Page 5 of Craving Consequences

VAN

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Maybe I shouldn’t have done it.

A moment of blind desire isn’t going to taste the same in the harsh light of day when Everly is sober and realizes what I did to her.

Sure, Lachlan was there. He participated. But I had my fingers inside her. I made her cum. I licked her pussy off my skin and wanted more.

I still do.

Sitting in the front seat of Lachlan’s truck with a barely dressed, barely awake Everly wedged between us, I have to resist the need to push her thighs apart and do it again. To hear that sound she makes right before cumming. The helpless little whimper that begs me to end her torment.

But I can’t. I shouldn’t. Again. She’s Lauren’s best friend.

My stepdaughter’s only friend. The line is solid and reinforced with electric wiring.

Lauren would never forgive me. She’ll look at me with disgust, betrayal.

She will never understand how hard I tried, the years I fought my own demons to keep from dragging Everly into my lap, to keep from kissing her smiling mouth before taking her to my bed.

Lauren won’t care that I hadn’t meant to lose control.

It won’t matter that Everly’s filthy confessions are burned into my skull, imprinted on my soul.

If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s hers. Her and that fucking dress and her red, lace panties with the wet crotch.

Visible even in the dark parking lot as I helped her into the truck and she bent to crawl across the seat to the center like a cat.

Now, she’s nestled into my side, head pillowed on my shoulder, resting peacefully with my hand on her warm thigh. High up. Too high. And her skin is so soft. Smooth. It’s taking all my efforts not to trace circles into the flesh just inside. To not drag higher.

I didn’t put my hand there. I had no say when she burrowed into my side, looped her arms around mine and dragged the limb to her chest. I wasn’t going to push her away. I wouldn’t. Ever. I’d just as soon cut my damn limb off.

“We can’t do this.” Lachlan’s mumbling diverts my attention to the bleached knuckles fisted around the wheel.

I don’t think he’s talking to me, but I cock my head in amusement watching him fight himself.

A good friend would agree with him and support his sound reasoning because a good friend would be an adult with rational common sense. I am not that friend. While I fully agree this has taken an insane and dangerous turn...

I peer down at Everly’s dark head resting peacefully on my shoulder. Her scent, a wild musk filling the cabin. I brush a palm over all that gorgeous hair like I’ve wanted to do from the moment she stepped into my life without warning.

I’ve ached for this. For her. She is the Everly-shaped hole in my heart.

Every day that passes without her has become bleaker, a stifling box I can’t escape.

The fact that I can’t even tell my best friend she’s the cause of my spiraling depression only tightens the band of loneliness around my chest.

But now ... she’s in my arms. She’s right here, pressed into my side where she belongs, and I can finally breathe. The weight is off my lungs. It’s ridiculous and a lit match ready to burn the bridge connecting me to Lauren, but I can’t let her go.

My tiny bundle of light shifts against me. Her face turns into the curve of my shoulder like a kitten nuzzling into warmth. Her thighs squeeze my fingers as they rub together. She makes a noise of discomfort and lifts her head.

“Cold, baby?” I ask when she blinks unfocused eyes and pushes upright.

“No,” she grumbles sleepily.

Then, like she hasn’t already fucked with all our heads, she arches her back as far as the belt across her lap will allow, reaches beneath her skirt and drags her panties down her thighs.

The red scrap continues the journey down her legs and snags on her heels.

She fights them unsteadily until the lace is freed and she’s dropping back against her seat with the offering successfully gripped in her fingers.

“What are you doing?” Lachlan demands, the panic in his voice almost comical.

My little demon casually reaches over and presses the soaked fabric into his hand before returning to me.

My arm is snagged and drawn to its rightful place snuggled against her chest like a favored teddy bear.

She makes no protest when I settle my palm on her thigh.

Instead, she drops her head on my shoulder.

“They’re too wet,” she mumbles with a sigh. “Uncomfortable.”

Goddamn it.

I hazard a glance in my best friend’s direction. Even in the dark cabin, the muscle in his jaw is a rapid heartbeat beneath his skin. The passing highway lights flicker in the brown of his eyes as they dart between the road and the wad of sin clutched in his grip.

I look away when he casts a sideways peek at me. I pretend not to see him bring them to his nose. Or when he tucks them into his pocket.

At least I won’t be alone in hell, I think.

But even as the thought flickers through me with razor focus, something quieter hums beneath it. Something I’ve been avoiding thoughts of until the silence is all encompassing, and it will no longer be ignored.

I am a jealous, possessive man. I own it with the same pride as the medals I wear on my uniform and yet, it’s not clawing up my throat, burning my chest, ripping me apart watching another man touch what’s mine.

And Everly is mine. Always has been. Always will be.

Maybe even more now that I finally have her.

Yet, I watched her melt against Lachlan back at the bar.

I watched her hold him to her while he sucked her nipples.

I watched him kiss her soft mouth and claim her panties like they belonged to him now.

I watched him hold her like he was made to do it, like she’s something scared in need of protection.

And the jealousy never came.

There is nothing but the heavy quiet of knowing deep in my gut that this is right. He is my brother and there isn’t another soul alive I would want holding her in my place. No one else I would ever let this close to her.

Maybe that’s why it doesn’t twist me up in knots watching him with her the way I had been when Bron would touch her. I’m not fueled by an all-consuming rage to rip off his arms and beat him with them because they fit the same way she fits with me.

Or maybe I’m just full of shit. A coward terrified she’d never pick just one and scared shitless that she might not pick me.

Whatever the reason, I accept it willingly and without reservation.

I direct my thoughts away from the creature destroying me without even trying and think back on the kid at the bar. The mouthy piece of shit putting his hands on my Everly.

I’m not proud of losing my cool.

Years of aggressive training to handle all manner of situations went out the window the second I watched the asshole slide his hand up Everly’s skirt.

All rational thought, all my calm went up in smoke watching Everly fight him off.

Watching her wedge her forearms against his chest and push only to have him pin her harder.

I would have killed him. I know that fact to my soul. If Lachlan hadn’t stopped me, if he hadn’t reminded me through the haze of crimson that Everly needed me, I would have broken every tooth in his skull before curb-stomping him into the next world. Kid or not.

Don’t touch what’s mine.

Even if she has a boyfriend. A waste of space. An entitled brat with a God complex and a narcissist to the core.

Fucking hate the little fuck .

From the very beginning. I know you’re not supposed to hate kids, but after two tours and a lifetime commitment to my country, I have seen the evil in men’s eyes.

The lurking monsters waiting to snatch up the innocent and devour them.

I have seen that cruel, sadistic demon in Bron’s vacant gaze.

In the hollow void where his soul should be. The absence of warmth.

Yet, Everly chose him. She settled for the punishment handed to her by life after her parents died and I never understood it.

She could have anyone. Hell, I’ve seen nearly every man and boy in Jefferson give her a second peek when she walks by.

Never mind that she has the face of an angel and a body made for sin, but it’s deeper than that.

She’s genuine. She truly cares about people.

Yet somehow, by some miracle of the devil, Bron got her.

Hurt her because that’s all he’s good for.

Maybe I’m just a bitter, jealous man in love with air I can never consume, but I would worship the ground she walks on.

I would dedicate the rest of my life to her happiness.

I would kill for her without question or reasoning.

There is not a crime I wouldn’t commit if she asked.

Did that make me a sad, pathetic loss? Maybe. But I would fall to my knees and thank God every day for every breath she takes.

“Where are we going?” I ask, needing some kind of distraction from the spiral of my own thoughts.

“My place.” The statement is sharp. Clipped .

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

The wheel squeaks under his fingers. “We’re not fucking her, Van. Jesus, she’s Everly. We can’t fuck Everly.”

I don’t understand his logic because hell yes we can absolutely fuck Everly. We can fuck her until she’s a sobbing mess of raw nerves too spent and exhausted to stop us when we do it all over again. But I don’t fight him on it when he looks about ready to strangle a kitten.

“Okay.”

He shoots me a murderous glower like I’m not taking him seriously enough — which I am not; if he thinks we can ever go back, he’s delusional.

“We can’t!”

I nod slowly. “Okay.”

“Stop saying that, goddamn it!”

I laugh because what the fuck else am I supposed to do when he’s acting like either of us have a choice in the matter?

“No fucking Everly,” I recite.