by Zoey Marcel
“Don’t tell me what I feel, you debauched fucker!” Stetson shoved him hard.
“Doc!” Jade screamed. “He’s dying, you stupid bastard! Just leave him alone!”
Doc coughed a bit and headed for the door, waving her off with his hand. “Let it go, Jade. You can’t win.”
Sawyer brushed past her with his suitcase. She grabbed his wrist in panic. “Don’t go.”
“I knew this day was coming for years. Guess I should have left sooner. You can come or you can stay, but I ain’t staying.” Sawyer took her by the chin and delivered a kiss that channeled the intimacy they shared and the sense of urgency that came with knowing this was really good-bye. “Take care of yourself, cupcake. Call me if you need me.”
He walked out of the house, and the sound of the door shutting haunted her. She spun around and clenched her fists, wanting to kick the ornery cowboy’s ass. “You asshole, you drove them away!”
Stetson raided the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of something strong and amber in color. “You’re an attractive woman in her prime, Jade. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding other partners to fuck.”
His words outraged her, and she marched toward him and took a swing at him. He was too quick and blocked her fist. She screeched in frustration. Just one nice hard slug in his face—that was all she was asking for.
“You cold-hearted bastard, I’m not a slut! I love Kellan, and Doc, and Sawyer. I love all of them.” She jerked her fist away from his hand. “Not that you would know anything about love.”
He smirked, but there wasn’t a trace of humor in it. “Love. I think I can guess what sort of fucked-up fairy tale you live in.”
“I don’t share my dreams with jerks that insult me and drive the people I care about away.” She turned and stomped off, but his taunting voice ruined her epic exit.
“Well, enjoy those pink, frilly dreams of yours, because they never last.” When she turned she saw him downing another shot before he poured himself a third. “Nothing good ever does.”
Jade walked back over to where he stood in the kitchen and crossed her arms. “That’s a really cynical outlook.”
“Life is a crapshoot, Jade!” His voice rose and he glared at her, seeming angry at her optimism. “It’s not all bunnies, candy, and flowers. There’s no perfect person just waiting to make you feel like you finally found your home, and there’s no such thing as happily ever after with Prince Charming or some homemaking bombshell.”
It irritated her that his hostile speech started to play upon her sympathies and alleviate her anger with him. Damn it, no. She wanted to hit him, not hug him.
“That shit doesn’t exist. Believe me, I know.” He looked down at the counter and his tone softened to a broken murmur. “When you think you’ve found it you either lose it or discover that what you thought you had was a lie. You should know. You lost your prince, and now you’re trying to fill the void with other men.”
And the anger was back. “I love them and Bane, you irritating dick! I’m not trying to replace him, because no one can. I love all four men for different reasons, and I don’t give a crap if it makes sense to you or not.”
“If you don’t wise up and come to realize how meaningless life really is, you’re just going to get your heart ripped out.” He threw back another shot of liquor and poured himself another round of what was probably whiskey.
“Is that what happened to you?”
He offered no reply to this, but he didn’t need to. The shadow of misery that swept over his downcast face answered for him.
“I don’t know what sort of crappy life you’ve lived, and I’m sorry you’re so bitter and jaded, but that’s no excuse to treat other people this way.” A sinking feeling touched her stomach at the realization that Sawyer was really gone for good. “What is it about Sawyer that you hate so much? He’s a great guy.”
Stetson snorted at this and downed his shot. “Right. Try spending two decades with him.”
“You should be nicer to him. He’s your brother.”
“He’s not my brother.”
“He says he is. What is your problem with him?”
Stetson turned suddenly to face her, raising his voice again. “You want to know what my problem with Sawyer is? I grew up believing my life was perfect. I had a sweet mother and my father was my hero. Then come to find out the bastard cheated on her all throughout their marriage. First time I saw him leave a motel with another woman I was about twelve or thirteen. I told my mother, thinking it was the right thing to do. Their marriage was never the same after that.”
Jade listened quietly as she watched a dozen different emotions playing out on the cowboy’s face.
“He said he’d quit, but he never did. When I was seventeen my father got a letter in the mail from one of his Southern whores. She was dying and begged him to take their child.”
“Sawyer?”
Stetson nodded. “He was fifteen at the time. Doc came to live with us a few months later. My father demanded a blood test and found out the broad was telling the truth. My mother was heartbroken. She pleaded with him not to take Sawyer in, but he did it anyway. And every fucking day of her life when she looked at him she saw the other woman.”
Jade’s eyes stung. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it gets better,” Stetson said cynically. “Seven years later I caught my father fucking another woman in the bed he shared with my mother. I cussed him out of the house and he left with her. When my mother got home I told her, hoping she’d divorce the worthless son of a bitch and get herself a real man. She looked crushed, but she thanked me. ‘I love you, Stetson. Go take care of your brother. He needs you.’ So I went to go check on Kellan, and it wasn’t until I heard the gunshot that I realized what she really meant by those words.”
Jade burst into tears. “That’s awful.”
“No shit.” He downed another shot and his eyes shimmered like glass. “When Kellan found me with her I told him she’d been shot by a robber. As far as I know he still believes that. I wanted him to hold on to the childhood image of one of his parents. I wanted him to remember her the way she used to be.”
“I’m so sorry.” Jade wept, feeling a painful lump in her throat. “But what does that have to do with Sawyer?”
“He added to the hell my mother suffered on a daily basis. She couldn’t look at him without being reminded that to her soul mate she wasn’t good enough.”
“Why didn’t she divorce your father or leave him?”
“Because of love,” Stetson said in a mocking tone, face blazing with disgust. “That same damned emotion that makes your stupid heart go pitter-patter and seduces you out of your panties every time you see a man led a good, God-fearing woman to kill herself because she didn’t have enough self-respect to see that she was priceless and deserved a man who knew it.”
Jade would have cussed him out for basically calling her a skank again, but he was too despairing for her to give in to her temper.
“You’re young, Jade. I don’t blame you for being airheaded and foolish when it comes to your hormones. You can dance in the rain or whatever shit they preach these days because life hasn’t screwed you yet. But it will. Give it time.”
Her temper won out. “I haven’t been screwed? I lost the love of my life, you turd!”
“And that’s just the beginning,” Stetson said hopelessly. “It’s going to get worse.”
“Thanks.”
“Somebody has to set you straight instead of filling your head with a bunch of nonsense. Life’s a dick, and it’s going to keep fucking you up the ass until you beg for release and it finally has you pleading for death.” His eyes darkened as he stared off into some other time and place. “But they won’t stop.”
“They?”
Stetson looked like he finally snapped again as he threw the bottle of liquor at a wall. The glass shattered and amber liquid spilled everywhere. “Yes, they! He’ll pretend to be your friend and protector, but
he’ll betray you. He’ll rip your bleeding heart out and send you to hell and back. He’ll tell you he loves you even as he’s hurting you and turning you into something weak and revolting. He doesn’t love you, and if he does it should make you want to slit your wrists so your soul can find relief in the abyss.”
Jade blinked at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Stetson closed his mouth and blinked back what she couldn’t believe was moisture. “Men are worthless, Jade. I’d tell you that you had the right idea turning lesbian for a while there, but the truth is women are just as bad. Men are lying, lecherous bastards and women are greedy, cheating whores. That’s just the way it is, and the sooner you realize that the less pain you’ll have to suffer because of it.”
“Not all people are like that. Bane was a good man and Ivy seemed like a sweet woman.”
Stetson glanced back at her as he walked away. “Yeah, and look what you did to them.”
The comment broke her heart. Jade heard his bedroom door slam and she went out onto the deck to weep. After a good cry she decided the jerk either needed a hug or to be slugged in the face for being so heartless to her in her time of mourning. Of course punching him in the face when he was so despondent wasn’t exactly nice either, but that was entirely beside the point.
Jade stomped down the hall to his room and paused when she heard grunting and panting. Was he running a frigging marathon in there? She turned the doorknob quietly, and her jaw dropped as far as it could when she saw Stetson with his jeans pulled down. He rocked against a sex doll whose short black hair with purple highlights looked almost identical to hers. He pumped his cock between her enormous boobs, grunting and murmuring licentious words.
“Mmm, Jade. So good,” he crooned in a husky rasp. His hands moved from her breasts to her throat and he squeezed hard, judging by the veins surfacing in his strong arms. “You like that, cunt? So good.”
Her pussy gushed with shocking need and chills of trepidation snaked up and down her spine. Stetson was an extra-special kind of freak, wasn’t he? Her stomach knotted and her chest heaved. This was beyond creepy, it was…kind of hot, actually, and flattering. He had a sex doll that looked kind of like her. How sweet…and freaking creepy.
Stetson’s head flew up and his mouth popped open. “Shit!”
He yanked his pants up and fumbled to close them.
“Oh my God!” Jade exclaimed.
When his sexy, shirtless self hurried toward her she bolted, but he ran down the hall after her and caught her by the arm before she could get away.
“Let go of me!”
He brought her back in to his room and shut the door. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“What kind of asinine—oh my God! It’s still there!” She turned her head to escape the naked, lifeless version of herself. “Why do you have a freakin’ sex doll of me?”
“It’s not a replica of you.”
“Yeah, right! It has my hair!”
He squirmed uncomfortably. “She didn’t come that way.”
His face twisted in regret once he uttered those words.
Jade gasped, quivering when she felt her back up against the wall. “You colored her hair to look like mine? Oh my God! You’re a creepy creeper! Are you stalking me?”
His lips twitched in amusement. “We live in the same house.”
“Oh my God! We do!”
“Just stop!” He shoved his hand against her chest so she was pinned against the wall. His eyes opened more when he saw that his hand had fallen on her breast.
She sucked in a sudden breath of air, feeling her nipple prickle and stiffen beneath his big hand. He must have felt it, too, judging by the dark lust that smoldered in his eyes.
“Take your top off.”
His hushed order took her breath away. “Wh–what?”
“Take your top off or get out.”
Her body felt feverish and chilled by the fire in his eyes and his assertive tone. Sympathy for his crappy life story, as well as a nagging curiosity regarding the forbidden danger he posed and the wildfire of arousal that burned through her, compelled her to obey him.
She lifted her top over her head, trying to steady her breathing. Her panties dampened when she saw the hunger in his greedy eyes as they devoured her cleavage.
“Take your bra off,” he commanded in a husky timbre.
His breathy order titillated her, and she slowly unclasped her bra and let it slip down her arms, baring her breasts to him. The areolas crinkled and her nipples pebbled beneath his leering. She felt jubilant when she noticed the bulging tent in his jeans.
“Get your eyes off my crotch, slut,” Stetson reviled her. “You gaze into my eyes until I tell you to take them away.”
Jade kept her focus on his face, swallowing when he stalked toward her. She was too lust driven and inquisitive to swear at him for insulting her again. It was funny how the term “slut” became appealing in the bedroom.
“Clasp your hands behind your back and keep them there.” His brown eyes twinkled and his expression turned smug when she obeyed. “You soaked your Hello Kitty panties for me, didn’t you?”
Her body heated over his taunting, but she fought back. “These are solid colored, dimwit.”
He slapped her breast, making it bounce and jiggle beneath the force. His fierce aggression startled her, and she shut her mouth.
“You’re not to talk unless I ask you a question. Got it?”
“Yes,” she replied meekly.
He hooked a finger under her chin, giving her chills and hot flashes. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“That’s fine…for now. In time you’ll learn how to please me.” He palmed her breasts with admiration in his eyes. “If you’re going to be my toy, then you need to learn what I like.”
“Excuse me?” He was asking to be slapped.
Apparently he thought the same thing about her because he swatted her right breast this time, making the flesh pink with his authority over her. “I told you to shut your mouth. Now do it if you know what’s good for you.”
She smirked, and then a wild gasp tore from her throat when he yanked her hair, pulling her head back.
“Did I say something funny?”
She tried to suppress the moan, but it wouldn’t be stopped. Her pussy creamed and hurt to be filled. “No, Sir. Are my…do you like my breasts?”
He looked like he tried not to smile. “I call the shots, toy, not you. When I want to compliment you I will. Until then you keep your mouth shut and let me touch you.”
A cry wrung from her throat when he groped her crotch.
“You like that, don’t you, fucker?” His expression tensed and his eyes squeezed shut. “Fuck. Get out.”
“I don’t think so, buster,” Jade snapped. “You can’t demand to see my boobs and then feel me up and tell me to get out. You owe me, jerk. Now make me happy.”
“Happiness is a myth. Take your damned hand off my arm.”
“Make me, cunt.”
She squealed when his eyes flashed to black and he grabbed her by the arm. He slammed her down onto the bed and held her still.
“Call me that again and you’ll wish you were never born.”
She smirked at this and he bit her shoulder, making her shriek and moan. A low growl rumbled in his chest.
“Are you prepared for this, Jade? Because once we start I’m not quitting. You’re in it all the way if you say yes to me.”
She shivered, feeling swells of excitement and chills of apprehension. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to fuck your breasts.”
“That’s fine. Just leave my pants on.”
“I’ll do what I please, and if you have a problem with that you can leave. Stay there.”
Jade swallowed when she saw him grab some bondage cuffs from a drawer. They were fur lined and the exterior of the cuffs looked like black leather. “You’re going to bind me?”
“Y
our perception is keen, and I thought I told you to shut up.” He cuffed her wrists together behind her back.
“Sorry, Sir. Could you please move the stupid doll? Her parts are in my face.”
“Suck her off.” Stetson shoved her head into the doll’s V.
“You freak! She’s not even real.”
Jade yelped when he delivered two hard slaps to her denim-clad buttocks. Panic raced through her when she felt his fingers freeing the button on her jeans and forcing the zipper down.
“Oh no! Not my pants!”
“Are you backing out? Do you want to go?”
She swallowed, shaking with nervousness and arousal. “No.”
“Then shut your trap and tongue the bitch.”
“So romantic. Oh, don’t!” She squirmed, trying to keep her pants on, quivering at the rough fingers that dipped into the waistband of her jeans.
“If you want romantic, then go fuck yourself. I can’t be romantic and gentle anymore, Jade. That time came and went. I only know rough, violent, and angry. If you can’t handle that, then—”
“Go fuck myself. I get it. I can handle it.”
“That’s what they all say before I scare them off.”
Was he referring to his submissives? Was that why he hadn’t had a sub in six years and rarely visited the club according to Sawyer? Was Stetson just too harsh and vicious in bed to be allowed in? Or did he choose to stay away to protect everyone else from himself?
“I’m different,” Jade informed him.
He snorted at this. “I’ve heard that before. Now lick her cunt or I’m going to show you what edge play is.”
As much as it fascinated her, she didn’t feel ready for anything called “edge play” yet. She lapped timidly at the silicone vagina and clitoris, feeling silly and embarrassed.
“Look at you tonguing that fake pussy. You’re even creaming for a sex doll.”
Her cheeks flushed and burned, and she wondered how he knew she was so damp. She panicked when he tied a blindfold around her head. “I can’t see!”
“No shit.” He slapped her rear end and tugged her jeans down her butt, leaving them in a puddle halfway down her legs.
“Oh no, don’t!”
