Until We Burn (Beautifully Broken) Read online

  “It’s not a problem. But you need to stay out of situations like that. There won’t always be someone to step in and save you.”

  From her shocked expression, I decide that I might’ve been a little too hard on her. But shit. Women have to be more careful. She can’t parade around in barely any clothes, have rough sex with a stranger and just expect him to be a gentleman. Men, by and large, aren’t gentlemen. We’re assholes.

  Kaylie stares at me, too drunk or high to even respond. But her friend isn’t so silent.

  Big brown eyes snap at me angrily. “Why are you lecturing her? She was just assaulted, in case you didn’t notice.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Is that what you call it? She was having rough sex with that asshole right out in the open, when she was supposed to be working, I might add. It looked to me like it was an incident that just got out of control. I stopped it for her. You’re welcome.”

  Gorgeous Blonde stares at me dumbfounded. “Are you trying to insinuate that she’s not a victim, that it was her fault this happened?”

  I sigh. “Of course not. I’m saying that she shouldn’t have been encouraging a drunk stranger to be rough with her in the first place. Good night.”

  I start to walk away, but apparently she’s not done.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” she demands. “You might not have heard, but you really shouldn’t blame the victim.”

  “I’m not blaming-“ I begin, but I’m interrupted by her gasp as I step fully into the light and she sees my face.

  “Holy shit,” she breathes. “You’re Dominic fucking Kinkaide.”

  I can’t help but smile, just a little, just enough to pull the corners of my mouth up. “Dominic will do. I tend to drop the ‘fucking’. Unless of course, I’m actually fucking.”

  She smiles a breathtaking smile that should affect me. The girl is stacked, has legs that go on for miles, and is wearing next to nothing. She should affect me. But she doesn’t. Because nothing affects me anymore. I’m jaded as fuck.

  “I’ve heard you’re trouble,” she announces matter-of-factly, eyeing me up and down with a slow gaze and fire in her eyes. “That’s lucky, because I happen to like trouble.”

  “I bet you do,” I answer back, trying to ignore the way she’s acting now that she knows who I am. They all act like this. Every one of them. It gets monotonous. Just once, can’t someone surprise me? “Nice to meet you.”

  I turn around and walk back toward the house, but she takes two steps and grabs my arm. I pause.

  “But you didn’t,” she says hesitantly, a bit unsure now. “You didn’t meet me. My name’s Jacey.”

  I sigh. “Your name doesn’t matter.”

  I keep walking, ignoring the way she sucks her breath in, the way she calls after me in agitation, the way she gives up and stops in defeat.

  I might be an asshole, but I don’t lie.

  Her name doesn’t matter.

  Not to me.

  I leave the entire situation behind, out of my sight and out of my mind. Within a few minutes, I’m standing in front of Kira again.

  “All taken care of?” she purrs, reaching for me. I nod, burying my face between her heavy naked tits as she unbuckles my belt. “Bind my hands with this, and come on my face.”

  She doesn’t have to ask me twice.

  “You’re such a dirty girl,” I whisper in her ear as I push her onto the couch and bind her hands above her head, just tight enough for the leather to bite into her flesh. Just the way she likes it.

  And then I grasp my dick in my hand and fuck my fist, just the way I like it.

  For just a second, for some strange reason, the blonde chick’s face pops into my mind, her eyes wide and brown. I have no idea why, but I shake my head to clear it. I focus instead on the matter at hand.

  Within another two minutes, I come on Kira’s face, spurting in a cream-colored arc that spatters onto her tanned skin. She licks a drop from her lips and grins at me.

  “Welcome home, lover.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I shake my head as I pull my jeans back on and collapse next to her. She rolls her eyes.

  “Why? It’s what we are. You always come back to me, Dom. You know that.”

  I unbind the belt wordlessly, tossing it onto the floor. I might always come back to her whenever I come home, but I don’t fuck her. Not really. I haven’t actually fucked someone in years.

  “Lover would indicate that I bury my dick in your sweet pussy,” I glance at her, then reach out to run my finger over the swell of one of her tits, then trail it downward to her crotch. She arches toward my touch. “And you know I won’t do that.”

  I pull my hand away abruptly and Kira scowls. “Yeah, I know that. What I don’t know is why. Dominic, you’ve got needs too. Fucking someone in the ass can’t possibly fulfill them. Neither can watching other people fuck or jacking off and coming on my face. Sex isn’t just sex, Dom. You need all the good stuff that comes along with it.”

  “Oh, I do, do I?” I ask, amused now. “Like what? Like having women get attached and hoping that I’ll marry them? Or worrying that I’ll get some fucking disease or…”

  “Just stop,” Kira interrupts me with a glare. “I know you, Dom. I know you. I know why you do what you do. You don’t want to get close to someone again. You don’t want to give them that kind of power over you. But Dom… it’s time. It’s time for you to finally get over her and come back to life.”

  “One, don’t talk about her,” I instruct Kira icily, staring at her hard. “You know better than that. And two, are you insinuating that I’m not living?”

  Kira sighs as she pulls her shirt on, forgoing her bra. She stuffs it into her purse and glances up at me.

  “You know damn well what I’m insinuating. You’ve been a shell for six years, Dom. Six fucking years. That’s a long time. I’ve been patient. I’ve done everything you needed. But there comes a time when a girl needs to be fucked. I’ve got needs, Dominic.”

  I have to chuckle now, at the idea that I’m the only one Kira’s depending on for her ‘needs’. “Oh, yeah. Because you don’t have anyone else to fulfill your needs when I’m not here?”

  She glares at me. “You’re a dick sometimes. I’ve got to work early in the morning, so I’ve gotta go. Call me tomorrow, ok?”

  I nod even though I know I won’t. I bury my face into the couch cushions, realizing I’m suddenly exhausted and just want to sleep. I don’t even hear Kira leave. But I do hear when someone else comes in a few minutes later, right when I’m ready to slip into sleep.

  “Dom, what the fuck? You were supposed to pull me out of the game so that I didn’t lose my shirt.”

  I reluctantly open one eye to stare at my brother and find that he actually lost his shirt. He’s standing in front of me bare-chested. My eyes dip down and I cringe.

  He lost his pants, too.

  “What the hell, Sin? Put some fucking clothes on.”

  My brother grins, that cocky rakish grin that his fans love so much as he plops himself down onto the sofa next to me, buck-ass naked, crossing his feet at the ankle on the coffee table.

  “You wouldn’t have to worry about it if you’d pulled me out of the poker game like I asked you to,” he shrugs, picking up my glass of whiskey and drinking it all. “Those drunk chicks know how to play poker. Or I just wanted to take my clothes off. One or the other.”

  I glare at him. “I couldn’t bail you out because I was taking care of a situation for you. Fuck, man. You’ve got to stop having these parties. Someone’s gonna get raped or killed and they’re going to sue the shit out of you.”

  Sin only grins, unconcerned. “If they’re dead, they can’t sue me.”

  I can’t argue with that logic. Instead, I tell him what he missed, not that it bothers him much. He sees it all the time.

  “Thanks for fixing it,” he tells me casually, as though near-rapes are normal. I roll my eyes.

  “Anytime. Now can yo
u get some fucking clothes on?”

  He waggles his dark eyebrows. “Sure. If it makes you insecure to look at my package. You might be older, but I’m bigger and that’s what counts.”

  He’s also ridiculous. He’s not a centimeter bigger than I am, but I don’t waste my breath telling him that.

  He yanks one of my shirts out of my suitcase and pulls it over his head. Then a pair of my pants. He forgoes underwear, which means I’ll have to burn those jeans.

  “I forgot to ask how long you’re staying,” he asks as he settles back into the seat, unconcerned that he just ruined my favorite jeans. “Long enough to catch a show, I hope. It’s all I’ve heard about for months from Duncan… how you don’t even come watch your poor little brothers play.”

  I roll my eyes. “Poor little brothers? I think both of you are doing just fine.”

  Sin snorts, “Only as well as you, big bro. But whatever. We have a show coming up in Chicago next month. If you want to fly back in, we’ll get you backstage passes.”

  I shake my head. “I’ll try. Filming starts in a couple of weeks. But I’ll see what I can do. I don’t want to upset baby Duncan.”

  “What about me?”

  My youngest brother saunters into my room, dropping onto the sofa next to Sin. Neither of them have any personal space issues, that’s for sure, because now we’re all three crammed onto the one sofa. And we’re too big for that shit.

  “Nothing,” I assure Duncan. “I just said I didn’t want to offend your ovaries by not coming to your next show. I’ll try like hell to be there.”

  “That’s the furthest thing from my mind right now,” Duncan announces, cracking open the can of beer in his hand. “You can see me bang on the drums any time. What I’d like to bang tonight are the half-naked women beyond these very doors. I fucking love your house, man,” he tells Sin. “Oh, and there’s a chick asking for you. Said she wants to make sure you know that your brother rescued her. Or some shit.”

  Sin rolls his eyes, but I elbow him. “It’s probably the girl from the pool. You’d better talk to her and autograph her tits or something. You need to keep her happy so that she doesn’t think to call the police. You don’t want that kind of press, dude. Not after Amsterdam.”

  The mere mention of how the tabloids had ripped Sin’s band up over a wild party in Amsterdam a month ago is enough to sober the two of them up. There had been some underage girls there, groupies who had lied about their age and if it wasn’t for the more lax laws in Europe, my brothers would’ve been screwed.

  Sin nods now.

  “Fine. Take me to her,” he tells Duncan. To me, he hands the bottle of whiskey and says, “Do you ever get tired of being right? Jesus Christ.”

  “Not yet,” I tell him as I gulp down a few swigs, then slide down into the sofa again, closing my eyes. “It’s a burden though.”

  My brothers chuckle as they walk out and I relax, enjoying the way the whiskey has relaxed my muscles, the way the warmth has spread to every bit of me. It helps me stay numb… and numbness is a welcome fucking thing.

  When I’m numb, I feel safe enough to slip my hand into my pocket. Not for my dick, although that’s normal for me, too. No, I wrap my fingers around the cool stone of the pendant that is always there, encased in a white shell and resting against my leg.

  The last thing that fills my mind before I sleep is a color.

  Aquamarine.