Page 53 of Beyond the Stix
I twist my head to free my ear, then try to shake him off. “Get the fuck off of me, now,” I shout.
“I’m going to teach you to listen to me.” Rather than releasing me, he roughly grabs my dick, like it’s his right to touch me.
I freeze, shock overriding my will to move—to fight. Then I feel him. His hardness against my ass, as he pivots his hips. The horror of what he said and his action slam home the truth.
Hedidtouch me inappropriately when I was a kid. Flashes of memory fill my mind. When we went camping. Sleepovers at his house. When he used to come over and spend the night at our house.
Bile rises to the back of my throat, and I wrench my head forward, before slamming it backwards, smashing his face with the back of my skull. The pain is instant, and it reverberates down my neck, but I don’t give a fuck. I need to get away from him.
Jessup wails in pain, dropping his arms from me. In that second, I jab my elbow hard into his gut, then round on him. Right as I’m about to throw a punch to his face, out of the dark, a figure barrels forth, knocking Jessup on his ass.
For a second, I think it’s Pen. But on closer inspection, it’s John who’s on the ground, wrestling with my uncle.
“Pen,” I shout as loud as I can, hoping he or one of the guys on the security team hears me.
Several men rush up and form a semi-circle around the two men beating the hell out of each other. The security team isn’t moving, but watching the fight.
Danny races to my side. “What the hell—Hey, is that John?”
“Yes,” I answer with urgency. “We need to stop them before he gets hurt.”
“Why is your pedo-uncle here?” Callum asks ruefully.
“Apparently, they want to brawl at Rocktoberfest,” Bobby slurs slightly.
Rafe slaps Bobby on the back of the head. “You’re drinking?”
“We need to stop this,” Dante screeches. “Tobias.”
Danny’s boyfriend whirls his hand in the air—a signal of some sort to the security team, and Cal and Pen move in. They quickly seize Jessup, putting him in an arm lock, while Tobias and Dom grab hold of John.
“I told you if you ever touch Connor, it’ll be the last thing you’ll do,” John hisses at Jessup.
“Fuck you. He’s my nephew—my flesh and blood. I have every right to touch him,” Jessup retorts like he won the fight. “I love him.”
“He doesn’t need your kind of love,” John barks. The stone-cold glower on John’s rugged face has me shivering. Not from fear, but from want. A want that’s rooted deep down in my soul. But I ignore the emotional need drowning my heart, along with the heated desire pooling at my groin.
John tries to worm out of Tobias and Dom’s hold, but Tobias says something to him that I can’t hear, and John settles. Straightaway, I want to go to him, but the fear of being rejected has me cemented in place.
“Call the cops,” John grates out. “Let’s see what they say, after I’m done explaining how you snuck your way inside here, and how you are stalking your nephew who doesn’t want to see you.” He spits at the ground.
With the men a safe distance apart from each other, Dante steps between them and looks at Tobias. “I want this man out of here. He’s not allowed back in either. Don’t you agree, Connor?”
“Yes. I want him gone.” I turn to my uncle. “Don’t ever call or text me either.”
“Connor. Sweetheart,” Jessup growls my name in a low grunt. But that endearment shakes me to the core, as more memories are freed by my brain. All the air leaves my lungs and I stumble backwards, nearly tripping over Danny.
“What’s wrong, Con?” Danny is in my face.
I pull out of my friend’s hold, my vision going blurry. The world is spinning, but my fight-or-flight kicks in, and I’m running to the bus—towards safety. I keep running until I’m inside the back bedroom and the door is locked. My back hits the corner of the room, and I sink down onto the floor, curling myself into a ball.
“He can’t touch me.” The words come out so softly that I can barely hear them. But they are true. Everything I have felt from even before age ten comes rushing forth and slaps me across theface. I shudder. Disgust covers me like a scratchy wool jacket, and I can’t seem to get the itchy but sickening feeling off my skin.
I need music. One song after another, I play our upcoming album in my head over and over until my heart beats a rhythm that doesn’t hurt my chest. I don’t know how long I stay there before a knock on the door startles me out of the melodies I’m trying so hard to keep in my brain.
It’s my friends who are knocking, but even they can’t sway me to open up the door. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want to be left alone, which they eventually do, and another song fills my head.
NINETEEN