And she was right.
Our apartment in San Francisco was in the Tenderloin, the scariest part of the city. It was a studio, so Destiny and I both slept on a pull-out couch. Here, we each have our own bedroom, and the great room with the kitchen and living room is bigger than our entire apartment in the city. It may be nearly as run down as our old place, with water stains on the ceiling and appliances that are older than my parents, but so far I haven’t seen any roaches.
This is a much safer town, but old habits die hard. I take the money with me to my room and stuff it into my pillowcase. I get ready for bed, but once I’m in with the lights out, I find I’m anything but tired.
I never really sleep. Nightmares will do that—screw with your head when your defenses are down. I doze, but then images of flames tickle the edges of my awareness and pull me from the arms of slumber. And just before I snap my eyes open, there’s always blood. Destiny’s, I think, from the cut on her head.
But tonight, I know I’m not going to get that far. I feel like I drank a thousand cups of coffee, every nerve ending still buzzing from the last five hours of Bran Silo’s eyes scorching over my skin. But it’s more than that. His physical form is impressive, but his presence is immense. And raw. And totally invasive, winding its way into my synapses and taking up residence there, leaving me so fucking wired I feel like I could crawl up the wall and stick to the ceiling like Spiderman.
This feeling is way more addictive than booze or any drug I’ve ever tried. But addictions are dangerous. Addiction robs people of control, steals their free will. People do stupid things for addiction—fuck up their lives, give up their futures. I’ve seen the end result of addiction up close and personal, and it’s not pretty.
Never let it be said that my parents didn’t teach me anything.
And now I know how slippery that slope is. I thought I was stronger than Mom and Dad. I thought I was in control when I was using. But our first two weeks here were hell and there are two full days I lost completely with the withdrawal. I never would have made it through without Destiny.
“Stay the fuck out of my head, Silo,” I tell the ceiling.
Because, unlike my parents, I learn from my mistakes.
Chapter 3
Bran
I lay with my fingers laced behind my head, staring at the whirring ceiling fan. I haven’t even moved to pull the condom off my flaccid dick because I wanted Destiny to fall asleep. Judging by the twitching and the little squeaking noises she’s making, I finally got my wish.
Painstakingly, I peel each of her fingers off my chest, then lift her arm slowly before carefully extricating my legs from hers. Sort of like diffusing a landmine. One false move and
kapow!
When I’m free, I slowly sit on the edge of the bed and peel the condom off. I go to the bathroom and clean up, then tug on some boxers. On the way to the living room, I scoop my phone off the dresser.
I’ll never admit to my ex-roommate Marcus that I miss his sorry ass, but since he couch jumped to his sister’s place in Oakland to be closer to his girlfriend, this place is too quiet. If he were still sleeping on my couch, I’d grab a couple of brews from the fridge, crack him over the head with one to wake him up, then we’d sit and stare at whatever stupid Chevy Chase flick was playing on late night TV until sunrise.
What can I say? It’s a guy thing.
But he’s not here, so instead, I start the coffeemaker perking, then move to the dark window and stare up at the stars.
What the fuck I am doing?
I’ve fucked dozens of girls. Hell, probably hundreds. The college just up the hill supplies a steady stream of fresh pussy. Maybe it makes me a dick, but I don’t even know most of their names. As long as we’re all in it for a good time, I’ve never come away feeling wrong about it. But from the minute Destiny showed up at the bar before closing tonight, I’ve felt this prickly, itchy feeling, like ants under my skin. And the whole time I was on top of her, all I could picture was her fucking sister.
Or really,
fucking her sister
, if I’m honest.
I’ve known Lilah for thirty seconds and she’s totally under my skin. No one’s
ever
gotten under my skin.
When the coffeemaker starts sputtering, I go to the kitchen and pour a deep mug, then drop onto the couch. I down half the cup in one long swallow, shove my earbuds in, and flip my phone to the clips I recorded earlier at the bar. Lilah playing some pop song. But it doesn’t sound pop the way she does it. It sounds…unique. Better.
It’s not the kind of thing I usually listen to. My playlists are full of pounding bass and angry rhythms. Disturbed’s
Indestructible
was my anthem during both tours in Afghanistan. I’d be out sweeping for mines and it would be cycling through my head on repeat. It kept me sane. Kept me focused. Kept me from thinking about how many guys with my job end up going home in body bags…how many of my friends had already gone home that way.
Which is the real reason for all the girls since I’ve been back. Sleep is dangerous. Defenses drop. You’re vulnerable to attack.
And not just from the outside.
Because it’s those internal demons that will destroy you if you let your guard down for even a second. They’re much more lethal than anything in the outside world.
Which explains why I haven’t actually slept in six years. If I can keep the adrenaline going, I can stay at least partly awake, and fucking some poor girl senseless is my preferred mode of nocturnal adrenaline delivery.
But it’s getting old. Which means the rush is mostly gone. Each new face just runs into the river of old ones and it all becomes a meaningless blur. Nothing new. Nothing exciting. At this point, it’s more habit than therapy anymore.
I shake my head at myself and blow out a disgusted laugh. How pathetically predictable am I? I’m a walking cliché.
I loll my head back and start on the Gettysburg Address. If I knew it this well in high school, I probably wouldn’t have barely squeaked through U.S. history. As boring as it might sound, trying to get through the entire thing without making a mistake keeps my mind from going anywhere darker. But Mr. Lincoln can’t keep my interest tonight, because on my phone is the sexiest fucking voice I’ve ever heard, like smoke over gravel, rough with a purr on the kick, singing about the hell she’s going to rain down on her man.
Which makes me wonder if she has a man. Truth is, I’ve been wondering that all night. She left early, before midnight, like someone might be waiting for her or she had somewhere to be. It’s not like I could bring it up while I was fucking Destiny. “Hey, so what’s the deal with your twin sister? She seeing anyone?” But fuck, I feel myself bristle at the image of Lilah riding some lucky shit who’s not me.
That girl tugs at me on so many different levels, my stirring cock being the most evident. I fish it out of my boxer briefs. The rasp of her voice wraps around me as I stroke and I’m instantly hard. I close my eyes as her voice invades me, makes me vibrate to her frequency. I tense, my whole body sinking into the fantasy, and growl as I feel a hard rush tighten my balls. And when I come like a rocket all over my stomach and chest a few minutes later, I hiss “Fuck!” between my teeth.
I am a fucking douchebag. Destiny’s in the other room, in my bed, and in my mind, I’m fucking her sister on the couch.
I had the whole convo again last night with Destiny before I brought her home. She says she’s on board with no strings. But something about the way she clings when I climb off her makes me think she’s only saying that because she knows it’s what I want to hear.
I grab a dirty T-shirt from the floor and clean myself up, then go for another mug of coffee. Several hours and at least a hundred repeat Lilah clips later, the room pinks with a new day. About the time I’m deciding to drag my ass off the couch and brew a second pot of coffee, Destiny comes out of my room, poured back into the tiny black dress she showed up to the bar in last night.
“Hey,” she says when she sees me. “You couldn’t sleep?”
Telling her I never sleep will only lead to more questions, and it’s not like I can tell her the specific reason for my insomnia tonight, so I just shrug as I pull myself up from the couch. “Woke up early.”
She drops her heels to the floor with a clatter and climbs into one shoe. “Everything okay?”
As okay as ever. “Sure. Want some coffee?”
“Sorry…” She glances toward the door. “I need to go. But I’ll see you later at work.”
“Yeah, right.” I should probably move to see her out, but I don’t.
“So…thanks for last night.” She offers a smile with all kinds of innuendo buried in it as she slips on her other shoe. “It was great.”
“Sure.” Fuck, I hate this awkward shit. Which is why I vowed after the last time I did this not to fuck anyone from work anymore. Because shit like this is inevitable. “See ya later.”
Once she’s gone, I go to the kitchen, brew a new pot, and bring it back to the couch with me. I should just mainline the shit. I refill my mug and take an enormous gulp of the scalding liquid, then lift my phone and replay the Lilah clips again, trying to find in the sound the drug that has me so fucking addicted already.
♫
Destiny is on days, getting her bearings so she can make the jump to nights fulltime when Carol goes on leave for the baby in a few months, which means our shifts only overlap by an hour. Mom comes in at nine to do all the admin, then takes the bar from opening at eleven to when I show up at five. Destiny usually clocks out somewhere around six.
I told Lilah to come in at seven. For some reason, I really don’t want Destiny here when she arrives. Not because I don’t want Destiny to know I’m into her sister. At the gym this morning, I decided I need to be up front with Destiny and tell her what we got going on just isn’t working for me. More, it’s just fucking awkward.
Because the other thing that became glaringly apparent when I couldn’t shake her sister out of my head, no matter how hard I worked out, is that unless Armageddon comes, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop myself from fucking Lilah eventually.
Mom is at the bar when I clock in and I wipe everything down while she finishes up the tray for Destiny’s only table—a group of college guys in the corner. Mom likes to think of Sam Hill as a restaurant that has a bar, but the state of California has decreed we are a bar that serves food. What that means is our servers are technically cocktail waitresses and have to be twenty-one. And as much as Mom disagrees, it’s really true. The kitchen doesn’t even open until five. We get a few tables every night looking for dinner, but Jim, our cook, is mostly busy putting together plates of nachos or chicken wings for drunk Sierra State students when they get the munchies at ten. It’ll be another few hours until things really start to pick up.
Mom hands the tray off to Destiny, who smiles at me and then turns for the table. I watch as the five guys eye her appreciatively. She is totally scorching, which probably makes me the stupidest fucking moron on the planet, but I’ve always gone after exactly what I want and her sister is no exception. I might be a douche, but even a douche has limits. I’m not going to fuck them both at the same time.
Unless they want me to.
The thought causes my dick to stir.
“Your drawer was another forty short last night, champ,” Mom says, pulling my attention back to her. “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”
I will my cock into submission and turn to face her. “You sure it wasn’t that way when I took it over?”
She tugs the bar towel off her shoulder and chucks it at me, then starts through the door into the kitchen. “I’m never off.”
“Neither am I!” I call after her, but the door swings shut before I finish.
When I spin to draw myself a beer from the tap, Destiny’s sliding the tray onto the bar. “I’m sore,” she whispers. “You really worked me over last night.”
“About that…” I top off my beer and set it down between us. “Don’t take this wrong. You’re fucking incredible in the sack. Really. But I’m just not feeling it.”
Before the whole thing’s out of my mouth, she’s already shaking her head. “Is it because I stayed? I won’t next time. You just wore me out.”
She’s not the first to say that. I don’t hold back and I guess I’m too much for some girls to handle.
“That’s part of it, but I’m also feeling like you might be looking for more than just a fuckbuddy. I need to be right up front and tell you I’m not looking for anything exclusive.”
She spins the tray on the bar. “I told you, I’m not looking for anything serious, Bran. If you want to see other people, be my guest.”
I search her face and she seems sincere. “You seriously wouldn’t have a problem if I took someone else home?”
She shakes her head and a devious smile tugs at her mouth as she glances at her table of guys. “Would you?”
“No, doll.” I blow out a laugh. “Knock yourself out.”
She twitches over to the table and makes the rounds, asking if they need anything else and striking up a conversation with a blond guy with his back to me. I can’t hear them over the music, but there’s no mistaking the body language. She’s selling and he’s definitely buying.
Carol pushes through from the kitchen, tying on her apron. “I don’t think I’m going to make it two more months,” she says, glaring at her enormous belly. “I’m so much bigger this time.”
“Suck it up. You’re fine. Wanna beer?”
She shifts her glare on me. “You know I would kill for a beer.” She shoves back through the kitchen door leaving a muttered “bastard” in her wake.
Destiny clocks out at five and when she passes back through the bar on her way out, the guy she was flirting with gets up. One of his buddies knuckle bumps him. She glances over her shoulder at me and waves on their way out the door.
So I guess she wasn’t joking. She’s not looking for exclusivity. But I still think fucking her sister would be crossing a line.
The bar gradually fills and when Lilah comes in just before eight, there’s hardly an empty seat in the place. I only realize how tense I was, wondering if she was going to show, when I feel my shoulders drop a few inches at the sight of her.
And she is a fucking sight to behold.
Her long blond hair is twisted onto the back of her head and when she pulls off her hoodie, she’s in a tight tank top and a shorter skirt than last night. The contours of those perfect tits, tiny waist, and round ass kick my heart rate up a notch.
The row of guys who were at the bar last night are back and applaud when she comes through the door. The table with the drunks Destiny was hanging out with catch on and they start wooting, like they think she’s going to stand on the bar and strip for them. Lilah grins and blows kisses with a flourish, not at all embarrassed by the attention.
She makes her way over to the empty barstool at end of the bar. “You saved me a seat.”
“You bet your sweet ass I did. My tips nearly doubled last night, and all these assholes are back because of you,” I say with nudge of my chin at the three guys seated on the stools next to her. “In the bar business, asses in seats is a good thing.”
Especially her incredible ass. The fantasy of it parked on my face flashes in my mind and the rush to my groin hardens my cock.
I top off the beer I’m pouring and set it on Carol’s tray, then lean my elbows on the bar across from Lilah. “You should think about sticking around after closing tonight.”