Page 59 of Craving Consequences

EVERLY

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There is an emptiness in my chest that echoes along the walls and through the hallways of my home. An endless pulse that practically hums along the floorboards as I stand at the head and stare into the space created by my parents.

I love this house nearly as much as I hate it.

When my parents were alive, coming home was like stepping into a warm bath on a cold December.

Everything was bright and warm, and welcoming.

Dad would be on the sofa, bent over the mountain of paperwork spread across the coffee table and Mom would be sitting beside him, curled up with her book.

They’d both look up and smile. Mom would drag me into the kitchen for a light snack while we talked about our day.

Suppers were always around the dinner table.

Despite it just being the three of us, meals were nonstop laughter and chatter.

Now, it’s a collection of all the things they left behind. It’s silence I can’t erase even when I have the radio playing. It’s everything exactly the way they left it, including me.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I tell the emptiness.

I can’t be .

I can’t stay in a town where Lauren and Bron will always be yet another ghost in my life. I can’t see Lauren and not want to run to her. I can’t even look at my phone without wanting to pick it up and text her. I miss her so much the ache is suffocating.

But it goes beyond that.

I can’t stay and pretend I didn’t have the best week of my life every time I see Lachlan and Van.

I can’t pretend they mean nothing to me.

I can’t go the rest of my life wanting them to touch me and being deprived because Jefferson will always know.

Already, I can only imagine the gossip being circulated about me and Bron.

About yesterday’s altercation. Then, after Bron was thrown into holding, I ran off with his dad .

.. and his dad’s best friend. The hive must be buzzing.

I’m partially awed by the fact that I don’t have a string of neighbors on my doorstep who just happened to be in the neighborhood.

Joking aside though, I need to fix this. I need to free Van and Lachlan from my curse. I have to sever any connection that could be linked back to me.

Mind set, I stalk to my purse still sitting on the kitchen island and dig inside for my phone.

The device takes ages to power on and flashes that it needs to be charged right before the onslaught of a million texts, emails, voicemails, and missed calls pop up across the screen.

The relentless chirping has me placing the sound on mute as I scroll through my contacts .

Teddy Abram answers on the third ring. His upbeat greeting makes me smile.

“Hey there stranger! How goes?”

I’ve always liked Teddy. Even when we went to school together, he’d been that guy everyone just .

.. gravitated to. If he wasn’t tutoring kids after school, he was teaching them to swim.

If he wasn’t running grocery orders to the elderly, he was, as captain, keeping the basketball team in shape.

Even as an adult, there isn’t a soul alive who isn’t wildly fond of him . .. except Bron.

“Hey, Teddy, how are you?”

I hear the rapid click of keys and I can just picture him hunched over his computer, wired glasses perched low on his nose. Hair a dark tangle of disarray.

“Just dandy. Getting some paperwork done at the office.” I hear him hesitate before asking lightly, “How are you?”

I hear the edge in the question, and I know Teddy well enough that he’s not fishing for gossip but genuinely asking out of concern.

“It’s been an interesting few days.” I force a chuckle. “It’s actually why I’m calling you.”

The clicking stops and I know I have his full attention.

“Sure thing. What do you need?”

It takes twenty minutes to finalize my decision. It takes multiple, are you sure about this, from Teddy and my absolute certainty before it’s all said and done and I can finally hang up feeling ... lighter.

It’s weird because I always thought it would be too hard, too complicated. But with nothing holding me in place anymore, the decision happened. It clicked into place. I have no regrets.

Still, I steal a peek at the clock. I nibble on my lip as I gauge how long they’ve been gone.

I need to stop. I need to stop needing them. I need to get used to being alone. I need to accept that they will no longer be in my life.

Determined, hanging on to that resolve, I stalk to the basement and unearth every empty box I can find. I drag them upstairs and set to work tearing apart the hallway closet. I empty the cupboards, the drawers. I dismantle the bookcases and hollow out everything under the TV stand.

I’m bent over in a box of my dad’s old car magazines when the knock sounds.

“Come in!” I yell without moving, knowing without ever glancing up who it is. “I have everything—”

Strong arms band around my middle, and I’m swept off my feet. My squeak of surprise is met with a hard, bare chest as I’m carted to the sofa. My back hits the cushion. My skirt flips high around my flailing thighs with my bounce .

Lachlan stands over me, eyes a dark, possessive black as he tears open his belt. The metal clinks loudly over the pounding of my heart.

Behind him, Van kicks the door shut with the heel of his boot. The lock snaps into place with the twist of his fingers, the sound a promising echo in the silence. All the while, his gaze never leaves where his friend is reaching under my skirt and yanking my panties down my legs.

“Take your dress off.”

The command is low, practically a warning between the discarding of his shirt and pants with single minded purpose. Stripping down to all those beautiful muscles and that perfect dick I can’t get enough of.

Yet, I don’t move to comply. I stay in my reclined sprawl across the sofa. Knees slightly apart, slightly bent. My head tilts and I flutter my lashes up at him.

“This dress?” I bunch the fabric of my skirt between my fingers, lifting it just high enough to capture his attention when his gaze drops to follow the rising hem. I stop. “Make me.”

As if those two simple words have the power to flip a switch in him, Lachlan’s eyes turn opaque. His features harden with a feral hunger that sends the butterflies in my stomach crazy.

“You think it’s wise to test me right now?” His voice is quiet, a perfectly balanced knife.

I give a coy little shrug that only narrows his eyes .

He moves with unexpected speed. A blur of taut muscles and angry hands. I barely have time to smirk when he’s on me. One knee wedges high between mine, practically at my mound as his hand closes around my throat. Squeezes.

My breath catches and he smirks.

“Fucking, little brat,” he growls through his teeth. “I warned you.”

The pretty necklace holding my throat vanishes only to close around the neckline of my dress with both fists and yank.

The fabric may as well have been made of paper the way it comes apart. The sound explodes in the silence. A ripping, hiss of assault that doesn’t stop until he’s shredded every inch of it. Torn it from my body; bared and exposed me to the cool AC and the demon in his eyes.

I’m forced harder into the cushions as he releases the tattered remains of my favorite dress in exchange for my breasts. He’s on them with the intensity of a starved wolf, palming and sucking until I’m practically riding his thigh.

“Lachlan, please...” My plea fades into a sharp hiss of pain when he sinks his teeth into the sensitive peak.

“Please what?” He laps at the injury with the flat of his tongue.

I squirm, my thighs trembling around the knee he has keeping them apart. “I ... I need you. ”

Molten gaze lifts through heavy lashes to fix me over the tongue he has circling my nipple. “Need me to what, Everly?”

Heat sweeps up my neck to fill my cheeks. It burns behind my eyes.

I know what he wants me to say, and I know I’ve said it before. Mostly with the courage of vodka nudging me along, and back at the cabin when I was too out of my mind to care, but here? Now? With him and Van watching me?

“Please don’t make me say it...”

Lachlan chuckles darkly, refusing to release me from the grip of his gaze. “But I want to hear it.” He rises up over me. A second knee joins the first, forcing mine wider. “I want you to beg for my cock.”

I wriggle, restless and nervous. I run my tongue over my lips and shift a glance in the direction of the other man standing several feet away, arms folded, watching me get tortured by his friend.

Van will be no help. I know it, still I plead with him with my eyes and earn a raised eyebrow in return.

I hated when Bron tried to make me say it. I hated the way the words would cling to the air, dripping with condescension and crude mockery.

But I love when Van and Lachlan tell me they’re going to fuck me. I love when they groan it into my ear as they sink into my body. It doesn’t feel wrong and belittling when it comes from them.

Still I’m anxious when I fix my gaze to Lachlan’s throat and will the words to the tip of my tongue.

“Fuck me,” I whisper so low it’s no more than just the motion of my lips.

The head of his cock breaches me, sends my head back with a gasp.

“Again,” he growls into my chin.

“God ... please...” Another inch and my hips buck. “Fuck me,” I rasp.

“Louder.” He goes in half with a single thrust, and I sob.

“Fuck me!”

The low, guttural rumble of pride rising up his throat vibrates against the side of my face.

“There it is,” he breathes, feeding me the rest. “There’s my good girl.”

My nails sink into his back. Dig red rivulets down the hard cords to anchor into the taut globes of his ass.

I drag him deeper.

“That’s it,” he croons into my ear. “Open wide, sweetheart. Get every inch in. Stretch your pussy on me.”

Beneath my palms, his cheeks flex. They buck and pump in short, shallow thrusts that hit my base in rapid succession. He’s so deep inside me, every bump grinds exactly where I need him .