Page 221 of Bad for Me

“Son, do you want a new home, a big family that treats you right?”

“Yes,” I cried, wiping my nose and wincing because it was broken again.

“If you join my family, you’ll always have a job. A home. A place of your own. But once you join, you can never leave. Do you understand that?”

To a seven year old boy, a big forever family that treated me right sounded like a dream—like the home I’d always wanted. I didn’t understand that my family would be a cult, and our job would be running guns. That my home would be a farm covering up illicit activity. And that forever meant for life.

Even if I had known, I wouldn’t change a thing—this life may be dangerous, but it brought me everything, including my little flower. For that I will be forever grateful.

Being apart from her, after finally having her in my life again, feels like an aching pain gnawing at me from the inside. I need to see her like I need air to breathe. I can’t keep watching her on a screen when I’m so close to her now.

I take the skeleton key out of Jude’s desk, then run upstairs. Each step renews my determination. Nothing is going to stand between me and my little flower–not a door, or walls, or the weight of my mistakes. Fuck giving her another chance to deny me.

I open the door and let myself in. She rolls over, her face red and swollen around her eyes from crying.

“What you said downstairs isn’t true.”

“What?” she croaks.

Her voice is raw with grief and loss. In a way, she’s losing Crystal and Norma a second time. It doesn’t help that the three of us just steamrolled our way into her life again, not that I feel any remorse over it.

“You said you were alone now that your mom and aunt are gone—and you may feel that way right now—but you’ll never be alone again.” I sit next to her on the bed, gathering her in my arms and facing her toward me. “You’re mine, Wisteria Jean Flowers.”

She tries to push my arms away, but I hold onto her tight. I’ll never let her go again.

“I don’t even know who I am. My whole life is a lie, and the only people I cared about who are still living ghosted me.” Her acidic tone thrums with a barely contained rage, the same rage she held back at the dining table. “I may as well have been dead to you!Youabandonedme.” She chokes her words out between sniffles and tears, slapping at my hands.

She can fight me to her dying breath, push me away as hard and as far as she can. But I’ll always come back to her. She needs to understand that.

“I’m sorry—it was the worst mistake of my life. I thought I was doing right by you, keeping you safe. You need to know every day I spent away from you, a little part of me died. Even when Cain and I drove up to check on you, just seeing you wasn’t enough. I never got over you or touched another woman since you left. I thought of you every fucking day and dreamt about you every night.”

Thoughts of her were the only things that kept me human in her absence. I almost slip and tell her, but she doesn’t need to know about all the gruesome things I did for the farm—all the blood I spilled. How I begged the stars every night to bring her home so I could find solace in her presence. I rather her not know the kind of man I’ve become since she was casted out.

I hold her tighter instead of crying my own tears, because she needs me to be strong for her. She needs me to take her pain away, not add to it.

“There are no words that can describe how fucking awful it was to be apart from you, and I’m done trying to tell you.”

Wrapping her hair around my fist, I angle her head up and devour her mouth. My tongue parts her lips, sliding inside to taste her. What we did in the bathroom yesterday wasn’t enough; it only made me insatiable for her. She’s decadent. Delicious. The way I imagine forever tastes like.

Wisteria may not know it, and it may take her time to accept it, but she’s mine.

She’s mine.She’s Cain’s. And when Jude can beat his own demons, he’ll realize she belongs to him too.

She wraps her arms around my neck, taking everything I give her. I nip her lip, then collar her throat and push her back down on the bed.

I put a bit of my weight on top of her to hold her down. She writhes against me, fueling my inner beast with every stroke of her tongue on my own. He’s drawn to the fire inside her—wants to stoke it and burn the fucking world down.

“You’re mine,” I repeat as I break our kiss to take my shirt off. I unbuckle my pants and pull them down enough to free my cock from my boxer briefs.

“I never agreed to be yours,” she gasps as I kiss along her neck, sucking at the place right below her ear that drives her wild. I drive my hardness into her clothed core, to give her a preview of what she’ll feel later.

“You don’t have to agree; it’s meant to be, little flower,” I rip her threadbare sweatshirt in half down the middle, exposing her perfect round tits and soft stomach.

“I fucking hate you for what you did to me,” she rasps as I trace my tongue around her nipple, then bite it before sucking it into my mouth. I pull from it, draining her essence away, consuming her pureness to keep my inner beast at bay. The desperate, primal hunger controlling me wants to have her in every possible way.

I part from her, looking her square in the eye. “If you hate me so much, tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll accept it, no protest. But don’t fucking lie to me, or yourself.”

Wisteria Jean’s violet irises buzz with deep, overwhelming emotions. A tear falls down her cheek before she grabs my shoulders and yanks me back down, wrapping her thick, milky thighs around my waist. My heart explodes as pure euphoria races through my veins. I rip her leggings and underwear clean off, throwing the torn clothing into the corner of the room.

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