“Deal.” I hop up before turning back to her, twisting my fingers in her hair and dropping a kiss to her brow. “You’re the best, Isla.”
“Ew, get off me you dirty, sweaty boy,” she squeals, her nails digging into my forearm in an attempt to make me release her.
“You love it and you know it,” I tease, finally releasing her hair.
“Pfft, you know nothing, little boy.”
“Oh, so those bruises around your neck are from some sweet and innocent nerd, huh?”
Her hand lifts to her throat and her brows pinch in confusion.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
My laughter fills my flat and I march toward my bedroom, discarding clothes as I go, and then into the shower.
I let it run hot while I wash, and then I turn it down to its lowest setting and just stand there until I can take no more.
No matter how cold it gets, how much my teeth begin to chatter, my boner never wavers.
My need for her is too strong.
But I refuse to wrap my hand around myself and succumb to the desire.
It would be unfulfilling, anyway.
Everything short of being inside her would be.
“Food’s here,” Isla calls through my bedroom, her voice floating through the ajar bathroom door.
I sigh, tipping my head back to the ice-cold torrent that’s rushing over me.
Isla’s been my saving grace over the past few years.
She’s older than us, already at uni, and living her best life. But it’s not always been that way for her.
Her father is a soldier.
Her brother was a soldier.
I remember the night he died as if it were yesterday.
I shouldn’t have been there. Dad told me to stay away. But I just knew deep down something was going to go wrong on the job they were heading out on.
Some stupid motherfuckers from the other side of the city decided it would be a good decision to hop into our territory and start selling fucking smack.
Bad fucking move.
Dad set up the raid on their compound, but something was wrong. I could feel it.
And I turned out to be right when they walked straight into a war zone.
That was the night I perfected my aim with a sniper rifle.
I snuck out after Dad had left and managed to break into a building opposite that had a half-decent vantage point over the courtyard where I was convinced all hell was about to break loose.
I remember watching Drew hit the ground, and I could see the guys who did it turning on Isla’s father next.
The adrenaline that shot through me as I made that kill was like nothing I’d ever felt before.