brother was my personal savior. He’d saved me in more ways than one by bringing me here.
And how had I repaid him? I’d slept with his best friend.
There went my sister of the year award.
With a little whimper of guilt, I squeezed my eyes closed and rubbed a hand over my aching forehead. I was so conflicted about last night. I think I was every contradiction in the book. Ashamed and yet thrilled. Scared I’d be discovered, but then totally comforted to know how good it felt to be held in Oren’s arms. Satiated by everything he’d given me last night, while hungry for more. Anxious to see him again, but totally horrified by the same idea. Guilty and elated, depressed but ecstatic, wide-awake yet exhausted by my whirling thoughts.
Knowing I could lie here all day and worry myself into a freaking panic attack, I threw off my covers and climbed out of bed. The first three months I’d been here, I’d been a hollow shell. I hadn’t left my room unless I was forced to, and that had been miserable. It hadn’t been until I’d started college and met Zoey, and Reese, and Eva and just all of Noel’s crew that I’d really started to live again. But I remembered what it felt like to want to burrow under my covers every day, all day, and just wilt away.
That was the main reason I wasn’t going to stay in bed and think about what I’d done.
I’d already done it, anyway. There were no take backs now.
But as I took a shower and rubbed soap over me, my tender body just wouldn’t allow me to let it go. I would never forget it. My breasts pebbled and my core swelled with lust.
I wasn’t big on masturbation. I thought Sander’s dumping me had killed everything sex-related in my life. It wasn’t until Oren’s presence slowly made me awaken to my desires that I’d ever touched myself in the first place...months and months ago. And the only time I ever did was when I thought of him. Like I was now. Except now I knew what it felt like to really be with him.
Oh God. How could he turn me so wanton? I’d never felt needs this strongly before he’d come along. I kind of liked it, but then it also scared me. What if I turned into my mother who ignored her own children in favor of finding the next dick to fill her? What if—
Damn it. Liking sex with one guy did not make me my mother. Touching myself in the shower did not make me my mother.
I pressed my back against the shower wall and rubbed myself with one hand as I pinched an inflamed nipple with the other. Water streamed over me and I pretended it was his hands, touching me everywhere. Just when my thighs trembled and my pussy clenched, preparing to come hard, a pounding fist on the bathroom door obliterated my ecstasy.
“Jesus Christ, Caroline! How long are you going to be? I gotta take a shit.”
“Damn it, Brandt,” I yelled back. “I’m almost done.” Or more accurately, I wasn’t going to finish at all now. Little butt licker had killed a perfectly good moment. “Grr.” I rinsed and snapped off the water.
There were three bedrooms and two baths in this house, but sometimes, I still felt as cramped as we’d been at the trailer park back home. Finding a better-paying job and moving out on my own was looking better and better each day. Noel would freak and fight me the entire way—he was still overprotective and worried about me—but he was no longer my legal guardian, so I guess I didn’t need his approval.