Page 39 of Duke
He kneels between my legs, taking in the swollen pink flesh. My assumption is he’s going to clean me up a bit with the washcloth in his hand, which is a totally sweet gesture… but then he sets it aside in favor of running a finger down my slit.
“Do you know how long I’ve waited to watch my cum drip out of your thoroughly fucked pussy?” My heart thuds in my chest because I’m picking up on emotion in his voice. I stare at him, wondering what brought this on. We’ve had sex before. I chew on the inside of my lip, my brow furrowing.But never just the two of us, not really.I have a feeling this thing that we’ve done together has been an eye-opener for him. I can practically see his mind going a million miles a minute when I search his eyes.
I slowly shake my head. “No. Um. How long?” I don’t know what he’s getting at. Since he kissed me down in the basement, maybe? I swallow, uncertainty rising within me.
His eyes are locked on my pussy, and a moment later his mouth is back between my legs. He groans, swiping his tongue over my hypersensitive flesh, and sucks on my clit so hard. The animalistic noises coming from deep within his chest have my back arching from the bed. “Oh, fuck.” My hands grip his hair, and I tug hard as his tongue laps up every trace of us, licking into my cunt and moaning. The sheer naughty factor of him eating me out after he’s come inside me sends me careening over the edge one last time with a confused shout. “Duke!” I wasn’t expecting it, but my body convulses as waves of pleasure ebb and flow over me. I didn’t even know I was capable of this many orgasms in such a short span of time. When my breathing finally regulates, I can do nothing but stare at him.
He looks away, picking up the washcloth and carefully wiping me clean. Just when I think he’s forgotten he asked me a question that I didn’t know the answer to, he rasps out, “I’ve wanted to know what it’d be like probably as long as you’ve been Stella Bella to me. Just didn’t want to admit it.”
My lips part, confusion rushing in, but he puts his finger to them, then scrambles from the bed. He snatches his boxer briefs from the floor, slips into them, then heads to his dresser. He pokes around, finally pulling out a T-shirt. He looks at it, nodding to himself before he brings it to me. His voice still rough, he murmurs, “Put this on.”
Giving him a curious look, I take it from him and shrug into it as I get up from the bed. The shirt’s like a dress on me.
“I wanna talk to you about something.” A line mars the center of his forehead as he frowns to himself. “Show you something. Sort of.” He runs an impatient hand through his hair—but the impatience has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. He releases an audible sigh, holding out his hand to me.
He opens the door, glancing to the right toward the stairs, but no one is there. I have no clue what he’s doing or thinking. Tugging me across the hall with him, he lets us into Mason’s room. “Hey, man.” He pauses only briefly, acknowledging that Mason is present, before bringing me in behind him and closing the door.
“Hey.” Mason’s brow furrows, taking in the state of the two of us, Duke in his underwear and me in his oversize shirt and nothing else—not that anyone would know unless they peeked. After giving us a once over, Mason’s scrunched brow gives a I-know-what-you’ve-been-up-to wriggle. His eyes twinkle. “Mi casa es tu casa. You know that, D. Everything okay?”
I give Mase a quick shrug because I don’t have a clue what’s happening.
Duke heads to the balcony, throwing an apologetic wince over his shoulder. “Sorry, man, I didn’t know if you were here. Just need to talk to Lennon outside for a sec. Need to show her something.”
If Mason is concerned, he doesn’t show it, turning around and flopping unceremoniously onto his bed. “No problem. I was just scrolling social media.” He goes right back to whatever he was doing on his phone, though the concentration on his face as he begins to read is a little off. I don’t have time to think about it now, but I’ll have to ask later if something’s going on. Duke isn’t the only one behaving strangely, that’s for fucking sure. They’re both making me anxious.
Duke and I step out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind us. He leads me over to the railing, and for a moment, everything seems normal. We stand side by side, looking out over the pool and yard. The sun has set, but it’s not quite full-dark, and the twinkle lights haven’t flipped on yet. I let out an unsteady breath and glance at him out of my peripheral vision. He looks… nervous. I wet my lips and turn my head to face him. “What are we doing out here, Duke?”
Clearing his throat roughly, he pivots, looking into my eyes. “When I was younger, I dealt with my parents fighting a lot. Then there was a mess with the divorce. I never wanted to be in the house.” He takes a deep breath. “So, I’d go outside and lie in the grass. Stare at the stars for hours. It made me feel better somehow.” He shrugs, his gaze casting upward as one by one, stars begin to twinkle to life.
There’s a slight breeze in the air, and it drifts past my bare legs, making me shiver despite the Georgia heat. I take a step closer to him, then run my hand up his bicep. “Okay.” I cock my head to the side, trying to figure out where he’s going with this.
“After a while, I stopped doing it. I don’t remember if I thought it was childish or if I just didn’t need the escape as much.” His voice hitches, and he runs a hand through his hair as a faint blush creeps up his neck. “B-but then Juliette died.” He pauses, and in the following seconds, our eyes connect. I can see clearly that he’s reliving every moment of grief after she was gone. Disbelief. Heartbreak. Rage.
My heart cries right along with his, and I nod my understanding, unable for a moment to come up with the right words. I press my lips together tightly in an attempt to control their wobble. “That must have been very difficult for you to go through. Not something you ever want to accept. To lose someone at all, much less like that.” Her death had rocked me hard, too. And I worry—because she and I didn’t talk much after that awful night.
He gestures upward. “I’ve always lost myself in the stars when I needed an escape.” Clearing his throat, he pulls me into his side. “After she was gone, I never expected to see you again.”
My brow arches. “Even though our parents got married?”
Duke gives me a funny look. “Didn’t know that was going to happen at the time. Certainly never thought it would last. I’ll be honest, I don’t know why or how they’re still together. I definitely made some assumptions about both you and Nikki, but we can talk about that some other time.” He heaves out a sigh. “Then, what was it, a year later? There you were. In my own damn house when I came home for the holidays during my freshman year at KU.”
“Is that why I used to see you roaming around outside at night? You were looking at the stars again?”
He inclines his head, his nod almost imperceptible. “Yes, Stella Bella. You were the brightest of them—the beautiful star who stole my attention.”
My lips part. Stella.Star.Oh, fuck. I’m so stupid. Blood rushes to my face, making it hot. My hands go clammy. Is he saying he—?
“I was in complete denial, lying to myself. I wanted you fucking bad. And I felt so fucking guilty about it.” He answers my question without me ever having to ask. Rubbing a hand over his stubbled cheek, he rips his gaze from mine, his jaw tightening. “It felt like a betrayal to Juliette’s memory. I let you think the issue was that I didn’t like you and your mom joining the family… kinda fucking let myself think it, too. Especially with the whole stepsister thing buzzing at the back of my head. I told myself over and over again that I didn’t want you. I let myself do and say things to you that I never should have. I’m so fucking sorry.” His face contorts with something that looks a whole lot like regret.
But what is it that he’s regretting, exactly? What he’s let me believe all these years? Being with me now? Oreverydamn bit of it. I just let him in. All the way in. And now he drops this bomb on me. For what purpose? It’s tearing up my heart.
With my lip full-on trembling and my eyes glassy, I blink. Then I blink again, trying to hold back a rush of tears. “We aren’t siblings.” I let out a stuttered, ragged breath. “But you let me feel like shit because you felt guilty. So you were awful to me. I thought you were making fun of me every time you called me Stella.” I feel sick with this revelation. All that time, he’d looked at me, and I’d thought he despised me. It’d been an act. “Y-you let me think I was repulsive to you. Because of who I was and where I’d come from. It was humiliating. Every family dinner where you wouldn’t look at me. Every time your father made you do something for me. Every time you rolled your eyes and turned your back on me.”
All that time. He wanted me.
Duke reaches for me, but I put up my hands. “Worse, you let yourself keep right on believing it, too, even once I was here in front of your face.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he works a hard swallow. “I needed you to know why I called you Stella Bella. It didn’t seem right to keep it from you, to have you continue to think I was using it as a put down. I never meant it like that.”
