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He cups the underside of one, squeezing slightly. “Don’t put that shirt on. I want you just like this.”
My pussy tingles at his command, and I lean into his touch. “My dad would probably kill me for wearing a Patriots shirt, anyway. Or you, for giving it to me.”
“I think,” he says, scooting closer, pinching my nipple between two fingers. “He’d kill me for other things.”
This time, when he moves in to kiss me, I don’t hesitate or ask questions; I let his fire consume me as it grows brighter and faster with each stroke of his tongue, each caress of his hand, each murmured curse as he discovers something else on my body that he likes.
When this is over, I’m sure I’ll be nothing but a pile of ash.
But the burn feels so fucking good, I can’t justify extinguishing the flames.
* * *
Weeks pass slowly, things settling between Boyd and me while the rest of my life seems to be in constant upheaval.
Some nights, I fall asleep listening to Boyd’s breathing, exhausted after a session of talking about nothing and distracting each other from our realities, and the dirty stuff that inevitably follows.
Other times, I toss and turn, random thoughts of malice and paranoia worming their way into my brain. Each time I entertain one, another pops up—it’s a vicious loop of repetition, and once I lock onto one I can’t stop thinking about it.
Despite my brain’s attempt to get a grip on the control before it slips away completely, I’ve never felt less in charge of my life. I spend hours trying to fall asleep, plagued by the notion that the chaos is somehow my fault.
That the secrets I harbor are to blame for our misfortune.
The day I accuse my brother of keeping his girlfriend a secret during an early family dinner, Kieran’s shot in the graveyard, making our father believe someone is targeting us, which means his rules get stricter than ever. I’m banned from drama club and only allowed to go to the grocery or pharmacy if someone else accompanies me.
Bea and Heidi drop by one day with chocolate milkshakes, and I take one up to Kieran, who’s sitting in his room on his computer, sifting through some kind of security footage. I set the shake beside his mouse pad, watching over his shoulder as he pauses and makes a note in another browser.
“Whatcha doing?” I ask, poking his back with my pinky. The red shirt he’s wearing covers most of his upper body, but I can see the gauze peeking out from where it’s wrapped around his shoulder, evidence of something else I have no control over.
Kieran grunts, likely still annoyed from having the family accost him not long after he was shot, when he was entertaining Juliet in the privacy of his room. “I’m working.”
“On what?”
“Trying to find the dick who shot me,” he says, voice matter-of-fact, like I’m supposed to know that.
I nod, rocking back on my heels, and take a sip of my shake. “Where’s your girlfriend?”
Swiveling in his desk chair, Kieran turns to face me, propping his chin in his hand and his elbow on his knee. “Not that it’s any of your business after that stunt you pulled last week, but she’s at a doctor’s appointment.”
“Did you give her crabs?”
A laugh bursts out of his chest, the first I’ve heard from him in a long time. “No, nothing like that. Just... personal shit, I guess.”
“Oh.” I stare at a spot on his wooden desk, considering that. “Therapy?”
“Fiona, it’s really not my place to say.”
“Okay, jeez, I was just trying to find out more about her. You’ve never had a girlfriend before, it’s just so... shocking.”
He grunts again, dropping his elbow and propping one knee over the other. “Well, the same could be said about you, right? Don’t think I’ve forgotten about Dad saying he found you and Boyd in a compromising position.”
Heat rises to my cheeks and wraps its fingers around my neck, pressing until it’s difficult to breathe. When we’d accosted Juliet and Kieran while they lay in bed, my father tried to pass the torch of attention to the fact that apparently, that first night Boyd stayed the night, they ran into each other in the hall. A fact Boyd hadn’t mentioned to me until after it was already out in the open, my embarrassment spilled all over the floor for everyone to witness.
It’d taken three orgasms before I’d forgiven him, but the sting of his secrecy still throbs inside of me, a wound that’s scabbed but still not quite healed.
Kieran’s eyebrows draw inward. “Oh, God, Fiona, are you fucking him?”
“No!” I say, the word rushed and overeager. His eyebrows raise, and I sip on my shake again, trying to use the icy slush to calm the heat ravaging my body. “I mean, seriously, no. I’m not... having sex with your best friend.”
But God, do I want to.
Sighing, Kieran slumps in his chair, reaching out for his own Styrofoam cup, slurping down a big gulp. “There’s a lot you don’t know about Boyd Kelly.”
“There’s a lot I don’t know about any of you,” I say, shrugging, our mother’s voice down the hall calling out to me.
“I’m just saying. Be careful.” He salutes me as I back out of the bedroom, smoothing his hand over the bandage beneath his shirt. A pang flares up in my stomach as I drag the door closed on my way out, the realization that my family might be in actual danger hitting when I watch him wince from a flesh wound.
Ivers men aren’t strangers to violence, but I’ve never before seen them so open about it. They’ve never felt the need to involve my mother or me in their issues, and I can’t help wondering what the fuck is going on, and if I’m in trouble just by being here.
My brain is so preoccupied with the potential for danger that I don’t even register Kieran’s warning against Boyd, nor do I make a note to mention it to him later, hoping that’s not the kind of thing that comes back to bite me in the ass.
