Page 73 of Van Cort
I nod and start leaving the room. “I just have some work to do first.”
She pouts. “I can’t tempt you with a shower?”
I keep walking. “We’ll never get out of here if you keep tempting me with that sort of offer. Get dressed, River.”
***
Work emails completed, I head back upstairs to get dressed. The sound of grunting and moaning assaults me as I round the top landing. I stop, looking along the hallway as the noise rings back at me. He’s fucking her. And, by the sound of her, she’s enjoying it.
I swallow, unsure if I’m aroused by it or pissed as hell.
“Yes, Everett! Oh god yes. Keep… yes, don’t… yes…stop!” The corner of my mouth tips up, and my fists tighten as if I’d got hold of that hair of hers. “Yes!” My name. Not his.
I wait in the hall for the noise to subside.
“Hmm, you better put yourself back together,” he says. “Don’t wash, though. I want to smell me on you all day.”
Asshole.
She giggles, and I hear muffled voices, maybe lips kissing.
Still, I wait, not bothering to hide myself.
In fact, I’m so incensed that I’m not even sure if I want to be caught out so we can fight about her.
Eventually, it’s West that turns out of the room, naked as the day he was born. He looks at me, a smile on his face like he justwon some competition. He didn’t. It’s my name she called for, and that isn’t changing anytime soon.
There’s no conversation between us; we just stare until he ruffles my hair on the way past. I want to react, shove him, get pissy. Instead, I watch him walk by, strip my robe off, and then head back to the room. Letting him know he’s affected me will make it worse all ’round.
I kiss her the second I’m in the space, passionately, and too possessively, not caring that she’s trying to pull her jeans back on or that she still seems ravished from him. It’s potent, for too many reasons that I can’t process, and if I wasn’t the adult I am, I’d tip her over the bed and fuck her dry for something she’s just done with someone who isn’t me.
Her hand pushes at my chest until our lips break. “Easy, Everett. Once wasn’t enough? What’s got you worked up again?”
“You have. It’s all you. I thought you would have worked that out by now. Bringing you here? Offering you more of me?”
A soft smile breaks over her lips as both of her hands roam across my chest. “I think we both need some air.” She pats me and backs off a step or two. “Get dressed, Everett. You definitely owe me coffee and a pastry after that.”
She leaves me alone in the room, and I shower and change quickly to make sure he doesn’t get his way again. When I get downstairs, I can’t find her for a while. Really? Again?
I frown and look around, very ready to find West and beat the living shit out of him. But I finally see that she’s sitting out on the veranda looking at the view.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask, as I walk the boards to meet her.
“Looking at the island. You’re right. You can daydream here. It would be easy to lose yourself in this life. Maybe it wasn’t the easiest for you as a child, but this could be a wonderful family home. I’m sorry it wasn’t.” Hmm?
I stare with her, remembering a beating I took on this very porch by an enraged father to protect West. He might have deserved it that time. It was him who broke the crystal decanter after all. I got in the way, though. Did my duty.
“Come on.” I reach my hand to her and pull her up when she takes hold, leading us away from the house and towards the tracks that wind up and into town. “We’ve got a bit of a hike. Time to use those thighs for something other than riding me.”
The walk up the incline into town takes us through the old part of the forest. It’s overgrown now, but I used to run these tracks without a thought. They’re so familiar to me, as is the feeling of a hand in mine as she follows. I smile the entire way through the steeper climb as she chatters and asks questions.What wildlife is there around here? How deep does the snow get? Were you snowed in often? That must be amazing. What a place to be trapped in.
It was a hellish place to be trapped in.
Most of the time, anyway.
Her hand slips from mine, a sharp yelp coming at the same time. I spin, latch onto her wrist and pull. She scrambles and looks up at me, the briefest hint of fear in her panicked gaze as the ground crumbles beneath her. It’s another one of those moments where those eyes of hers seem to do something fucking stupid to me. It hits me like a sucker punch to the gut, and my fingers clench into her to make sure she doesn’t get out of my grip again.
“You okay?” I ask, as she gets her footing. She laughs lightly.
