Burgeoning hangover and furious brother notwithstanding, Brittany’s night had been miserable. Alone with just her thoughts, in a room surrounded by the photos and in an apartment surrounded by all things male, she’d gone over the edge. Worse, another stash of Trey’s condoms had fallen out of the bathroom cabinet as she’d searched for a spot to place her personal items.
Anger and jealousy, tempered by the memory of Trey’s ominous promise, added to her discomfiture.
“Fuck off, Donovan,” Trey snapped, breaking the bleak thoughts. “This is the second time in less than an hour I’ve had to tell you that. I wouldn’t have me repeat myself if I were you.”
A mask of fury marred Bryson’s good-looking face. In moments, he stood a hair’s breadth from Trey, trapping Brittany between them.
“Put my sister down and repeat that.”
Trey attempted to put her down but she clung to him. Leaning forward, she shoved her brother back. Bryson crowded her in, on the verge of removing her from Trey’s arms.
“Don’t fight over me.”
Trey rested one hand along the slope of her breast and the other on the curve of her hip. His touch singed and branded her. She could lay in his arms forever.
“I’m going to take you to your room, Brit. Your brother and I have to talk,” Trey spat.
With fists, judging by their mutual glowers. “Please. Both of you. Don’t fight over me,” she repeated. Evading her mother’s house had landed her in the middle of a battlefield. Besides Trey’s physical presence, harmless photos were crumbling her hard-won control. Not long after the assault, she’d had to look her attacker in the eye and pretend nothing had happened. And she’d had to keep up the pretense for two years until he’d moved away. Why did it seem as if she couldn’t continue in silence now? That the way to overcome what she’d been through was to talk?
Tell.
“Get away from Trey and tell me where you were when I got home,” Bryson yelled, yanking her arm.
Her heart rate sped up, pure terror turning her blood to ice. Bryson didn’t notice she rode the edge of panic but Trey must have. His narrowed look spoke volumes.
Trey knocked Bryson’s hand away and forced her to her feet. She laid her flattened palms upon his chest, her knees weak.
“Or was she hiding in your bed all along and you sent me off on a wild goose chase?” her brother continued.
“I don’t need this shit from you, man.”
Trey held her waist, somehow knowing if he didn’t, she’d slip to the floor.
“I didn’t know where the fuck Brittany was when we got here.”
“Seems to me like you found her pretty fast once I left.”
“You’re a jackass,” she hissed, hostility rising up in her like an erupting volcano. His burst of anger had frightened her a moment ago but her brother’s attitude frustrated her and Trey’s presence bolstered her. “Trey’s your best friend and you’re accusing him of wrongdoing when all he was doing is helping me.”
Bryson stared at the two of them, shock darkening his gray-black gaze. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d raised her voice. She’d just gone with the flow, floated through life, hoping no one, no man, noticed her.
“I can’t stand on my own.” Which wasn’t a lie. “I don’t know how I even got back to the apartment. When Trey let me in, I was just short of collapsing.” Folding her arms and narrowing her eyes, she dared him to gainsay her.
“Jesus! Do you know how worried I was when I didn’t find you here? With your purse and your cell phone still here.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, fatigue pulling his features down. “Where were you?”
Her bravado almost failed her but Bryson had to understand she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She couldn’t remember ever being one. “I slept with a friend,” she said breezily. “He called and asked me for a drink. I didn’t like being stuck in this house so I took him up on his offer and we ended up…” Her voice trailed off. Let him draw his own conclusions. “One thing led to the other.” She licked her lips, standing her ground, even if Bryson looked morbidly ashen. “Then we fell asleep.”
“You’re telling me some dude made a booty call to you?” He glared at Trey. “Some other asshole and not him?”
“I’m going to ignore that for the moment, Donovan,” Trey snarled. “But why don’t we settle this somewhere else?”
“Where? At a urologist’s office to have your cock hacked off?”
She gasped, her ears burning at Trey’s string of curses. “I’m sure you make booty calls to women all the time.” She leaned against Trey to quiet him down. “Why make such a fuss with me because I went on one?”
Her ploy worked. Situation diffused. Somewhat.
Bryson stared at her. “You’re my little sister!” The rafters seemed to shake at his roar. “You’re not supposed to be letting men…touch you.”
“I have and they do.”
Bryson clamped his jaw shut, studied her with a fulminating look and brushed past them. The slam of his bedroom door punctuated the silence.
Her stomach roiled like a storm-tossed sea. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Grabbing her shoulders, Trey turned her into the bathroom. They’d stopped right in front of it, thank goodness. She stumbled forward, raising the toilet seat just in time.
Groggy, she lifted her head from where she was leaning. Against a toilet. Oh, gross.
She wasn’t a drinker. God, but she’d gone insane. She’d felt so scared and alone after Trey left. Everything about her room reminded her of all the times Trey visited Bryson. Keeping the peace, and Bryson’s and Trey’s happy memories, hinged on her ability to remain silent.
And she faced another reality too. Trey’s rejection had crushed her. She hadn’t wanted to admit it, not having the ability any longer to cry and terrified to rant and rave.
For most of her life, Brittany worshipped Trey. That’s why her emotions reined free around him, soaring from the shackles she’d placed on them.
Trey had left her last night though, as she knew he must, and she’d lain in her bed, willing her mind to settle and her body to relax. A useless endeavor, so she’d gotten the bottle of wine, starting with a small glass. Reaching her wit’s end and unable to stay in the guestroom a moment longer, she’d set the glass on the kitchen counter. Then, wine bottle in hand, she’d made it to Trey’s closet. After guzzling the bottle, she’d curled herself in a tight ball and had fallen asleep, surrounded by the comfort of Trey’s clothes and his lingering scent.
A wet washcloth in hand, Trey knelt in front of her and wiped her face with the comforting coolness.
“You smell like sour grapes, Brit.”
He brushed hair from her face. His touch was light, almost nonexistent. Shivers traveled to her toes.
“I’m going to get you to your feet so you can rinse your mouth out, then I’m going to put you to bed so you can sleep off the rest of the alcohol.”
“Maybe you should tell Bryson the truth.” Knocking back bottles of wine and passing out in closets couldn’t be worse than Bryson thinking she whored around. “I don’t want to come between you two.”
“Don’t worry about me and Bryson right now, sweetheart. You and I will talk when you sober up.”
“I-I think I want to go home.” Asking to go to her mother’s house meant things were desperate. At least there, though, she wouldn’t be alone.
“Don’t worry about anything right now,” he told her, hoisting her to her feet and helping her to the sink.
When he turned on the faucet, she cupped her hands and filled them with water. Slurping in the lukewarm water, she swished it around her mouth then spat it out. Three times she did that before the awful taste washed away.
Trey leaned against the sink’s small countertop, so near her hair brushed his arm when she raised her head. Their gazes met, his a smoldering dark pool filled with desire and need.
Her nipples hardened. He groaned and ran his fingers along her jawline, traced the outline of her mouth. His nostrils flared and he blew out a breath.
“I need to get out of my uniform,” he said hoarsely.
She blinked. With all the excitement of the morning he’d not changed his clothes.
“I’m late for a meeting with Sylvia.”
Sylvia. One of his lovers. An image of the foil packets in the drawer behind her rose in Brittany’s head and she sniffed, refusing to acknowledge any other feeling but annoyance. She jerked open the drawer.
“I found these.” She hurled the unopened condoms at him.
Trey caught them and winced. “Shit.”
She turned toward the door but Trey grabbed her arm. She jerked away, her heart stuttering then hammering.
This was Trey.
“It isn’t what you think—”
Whirling to face him, she glared at him, forgetting the fear that had seeped into her at his sudden touch. “I never took you to be so asinine. We’re both grown. It isn’t a crime for you to have lovers. Women have always adored you.”
What more could she say? Her calm, measured words should settle things between them.
He backed her to the wall, placing his hands on either side of her head. Her body responded and she arched against him. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, the column of her throat.
“Yes I have lovers, Brit,” he whispered, brushing his lips against her mouth. “What you want from me and what they want from me are two different things.”
He kissed her again, a bare touch of his lips against hers, making her yearn for more. Her chest rose and fell in rapid breaths. “What do I want from you?”
“Me,” he stated without arrogance, uttering the brutal truth. “I can give you this.” He pressed his erection against her then placed her hand over his thumping heart. “But I can’t give you this.”
His heart. His love. His commitment.
Her emotions spun and careened, his words destroying all hope of a future between them. “We share a connection. So much deeper than the physical. There’s no one else I’d trust enough to make love to me.”
“Someone made love to you. Why won’t you trust any other man but me to make love to you again? What happened to you, my little Brittany?”
“Losing my virginity wasn’t what I thought it would be,” she muttered, unable to meet Trey’s scrutiny. “I had a very botched deflowering.”
A glower darkened Trey’s face.
“You asked,” she charged.
Her words deepened Trey’s frown. “You’re right,” he snarled. “I asked.”
“Bryson is going to discover us in here. I can imagine the scene with those condoms on the counter.”
“How was your deflowering botched?”
Heat suffused her. The question alone embarrassed her. However, the malice in Trey’s voice and his narrow-eyed contemplation concerned her.
“What did he do to you?”
Raped me. Humiliated me. Threatened to kill me.
The words drummed through her head, on the tip of her tongue. She dulled her thoughts, piercing her reawakening emotions with the sharp edges of shame and guilt. Her feelings imploded and she swept Trey with a dispassionate gaze.
“Our clothes had just come off. We’d been kissing but I wasn’t ready for him to enter me. He was as inexperienced as I was so he forced himself to fit inside me.”
Menace clouded the air and she regretted her robotic-sounding words.
“Forced?” Trey repeated. “You told him to stop and he didn’t?”
She’d begged him to stop. “N-no,” she responded, tracing the outline of a button on his shirt. “I don’t mean that way. Neither of us realized I wasn’t ready.”
“Who was it?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m tired,” she added when he would’ve questioned her again.
Another moment passed before Trey sighed, then he turned away and opened the door. He scooped her in his arms again and headed in the direction of her room.
“Can I sleep in your room right now?”
Trey hesitated but then redirected his steps. Reaching his bedroom, he tucked her in then leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Sleep, baby girl. You’re safe. If you never believe anything else I tell you, believe that.”