Page 24 of The Bad Brother

A S SOON AS I CALMED DOWN, I REALIZED what a huge mistake I made.

I fucked Sloane without a condom. That monumental slip-up could be chalked up to losing my head in the heat of the moment—my DNA alone doesn’t prove assault.

But I fucked her hard.

Hard enough to bruise.

I’m sure I left marks.

On her neck.

Her wrists.

Her breasts.

The insides of her thighs.

Those will be more difficult to explain.

Probably earn me a set of handcuffs and a trip to the sheriff’s station in the back of Colt’s squad car because it won’t matter that I’m family.

It won’t matter that his uncle took me in and made me one of them when we were kids.

It won’t matter that Sloane is a creeker or that I’ve been spending the better part of two weeks trying to get rid of her.

If she accuses me of assaulting her, Colt will do everything in his power to bury me.

He won’t even think twice and I can’t even be mad about it because if our roles were reversed, I’d do the same thing.

If a woman came to me and told me that someone had done to her the things I did to Sloane last night without her consent, I’d probably fucking kill him.

Convinced that was her plan— Ethan’s plan —all along, I sit on my couch and stare at my front door, waiting for Colt to knock on it with an open the door, Jensen—we need to talk while I run through the whole thing over and over.

Try to find a place where I might’ve misread her.

Might’ve gotten it wrong, until the sun is up and I’m strung so tight I’m about ready to call Colt myself, just to get it over with.

Finally standing because I can’t take it anymore, I make my way back to the front door I slammed closed hours ago and open it. The hallway between Sloane’s door and mine is empty, the sweatshirt I pulled off her and tossed aside in my hurry to get her naked, the only sign of life.

Feeling like I’m destroying evidence, I push myself into the hall and snatch it up before I can stop myself. Not sure what to do with it, I look across the hall and through the open doorway to my apartment to see the stun gun I took away from her on the floor, just inside the door.

I tried to fight him off. I had my stun gun but he took it away.

Shit.

Striding across the hall, I snatch it up while telling myself I didn’t do anything wrong. That while it might’ve started that way, it ended with Sloane moaning my name and, very willingly, coming on my cock.

Didn’t do anything wrong? You overpowered your neighbor and held her down while you practically forced her to hump your leg—there’s not a lot right about that situation, is there?

Half convinced that’s the way it actually went down, I find myself standing in front of Sloane’s closed front door.

Don’t do it, you fucking moron. For once in your goddamned life, leave well enough alone.

Ignoring my very loud and very pissed-off sense of self-preservation, I reach out and try the knob.

She didn’t lock it.

Don’t do it. Jesus Christ ? —

Turning the knob, I push the door open and immediately see what set me off last night. What made me so angry. Reminded me that Sloane Merrick isn’t just a beautiful woman who is as attracted to me as I am to her.

Hanna’s things scattered across the floor.

Her clothes and shoes.

Lotions and shampoo.

The vibrator one of her girlfriends bought her as a gag gift for her bachelorette party. The same vibrator I watched her use on herself while she sucked my brother’s dick on camera.

Ethan never needed a reason to be cruel. He’s that kid with a stick, poking at an injured animal, just to hear it cry. When he sent me that video of him and Hanna, I thought that’s all it was. Just Ethan being cruel. It never even occurred to me that he did it for a very specific reason.

When my grandfather died, I’d been in prison and my request to attend his funeral was denied, due to the fact that my parents expressed that they wouldn’t feel safe if I were given a furlough.

The week I was released, my grandfather’s attorney came here looking for me, per my grandfather’s instructions, with a letter.

Jensen–

I know this offers you little comfort now, but I know. I know you’re innocent and I know the kind of person Ethan really is. Olga explained everything. I can’t do anything about it now. All I can do is tell you I’m sorry, hope you’ll forgive me, and give you a little help to start a new life.

Your Grandfather

A little help was full access to a thirty-million-dollar trust fund when I turned twenty-five and my grandmother’s engagement ring.

I met Hanna less than six months after my twenty-fifth birthday.

Looking back, I don’t think that was a coincidence.

I think a part of me always knew that she didn’t love me the way I loved her.

Expected it because there’s something about me that didn’t deserve it.

Something less and unlovable. As sad and pathetic as it sounds, if it had been anyone else but my brother that Hanna got on her knees for, I probably would’ve forgiven her. Probably still married her.

I meant it when I said Ethan did me a favor.

Leaving the door slightly ajar, I make my way to the dining room table, trying not to think about what I’ d been doing to Sloane on top of it a few hours ago while I fold her sweatshirt into a neat square.

Leaving it on the table, her stun gun on top of it, I crouch down to collect the things Hanna left behind, placing them back in the box Sloane put them in, as quietly as possible.

Fitting its lid back in place, I stand and am halfway to the door before I remember.

Setting the box down on the table, I turn toward the living room and am only a couple of steps in when I see her.

Sloane, sleeping on the couch, cheek resting on one of the insanely expensive throw pillows Hanna picked out.

Her round, firm ass cheeks peeking out from under the hem of the T-shirt I left behind.

Legs bent, one drawn slightly higher than the other, putting her bare pussy on display, my cum still leaking from her exposed slit.

Do you hear that? How wet your filthy little pussy is for me. That’s how desperate you are for my cum.

And just like that, I’m as hard as a fucking rock and all I want to do is drop to my knees and bury my face in her pussy from behind so I can fuck her with my tongue. Make her come in my mouth so hard she passes out, and then, before she even has a chance to recover, I want to?—

Seriously? Are you fucked? That really would be assault.

Jesus, what the actual fuck is wrong with me?

Forcing myself to turn away from her, I stoop over to open the drawer on the coffee table as carefully as I can.

Fully expecting her to wake up and ask me what the hell I’m doing here, I find what I’m looking for—the framed photograph of the day I proposed to Hanna and the engagement ring I used to do it.

I took her to Turks and Caicos. She’d been dropping hints for months before I finally booked the trip, deciding that it would be the perfect time to propose.

The ring was another dropped hint—she left dog-eared jewelry catalogs all over the loft—and even though my grandfather left me the ring he proposed to my grandmother with, something in me told me not to give it to her, so I bought this one instead.

The only reason I have it is because she asked me to take it to the jeweler to have it cleaned for the wedding.

After she left, she tried to pick it up but didn’t have the claim ticket. I did and even though I didn’t give a shit about the ring, one way or the other, I picked it up because by that time I was angry and didn’t want her to have it.

Tossing it in the drawer, I proceeded to get blind drunk and stayed that way for a week. The only thing that pulled me out of it was Cade, busting in here to yell at me for worrying River and making her cry.

After that, I sobered up, packed my clothes and moved to Tank’s old apartment across the hall.

I’ve been there ever since. I hadn’t planned on ever stepping foot in here again until I was buried inside Sloane with her legs wrapped around me, so desperate to fuck her that I stopped thinking about anything except the grip of her around my cock and the way she was begging for my cum.

Ohgod… yes… come in me, Jensen… please…

Closing the drawer, I somehow resist the urge to turn around and look at her again. Pushing myself across the room, I stop only long enough to drop the photo and the ring in the box before picking it up and walking out the door, this time closing the door behind me.