Page 45 of Splintered Desire

The reviews said it’s well-maintained, and everyone kept mentioning how safe the neighborhood was; that’s what I craved more than anything.

Safety.

My phone vibrates in my pocket as I climb off the bus, and I fish it out of my pocket. I need to double-check the address anyway; all these apartments look the same.

You can’t fight him, kid. He’ll kill you.

I chew the side of my lip for a moment, my thumbs ready to type out a message, but I don’t know what to say.

‘A girl can hope’ seems a little morbid, but telling him I’m just as afraid of that as he is seems like admitting defeat.

With a shake of my head, I double-check the address before locking it and shoving it back into my pocket before I cross the street and hopefully move into my future.

Thursday

“Tank said she left about fifteen minutes ago,” Isaac says, moving into the kitchen with his regular bored-ass look, but I know better. He can pretend all he wants, but he’s anything but bored with our dear sister.

It’s not like him to take an interest in a woman, or anyone, really.

We stand around waiting for what only feels like a few minutes before I hear the knob turn, and in walks the bane of my existence, the reason I’m getting less sleep than ever and my cock is hard right now simply thinking of disciplining her.

That’s a lie. I’m hard more often than not with her around or just thinking of her, but I blame that one on my lack of women lately.

I’ve been too busy, and most of that is her fucking fault.

She’s quick, so quick that she almost slips through my fingers, but I catch her off guard. She clearly didn’t expect us, which is just as well; she wouldn’t have come if she had.

Her hair is tucked under a cap that’s pulled low over her face, and she’s drowning that lethal body in a huge sweater and sweatpants, but I know what she looks like beneath it.

The sight of her in a towel, one of the first nights she spent in the house, is burned into my fucking brain. Why she hides is beyond me, but I have a few ideas; none of them are good.

Yet as my fingers tangle up in her hair and I force her against the wall, her ass and back pressing against me as she thrashes around, the only thought I have is how good it would feel to sink into her pussy.

“And what do you think you're doing, darling sister?”

She struggles, pushing off the wall and growling like a damn animal, but I’m bigger and stronger.

She’s not going anywhere.

“I know you’re not thinking of leaving, right?” I lean in, letting her feel exactly what she’s doing to me. She stills immediately, and I can’t stop the smile that curls my lips. “You’re a DuPont now, dear.”

“I’ll never be a DuPont,” she hisses with so much venom as if it’s a dirty word. I tug her hair, craning her head back until she’s forced to look up at me.

The fire in her eyes is delicious, but the fear—fuck, my cock jerks—and whether she wants it to or not, I see the way her pupils blow wide as her body reacts.

“We’ll see about that now, won’t we?”

Her cap falls to the ground as I use her hair to guide her further into the house before I shove her forward, missing the feel of her against me the second she’s gone.

Her hair is long, almost down to her ass, and soft and so easy to imagine wrapped around my fist.

“Look around. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t move from the spot, though her head moves around on a swivel. Smart girl.

“How did you know I was…” she cuts herself off as Isaac comes down the stairs, understanding lighting her eyes.

Isaac was part of it; his cameras around the house let us know what she does when she thinks she’s safe from the world, but Tank is really to blame, not that she knows about him.