The Way She Burns

My brother is fascinated by the glass decanters and buttons and air-conditioning vents, his fingers leaving smudges on the sleek wooden paneling. But Sebastian doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s looking at me. He tucks his tongue into the corner of his lips and leans back, splaying his long, thick thighs, his gaze heating every part of my body it lands on—and it lands everywhere. My ankles, knees, thighs, breasts. My throat and mouth.

I press my knees together but it doesn’t stop the heavy tugging sensation that concentrates itself just beneath my belly button. Pulling, pulling. The way my sex milked his flesh last night during my first orgasm, only I’m empty right now. I’m empty and the longer he looks at me, the more it starts to hurt to be this way. I rinsed out my only pair of panties and hung them to dry last night, but they were still slightly damp when I put them on after my shower. But the moisture is warm now. That’s how I know it’s coming from me.

The closer we get to town, my brother’s excitement over the limousine begins to wane and he takes a seat behind me, his eyes turning serious. Nervous. Sebastian notices the change and frowns, a single finger tapping on his knee.

“Is something the matter, Curtis?”

After a second, my brother nods.

Sebastian doesn’t wait for him to elaborate. “You don’t have to worry about the men who shout at your sister, Curtis. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“Because I can be much scarier than those men when I’m protecting someone I care about. And I care about your sister very much.” Curtis’s face transforms with a heart-stopping grin that prevents me from breathing, my heart flopping over in my chest. “One day you’ll be able to protect her, too. No one will mess with us.”

Curtis laughs—a sound I haven’t heard in far too long. “No one will mess with us,” he says, his small shoulders finally relaxing.

I give Sebastian a grateful look.

My body wants to give him a lot more than that.

It yearns to be in his lap, thighs splayed around his hips. Open. Willing. Prepared to do Daddy’s bidding. Right now I’m a big sister, but if we were alone, how easily I could switch to Sebastian’s little girl. How easily he could erase my mind of anything but his touches…and call forth that naughty side out of me. The one I’ve always tried desperately to keep under wraps, to subdue and ignore, but Sebastian seems to want to…encourage.

Not good.

You can’t lose control over it.

I’m distracted from my troubling thoughts when the limousine stops outside of our apartment. It’s a one-story structure. Almost a lean-to attached to the tavern. There is a flower box attached to the front window, the pink impatiens the only bright spot amidst the gray, decaying front of the home. Sebastian appears almost frozen in horror for a stretch of several beats, before he growls his way out of the vehicle and turns to help me out.

I slip the single key from the pocket of my dress, but I don’t need it, because the lock is broken on the door, the entire place trashed. Clothes are everywhere, plates are broken. There is a distinct smell of stale alcohol in the air. Tears rush to my eyes when I see what the men have done to our things—a lot of them former belongings of my mother.

Wanting to be brave for Curtis, I square my shoulders. “Well. I’ll just grab a bag and collect what I can. Curtis, go find your favorite book. That’s your job, okay? The one about—”

I stop abruptly on my way to the back of the apartment, recoiling with a gasp when I see there are two men asleep on their backs beneath our dining room table. One of them opens their eyes and nudges the other, sending my pulse into a frenzy. “Sebastian.”

Maybe later I’ll marvel over how I called for him on instinct. I’ve never had anyone fight my battles for me. I’ve done it myself a long time and I will always be a survivor. I’m also smart enough to know when there is one I can’t win alone. And when Sebastian wraps an arm around my middle, yanks me back so quickly my feet leave the floor and inserts himself between me and the men, I feel the safest I’ve ever been in my life.

“Dobbs,” Sebastian says, jaw tight. Rolling his sleeves one by one up the flexing sinew of his forearms. “Take Chloe and Curtis outside.”

“Yes, sir.”

At first, I start to go. I know I need to be outside comforting Curtis. But when I’m halfway over the threshold, both of the huskily built men gain their feet, one of them jabbing a finger a Sebastian—and I freeze in place, unable to do anything but cling to the doorframe and hold my breath. “You’re that rich fucker who lives at the top of the hill, aren’t you? Looking down on us. Thinking you’re better than—”