by Sky Corgan
“Pick up a pregnancy test for me while you're out,” I snap at him, flipping myself around to face him and wrapping my arms around myself protectively. I just can't let it go. Not this time.
“What do you want on your pizza?” He ignores my outburst, continuing to get dressed.
“Maybe some morning after pills.” I glare at him.
He straightens himself, looking tense. “Pepperoni it is. Listen, take a shower while I'm out. I have one of those removable shower heads. You can rinse yourself out, if you're so concerned. I'll call in the pizza and be back in about twenty minutes.”
Once he's dressed, he walks over to the side of the bed and gives me a kiss on the head. I'm still angry at him, but what else can I do. I'm best off just getting into the shower like he says before his seed takes hold, if it hasn't already. Jerk!
He leaves me there without another word, vacating the room as if it's on fire, and he doesn't care to take me with him. I sit in silence and brood for a few minutes before I finally pull myself off of the bed and head into the bathroom. It's plush like the rest of his house, with a large basin tub and a walk-in shower big enough for half a dozen people. I don't have much time to marvel at it though. I've already wasted enough time being grumpy.
I close the door behind myself and stare down at the doorknob. There's no lock. For a moment, I think it's a bit strange, but then I remember that it's just him and his brother here. Why would he need a lock on the bathroom door?
Not thinking much of it, I go to the shower and turn the knob, adjusting the water temperature. The sound of the water hitting the tile floor is soothing, but it doesn't help erase the what ifs from my mind. I really need to get on birth control. If Tristan is going to keep refusing to pull out, then it's the only way to protect myself. Or I could stop sleeping with him completely. I shake my head. No, that's not an option. I'm already invested in him, and he's invested in me. I guess I'll have to save back the money to get on birth control. I scowl at the thought of my college money going out the window just because I want to keep having sex with Tristan. Maybe I should bring that up to him. Perhaps then, he'd offer to pay for it. I hate coming off as such a broke ass, but this is definitely something we need to discuss. We can't just continue to keep having these slip-ups.
I check the water temperature with my hand and then step inside. The warm water feels amazing cascading down my body, but I can enjoy it later. For now, I pull the shower head off of its holder and wash myself out the best I can. It feels odd having to do this, but it's all I can do right now. When I feel clean enough, I put the shower head back and grab some of Tristan's body wash to start lathering myself up. It smells soapy and masculine, just like him. I can't help but enjoy the fact that I'll smell like him for a while after this. It will make us feel closer.
I'm rinsing myself off when I hear a door open and shut. That was a fast twenty minutes. Then again, I did spend a good five of it after Tristan left sulking on his bed. Still, he would have had to race downstairs and to his car to get there and back this quickly. Not to mention, he had to call and order the pizza.
“That was fast,” I comment, taking a step away from the falling water to peer through the glass shower door. The room is so steamy that all I can make out is the shape of his body.
He doesn't answer. Instead, he just starts taking off his clothes. Hopefully, he's ready to apologize. I deserve an apology.
I think about washing my hair, but then decide to wait for him. Showering together is a bit romantic. Maybe he's trying to make up for being a dick. That would be something he'd do.
I wait patiently for him to step inside, though it feels awkward just standing there. Finally, he approaches the shower door and pulls it open. My breath hitches, and I press back against the wall. It's not Tristan coming to join me. It's Shawn, naked and gorgeous and . . .
“What in the hell?” I quickly move to cover all my naughty bits with my hands. “Get out!”
He doesn't seem the least bit startled. He simply steps inside and closes the shower door behind himself. It's like I'm not even there. Well, not quite. He gives me a disinterested look before reaching past me to grab the body wash. “The shower downstairs is broken, and I need a shower desperately.”
“You can wait.” I feel like a cornered animal.
“Nah. I need one now.” He steps under the shower head, wetting his body. I take the opportunity to try to vacate the shower, but he puts his hand out, caging me in. “Stay.”
“No!” I look at him incredulously. “What if Tristan comes back?”
“He just left to get the pizza a few minutes ago. He won't be back for a while.”
I can't believe how nonchalant he's being. It's like this isn't a big deal at all to him. Psycho.
“It doesn't matter if he's here or not. This is wrong.” I try again to brush past him, but this time, he stands in my way.
I tremble slightly, legitimately frightened. Why won't he let me leave? Is he going to . . .
“Calm down, Sarah.” He places his hands on my shoulders, which only makes me cringe. “I'm not going to do anything to you. This is completely innocent. Just a shower. There's no reason that either of us should leave. Have you washed your hair yet?” His eyes trail over my soggy locks.
I don't know what to say to him that I haven't already. This is far from innocent. This is scandalous and wrong and a betrayal. “He's your brother,” I mutter.
“Turn around,” Shawn tells me as he reaches over to grab the bottle of shampoo from the shower rack.
My heart is beating like the hooves of a race horse. I want to leave, but I'm scared he'll try to stop me again, so I obey instead, turning away from him. He lathers his hands up with shampoo and slides his fingers into my hair. In truth, I might actually enjoy it if I wasn't so invested in his brother. I can't enjoy this though. He's forcing me to stay. He's violating me. Looking at my body. The body of his brother's lover.
Shawn is sick and twisted. I should have known it when I saw the coldness behind his eyes. He doesn't care about Tristan at all. He was just pretending. Heck, he probably even lied about Tristan's emotional outbursts.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask weakly.
“Because we're both filthy.” It's a simple answer, but there's so much more behind it.
“You could have waited til I was done, you know?” My stomach churns with nausea. If Tristan catches us like this, it's all over. He won't want me anymore, and it won't even be my fault.
“No. I couldn't have.” His fingers knead into my scalp.
“You could have,” I insist, scowling. “I like your brother. You're betraying him.”
“I'm doing no such a thing. Now rinse your hair, and I'll put the conditioner in.”
I do as I'm told, making sure to keep my body turned away from him so that he can't see anything. It makes my skin crawl to know he's standing behind me, watching, probably fantasizing about all the messed up things he wants to do to me. The guy is a degenerate. A very sexy degenerate. Surely, he can have whatever woman he wants. I don't understand why he's torturing me.
When I'm done rinsing my hair, I allow him to put the conditioner in. Every moment seems like an eternity spent in the shower with him. The silence is deafening, but all I want to hear is the reason he's really doing this, and I know I'm not going to get that, so I stay quiet, waiting for the opportunity to make my escape.
“Rinse again, then it's my turn,” he tells me.
I go back under the shower head, completely expecting him to want me to wash his hair afterward. He has another thing coming. There's no way I would touch him. This is bad enough.
By some miracle, he doesn't make me touch him though. When I look back over my shoulder, he's shampooing his own hair, but he's staring at me the entire time, keeping his body in the middle of the shower to block me from trying to leave. The way he has his arms over his head makes him look like he's putting himself on display for me. I won't look though. I shouldn't see him naked.
My eyes darted down to his manhood the second he opened the door, but since then, I've kept them at face level. I won't give him the pleasure of thinking I want him.
“Tristan would kill you if he knew what you've done,” I seethe, unable to keep my anger to myself any longer.
“You obviously don't know my brother very well.” He pushes past me to get under the shower head.
“Clarify.” I inch my way towards the shower door.
Shawn reaches out a hand to grab my arm, stopping me. “Stay. I'm almost done.”
“You said you needed a shower. You didn't say you needed me to be in here with you.”
“I enjoy your company,” his voice softens a bit, but his eyes are still as cold as ever.
“You can enjoy my company while I put my clothes on.” I glare at him.
“It's not the same.” He shakes his head. “Just give me a minute. I'm almost done.”
I sigh, relenting. He's not going to let me leave anyway. “You keep talking about Tristan like he's a bad guy, but I haven't seen any evidence of the things you've said.”
“I never said he was a bad guy.” He takes a step closer to me to put the conditioner in his hair, trying to cage me in again with his body. “He's just a bit messed up.”
“And so are you, obviously,” I huff.
“Obviously.” He grins. “Believe me when I say I wouldn't do anything to hurt my brother.”
“That's a bit hard to believe, talking to you like this.” I rake my eyes up and down his body for effect and then instantly regret it when I see his half-hard cock. He's too damn beautiful. The devil to Tristan's angel. Sent to tempt me. Sent to destroy everything.
“You like what you see,” there's amusement in his voice.
“I most certainly do not.” My mouth falls agape in complete disbelief that he'd try to make a pass at me, though I'm not sure why I'm so surprised. After all, he did barge in here to take a shower with me.
“Go ahead and look. From what Trist tells me, you haven't seen many of them.” Now he's just mocking me.
“I have no interest in looking at your disgusting body.”
That hits a nerve. He's on me in less than half a heartbeat, turning me around and grabbing my wrists to wrestle them above my head. I cry out, wanting to kick at him but afraid I'll fall. Tears assault my eyes as overwhelming fear overtakes me.
He holds me against the wall with my hands above my head, my entire body on display for him. All modesty feels lost. But then I notice he's not looking at my body. His eyes are fixed on my face. There's an intensity there that frightens me—a predatory lust.
“Do I really disgust you that much?” He leans in to whisper against my ear. “Don't act so innocent. I've seen the way you look at me.”
“I've never looked at you,” I growl.
“Your body responds to me. It's responding to me right now.” His lips are so close that I can almost feel them on my neck.
I crane my head to get away from him, but he's unrelenting. Warm breath courses across my skin, causing me to shiver. Even though I'm scared, I'm also aroused. I may be able to deny it with my voice, but my body is saying something completely different.
“Your nipples are hard.” Shawn's face moves away from me, though it's still too close for comfort. As he speaks, his eyes are hooded, but they don't leave my face. How does he know my nipples are hard if he's not looking at them? “I bet your cunt is getting wet too.”
“You're . . .” the word disgusting hangs on the tip of my tongue, but I don't dare to say it again. “Let me go.”
“Or what?” His grip tightens on my wrists.
“Or I'll scream.”
“Mmm. I like it when girls scream. Not like this though.” He lets go of me and walks back over to rinse his hair under the shower head as if nothing happened between us at all.
My heart is thundering so heavily that it hurts, yet all I can do is stare at him in amazement. What in the bloody hell? “You're wicked.”
“I am. And I'm going to be the sin you most enjoy.”
His words are cryptic and only work to frighten me more. I stand there trembling while he finishes rinsing his hair. The thought of trying to escape is gone from my mind. He would only advance on me again, and I definitely don't want that. So I wait.
Thankfully, it doesn't take much longer. When he's done, he walks past me to exit the shower, grabbing a towel from the towel rack and holding it up for me to step into. “Come on. I already told you I'm not going to do anything to you.” He sounds annoyed.
Timidly, I walk out of the shower and let him wrap me in the towel. Almost as soon as it's around me, he abandons me to find a towel of his own, drying his hair off before he wraps it around his waist. I don't want to expose myself to him any further, so I just stand there, staring at him, confused and with an aching heart. Even though I didn't do anything wrong, I feel like we both betrayed Tristan.
“You can leave now,” Shawn says, stirring me from my thoughts.
I nod, glancing at him a final time before I open the bathroom door and step out. Tristan really needs to get a lock for it. Perhaps it's something I can gently suggest to him later.
I decide to wait until Shawn leaves the bathroom to get dressed. The last thing I want is for him to come out and see me; not that he hasn't seen everything already. It's more out of respect for Tristan than anything else.
I pull the towel tightly around myself and crawl up onto the bed, wishing Shawn would hurry up and leave. The best possible outcome for this is that Tristan will be running late, and he never even has to know this happened. My luck isn't that good though.
Almost the second I think it, I hear feet padding towards the room. It feels like my heart has stopped beating as I realize that I'm laying on the bed in just a towel and Shawn is still in the bathroom. This doesn't look good at all, and there's no way to explain it.
“I'm back.” Tristan rounds the corner with an ear to ear grin, but the look on my face is completely horrified. He sees it immediately, and his expression contorts in concern. “What's wrong?”
“Welcome back.” Shawn steps out of the bathroom in a pair of red plaid boxer shorts, stealing the words I should have been saying right from my mouth.
“Are you guys hungry?” Tristan looks between us, seemingly oblivious to the strange situation.
I have to force my mouth closed. That's it? Really? No anger. No freaking out that I'm in nothing but a towel and his brother is in here with me. Did I just step out of the bathroom and into an episode of The Twilight Zone?
“I'm famished.” Shawn walks past Tristan, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“The pizza is downstairs.” Tristan casts a glance at Shawn before Shawn leaves the room.
I just sit there dumbstruck, waiting for the shoe to drop. Waiting for this to launch into a huge argument that will end with me never seeing either one of them again.
After Shawn leaves, Tristan returns his attention to me. My heart drops to the pit of my stomach as I stare back at him. “So, are you going to get dressed? I wouldn't want the pizza to get cold.”
CHAPTER FIVE
I glare across the dining room table at Shawn. He doesn't look the least bit unnerved. He's just sitting here, watching Tristan as he serves us like he always does. It's starting to feel awkward getting waited on by him constantly, but I've realized that this is just how he does things.
“I'm glad to see you two getting along so well,” Tristan says as he finishes serving himself and comes to sit with us.
Shawn glances up at me before taking a bite of pizza. He looks a lot less appealing now that we're not naked in the shower together anymore.
I don't know what to say. It feels like any mention of what Tristan walked in on is loaded. My nerves are on high alert, just waiting for the explosion to happen.
When neither of us says anything, Tristan continues, “I really need to call a plumber to have that bathroom fixed. I've just been kind of lazy lately.” He doesn't look a
t us, but I can sense some tension in his voice.
“Yeah. It's a bit of a pain having to come up and use your shower,” Shawn sighs.
“Are you alright?” Tristan turns to me. “You're being awfully quiet.”
“I'm fine.” It's so obvious that I'm not fine. If Tristan knew me better, he'd pick up on it instantly. What happened upstairs was not fine. Is he really so clueless?
We spend the rest of the meal in silence. I know the wheels in Tristan's head are turning. He suspects something. Maybe he's just too afraid to bring it up. I'm definitely not going to bring it up. Nothing really happened between Shawn and I. For as wrong as it was, it did seem like he came up there just to take a shower. It's not worth ruining my relationship with Tristan over.
When the meal is done, Shawn gets up to leave. It feels like the oxygen rushes back into the room with his departure. I still don't feel great, but I do feel a lot better now that he's gone.
Tristan smiles up at me. “How did you like the pizza?”
“It was good.” I nod. “Pepperoni isn't my favorite, but it was still good.”
He sighs, “I asked you what you wanted upstairs.”
“I know. I was pissed at you then though.” The memory of him coming inside of me returns to further sour my mood. How did the day go from being wonderful to crappy so quickly?
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.” He avoids my eyes.
“Well, this is something we definitely need to talk about if we plan to keep sleeping together.” It is unavoidable, and I do want to keep having sex with him.
“I'll pull out next time. I promise.” He offers me a weak smile.
“Promise, promise?” I eye him skeptically.
“Promise, promise,” he lets out a short laugh.
“Alright.” Thank God. That will keep me from having to get on birth control, which I definitely can't afford right now.
“Well, it's getting late. I guess I should take you home.”