Page 8 of Our Secret to Keep

Nate is busy driving and biting his lip, and since that simple act makes my cock perk up, I need a distraction. I click on the notification bubble, which opens the app. My eyes widen at the hot-as-hell image on my screen.

Baby Face is a camboy I subscribed to at the start of the summer. What began as watching gay porn turned into me seeking out creators. Now, I’m hooked on this man.

He’s my Nate replacement.

Toned in all the right places, Baby Face is shirtless and tanned, eye black smeared under his big, blue eyes.Those eyes. They practically jump off the screen. I could spot him out in the wild from those dreamy blues alone.

As usual, he wears only a pair of black spandex shorts that hug his big dick and balls. Shoulder pads sit on his broad shoulders, rounding out the hot football player look. He’s even wearing cleats, posing with his fingers shoved through his spiky black hair.

Live show tonight, he tells his adoring fans. He already has over two hundred comments in a matter of minutes. I know how it feels to be admired from afar. It’s both annoying and addicting.

“What are you reading?” Nate asks as he turns off the road.

“Nothing.” I click out of the app and stuff the phone into my pocket. “Just checking comments on my last TikTok video.”

“Yeah?” Nate smirks. “Those thirsty bitches begging for your dick?”

I force a laugh. “Always.”

Nate parks at Café Lacroix, a popular restaurant in Beacon Bay right at the edge of Devil’s Creek. It’s all glass from top to bottom, with a patio on the backside facing the bay. From the parking lot, I hear the water crashing on the shore and smell the saltiness of the sea in the air.

Nate turns off the ignition. We don’t attempt to exit the car, tension clinging to the air like gunpowder.

Being consumed by Nate Brooks is like a drug. After the first time I got high on him, I couldn’t walk away. I think he knows it, too. He uses sex as a weapon to disarm me. And the sad thing is I don’t mind.

I want him to use me.

Hell, I crave it.

“I really am sorry.” Nate gives me those sad golden-brown puppy eyes that weaken my defenses. “I went a little overboard with all the girls. But it was your birthday… and I wanted to make you feel good.”

Herein lies the problem with our relationship. Nate always makes me feel good… and I’m too addicted to him to quit.

CHAPTER3

NATE

My mouth goes drythe second I see my father. Even after ten years of torment, I still can’t look at him and feel anything but hatred.

Old feelings come rushing to the surface as he pats my back. So, I shove them into the darkest part of my mind. It’s the only way to get through this lunch without losing my shit.

“There’s my boy,” Dad says with a thick Texan drawl and a fake smile to hide histruethoughts. “Did you miss me, kid?”

Kid? Has he looked at me?

I haven’t been a kid in years.

Of course, I didn’t miss him.

My dad leans into my arm, lips close to my ear, his accent thicker when angry. “One more screw-up like this, and you’ll be back home working on the ranch, shoveling horse shit until the day you die.”

I grew up on a massive ranch outside of Dallas. However, I lost my Southern accent within a few years of living at a boarding school in Massachusetts. Well, most of it, anyway.

When I say certain words like insurance or cement, River makes fun of me. Occasionally, I drop y’all or fixin’ into the mix, and he laughs because I haven’t been that person in years. I have done my best to remove myself from my Southern roots and create something new—someone untouched by my horrific past.

“I’m not going home,” I fire back at him. “I don’t care what you hold over my head.”

Home is not where the heart is. For me, home is where the horrors are—the place where I lost my innocence and sanity. I would rather die than go back there.

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