Need

by K. I. Lynn

  “Kira,” he groans.

  That rush of power again.

  At least I feel something.

  “Do you?” I bite on his lobe, feeling him get harder against my stomach.

  Eventually, he pulls me closer and nods.

  We’re next to an open doorway, and I see an empty bedroom beyond it. Pulling him by the collar, I urge him inside. “Get in there.”

  A few of the guys behind me whistle and cheer.

  One of them calls out, “Fuck that pussy hard, Austin!”

  They’ll be talking about this. Spreading the gossip starting tonight.

  Let them. Who gives a fuck?

  I don’t care that they know what’s about to happen in this room. Brayden is back at school with his girl. He has her.

  I’m going to have this and I give no fucks what anyone thinks about it.

  I close the door to the room and lock it.

  The lights seem too bright. Or maybe they’re too dim. Something’s off.

  I’ve read and reread the same paragraph so many times, but the words are just gibberish. My mind is hundreds of miles away, thinking about her, thinking about Christmas, thinking about how I need to stop thinking about her.

  It’s been like this since I made the decision to leave. I try not to, but that fucking look on her face . . . I did it for a reason. To end this hell, to help her move on, and here I am, stuck.

  I need a fucking joint.

  “Brayden, are you listening to me?”

  I blink up from my International Trade textbook to the annoyed look on Amanda’s face.

  “Sorry, I was in the zone.” Another lie that rolls off my tongue, smooth and toxic like all the rest.

  She seems to accept my excuse, seeing as we are in the library. Her hand reaches across to grab mine. I resist the urge to pull back and force myself to twine my fingers with hers, to keep up my guise of caring boyfriend when I’m everything but.

  The truth is, I don’t care anymore, if I ever did. My plan backfired. Instead of forgetting about Kira, losing myself in another girl once and for all, I’m in a relationship that grates on me with each passing moment.

  I’m pretty sure Amanda’s catching on that I’m not all in. Even I know how cold of a bastard I’m being. The only time I show her any warmth is when I’m fucking her, and that’s because I’m imagining she’s Kira.

  “I was thinking, maybe this weekend we could take a trip.”

  I rock our hands on the tabletop, calming the irritation of her touch and its meaning. “Yeah? Where?”

  “Well, you came to me at Christmas and met my parents.” I hold in a shudder at that memory. Trying to vow to some father that my intentions with his daughter are noble or some shit when they aren’t. But, it was better than being near her. “I was thinking we could go to your house.”

  All of my movement stops. Is she fucking kidding me? If I’d been standing, my ass would’ve been on the floor with the force of her idea.

  “I don’t know about that.” Amanda in a ten-mile radius of Kira? Not fucking happening. Ever.

  “Why not?”

  Because there is absolutely no damn way I’ll put Kira through that shit. Bad enough what I already did.

  My teeth grind together. “Why don’t we just go to Indy?”

  Her chin juts forward as she reclines back into her chair. Great. Time for another argument.

  “What is it? Is there a reason you don’t want me to meet them?”

  “No, but I was just there and will be next month for spring break.” I throw my pen down on my notebook and run my fingers through my hair. “I’ve got a heavy class load. I don’t have time on the weekends for an eight-hour round trip for no reason.”

  “No reason? Your girlfriend meeting your parents isn’t a reason?”

  Fuck. Another reason a girlfriend wasn’t the best idea. “Can we not do this?”

  She sighs, her arms relaxing, her expression dropping. “Is it really that hard to act like you care about me in your life?”

  The boyfriend thing to do is to take her in my arms, kiss her, and tell her how much she means to me. To reassure her.

  But I can’t. Not the way I should. I don’t have it in me.

  I reach across the table and grab at her hand. She resists, huffy and pissy and forcing me to pull out every ounce of charm I can muster right now.

  “Baby, I’m sorry.” Her posture softens, allowing me to draw her hands up. The act along with a pet name is the best secret weapon I’ve come across to calm a girl down. “This semester is killer, but I promise to take you home soon. Spring break is around the corner. We can go for the whole week.”

  She smiles at me. “Silly, I’m going to Aruba for spring break, remember?”

  Of course I do. “Shit, that’s right.” I pull her hands up to my lips and kiss her knuckles. “We’ll find another time.”

  “You think you’re smooth, don’t you?”

  I smirk at her. “I know I am.” My fingers move up and down her forearms. “In fact, I bet I’m so smooth, I can get you to come back to my place for a quickie.” I wag my eyebrows at her.

  She giggles and rolls her eyes. “Not that smooth, Casanova. I’ve gotta get to class.” I watch as she packs up her bag. “Give you a call tonight? Maybe we can test out your smoothness then.”

  “Come on over. I’ll be waiting.” I give her a wink.

  She blows me a kiss as she walks away, and the moment she’s gone, my head falls onto the desk.

  Finally.

  Alone.

  Since I left my family to see her at Christmas, Amanda’s been glued to me. Getting time to myself, to hang with Ryan, to study, has been difficult.

  I sit back up and stare down at the book in front of me. It’s no use, the words are still squiggly lines.

  Food is sounding like a good idea, as well as that joint. Maybe Ryan’s free, and we can chill. Add in a high likelihood of pussy later, and it’s a perfect night. My first class tomorrow isn’t until noon, so I can get some studying done in the morning.

  I pack up my laptop, books, and all the other shit I have to carry with me, then throw on my coat and all my other winter gear. It’s a two-mile hike back to my apartment, not counting the bus ride, in over six inches of snow and fifteen-degree weather. Another downside to sharing a car, not that there’s anywhere to park on campus anyway.

  Fucking frozen and hungry, I make it home. “Ry, you here?”

  The apartment we share isn’t very big, but the bedrooms are upstairs, and that’s probably where he is. Chances are he’s got his space heater on, and I’m going to get down on that action.

  I take the stairs two at a time, the carpet deadening the thump of my steps. Once I reach the top is when I hear his voice.

  “They’re all fucking talking about it, Kira!”

  Her name stops me from opening the door.

  His tone keeps me listening.

  In eleven years of being best friends with Ryan, almost three years of being his brother and roommate, I’ve never heard that tone from him. Normally calm Ryan Roth isn’t mad, he's livid at his little sister.

  Every muscle tightens, the hammering of my heart almost drowning out Kira’s voice through the speaker. “And I don’t care what anyone has to say about it. I wanted to get rid of it. I did what I had to do.”

  Her voice . . . Oh, fuck, her voice.

  I grab onto the door frame, holding me up, bracing me for more. I need more. Just a little, and then I’ll be good.

  I don’t know what she’s talking about. I don’t know what she’s done to piss Ryan off so much. All I care about is the small, phantom-like taste of my girl.

  “You’re only seventeen!” Ryan’s roar shakes me back awake to the fact that something is wrong, off.

  Only seventeen.

  My stomach drops as a creeping, ugly dread slithers it’s way into my veins, freezing out what little warmth had settled in. An intense weight falls over me, and I know.

  I know
, but I can’t even think it.

  Fuck.

  No.

  Jesusfuckingchrist, no!

  “Older than most girls are when they lose their virginity. Older than you were.”

  For the second time in my life, the floor falls out from beneath me. I’m a statue on a cliff, stone still, waiting to tumble into the abyss.

  What the hell did she just say? I heard wrong, had to have. That, or I’m dreaming. A fucking nightmare brought on by stress and my nonstop obsession of her.

  But it’s not. The cold I feel, along with the biting on my palms from the door frame I’m gripping so hard it’s about to break off, tell me I’m awake.

  Rage and pain explode inside me. A knife in my gut, twisting and working its way up in a jagged line.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. This can’t be real.

  A crash followed by a fluttering of debris locks my attention back on the voices in the room. “You couldn’t pick someone better than Austin-fucking-Reed, Kira?”

  I fly back, away from the door, rage winning the war inside me. My eyes are wide, body shaking as I stare at the door.

  No. Not him. Not with Austin.

  I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him.

  Kira slept with Austin.

  She lost her fucking virginity to that little son of a bitch. The bastard I told her to stay away from.

  He took what was mine.

  I want to lash out. Every muscle is aching, poised for me to destroy, to scream, to let it out.

  But then he’ll know. Ryan will know.

  Before I realize it, I’m out the door, in the cold and the snow. My boots slam hard, breaking through the layer of ice coating the snow, crunching like I want to make Austin’s face crunch. And I run. No coat, no car, and I don’t give a shit.

  I run.

  Because it’s all I can do.

  The air burns my lungs, but I don’t stop. I can’t.

  Headlights, car horns, nothing fazes me. The need to turn back time drives me, like Superman.

  But I’m no hero.

  I’m not noble. I’m not honorable.

  I’m the villain.

  I’m the asshole.

  No powers but the ability to constantly hurt her.

  Kira.

  My Kira.

  She did it. She fucking did it.

  And I’m the one to blame. I pushed her, practically shoved her, into him.

  Him.

  Because she knew. My jealousy told her.

  Austin was the best way to hurt me. To give to him what was mine, what I wanted to claim but couldn’t.

  Bad footing sends me to my knees, hands buried in the snow. Every breath hurts, sharp burning pain exiting in a puff of visible air.

  I look up, but don’t recognize anything around me.

  I take another moment to catch my breath before standing and wiping the snow from my hands onto my jeans. It’s then I notice the bar across the street. I don’t know where I am or how long I was running, but I do know my ass is about to get wasted.

  The cold seeps through the haze as I cross over, streetlights guiding me. Warmth hits my skin, prickling. The bar is almost empty. Dark, seedy, with a light cloud of cigarette smoke and what looks like a few locals and a burly, biker-looking bartender.

  I take a stool at the bar and run my hands through my hair, breaking up icicles that have formed on the longer strands. My fingers sting and are hard to control.

  “You okay, boy?” the bartender asks.

  When I look up there’s pity in his features. Do I look that bad? “Fine. Can I get a bottle?”

  “Of what?”

  “Something strong.”

  He lets out a gruff chuckle. “I.D. first, then your girl troubles.”

  I pull out my wallet and the fake I.D. inside. Ryan and I got them two years ago, and it’s worth every penny of the two hundred dollars I paid. He eyes it, then me. His lips form a hard line, then with a nod, he hands it back.

  “Good enough.”

  I quirk a brow as he pulls up a bottle of Jack and a glass. If he doubts it, he’s the first. Not that it’ll matter in a few months. My real license will work then.

  I slam the first drink back, my face scrunching at the harsh burn. “Keep it coming.”

  “That bad?”

  I nod. “World ending.”

  He grunts as he pours another. “Yup, girl troubles.”

  “How’d you know?”

  He sets the bottle in front of me and taps his large hand on the wooden bar. “Because only a woman has the power to make a man’s world end.”

  He steps away, leaving me with his haunting words.

  It’s true.

  No matter how far I tried to distance myself from Kira, it was never possible.

  She’s my world. Always has been.

  And now my world is gone.

  Taken by some prick who has no clue the weight of what she gave him. That piece of shit took what was mine. I squeeze the glass and slam it on the bar, my teeth mashing together.

  I let this happen, practically forced it to, because I couldn’t do what we both wanted. Because I tried to be the good guy.

  I’m the asshole who fucks any pussy that comes near. I use girls for sex. I make no promises, no commitments.

  I’m the guy fathers warn their daughters against.

  For what? To save myself from the crushing despair that’s strangling me now?

  I can’t deal. It’s too fucking much, and I don’t know how.

  How do I ever see her again?

  Devastation and crumbling walls are all that remain. Broken bits of a boy that reality smashed. A sad boy . . . and a little girl with cat ears.

  I’ve lost her.

  Completely.

  Drink after drink goes down, just like the liquid in the bottle, and the small part of me that is good, for her, is drowning. Black depths and blurring lights.

  Take away the pain.

  Please.

  Give her back . . .

  Days later

  My brain is on fire, head pounding, lights burning. The week has been a bitch. I can’t even look at Ryan, have only been back to our apartment when absolutely necessary. He’s tried to talk to me, but I’m avoiding him.

  When I’m not forcing down a class so I don’t fail due to attendance, it’s a glass of something strong. Something to dull the pain, to make reality disappear.

  My phone is in my hand and I’m sitting in the very back of the lecture hall of my next class, waiting for it to begin, staring at Kira’s Facebook profile. I couldn’t stay away. She changed her picture, and I can’t be pulled away from it.

  She’s breathtaking. So beautiful it hurts. She’s not the same hurt, thin girl I left behind a month ago. She’s regained her weight. Looks happy again.

  Is it because of that fucking asshole?

  The sun is filtering through the trees she’s sitting under, snow all around. I don’t know where she is, but it looks like a park. Her eyes are striking against the white all around, glowing happy with the smile on her face and pink cheeks, and I had nothing to do with any of it.

  Leg bouncing, I can do nothing but suck in her beauty, wallow in my ache for everything I threw away.

  So gorgeous. More so than before.

  Austin took her. He’s been between her legs, inside that little pussy I remember so fucking well.

  I squeeze down on my phone, grinding my teeth together.

  It hurts.

  It. Fucking. Hurts.

  The rage will never leave me. I’m convinced of this. The next time I see him, I will fuck him up.

  It was supposed to be mine. I was supposed to be her first. It was my fucking right to claim her.

  But I pushed her away. Denied us. Sent her straight into his arms. I knew he wanted her, that he was after her, and I was still stupid enough to push my girl away.

  I don’t care that she might be with him now, she’s my girl. No one else’s.

  Yeah, I kn
ow. Stupid fucking Brayden. Letting another guy take his girl.

  The fury mounts, chipping away at my common sense, leaving only the desperation that burns through every cell.

  Before I can stop myself, I pull up the Facebook messenger app and type out a message to her. One word.

  Why?

  I know the answer to that, yet the sickness insists that she be the one to tell me. That she clarifies why I deserve this agony.

  I don’t expect her to answer but she does right away.

  I’m not 100% sure what you’re talking about, but just in case it’s what I think it is . . . you know why.

  A low growl leaves me. Having it confirmed doesn’t help at all. I don’t know why I thought it would. How many times did she come after me? I’ve always known how she felt about me.

  I pushed her away. I have no one to blame for this but myself, and that makes it all a million times harder to deal with.

  And still, there’s that petty, immature, selfish little part of me that remains infuriated with her for going to Austin. That won’t accept full responsibility for what’s happening right now.

  God, I’m pathetic.

  Head pounding, I type out, It was mine, Kira.

  Kira’s reply leaves me ready to claw my damn eyes out. Oh really? That’s why you’ve been busy fucking someone else. Right.

  I want to beg for her forgiveness, but I can’t. I want to tell her everything, tell her how much I need her, tell her how every fucking day a small part of me dies because I’m not next to her.

  Tell her all I want is her. Demand she stay the fuck away from everyone and wait for me to figure this shit out.

  Tell her I would do anything for her, die for her . . . but I can’t.

  The anger steams over me again.

  I can’t.

  She’s my stepsister.

  We’re related by marriage, thanks to my cheating asshole of a father.

  I look back down to the screen, and she’s logged off, probably tired of waiting for my reply or not wanting to listen to me anymore.

  My fist clenches tighter around my phone and I want to throw it, smash it to bits. I want a knockdown, drag-out fight.

  I want to hurt for some reason other than her.

  This exact putrid feeling is why I never wanted to be in a relationship, to never get married. I thought I’d avoided all this by never getting close to anyone, but I never noticed that Kira was always close. She was always there, next to me, from the time I was ten.