“I thought she wasourdog,” he says.
The thought of him stripping her clothes off, touching her soft skin, makes me want to break every bone in his fucking body, starting with his other arm.
“Yeah, baby,” Colt says, reaching past me to stroke his fingers down Crystal’s back. She shrinks away, arching her back to put distance between them, and a terrified whimper escapes her lips. The whole team is eye-fucking this girl, this girl whose body that is mine alone to see.
“Get your own dog,” I snarl, knocking his arm away hard enough that he swears and shakes his hand out. “This one’s mine.”
I step toward her, grasping the back of her neck.
“Prove it.”
My head swings around, finding Preston standing there watching me, challenging me. At school, everyone wants one of us to be the leader, and that one is me. Preston doesn’t challenge me at school, and outside of school, I know the truth—we’re as close as brothers, all equals, the way it should be.
“What?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
The other guys on the team stand frozen, not making a sound, barely even breathing.
“She says you didn’t fuck her,” Preston says. “If she’s yours, she’s yours. I won’t touch her again. But I need proof.”
“I fucked her,” I say, my fingers trembling with rage around the back of Crystal’s neck. She’s shaking, her skin clammy and cold. “If anyone here doubts my word, I have the sheets to prove it.”
I meet their eyes, and every guy in the locker room looks away. No one’s gonna question my word. But the person I really want to look at is cowering beside me, trying to use my body as a shield between her and the roaming, hungry eyes of my teammates. I want to shake the shit out of her, to ask why the fuck she’d tell Preston we didn’t hook up.
“She says you didn’t fuck her, and her pussy’s so tight I could hardly get a finger in,” Preston says. “So if you really fucked her, then show us how it’s done.”
I can feel the vein in my temple pulsing with the red-hot blaze of my anger. I want to chop off his fingers one by one, making sure there’s nothing left of him that’s touched her. She’smine. Not his. Not ours. Every inch of her, inside and out, belongs to me and me alone. Only I can touch her. Only I can make her cum, make her cry, make her beg. Only I can break her and bring her to her knees, and when she’s there, I want her sole focus, her worship, her obedience.
“Did you fuck her?” I ask, never once looking at the girl. My rage burns into my cousin. “If you fucked her, I’ll rip your dick off, and the proof will beyourbloody sheets.”
Some of the guys mutter uneasily. They’re not used to trouble at the top. We’ve always been a united front. There’s the three of us, and there’s them.
And now there’s her.
“I didn’t say that,” Crystal mutters, pressing her body against the tile wall. “I told him we did it three times.”
That’s when I get it. Preston’s not the one who broke the code.
I am.
I’m the one who broke the unspoken pact, the agreement between us. I let her worm her way in, let her wedge herself between us. I let him think she was still a dog to me. I didn’t tell him I was still fucking her. But she told him.
Now it all makes sense. This isn’t a challenge to see if I’ll obey him in front of the team. This is penance for not telling him. He’s shrewd as fuck. The second he knew I didn’t tell him about her, he knew that’s where he’d get me. This is the only way to make things right between us again. To admit that I fucked up, and to let him know I’m sorry.
“If you already fucked her,” Preston says slowly. “Then it’s no big deal. Show us how you fuck your dog, Devlin.”
“Yeah, man, get the party started,” Colt says, leaning an elbow on Preston’s shoulder, a shit-eating grin on his face. He grabs his dick and adjusts himself. “I call next. I want to get my dick wet before the rest of them wreck her.”
That asshole just wants to watch me fuck a bitch, and that fact pisses me off more than anything. Just because they’re into that shit doesn’t mean I am, and Colt knows it.
“No,” Crystal whispers, her voice barely audible.
“No one touches her,” I growl.
“Then you do it,” Preston says. “Either fuck her, or we will.”
“No,” Crystal says, this time louder, but her voice is a pathetic quaver.
I turn to her. I know this isn’t just about now. If I don’t prove this to Preston, and even Colt, they’re going to do it. If not now, then later.