Текст книги "Kiss the Sky"

Автор книги: Becca Ritchie

Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

[ 20 ]
CONNOR COBALT

Frederick has spent the past ten minutes giving me the silent treatment. He sits behind his desk and pretends to be interested in The New York Times on his computer. He’s pissed that I’m still taking Adderall. But I can’t function without it.

I finish texting Rose and lean back in the leather chair. Frederick hasn’t looked up yet.

“I’m not paying you to ignore me,” I tell him.

His eyes remain on the computer screen. “You’re right. You’re paying for my counsel, which you are clearly not interested in.” He starts typing on his keyboard, the pounding more aggravating than I’ll let on. He has a squared jaw, tousled brown hair and broad-shoulders—in his thirties, fairly good looking, but he never married. His work is his wife.

I press my fingers to my lips in thought. “And you’re not even the slightest bit interested in what Rose texted me?” I try.

His fingers falter as he types, but he regains fluidity. Frederick enjoys talking with me, whether he’ll admit it to himself or not. I’m his most interesting patient.

“She asked me to bring home wine and tequila.” I don’t say anything else.

I watch the curiosity build in Frederick’s eyes until he lets out a sigh and rolls his chair back, his body angled towards me.

“You’re too easy,” I tell him.

 “So you’ve told me.” He pauses. “How far have you been with her?”

I hesitate to reveal this, which surprises even me. I’m usually open about everything with Frederick, but being with Rose makes me want to keep every moment close to our chests, so no one can share what happens but us. It takes me about a minute to finally say, “She sucked my cock.”

Frederick’s brows rise in surprise. “You got her to blow you?”

“Rose had the choice.” I don’t want one of us to lose with sex. We both need to come out successful and fulfilled.

“How kinky?” Frederick asks.

I let out a mock sigh and stare at the ceiling. “We’re not there yet.” I tilt my head. “Give her time, Rick. She’s a virgin.”

“I’m surprised you’re not pushing her harder. For years, you’ve talked about how you want to—”

“I’m going to push her as far as I think she can go without having her run out on me. She’s packed a suitcase before, remember? She stayed in a hotel in the Hamptons for a week just to prove a point. And we weren’t even living together then.”

Frederick laughs. “I remember. You were both fighting about the Theory of Relativity.”

“She loves to disagree with me.” We argue a lot about theories because they’re easily debatable, but we always, somehow, kiss in the end. When she finally returned to Princeton, I spent the day with her in bed, sucking on her neck, gently easing her to go further. She was too scared to do more. But I think, for once, she will now.

“When she went down on you, you didn’t let her use her hands?” he suddenly asks.

“No.” These questions are annoying me more than usual.

“Did she like it?”

“Immensely.”

“You’re very possessive of her,” he states, taking out his notepad.

“How can you tell?”

“You sound irritated.”

Wonderful.

“Did you go down on her afterwards?”

“No.” I shift my jaw, trying to get my words to cooperate and not come out so damn coarse.

“Because you didn’t have time?”

“No,” I almost snap at him. I clear my throat as Frederick scribbles something down.

“Because she wouldn’t let you.”

I stay quiet since he phrased this one as a statement, not a question.

“She’s frightened to let you touch her. The alcohol she wants you to buy will lessen her inhibitions and reservations. If she’s afraid in the first place, maybe she’s not submissive, Connor.”

My eyes narrow, a territorial feeling boiling inside of me. “She responds the way a submissive would. She shudders in pleasure when I take full control. But she’s still horrible at it; I’ll admit that. I’m trying to get her to a place where she can accept what turns her on.” I pause. “Outside the bedroom, you’re right, though. She’s not submissive. And she never will be.”

“And you like that?” Frederick asks, his pen hovering over the notepad.

“Yes.”

“Why does that appeal to you so much?”

“You know why.”

“But I want you to hear yourself say it again.”

I let out an exasperated sigh and clear my throat for the second time. “I enjoy being matched outside of the bedroom. It’s a constant game that’s fun to play. She keeps me on my toes.” The words come out like I’ve rehearsed them, but it’s only because I’ve said them so many times before. “But I love the part where I can give her everything she needs in sex, and I get the same in return. Through that bedroom door, I become in control again, and I can empower her. It’s a dynamic that never gets tired or old.”

I often thought about her when I was at Faust and Penn—remembering the conversations we had at academic bowls and conferences. I never believed she’d enjoy giving up control in bed. But the longer she shied from affection, recoiling from other men, I thought she was just scared.  And how could a woman as powerful and unabashed as her be frightened of sex? And then it dawned on me. She didn’t wish to rule a man in bed. She wanted to be ruled. But she didn’t know how to ask without feeling weak. So she thought being alone, unfulfilled sexually was the better option. I’m here to tell her it should have never been a fucking solution in the first place.

Frederick nods.

“There’s more.” I need to be honest about what’s going on recently. “She thinks once she gives herself to me, I’ll leave—that our relationship is nothing more than a game because I won’t allow myself to love anyone.”

 “And why don’t you love her, Connor?” His chair creaks as he leans back, and a shadow of a smile plays at his lips.

He acts as though he understands what I can’t, putting me at odds with myself. He’s listened to my beliefs about love for years, but that doesn’t stop him from routinely asking more.

“People relate love to insects fluttering inside their digestive system. I’ve never had that affliction.”

He cracks a smile. “It’s a metaphor.”

“I know what a metaphor is, Rick.”

“Then stop being a smartass and so will I.”

I straighten in my chair, becoming more serious. “I’ve seen the kind of love that cripples. Take Loren Hale and Lily Calloway—when one is shot with an emotion, the other feels it. If you stripped one from the other, they’d be less than themselves. If that’s love, I want no part of it.” I want to be whole. I want to be the best possible version of myself without the chance of being wounded or broken.

“Can you empathize with Rose?” he asks me.

“Yes, but love is a weakness that I won’t submit to.”

“Sometimes you can’t control everything, Connor,” he tells me. “Even as intelligent as you are, there are things out of your grasp. Love, death—you can’t predict either. They just happen.”

“And you believe it’s already happened?” I refuse this outcome. It’s not computable.

“Why are you with her?”

“Attraction.”

“And?”

“Affection.”

“What else?”

“Amusement—these are just words, Frederick.”

“Love is just a word.”

“I can’t love her,” I tell him definitively as I stand and pocket my phone.

He stays seated, and yet, I feel as though he has the advantage on me. He still sees what I can’t. “And why is that?”

“Smart people do stupid things when they’re in love. I’ve yet to do something inane.”

Frederick grins. “Give it time.”

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. I wave him off and head to the door. “See you next week.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Of course you are,” I say back. “You get to hear about me spanking my girlfriend.”

“Get out of my office, Connor.” He returns to his papers, but his grin grows wider and wider until I leave.

* * *

I stop by the liquor store after my session with Frederick, and it’s late when I arrive home. The lights are off in the living room, and I don’t hear Lily or Lo’s climaxes through the walls.

When I reach the second level, I stop by my door, not about to knock. I haven’t been that courteous since we moved in together. There are some barriers that I choose to destroy for her.

As soon as the door creaks open, I find Rose sitting on the bed, flipping through the latest issue of Vogue. Her eyes flit up to mine and she drops the magazine on her lap. “Did you bring it?”

I hold up the brown paper bag. “Wine and tequila as you requested, but I would advise only choosing one tonight. Unless you’d like to be ill.”

“The wine is for you,” she says curtly.

My eyebrows rise. So the tequila is for her. She’s that nervous.

She pats the mattress. “Take a seat, Richard. You look like a scared little cat. Sadie would claw you for your cowardice.”

“My cat loves me unconditionally,” I reply. The bed rocks as I climb onto it, and I set the paper bag in between us. “And I’m fine, so you must be projecting your fear onto me.” I smile, just so I can see that flicker of contempt in her eyes.

“I’m not scared.” She straightens up and pulls her shoulders back. “I know exactly what we’ll be doing tonight. I can’t say the same for you.”

“So what are we doing tonight, hun?” I ask. “Other than getting drunk.”

She reaches into the paper bag and pulls out the bottle of Patron. I watch her unscrew the cap and start rubbing the lip with the hem of her black thigh-length nightgown. It’s silk and looks like a slip underneath a dress.

I immediately imagine myself slowly lifting the thin fabric off her body, leaving her bare for my touch. I want her naked. Now.

Patience.

I place my hand on the smoothness of her leg, her skin nearly as silky as her nightgown and exceedingly warmer. The minute I pull her closer to me with that one hand, her chest rises. But she focuses on wiping the rim of her Patron.

Rose plans on drinking straight from the bottle. She’s trying hard to progress our relationship, willing to forgo a glass. That’s a big deal in Rose Calloway’s world. Her effort hasn’t gone unnoticed in my eyes.

When it’s successfully clean for her lips, Rose takes a swig from the bottle. She nods to the bag. “Get your wine. And then we’ll play the game.”

“What game?”

“Truth or dare.”

She says it with a straight face, almost challenging me to laugh. I keep my expression complacent, but I can’t help what I say. “Shall we spend seven minutes in heaven too?”

She shoots me a heated look. “We’re playing. Don’t make me tie you up.”

I laugh and rub my lips, unable to contain my amusement. “Darling, if anyone is going to be tied up,” I say, my hand descending towards her ass, “c’est toi.”

It’s you.

[ 21 ]
ROSE CALLOWAY

“Don’t be a pussy,” I tell Connor. “If I can do it, you should be able to.” Although with that confident declaration of tying me up—my brazen attitude feels more like a front than anything else.

“Name calling gets you nowhere in life,” he refutes with ease. “And just so you know, I was only going to drink from a glass in case I spilled it on your comforter. But your loss.”

He acts like he’s going to tip the wine bottle accidentally onto my white-laced bedspread. My heart jumps into my throat, and fear bulges my eyes.

He grins and then puts the bottle to his lips, taking a large swig. The wine and tequila are strategic. I need more liquid courage than him, and I’d rather be buzzed. I’ve never seen Connor drunk, which means he could very well turn into an inebriated asshole. Someone I do not want to play truth or dare with. But it’s a risk I’ll take.

“Truth or dare?” I ask him after another sip of tequila. The liquor slides sharply down my throat, but I’m too nervous to care. Normal couples who share a bed would be fine playing truth or dare together. Another piece of evidence that I am not normal. We are not normal.

He doesn’t blink. “Truth.”

I don’t want to ease in. “What’s your favorite position?”

“I won’t hurt you,” he says, reading into my question. “I know you’re nervous to have sex, but I promise I’ll be…” He smiles at his own thought. “…no that’s not quite right.”

“You were about to say gentle, weren’t you?”

His lips rise further, validating my assumption.

The aftertaste of tequila sticks to my tongue, and my head dizzies at the idea of Connor being anything but gentle. I’m not the softest girl, so the image of being handled by a soft, careful boy makes me squirm.

“I promise I’ll be me,” he says, grinning into his next swig of wine.

“It’s a good thing I like you then.” My voice is still icy. The alcohol hasn’t kicked in just yet.

“Like me? Qu’en est-il de l’amour?” What happened to love?

“You don’t believe in love,” I retort. “So you’ve lost the right for me to love you back.” I nod assuredly at this new stance I’m taking. “But I still like you. Don’t worry.”

“I never worry,” he says. “I do believe in love. When I was a child I thought it wasn’t real, but I’ve come to see that it does exist for some people. Just not me.”

Right. He can’t love anyone. He’s too analytical, I suppose. I’ve come to accept it, but there’s a part of me that wants so badly to be his first love the way he’s mine. His hand keeps descending, gripping my ass above my silk nightgown. I tip the bottle of Patron against my mouth, taking half a shot.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I say.

“What’s my favorite position?”

“Yes.”

“I have a lot of favorites.”

“Choose one, Richard,” I snap.

He smiles. “Missionary…with a few alterations.”

“What alterations?”

His lips just curve higher, as if he’s partaking in a personal inside joke. I kind of want to punch him for the smirk, but I also want Connor to kiss me roughly. It’s an odd mixture that’s pounding my head.

At least he doesn’t want me to ride his dick like a sexy dominatrix. I don’t think I could confidently pull that off. It’s not something I’ve ever visualized either. Although when people meet me, I know it’s their first assumption, their first wild picture. Of me in stilettos, a heel at a man’s throat. All these years, I believed in the stereotype too. That to be a strong, confident woman outside the bedroom, I’d have to be as equally dominant inside. It’s a reason why I rarely brought guys back to my apartment in college. Because I’d disappoint them. And I’d rather shove them out of my door and be called an ice cold bitch than be laughed at for not making good on their fantasies.

We’re all more than we appear to be.

“Truth or dare?” His question pops my thoughts.

“Truth.”

“What’s your strangest fantasy?”

“I change my mind. I choose dare,” I say quickly.

He laughs. “Play by the rules, darling.”

“Dare,” I repeat, not backing down.

“Fine. I’ll let you cheat this once.”

Cheat. That is a vile word, but I stay my course.

“I dare you…” His eyes flit around the room before landing back on me. “To answer my question.” He full-on grins.

“You’re terrible,” I deadpan.

“You love me. Even if you won’t say it anymore.”

 “Maybe.” Ugh. I stare at my traitorous bottle of Patron for loosening my lips and deteriorating my brain.

His hand dips further to my ass, and he pulls me so close that I realize I’m sitting on his lap, my legs sprawled to the side. He combs the hair off my neck and places a light kiss on my nape. He watches how my body shivers from the touch, warms from the alcohol, and dizzies from his closeness.

“You wanted to play this game,” he reminds me. “Somewhere in your heart, you wanted these things to be revealed.”

I did. And that’s why I had the alcohol. To build my courage. I take another small sip, my lips wet with the liquor. He rubs his thumb across them, slowly. As my breath hitches, he puts his thumb in his mouth, tasting the tequila.

“My strangest fantasy?” I repeat, studying him like he’s the most interesting specimen in the universe. To me, he most definitely is. When the answer suddenly hits me, I pale. I’m not even close enough to being that drunk to tell him. But I can’t lie. I hate cheaters so damn much. “Ask me something else.”

“No,” he says, not making this easy for me. He rests a hand on the back of my neck, so near now that his chest touches mine. He inhales strongly, my body closing in on him. The tension winds me in a taut strand, the place between my legs beginning to pulse for touch. He kisses right outside of my lips. “Answer me,” he murmurs with a deep, husky voice.

“Define strange,” I breathe.

He’s abandoned his wine bottle somewhere. And I don’t even care to search for it. “Not normal to society’s traditional standards.”

Yes, my fantasy is definitely abnormal. I’ve thought about it a few times before, and I have no idea why it aroused me. “I shouldn’t be turned on by it.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He brushes my hair out of my face again, his gaze steadily and slowly skimming every inch of me, heating me up more than the alcohol now.

“I think my fantasy is weird, even for your standards.”

He stops stroking me and his eyebrow arches, pure curiosity pouring through his gaze. “Now you have to tell me.”

“I picture you.” My vocal cords freeze.

“Good. Keep going.”

I smack his arm.

“I picture you as well,” he says. “I have since I was seventeen.”

“Really?”

“It wasn’t fair to the other people I was with, but you’ve been the most fascinating person to me. And no one could really compare in my mind.”

 I rephrase his words and hear I love you. Even if he won’t ever say them. This proclamation inflates my courage. And I sit up a little straighter on his lap. I lick my lips and continue, “I picture you and me.”

“We’re getting somewhere close, I suspect.”

I glare. “We can move on if you don’t want to hear it.”

“Rose,” he says affectionately, “I would sit here for eighty more years and listen to you talk. I love the sound of your voice and every meaning behind your words.”

“So you love my voice but you don’t love me?”

He grips my butt hard, and a gasp catches in my throat. “Maybe you should be labeled smartass after we fuck.”

I actually laugh.

He smiles with me. “Tell me,” he whispers, his lips tickling my ear. “N’ai pas peur.” Don’t be afraid.

I swallow. “I may not like it, even though I’ve imagined it.”

He groans, half in frustration, the other half in arousal. He breathes more heavily than before. “You’re killing me.”

He hardens beneath me. I really, really love that power. “Maybe I should draw out the suspense then and never tell you.”

“No.” He cups my face in a strong hand. “If you could live inside my mind right now, you’d realize how crazy you’re making me.”

“I want to be in your mind,” I say honestly, the alcohol doing its trick as I run my hands across his chest, popping the buttons of his white shirt.

“You’re almost all the way there.”

That does it. I take a deep breath and I tell him. “I’m always sleeping when it happens.” I don’t break his gaze. I stay strong. I can tell him my fantasy. I can do this without balking like a coward. “And I wake up to you inside of me…thrusting…” I trail off as I try to read his expression that stays blank.

I can’t tell whether he thinks I’m weird or not.

His hand rises from my neck to the back of my head, and he kisses my unmoving, frightened lips before he whispers, “I’ve done much stranger things, Rose.” I hear the smile in his words, and I immediately relax. “Your turn,” he says. And just like that, he brushes it off so I don’t keep fretting.

It felt good to share that, to be more open sexually. I think I could do this more often with him. It’s not so hard. “Truth or dare?” I ask, my knuckles whitening as I grip the bottle of my Patron, pent up the longer he touches me.

“Truth.”

“What rouses you more, my body or my brain?”

His eyes drift to the tops of my breasts while one hand slides up my nightgown, settling on my bottom above my panties. “Both, equally.”

If I wasn’t so intoxicated by his presence and the liquor, I would make him give me a definitive answer, but I let it slide.

“Truth or dare?” he asks.

The last truth was difficult, and I know he won’t make it any easier. So I say, “Dare.”

He exhales deeply, so very aroused. Places in my body are clenching that have never clenched before. “I dare you,” he says, “to let me take off your nightgown.”

Before I even nod, his hands slip all the way beneath the silk, and he slowly lifts the fabric over my head, my breasts visible for his intense, heady gaze. My nipples already stand at attention.

I love the way he’s staring at me. It makes me feel more than just beautiful. I feel like I’m his. Like no one else could possibly compare to me. He doesn’t even have to say the words. I see it in his eyes. I can practically read it in his mind.

I sit on his lap, only in black panties, while he’s fully clothed. I want to strip him, but when I try to take off his unbuttoned shirt, he grips my wrists hard in disapproval. Right, we’re still playing the game. “Truth or dare?” I ask him.

“Truth.”

My eyes narrow. “You were supposed to pick dare.” I’d love to see his cock again, but it stays hidden in his pants. Just staring at the large bulge makes me wet.

“But I didn’t.”

“Fine. If you could cut off any part of my body and store it in a jar, what would it be?”

“Your eyes.” He doesn’t miss a beat.

I glare.

“And they’d look at me just like that.” His fingers glide across my hip, but he stays away from my breasts on purpose. I’ve never wanted him to press against me so badly. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare.” I’ll do anything.

“Let me play with you for…” He checks his charcoal Rolex. “…ten minutes.” It’s as ambiguous as he wants it to be. And before I can ask or accept (which I would have), he has me pinned flat on my back.

His lips touch mine in a big inhale, causing my body to buck up and meet his.

And then his hand descends towards my belly, his mouth trailing my jaw to my breasts. He sucks my nipple and bites the bud, the pressure grasping my throat.

I want more force on my neck, but I can’t speak to ask for it.

I’m lost in these feelings.

He sits up for a second, on his knees. And then he splits my legs open. In one swift motion, he slides me forcibly towards him, my heat digging into the hardness beneath his slacks.

Holy shit…

I don’t want to shut my eyes, but my lids flutter with each rupturing nerve. His hand disappears beneath my panties, and he slips two large fingers inside of me, pulsing them with mastered speed.

“You’re incredibly wet, darling,” he says with a heavy breath. “You’ve been a bad girl, not giving your body what it craves.” He lifts me a little higher and rocks against me while he’s fully clothed. The force feels so damn good. He slaps the side of my thigh.

Fuck me.

My limbs are tight in his clutch, and it’s everything I can do not to scream. All the noises just lock tight in my chest. I think I’ve spent so much time holding in sounds when I touch myself that it’s hard to let go.

“Let me hear you.”

He rocks harder. I wish his pants were off. I wish I could see his ass that tightens as he pounds into me, in sync with his fingers.

He slaps me again, more towards my ass this time. I let out a wrangled cry that even surprises me.

“You liked that,” he says.

“God…yes…”

“God’s not in this bedroom, Rose.”

My arm covers my eyes. I barely hear his words. “Fuck…” My lips part in a silent scream. I clench my comforter, and a wetness seeps beneath my ass. I look up and see the tequila spilt all over the bed.

And I don’t even care.

“Connor,” I breathe. “…Connor…harder.”

I see his lips lift before my lids close again. And he obliges by quickening the movement of his fingers and slamming into me. Then his hand finds the length of my neck. I open my eyes as he wraps his fingers around my throat and squeezes so tight.

I can’t breathe.

All the blood rushes to my head. He chokes me, not hard enough to hurt me, but enough to be lightheaded. This is what I wanted only minutes earlier. The fact that he understood this without me asking—it drives me to a new point, a new climax that I have never, ever experienced before.

I come in a turbulent, blissful wave. I can feel myself contract around his fingers as he keeps them inside of me. A thin layer of sweat coats my body, and when he pulls out his fingers, he grips my chin, forcing me to look at him.

He makes me watch as he puts his fingers in his mouth, licking off the wetness from between my legs. The image kick-starts my sluggish breathing into a rapid-fire pattern.

When he takes his hand out, he says, “Just as I thought.”

“What?”

“I love the taste of you.” He leans over me and slips those same two fingers into my mouth. He licked most of me clean, and I taste mostly him—his mouthwash and minty breath. I suspect he knew I’d taste more of him than myself.

He checks his watch. “Three more minutes.” His lips skim my neck and he whispers, “What I could do to you in that time…”

And just as he slips his tongue into my mouth, a huge crash bangs against the wall. I jump in fright, accidentally biting him. Shit.

Connor places a hand on my collar, keeping my back to the mattress while he sits up. “I’m fine,” he assures me.

But I taste the bitter iron of blood. And I know it’s his. Before I can inspect his tongue, something else slams behind us again.

I flinch, but I glance back at him. “Let me see your tongue.”

“No.” In a single word he reminds me that I can’t push him around. “And my tongue is fine. You barely sliced it.”

Good.

The next crash in the wall comes with muffled yelling.

Connor stands from the bed, no longer hard. As he changes pants and underwear quickly, I realize he came too. I hadn’t even noticed. I was too enamored with my own climax.

“It’s probably just Lily and Loren screwing,” I tell him.

His eyes narrow at me. “I must have fingered the brains out of you.”

I frown.

“That’s Daisy’s room.”

I bolt upright and spring off the bed, grabbing a black silk robe. I slip it on and knot the tie at my waist. Another bang hits the wall hard. My heart leaps to my throat.

“You should stay here,” he tells me, zipping his black slacks.

I glare.

“It was worth a try.” He places a hand on the small of my back. “After you.”

* * *

The moment I reach the door frame with Connor, we find Scott standing here, watching the scene with crossed arms. Not doing a damn thing to stop whatever’s happening.

And then I look, and my jaw hits the floor.

A glass lamp is shattered on the ground, a bookshelf toppled over, any fragile knickknacks destroyed on the hardwood.

Ryke wrestles a medium-built guy in the center of the room. I discern his age quickly. Forties. Red hair that sticks up from being pummeled. His lip is busted, and he manages to put up a good fight against Ryke, who’s shirtless in a pair of track pants. The man shoves Ryke back and flings two punches, one connecting with Ryke’s jaw.

“Get the fuck off me!” the guy yells.

And then Ryke socks him right in the gut. The man crumples forward, coughing.

Daisy is in the corner, smashing something on the ground, hidden behind her bed. I give Scott a long agonizing glare for being a horrible human being and just standing here. And I go to my sister’s aid while Connor tries to separate the guys.

“You motherfucking pervert,” Ryke sneers, grabbing him around the throat. He’s about to slam his head into the ground, but Connor grips Ryke’s wrist hard and throws him off.

All I can think is that Ryke found Daisy’s boyfriend. Who’s a gross older man. That’s my first assumption.

“Don’t wake up Lily and Lo,” Connor says in a hushed voice. “Calm down.”

Ryke’s features are so dark. He’s almost hard to look at.

And then the man tries to escape, about to sprint out the door, but Connor snatches him by the shirt and drags him in front of his body. The man struggles in Connor’s forceful grip.

Right when I reach Daisy, I realize what she’s smashing.

A camera.

Now on her knees, she slams the device repeatedly on the ground, little plastic pieces flying in every direction. She screams furiously each time the mangled lens meets the floor.

“Daisy,” I whisper, but I grab her arms before she hurts herself with the sharp debris.

She drops the remains of the broken camera and slowly sits, shivering in my arms. It wasn’t her boyfriend in her room, I realize now. It had to have been the paparazzi—what looks to be a stupid one, a loser who obviously has no concept of the law. I glance over my shoulder at Connor and Ryke.

Connor has his phone pressed to his ear while he grips the man’s shirt. Every time he struggles, Connor throttles him with one hand. Composed, tall and strong. He speaks quietly to someone on the other line.

I make out Connor’s words, “We need to keep this out of the tabloids…Lily and Lo don’t need to know. They feel guilty enough for the media attention…”

“What happened?” I ask Ryke who nears the bed. Scott continues to just stand by the fucking door, watching. It’s not as though this is being filmed. We’re in a bedroom, which means there aren’t cameras here.

“Daisy called me on her cell,” he says.

She stares at the ground, her face as pale as a sheet.

I shake her arms, not very maternal or soft, and she almost blows over with my force. “Daisy? Talk to me.”

“He barged in my room,” she says under her breath.

I collect her waist-length hair out of her face, trying not to freak out. “And?” I say, clenching my teeth. If he put a finger on her…

Her gorgeous face contorts in a series of violent emotions. “…he started taking pictures of me…I didn’t know what to do, so I called Ryke…” She shakes her head and tears splash onto the floorboards. “…I’m so tired…”  I hold her to my chest while she begins to cry.

I look up at Ryke, and he stares at her with that same look I saw during the screening party. Concern. Dark empathy.

“Shh,” I whisper to her, combing my fingers through her hair. I rest my chin on her head and keep her close.

“…I’m so tired,” she says again, her voice trembling. When our mother’s not preoccupied with Lily’s wedding, she pulls Daisy in five different directions. She makes sure she’s booked for photo shoots, and for the past three weeks, Daisy has been working tirelessly. If she’s not at school, then our mom carts her to New York to visit her new modeling agency. I’ve hardly seen her at all this month.

I even had to convince our mother to let me throw Daisy a birthday party. She would’ve had to cancel one of her shoots so she could celebrate. It took four screaming matches over the phone before I won out. But that was just one free day I gained for her.