by M. Sinclair
I shouldn’t have been surprised by that.
The group of them had a serious problem.
Like I was any better.
Throughout most of high school, I had kept away from Dahlia and my friends. Partly because of what had been going on with my family, but also largely because I didn’t trust myself around Dahlia. At all. When my emotions started changing for her, and the physical reaction I had to her evolved from a warm affection to something far more frustrating… I knew I needed to keep my distance. I didn’t have the same level of control as the others.
Even now I didn’t trust myself around her. Besides not being good enough for her and not controlled enough… there was something I wanted from my angel that I knew I could never ask for. Something that I didn’t deserve.
She was like this beautifully stunning sculpture that I was bound to shatter, but it didn’t stop me from wanting to do it anyway. To hold her tight enough that she broke apart in my arms. My urge to keep her on a pedestal was in direct contrast to the dark, debased shit that I fantasized about doing to her. It made no sense. I didn’t deserve it, but all I wanted, more than anything, was Dahlia’s absolute and complete submission.
I wanted to do things to her that I knew should scare her, and I couldn’t help it.
I would just need to keep it together, keep her safe and love her like she deserved to be loved. I should be lucky to have her in my life instead of thinking of all the shit I wanted from her. That was the issue with Dahlia. I was always pushing for more. It would never be enough. It was a clawing, desperate, almost feral need.
When we were in school, I had consistently kept an eye on her while trying to maintain my distance. It had literally been painful to see her walking around all day, smiling at people who didn’t deserve it, while I was forced to stay away. To not touch her. Not to mention how hard it had been this past summer when I’d woken up to the goddamn angelic sight of her stretched out in scraps of fabric by the pool, practically naked. I don’t think I had been soft or not frustrated for months.
Even her name got me hard. It was ridiculous.
But now that wasn’t a problem anymore. I was done fighting it.
I pulled into my driveway, killing my bike and taking off my helmet as she parked her car between our two houses and stepped out of the vehicle, flashing me a small smile and offering a sleepy little yawn. God, she was adorable.
“Where the hell have you been?!” Yates snarled, clearly trying to keep his voice down as I walked towards her. I offered King a nod in greeting, his gaze on mine with curiosity, but he didn’t seem pissed, just concerned. He knew I would never put her in danger. At least not on purpose. Whether her little ass listened to me or not was a different story.
“Oh, don’t you yell at me!” she chided while scowling as he wrapped his arms around her. I knew things had been changing lately—I could feel it—and it almost felt like a divine intervention that I’d finally given into her, because I didn’t want to be left out of her life. That realization had me knowing I had never truly planned on staying away in the first place.
“She showed up at one of my fights,” I drew easily as Dahlia groaned, scowling at me while looking skyward with frustration.
“What the f-fuck?” Lincoln demanded as I offered him a look. Obviously, I hadn’t fucking invited her.
“I snuck out,” Dahlia voiced as they all looked at her with wide eyes. “He didn’t even know.”
“You fight?” Dermot asked curiously. I offered a sharp nod as he seemed to absorb that before nodding with interest, his eyes going back to Dahlia. She was offering the twins and King a ‘so what?’ look that was sassy enough my cock twitched. Fucking hell. Yates stared at her with a stupid smile that he immediately hid when she looked up at him. Fucking psycho.
“Why?” King demanded. “Why wouldn’t you tell us?”
“I had something I needed to handle by myself,” Dahlia explained, putting up her chin, making me almost sigh like a stupid lovesick idiot.
“Handle yourself?” Sterling mused, his eyes lighting up as Yates tilted her chin up and offered her an incredulous expression.
“Yes, I do handle things on my own sometimes.” She grinned and then looked at them. “You asked why I went?”
“Yes,” King growled, looking more confused than anything.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed, and I looked down at it, noting that the food delivery was at our gate. Dahlia spun out of Yates’s grip and moved past me, tossing back a comment that was far more serious than her tone implied.
“Stratton wouldn’t accept my feelings for him, so I came to cheer him on. I needed a way to prove to him that I didn’t give a rat’s ass about money or anything like that. Now he knows how I feel, and he promised he isn’t going to keep being distant, right?”
“Right, angel.” I shook my head, unable to hold in my laugh. She flashed me a smile that made it worth it as Lincoln jogged after her, probably not wanting her to go grab the delivery food alone. I nearly went to help but then realized this was the perfect moment to talk to the others.
“What the hell happened?” King demanded, quietly but sharply. “You could have told us what was going on this entire time, and you just what? Decided not to?”
Ah, it was clear that Dahlia had filled him in on what was occurring. Honestly, that didn’t even surprise me. Saved me from having to bite the bullet and admit that I was goddamn broke as shit.
I grunted and put my head back. “I don’t know what you want me to say. MeMaw got sick, and I realized we were totally fucked financially. You know I like to handle shit on my own. But I was always there when you guys needed me over the years.”
“Burying a body isn’t the same thing as having a beer together,” Sterling countered, narrowing his gaze. He had a fair point.
“I have it handled,” I muttered, thinking about the slow process of rebuilding the family company. We had filed for bankruptcy and brought it down to bare bones, so there was still a lot of work to be done.
“You could have at least come to me for the legal shit,” Yates grumbled.
I nodded, knowing I could have but had still chosen not to. Before I could say anything, Dahlia walked back over with Lincoln, making me smile.
“It doesn’t really matter anymore. I tried to push her away, and she pushed back. I am too fucking exahusted to fight that shit anymore.”
Kingston chuckled. “It probably helped that I outed all of us for being in love with her.”
Sterling frowned. “Cool, King. It’s not like I would have fucking wanted to tell her that first or anything.”
“I didn’t mind,” Yates pointed out, smiling. “She’s not ready for everything I have to say to her.”
I fucking bet so. Yates had way too many secrets revolving around the extent he’d gone to watch over Dahlia. I didn’t need to talk to him daily to know that. He had only gotten worse over the years.
“Dermot?” Dahlia’s sing-song voice broke through our conversation.
“What’s up, lass?” he asked.
“Can we finish watching the second movie at your house? I’m all hyped up and not tired at all.” She swung the bag of the food as I smiled at the way her eyes darted over everyone. It was very clear she was indeed hyped up right now. Almost giddy.
I pinned her with a look. “You’re sitting down and eating with me before we do anything.” She needed to eat.
“Fine,” she sighed dramatically, going to walk towards my house as I smiled at the way she took directions. Fuck. I loved that shit.
“Well, that’s good at least,” Lincoln pointed out.
“Give us an hour,” I said, walking backwards. “Whose house?”
“Dermot’s place.” King nodded towards the recent purchase. I had a feeling why Kingston had bought it, but fuck—we hadn’t talked about any of that in years. Well, at least not with me.
King spoke again. “Glad you’re back, Stratton.”
“It’s been a bit.” I excha
nged a look with him as I finally gave a small smile.
“Oh, by the way,” he grinned, “the interior decorator is coming sometime this week.”
I’d been right. I barked out a laugh as I realized he truly planned to make ‘Dermot’s’ house the one we had always talked about. The one where we would all live. With Dahlia. As a family.
“Hey, MeMaw!” Dahlia’s sweet voice rang out as I entered our comfortable home. The scene I walked into had me smiling.
Our living room wasn’t as modern or luxurious as some of the others’, but it was home. In size, it was quite large, but it retained a homey, warm quality. Right now, the family room was lit up with warm lights as my grandma sat on the couch talking to Dahlia, dressed as if it was two in the afternoon rather than ten at night. Despite her being sick, she dressed up every single day.
I think it was a habit, but she seemed happy that way, so who was I to suggest changing that? Plus, it was something familiar. MeMaw was the only family I had anymore, and I don’t know if I could handle a change from that right now. My eyes ran over Dahlia, who sat talking animatedly with her, smiling as my grandma spoke, squeezing her hand as they laughed about something. I didn’t even realize I was staring until she was looking up at me.
“What are you doing?” MeMaw frowned. “Come on, can’t you tell this poor girl is hungry? Look how tiny she is!”
“Yeah, Stratton,” Dahlia teased, offering me a little wink.
This woman. I swear she was going to kill me.
As I took out the delivery from a local restaurant, Dahlia went to go get drinks, despite my protests. MeMaw stared at me with a smile as she left, until I finally met her gaze and offered a literal grunt, knowing why she was looking at me like that. I had never kept it a secret from her how I felt about Dahlia. She was literally the only person I could tell.
“So you and Dahlia are spending time together again?” she pressed. Despite her formal questioning, I could see the amusement, and I knew she probably found all of this hilarious.
“Yes.” I set down several containers. “We are.”
My grandma nodded, “Good. Don’t mess this up, boy. Dahlia is the marrying type of woman. You treat her right.”
“I know, MeMaw,” I chuckled as Dahlia came back into the room.
I knew far more than she realized. MeMaw wasn’t wrong—Dahlia Aldridge was the marrying type. She was also the loving, obsessing type of woman I couldn’t stop thinking about. Oh, let’s not forget about the type of woman that I wanted to fuck. Hard. All the goddamn time. She was just my type, my personal brand of drug.
Sitting down, I didn’t eat much as I listened to them talk and watched her eat. She managed to get down most of her pasta, seeming to not be fully focused on it. A part of my soul settled at that, feeling like she had let me take care of her. I needed that. I needed her to be healthy.
I had been keeping tabs on the situation through Yates, who, despite not pushing me on my situation, managed to run into me once a week and give me an update. I had almost lost my shit when I found out someone had been bullying her. I was just glad they were looking out for her as well, because I clearly hadn’t gotten my shit together enough to do it properly.
“I’m going to shower before we head over to Dermot’s,” I announced as I stood and stretched my arms up. Dahlia nodded, her eyes flickering with heat before my grandma asked her something. I shook my head, nearly groaning as I tried to not look at the way her lips pulled into a smile. Goddamn it. I literally could get a hard-on from her smile. Walking up the stairs, I cursed, trying to think of anything besides her hot frame and sexy mouth.
Stripping down, I locked my bedroom door and walked in the bathroom, looking over my tattoos in the mirror. How long would it be until she realized the extent of my obsession? Would she be rightfully freaked out?
Right on my heart, buried within other dark symbols, was a dahlia flower.
On my sixteenth birthday, I’d gone into the city and booked an appointment at a shady fucking place that did good work and didn’t question my age. It was my favorite piece of ink, and every moment of pain had reaffirmed just how much I felt for her.
Hopefully she wouldn’t think I was a complete psycho when she saw it.
Or she would. Either way, nothing I could do about it now.
Stepping under the hot water, I tried to ignore the urge to call her up here just to show her how hard she made me. My cock pulsed in my hand as I considered stroking myself off, but I knew it would feel cheap compared to being inside of her. After I’d tasted her lips, I knew nothing in my imagination could ever compare. I had been relying on those thoughts for years to find some relief, and now I knew I just needed the real thing. It was the only option. So yeah, I was tempted to call her up here to show her just what she did to me.
How much she made me want her.
How much I wanted her kneeling in front of me as I felt her hot mouth on my cock as I gripped her hair tight enough that her eyes teared up and she gagged on me.
Holy shit. I needed to get out of here.
Moving my thoughts from that to the fight, I was able to work myself down to where I was only sporting a semi. I finished cleaning off and changed into a pair of fresh shorts and a shirt, wondering if it was going to be weird hanging out with all of them again. I nearly rolled my eyes at that. No, I knew it wouldn’t be, and that was what had made it so difficult to walk away from all this in the first place.
At the end of the day, they were like my brothers. True family.
As I got downstairs, I frowned, finding my grandma watching the news, the table cleared.
“Where is she?” I asked, not wanting her out of my sight.
“Kitchen!” my grandma called, smiling. Yeah, yeah, I sucked at hiding my feelings, hence why I had avoided my angel like the goddamn plague so she didn’t realize how crazy I was about her.
As I entered the kitchen, I couldn’t help but pause and watch. Dahlia was humming and putting away items in the fridge, twirling on her toes with each movement. Her face was flushed and she looked happy, making me wonder what she was thinking about.
Maybe it was better I didn’t know. It would probably make me want to pin her onto the kitchen floor and take her.
“Oh!” Her hand flew to her chest as she snapped her head to me when I let out a small laugh, not ashamed of watching her. “You scared the bejeezus out of me, Stratton.”
“You didn’t need to clean up,” I noted softly as she walked up to me, intertwining our fingers and leaning her head against my chest.
“I don’t have to do a lot of things.” She shrugged and led me towards the door. I followed after her like she had a goddamn siren call.
Hadn’t I said I was the lost fucking pup following her around?
Yeah, I think we all knew the truth of the situation here.
Chapter Twenty
Dahlia Aldridge
Sweat dripped down the back of my neck as I brought my arm back and swung the racket forward, sending the ball across the net, my coach running to return the shot. My entire body ached from the last hour of training, and I knew I was going to suffer for this later. The morning sun burned my skin slightly as I felt myself being purged of the nightmare that had terrorized me the night before.
This was the only way I knew how to center myself.
This was the only way I knew how to not overthink.
I had guessed that my happy little high would end, but after returning home last night, it had all come crashing in on me. I’d spent an hour staring up at the ceiling before falling into a series of fitful dreams, one of them featuring Ian’s forceful hands on my skin. Others included far more insidious figures who haunted the edges of my peripheral vision, taunting me and leaving me feeling empty inside. I’d woken up feeling panicked and sick, so I had called up Coach Terry, and here I was.
After another ten minutes, she called the practice and left me breathing heavily on the court, walking back and forth before stretching my mu
scles. I’d worn a pair of athletic shorts and a sleeveless polo, knowing I would be out of the club before anyone actually showed up today. Now that it was nearly nine in the morning, if I had to guess, I could tell others were arriving for golf.
I couldn’t bring myself to drive home just yet.
After last night, I knew I owed it to my boys to send them a quick message explaining where I would be this morning so they wouldn’t lose their shit. Especially since our parents had left for Italy this morning, leaving me in a massive, empty house. It was only one more reason why everything had felt completely off this morning.
Forced.
Heavy.
Something was wrong in the air, and as I adjusted my ponytail and took a sip from my water bottle, I got the feeling it was about to get ten times worse. Call it instinct, but when the gates of the tennis court opened, I immediately knew it was someone I wasn’t going to want to see. What I hadn’t expected?
That it would be Max Brooks.
Both twins were attractive, somewhat, but Max knew he was attractive, and he had this slimy, chauvinistic air to him that had me feeling almost naked in his presence. He was just one of those men. You felt like he was constantly undressing you. I grabbed my water bottle and offered him a head nod as I went to exit the court.
Of course, he stepped right in my path with a smile.
“Good morning, Dahlia,” he purred with interest. “You are looking absolutely stunning this morning.”
“Thanks, Max.” I offered a tight smile, feeling horribly uncomfortable, which wasn’t all that surprising considering who he was as a person.
“What are you doing here?” He tilted his head, looking over me as his leering smile grew.
“Just needed to work off some energy,” I explained before continuing, “but I need to get going—”