Before & After - Nazarea Andrews Page 0,43

sliding along her folds. Her hips are moving, and I'm not sure she's even aware of it as she teases us both. "So wet."

"Show me," I demand, yanking at my ties. "Come here and let me lick that sweet pussy."

She laughs, and the noise turns choked and broken as she slides two fingers deep, her thumb pressed against her clit as she fucks herself. Her head is pressed against my shoulder, digging in, and I can smell her hair and sex. The sound of her fingers sliding in and out of her, the fucking sight of it as her moves become frantic, desperate, her hips churning against her fingers, and she screams, a long, low scream that echoes through our room as she comes.

She's so fucking perfect.

"Don't tease, baby. Let me fuck you."

She twists her head a little, smiling at me sleepily, and her body convulses as she slides her fingers free. Brings them up between us.

"Fucking hell, Peyton," I groan, watching her lick her fingers clean. I'm so hard it hurts, and she's laughing when she kisses me. Licking into her mouth, catching the taste of her on her lips, it's almost like going down on her.

"Thought you were tired," she whispers.

"If you don't fuck me, I swear to god, I will beat your ass red."

"Promise?" she breathes, and I groan.

Curse as she rolls to straddle me. My dick sliding into her wet heat will never be old. Will never be anything short of fucking amazing. I groan and rasp out, "Fuck me, perfect girl."

Her eyes flash and she moves, riding me hard, until I'm cursing and she's crying out with every move, her whole body tight above mine, and then I'm coming, and she screams, her body jerking against mine, clenching tight.

We fall asleep like that. Wrapped up in each other, sticky with sweat and sex and completely fucking in love. Convinced nothing could ever go wrong or change what we have.

Chapter 20: After

Feet ache, pain so familiar

It is almost unfelt.

As she slips on tiptoes,

To a song she cannot sing,

Through eggshells and jagged edges.

And she never realized

The relief that could be found

In dancing through life to a tune

few could hear, in combat boots and

A smile.

(Rike’s poems to Peyton)

It takes almost a month for my parents to realize I’m in Nashville. Brody vanishes one Sunday afternoon, and comes back to his downtown, high-rise apartment with its black, modern furniture and clean lines, spitting mad in the way only our father was ever able to achieve.

He’s quietly furious, grabbing a beer from the fridge and tossing the cap while he stalks through the apartment. I’m curled in a corner of the couch, leafing through one of the sketchbooks Rike sent home with me, and I eye my baby brother while he paces.

Brody is the youngest of my three siblings, and the one I’ve always been closest to. He isn’t quite the black sheep that I have been, but where Cassidy went to law school and Sean joined Daddy’s campaign, Brody joined the Marines. He’s filled me in on everything I’ve missed with him, and I’m so proud of him. He’s made a good life in military intel, and if he ever chooses to leave, he can make a better life for himself as a civilian. And he did it without the help of our parents.

He never bought into the political machine life that our parents created, and he never appreciated how they pushed aside my problems to take the next Senate seat.

But we were kids, and kids can’t do much to protect themselves.

Maybe that’s why I loved Rike. What drew me to him. He was another broken child forgotten by the people who were supposed to care for him.

“Want to storm around and break shit, or do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” I drawl.

Brody gives me a dark look, and I smirk. Because he might be all grown up and a badass, but he’ still my baby brother. I cross my arms. “Spit it out.”

“Mom and Dad want to have a family dinner.”

“Fuck,” I mutter.

He laughs, and nods. “Exactly. Better find something appropriate to wear.”

I snarl a curse, and he snorts. “I wonder if I could wear the leather skirt and my skull and crossbones shirt. I wore that last time. Bonus points for wardrobe reappearances.”

Brody’s eyebrows shoot up. “You remember that?”

“What?” I ask, flipping my sketchbook back open.

“Wearing that outfit. It was the day Rike met them. Do you remember?”

I stare at him, confusion crowding me. I