Page 17

Chapter Fourteen

Alex

“Fuck me,” I groan as I fall onto my bed face first, grabbing for my pillow, exhaustion finally hitting me.

The last three days have been a damn blur, just as I knew they would be.

I haven’t had time to breathe between my mother losing her mind over last-minute wedding bullshit and our out-of-state guests arriving.

How I got roped in to making sure the caterers were set and the final deposit was paid to the venue is beyond me.

Savannah’s at home, since she opted to stay here instead of going away to college with Austen, which means I see her everywhere. She’s been off work all week to get things done for the wedding, yet I’m the one running around like a wedding planner. Why ?

Oh, right. Because my perfect brother is up at college, over an hour away, and my mother and Savannah’s mother can’t agree on anything.

I glance at the clock, noting it’s nearing eleven thirty.

Rolling onto my back, I stare up at my ceiling, which I’d painted to look like a sky with constellations, with those little plastic glow-in-the-dark stars and jeweled stickers set among an abstract mirror that cuts across the middle of the ceiling.

It’s a mess, there’s no real arrangement or rhythm, but it’s beautiful.

Especially in the morning when the sun shines through the windows and refracts off all the jewels, gold leaf, and the broken mirrors.

My reflection stares back at me, and I let out a sigh.

I wasn’t allowed to paint my room when I was living at home, because my realtor mother didn’t want to depreciate the value of our home.

Everything was always about the value, the money, and never about the feeling or the expression.

Which was why the first thing I did when I bought my two-thousand square foot ranch was paint my walls—because I could.

Finally, out of my parents’ reach, I could just do whatever the hell I wanted. Be whoever I wanted to be.

That first stroke of the paintbrush was like a salvation I never thought I’d feel. I cried like an idiot. Who cries over fucking paint?

Me, apparently.

It’s hard to believe that was only two years ago .

I glance around the room, at my handiwork. At the staccato reliefs and gold-leafed veins and stars.

It’s the one room here that no one’s ever been in. Not even Britt. Every time we’ve had sex, it’s been at her place, on her terms. Once upon a time, I had hoped she’d move in with me, and we could just, I don’t know…

This wedding’s got me feeling all sorts of shit I don’t want to feel.

My phone lights up and I can see it out of the corner of my eye.

I roll over to grab it, hoping it’s Mack.

He still hasn’t messaged me about the gift I’d left in his bag.

Either he’s terrible at unpacking and hasn’t found it yet, or worse: he has, and he’s not messaging me on purpose because he knows it’ll drive me crazy.

I’m betting on the latter, honestly. Sometimes I think he likes to piss me off as much as I like getting under his skin, and sometimes I think he just can’t help himself.

Which only fuels my fire.

Attention is attention, and I selfishly want all of his.

But when I look at my phone screen, it’s not Mack. It’s just some stupid email notification. I open the app, hoping it’ll be the email I’ve been waiting for—an acceptance letter to the Reading Rioters.

I’d tried out for a few teams this year, in between avoiding my mother’s fruitless attempts to find me a wife and working nights at the ice rink. I know it’s a long shot because I’m technically graduated, but I’m still young, and my record speaks for itself.

I choose to believe it will happen, because what’s the alternative?

Stay here, work my mediocre job and pretend to be someone I’m not?

Avoid my meddling mother who keeps trying to marry me off to some “respectable” woman like it’s the fucking 1800s?

I don’t think so. If I ever get married, it’s going to be someone who knows just how to bring out the respectable parts of me as well as the parts of me that are depraved.

Someone who can love me for me and not as if I’m some kinky weirdo.

Someone who will love me for more than my looks or my name or the money I’m going to make once I get on the Rioters or a team in general.

My phone goes off with a notification from social media, stating I’ve been tagged in an album.

I smirk, clicking on it to see which of the guys has tagged me. It’s Trey.

I browse through the photos, smiling to myself as I recall the weekend. There are photos of Austen and Cam passed out on the plane, of Hudson looking like a deer in headlights at the strip club. Mack smiling with his arm around me as we posed for the Vegas sign.

I stop on that one, zooming in so the rest of the group is cropped out, and all I can see is us.

The smile on his face is genuine, though it’s pretty obvious he’s drunk. I can still remember his warm palm against my shirt, how he’d called me Ally Cat. How moments after we’d taken that picture, he took one of me.

And of course, I remember that night, too.

When he’d kissed me. When he screamed my name.

When he watched me come.

When I fell asleep between his legs and woke up in his arms.

I add my photos to the album. When they load, I look over them.

I stop on the one selfie Mack took of us on the bus.

The one where he threw his arm around me, pulled me closer and grinned.

It was taken right before… I trace my fingers over the photo, sighing because I also remember the morning after.

I knew he’d regret it, but I was used to being a regret, wasn’t I?

Yes.

So why does this feel different? Why should Jordan Mackenzie be any different than any of the other guys—and girls—I’ve been with?

I relent as I set the alarm on my phone then plug it in.

What I need is sleep. It’s been a long few days, and the next two days are going to be the most draining.

Tomorrow is the rehearsal dinner at Luigi’s, then we’re all off to the Pine Ridge Resort in downtown Ashbourne to stay overnight.

This way, the entire wedding party is in one place, and it’s easier to get ready and transport us to the church. Plus. we all have a place to crash after the wedding when we’re drunk off our asses.

Nerves threaten to swallow me whole as I realize in two days, my little brother is going to be married.Before me.

That shouldn’t bite as much as it does. But fuck, does it bite.

I force myself off the bed, so I can get comfortable and out of my clothes. I remove my shirt first, flinging it across the room, directly into the hamper, followed by my jeans. Slivers of my body reflecting from the various fractured veins on my walls catch my attention.

Some who know me might say having shattered mirrors decked out all over my walls and a mirror on my ceiling is perverted, but being as the only person I’ve ever seen naked in this room is me, I would beg to differ.

I think it’s pretty, and it’s fitting.

Because I, too, am broken. I tear off my chain and drop it on the nightstand next to my phone.

I pull down my blue velvet comforter and crawl into bed. Sandwiched between plush fabric and satin, between the warmth starting to build and the chill of the sheets, I let the exhaustion take hold.

I sigh, curling into myself, trying to get warm, but the kind of cold I am isn’t the kind that can be fixed with a king-size bed and luxurious covers. The warmth I need can’t be bought .

My mind wanders to the one place it shouldn’t. To large arms wrapped around me, and the deep, comforting scent of alpine. To that perfect sliver of a moment before I opened my eyes, when there was nothing but silence and peace and warmth. Where I felt like everything was perfect .

I wake up at three am in a feverish sweat, needing to piss. Throwing off the comforters, I make my way to my bathroom to do my business. When I get back in bed, I can’t sleep.

I toss and turn, trying to get comfortable, but it’s no use. I huff out a sigh of annoyance, debating if I should get up, or put on a movie until I fall back asleep. I have to be up in four hours, and I know I’m going to need the damn rest. Especially if I’m going to see him later today.

I should not let my mind wander the way it does when I think about him.

I look up at my ceiling, at the mirror above me, imagining him in its reflection instead of me.

Imagining those perfectly corded back muscles rippling in its reflection, those solid glutes clenching as he drives into me, pushing me over the edge into space I crave so badly.

The place where the world quiets and all I am is a bundle of nerves and bliss and —

I close my eyes, trying to quell the thought, the fantasy. I know that will never happen, but just the thought …

“Fuck,” I bite as I close my eyes, realizing my error.

My cock presses against my boxers. I’d fantasized about Mack for years, and now I know nothing will ever hold a candle to the memory of what happened between us.

Now that I’ve had him, I only want more.

I try to ignore the heaviness and the small bead of wetness forming at the tip from the sudden onslaught of memory.

I should not be thinking about him like this. In the middle of the night, with my hand wrapped around my cock, but I can’t help myself.

I close my eyes, knowing this will put my ass to sleep. I build my rhythm slowly as I remember his hand around my neck, pulling me down until his lips met mine. A soft moan escapes my throat as the memory of his tongue stroking mine resurfaces through the haze of alcohol and desire.

I let my thoughts wander to the memory of him beneath me, staring up at me with those deep, dark eyes. Eyes full of lust, mischief, and relief.

I remember the feel of his lips against my fingers, of his fingers twisting in my hair, pushing me, shoving his cock down my throat with a force I’ll never be able to forget .

I open my eyes, staring at the stars above me as I come without warning, my stomach muscles spasming as I cup my hand over my cock so I don’t make a mess.

“Fuck,” I curse as I close my eyes, the guilt ransacking me for what I’ve done.

I need to have better control. Of myself, of my desires.

I need to be better.

I need to be good.

As I let myself fall into darkness, I tell myself I can do it.

I can be a good boy, if that’s what he wants.