The Other Sister, page 5
“You need it because it’s yours,” Martin said. “Once you start giving away what’s yours, you never stop.”
“Oooo, so serious.”
“It is serious. If you want to have a real family, you’ve got to have a place for them. This”—he gestured at the room—“holds people together.”
“Like a prison.”
“Like a castle.”
“You sound like my sister. Maybe I should be jealous. Maybe you actually wanted to be up here with her, so you guys could cream over this place together. Have its fucking baby, why don’t you?”
“How can you hate it? It’s your home.”
“It’s not my home!” Stacey snapped. “It’s a museum! Everything here belonged to somebody else. You can’t touch it. You can’t move it. If I had my way, I’d rip it all out. Every hand-painted, hand-carved, hand-forged, custom-ordered piece. I’d put a disco ball in the foyer and a hot tub in the great room and let all those dead Walters and Scropes and Burnoviches rear up out of their graves so I could laugh in their stupid rotting faces!”
She wiped at her cheeks. Oh, she was not crying. She’d spent forever on her mascara and now she was going to look like a raccoon. Martin must think she was nuts. Now he’d hate her, like all the rest of the kids did. Like his snotty mother Millicent did.
But Martin just smiled, moved closer, and pulled something out of his pocket.
“A handkerchief?” She laughed. “Who carries a handkerchief?”
“The oldest son of Martin Monroe Senior. Because even if the whole world is headed into hell in a handbasket, his children will remember who they are and where they come from. Go on. Take it.”
Stacey did, and she blotted the corners of her eyes, carefully. Martin watched for a few seconds. Then, he extracted the cotton square from her fingers, and dabbed it across her upper lip and across her forehead.
“You talk about not being able to move. About everything belonging to somebody else? That’s my whole life. Every second of every day belongs to my dad.”
He drew the cloth down her cheek, to her neck, and the hollow of her throat, right where her heart was pounding.
“How old were you when he died?”
Martin watched his own hands as he folded the cloth and slid it back into his pocket. “You mean when he killed himself.”
The words played back in Stacey’s head, stretched and distorted, like a warped cassette tape. He said them so casually. Like he didn’t care.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“Nobody does.” Martin moved over to the wall and leaned in close, like he really wanted to check out the faded piping plover that peeked through the dune grass. “But it’s the truth. He couldn’t hack it anymore and climbed up onto the roof and jumped. Pete found him. I was ten,” he added. “Pete was eight.”
“Jesus. That’s awful.” Somehow, in the four months they’d been going out, Pete had never thought to mention this particular little pile of facts.
Martin shrugged. “It’s not as bad as having to spend the rest of my life with his ghost looking over my shoulder. But I guess you know about that.”
“I’m learning.” I will not close my eyes. I will not cry. There’s nothing to be upset about. Mom and Dad are dead, and it’s not like they’re going to get any deader.
Stacey looked at Martin through the dusty sunbeams and saw how clear and sharp and distant he looked. He glistened, like all the brittle disdain he felt for the whole rotten life he’d been stuck with—they’d been stuck with—shone right through his perfect skin.
Stacey suddenly wanted to kiss him.
She’d planned to get at least that much from the get-go, but until this moment, she hadn’t felt any physical desire for the boy in front of her. Now that she saw him in that bright uncaring light, she wanted to kiss him so deep she’d peel back all the layers behind those drowning eyes. They could share the truth of their hideous lives. She could learn what he knew—how to not to care. Not just fake it every day, but to really, truly, honestly, finally not care.
“You’ve got goosebumps,” Martin whispered. “Are you cold?”
Stacey shook her head, intensely aware of how her hair brushed her bare shoulders. She should have braided it. Put on a nice dress. Done something better with her face. For the first time, she wished she was a better match for the house.
No. Stacey stiffened against the idea. That was Trish’s deal, not hers, and Martin…he was here strictly because she wanted to see how he stacked up against his brother. She dug her hand into her back pocket until her fingers brushed the foil.
I’m the one in charge.
“So, you want a drink? There’s some bourbon in…the den.” She didn’t say “Dad’s den.”
Martin didn’t answer. Not right away. First, he let his gaze wander all around the room, from the dark window frame, across the straight lines of the Greene and Greene furniture, to the open door.
“Where’s your sister?”
“Work. She doesn’t get home ’til seven.”
There’d been some insurance and stuff, but Trish had forked it all over to Mom and Dad’s lawyer for the mortgage and taxes and shit. That meant the only money they had to live on was from Trish’s job doing billing at the hospital, and what Stacey could pick up after school.
“She doesn’t mind you inviting me here, all alone?”
“What if she does?” Stacey sauntered up to him, her hips swaying. He wasn’t fazed at all. The fact she couldn’t get to him once she turned on the juice should have made her mad, but instead she felt a sizzle right under her skin.
“You know, Martin, you’re not what I expected.”
Martin lifted one of his thick, pale eyebrows. She liked them. They made his eyes look even more intense by contrast. “What did you expect?”
“If I was lucky?” Let’s see how thick that ice really is, pretty boy. “A semi-decent fuck.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. She’d expected his eyes to dip, to take a gander at what was on offer. But that dark gaze stayed fixed on her face. “Now, see, that’s what you do.”
“What do I do?”
“You try to shock people. You know what you look like. Delicate. Shimmering. And then you go and shoot your mouth off like that, just to scare the hell out of them.”
Tou-CHAY. And even that didn’t piss her off. What was so different about the way he talked?
Stacey took another step forward. “Do I scare the hell out of you?”
“Nope.”
Another step. Right up into his face. Hands in her sunflower pockets, so her fingers touched the condom wrapper. So her elbows pointed behind her and pushed her breasts toward him. “I’ll have to try harder.”
He was looking now, right down her cleavage. Phew. He was a normal guy after all.
Martin met her eyes again, and Stacey had to stop herself from licking her lips.
“You think this is your scene, Stacey.” He leaned so close his cheek brushed hers, lightly, prickling the delicate hairs. “You don’t know who I am. I’m the big bad wolf. You let me in, and now it’s too late for you.”
“Are you going to eat me up?” she whispered back.
“Every bit of you.” His breath swirled against her ear and carried his words down to her throat, her lungs, her heart. “Every drop of blood, every perfect little bone. I’m going to swallow you whole and you’re going to enjoy it.”
“Promises, promises.” She smiled, to deny his power and his eyes and the screaming need they woke inside her. But she failed, and he knew it.
“I would like that drink,” he said, and he stepped back.
The world came back in an ice-cold rush. Unnerved, Stacey headed for the door in the corner, the one she hadn’t walked through since the accident.
Just do it. Do it quick. She jerked open the door and ducked inside. There’s nothing in here. It’s been six months. It doesn’t really still smell like him. Just open the cabinet. Grab the bottle and the glasses. Mom and Dad can’t see what I’m doing. They don’t care. They’re gone.
They’re gone and they left me here alone and they can’t even care.
Stacey slipped back out into the parlor. She stuffed the bottle and glasses into Martin’s hands so she could drag the door shut and get her face under control.
Too late.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Pour the drinks, will you?”
“Sure.”
The heavy-bottomed tumblers clicked against the cabinet table as he set them down. She heard how smoothly he pulled the wrapper off the bourbon’s cap and poured. Her mouth watered. Oh, she needed this.
By the time she turned around, Martin was holding out a glass with three fingers of Wild Turkey in it.
Stacey held her hand out to take the glass. Martin looked at her fingers as she reached. She’d put a fresh coat of coral pink on her nails. He let his gaze travel up her arm, to her bare shoulder, to her face, to her eyes.
He set the glass down and grabbed her hand. He was bigger than she was, his hand was broad and warm and soft, but not mushy, unlike some. Martin held her hard, like he knew she could take it. He turned her palm up and ran his thumb along the lines etched there. Warmth trickled outward, down her fingertips and up her wrist.
“Pete knows I’m here.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, even though her tongue felt thick and clumsy. “How?”
“I told him.”
Sudden anger short-circuited all the feeling from the slow circles he rubbed against her palm. “What the hell for?”
“Because I don’t lie, ever, about anything.” Martin put the bourbon glass into her hand. The cold glass was a shock to her skin. “That means if you’re with me, you can’t lie, either.”
“Not even one teensy-weensy white lie?” She made her words into a purr, but he ignored it.
“Not even. Because I’ll know. And then all bets are off. Understand?” He didn’t smile, or even blink.
So she smiled for both of them. “I understand, Martin.” Then, she leaned forward and kissed him on his hot, hard mouth.
He didn’t respond. At all. She grabbed his face with both hands, stabbing her tongue at his mouth. But he didn’t open. He didn’t even move.
Humiliation flooded her. She jumped back, breaking the kiss with a loud smacking sound.
“What is the matter with you?” she demanded. “I thought you wanted it! You a secret homo or something?”
He should have got mad at that. Every guy did. But not Martin. He just shook his head.
“I just want you to know,” he said.
“Know what?”
Now he did move. He curled his hand around the back of her head, knotting his blunt fingertips into her hair. Her heart banged out of control. Fear, excitement, and need flooded her, and something else besides.
“If we do this, we really do it,” he said. “It’s not just a one-off. It’s for real. Forever.”
“Forever?” She tried to make a joke, but her heartbeat reverberated through her whole body, robbing her of calm. “Jesus, Martin Monroe. Who do you think you are?”
This time, he was the one who kissed her. His hard hands traveled down her back. He was just on the edge of rough as he squeezed her ass and shoved his fingers between her thighs.
Her body responded instantly. She pressed closer, matched and mimicked his caresses, rough and rowdy.
Let’s see how you like it.
And he did like it. He was hard as hell between them, and Stacey would have grinned if she hadn’t been so wide open to his kisses. Desire obliterated strength and thought. Her knees started to buckle. He dug his fingers into her ass to hold her upright against him. Stacey kicked off her flip-flops, wrapped one leg around his nonexistent butt, and rubbed her breasts hard against his chest. God, it felt good.
“This,” he whispered against her jaw, and her throat, his teeth and his breath grazing roughly against her skin. “This is who I am.”
“Then you’d better come here,” she gasped. “Show me the rest of what you got.”
“Forever?” he asked.
Her eyes found his and Stacey felt like everything slotted into place. Her skin, her dreams, had whispered to her about this heat, this guy who could come up here and make it feel like nothing about her nightmare life mattered. Only right here mattered, only right now.
“Forever,” she said back. And she did not lie.
2.
He dragged her down to the carpet, just like she wanted. It was fast and it was unforgiving. She knew she’d never erase the sensation of his hands on her skin and she knew she’d never want to. She was going to memorize him with her whole body. The rasp of the wool carpet against bare skin just added to the thrill. So did the whiskey they poured down each other’s throats and sucked off each other and out of each other. They wrestled and rolled together until they slammed into the wall under the window. They laughed out loud and rode the hilarity and the ragged, messy, gorgeous heat all the way down.
She was alive. She was total. She was insane and she didn’t care.
Eventually they fell off each other and faded into a bleary, warm doze. At least, Stacey dozed. Martin pretty much passed out. He snored, too, which cracked Stacey up, without her really understanding why.
He looked so perfect and pale and still, Addison Walters could have painted him.
Martin fit here, Stacey realized. Really fit. When he walked into the room, it was like the whole place rearranged itself, just to make him comfortable.
Stacey tugged her strapless bra back into place and went over to the cabinet table. She opened the drawer, and the old checkers box, to pull out the pack of cigarettes and lighter she had stashed there. She blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling and watched it disperse into the slanting, dusty sunbeams.
“You shouldn’t smoke. It’ll ruin your complexion.”
He hadn’t moved, just opened his eyes. She had no idea how long he’d been watching her. But that was okay. That intense, confident look felt as good as anything he’d done while they were busy fucking each other’s brains out.
“Who’d even notice?” She blew out another billow.
“I would.” He pushed himself upright and plucked the cigarette from her mouth. He looked at it skeptically and took a huge, long drag. And promptly fell over coughing and gagging. Stacey fell over on top of him, laughing.
“Ah-ack! You’re tougher than you look. Here. Keep it.” He shoved the thing back into her mouth, too hard, so it squashed against her teeth.
“Watch it!” She grabbed it from him and took another drag. They both sat there against the painted wall, knees up, heads against the windowsill. Stacey smoked blissfully. Martin found one of the tipped over glasses and ran his finger around the inside and held it out to her. She lapped at it, thoroughly and with good humor, but not a lot of energy. But when she lifted her head, he was giving her that look again.
“You’ve got a dirty mind for such a pretty girl.” He dug his fingers into her hair, dragging them down to watch the baby-fine strands flutter. “I mean look at you, all sunshine and satin.”
There was reverence in his voice, but she couldn’t keep her thoughts from flashing straight back to those same fingers touching the sofa arm, and the piping plover on the wall.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.” She stubbed the cigarette out in the bottom of her empty glass.
“You are all the girls. You’re perfect.”
“Not even close.” She picked up his glass, too. Reality was leaching out of the walls around her. She was hungry. She needed to pee. Now that they’d finished, she was disappointed to find nothing felt new, except she was raw and itching inside, and had dust smears down her arms. Her hair probably looked like a rat’s nest.
Shit.
Nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. A minute ago she’d been floating on a river of post-come mellowness and good sweat. Now it was all collapsing under the weight of the house and its shadows.
It was six thirty. Trish would be getting home soon. She’d better get Martin out of here, because when it came down to it, Stacey knew she didn’t have the nerve to let her sister see.
Because deep, deep down, she didn’t want her sister to see.
“Do you ever hate yourself?” Stacey’s words bubbled from nowhere.
“Do you?”
“Every day.” She poured what little bourbon was left into Martin’s glass. The remainder was drying across the floor, making it tacky under her bare feet. She’d have to clean it up, or Trish would smell it, even under the tobacco.
Martin came up to her and turned her around. He took the glass, set it on the windowsill and brushed her hair back from her bare shoulders.
“Now?” he asked, drawing his hand slowly around her breast. “Do you hate yourself right now?”
This time his touch didn’t get down inside her. It was just there, like the sticky bourbon underfoot. She looked up at him bleakly, so that he saw, so that he understood.
And when he smiled, she felt the shadow deepen.
“You want to hate yourself?” he breathed. “Try knowing you are a loser from a line of losers, and that your dad’s the biggest fucking loser of them all. Try knowing your family used to own this whole town, and that the entire point of your existence is to get it all back. And even if you do, that’s not going to be enough.” He kneaded her, his fingers digging in, until she hissed. But he didn’t stop.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.”
Now he did stop. Now he turned away. Stacey’s breast felt cold. She wanted his hand back.
Stacey, you are truly twisted.
“So, what are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna buy the entire fucking town and wrap it all up in a bow. Then, I am going to shove it down my family’s fucking throats.”
Fear trickled into Stacey’s blood, a slow, cold warning. Get him out, it told her. You’ve proved your point. Pete knows where he was, he’ll know what you did. That’s enough.
“Why?” she asked. “Why not just leave?”
“You can’t leave home.”
“Screw that. The second I turn eighteen, I am outta here.”
“Oooo, so serious.”
“It is serious. If you want to have a real family, you’ve got to have a place for them. This”—he gestured at the room—“holds people together.”
“Like a prison.”
“Like a castle.”
“You sound like my sister. Maybe I should be jealous. Maybe you actually wanted to be up here with her, so you guys could cream over this place together. Have its fucking baby, why don’t you?”
“How can you hate it? It’s your home.”
“It’s not my home!” Stacey snapped. “It’s a museum! Everything here belonged to somebody else. You can’t touch it. You can’t move it. If I had my way, I’d rip it all out. Every hand-painted, hand-carved, hand-forged, custom-ordered piece. I’d put a disco ball in the foyer and a hot tub in the great room and let all those dead Walters and Scropes and Burnoviches rear up out of their graves so I could laugh in their stupid rotting faces!”
She wiped at her cheeks. Oh, she was not crying. She’d spent forever on her mascara and now she was going to look like a raccoon. Martin must think she was nuts. Now he’d hate her, like all the rest of the kids did. Like his snotty mother Millicent did.
But Martin just smiled, moved closer, and pulled something out of his pocket.
“A handkerchief?” She laughed. “Who carries a handkerchief?”
“The oldest son of Martin Monroe Senior. Because even if the whole world is headed into hell in a handbasket, his children will remember who they are and where they come from. Go on. Take it.”
Stacey did, and she blotted the corners of her eyes, carefully. Martin watched for a few seconds. Then, he extracted the cotton square from her fingers, and dabbed it across her upper lip and across her forehead.
“You talk about not being able to move. About everything belonging to somebody else? That’s my whole life. Every second of every day belongs to my dad.”
He drew the cloth down her cheek, to her neck, and the hollow of her throat, right where her heart was pounding.
“How old were you when he died?”
Martin watched his own hands as he folded the cloth and slid it back into his pocket. “You mean when he killed himself.”
The words played back in Stacey’s head, stretched and distorted, like a warped cassette tape. He said them so casually. Like he didn’t care.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“Nobody does.” Martin moved over to the wall and leaned in close, like he really wanted to check out the faded piping plover that peeked through the dune grass. “But it’s the truth. He couldn’t hack it anymore and climbed up onto the roof and jumped. Pete found him. I was ten,” he added. “Pete was eight.”
“Jesus. That’s awful.” Somehow, in the four months they’d been going out, Pete had never thought to mention this particular little pile of facts.
Martin shrugged. “It’s not as bad as having to spend the rest of my life with his ghost looking over my shoulder. But I guess you know about that.”
“I’m learning.” I will not close my eyes. I will not cry. There’s nothing to be upset about. Mom and Dad are dead, and it’s not like they’re going to get any deader.
Stacey looked at Martin through the dusty sunbeams and saw how clear and sharp and distant he looked. He glistened, like all the brittle disdain he felt for the whole rotten life he’d been stuck with—they’d been stuck with—shone right through his perfect skin.
Stacey suddenly wanted to kiss him.
She’d planned to get at least that much from the get-go, but until this moment, she hadn’t felt any physical desire for the boy in front of her. Now that she saw him in that bright uncaring light, she wanted to kiss him so deep she’d peel back all the layers behind those drowning eyes. They could share the truth of their hideous lives. She could learn what he knew—how to not to care. Not just fake it every day, but to really, truly, honestly, finally not care.
“You’ve got goosebumps,” Martin whispered. “Are you cold?”
Stacey shook her head, intensely aware of how her hair brushed her bare shoulders. She should have braided it. Put on a nice dress. Done something better with her face. For the first time, she wished she was a better match for the house.
No. Stacey stiffened against the idea. That was Trish’s deal, not hers, and Martin…he was here strictly because she wanted to see how he stacked up against his brother. She dug her hand into her back pocket until her fingers brushed the foil.
I’m the one in charge.
“So, you want a drink? There’s some bourbon in…the den.” She didn’t say “Dad’s den.”
Martin didn’t answer. Not right away. First, he let his gaze wander all around the room, from the dark window frame, across the straight lines of the Greene and Greene furniture, to the open door.
“Where’s your sister?”
“Work. She doesn’t get home ’til seven.”
There’d been some insurance and stuff, but Trish had forked it all over to Mom and Dad’s lawyer for the mortgage and taxes and shit. That meant the only money they had to live on was from Trish’s job doing billing at the hospital, and what Stacey could pick up after school.
“She doesn’t mind you inviting me here, all alone?”
“What if she does?” Stacey sauntered up to him, her hips swaying. He wasn’t fazed at all. The fact she couldn’t get to him once she turned on the juice should have made her mad, but instead she felt a sizzle right under her skin.
“You know, Martin, you’re not what I expected.”
Martin lifted one of his thick, pale eyebrows. She liked them. They made his eyes look even more intense by contrast. “What did you expect?”
“If I was lucky?” Let’s see how thick that ice really is, pretty boy. “A semi-decent fuck.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. She’d expected his eyes to dip, to take a gander at what was on offer. But that dark gaze stayed fixed on her face. “Now, see, that’s what you do.”
“What do I do?”
“You try to shock people. You know what you look like. Delicate. Shimmering. And then you go and shoot your mouth off like that, just to scare the hell out of them.”
Tou-CHAY. And even that didn’t piss her off. What was so different about the way he talked?
Stacey took another step forward. “Do I scare the hell out of you?”
“Nope.”
Another step. Right up into his face. Hands in her sunflower pockets, so her fingers touched the condom wrapper. So her elbows pointed behind her and pushed her breasts toward him. “I’ll have to try harder.”
He was looking now, right down her cleavage. Phew. He was a normal guy after all.
Martin met her eyes again, and Stacey had to stop herself from licking her lips.
“You think this is your scene, Stacey.” He leaned so close his cheek brushed hers, lightly, prickling the delicate hairs. “You don’t know who I am. I’m the big bad wolf. You let me in, and now it’s too late for you.”
“Are you going to eat me up?” she whispered back.
“Every bit of you.” His breath swirled against her ear and carried his words down to her throat, her lungs, her heart. “Every drop of blood, every perfect little bone. I’m going to swallow you whole and you’re going to enjoy it.”
“Promises, promises.” She smiled, to deny his power and his eyes and the screaming need they woke inside her. But she failed, and he knew it.
“I would like that drink,” he said, and he stepped back.
The world came back in an ice-cold rush. Unnerved, Stacey headed for the door in the corner, the one she hadn’t walked through since the accident.
Just do it. Do it quick. She jerked open the door and ducked inside. There’s nothing in here. It’s been six months. It doesn’t really still smell like him. Just open the cabinet. Grab the bottle and the glasses. Mom and Dad can’t see what I’m doing. They don’t care. They’re gone.
They’re gone and they left me here alone and they can’t even care.
Stacey slipped back out into the parlor. She stuffed the bottle and glasses into Martin’s hands so she could drag the door shut and get her face under control.
Too late.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Pour the drinks, will you?”
“Sure.”
The heavy-bottomed tumblers clicked against the cabinet table as he set them down. She heard how smoothly he pulled the wrapper off the bourbon’s cap and poured. Her mouth watered. Oh, she needed this.
By the time she turned around, Martin was holding out a glass with three fingers of Wild Turkey in it.
Stacey held her hand out to take the glass. Martin looked at her fingers as she reached. She’d put a fresh coat of coral pink on her nails. He let his gaze travel up her arm, to her bare shoulder, to her face, to her eyes.
He set the glass down and grabbed her hand. He was bigger than she was, his hand was broad and warm and soft, but not mushy, unlike some. Martin held her hard, like he knew she could take it. He turned her palm up and ran his thumb along the lines etched there. Warmth trickled outward, down her fingertips and up her wrist.
“Pete knows I’m here.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, even though her tongue felt thick and clumsy. “How?”
“I told him.”
Sudden anger short-circuited all the feeling from the slow circles he rubbed against her palm. “What the hell for?”
“Because I don’t lie, ever, about anything.” Martin put the bourbon glass into her hand. The cold glass was a shock to her skin. “That means if you’re with me, you can’t lie, either.”
“Not even one teensy-weensy white lie?” She made her words into a purr, but he ignored it.
“Not even. Because I’ll know. And then all bets are off. Understand?” He didn’t smile, or even blink.
So she smiled for both of them. “I understand, Martin.” Then, she leaned forward and kissed him on his hot, hard mouth.
He didn’t respond. At all. She grabbed his face with both hands, stabbing her tongue at his mouth. But he didn’t open. He didn’t even move.
Humiliation flooded her. She jumped back, breaking the kiss with a loud smacking sound.
“What is the matter with you?” she demanded. “I thought you wanted it! You a secret homo or something?”
He should have got mad at that. Every guy did. But not Martin. He just shook his head.
“I just want you to know,” he said.
“Know what?”
Now he did move. He curled his hand around the back of her head, knotting his blunt fingertips into her hair. Her heart banged out of control. Fear, excitement, and need flooded her, and something else besides.
“If we do this, we really do it,” he said. “It’s not just a one-off. It’s for real. Forever.”
“Forever?” She tried to make a joke, but her heartbeat reverberated through her whole body, robbing her of calm. “Jesus, Martin Monroe. Who do you think you are?”
This time, he was the one who kissed her. His hard hands traveled down her back. He was just on the edge of rough as he squeezed her ass and shoved his fingers between her thighs.
Her body responded instantly. She pressed closer, matched and mimicked his caresses, rough and rowdy.
Let’s see how you like it.
And he did like it. He was hard as hell between them, and Stacey would have grinned if she hadn’t been so wide open to his kisses. Desire obliterated strength and thought. Her knees started to buckle. He dug his fingers into her ass to hold her upright against him. Stacey kicked off her flip-flops, wrapped one leg around his nonexistent butt, and rubbed her breasts hard against his chest. God, it felt good.
“This,” he whispered against her jaw, and her throat, his teeth and his breath grazing roughly against her skin. “This is who I am.”
“Then you’d better come here,” she gasped. “Show me the rest of what you got.”
“Forever?” he asked.
Her eyes found his and Stacey felt like everything slotted into place. Her skin, her dreams, had whispered to her about this heat, this guy who could come up here and make it feel like nothing about her nightmare life mattered. Only right here mattered, only right now.
“Forever,” she said back. And she did not lie.
2.
He dragged her down to the carpet, just like she wanted. It was fast and it was unforgiving. She knew she’d never erase the sensation of his hands on her skin and she knew she’d never want to. She was going to memorize him with her whole body. The rasp of the wool carpet against bare skin just added to the thrill. So did the whiskey they poured down each other’s throats and sucked off each other and out of each other. They wrestled and rolled together until they slammed into the wall under the window. They laughed out loud and rode the hilarity and the ragged, messy, gorgeous heat all the way down.
She was alive. She was total. She was insane and she didn’t care.
Eventually they fell off each other and faded into a bleary, warm doze. At least, Stacey dozed. Martin pretty much passed out. He snored, too, which cracked Stacey up, without her really understanding why.
He looked so perfect and pale and still, Addison Walters could have painted him.
Martin fit here, Stacey realized. Really fit. When he walked into the room, it was like the whole place rearranged itself, just to make him comfortable.
Stacey tugged her strapless bra back into place and went over to the cabinet table. She opened the drawer, and the old checkers box, to pull out the pack of cigarettes and lighter she had stashed there. She blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling and watched it disperse into the slanting, dusty sunbeams.
“You shouldn’t smoke. It’ll ruin your complexion.”
He hadn’t moved, just opened his eyes. She had no idea how long he’d been watching her. But that was okay. That intense, confident look felt as good as anything he’d done while they were busy fucking each other’s brains out.
“Who’d even notice?” She blew out another billow.
“I would.” He pushed himself upright and plucked the cigarette from her mouth. He looked at it skeptically and took a huge, long drag. And promptly fell over coughing and gagging. Stacey fell over on top of him, laughing.
“Ah-ack! You’re tougher than you look. Here. Keep it.” He shoved the thing back into her mouth, too hard, so it squashed against her teeth.
“Watch it!” She grabbed it from him and took another drag. They both sat there against the painted wall, knees up, heads against the windowsill. Stacey smoked blissfully. Martin found one of the tipped over glasses and ran his finger around the inside and held it out to her. She lapped at it, thoroughly and with good humor, but not a lot of energy. But when she lifted her head, he was giving her that look again.
“You’ve got a dirty mind for such a pretty girl.” He dug his fingers into her hair, dragging them down to watch the baby-fine strands flutter. “I mean look at you, all sunshine and satin.”
There was reverence in his voice, but she couldn’t keep her thoughts from flashing straight back to those same fingers touching the sofa arm, and the piping plover on the wall.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.” She stubbed the cigarette out in the bottom of her empty glass.
“You are all the girls. You’re perfect.”
“Not even close.” She picked up his glass, too. Reality was leaching out of the walls around her. She was hungry. She needed to pee. Now that they’d finished, she was disappointed to find nothing felt new, except she was raw and itching inside, and had dust smears down her arms. Her hair probably looked like a rat’s nest.
Shit.
Nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. A minute ago she’d been floating on a river of post-come mellowness and good sweat. Now it was all collapsing under the weight of the house and its shadows.
It was six thirty. Trish would be getting home soon. She’d better get Martin out of here, because when it came down to it, Stacey knew she didn’t have the nerve to let her sister see.
Because deep, deep down, she didn’t want her sister to see.
“Do you ever hate yourself?” Stacey’s words bubbled from nowhere.
“Do you?”
“Every day.” She poured what little bourbon was left into Martin’s glass. The remainder was drying across the floor, making it tacky under her bare feet. She’d have to clean it up, or Trish would smell it, even under the tobacco.
Martin came up to her and turned her around. He took the glass, set it on the windowsill and brushed her hair back from her bare shoulders.
“Now?” he asked, drawing his hand slowly around her breast. “Do you hate yourself right now?”
This time his touch didn’t get down inside her. It was just there, like the sticky bourbon underfoot. She looked up at him bleakly, so that he saw, so that he understood.
And when he smiled, she felt the shadow deepen.
“You want to hate yourself?” he breathed. “Try knowing you are a loser from a line of losers, and that your dad’s the biggest fucking loser of them all. Try knowing your family used to own this whole town, and that the entire point of your existence is to get it all back. And even if you do, that’s not going to be enough.” He kneaded her, his fingers digging in, until she hissed. But he didn’t stop.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.”
Now he did stop. Now he turned away. Stacey’s breast felt cold. She wanted his hand back.
Stacey, you are truly twisted.
“So, what are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna buy the entire fucking town and wrap it all up in a bow. Then, I am going to shove it down my family’s fucking throats.”
Fear trickled into Stacey’s blood, a slow, cold warning. Get him out, it told her. You’ve proved your point. Pete knows where he was, he’ll know what you did. That’s enough.
“Why?” she asked. “Why not just leave?”
“You can’t leave home.”
“Screw that. The second I turn eighteen, I am outta here.”
