CHAPTER 1
THORNE
I watch her let some asshole buy her a drink, and I’m three seconds from putting his face through the bar.
I’ve been here for almost an hour, tucked into a dark corner of a bar that no one from our world frequents. Sloane sits at a high-top in a black dress that barely covers her ass, laughing at something the douchebag across from her just said.
Julian. He’s been hanging around her for the last couple of months. I’ve run multiple background checks on him because I don’t trust anyone near her, and they all came back clean—no priors, no debts, no connections to anyone who might want to hurt her. Just a trust fund kid with some art gallery in the Back Bay and a nice-guy smile that makes her laugh too loud and touch his arm more often than she should.
The correct number of times she should touch him is fucking zero.
On paper he appears harmless. But something about the asshole makes me want to put his face through a wall. And it doesn’t help that I want to break one of his fucking fingers every time he makes her smile.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and see it’s the group text with my brothers.
[Fox: Thorne, where are you? We haven’t seen much of you lately.]
[Tate: He’s probably trying to figure out how to get pussy without our help.]
I laugh and type back.
[Me: I’m about to get plenty of pussy. Do old married men still get any? Need me to send pics?]
[Tate: Reese wants the pics. She doesn’t believe you.]
[Fox: My dick’s in my wife’s mouth. Catch up, little brother.]
[Me: You all are fuckers. You pussy-whipped assholes can enjoy your one pussy, while I take care of what’s left.]
I only want one pussy, too, which is my goddamn problem.
[Tate: Now I don’t believe you either. And my baby girl is feral, I’ll keep what I have.]
[Fox: Before Thorne gets lost in all that pussy, don’t forget that Dad and Whitney want everyone at breakfast tomorrow.]
I stare at the screen. Whitney is Sloane’s mother and my stepmother. She and my dad have no idea I’ve been fucking Sloane for almost two years. I have beaten and killed countless assholes, but I struggle to look my stepmother in the eyes after I’ve had my tongue in her daughter’s tight cunt.
[Me: I know. I’ll be there.]
[Fox: Is Sloane coming with you?]
[Me: She’s got a fucking car.]
I’m the one in charge of monitoring her security detail, as I do for our entire family. When I was technically finishing my MBA at Harvard, I was on campus with her, so I’d drive her from time to time. But being seen together all the time isn’t helpful when it comes to keeping our families from finding out what’s been going on.
[Tate: I hope someone fucks that mood out of you before tomorrow.]
[Me: Fuck off.]
I pocket the phone before I say something that gives me away. My brothers have no idea. No one does. That’s the only reason this has worked for so long—because Sloane and I are very fucking good at not spending a lot of time together in public.
It started around when Tate and Reese got married. And I haven’t been able to quit for the past two fucking years. She was almost nineteen and I was twenty-two then, too young for it to be anything but sex. I’m not going to fall on my knees and tell her I love her. I’m going to fall on my knees and tell her to spread her fucking legs.
Seeing her blood on my dick that first time we fucked in her bedroom at my dad’s house did something to me. She has always been one hundred percent mine, and no one else is going to fucking touch her.
Across the bar, Julian leans in close to Sloane and says something that makes her tilt her head. His hand lands on her arm and lingers there far too long. His face says he thinks he is playing the game to win her over—something that doesn’t quite match the nice-guy mask. But he’s been mostly harmless thus far.
Sloane glances around the bar, her eyes scanning the crowd. She’s looking for me. She won’t spot me in this corner, but she knows I’m here. She always knows, the same way I always know when she walks into a room. It’s been like this since the first time I touched her, when the need had become so overwhelming, she pulled me into her bedroom and I gave up fighting it. It was supposed to be just one time to get it out of my system. I’ve never gone back for seconds before. But now this constant need and awareness of her lives under my skin and won’t shut off. I’ve stopped fighting it.
This is just what we do—we fuck, we try to stop fucking, and then she plays these games to make sure I fuck her again. I’ll fuck her every day for the next month until I try to come to my senses again.
It’s getting harder to keep the secret. Even when we’re with our family, I want my hands on her and her body touching mine.
But even if our family might be alright with us fucking, which they wouldn’t, it’s considered taboo in our world. It makes no fucking sense given all the marriages to join bloodlines and form alliances. Not that it matters anyway, because it’s just sex. Really fucking amazing sex, but still just sex.
The little brat lets me do whatever I want to her. I have her trained just how I want, which is why she’s so fucking hard to quit.
A body slides onto the stool next to mine, and a hand lands on my thigh before I even turn my head. She has red hair, long tanned legs, and a skirt that’s already almost showing me her pussy.
“You look lonely, sexy,” she purrs.
I don’t look lonely. I look like a man who wants to be left the fuck alone, but women like her never read the fucking room.
“I’m not.”
“Are you sure? A gorgeous guy like you shouldn’t be alone.” She shifts closer, her fake tits pressing against my tattooed arm as her fingers trail higher up my thigh. When she reaches the front of my pants, she pauses. Her eyebrows shoot up before her mouth opens like it might start watering. “Looks like I showed up at the right time to handle this big, hard dick.”
I’m not hard because of whoever this woman is. It’s all for the blonde over there who is just waiting for me to get tired of her shit and haul her out of her. I’ve been thinking about bending her over that high-top and fucking her in front of everyone since she walked in.
She takes my silence as an invitation and slides off her stool to plant herself on my lap, her ass grinding down against my cock as her arms loop around my neck. Her eyes widen at what she feels, and she rolls her hips, working herself against me like that’s going to do anything for me.
“Come on, baby,” she murmurs against my ear. “You can put it anywhere.”
Two years ago, I would have taken her to the bathroom and fucked the shit out of her. Or before my brothers went and got married, we might have tied her up and all taken a piece. I give them shit, but I’m thankful they are happily married because they don’t know who I fuck anymore.
But at least this woman can be a little useful to me.
“Why don’t you let me send a pic of your tits to my brothers?”
She licks her lips and lowers her dress. I snap a quick picture of her giant fake tits, then send a quick text to the thread with Fox and Tate.
[Me: Not bad right?]
“Now get the fuck off of me.” I grip her hips and lift her from my lap.
“What the fuck?” She stumbles, catching herself on the bar. “I know you want it. I felt how hard you are.”
“Not for you.” I refocus on Sloane and pretend this woman isn’t there.
She mutters something about me being an asshole and disappears into the crowd. She’s not wrong, but I don’t give a shit.
Julian is standing up now, pulling out his wallet. He drops some cash on the table and leans down to say something to Sloane, his mouth close to her ear, his hand briefly touching her shoulder. She nods at whatever he said. Something about the exchange irritates me, but then he’s walking away.
I watch Julian disappear into the crowd, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something about him. I can acknowledge that I hate every man that fucking talks to her though. My attention snaps back to Sloane when she returns to the bar and orders another drink, her eyes scanning the room again.
She wants to know where I am, before she starts the real game. It’s this toxic cycle with us. I can’t pretend that I don’t like it, because I keep showing up with a hard dick every time she does it.
Sloane just sits there, sipping her drink, waiting. And I know what she’s waiting for—the right man to use to press all of my buttons and get exactly what she wants.
I know the asshole walking up to her now is going to have a rough night.
This one is bigger, cockier, and with a confidence that tells me he’s used to women saying yes. Yep, he’ll be the one. I crack my knuckles as he leans against the bar, saying something that makes her laugh—that fake, flirty laugh she uses for these fucks—and my hands curl into fists against my thighs.
She tilts her head, exposing the line of her throat, and touches his arm. He takes the invitation and steps closer, his hand finding her lower back. This is the game we play—she flirts with other men because she knows I’m watching, because she knows it drives me insane, because she knows exactly what I’ll do when I finally snap.
And I always snap. She makes sure of it.
His hand slides lower, over the curve of her ass, and he squeezes while she presses into him like she’s enjoying it, like his hands belong anywhere near her body. They don’t. Nothing about her belongs to him. Her body belongs to me, even if we’re not together. We’re not anything, except two people who can’t stop fucking even though it could destroy everything.
She glances over his shoulder, and her eyes find my dark corner. Her lips curve into a smirk because she knows I’m watching. She knows what this is doing to me, and she’s enjoying every fucking second of it.
She wants me feral for her, and I can’t deny it makes the sex hotter.
The man pulls her closer with both hands on her ass now, grinding her against him while they move to the music. She wraps her arms around his neck and moves with him, letting him feel every inch of her body through that nothing dress. I have to set my glass down so I don’t shatter it in my grip.
His hand slides from her ass to the hem of her dress, his fingers finding bare skin and pushing up the fabric. He’s about to slip his hand between her thighs when I’m out of my seat and across the bar barreling toward them.
I grab a fistful of his shirt and rip him off her. He stumbles backward with his mouth opening to say something, but my fist connects with his face before the first word comes out. The crack of his nose breaking is the most satisfying sound I will hear all night.
Until I make Sloane moan in the parking lot.
He goes down hard, crashing into a table and sending glass shattering across the floor. People scream and scatter, but I’m already on top of him with my fists pounding into his jaw, his ribs, his face again while blood sprays across my knuckles.
“Thorne!” Sloane’s voice cuts through the chaos, but I don’t stop.
I hit him again, then grab him by the throat and slam his skull against the hardwood floor. “She’s fucking mine. Touch her again, and I’ll kill you.”
“Thorne.” Sloane’s hand closes around my arm, her nails digging in. “Security’s coming. We need to go now.”
She’s right. I can hear the commotion of bouncers pushing through the crowd, so I release the guy’s throat and stand while he curls into a ball and groans, blood pouring from his nose and the gash above his eye.
“You’re insane,” Sloane hisses, but her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are bright. I know she’s turned on by what I just did.
I grab her arm and haul her toward the back exit. She keeps pace with me, her heels clicking against the floor. I wipe my bloody knuckles off on my shirt as best as I can.
“Took you long enough,” she says. “I was starting to think you’d actually let him—”
I spin around, bend down, and throw her over my shoulder in one motion.
She doesn’t scream. She laughs, her body draped over me with her ass in the air and that tiny dress riding up to show everyone the black lace thong underneath. “There’s the Thorne I wanted.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.” She rakes her nails down my back hard enough that I feel it through my shirt. “You knew how this was going to go.”
I shove through the exit into the alley, where cold air hits my face but does nothing to cool the fire in my blood.
I smack her ass hard enough that my palm stings, and she yelps before the sound melts into a moan, her body arching into the hit. “So did you, little brat.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re going to like what comes next even more.”
My Cullinan is parked twenty feet away, and I close the distance while she squirms on my shoulder.
“And don’t think I didn’t see you,” Sloane says, a bitter edge to her tone. I’ll fuck that out of her real quick. “With that whore grinding on your lap. She had her hands all over you like she was going to fuck you right there.”
“Is the little brat jealous?”
“It’s just that if you get to fuck whatever slut flashes you her tits—”
I smack her ass again. “You could just admit you’re fucking jealous. And do you see me fucking her right now? I told her to get the fuck off.” I unlock the car and wrench open the back door. “Which is more than you did when that asshole was groping your ass.”
“You know that was for you, big brother.” She traces a nail down my spine, and even through my shirt, the touch makes my cock throb. “It worked, by the way.”
I drop her onto the back seat hard enough that she bounces, her blonde hair fanning across the dark leather while those blue eyes blaze up at me with challenge. The streetlight filtering through the tinted window catches her face, and for a second I can’t breathe. She’s so fucking beautiful it makes me want to destroy her, to ruin her for anyone else, to mark every inch of her skin so the whole world knows her pussy belongs to me—even though the whole world can never know, because if they did, it would cause a shitstorm of problems.
“You think this is funny?” I climb in after her and slam the door, plunging the interior into darkness.
“I think it’s hot.” She reaches for me, fisting her hand in my shirt to haul me closer. “Look how riled up you are. Use me to work that off.”
“That fucker tried to put his fingers in my pussy.”
“Your pussy?” Her eyebrow arches, but she doesn’t argue because she knows the truth.
“Mine. Like I fucking said.” I grab her wrists and pin them above her head with one hand while I use the other to shove her dress up around her waist, not giving a shit if I rip it. Her black lace panties are soaked through. “This cunt is mine, and I’m going to remind you what happens when you let other men touch what belongs to me.”
“Then stop talking and fucking do it.”
I hook my fingers into her panties and rip. The lace tears with a sound that makes my cock twitch. I stuff the ruined fabric into my pocket while she gasps.
“I’m going to run out of underwear if you keep doing that.”
“I don’t give a fuck. Stop wearing them.” I thrust two fingers inside her with no warning, no buildup, and she cries out as her back bows off the leather seat. She’s drenched, her pussy clenching around my fingers, so wet I can hear it when I start to move. “Feel how wet you get when I lose control. This is what you wanted, little brat—to watch me destroy someone for touching what’s mine.”
“Yes.” She’s already panting, her hips rocking to meet my hand. “I knew you couldn’t stay away.”
“Greedy little slut.” I add a third finger and curl them to hit the spot that makes her fall apart, and she screams while her thighs shake.
She looks up at me through wet lashes, her mascara already starting to smear. “Are you going to punish me or just keep talking?”
I pull my fingers out and shove them into her mouth. She sucks without being told, her tongue swirling to taste herself on my skin. “That’s a good girl, flip over and show me my ass.”
She scrambles to obey, and the sight of her ass in the air with her pussy glistening in the dim light makes me groan. I am going to fuck this ass again soon, too. I free myself from my pants and stroke my already hard pierced dick. I’ve never fucked her with a condom. The first time was recklessness in the heat of the moment. Then we got her on birth control immediately after, and I know she’s only fucking me.
“Look at you.” I position myself behind her in the back seat and run the head of my cock through her slit to coat myself in her wetness. She whimpers and pushes back, trying to take me inside. “Desperate for my dick. You’d let me do anything right now, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. Anything. Just fuck me, Thorne.”
I grab her hair and yank her head back. “Say fucking please, little brat.”
“Please.” The word comes out choked and needy. “Please fuck me. I need your dick, Thorne. You know that’s why I did this. I need—”
I slam into her before she finishes, burying myself to the hilt in one brutal thrust.
She screams, her hands clawing at the leather seat while I pull out and drive back in, setting a punishing pace that rocks the entire car. “This is what you wanted. You wanted me to see that asshole’s hands on you so I’d fuck you like I’m trying to break you.”
“Yes.” She’s sobbing, but she’s pushing back to meet every thrust. “Harder. Please, harder.”
I release her hair and grab her hips with both hands, yanking her back onto my cock while I pound into her. The sound of my thighs slapping her ass fills the space, and I watch my cock disappear inside her again and again.
“This pussy belongs to me.” I dig my fingers into her hips hard enough to leave bruises and then slap the side of her ass. “No one else touches it. No one else tastes it. No one else gets to see you like this—on your knees, taking my cock, begging for more.”
“Only you.” She’s barely coherent now. “Only you, Thorne. I swear.”
“That’s goddamn right.” I reach around and find her clit, rubbing hard. “Because if I ever catch another man touching what’s mine, I’ll do worse than break his face. I’ll fucking break every bone in his body before I slit his throat, and then I’ll fuck you on top of his bloody corpse.”
“Thorne—” She’s panting and moaning, and I feel her pussy tightening around me.
“You want to come, little brat?” I wrap my hand in her hair again and jerk. “So fucking needy.”
“Please. I need it.”
Her begging goes straight to my dick and I pound her harder. She drives me to the brink of madness. Three days of trying not to fuck her and I’ll never catch up. It’ll never be enough.
“You can come, just remember who owns your orgasms. They all belong to me.”
Her body releases with a scream that is going to draw attention to us, convulsing while her pussy clamps down on my cock. I don’t stop. I fuck her through it, dragging out her orgasm until she’s shaking and crying, begging me to let her breathe.
“I’m not done with you, little brat.” I pull out and flip her onto her back.
Her makeup is ruined, her hair wild, tear tracks cutting through her mascara. She looks wrecked, and fucking gorgeous.
I wrap my hand around her throat and squeeze as I slam back inside her. “Eyes on me. Don’t you dare look away.”
Those blue eyes lock onto mine, and something intense passes between us. I can’t explain it. I just accept it, the same way I’ve accepted everything else about this fucked-up thing between us.
“This is all I think about.” The words come out rough and raw. “Fucking you. Having you. Owning every inch of you.”
She wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me deeper. “I have a short memory, so you’re going to have to remind me.”
I fuck her with deep, grinding thrusts while I watch her face—the way her lips part, the way her eyes flutter, the way she looks at me like I’m the only thing in her world, even while I press her throat harder to cut off more of her air. This is just how it is now. She’s under my skin, in my blood, wrapped around every thought I have.
It doesn’t need fucking labels or other bullshit. I’m addicted to my stepsister, and I’m a selfish bastard who is going to take what I want.
“Come for me again, brat.” My thumb presses against her clit while I drive into her. “Come on my dick. Show me what I do to this pussy.”
She comes with my name on her lips, her nails raking down my back hard enough that it stings. The pain mixes with the intensity of her cunt milking my cock, and I bury myself deep and come with a groan that I muffle against her throat.
For a long moment, I can’t move. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but stay inside her with my face pressed against her neck and her pulse pounding against my lips.
“Thorne.” Her voice is hoarse, wrecked. “I fucking needed you.”
I pull out and collapse onto the seat beside her while we both try to remember how to breathe. The windows are fogged, the car reeks of sex, and I can feel her eyes on me even though I’m scanning our surroundings to see if anyone is lurking around the vehicle.
She slaps my shoulder. “Now I have to drive home with no panties and your cum dripping out of me.”
“And your point? You knew what was going to happen.” I fish the ruined panties out of my pocket and wave them at her. “These are going in my collection.”
She shakes her head, but she’s smiling at me as she tries to fix her hair without much success. “I need to get home. Breakfast with the family tomorrow, remember?”
“I know.” I think about sitting across the table from her, pretending I didn’t just fuck her senseless, pretending I don’t know what she looks like when she comes. It’s what we do. What we’ve been doing for two years. “Come home with me tonight and we’ll get your car tomorrow. I’ll drive you to breakfast.”
I really don’t know why in the fuck I said that. She’s stayed over with me before, but fuck. It’s like I can’t stay away from the fire before it consumes it both.
“Will I actually get any sleep?”
“Probably not.” I reach out and brush a strand of hair off her face, a gesture that feels too soft for what we are. “At least not until I fuck that brat mouth of yours.”
“Stop by my place so I can get my stuff, and I’ll come with you.”
Goddamnit. Thank fuck our family is used to us being together frequently because of school schedules. But we aren’t some fucking couple, and we absolutely can’t have them suspecting anything. That would be more than problematic for everyone.
“Fine, but you’re sucking my dick on the drive.” I’m already hard for her again. It’s a fucking problem. “And I hope we run into that asshole Julian on campus, because I’m going to fuck you in front of him.”
“Jealousy looks so fucking hot on you, Thorne.” She leans over and presses a quick kiss to my lips and then opens her door to move to my front passenger seat.
I move to the driver’s seat and settle in beside her.
“Want me to show you the pic of that slut’s tits from earlier?”
“Fuck you.” She crosses her arms in front of her.
I lean over and lick along her ear. “Jealousy is hot on you too, brat.”
Everything about us is toxic as fuck. We’re a disaster waiting to happen, a secret that’s going to blow up in our faces eventually.
I don’t give a shit.
I put the car in drive and slide my hand over to grip her thigh, feeling the warmth of her bare skin under my palm.
She parts her legs without me asking.
I should stop this. We both should. But I push my fingers between her thighs and feel my cum still dripping out of her, and the only thing I can think about is getting her home so I can fill her up again.
Stopping was never really an option.