Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Ronan flops onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t know.”
“You’re not telling me something.”
The room falls into silence again.
What are they hiding from me?
* * *
* * *
He got hard.
She said it so breezily. As if it meant nothing. As though the words were just words and not a strike into the earth of my world, sending fissures scattering in a thousand different directions.
He. Got. Hard.
I’m both sickened and oddly intrigued all at once.
“Should I tell Mom and Dad?”
I jolt upright, shaking my head at her. “No. Don’t say anything.”
Raegan’s eyes narrow to tiny slits. She reminds me of a hawk when she’s trying to get to the bottom of something, attention hyper focused and ready to swoop in on her prey. “Why not? If he’s sick, they should know.”
A groan of frustration echoes through me. Dad gave me and my brothers “the talk” when we were old enough to start getting spontaneous erections. He even explained how it was okay to relieve yourself in the shower or when you’re alone—that, one day, when you have a wife, it’s how you’ll impregnate her.
I don’t want a wife and I certainly don’t want to impregnate her.
“It just happens sometimes to guys,” I say vaguely. “The same sort of stuff happens to girls probably.”
“We don’t have penises,” Raegan states, a dark brow arching high. “Our nipples get hard when we’re cold, but yours do too.” She pinches one of my nipples through my shirt, making me cry out in surprise. “Why does it just happen? I don’t understand.”
Dad said, under no circumstances ever, were we to talk to our sisters about sexual intercourse or the anatomy of our bodies. Mom was in charge of explaining things to the girls.
“I’m not allowed to tell you,” I admit in defeat.
Raegan blinks hard several times as emotions take turns flickering over her face. First, there’s fury. Her brown eyes flame hot with her anger. Then, it switches to confusion before landing on hurt. Her pouty lips tug into a frown and I feel like a dick for doing this to her.
We tell each other everything.
Well, almost everything.
Some secrets are better left unsaid or even never thought of. I keep those under a tight lid.
“You’re all assholes,” Raegan hisses. “Maybe I should run away. Go live with Aunt Eve and Uncle Atticus.”
It’s an empty threat. She hates Wild, their oldest son.
“You’re not leaving me here.” I take her hand, tugging her to me. “You belong here.”
The tension bleeds from her body as she cuddles into my side. I nuzzle my nose into her hair that smells of leaves and pine. I love how my sister always reminds me of the earth, like she’s born from the dirt and not Mom’s womb.
“Tell me why his penis got hard.” She pauses and then huffs. “I won’t tell Dad you told me.”
I let out a sigh of resignation. “Guys just sometimes get an erection. A penis is, uh, extremely sensitive.”
“Is yours sensitive?”
Heat warms my cheeks. I’m not exactly thrilled about discussing this subject with Raegan, but she’ll kill me if I don’t give her some sort of answers.
“Yeah.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Um, no. It feels good.”
She grows quiet for a moment before speaking. “All Mom told me was a husband’s penis goes in a wife’s vagina and that’s how women get pregnant.”
Dad told us a lot more than that. He explained that when we find wives one day, we’ll enjoy sex. That instead of relieving ourselves in the shower with our hands, we’d do it inside our wives. The cum is what makes babies. As much as I try to envision this elusive future wife with my cock inside her, I can’t. I certainly can’t explain all that to Raegan.
“Pretty much,” I agree. “It needs to be hard to do that.”
“Ryder’s penis got hard.” She pauses again. “He’s my brother, not my husband, so it was because he accidentally rubbed it against me?”
I let out a rush of air. “Exactly. It was just an accident.”
“That’s why he was embarrassed.”
“And that’s why you can’t tell Mom or Dad. They’ll punish him. You know how weird they are about stuff like that.”
She nods, frowning. Once, me and Raegan went swimming together in the river. We thought it’d be funny to take off all our clothes. I think we were like eleven and thirteen at the time. Dad tore my ass up with a belt and Raegan was grounded for a whole month. If they knew Ryder got an erection with Raegan, I feel like they’d probably react similarly.
“I won’t tell,” Raegan vows. “Has yours ever gotten hard with me?” She looks up at me from beneath her dark lashes, pink tinting her slightly freckled cheeks.
“No,” I say forcefully.
Not with her.
Raegan flinches at my harsh reply and looks away. “Do you think that’s why Mom doesn’t want me to live with you? Because they think your penis is going to get hard and make me wind up pregnant?”