Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 54645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Teeth set, lips pursed. “I don’t know. Just you. And me. And this house. And,” her eyes dart, looking around for Edward, “last night. I don’t want to get attached to you just to have you leave again in two months, Trent. I can’t have my heart broken like that.”
Now I’m fucking getting it. Edward talking about redeployment, her panicking. And just like that, I’m up to speed. “Look at me right fucking now, Kitty Kat.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t always want to tell you everything, Trent. It’s bad enough you try to fix everything for me. Why don’t you go fix someone else for a change? I can take care of myself. Just leave me alone, okay?” She steps away, wriggling free of my grip. “You live your life and I’ll live mine.”
Her words bite into me way fucking harder than I expected. Like I’ve been shot all over again. The last thing I want to do, the last thing I will ever do, is leave her alone. But, I see the little girl inside her.
“Where the fuck is all this coming from? If it’s about me deploying, we’ll talk about that. Together. But if it’s some other shit that you aren’t saying, I’m not in the mood to guess. So just fucking tell me.”
Her eyes finally meet mine, wide and shocked.
“No… Yes.” She presses her hands into little fists and claps her eyes shut. “No… I don’t know. Just leave me alone. Okay? Please?” she says, and stomps out of the kitchen. Like a fucking spoiled little shit.
What the hell was that?
I’m so pissed, so floored, that I’m about to take off after her. But then I hear the sound of her footsteps on the stairs and it snaps me back to reality. She’s mine, yeah. My soulmate, my everything.
She needs to breathe. I’ll let her for now.
I fucking guess.
I’ll let her have her little tantrum, I tell myself, as I open a beer. But then she’s gonna learn that with tantrums come consequences.
Because Daddy doesn’t fucking like tantrums. No he does not.
But it’s not so easy for me to dismiss the way she was acting. It’s more than a tantrum and I know it in my gut, in my bones.
If only I didn’t have this fucking urge to protect her, to hover over her, to keep all the darkness from stealing her light, life would be a fuckload easier. But it is what it is. Because she’s my light and my hope. The only thing I’ve ever fought for is her.
I hear the angry slam of a door upstairs. It surprises me, worries me. This hostility is something way stronger than her normal fire and spunk.
I sense it. But I also sense that now’s not the fucking time to follow her upstairs and set off a full-blown explosion.
Because she’s right. It’s a lot to take in. Just my coming home would’ve set things off-center; but add in the money, and the move, and last night?
I make myself a deal. I’ll give her an hour. And then she’s gonna talk to Daddy. One way or another.
I’m just on my way upstairs to see if she’s calmed the fuck down yet when there’s a knock at the front door.
That’s when I remember. Luke is coming for dinner with Edward and me. Normally, I’d be pumped to have a bite with my buddies. But not tonight because tonight, all I want is her.
Still, though, I’m not unhappy to see him. Even if he is fucking up my night with my sister. My lover. My obsession.
I open the front door and he opens his arms for a bro-hug. “Ho. Lee. Fuck. This place is something else. Look at you, man, moving on up.”
I can’t help but smile. “Shut up, asshole.”
He pulls down his sunglasses and looks up at the ceiling of the great room. “You’re like the fucking Beverley Hillbillies. I’ll bet the HOA is petitioning to get your poor asses thrown out, am I right?”
I head toward the kitchen and he follows. “Don’t know, man. I spent three hours with a tax attorney today. Being poor is a fuckload less paperwork.”
I hand him a beer and he shakes his head at the view. “For a place like this, I’d sell my fucking soul to your tax…”
The sound of Kat’s footsteps interrupts him, and then she rounds the corner. She’s got her hair in two pigtail braids. In a white eyelet cotton dress. Tits like vanilla pudding. My dick throbs as soon as I lay eyes on her.
And Luke’s mouth falls open as he sees her.
“Jesus. I thought the view was pretty, but just look at you,” Luke says, with eyes locked right on her.
A surge of anger, of jealousy, of fucking white-hot rage seizes me, but before I can say a word, Kat sticks out her hand. “Hi. I’m Kat. Trent’s…step-sister.”