Page 49 of Fracture

“So, you’re just going to drop that on me, that you love me, that you want more-”

“I never said I wanted more, we can’t have more,” she snaps. “Don’t talk this into being something that it is not.”

“Stella, I can’t just know that you want me, and that you love me, and have you expect me to just live with that.”

“Yes, I can.” She places her glass on the table, and crosses her arms over her chest. “We both just have to live with it.”

“You know, I heard you and Dylan.”

Her eyes flicker up to mine, and she lets out a low laugh. “Did you now?”

“Yes.” I lean on the table, and she lifts an eyebrow. “I liked what I heard.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“But I did.” My eyes stray to the neckline of her blouse, which is sitting open just enough for me to see an edge of pink lace. “I jerked off, listening to you moaning, thinking of him, buried inside you.”

Her chest lifts as she sucks in a breath, and her eyes widen. She scoops up her wine glass and gulps it down, quickly getting to her feet and crossing the kitchen.

“This is fucked up,” she says, leaning heavily on the counter. “This is fucking wrong.”

I watch her back, her heaving shoulders, and my nails bite into my palm, the voice in my head telling me stay right the fuck where I am. That I shouldn’t touch her, or go anywhere near her because being near Stella Langford means my self-restraint goes out the fucking window.

But I find myself crossing the wooden floor, standing behind her to put my hands on her hips, a gentle touch that has her head shooting up, her breath hitching in her chest.

“What happened in that room, huh?” I move closer to her, so my chest is brushing against her back. “Why’d you send him away?”

“I told you.” She turns her head, not quite looking at me over her shoulder. “Because I’m sick. Because I’ll break his heart.”

I squeeze her hips, and pull her back against me. “Baby girl, you’re not sick.” I bury my face in her hair, and a small moan leaves her lips. “You’re perfect. My perfect fucking chaos.”

“We can’t do this,” she breathes, even as her head falls back against me and her hands find mine on her hips. “You’re my brother, for fuck’s sake.”

“Do I feel like your brother right now?” I press my hard cock against her ass, and her back arches with a gasp.

“Levi, stop.” She says the words but her hands guide mine to her breasts, grinding her ass against me. “This is so wrong.”

I cup her breasts and she whimpers. I unbutton her blouse a little more, my fingers brushing over her soft skin and into the lace of her bra. I find her pebbled nipples, hard against my fingertips.

“This is wrong,” she murmurs again, her hands moving behind her and brushing over the buttons of my jeans.

“Then let it be wrong.” I bite her earlobe, and she mewls softly.

The roar of a motorcycle engine has her scrambling away from me. Headlights shine through the kitchen window and illuminate the two of us, like the fucking finger God himself pointing out the sin and debauchery going on in this perfect little house. Stella’s pupils are blown and her lips are full as she frantically buttons her blouse, panting and shaking her head.

“Fuck,” she breathes, her eyes full of disbelief as she looks at me. “He can’t know. Please. Don’t tell him.”

Stella has no idea just how many secrets I’m keeping. Stella has no idea I’m drowning in deception and lies just as much as she is. Maybe we’re all sick. Maybe we’re all broken, so broken that our pieces somehow match up perfectly. What would cut someone else and leave them bleeding out makes us the missing pieces of each other’s puzzles.

But as Stella wipes away an errant tear and eagerly meets Dylan at the door, as she throws her arms around him and tearfully apologizes, I know it’s not meant to be.

I take my heavy heart upstairs, and pull out my phone to look for my own place.

CHAPTER 11

STELLA

“I’m a bad person.”Dylan lies in the tub, the whiskey glass dangling from his hand as I massage his scalp.