But she planned this.
And I raised my hand, bringing it to her face, claws bent and starving to grab her pretty little neck, but…I drew back. Provoking me was her goal, and that was not how you were going to wind up in my bed, little Winter.
She thought she was strong. She thought she could play with me.
She could try. I had you once. I’ll have you again.
I rose silently and stood there as she finally got out of the tub, wrapping herself in a towel, and left the bathroom. I quietly followed, stopping just outside the bathroom door and watching as she trailed down the hallway, no turn of the head to hear if anyone was behind her and no fear that anything was at her back, and entered her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
I inhaled a deep breath, feeling the silence of the house and anticipation for the long nights ahead. Ari and her mother were gone.
Her father was gone.
All the ducks in a row.
Walking into my room, I shut the door, seeing Mikhail’s head pop from where he’d been asleep on the bed. He jumped to his feet, wagging his tail and tongue hanging out of his mouth.
I couldn’t help but quirk a smile as I dug into my pocket for a treat. He gobbled it out of my hand, and I petted him with the other, stroking his blond head. Amazing how some animals knew not to bite the hand that fed them while others couldn’t deny their nature to be what they were.
“I can’t sleep, boy,” I told him, smoothing both hands over his head now. “It’s not so complicated for an animal, is it? Why can’t the things I need be basic?”
Or physical?
I wanted to fuck. I wanted it slow, feeling her fear, her desire, and her mouth giving back what I gave to her.
But I needed her mind.
“It’s all in my head,” I muttered.
The control. The memories. The knowledge that our bodies betray us, and it was the brain that was the prize. That the mind knew what we really wanted, not the body.
“Wake up!” I whisper, shaking Banks. “Get up!”
She lifts her head, still half-asleep. “What? Huh?”
I rip the covers off her and grab her wrist, pulling her out of my bed. It’s like dragging a five-year-old. My sister is fourteen, but she’s still so lanky and skinny compared to me, and I’m only a year older than her. My boxers and T-shirt hang on her like drapes.
Footfalls hit the stairs outside my bedroom, and I’d forgotten to lock the door.
I shove Banks into the closet, and she sits down, knowing the drill. I put my headphones on her, metal music playing. “Don’t come out until I get you,” I tell her.
And I shut the door just as my bedroom door creaks open.
My mother, barefoot and dressed in a deep purple slip and robe, enters my room, a surprised look on her face when she sees me still awake.
She smiles and locks my bedroom door before heading across the room to me.
“You’re still up?” she asks, the musical tone to her voice making me wince.
It sounds surreal, because it has no place in what happened in this room. Nothing is happy or innocent.
She approaches, putting her hands on my face and patting my skin to feel for a temperature or some shit, but the touch turns intimate. A languorous drag of her fingertips. How her hand softly falls down my neck. How she stands close enough her breasts graze my bare chest through her nightie.
“Trouble sleeping?” she asks. And then smiles, teasing me. “Someone needs their sleeping pill.”
My sleeping pill. Because it’s medicinal for growing boys to have their dicks milked by their mothers.
She caresses my face and shoulders, looking up at me like I’m still eleven and always her boy.