I tried not to be too pissed about my brother going back to lie on the couch. Sure, I now had the completely fucked-up job of figuring out how to get Sal Stevens off his back. Sure, I had to wrap my mind around the fact that my kid brother managed to funnel ten grand up his arm. Sure, I already had to deal with the assholes after Misty, and keep myself from breaking parole, and make sense of the sway that woman held over me. But he had a heroin-hangover, and he deserved his rest. Right?

Right.

Misty hadn’t hung around for the tête-à-tête with Trick. Soon as Trick started talking she slipped away. Leave it to this woman. Dig me into a situation I didn’t want to be in, and leave me there to handle it. I slammed the dishes into the sink and went upstairs, meaning to take a shower.

And of course she was already fucking in there, using up all the hot water in the house.

I didn’t like how she’d gotten me to do something I didn’t want to do, but I knew she had a point. A really good point. A point so sharp and true it was like a brand-new dart, burrowing straight into cork. I wasn’t used to admitting I was wrong. And while she didn’t make me say the words, my actions spoke louder.

But who was she to tell me what a man ought to do? I was supposed to be telling her what to do. I was protecting her. I was in charge here. I spent four years letting people telling me where to shit and now that I finally had my life back, I was letting some hot piece of ass run me around.

Shit mood or not, every bad thought in my head disappeared as I stepped into the hallway.

It wasn’t my fault. She’s the one who left the door cracked. I swear on heaven and hell and everything in between, I had to walk past the bathroom to get to my bedroom, and I had every intention of walking right past the bathroom. Every single intention. But then I saw the door was open. Not full-on, swinging-on-its hinges open. But not “just a little bit cracked” either. Ajar, as they say. The door was fucking ajar.

And I probably wouldn’t have looked, except for how clearly I could hear her voice. The water was running, but she was standing at the sink. She was singing something in a pained voice. I saw a slip of peach flesh, my limbs went rigid, and next thing I knew I was pressed against the wall and looking straight into that open door.

She stood at the sink with her bra still on. It was one of those half-cup deals that made her neat, palm-sized breasts jiggle slightly as she moved. I wasn’t breathing. I wasn’t even myself, really. One look at her and I may as well have rolled my tongue out onto the floor like some kind of goddamned cartoon character. Her body was slim but curved, her hips far too perfectly wide for the rest of her. Shaped like a pear, and just as enticing. The way a pear at peak ripeness spills down your chin and melts in your mouth. I could taste it.

I could hear all the words she sang, but they didn’t mean anything to me. She was doing something to her hair - unpinning it, I guess. Lock by lock, it tumbled down around her shoulders, brown waves framing her face. She looked like a deer again. But this time, I was a wolf. She wasn’t cute, she didn’t make me feel all tender inside. She was dinner. I was drooling. Every instinct told me to pin her down and keep her there. She stopped singing, looked into the fogged-up mirror. She reached forward and wiped it clean, looking at her own reflection.

“Stop. It,” she said. “Stop. It.”

She gripped the sides of the sink and leaned in, groaning. She leaned in far enough to press her forehead against the glass, shaking her head back and forth.

“Just stop,” she moaned now. “You can’t have him, and you don’t want him. You can’t have him, and you don’t want him. He’s no good. Not for you…”

This little mantra of hers could have been offensive, but it just made my blood pound harder. I didn’t give myself time to think she might be talking about anyone else. Pretty little Misty-Lee was tormented over me. Fair enough, considering that street went two ways. Finally, she sighed and leaned back, turning toward the shower. The bra fell to the ground, and her panties did the same, giving me a spectacular view of the ass she’d been hiding. I was harder than I’d been in my entire fucking life as I stood there imagining that ass in my hands, bouncing against my hips as I drove my cock home again and again, hearing her scream. Scream my name…

I was lost in the fantasy. It didn’t matter that my brother could walk up the stairs any minute, I couldn’t help myself. My dick was straining against my jeans as I stood there listening to the water splash around her body, its tempo changing as she washed herself clean.

And all I could do was think about making her dirty again. Thinking about pumping every last drop of my essence deep into her innocent little body. Thinking about making her beg for it. Making her come so many damn times that she’d work hard to finish me off just to give herself some relief.

“Rev…fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Rev!”

That wasn’t in my mind. That wasn’t my imagination. That was Misty, moaning my name as she showered. Touching herself in that goddamned shower and thinking of me while she did it. And for all that’s good and holy in this world, I couldn’t stop myself. I had a hair trigger already, and my name on her lips like that…

She was moaning too damn loud to hear the door open. And she was moaning too damn loud to hear my belt jangling, my jeans falling. My hand reached out for the shower curtain. It was the last thing I saw properly, because after that it was just her. Her mouth open with a mix of pleasure and shock, her face turning to me, water dripping down her cheeks, one hand on the tile wall, the other between her legs. A pain in her eyes that looked downright sacrilegious.