Poughkeepsie Begins (The Poughkeepsie Brotherhood #0.5) (9 page)

She looked down at his hands and covered them with her own. He was ridiculous. His chest, his determined face, his hands that she now noticed were cut up and bruised. It just made him hotter. More dangerous—but not to her. She realized she felt totally at ease in his hands, in this car.

She didn’t want to answer. Instead she explored him with her hands—his face, his nipples, the dusting of chest hair in between. Devastating. He ignited her. Whatever his body was made of, she was either made of the same stuff or the exact opposite, like poles of a magnet. One forcing a reaction from the other. She ran a finger over his bruised hand, and he inhaled.

“Hurt?” Concern flavored her voice.

He nodded. “I like it.”

She tried to come in for another kiss, but he held her in place.

“Answer me, Candy.”

“Why does it matter? Please.” She pressed her breasts into his hands. He squeezed. She hissed.

“Hurt?” Temptation flavored his growl.

“I like it,” she whispered, though she might as well have screamed based on the frenzy of his next actions.

Invaded. He invaded her space, her understanding of sex and her body. Jesus. He was so good. So quick. Pulling her sweater and bra over her head, he slipped his hand into her jeans and kissed the hell out of her. Dragging his mouth to her neck, he sucked just enough to feel like a bite. Then he did the same on her left breast, pinching the right one hard while he rubbed her. She felt lightning where he touched.

“Ohhhhhh.” She was pretty sure she purred when he took to her earlobe, forcing every sensitive part of her to throb together. Want. She wanted whatever he so clearly knew how to do to a woman.

He was in her ear, demanding again. “Tell me. Tell me the truth.”

He was so earnest now. Determined, earnest, and amazing.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’m a virgin.”

His hands stilled. “I fucking knew it. Damn it all to hell.”

She rocked on top of him. “Please.”

“Don’t. Don’t say that again. I only have the tiniest bit of control around you. Around these beautiful tits, this bouncy fucking hair. Those eyes. Jesus.” He sat on his hands and groaned.

“Did I feel okay?” She felt self-conscious all of a sudden.

He grabbed her then, his hands on her face, dragging his thumb over her bottom lip. “Say this after me. You ready?”

She nodded, though just barely because of his grip. She let her hands dance on his skin again, circling the button on his pants.

“You always feel like fucking heaven. Any man who gets to put his hands on you should have to dip them in gold first. Say it.”

“With the curses?” She gave him a fake confused look.

“Yes. Damn it. Even though it will kill my dick to hear it.” He watched as she kissed the tip of his thumb.

“I always feel like fucking heaven. Any man who gets to put his hands on me should dip them…” She trailed off, looking at him. This guy was just taking all of her sense.

“The gold part. Don’t forget the gold part.” The softness in his eyes was sincere. Like these words she repeated mattered—life or death even.

“…in gold first.” She smiled.

“You’re the kind of girl I can never have.”

She didn’t know why he thought that, but she also understood. “I’m the kind of girl you can never have.”

His expression shut down. She watched as he erected walls.

“But I hate to do what’s expected,” she added.

When he tried to stop her, she tossed his hands away and grabbed his throat. He liked pain? Well, she could figure it out. She squeezed and kissed him, biting his lips and then his tongue when that slipped into the kiss.

His moans and curses were the gold she wanted to be dipped in, if that’s what was required. They were full-out humping though their remaining clothes. His hand found her again and tested her, slipping a finger inside. She groaned and tried to push it further in.

And when he put an end to the whole thing, she was stunned. He lifted her off his lap and tossed her back to the passenger seat.

“Candy, what’s your fucking middle name?”

She caught her sweater and bra as they flew at her. Confused, she answered, “I don’t have one.”

“Candy no fucking middle name Cox, when I take your virginity, it will not be on the side of the road. I will take it when I can make you come properly. And I want the lights on. I want to see every single part of your body.” He started the car as she pulled her clothes on.

She wanted to cry. He was so angry. She was so horny. She didn’t even know what to do with the feelings washing over her. They were halfway to her house before she realized she hadn’t told him how to get there. “You know where I live?”

“Of course.” Beckett’s face was illuminated by the blinker indicator.

She glanced at the dashboard. It was only eleven; she had more time. She wanted to spend it with him. “I’m not due home for a little while. We can fix this problem.” She looked at her hands.

He stopped at the stop sign near her house. “This isn’t a problem; don’t think of it like that. Just know, if you are going to have sex for the first time, I want it done right for you. I want to set a tone with you. You’re on the edge, and some asshole could really take advantage of that.”

“Are you that asshole? Because if you want to take advantage, I’m ready.” She met his steady stare until he punched the steering wheel. And then they were kissing again. Hard, deep. He had her almost completely pressed against the passenger window.

“Do not say that. Do not curse. I’m trying to do the right thing.” He pulled away from her.

“I want you to do the wrong thing. A lot.” Candy started to climb toward him. He kissed her again and again until she was in her seat, then he pulled the seatbelt over her and fastened it.

“Go home, Candy Cox. Be a virgin for a little while longer.” Beckett put the car in gear and dropped her off one house away from her own.

She couldn’t help but feel rejected. She’d begged him to make love to her, and he’d turned her down more than once. Zyler wouldn’t have done that, she didn’t think. Still, Candy put her chin in the air and walked to her door. She shot one last look as Beckett did a three-point turn in the street. As the streetlight hit him, instead of waving, he licked the tips of his fingers. Where he’d touched her.

The blush went all over her body.

Understanding

C
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INISHED
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, and it would be ready for the coat of paint when Rick returned from the store. It was almost like they were memorializing the understanding they’d come to in the ranch’s woodshed a couple nights ago.

The minute Cole had grabbed Rick by the neck, he’d decided to train the man. To train him in the most insane way he knew: the way his mother and her various men had trained him. They had made him beg for death. And when he was taken to the very edge and brought back, he was so grateful for the relief he felt—the sobbing, crazy relief that he was still alive—he could be convinced of anything. Anything that would let him take another breath again.

So Cole had worked mercilessly on Rick. To the brink of death, he’d dragged his foster father twice. Twice he’d let the man wonder how crazy he actually was. He’d watched the understanding reach Rick’s eyes: he really had no clue what Cole was capable of. Beckett had been the bad ass, the scary one. But Cole had shown Rick that the quiet in him was made of madness. Brutal. His method of torture was so sickeningly simple: lack of air. It had happened to Cole so many times, when he got a glimpse of himself in the mirror as a child, he assumed that the busted blood vessels in his eyes were part of their natural color. As he choked Rick, Cole held his own breath as a gauge to know when to let go.

When he had broken Rick, when the man had pissed himself and begged for his own vicious mother with raspy pleas, Cole took the air from him again. He’d learned from the best. His mother could take courage from anyone. But especially from Cole.

And every morning he’d spent with her, he had woken and thought,
maybe today will be better.

But it wasn’t. It was bad for so very long that he feared the damage done to his mind would never be healed. The lack of oxygen was the worst part. The other things done to his body, he could endure. He could pass out. But the lack of air—he still woke with nightmares from it. And when he cut himself in the bathroom, he held his breath then too.

So very fucked up. He knew it. He knew he was shattered on the inside. On the outside, he was going to school. He was saying the right words. Mrs. D had believed in him, had cut through the thorned vines he’d woven around his soul with hugs. God, the contact. To feel her and have no fear of her was the sustenance he’d needed.

But he was on his own in Rick’s world. And he should leave. Could certainly tell Mrs. D what happened in the woods behind Rick’s house. She would raise hell. Sometimes he pictured it. Pictured her small, angry frame storming up to the foster house and taking him away with her, home to her sons and her dogs. Mrs. D would be furious for him. But then Cole would lose Beckett and Blake. And his brothers had made him belong. They made him normal. And they had seen the side of him that Rick had now experienced, and they accepted that. They understood it. So with the razor he kept the thorns from growing on his soul again. He pierced from the outside in so there was no room to pierce from the inside out.

That night, after the second time, when Rick had been truly his, when he would have licked the soles of Cole’s shoes, that’s when the arrangement was struck. He’d sat down, faced his monster of a foster father, and explained that he understood the beatings, that he liked the beatings. He understood that sometimes pain—whether inflicting it or receiving it—was the glue holding reality in place. But there had to be rules going forward. Some things would not be tolerated.

In the end, Rick promised not to touch the girls. Not to touch any of the little kids. He’d thanked Cole by the time it was over. Spineless. Ultimately, he was spineless, easy to break. It only took one night. Cole’s mother had worked at Cole for days at a time before he was undone.

And as Rick approached Cole now holding the paint, he recognized the busted red vessels in the man’s eyes as the badge of the broken. But now Cole had another reason to cut. Because when he’d had Rick on the ropes, he hadn’t asked for an out for his brothers. He’d wanted the pain to continue to bind them.

Three days later, Blake and Beckett inspected Cole and the kids as they came through the door to the house. All looked okay, if not a little tired, Blake decided. Rick and his wife walked in right behind them, so they didn’t offer Cole their normal brothers’ handshake, but instead fist bumped.

“How’d it go?” Beckett mumbled in his brother’s ear.

“Fine.” Cole refused to meet their eyes.

Blake continued to watch him, his arms now full of Summer and Wintery. The girls had so much to tell them, but also had to get dressed for Halloween. The dining room table was piled with the costume choices he and Beckett had grabbed at the store. Rick gave them a withering look, then cornered him to find out how they’d paid for all of it.

“Teacher at school gets them at ninety-percent-off the year before. She wanted us to take them,” Blake explained smoothly.

It was a quick lie, and Rick seemed to buy it. The older boys volunteered to walk the kids around the neighborhood for trick or treating. Summer had decided to be a ninja, and Wintery a little witch. The other kids suited up and soon they were all walking the neighborhood in the cold evening air.

“So how’d it really go?” Blake asked as the brothers hung back, moving to the next house as the kids clambered over the lawns.

Cole shrugged. “It’s over.”

Beckett snorted. “I wish we could say that about Rick’s life.”

The dark humor again, slipping in. Blake felt awful that Cole had had to endure while they were home. He was sure Beckett felt the same.

“Did you guys get what you needed while we were away?” Cole seemed eager to change the subject.

“Yeah. The money is ready to go. I signed the girls’ permission slips as him and handed them in.” He’d timed his drop off with a cloudy rain that had descended on Poughkeepsie one day during Cole’s absence.

Beckett pointed at the next house and gave the little kids a thumbs up. “Yeah. Got you a new pair of kicks too. Not sure if they’ll fit. The fucking receipt is tucked in the toe.”

“You’re buying stuff legit?” Cole sounded surprised.

“No worries, brother. The cash was all ill-gotten.” Beckett turned, so he missed the look of concern on Cole’s face.

Cole and Blake exchanged shrugs. Beckett was getting shit done. Summer and Wintery danced up to show him the full-size candy bars they’d just gotten. He pretended to eat them like Cookie Monster until the girls were laughing so hard they couldn’t go on.

So easy to label him, with the stints in juvie, the horrible grades, and the constant reprimands at school, but Blake and Cole got to see this, this side of the man. And although Beckett was still only seventeen, he presided over the world like he’d been there for a millennium. No one but his brothers had seen him stride right into the role of drug dealer to make sure two little foster girls got a trip to the zoo. And to give Cole, who had endured beatings on the ranch to keep those girls safe, new sneakers upon his return. People didn’t see that.

Their trick-or-treat walk was peppered with talking to the kids and just shooting the shit. It was great to be back together. When the little ones were done, having hit every house in the neighborhood with the lights on, they all strolled home. It felt like walking back to a jail cell, counterintuitive.

Rick was waiting, looking edgy. Beckett cornered him and whispered harshly. Rick gave Cole a quick glance and nodded, leaving them be. Beckett ordered and paid for pizza to be delivered, and the kids sprawled out on the floor with their candy and the TV. Blake caught Beckett nodding as he surveyed the room. Satisfied. His brother was satisfied. Whatever he’d had to do to get this moment for the kids had been worth it.

When the guys went upstairs to bed, Blake asked Beckett what he’d had said to Rick to avoid going into the woods for a session.

“I told him there were too many people outside. This was a pretty dumb night to beat your kids. He took one look at Cole and agreed.” Beckett turned to Cole. “You do something pretty persuasive to him?”

Cole looked at his feet.

Beckett tsked. “If this is too much for you, you don’t need to do it. I get that it’s fucked up. And I know we’re getting beat based on my setup of the situation.”

Cole shook his head. “If I tell you this, you have to trust that I handled it.”

Beckett hummed with a low disapproval. “You know my word ain’t shit when I’m mad.”

“Which is why it’s better it happened to me.” Cole stepped closer.

Blake shifted and put his hands in his pockets. The thought that this arrangement was transitional made him feel sick to his stomach. Everything was set up here. These guys accepted him.

Beckett held his hands out, waiting for the description of the event that could make Rick Cole’s lapdog.

Cole ran a hand through his short, wavy hair. “Okay, fine. He took me to the woodshed for the hits. Right?”

Beckett nodded. “That’s where he took me when I went.”

Cole considered Beckett and then changed his position, going to stand in front of the closed bedroom door. Blake stood next to him, knowing it would take them both to stop Beckett if he lost his mind.

Cole continued. “He was doing his thing, and Wintery walked in.”

Instant anger flared in Beckett’s eyes. Blake hissed.

Cole held up his hands. “I know, okay? I know.”

“Did. He. Hurt. Her?” Beckett’s neck was tense, veins showing.

“I scooped her up, and when he was hitting me his fist slipped off my back and hit her leg.”

“Fucking asshole.” Beckett headed for the door like there weren’t people in front of it.

Blake helped Cole push him back.

Beckett just shook his head and went for the window—the second-story window.

“I thought you trusted me?” Cole’s words stopped Beckett as unlocked the window.

“You know I trust you.” He spoke to the panes of glass.

“Then hear me out. I can promise he won’t hurt them right now.” Cole crossed the room and sat on Beckett’s bed.

Beckett faced them, but he was still an angry bull of a guy.

Blake pictured stealing the girls and taking them to a safe place in the woods.

“I got her inside, had her put ice on her leg.” Cole paused while Beckett punched the wall he was closest to.

“And then I went back to the woodshed. And I didn’t let him hit me again that night.” Cole’s face went vacant.

Beckett took a deep breath, and Blake looked carefully at Cole. He was by far the deadliest of the three in that room right that minute. Not just because of the intense damage he could inflict once he had that blank look on his face, but because of how long it took him to come down from a fight. His eyes would roll into his head, and he would scream and scream until they could calm him down. It took time. A lot of time.

Cole continued. “When I was with my mom, she had this thing she did. If you make someone think they’re going to die, they’ll do whatever you want. And she would do it a few times in a row. She called it breaking me.” The vacant look left, and a hard one replaced it. “So I broke him. And then I did it again.”

Blake got chills. The thought of Cole as a small kid going through that torture was horrible. Shit, they’d all been dealt crap hands at childhood, but Cole had to have it the worst. The scars all over the guy’s chest, back, and legs testified for him.

“And then I explained how things didn’t need to change. That we would be okay with things just as they are. Just never touch the others. Never touch the girls. And he agreed. So, we’ll see. He was pretty scared.” Cole held his own hands. “But I’m sorry. I should have asked for you guys too. I should have demanded he leave you alone, that I take it all. I missed that opportunity.”

Though Cole had told them more of his childhood story than he ever had before, so much remained unsaid. How fucked up it was that they had to make these choices on top of not having real families. That Cole felt he had to apologize. Blake stared at the floor with the weight of it all.

Beckett offered the answer to Cole’s misplaced guilt. “No. There’s not a time on this fucking planet where we don’t do this together. Brothers. It keeps me here.” Beckett pointed to his heart. “Instead of here.” He pointed to his head. “Do you understand that? Does that make sense?”

Cole nodded. “I feel like that.”

Blake nodded as well. He got it too. What they had here, this friendship, took the aloneness from them, gave them an identity to replace the ones that had been stripped. A claim. A family.

“But if he so much as looks at one of those girls, I’ll bury him alive.” Beckett shook his arms, letting the murder flow out of them, Blake guessed.

“Fair enough.” Cole stood and held out his arm.

“I’ll pick a nice spot in the woods for it.” Blake smiled and added his arm.

Beckett looked from one to the other. “If not for you, my soul would be gone by now.”

For a few beats they stood happy together, though Blake disagreed in his head with Beckett. There was something in him that would always be a true north. The guy would be as bad as he had to, so that everyone around him could be good.