Hurting You (Blackthorn Elite 3)

No more unwanted visitors.

As soon as I enter the living room, I can feel Stella staring at me. She’s looking at me like she wants to accuse me of something.

“Say whatever it is that you want to say,” I sigh and make my way over to the couch.

“Who was she?”

“Some girl,” I answer.

“That we used to fuck,” Easton adds, and I kinda-sorta want to throw my phone at the back of his head.

Stella’s body tenses, “So, I’m not the first, and I suppose I won’t be the last. No surprise there, I guess.”

Wanting to manage the situation before it blows out of proportion, I ask, “What are you talking about?”

“Carly told me that all I’ll ever be to you guys is a fuck toy, and as soon as you get bored, you’ll be kicking me out. I didn’t want to believe it, but every single sign points me further in that direction.”

Easton shoves from his chair, causing it to scrape across the floor, “It’s not like she’s wrong.” He walks into the living room, his eyes dark and taunting as he stares down at Stella, who looks pissed.

“Stop pretending like you don’t care, stop acting like nothing is going on between us. We might have started out where there was nothing between us, but things have changed.”

The air grows thick, and I know once again, shit is about to go down.

“Why don’t you stop looking deeper into things? Carly wasn’t lying. You’re our fuck doll. We don’t keep women around because we want a relationship, we keep them as long as they’re a good lay. That’s all you’ll ever be to us. Why can’t you get that in that head of yours? We pay you, you spread your legs. That’s all.”

I can see the exact moment her heart cracks down the middle. Her emotions are written clearly on her face, anger, disbelief, and regret flicker in her eyes, but mostly it’s just bone-crushing sadness. I wish I could tell her that he doesn’t mean what he just said, but I don’t know how to get him to admit more is going on here.

If he feels it, he isn’t letting on.

Like I expected, Stella turns her sad gaze to me, and all I can do is look away.

“Tell her, Cam, tell her that’s all she’ll ever be to us.”

I feel as if I’m being tugged in two directions. Part of me wants to tell Stella she means more than that, but part of me knows there isn’t any point. I’m not cut out for this, for anything more than what we have right now, and Easton, he’s beyond unstable.

Digging deep, I swallow my emotions down and lift my chin, looking her straight in the eyes. She’s staring at me, pleading with me to disagree, but I can’t.

“That’s all you’ll ever be,” the words roll off my tongue so easily, but I can feel them piercing my heart. I hate myself a little more as her face falls, and her feelings crumble like dry clay in her hands right before my eyes.

“I… I don’t believe you. Either of you.” Her eyes glisten with unshed tears, and she gets up, trying to escape from us. Without another word, she leaves the room, probably to cry somewhere.

I glare at Easton. What an asshole. Who am I kidding, I’m not any better!

With her gone, I sink deep into the couch cushion, wishing it would swallow me whole.

“You know we can’t develop feelings for her, right?” Easton asks, running a hand through his hair. He looks haunted, and tired, so fucking tired. I stare at him for a long second before I tell him what I’ve been wanting to tell him for a while now.

“I’m past developing feelings. I’m already there. I want her, need her, but I don’t know how to make this work. This whole situation is so screwed up.”

Easton appears shocked, his mouth popping open and then snapping closed a moment later. “I… I don’t know how to handle that.”

“You don’t have to handle it. They are my feelings.”

“Whatever,” he shakes his head. “She’s nothing, just a girl who saw us do some bad shit.” He gives me his back and walks into the kitchen. “We did this to keep her quiet. That’s all it will ever be.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” I mumble under my breath, hoping and praying that he can come out on the other side and see this for what it is.

This might’ve started as revenge, as a way to keep her mouth shut, but it’s turned into way more than I could’ve ever imagined. Stella is past being the girl we need to keep quiet. She’s now the one and only person to ever get inside our hearts.

23

Stella

When you put something under too much pressure, it snaps, and I guess that’s what happened to me. Something inside my mind snapped and cracked straight down the middle.