Pretty Nightmare (Creeping Beautiful Book 2), page 4
“What?”
“And maybe kiss him. McKay is so… straight.”
I chuckle. “He really is.”
“But that’s just because he’s… I dunno. A little bit uptight. Don’t you think?”
“A little?”
“A lot.” She laughs again. “So I told Donovan he needed to get McKay used to the fact that he’s in this, whether he planned for it or not.”
“In… what?”
“Us, you dummy. Me. You. Donovan. And McKay. I’m tired of taking turns in everyone’s bed when nothing ever fucking happens. Well.” She pauses.
“Well what? Is something happening?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Donovan and I mess around a little.”
“Hmm.”
“Are you jealous?”
“No. Of Donovan? No.”
“It’s been months. We’re settled in. Things have gone back to normal. We’re more normal than ever, if you think about it. It’s time to move on. Just… be who we’ve always known we are.”
“What are we?”
“A team.” She says this simply. And her voice is a little bit small. It’s easy to forget Indie is very young. She’s got an old soul, for sure, but twenty-four is practically a child. I think back to when I was twenty-four—we’d had Indie for just one year back then. And I had no idea what I was doing. Of course, at the time I thought I had it all figured out, didn’t I?
I bought a girl at a Company auction. With the express intent of using her as a weapon. With the express intent of not using her for sex. With the express intent of never getting another one. Of never turning into my father.
But look where I am right now. I have Indie. I have Maggie.
And that’s just where it starts.
I almost laugh. I only hold it in because Indie will ask me what’s funny and I’m never gonna admit this shit out loud to anyone, let alone her.
But I turned into him anyway, didn’t I?
I am my father’s son.
“We’re on the same side, Adam,” Indie says.
She’s so naïve and young. Always has been and always will be. Indie is never going to be normal. She will never grow up.
She will always be that little girl in that cage.
She will always be the little girl who used to climb out her window and creep into the woods.
She will always be the little girl who used to go to church with me.
And now, I take her daughter to church instead.
It’s kinda hard to wrap my head around that.
“I’m sleeping with you tonight,” she says.
“Yup. It’s my night.”
Her eyes twinkle a little bit. “We could mess around a little. If you want.”
“Uhhh…” I don’t know how to answer that. It’s not like I’m not attracted to Indie. She’s a beautiful creature. Very smart. Very capable. Very sexy. But she’s got a big ol’ mess of lovely darkness hiding inside her.
Looking at her right now, and thinking about her offer—well, that’s like being on your knees, leaning over so you can look down the rabbit hole. You don’t know what’s down there. Could be an amazing trip of epic proportions. Could be just a pretty little nightmare waiting to happen.
She gets up and extends her hand to me. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
She could be my wife.
I mean, she’s never going to be my wife. But she could be. I stole her daughter, didn’t I? I’m that girl’s father now. No way in hell anyone can take that away from me. So Indie could be my wife. We could just… slip into this. Easily. We have Old Home. We have each other. We have everything we need to grab the good old American Dream. We could have more children if we wanted. And things would turn out differently this time.
I would not turn into my father.
We could start over.
And maybe… just maybe… McKay would join us.
Could McKay ever do that? Will he ever love me the way I love him?
“Stop thinking so hard.”
I take Indie’s hand and let her pull me to my feet. Then I click off the TV and we walk through the mosquito netting all lit up with fairy lights, and head towards the house.
She holds my hand as we walk, squeezing it a little. It feels natural, but then again, weird.
This girl—woman, now, I suppose—she has been off limits to me for so long. It’s really hard to get that out of my head. And sometimes, when I look at Maggie, I see Indie.
It’s just… weird.
Indie doesn’t lead me to the front porch. She takes me around the side. “Where are we going?”
“To spy on them, of course.”
“Ahh, I don’t know.”
She stops us on the side of the house in front of the office window. “Stop being a baby. Don’t you want to be with McKay?”
And this is weird too. Since when do I talk about my feelings with Indie? With anyone, actually?
“You’re really trying hard to find an excuse, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.” It comes out defensive. “Of course I love McKay. Of course I want to be with him.”
“So what’s the problem?”
I hesitate. She just shakes her head at me and drops my hand. “Fine. Then stay here. I’ll spy.”
She turns away and continues walking along the side of the house, then looks over her shoulder one last time before she disappears around the corner.
I jog to catch up.
Fuck it.
When I round the corner, Indie has her face pressed against the glass of the family room window. The only lights on inside are the ones under the kitchen cabinets. So it’s a low light. A soft glow of yellow But it’s more than enough to see them.
Donovan and McKay are kissing.
I exhale and then heat fills me up. And I don’t remember breathing, but I exhale again. And then again. My chest rising and falling as emotions flood into my bloodstream.
“It’s kinda hot,” Indie whispers.
I have to agree. It kinda is. But it’s a lot of other things too.
They are both shirtless. And I’m not gonna lie, Donovan is just as nice to look at as McKay.
That’s not the only reason it’s hot though. This looks like a real fucking kiss. McKay is even kissing him back. And then Donovan’s hand slips down McKay’s chest, then down his ridiculous sixty-four-pack abs and rests on the waistband of his jeans.
Indie sucks in a little breath of surprise. “Damn. I didn’t think they’d… ooohh. Wow.”
Donovan is gripping McKay’s cock through his jeans. And McKay pulls out of the kiss. I have a moment of hope that he’ll push Donovan away. McKay looks down at Donovan’s hand as Donovan grips his cock and begins massaging his hand over his groin area.
But McKay doesn’t push him away. He closes his eyes and leans back against the counter. Practically giving Donovan permission to do whatever he wants.
“OK.” I sigh. “I’ve seen enough.”
I turn and walk back to the front of the house. Indie jogs behind me, catching up by the time we reach the porch. I make a lot of noise coming up the steps and even more when I open the main door.
I can see them in the kitchen pulling apart. McKay disappears out of view before we step into the foyer. But Donovan remains in view, running his fingers through his thick, dark hair as he smiles at us.
I want to punch him in the teeth. Wipe that fucking smile right off his face.
But Indie takes over, grabbing my hand and calling, “We’re going to bed. See you two in the morning.”
I barely hear what McKay and Donovan say back. The blood is rushing in my head, making it pound. And anyway, Indie is already leading me up the stairs.
She slips right into my room and closes the door behind us, flicking a switch on the wall that controls a small light on one of the bedside tables. She lets out a small giggle.
“What’s so fucking funny?”
“Oh, my God. If you could only see your face right now.” She giggles again. Points at me. “You’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous of Donovan.”
“OK.” She shrugs. Then in one swift movement, she has her tank top over her head and is throwing it on the ground at her feet. She stands there in her pretty pink bra as I look at her.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like, Adam?” She reaches behind her back to unclasp her bra, and then it’s falling on the floor too. She’s got a little pile going now.
She saunters over to me, her hips moving seductively. I put up a hand to stop her, but she takes it and places it on the button of her cut-off shorts. And then, without waiting for me to make a decision, she uses my fingers to pop that button.
“You just gonna stand there?” she asks.
“I’m fine with waiting for McKay to—”
“Fuck McKay. He’s having a good time with Donovan right now.”
“Indie.” I sigh.
“Adam,” she whispers back, leaning up on her tiptoes to kiss my mouth. “Just stop, OK?” Her words flitter past my lips. “This is happening. We all want it to. We’re just not sure how to make it happen. So Donovan and I have taken control. And tonight, you’re going to touch me.”
She still has my hand and she slips it inside the waistband of her shorts.
I want to stop her, but I can’t. Not when I feel the pool of wetness between her legs.
And when she grabs me, the same way Donovan grabbed McKay down in the kitchen, I know what’s gonna happen next. It feels very inevitable.
But I force myself to pull away. I’m not a man who gives in to base instincts. I remove my hand from inside her shorts and walk across the room to create some distance between us.
“You’re not gonna win this one. You better pick and choose your battles tonight, Adam.”
I slip my pants off so I’m bare, except for my boxer briefs. And then I walk over to the little table, flick the light off, and pull the covers back on my bed. Getting in without saying a word.
Indie walks over to her side, quiet in the near darkness. There’s a moon out, so I can see the outline of her body as she stands on the side of the bed, then hear the shuffle of her shorts as she drags them down her legs.
She pulls her side of the covers back and slips right in next to me, her body already cool from the AC. Her hand goes to my stomach and rests there. She’s waiting for me to say something.
But I don’t say anything.
Everything about Indie Anna Accorsi feels forbidden.
And, if I’m being honest with myself—and why not, right? It’s just me here—everything about her feels wrong.
“You wanna know how Donovan and I skirt around the rules?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll show you.” Her hand reaches for mine and she places my palm over my cock. I’m not hard, but it would not take much to make that change. Then her hand grips mine until I’m squeezing it. She moves my hand back and forth. And I get what she’s doing.
“I’ll do all the work,” she breathes, turning her body a little so her face is pressed up against my shoulder. “You just get to enjoy it.”
“But you’re gonna use my hand?”
“That’s how we keep it legal. But if you want to say fuck the rules, I’m OK with that too.”
My cock begins to fill up and extend and she breathes softly, her breath passing over the curve of my shoulder and hitting my neck.
I close my eyes.
“See,” she says, using her other hand to pull my boxer briefs down just enough so that my cock springs out. “It feels good.”
It’s cheating. But I don’t say that. I would like to think I could stop this. I would like to think that this is a decision I’m making. But it’s not.
She is totally in control of me.
My breathing becomes ragged and uneven as my heart beats fast. Her hand squeezes mine, making me grip my shaft harder, and then she starts jerking me off.
Or… she makes me jerk myself off.
Her strokes are long and slow. Like she knows exactly what she’s doing.
And I’m not gonna lie. There is no point in that. This easiness she has, this knowledge of sex—it bothers me. Because I picture her with other men and I want to kill them.
I want to torture them. Slowly. Cut them. Hit them with very blunt objects. Make them suffer and bleed for teaching her how to do these things.
For daring to touch one of my girls.
“Shhh,” she whispers in my ear, leaning into me a little. She kisses my neck again and again. Moving these soft flutters down along my jaw until she reaches my mouth.
I turn my head towards her and kiss her back, repositioning myself so I can lean up on one elbow and grab a fistful of her hair and hold her next to me. I kiss her hard. And she responds by jerking me harder, still using my own hand to do it.
I stop, let go of my cock, turn my whole body sideways, and push her down on the mattress.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Not tonight.”
“What the fuck? You—”
“Shut up, Indie.” Then I grab her hand and slide it down between her legs, pushing her finger inside her thoroughly wet pussy along with mine.
“Ohhh,” she moans.
“Yeah. You don’t get to control me like that, Indie. Not ever. But if it’s cheating sex you want, I’m happy to play along. For now.”
It doesn’t take much to make her come and that makes me feel a little better.
I don’t want to think of Indie out there alone with strange men. I really don’t. It sends me into a rage that I’m not sure I can contain.
But the easiness of her climax—the quickness of it—makes me think she’s not as experienced as she lets on.
Makes me hope, anyway.
She gushes all over my fingers and then I bring them up to her lips and when she resists me, and doesn’t open her mouth to suck them, I feel a lot better.
I make her suck them anyway. But I feel better knowing it’s not something she’s familiar with.
She passes out with her head on my shoulder and her arm draped casually across my stomach.
I don’t sleep.
I wait an hour or so and then I get up, go into the bathroom, and jerk off as I imagine that it was me kissing McKay down in the kitchen earlier.
Me grabbing his cock.
Me making him lean back and moan.
And then I come as I picture myself killing Donovan.
CHAPTER FOUR - INDIE
The next morning Adam is already gone from the bedroom when I wake.
The nightmare is still fresh. Too fresh. And my heart is galloping inside my chest, a fast, staccato beat that takes long minutes to settle.
I woke up with full recollection of the dream, but like most nightmares, it fades fast. And then there’s nothing left but a general feeling of uneasiness and fear.
And as I linger there in bed, half awake and listening to the sounds in the house, I hear Adam talking to Maggie downstairs.
Last night did not exactly go as planned. But it was close enough.
And anyway, I have a theory I’m working on. Adam isn’t going to be with me until he’s with McKay. It’s not really me he wants. I was just there last night.
I am Misha. God, that bothers me. But I am Misha. That’s how he sees me. Just someone to take his mind off McKay.
I have plans today though. Lots of them. And none of them have anything to do with Adam. So I stop thinking about Misha. And anyway, she’s dead.
I only asked Donovan to kiss McKay because I knew I could make Adam jealous if he saw that. And I know he wants to believe that he’s one hundred percent in control, one hundred percent of the time, but he’s not.
He can spend the day with McKay for all I care. I’m on a mission to find answers.
I have two journals these days.
This is something no one knows about. I have the one Adam gave me for my last birthday and the one I found in the law library on the third floor.
No one goes up to the third floor. The AC doesn’t work right up there and the whole place smells like mold.
I don’t know who the lawyer was in Adam’s family. I can’t picture anyone that high up in rank actually… working for a living. A real job, I mean. Because, of course, killing people is work. And whatever Adam’s father did, I’m sure that was work too. But I know he wasn’t the lawyer in the family because the books on the shelves all date back to the early nineteen hundreds.
Anyway, this is all beside the point and entirely off topic. I went up to the third-floor law library looking for a space to write in the new journal Adam gave me because I still have things to reconcile in my head. I miss my old bedroom. I’m not jealous that it now belongs to Maggie. She needs her own space. And that room was made for a little girl and I’m grown up now.
But I need my own space too. I can’t just flutter from room to room, sleeping here and there. It’s not right. The law library isn’t going to be that space. It’s dusty and hot.
So I went over to the other side of Old Home. The side we don’t use. There are a lot of bedrooms over there. It’s not two floors, though. Only one. This is the original part of the house. I’ve seen pictures of it before the main part—the big, grand part—was added sometime around the turn of the last century.
It’s really just a long hallway with a wall of windows on one side and lots of doors on the other. Kinda like an enclosed breezeway. At the end of that hallway is a big room with a beamed ceiling, a living room with a big stone fireplace and a whole wall of French doors that lead out to the back garden, which has always been neglected. But there’s a path out there that leads to the river. Nathan and I used to play on that path all the time.
This part of the house was remodeled with the rest of Old Home just before I came to live here. And it was open for a while back then. There’s a TV in there. It’s all furnished and everything. Real nice.
But we just never spent no time in there. It was too far away from everything else. So after a year or so Adam just put some white sheets on everything and shut the door to the hallway with the windows and we kinda forgot about it.
