This house, it belongs to the boys.

Since they don’t accept people into their home on the Brayshaw property, they did what rich boys do and bought another one, or so Micah told me. As far as I know, it’s nothing more than a party pad, along with whatever else their hearts desire.

I’m sure it’s where Royce... plays.

I turn, looking out at the darkness behind me, staring up at the North Star.

Micah walks up then.

“You ever spend your night staring up at the North Star and wonder how many it’s helped find their way?”

Micah grins. “Nah, Brielle. Can’t say I did, grew up in a fog-filled town with horse shit on the sidewalk and sack races on Sundays.”

I chuckle and look to him.

He holds my drink out, and only when I lift my hand to wrap it around the bottle, do I realize they’re shaking.

Micah and I lock eyes at the same time, and he gives a sad smile, stepping closer.

He takes the bottle, setting it beside us, and pulls my hands in and up to his mouth.

He blows warm breath into my palms, encasing them within his own and I close my eyes.

Next thing I know, my back is hitting the edge of the metal frame of the AC unit, and Micah is knocked on his ass with one strong, solid, drunken, punch.

From Royce.

The yard goes quiet as Micah lifts his hands and backs away.

Royce’s angry glare sweeps my way.

And me?

I stop breathing and wait, because based on the crazed look in his eyes... this is it.

Royce

I can’t feel my legs.

I can’t feel my fuckin’ legs, but I’m somehow growing closer.

My limbs hurt, my head’s ready to explode, and my mind... it’s all over the damn place.

I hate her, she don’t listen.

I like her, she challenges me.

I can’t stand the sight of her, she distracts me.

I can’t function when she’s out of sight, she’s all I want to see.

I growl at myself and step into her space as heavy creases frame her face.

“What’d I say, Brielle?” I can’t hear my own voice, my blood’s pumping too loud. Too fiercely, but she must.

She shakes her head.

I slam a hand on the metal at her side, and she glares. “I said no one touches you. I said you touch no one. What the fuck part of that are you too airheaded to understand?”

Her teeth clamp shut, and she holds back, but only for a split second. “Screw you.”

“Nah.” I flick my eyes over her. “You’re hymenly whole. That ain’t gonna happen.”

Her chest inflates, maybe she gasped, I can’t be sure.

My features harden, but hers... hers soften and I’m about to lose it.

Why won’t she get angry? Fight me? Force me away?

Brielle shakes her head, a jagged break in her voice. “You don’t have to do all this.”

“All what?”

“Go full-on asshole mode. Hit your friend. Snap at me.”

My throat grows raw, but I push past it. “You act like you thought I was different.”

She pulls her lips in, tipping her head, and I think she steps closer.

Or maybe it’s me.

“Not different.” She reaches out, placing a hand on my chest, discovering the proof of my manic state. “More.”

She presses it there with a gentleness I’ve never known, but it hits like a hammer, stealing the air from my lungs and leaving me suffocating. Aching.

More.

More than anger and recklessness, more than impulse and fuckery.

No.

I’m not more.

“I’ve seen it,” she promises, her ability to read me fucking me up even more. “This is only a part of you,” she goes on. “And it’s not even a bad part, just more... dominant.”

I swallow, shove her hand off me and step back.

My glare is heavy, angry and directed at her. “You think you’ve seen some part of me others haven’t? That I opened up to you more than I do all the girls I’m preparing to fuck? ‘Cause if that’s the case, little Bishop, you’re as pathetic as I expected you to be.”

I’m fucking heated, burning, screaming on the inside and I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is or how to make it stop.

I need it to stop.

Brielle nods, and when she turns away, I catch the gloss now covering her eyes.

Hiding my favorite shade of turquoise, dulling the most perfect color I’ve ever seen, in the most perfect pair of eyes I’ve ever looked into. Stared into.

Found in my fuckin’ dreams.

Cursed in my nightmares.

A tear slips from her eyes and Brielle dashes left, running for the side of the house, toward the gate that’ll help her escape. Help her run from me.

In my nightmares, when I curse her, she never runs.

She stays and smiles and understands.

I’m broken.

She’s breaking me.

My hands dive into my hair and pull.

“Fuck!”

I drive forward, rush after her, and catch her by the shirt.

I yank her back, pushing her against the house and a low cry falls from her lips, but she cuts it off. Swallows it whole and meets my eyes with her own.

“What do you want from me?” she whispers, desperate for an answer I can’t give.

My grip tightens, stretching and tearing the fabric of her top angrily, keeping her here.

With me.

Don’t go.

An unexpected, unfamiliar ache hits deep in my chest and my frown deepens.

What the hell was that?

My knuckles move on their own, sliding across her jawline and lock in place when her head tilts the tiniest bit.

This girl, after my bullshit tonight, today, every other fucking day, she doesn’t pull away.

She leans into my touch, the edges of her eyes smoothing, her unease fading away into the darkness surrounding us.

I did that, comforted her with my touch.

Me, the throwaway Bray.

I soothed her.

Another unwelcome sting fires in my gut, and goddamn it! Why’s it make me want to sting hers?

When she blinks, the moisture that was building in her eyes falls, and my knuckle flies up to catch it. I bring it to my mouth, rubbing her tears across my lips, tasting a tiny piece of her.

Big fucking mistake.

I crowd her, fully and completely, and the little sliver of a thread left, the one wrapped around my sanity, the one that’s been thinning and splitting hair by fucking hair since the day she took over my mind... it snaps.

Splits in fucking two and all that’s left is her.

Me.

And greed.

I slam my mouth to hers and she gasps, but not a second’s hesitation comes from her.

She opens up for me.

My tongue drives inside, raring to explore every bit of her.

Desperate for more.

Starved for it.

I might fuckin’ pass out, the need’s too strong.

A need to get closer.

To kiss longer.

To taste more.

Have more.

Take fucking more.

Her chest swells then, right against mine, and it’s too fucking much. Suffocating. Overwhelming.

What the fuck am I doing?

I tear away, put some distance between us and force the barest, blankest of expressions as I watch the wonder on hers die.