Page 44 of CurVy 13

I’m wary of leaving Tyler alone, so I give him one of my favourite spicy books and tell him to read it. I sit with him on the sofa and stare. When he’s like this, he’s boyish and unsure but still sexual, living inside a very adult male body.

So this is me now…

This is what three days with the most beautiful and damaged individuals have done to me. I’m aching for a broken man who sexually assaulted me while yearning and keening for his brother who raped and demoralised me.

I’m living a dark romance.

I try to swallow it all down, like a very tangible entity, push it away, to the depths of me, out of sight, out of mind, so that I can think rationally again… Nope. It doesn’t work. My fucked-up feelings for them are cellular.

I go to leave but Tyler reaches for me. “No. Stay! You’re mine. I want you.”

He looks about ready to throw me down if I say no, so I grip his hand, using my thumb to brush the scars, to caress and love them. He looks at my thumb.

“I’ll come back.” I smile. “I’m going to let myself fall in love with you, Tyler. I’m going to start falling right now. Is that okay?”

His brows tighten, distrustful. “You don’t know me.”

“Yes. I do.” I shuffle closer. “I know that your eyes are blue when you’re resting, but when you’re lost in thought, they appear almost grey, like they are clouded with the same confusion that’s in your mind. I know that when you come, you growl from your throat, releasing all that pain and letting go.”

He inhales sharply, repeating my words back to me. “Those aren’t important things.”

“No? I know your soul. And your vulnerability. What is more important than those?”

I lean in and kiss him.

After a few minutes, I can’t waste any more time, needing to act. I stand and leave him on the beanbag with the book on his lap and my affection dancing in his eyes.

Hesitation fills my stomach with air as I stand outside my bedroom, and, to my fucking shock, I almost knock. I almost knock on my own fucking door.

Go in there!

Walking in, I find Donnie sitting on the corner sofa, staring at my bed with his phone in his fist, the display still bright from recent activity. A smoking cigarette is pinched between the fingers of his other hand, the bright cherry dying at the filter.

“I don’t like you smoking inside.” It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever said, but it’s a statement that holds weight—I’m no longer his to control. I want some authority back.

“He isn’t dead. They revived him.”

His words press a deep, relieved exhale from me. “Thank God. That means—”

“Do you like my brother?” He stares as the ember flares and slowly melts to dust. “Or is it an act?”

Did he just ask me that?

Like he hasn’t been threatening to stab a screwdriver into my eye?

Like I’m the one who owes them something. Fuck him.

I grit my teeth and answer him honestly. “I do—"

“Don’t fucking play with me, Pup!” He rises to his full height—a height that looms.

My fingers twitch to throw something at him, but the stiffness in his posture, the stillness to his breath, hint at genuine concern. And I’m a moth again… this time to his damn show of vulnerability. “The truth, Pup.”

“I do.” I cross my arms over my breasts. “I like him.”

“Good.” He walks straight at me. “I need you to protect him.”

I shuffle backwards until the wall hits my spine, pushing air through my lips. “Why?” I breathe. “What’s going to happen now?”

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