Page 48 of Worse Than Wicked
“Stop looking for someone to fix you,” he says. “There’s no easy fix, no magic ingredient to add that’s going to make it all better. No one’s coming to save you, Duke.”
“So what, I’m supposed to just give up and jump off the bridge like she did? Swallow a bunch of pills like your mom?”
He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair again. “You’re supposed to start pulling yourself out. Yeah, it sucks. It’s a lot of fucking work. You have to face all the shit you’ve done and make peace with it.”
I flick my cigarette butt into the gravel. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“I know you can.”
I shake my head. “If you knew half the shit I’ve done, you wouldn’t say that.”
He knows about some of it, what we did to girls, not just his girlfriend and his sister, but all the others. Harper, the Walton twins, so many more I lost track. He can at least guess.
But he doesn’t know about Dawson jumping off the same bridge as Mabel, the sound we heard and felt when his weightreached the end of the rope, the snap that still makes my stomach churn.
He doesn’t know about the man on Mabel, the blood gushing onto her face, how I jumped on him and shoved his dick into her while his body flopped lifelessly on top of her.
He doesn’t know about Blue, how I watched her suck soup off the table, how I curled the pillow around my head and pretended I didn’t hear her screaming when Baron went to the basement. How he buried her in a grave so shallow the animals dug her up and dragged off every piece of her, not leaving even a single tooth.
He only knows about Dad.
“How can you make peace with it?” I ask, turning to him. “With what happened at the mall?”
He pockets the pack of cigarettes and leans back on the railing, hands tucked into his robe. “He deserved worse. Look at you, Duke. Do you really think you’d be that way if not for him? I know I wouldn’t. The world is a better place without him in it.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mutter. “He wasn’t your dad.”
“That’s true,” he says, straightening. “All my dad did was cheat. Even knowing that sucks. I can’t imagine having your dad’s shadow over me. No wonder you’re all so fucked up.”
Something settles in me then. At last, someone said the words I needed to hear, that I’ve needed to hear for so long. That it’s not my fault. That it’s harder to be me than anyone knows.
That vindication spears into me, and for the first time in a long time, I want to laugh. I step towards him, grab his face in both hands, smash my lips to his.
He shoves me back. “What the fuck, Duke? You’re with my sister.”
“Maybe I’m not satisfied with half a heart.”
“Then you won’t be satisfied with none of one.”
“So give me more than none.”
He stares at me, and I grab the front of his robe this time, hauling him to me. He clamps a hand around the front of my throat, stopping me from leaning in again. His eyes narrow, and he works his jaw back and forth. Then he spits. The warm, wet blob lands on my lips, and his gaze drops to my mouth.
“That’s as close as you’ll ever come to kissing me again,” he says coldly.
I swallow hard, staring back at him. I want to shove him away, but my fingers refuse to obey, and they stay clenched in his robe.
He smirks at me. “Go on,” he croons. “Lick it off. I know you want to. Let me see you really enjoy it.”
I open, letting my tongue trace over the seam of my lips. I want to close my eyes, to savor it, to coat my lips with him and keep him there as long as I can. But I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me tremble at the taste of him on my tongue. So I stick out my tongue, making it as lewd as possible as I lick and suck his saliva off my fat lower lip.
Colt just shakes his head, smiling a little. “You’re such a fuck boy.”
“Come on,” I say, opening my mouth wide. “Give me more.”
“What is wrong with you?” He shoves me back in obvious disgust, but I know I turn him on too.
“What’s the big deal?” I taunt. “You didn’t mind spitting all over my dick when you sucked it.”
