Page 19 of Worse Than Wicked
“Did you?” I ask. “I wouldn’t think any less of you if you let her go. If maybe you didn’t really want to kill her, subconsciously. Maybe, whatever you did, you didn’t do it as much or as hard as you thought. If you hit her with a rock, maybe some part of you made you hold back. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t there.”
“Or maybe you and Mabel are fucking with me,” he says. “I don’t do shit halfway, and no part of me wanted to spare her. I’m not you, Duke. I don’t have some misplaced savior complex.”
“No lies?” I ask. “Promise?”
“I promise,” he grits out. “I killed her. If I didn’t, you can be damn sure it was a mistake. Now you. Did you fuck with her?”
“No,” I say. “No lies. I went back to get Mabel, and then we left the next morning. She was never out of our sight, either.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, lifting his head and dropping it back onto the pillow, like he can’t get comfortable. But I recognize the gesture of frustration. I know all his tells, like he knows mine. “Maybe an animal got her. That’s what I’m hoping. Even if they couldn’t identify her, a body discovered in the woods would have made the news. If not… I fucked up, Duke.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I say. “I’m sure something got her. A bear or a moose or something.”
“Moose are herbivores.”
“Okay, Olive,” I mutter.
She always knew random animal facts. Thinking about her annoys me, and I get up to go check on Mabel. I wish I could get the kid out of my head, stop worrying that one day, I’ll have to tell her that her sister’s not coming home. Of course I won’t, though. Even if I went home, she’d never want to see me again. I bashed her head in on a chunk of cement last time I saw her.
In the bathroom, I find Mabel cleaning herself up, wincing and biting her lip so as not to cry out, her legs shaking and her eyes swimming with tears. I pick her up and carry her to bed, grabbing the ice pack on the way. She huddles against me, like she can’t bear to be near Baron right now.
“You want me to kiss it better?” I whisper, pressing my forehead to her damp, warm skin.
She shakes her head, a shudder rolling through her. “No.”
I would roll her over, but Baron likes her to be in the middle, between us. Since that day she tried to run, I’ve liked it too. He’ll wake up if she gets up and tries to slip out again.
But now, he’s satisfied, and after a few minutes, he stops moving, and I know from the rhythm of his breathing, as familiar as my own, that he’s asleep.
“I could make you feel better,” I tell Mabel, pushing my cock against her belly. She can feel that I’m hard. It’s impossible not to be with the girl I love lying naked in my arms.
“I’m too sore,” she murmurs.
“I could just lick you a little,” I say. “The way you taste… God, just feeling you cum on my tongue gets me off too.”
“Baron just came inside me.”
“Even better,” I say, pulling her leg over me and rocking against her. “I love it when I can taste my brother in your cunt.”
“You don’t have to always clean up his messes.”
“I’m not,” I protest. “I like it. And you’re not a mess. You’re my duchess.”
“And a mess,” she says, looking away.
I rumble a groan when I feel what she means—she’s getting wet, coating my shaft with her slickness.
“You’re my mess,” I say. “All juicy and full of cum. I love it.”
“And blood,” she mutters, hiding her face against my chest.
“You think a little blood bothers me? I fuck after Baron all the time, and if you aren’t dry enough for him to make you bleed, he doesn’t get off.”
“Don’t make excuses for him.”
“It’s not an excuse if it’s the truth,” I say, lifting her chin and leaning in, giving her a second to pull back if she wants. When she doesn’t, I press my lips to hers, and the calm that only she brings settles over me, a feeling like going home. Like I can stop striving for one goddamn minute and just breathe, justbe.
I know I give her the same, and that’s why I’m here. Not because I match her brain like Baron does, but because I match her body.
