Page 10 of Insatiable

I scoff silently, shaking my head as I slide the strap of my bag on my shoulder, ignoring him when I swing the door open and try to walk by.

He catches my wrist and hauls me back, pinning me against his chest and lowering his mouth to my ear. “Drop the attitude.” Chris turns my rigid body to face him, caressing my arms. “I’ve been good, Stacey. Stop attempting to piss me off by acting like a child.”

“I haven’t—”

His rough, unwanted hands silence me as they travel up to my shoulders in a firm stroke. His thumbs run across the faint bruising there before cupping each side of my neck. “What have I told you about talking back to me? Do you want to make me angry?”

He sucks his bottom lip, chewing on it as his eyes search my face, waiting for a snarky retort so he has a reason to throw me onto the floor or bite my cheek.

My back hits the wall, causing the mirrors along it to ripple. His body crushes mine, and I grit my teeth to fight the revulsion, fists clenching by my sides.

“So pretty and defiant,” he mutters, nudging his knee between my legs to force them open. His palm travels up my side. “Do you remember what happens to bad little girls like you?”

“Get the fuck off me, Chris,” I warn him, shoving his chest but failing to move him away from me.

He grins. The bastard loves when I get mad. I feel his excitement against me, and I swallow the strangling lump that’s building in my throat.

Chris has been like this with me since I joined the family years ago. I tried to tell my dad when he’d barged into my shower the day we moved in and forced his mouth on mine. My dad refused to listen when I told him that the boy four years older than me had watched me undress on numerous occasions when I was only fourteen.

Nope. I was apparently a teenage troublemaker, rebelling from the death of my mother.

Chris has kissed me on numerous occasions, mid-argument. But every time, my lips have clamped shut – hard enough to cause me pain – to deny the tongue trying to pry its way into my mouth as I fought back.

As far as I’m aware, we’ve never fucked. But he’s drugged me. Hit me. Made my life hell. I tried to run once, but it only made things worse. He became more violent.

It feels like there’s no escaping someone as monstrous as Chris Fields, but one day, when I figure out a good-enough plan, I will.

His lips part; he’s probably about to describe how loud I’ll scream for him, but a noise behind us stops his words.

Thankfully, the studio door opens, causing him to jerk away, and I can finally breathe.

Tylar stands in the entryway, mouth open, brows knitting together, confused as she looks between the two of us. “Um… Who are you?” she asks Chris, and I close my eyes, hoping he doesn’t introduce himself correctly.

“Members only.” She points to the sign on the wall then stands aside, opening the door wider, silently telling him to fuck off.

I want to hug her.

“Of course,” Chris replies, glancing at me, spinning his car keys on his finger and licking his lips.

He leans in and whispers against my ear, “Just wait until you get home, little sister.”

I stare at him, waiting for him to leave.

Before Chris turns away from me, his smile drops. “Behave.”

Tylar raises a brow at me as soon as he’s gone. “Who the hell was that?”

My own worst nightmare. The stepbrother you don’t know about.

For my own sake, and my friends’, I’ve kept his identity a mystery and do my best to make sure it stays that way.

My older stepbrother Kyle is an angel. He loves me like a brother should. But then there’s Christopher…

“Just some guy,” I lie through my teeth, turning the speakers off and switching the main lights on to kill the colour-changing glow. “I thought you were at your aunt’s place?”

“My mum wants me to deposit money into the bank,” she tells me, pulling open a small cupboard in the corner of the hall and unlocking the safe. She counts notes, about eight hundred pounds’ worth, then shoves the pile into her purse.

“He wasn’t that Bryan guy, was he? I remember you describing him differently. That one was hot. I’m digging the smile and the shaggy blonde hair. Plus, he’s tall.”

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