Page 29 of Craving Consequences

It’s like I black out because the next second, I have Everly pinned against a shelf.

The delicate line of her neck is clamped under my hand and I’m staring down into her upturned face with a boiling fury I can barely see through.

It doesn’t help that she’s glowering up at me with her pouty little mouth pursed and her eyes spitting fire like she’s daring me to do something insane.

“You’ll let him what, Everly?”

The control in every word astounds me when I am a snarling, ravenous beast inside waiting to rip something open with my teeth.

I know she can sense just how close to the line she’s toeing just from the erratic flutter of her pulse under my hold, but Everly isn’t backing down. It’s as clear as day in her eyes.

“Let him have me,” she spits out, defiance dripping from each syllable .

I feel the rumble in my chest before the growl curls up in my throat. I feel the tremor in my fingers before I still them. I am so close to doing something I’m not entirely sure I’ll regret.

“Try it. If he puts one finger on you,” my free hand sinks into all those gorgeous curls and fists, “I’ll kill him.

I’ll bury his body deep in the woods, and lead the search party trying to find him.

” My face lowers over hers. Far enough that I inhale every ragged pant like a drug.

“But not before I cut off that finger and gift it to you.”

“Lachlan...”

Her sharp, shaky inhale of my name spears through me with the potency of whiskey on an empty stomach. It tears through the red haze. The thundering between my ears. Circles my cock with barbed wiring.

“You think I’m kidding? Do you think because I’m fine with Van touching you that I’ll let anyone else have you?”

The smooth column of her throat flexes sharply under my palm. It could be from fear, but her eyes are molten. Caverns of scorching desire so vast I’m burning in them.

“Say you understand, Everly,” I threaten.

Her head gives a jerky nod. “Yes, sir.”

Fuck, the way she says that consumes me. It pets a deep, sadistic part of me lying dormant in the darkness. Hearing her whisper it with such sweet submission fucking kills me .

“And that...” I bend my face until my lips are sealing the next words into the skin of her cheek, right next to her willing lips. “Who else do you call sir?”

Her lashes flicker down to my mouth. “Everyone.”

I exhale the growl in my throat. “No, you don’t. Not anymore.”

I can see it in her eyes before she retorts smartly, “Anything else I’m not allowed to do, sir?”

I have to grind my teeth to bite back the shot of amusement at her sass.

“I’ll make you a list.” I bump my nose to hers.

She only lifts an eyebrow. “And do I get to make you a list?”

My head cocks to one side as I study her. “No other woman exists to me, Everly. But you can.”

The tip of her pink tongue drifts over her bottom lip and I have to fight the urge to sink my teeth into the plump fold.

“If I can’t let other men touch me, am I converting to nunhood?”

“Yes,” I blurt before she can even finish.

Everly snorts a laugh. “Will you become a priest then?”

“Will you confess all your sins to me on your knees, Everly?”

The smirk vanishes. Her pulse jumps under my fingers.

I can smell her sweet pussy growing slick and ready for my cock.

It’s so potent, a musky drug filling my senses.

Even if she wasn’t driving me mad with her scent, the way she’s trembling has me aching to slide inside her and feel her shudder around me.

“Yes.” The breathy confession seems to surprise even her when she turns scarlet and tries to cover her face. “I’m sorry —”

I release her curls to skim the warm curve of her cheek with the pad of my thumb. To capture her chin and force her face higher.

“Good girl.”

My lips close the sliver of space between us and capture hers as if sealing the promise. Her sweet whimper sings through me. Courses through my veins. Fills my head.

When she goes up on her toes, arms circling my shoulders, soft breasts settling against my chest, I momentarily lose it.

I forget everything, except the perfect weight of her fitting all the parts of me that matter.

I forget that I shouldn’t be wrapping her up in my hold like I will never let her go.

It’s only the faint scuffle of feet somewhere in the distance that reminds me why I shouldn’t lift her up against a shelf and fuck her.

I break the kiss, heart hammering in my ears. I can’t catch my breath or my senses as I turn my head to glance at the open doorway, expecting Bryan but finding Van doing a check of the pathway for people, I’m guessing .

In my arms, Everly is staring up at me with dark, hazy eyes and lips begging me to come back.

I briefly wonder if I should apologize. I have no business telling her who she’s allowed to be with, never mind fuck. She’s not mine, yet she will never belong to anyone else. Not for as long as I’m alive to end the fucker.

“Get your things, sweetheart,” I tell her softly.

It takes a lot to find the strength to let her go, but I do. I detach and take a step back. Then another. I put several feet between us before I can release the breath lodged in my chest.

Everly doesn’t move. She stands where I leave her, watching me with a plea I can’t do anything about and a question I’m terrified to answer even silently to myself.

There is hunger in her expression I have no right to, but I want.

Oh, how I fucking want to consume and devour her.

To violate her in ways that will ruin her for any other man.

I want to splay her naked and open across my bed and trace every inch of her with my tongue until she’s a sobbing mess of raw nerves.

It amazes me how viciously and painfully I ache for her.

Have ached for her for five years. Three years longer than Bron ever had her.

I loved her before Bron even knew she existed.

It was her innocence, her sweetness that kept me in check.

Kept her safe from me. Watching her from afar was enough.

Then Bron brought her home and my world cracked at its foundation.

My heart shattered. I felt sucker punched and murderous all at the same time, but I tucked it all up.

I stuffed my feelings into a box and kicked the box into an open flame.

All for nothing because here I am all over again.

Behind her, Van returns and our eyes meet. His has the same feral expression he’d worn last night, right before stretching Everly on a second finger. That almost taunting stare, like he’s daring me to stop being a little bitch and take her.

Then what?

I could fuck Everly every second of the day until neither of us can walk, but then what?

She’s so young, while I’ve nearly lived my life with a divorce and a kid her age under my belt.

She’s never even had sex. What do I even have to offer her, except a lifetime of ridicule from the town she loves?

Maybe picking Bryan is the better option here. The safer option.

No. Even as I think it, every fiber in my soul wants to run him over with my truck.

So what am I doing?

I open my mouth. Not entirely sure what for, though I know I need to say something when my phone springs to life in my back pocket. The interruption is a saving grace and an annoyance even before I peek at the lit screen.

Bron.

I haven’t heard from my kid in over twenty-four hours. Not unusual. He seldom checks in with me, nor do I expect him to. The fact that he’s even calling can only mean he wants something.

Still, I step out into the blistering sun and answer.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, I’m trying to find Everly. She’s not answering her phone. Have you seen her?”

I glance back to where she stands next to Van, eyes fixed on me and all I feel is a surge of protective aggression. A wall of heat that tightens my fingers on the phone. It’s a possessive need to protect her from anything that might hurt her — including my son.

“Yeah, she’s with me.”

I hadn’t meant for it to come out like a warning, but I hear it even if Bron doesn’t.

“With you? Why the fuck is she with you? I’ve been calling her all fucking morning. Where the hell is her phone? Tell her to stop being a bitch and—?”

“Hey!” I snap, cutting him off. “Are you serious right now? Since when is it okay to talk to the person you’re with like that?”

To Everly.

I’m not sure I wouldn’t have punched him in the mouth if he’d said that to my face. Son or not.

Bron has always been like his mother. Ashley had all the beauty, but zero compassion. She didn’t care who she hurt as long as she got what she wanted.

At sixteen, she decided she wanted me, and my teenage, hormone riddled brain hadn’t thought twice about fucking her bare because she swore she was on the pill.

I trusted her. I knew that she knew I was leaving Vancouver at the end of the month.

I thought it was a goodbye fuck only to learn four months later I was having a kid with her.

That news had turned my whole world upside down and didn’t stop until Ashley decided a small town wasn’t big enough for her. She took Bron and moved to the city thinking I would follow only to realize she didn’t want a teenager and sent him back at nineteen.

But that reckless, irresponsible behavior runs through Bron. Even as a kid, his temper was off the chart. His rage left holes in the walls and shattered dishes. Ashley waved it off as growing pains and gave in just to stop him from fussing .

I love my son, but I don’t like him. He’s not a man I respect.

His mentality alone, his greed to be pampered and doted on is a pure reflection of his mother who thought owning a construction company in a small town would make her rich, but became furious when it didn’t.

Sure, I made good, honest money, but not the kind Ashley and Bron wanted.

So, he found Everly at her weakest and latched on .

“Since it’s none of your business how I talk to my girlfriend when she’s acting like a baby. Tell her to call me or—”

“Or what, Bron?” I threaten through gritted teeth.

His scoff is unmistakable. “Just tell her to fucking call me.”

I watch Van poke Everly in the side with a glittery fairy wand while her back is turned.

The box she’d been rifling through slips from her fingers with her involuntary jolt.

The contents spill across the concrete. She eyes the mess with horror before swinging narrowed eyes on the man blinking at her with feigned innocence.

She says something and snatches the wand from him. To my amusement, she swats him on the hip. Her squeal of laughter when Van lunges to take it back from her has my lips curling.

“Hello?”

The voice in my ear reminds me why I’m standing alone in the middle of the path rather than with the two people who mean the world to me.

“No.”

I bite back my chuckle when Everly grabs a fistful of fake flowers and smacks Van in the chest, sending an explosion of fabric petals and leaves flying, tangling with Everly’s hysterical laughter.

“What? What do you mean no? Is that Everly? Put her on.”

I’m barely listening but answer, “We’re busy. She’ ll call you later.”

I hang up on his outraged sputtering and pocket my phone.

Everly and Van are having a full war by the time I reach them.

Artificial flowers lie in a tattered mess around their feet.

There is glitter everywhere, caught in Everly’s hair, on her skin.

It clings to Van’s top. His hands. There is an upended box of Thanksgiving decorations strewn across the concrete.

Getting trampled and crushed. Going unnoticed by the pair.

It’s chaos in every sense of the word, and yet so painfully natural something in my chest pangs.

Everly catches sight of me with her beautiful face bright with laughter and lit with a light that reminds me of the first time I saw her.

Really saw her. Not little Everly Cavanaugh, but Everly with the tidy suits and charming smile standing on my porch with her clipboard and a pocket full of dreams. She’d held out her sign up sheet and asked me to help her save the old bridge separating Jefferson from the Ditch.

The bridge her parents would die on three years later.

I would have signed my soul away if she’d asked.

I would have given up everything I owned.

And felt like a complete pervert melting over a twenty-year-old, but the feeling never went away.

“Lachlan, control your friend,” Everly of today teases, making a futile leap for the stick.

Van snatches it out of her reach. His arm loops over her head and comes down behind her. It makes contact with a sharp, satisfying smack across her tight ass .

Everly yelps. A sound that goes straight to my cock. Her hands fly down to cover her backside.

“Ow!” her bottom lip puckers and I’m starving to draw it in between my teeth. “Mean!”

Van smirks and she earns another spanking on her other cheek.

“Van,” she whines, holding her cheeks protectively. “You’re not playing fair.”

Instinct or some other madness born from the last twenty-four hours has me closing the space between us.

Has me slipping up behind her as if I’ve done it a million times and she shrinks back into me like I’m there to protect her.

Not assist my friend in marking her round little ass until she can’t sit.

All I want is to pull up her skirt and let Van do the strikes while I soothe the after burn with my palms.

“Maybe you deserve it after what you did last night,” I remark, sliding my arms across her back and pinning her to my chest. “You were such a bad girl, Everly.”

She’s gone still in my hold. Her head is tipped back, eyes dark as she searches my face. She stands with her arms pinned between us, restrained to my mercy and she’s not fighting.

“What did I do?” she breathes, words barely audible.

The innocent question has my brain flooding with images of her just like this while Van fingered her sweet cunt from behind and made her cum .

“Don’t you remember?” I taunt.

She shakes her head.

I glance over her head to the man standing still and patient with his stick gripped in one fist. His eyes are on her ass before drifting up to meet mine with a twisted smirk I understand to my core.

“Do you want to know?” I taunt, returning my attention to the tiny creature clutched in my hold.

“Yes, please.”

So polite. So fucking sweet. Everything about her twists me up, turns me feral. A demon desperate for a taste of the one thing it knows shouldn’t be allowed.

“We’ll tell you, but you get a spanking for each bad behavior. Deal.”