Page 79 of Cruel Debts
Fuckingsand took me twenty damn minutes to pick up. Stupid ass sand, stupid ass old punching bag. If St. Clair sprung for new equipment once in a while, maybe the damn thing wouldn't have busted from such a pathetic punch.
It's not like I was hitting it that hard. No more than I normally did.
Apparently, I was just full of rage today, because as I stormed up the stairs of the asylum, I managed to put my foot through the edge of one of the stairs. At the top, I got my shirt stuck on a crooked nail in the railing and ripped it halfway up the side to get free.
I was afraid to open the door to the dorm, for fear I might rip it off its hinges.
The door swung open with a gentle creak, and the aroma that filled the corridor was nothing short of heavenly. Hawke must've been cooking. Nothing smelled this good in this place and turned out to be somethingotherthan his cooking.
Sure enough, the sound of laughter—feminine laughter, alongside Hawke's familiar growly laughter—filled the air, and I was too tempted to keep standing out here any longer. I mightnot like what was happening, but I had to know. I had to pretend that it didn't affect me, because there was still a job to do.
Hawke and Trinity stood in the kitchen, one on either side of the island, poking a plate between them with matching forks as they giggled like school children. She'd poke it, and he'd laugh, and then he'd spear something and lean over the island, wiggling it at her until she either turned her nose up at it or opened her mouth and took it from him.
And then they laughed again, and the sound stabbed me right in the fucking heart every time they made it.
They didn't even notice me as I walked past them and into my room, quietly shutting the door behind me.
I should have slammed it. Hawke wouldn't be so damn close to her then. And where the hell was Asher? I thought he was busy burying himself in her pussy? Now, Hawke was over here playing cutesy house with the girl he professed to hate?
Let him sweat a little.
Let them all sweat a little.
It wasn't more than they deserved.
The water was, once again, cold when I hit the shower. It was a good thing I liked cold showers, or this would be irritating to no end. Dollars to doughnuts, it bothered Hawke and Asher, but me? Never.
And right now, I needed one like I needed air to breathe.
The chill ran bone-deep and set me to shivering as I took the soap off the wall and lathered up. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake the image I'd walked in on.
Trinity, bent over the island, her knees on one of the stools, her ass hanging out under Asher's shirt, her whole face lit up as that smile stretched from side to side and illuminated the darkness that continuously clung to the apartment we called home. Her hair cascaded down her back as she tossed herhead and laughed. The curve of her spine as she leaned in and accepted the offering Hawke held out for her.
Sweet. Innocent. Wholesome.
But not. Those words hadn't applied to Trinity McCoy a day in her life.
She was walking sex appeal, a dangerous, heady combination of beauty and fire. With a single look, a single touch, she could wrap you around her finger and tug to make you do whatever it was she wanted.
I hated this.
It didn't stop me from grabbing my throbbing, stiff cock with a single-minded focus and determination to jerk the thought of her out of my head and leave it behind to swirl down the drain.
Every stroke of my cock felt taboo, sinister, like I was defiling her image in my head with the wanton actions. Like I might taint her from two rooms away with my disgraceful desires. But each pass of my hand over my head was accompanied by an image in my head of her hands on me instead, tugging on my cock, begging me to let her touch me, make me feel good. Apologizing, promising to be a good girl this time.
I imagined her on her knees in front of me, hands on her thighs, sitting pretty as she watched me fuck my hand while she watched, and the groan that ran through me was so loud for a moment I worried someone in the next room might hear it. The water was loud, though. It would drown out any sound that might trickle through.
They'd never know what I was up to in here.
Just me, and my conscience.
That was bad enough.
My brain helpfully conjured another image of her, accompanied by the sounds of bodies slapping together wetly, her ass on the kitchen counter, but instead of Asher's name in my head, she called my own. Instead of his dick slamming intoher, it was mine. I gripped myself at the base and groaned as the thought of what she might feel like around my dick drove me to the edge, and with gritted teeth, I tugged once, twice, and came against the wall of my shower with a subdued roar.
The shame was instant. As was the regret that I'd done this. Violated her memory, her image, without her consent.
And now, unless I did something to atone for what I saw as a degrading private act, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Not with her in the same damn house.
