Instead, Hilda had straddled Jasper’s lap. He was ready to fuck her right there with no concern for his life if my father came downstairs. He had told me I needed to taste her which disgusted me. She was possibly the mother of my son and she tried to get two sixteen-year-old boys to have sex with her while a nanny took care of Wills.

I had to stand, point at the door to the stairs and threaten if she didn’t get her ass out of the room that I would call my father. That worked—Jasper didn’t want anything to do with my father’s temper and Hilda had all but run out of there.

Later that night, Jasper asked me if I’d fucked her before. I told him I hadn’t. I wasn’t admitting that to him or anyone.

He didn’t ask me about Wills until he turned two years old. Wills looked exactly like me. It wasn’t obvious or abnormal to anyone else because we were half-brothers. However, my father’s unsaid accusations were obvious. He would glare at me and I knew he wondered.

Hilda soon became another ex-wife and my father’s newest girlfriend was even younger—only a few years older than me. According to the prenup, Hilda had signed without even reading it, Wills was to remain with my father. She could have fought him in court. She was his mother and the prenup was ridiculous. She never debated and left her son there. She rarely even sees him to this day on her designated weekends.

Wills was living my life and I hated it. I didn’t want that for my son. Wills didn’t have a Geraldine to come along to fill in the loneliness and isolation. He had a stepmother who acted as if he was a hindrance. She never wanted him around and swore she wasn’t having kids. The idea of her stomach being anything but flat was unacceptable to her.

I grabbed Wills’ photo album from my closet and took it with me to the living room to look over his photos. I’d taken him to the Central Park Zoo and a movie while I was in Manhattan. He’d talked nonstop about his new school and his new friend George. I listened as he shared every aspect of his life with me. I understood his babbling. When Geraldine would take care of me as a child, I talked to her like this. I had needed someone to listen about my life and to care.

When I dropped him off later that day, he’d held my neck tightly and told me he loved me. The hunger to be loved and wanted was so familiar to me. I’d been that child once. Taking him and running was so damn tempting. But I knew my father would have Wills within hours and I’d be thrown in jail. I had to fight my father the right way. I had to be smart. And if Wills wasn’t my child, I had to find a way to save him anyway. A life with my father would ruin him. I didn’t want him to be like me—hard, cold, unable to trust. He still had joy in his eyes, they held hope for more. That would eventually get beat out of him and I had to save him before that happened.

If he was mine, I would never be able to forgive myself for leaving him. Even though I had been a victim. I was just a fifteen-year-old boy that succumbed to a thirty-year-old woman sucking his dick and offering sex to him. It had been a mistake that possibly made me responsible for bringing a life into this world, only to hand him off to a life of hell. I didn’t regret Wills’ life. He was a great kid, but the circumstances he’d been born into could very likely be my fault.

When you’re fifteen, you don’t think about the circumstances that might result from your actions. I had been horny and in lust with Hilda. She was the adult and her actions should have concerned her, but she hadn’t cared. She only wanted what made her feel good. It was always about her and what she wanted.

Wills suffered because of that.

I had cursed myself thousands of times over the years for being so damn thoughtless. Berating myself wouldn’t change anything. What had been done was done. I had to save him now.

My whiskey wasn’t gone, but it was low. Shay had left a few glasses in the bottle. I poured one and walked out to the balcony. The night air was warm as I looked out into the darkness. Wills had never been to Savannah. I’d never been allowed to take him outside of Manhattan. He’d like it here. I’d made a list of things I wanted to take him to see. I’d told him about the city more than once. He would listen with his eyes wide with wonder.

The door behind me opened, and I turned to see Beulah walking out in nothing but the shirt I had been wearing earlier.

“Are you okay?” She yawned and her hair was messy from sleep.

When she was near me, I was okay. Touching her, being near her, it always helped. She made me forget for a moment. She reminded me of happiness. She showed me that life could be bright.

I set my drink down and held a hand out to her. She slipped her hand in mine and I pulled her toward me. She came willingly. Without saying anything I moved her to face the railing and then slipped my hands up her hips to find her naked underneath the shirt. Without direction, she widened her stance and put her hands on the iron railing in front of her and lifted her bottom up.

Rubbing my hand from her backside to the front, my fingers dove into her wetness. Her body responded to my touch with a jerk and she moaned. Playing with her for only a moment, I watched her wiggle and squirm. The sounds she made and how she felt as I commanded her with my hand had me so damn hard I couldn’t take anymore. I pulled my erection from my boxers I guided it to her open warmth that waited for me.

Her loud cry as I entered her hard and swift was exciting. Taking her outside with her sounds of pleasure echoing in the night around us, I lost myself with each thrust. She was what fixed me. She was what would be my healing.

Beulah

WAKING UP ALONE IN STONE’S bed after the past couple of days had caused me to panic. Finding him alone on the balcony with a glass of whiskey made him appear so vulnerable. Now that I knew his secrets I understood how deep his pain went. It wasn’t just a childhood of mental and physical abuse. There was more, so much more.

As the night breeze warmed my skin, I let go of my inhibitions. I wanted to be whatever Stone needed. If giving myself to him out here in the open gave him relief, I would do it without hesitation. With each thrust he filled me, and slowly our actions had become a basic instinct. My body hummed with pleasure and the promise of release. I gripped the railing and my head dropped between my shoulders as I let the thrill of such a carnal exhibition wash over me. I didn’t care if we are seen. I only cared about climbing for that apex. The moment the world would fall off balance and I’d go with it.

Stone’s hands ran down my body and his fingers bit into the flesh of my thighs. Although it stung it caused me to buzz with desperation. I heard myself beg him. It was as if I were standing back watching us. He had torn his shirt from my body leaving me completely naked and bent over in front of him. My legs were spread wide and my face was a mirror of the passion as he drove into me relentlessly.

“I missed this.” His voice was hoarse and strained. “You can fucking beg all you want, but I won’t give you what you want until I’m ready.”

I whimpered and bounced back against his pelvis. My bottom slapping him where we came together. “That’s it,” he encouraged me. “Keep giving me that pussy.”

He leaned over and his hands slid down my chest until he was squeezing my breasts, feeling the heavy weight of them. He squeezed tightly and I moaned with pleasure. The sensitive tips pressed against his palms while his harsh breaths hit the back of my neck.

“I want to feel you come on my dick,” he said close to my ear. “Then when you’ve got all you can handle I’ll pull out and cover your ass with my come.”