by J Bree
Ash
We get back from Christmas break to Harley beating the shit out of every single senior in fight club.
Even with Senior missing I spent the entire time we were back at the Beaumont manor for Christmas dealing with Joey and keeping his twisted fucking fantasies away from Avery, so even though I’d usually be the first in line to help him destroy anyone with zero context needed, I sit this one out.
Blaise is all in for the bloodsports.
I’m on high alert for the first week back and I refuse to let Avery out of my sights, following her to every class and only leaving her if Blaise or Harley are with her at all times.
By Friday, Avery is sick of sharing her bed with me and kicks me onto the couch. It’s comfortable enough except that the Mounty gets up at fucking stupid times and even though I managed to sleep through Harley’s insomnia, there’s something about her that has me on high alert and the second she sits up in bed I’m awake.
Frustrated and fucking savage about it.
There’s something about today that’s different than all of the other mornings though because instead of tiptoeing around meekly like a fucking tease she slams a drawer shut and stomps over to the bathroom like she’s trying to wake the goddamn dead.
I cuss her out more viciously than I have in months, mostly because living together like this has fucking broken my will to live and if I have to live with that then so can she.
She snaps back at me, “Sleep on your own fucking couch then!” and slams the bathroom door behind her.
My eyes finally peel open and when I drag myself up onto my arms I find Avery staring me down from her mountain of pillows and linens.
“Do you have to be such an asshole to her? She hasn’t said a single word about you being here all week and the one time she’s in a mood you tear into her. For Christ’s sake, Ash… she’s not a bad person.”
Maybe not but she’s the worst type of person. The type that could ruin everything I hold dear in my life. “I am an asshole, Floss, to everyone but you.”
She stares me down for a second and then sighs, sliding out of her bed and pulling one of her dressing gowns on over her pajamas as she heads into the kitchen. She flicks the coffee machine on and starts to mess around with the cupboards and fridge.
The way that she’s not bitching me out is fucking evil because it makes me feel like the scum of the Earth, something that doesn’t normally bother me but today seems to be the exception for every-fucking-thing.
So I get up and pack away the pillow and blanket I was using, folding them neatly, then I join her in the kitchen to pour us both cups.
“Someone is taking her underwear. That’s why she got angry when she got up, she’s once again running out because some idiot is stealing from her to mess with her.”
Fuck.
I don’t like that.
Not at all.
I keep my face neutral but there is no-one on the planet who can read me quite like my twin can. Her eyebrow goes up and I hand her a cup of coffee with a stern, “Don’t even think it, Floss. Just because I fucking hate sexual predators doesn’t mean shit about her.”
She smirks and takes a sip, crooning over the rim at me, “Sure it doesn’t. Do me a favor and kill whoever it is when we find them? Not because you’re just as smitten as the other two are, just for me.”
Smitten.
I’ve never felt the urge to strangle my sister before but I imagine it feels a little like this.
The smirk on her face only gets wider as the bathroom door opens and the Mounty walks out and stops me from snarling something I would probably regret to my beloved sister.
I stalk to the bathroom, barely acknowledging her murmured, ‘sorry’ because I’m too fucking… raw this morning. I don’t want her seeing anything on my face that should be there in the first place.
I hear Avery murmur to her in her most gentle tone, “I’ll have some more delivered today and we can go see the ladies in the laundry to find out where they’re disappearing from.”
I close the door of the bathroom behind me and instantly get hard at the smell of her fucking soap which is utterly pathetic. Kind of gross too, considering Avery buys it for her and uses it sometimes, so I’m stuck staring down at my dick not knowing if it’s fucked up to want to jerk off right now.
Avery would kill me if she knew.
But then my mind supplies me with all sorts of images, of the Mounty in here covered in that soap just minutes ago, and my dick fucking throbs. Fuck, every night she wears yoga pants until she goes to bed and the soft fabric clings onto her ass until she might as well be naked.
I’ll never fucking admit how badly I want to pull them down and bury my face in her pussy, my dick in her ass, and my tongue down her throat. I want to cover her body with my own, mark her up, fucking ruin her until there’s no questioning that she’s mine.
As I strip down and step into the shower my hand is wrapped around my dick, squeezing and pumping as I bite back a groan, before I even realize how close I really am to coming just from thinking about her.
It’s so fucked up.
I’ve always told myself I was nothing like Joey or Senior because I’ve never wanted to own someone before, never coveted them like this, but once again the Mounty fucking ruins everything. My hand moves faster, my fist tightening as I chase the feelings curling in my gut until I tip over the edge.
I blow my load all over the tiles, my arm braced and my forehead slumped against them, groans ripping out of my chest at the intensity. Fuck, if jerking off with nothing but her voice inside my head is this good then what will it feel like when I—
Fuck.
No.
Not happening, there is no fucking when. I need to get her the fuck out of our lives before I completely lose my goddamn head over a piece of ass!
I quickly scrub myself down and finish up in the bathroom, my uniform feeling a little too tight and uncomfortable on my skin, but that’s probably just a guilty fucking conscience. I’m supposed to be better than this, for fuck’s sake!
When I step back out into the girls’ room, they’re both eating and talking quietly, neither of them taking any notice of me as I grab a plate and join them. The Mounty still looks fucking pissed but she’s always so calm and kind to Avery.
Fuck.
It makes me reckless.
The moment we finish eating I grab Avery’s laptop and join the Mounty on the couch. If I’m going to be dragged down to the pits of hell by this girl, then I should at least get to enjoy the fucking ride.
Imagining her while I jerk off will be much easier when I know what she’s wearing under all of the layers she insists on.
She doesn’t take much notice of me until I’m already filling up a cart but the blush she gives me is worth it all. I smirk back at her, drawling, “What? I don’t know where Mounties shop. Is there a slum version of Agent Provocateur?”
She elbows me in the ribs but it’s so gentle it barely registers. “I can buy my own underwear, thank you very much.”
I hate to think what lingerie Mounty girls buy. I doubt it’s even close to my tastes so I shrug. “You can but after waking me up you’ll be nice and let me do it. It’s one of my true skills in life.”
Avery narrows her eyes at me over the rim of her coffee cup, still seeing straight through every word that comes out of my mouth. “What would you know about choosing lingerie?”
Well, I could keep my mouth shut but where’s the fun in that? I smirk at her, ignoring the indignation on the Mounty’s face. “More than you. You’ve bought it for one body, I’ve seen it on—“
“Do not give me a number right now, Alexander Asher William Beaumont, I will smother you in your sleep. No sister wants to hear how many sluts her brother has gone through. Which reminds me, when were you last tested for STIs? Annabelle probably gave you herpes.”
Gross.
I mean I know I’m clean, I get checked regularly even now that I’m fucking celibate. The bile
creeping up the back of my throat is more at the idea that I’d ever touched Annabelle. I can’t even blame being desperate because there were plenty of other girls available and I fucked them all.
It was just… fun to share someone with Blaise and Harley.
She wasn’t the right girl for it, we all knew it from the start and never really did anything with her beyond the usual quick, rough fuck, but I think we’d all entertained the idea of sharing someone.
Fuck.
I’m too busy in my own thoughts so when the Mounty starts choking and trying to wrestle the laptop away from me, I almost let her take it, until she snarls, “I do not fucking need corsets, suspender belts, or a crotchless bodysuit!”
She does though, she really does.
I raise an eyebrow and continue to fill the cart up. “How very vanilla of you. All cotton granny panties then?”
The Mounty pouts like a child, arms crossed and huffing, while finally shutting up and leaving me to pick items out. Avery comes over to perch on the armrest and point out pieces she likes. I add them to the cart, her taste impeccable as always but ruining the experience a little for me because it feels weird to fantasize about things she likes.
Christ.
When I’m finally done, the Mounty finds her card details and I process the payment for her. I would’ve paid for the lot but she gets this stubborn look on her face and Avery discreetly shakes her head at me.
I don’t like it and I hate that I feel that way.
I’m fucked.
“Why are you doing this? You don’t even like me,” she says finally, the pout still over those tempting lips of hers. Avery pats her head like she’s the densest girl alive, which might be true here, and heads to the coffee machine for round two. It makes it easier to lie.
“I know you’re going to fuck us over at some point, I figure why not have some fun until then?”
She glares back at me and Avery calls out from the kitchen in a sing-song voice, shit-stirring like always, “Baby steps!”
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I already know it’ll be a text from Harley, checking the girls are both okay. His campaign to murder anyone who’s ever looked sideways at the Mounty pops back into my head, and I can’t help but wonder if her missing underwear is another symptom of whatever the fuck is going on.
She packs her bag together, her shoulders hunched under my gaze, until finally she snaps, “What?!”
“Who do you think is stealing your underwear?”
She groans dramatically and flings out an arm. “If I knew, it wouldn’t be happening anymore. I’m fucking sick of replacing it. Whoever it is, they’re taking them when I send them out to be washed. Avery thinks it’s a prank and someone in the laundry is in on it. I think it’s Harlow being a snotty bitch because I found Avery’s shoes.”
Fuck.
This is worse than I thought.
I frown at her. “They’re taking underwear you’ve already worn. It sounds like a desperate guy taking them to sniff.”
Horror fills her face and then her usual fiery rage kicks in as she snaps, “Guys are disgusting. Seriously. I’m putting a fucking camera on the door and I’m washing my own shit from now on. Fuck this!”
She storms out, the door thumping shut behind her in a temper. Avery hums from where she’s drying plates, her hands steady even though I can see she’s in full planning mode.
“Floss? Put the underwear thief on the planner.”
She smiles at me like I hung the moon just for her.
“He’s already there.”
Chapter Seventeen
Harley
There isn’t a senior walking the halls of Hannaford who isn’t aware of the brutality of my vendetta against the whole fucking lot of them for starting that goddamn bet.
Sure Joey might’ve been the one to start the fucking thing but there’s over two mil in the pot now and he’s not that flush without his fucked-up daddy’s permission, so there’s a lot of trust funds pouring into this setup.
My original plan was to shut it down, but the first guy I approach is a fucking dick about it so that gets thrown out and the new plan is make every last one of them bleed until Lips feels safe in this hellhole again. I get angry at myself for last year all over again because things would be different if we had’ve just left her the fuck alone.
Fuck, what if we’d missed her altogether?
If she’d been some shy kid at the back of the class, her head down and completely fucking invisible, I might have missed her altogether. Fuck, without her around I don’t even know where we’d all be now. I don’t know what the protection she’s giving me is, but Liam didn’t even try to contact me over the summer break and he never fails to hold my inheritance over my head.
I fucking hate the cunt.
Ash and Avery both spent Christmas without Senior for the first time in their lives, the best present either of them could ever ask for, and Blaise is passing all of his subjects thanks to her tutoring. Fuck, he told us all that his shitty father kept his mouth shut over the break for once.
She’s changed things for us all.
She’s slowly changing all of the worst things that we face, the heavy burdens we all carry, and even Ash can’t argue with that anymore. He might be a stubborn asshole, and not want to admit it yet, but he’s watching her. It’s both a good and bad thing. I want him to ease up on her.
I don’t want him to fall for her.
Going up against Morrison is bad enough. The way she looks at him when she’s sure he won’t notice… fuck, my gut churns just thinking about it. I don’t know if she turned him down over the kiss because she didn’t want him or because of all of the extra bullshit she’s dealing with, and the not knowing is killing me.
So I’m a grumpy fuck about it.
The grumpiest fuck, which is saying something because Ash exists.
I’m beating the ever-loving fuck out of three of the most pretentious, arrogant fuckwit seniors when I get the text from Avery.
911. Meet at my room now. Lips was jumped by Devon.
My heart just fucking stops.
I’m about as far away from the girls’ room as fucking possible, out behind the gym where there’s no cameras and very little teacher monitoring, and there’s blood down my shirt from Theo’s nose exploding all the fuck over my fist.
He’s unconscious on the ground. Ryan is groaning and wheezing next to him and Dean is swaying where he’s kneeling, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. I barely think about consequences or not breaking his fucking neck, I just grab Dean by the back of his head and smash his face into my knee, knocking him out cold.
I leave without another word.
Also a mistake.
What’s the point of beating them up if they don’t know for-fucking-sure who to stay clear of? I mean, they know. Everyone knows. There isn’t a kid at this school who isn’t flinching away from me in the hallways, all of them fucking terrified because each one of them has done something to her.
Gossip, bets, beatings—they’re all fucking guilty.
I have enough functioning brain cells to wipe my hands and button my jacket up, covering most of the mess. My pants are wrecked but the charcoal color helps to hide that shit a bit and the fact that no one wants to look at me helps too.
Jumped.
That’s not enough fucking information, not even close. Was she hurt? Did she kill him? Which part of this is the 911 because if she’s hurt, I’m burning this place to the fucking ground.
I fucking sprint up to the girls’ dorm.
Running isn’t my thing and I’m nowhere near as quick as my cousin but I make it in a decent clip, shoving the door open and inadvertently taking Morrison out at the same time.
“What the fuck happened!?”
Lips is sitting on her bed, tugging her shoes off, and I can’t see any damage to her but that shit is beside the fucking point. There’s a whole lot of skin under her clothes that could be damaged.
Avery
huffs at me from the kitchen, wiping down the counter without a word, and I’m about to call her the fuck out about it when Morrison holds up a hand like an offering.
“When I got out of the shower I heard Devon threatening someone. Then I heard him mention Joey and the bet I realized he was talking to the Mounty and I came out to find him pinning her to a wall by her throat.”
I see red. There’s no other way to describe the pure, unadulterated rage that enters my body. “What?! He had his hand around your throat? I’ll gut him.”
Blaise smirks back at me. “Oh, don’t you worry, the Mounty was going to. Pretty sure he’ll end up with a nasty scar. Really, I saved his life with the beating I gave him.”
That’s my girl.
That’s my fucking girl.
Ash startles and jerks around to look at her, underestimating her to the bitter fucking end. She raises an eyebrow at him. “What? He’s twice the size of me and grabbed me from behind like a little bitch. He deserves to lose his intestines.”
Avery starts to straighten up the coffee mugs, compulsively and without even fucking looking because she’s done it so often that it’s all muscle memory at this point. “I think I should get one of those knives too.”
Fuck.
I’ve never heard a better fucking plan than that.
Lips nods emphatically. “I’ll get you one and teach you how to use it.”
Ash grabs her hand to distract her away from her ritual, tugging her until she’s standing with him. “Agreed.”
She smiles at him, the type she knows will get her whatever the fuck she wants because Ash loves her more than he needs air. “Stay for the day? I’ll cook something for dinner later and we can watch something Blaise picks so he doesn’t whine at us. Like old times, but better because Lips will side with me when we pick snacks.”
I discreetly check my knuckles for blood and Ash raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug; there’s no hiding from him what I’ve been doing all fucking day.
Blaise huffs and fucking whines, “I don’t whine, you guys just have shit taste.”
I really want to hang out but the thought of dealing with him simpering the whole fucking time has my jaw clenching already. Mostly because every time he does it the corners of Lips’ mouth quirk up like he’s so fucking funny.
