My brother was silent on the drive home from the bar, staring out of the window as we passed through the city on our way back to the house. I wasn’t sure what would happen now that he’d just publicly kissed Ella in front of people who would spread the word as fast as they could. I looked over at him, trying not to be angry. I had known exactly how he was feeling in that moment, how seeing Ella with Xavier had affected him. If Julian hadn’t been the one who’d gone over there, it would have been me after a few more drinks.

I sighed, turning onto the side highway that took us to our country house.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said to him, though I wasn’t sure of that at all. It was just my natural inclination to be optimistic, especially in the face of my brother’s cynicism.

“What is wrong with her?” Julian asked. I shook my head.

“There’s nothing wrong with Ella, Julian. You know that. She’s confused and scared, that’s all. She’s spent her whole life in this house.”

He sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “That was so stupid. That was a really stupid thing to do.”

“It was,” I agreed, looking over at him with a grin.

“Why do you always let me do these things?” he said with a groan. I laughed.

“There was no way I could have stopped you in there.”

“Probably not,” he said. We pulled up to the house then and went inside. Everything was dark—our mother would have gone to bed hours before. We went inside and I heard Julian sigh. He looked at me with a defeated expression.

“I think we should go back to Washington in a couple of days,” he said, his voice flat as if he didn’t really mean it. And I knew he didn’t. Leaving Ella behind was going to be rough on both of us, maybe Julian especially. He was the one who had gotten her to open up to us in the first place.

We went upstairs and went our separate ways to bed, but I didn’t fall asleep right away. I couldn’t. I got up and paced around my room, but it was beginning to feel small and cramped. Even when I opened the windows to let in a breeze, it felt stifling. I left the room then and started to walk the halls of the large house, padding silently around on bare feet. It was dark, but I knew the place well, and I had no trouble weaving through the halls without having to use my hands to navigate the shadows.

I heard the front door then, and before I could creep back to my room, Ella came up the stairs and cut me off.

“Ella,” I said softly, trying not to scare her, but she jumped and let out a soft scream that she stifled with her hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. She jerked it away, her eyes on my face in the dark. I could just see the outline of her features in the light that was shining in through the windows. She was staring at me, a mix of emotions on her features.

“Why did you let him do that?” she asked, letting her anger be the first to show itself.

“I couldn’t stop him,” I said to her. “You know him.”

She glared at me, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Now everyone knows we—he—”

“Everyone saw him kiss you. You didn’t kiss him back.”

She paused for a moment, then nodded.

“How was the rest of your date?” I asked her.

“It was fine,” she said. She was standing close to me in the dark from where we had almost run into each other and she was looking up into my eyes.

“Did he kiss you goodnight?”

Her lips parted to speak but she didn’t say anything. I took the chance to lower my lips to hers, to kiss her softly. It might be the last time I would ever get to do such a thing, and I would have kicked myself forever if I hadn’t taken the opportunity to do it. Ella’s lips closed around my own, then started to respond slowly when I slipped my tongue into her mouth. She was wrapped in my arms; it was something that I had done automatically, without thinking about it. We were pressed close and I could feel the way her body was shaking against mine. She wrapped her arms around my neck then and held me to her while we kissed at the top of the stairs. There was a noise above us and we broke apart abruptly, both looking up toward the sound on the third landing. We saw nothing but shadows, though the moment had been broken and Ella had taken a step away from me, not looking at my face. I took her cheek in my hand and turned her face to look at me.

“Come to my room,” I said to her. It wasn’t a command or a suggestion, simply an invitation. She paused for a moment as if she were thinking, then leaned in and kissed me softly on the mouth while she nodded. I took her hand and pulled her into my room, shutting the door behind me.

“We have to be quiet,” I said to her, taking her hands in my face and kissing her fiercely on the mouth, tasting her tongue with mine. “We have to be quiet, Ella.”

She whimpered against my lips, kissing me back, her hands frantic on my belt. She wanted me as much as I wanted her, as much as I always wanted her—I could feel it in the way her body pressed against mine, the way her hands wrapped around my cock when she freed it, pulling me gently to the bed. She lay down on her back and pulled me on top of her, lifting her dress over her hips so that I had access to her pussy. I shook my head, not wanting to rush in. I wanted her naked, bared beneath me. I undressed her before I touched her. She seemed impatient, but I was going to take my time with her no matter what. I had never gotten the chance to really touch her on my own, and I was going to do it now.

I kissed down her body, taking her nipples into my mouth one at a time and sucking on them gently. I applied more pressure when she didn’t react, flicked at them with my tongue until she squirmed and let out a long sigh. I crawled down further, but when my face was between her legs, she sat up and shook her head at me.

“No,” she said, taking my face in her hands and pulling it to hers. She kissed me once, then again with more fervor, lying back down so that I was lying on top of her. I wrapped my hands under her ass, lifting her hips so that I could slip my cock into her just like she wanted. I started by grinding her slowly, holding her legs apart in my hands and looking down to watch my cock move in and out of her tight little pussy. I grinded against the back of her channel, feeling how good she felt clenched over me, taking me deep inside of her.

“Feels good after a long night out with the wrong person, doesn’t it?” I asked her, unable to help myself. “Feels good to come back to my arms.”

She glared at me, kissing me instead of responding with her words. She didn’t have to. Her body was telling me everything that I needed to know by riding up against mine, her hips moving in rhythm with my thrusts. I fucked her until I found that sweet spot within her, until she started squirming and moaning out of control. I had to put my hand over her mouth as I continued to hit that spot over and over, my thrusts deliberate and slow. Her hips started bucking and her breath caught in her chest as she started to come underneath me, letting out a whimper against my hand that made me continue to ride her through it until she came one more time for me. She pulled away from me then, slipping out from underneath me and putting her dress back on.

“I’m going to bed,” she said, chewing on her lip. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

She turned around before I could say anything and disappeared from my room. I leaned against the wall for a moment, taking a deep breath, trying to compose myself before I went back to bed. Still, I spent a long night thinking about her before I fell asleep.

I woke up in the morning to the sound of my mother shouting and shot up out of bed and down the hall toward her voice before I even got fully dressed. I saw her standing in Ella’s doorway and my heart dropped to my stomach. I knew what she was angry about. She had no doubt heard about last night with Julian and was blaming it on Ella. A surge of anger raged through me when I heard the words that were coming out of my mother’s mouth.

“I knew that you were nothing but a whore when I married your father,” Lola spat.

“Mom,” I nearly shouted as I came at her from down the hallway. “Do not talk to her like that.”

My mother didn’t react to me as she normally did, with calm and kindness. She glared at me instead, wrinkling her nose up in disgust.

“You’re a part of this too. All three of you are. I saw you two kissing last night. It’s disgusting.”

I shook my head. That’s what the noise had been—my mother had come out of her room and seen us, but waited until morning to confront Ella. I stepped past my mom and into Ella’s room, where Ella was sitting on her bed with her face in her hands. I went to her without thinking, put my hand on her back to comfort her, but she shrugged me away fiercely and looked up at my mother in the doorway.

“I thought you were the smart one, Eric,” my mother spat. “Better than your brother Julian. I would expect this depravity from him but not from you.”

“Depravity?” I asked. “That’s what you think?”

“She’s your sister,” Mom said.

“She’s our stepsister. And we barely know her. We’ve spent the last ten years apart.”

“You barely know her, but you’re having sex all over the house with her anyway?” my mother scoffed. “Shows how sick she is.”

“It’s not their fault,” said Ella. “It’s my fault, I—I wanted them both.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Mom’s tone was sarcastic, poisonous. It was then that Julian swept past her and into the room, taking Ella’s arm and pulling her to her feet.

“We’re leaving,” he said. “I’ll come get the rest of your things later.”

“Julian—” I said.

“Come on, Eric,” he said. His voice was deadly serious and I knew better than to argue. Julian could be intense when he meant something, and he wanted to get Ella out of there more than anything. I was in agreement with him.

“So you’re just leaving?” my mother asked as we filed past her out of the doorway.

“Yes,” I said, looking back over my shoulder. “Julian and I will be back for Ella’s things, then we’re going back to Washington.”

Mom huffed, stomping her foot like an angry horse. I gave her one last glance as we went outside to Julian’s car and I got in the backseat. We pulled away in silence, the tension thick in the air as we drove off with nothing. Julian started to head in the direction of the lake house. I saw that Ella was looking out of the window, decidedly not speaking to us. Her reflection in the glass was tormented, and I found myself reaching out to put my hand on her shoulder before she yanked herself away.

It stayed quiet until we got to the lake house, and when we went inside I was instantly reminded of what we had done the last time we were here, how the three of us had been intertwined, both of us pleasuring Ella at once. I opened the windows, airing the room of the smell of sex that seemed to hang in the air like a memory.

“Ella,” I heard Julian say as I went around the room. “I’m so sorry—”

“Shut up,” she said. “Don’t even apologize. Neither of you. I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have let it go as far as it did. It was my mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” I said firmly. I felt the cool grip that I usually had on situations slipping when I heard Ella talk like that. “There was nothing wrong with what we did. My mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Lola is just saying what everyone else would say,” Julian said quietly. We both looked at him. The last thing I had expected was to hear Julian agree with Lola on anything. “It’s not right. You know that, Eric.”

I ran my hand through my hair, sighing. “So we’re just going to give it up?”

“Yes,” Ella said.

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Julian said. “Ella can stay here. I’ll pay for everything—”

“No,” said Ella, shaking her head. “No, I’m not staying here. And you’re not paying for me. I have some money saved up.”

“You have enough to take care of you and your grandmother?”

She shot me a look. “I’ll make do.”

I sighed. Julian was staring at her intently, as if trying to think of a way to get her to change her mind. I knew she wouldn’t, though. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was finished, done with us entirely. She didn’t want our support or our love, she just wanted us gone. “Ella,” I said, before I could stop myself. “I love you.”

She stared at me, but Julian’s gaze never flickered from her face.

“I want you to take me to a motel,” she said, her eyes breaking from mine. She couldn’t look at me. I took a deep breath and looked over at Julian, who met my eye and nodded sadly.

We found her a motel in the city that was close to the transit there, not knowing where she might need to go or what she was going to do. We took her there in silence, dropped her off in front with a promise that we would bring her grandmother and her things by as soon as we got them. She glanced at us one last time over her shoulder before unlocking the room of her door and disappearing inside without another word.