Page 136 of Creeping Beautiful

Finally.

That’s what I remember thinking. Finally.

Because even though I would not admit it until that very moment, this was what I really wanted when I bought her at that auction. And every single moment between the island and her twentieth birthday was just… a lie.

One long, fat, delusional lie.

After that I don’t really know what happened. I know I was hard. I know her mouth was on my cock. Several times. I know I was inside her. We were all inside her.

Donovan was first. She was clawing at his shoulders when she sat down in his lap. Her head fell back a little, her eyes rolling back in her head. McKay was unzipping her dress. Pulling the bodice down to her waist so his hands could cup and squeeze her breasts.

She was kissing him. And I remember watching. Like I was just an observer, outside of things. Just floating there above them. But then her hand was reaching in my pants to squeeze my cock. She was pumping it up and down. Slowly. Confidently. And I had this fleeting thought, this sick tightening in my stomach. Wondering… where did she learn to do this?

But then I remembered that McKay said she had been seeing Nathan up at college. So I guessed she learned all this stuff from Nathan. It bothered me. And it still bothers me now.

I remember her riding me. I remember being buried deep, deep inside her. My hands were on her hips, urging her on, and she was writhing in my lap. Then I looked up and Donovan was behind her, fisting his cock as he eased forward. He gripped her ass with one hand and held his dick stiff and the next thing I knew he was sliding inside her. I could feel him inside her.

My head rolled to the side and I caught McKay’s half-mast eyes. He was leaning back into the couch cushions, jerking off as he watched.

I don’t even know if he fucked her that day. I could not say, even if my life depended on it. The whole thing was a blur because she drugged us.

She put something in those drinks.

I knew it. But I didn’t care.

There are flashes of memory after that. But that’s all they are. Just flashes. It was her birthday and we were doing birthday things.

I think.

We ended up outside in the pavilion. All four of us stretched out on that bed swing Indie loved so much. I remember the swaying of it. All of us. Swaying like babies in a cradle.

I can’t recall another single moment of such pure happiness. Not before, not since. It was perfect. Warm and sunny. Just the right amount of cooling breeze passing over our hot, sweaty bodies. Pink cupcakes on the table next to bottles of champagne. And the paper lanterns and floating candles were ready for us to light them up with fire and set them free to float up into the sky and across the lake. Carrying our dreams and desires to the gods of the Louisiana woods.

The birds were singing, and in the background, there was this low thrumming hum. And I realized that the cicadas were back. After thirteen years of living underground getting ready to emerge and breed, they were back like a secret hiding just out of sight.

I was stuck in some dream state thinking about those cicadas, thinking Indie wasn’t even living here the last time they came. I wanted to tell her all about them. All the little things I had learned about them growing up because I knew she would understand the demon bugs living under our feet.

I loved Indie for many reasons but I mostly loved her because she understood this place. She knew it was the garden of good and evil. Just like that garden I plucked her out of ten years ago.

She had learned the way of the woods.

She had made deals with the snakes and the gators.

She knew better than to pass through the gates without caution.

And then I remember Nathan St. James looking down at our naked bodies. His mouth was moving but I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. His words weren’t coming out right.

All I knew was… first he wasn’t there—and then he was.

And that was when everything changed.

And not one bit of it could ever be taken back.

I have been reliving that day for four years.

Wondering about all the ways it went wrong when I should’ve been celebrating all the ways it went right.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - McKAY