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Cary perked up, clearly seeing me struggle with the choice of expression. “Got yourself hooked, huh?”
Grinding my molars, I suppressed the subject. “You’re making a far bigger deal out of it than it is.”
“She is a big deal.”
I started seething. Dita was mine, and he had to keep his filthy paws off her. “Don’t go there.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Ares, I just want to say—"
“Say what, Cary? That she’s better off in your bed than she is in mine? Or, you know…” I nodded towards the kitchen island, not needing to finish that sentence.
He mulled it over. “That was never supposed to happen, and you know it. I was… I was high out of my fucking mind.”
“Which is a great fucking excuse, isn’t it?” I threw my hands in the air. “She was my girlfriend.”
“Who didn’t do a better job at keeping her legs closed either!” he roared before he rubbed the fury from his face with both hands.
He worried his lower lip tightly between his teeth, regaining calm. He used to have quite a temper back when he was tripping and used my girlfriend as a convenient hole to stick his dick in. But I hadn’t seen him angry ever since he came back from rehab two years ago.
“If she had an ounce of respect for you, for herself… she wouldn’t have been a victim of my addiction. Do you honestly think I’m proud of it?”
No. I didn’t think that. Not when I saw his rumpled expression, wrinkled with years of cocaine abuse and self-neglect. The drugs had been hard on him. It had stolen so much from the both of us. This endless friction, it was exhausting.
I jammed my fists into my pockets, letting that realization saturate. I wanted to look anywhere but at Cary’s depressive presence and found my heartrate slow down as I focused on Dita’s suitcase. Everything would be okay again when I’d bring those upstairs and into my room, hoping the girl who owned them would follow and bring her arms around me.
“Was it because I welcomed her like a daughter?”
That pained question was like a punch to the stomach. It was where it all started, and a swirl of guilt and hurt mixed within like a lethal cocktail.
At first, it was about seeing their connection grow into something personal and intimate—like father and daughter. A relationship I never experienced with either of my parents.
Then I wanted to get her on my side because she was meant to be a tool to hurt Cary. That was it. Something I could show off with. Rub it in Cary’s face that someone liked me more than him. Why not let her ride my dick in the meantime?
The plan had been solid: one) get her to like me, two) make sure she never forgets about stepbrother dearest ruining her for all other men—especially my old man—and three) get rid of that fucking chip on my shoulder.
But I had to make her mine instead, didn’t I?
She left me burning. Wanting more than the ugly truth behind the chase. Wanting to erase the anger, the resentment that soon wrapped up in the warmth of a pure, forgiving, curvy girl.
Fuck… She owned me. She just didn’t know it yet. I never liked to play by the rules and this time… this time the game had beaten me.
I swallowed, feeling as if I was sinking in quicksand. My heart hammered. Because in front of me was the man who could ruin it all.
Gritting my teeth, I rubbed my chest and felt the heartburn when I looked back up his eyes—the same ones as mine, only a deeper gray—letting him know I was about to engage in a conversation that had been long past due.
