Truth (Scandals of Banner-Hill Book 1) Read online

  If he’s high, I would rather leave here beaten bloody than let him lay another finger on me.

  He pulls back to scoff, his breath reverberating against the back of my neck. I turn my head so that our mouths are only a hair’s width apart.

  A moment passes between us.

  “I’m not high, Nat.”

  It almost freaks me out to hear how sincere he sounds. I turn my head back to the shower tile. I don’t want anything like sincerity from him. Let him keep directing his anger at me. Let him hate me because I can handle that. I’ve spent four years with that cloud hanging over me.

  I’m still not sure I don’t deserve it.

  Killian kicks my feet apart, his arm snaking around my waist to keep me from slipping on the wet surface beneath our feet.

  “Put your hands out,” he directs.

  When I don’t move fast enough for him, he yanks my wrists to do it for me. I pull against him, but there’s nowhere to go with his body crowding mine. I don’t really have a choice. I lay my hands flat against the cool tile and press in hard on my fingertips. I desperately need something to ground me, so I welcome the mild pain that shoots up my fingers.

  Killian puts a hand between my shoulder blades to force me to bend further.

  “Are you still on birth control?” he asks.

  His hand resting on my back is the only thing that keeps me from shooting upright. “You better put a fucking condom on, Killian. I know exactly where you’ve been, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share whatever fucking souvenirs you might have picked up.”

  He makes a growly noise but disappears from the shower for just a moment before returning with a foil packet.

  I stay where I am, too tired from years of fighting people at every turn to keep doing it now.

  I feel broken.

  Killian sheaths himself and seconds later I feel him behind me, one hand rubbing my ass as he uses the other to line himself up at my entrance. He must sense something has changed because he hesitates.

  “Just get it over with already,” I snap at him, knowing if treats this like a tender moment between us that I’m going to lose my shit.

  He finally gives what he promised. He pushes into me hard, giving my body no chance to adjust to him as he fucks me hard until he realizes how little he’s getting out of me. He slows, his fingers kneading my hips where he’s half holding me upright.

  There’s an uncomfortable moment of silence where the tension in the air grows thicker between us. Now that he’s gotten what he wanted, he seems uncertain.

  “Tell me about the first time I fucked you. Out loud. Describe it. Everything you remember.”

  “Killian…”

  I whimper as he drives his dick into me again, my fingers curling in to form fists against the shower wall. He pauses, plastered against me, with his mouth close to my ear again.

  “Do it,” he says, his voice slightly frantic.

  Fuck me.

  I swallow around the lump in my throat. It’s not enough for him to manipulate my body. This isn’t just sex, this is full on emotional warfare. In this moment, I’d give anything to be back in Logan’s bed. The lines weren’t nearly as blurred there.

  I shut my eyes, incapable of staving off the memories, my mind desperate to replay them. I compartmentalized Killian a long time ago, but now those little boxes topple over, spilling out with every touch.

  “Homecoming. We didn’t actually go, but Dash threw the after party. He kicked everybody out because he wanted to fuck me in the new hot tub. But then he decided he’d rather watch you do it.”

  “He was drunk,” Killian adds. He thrusts into me again as if he needs to punctuate his sentence with his dick.

  I hold back a moan to correct him, “No. He started drinking after.”

  Killian wraps his fist around my hair and turns my head so he can look into my eyes. The way it twists my upper body isn’t comfortable, but I grit my teeth and bear it. He searches my eyes with a spooked look in his own.

  “What are you talking about? He was drunk. That’s why he told you to fuck me.”

  “No,” I repeat, my voice cracking with a fucked up laugh. “He’d been hinting about it for weeks. I think he thought it would be Logan first, but that night—”

  “Logan was pissed off about losing the game. He never showed up,” Killian finishes the story for himself. He pulls out of me, but it’s not to show mercy.

  His anger comes back in full force as he shoves me harder against the shower wall. I’m lucky my head is still turned or I would have one hell of a broken nose. He mutters a bunch of nonsense under his breath as he slams his hands against the wall next to mine.

  “Aren’t you a little old to still be getting this jealous of Logan?” I ask quietly.

  When he doesn’t answer right away, I start to think he couldn’t hear me over the sound of the shower. The water is starting to cool. Even in a place like this—the kind that caters to people who want the best of everything—the hot water has to run out eventually.

  “If we’re done here...”

  I try to duck under his arm, but he spins me to face him before I can get far.

  Killian pins me against the shower wall, his hand grabbing under my thigh to lift one leg around his waist, opening me to him. He nudges his dick between my legs, lining himself up again. I try to focus my gaze over his shoulder, but the only thing it does is keep me from noticing his intention until it’s too late.

  His mouth captures mine again. He kisses me as he slides back inside of me, slower this time than the first time.

  My stomach bottoms out as I struggle aimlessly to turn my head.

  He puts a hand on my cheek to hold me still as he runs his tongue over my closed lips. The top one first and then the bottom. I have every intention of keeping my mouth closed to him until he jerks his hips, slamming into me so hard the second time my mouth opens on a gasp.

  He slips his tongue into my mouth, teeth clashing with mine when I fight him on it.

  I’m not completely sure when it is I cave to him, but as he continues to slowly fuck me against the shower wall, my mouth starts to move with his. The kiss is filled with pain. Clashing teeth, dueling tongues, and the weight of our emotional baggage.

  I hate him. I missed him—but mostly I hate him.

  All of it jumbles together, confusing me even more as I keep kissing him back even when he stops holding my head in place. He puts his hands on my breasts, thumbs sweeping over my nipples which are hard peaks again from the water turning cold on us. Killian doesn’t even seem to notice the nearly freezing water still pounding at his back. At least he shields me from the worst of the spray.

  He pinches my nipples as he slows his strokes again, my pussy tingling from the change in friction.

  He tears his mouth away finally and rests his cheek against mine. In one hell of a raspy, bedroom voice he tells me, “I knew I was going to fuck you the second you came into my room. It didn’t matter if you did the coke or not.”

  “That’s—”

  “Not fair?” He grinds his pelvis against mine, punctuating the fact that he’s buried inside of me. “Unlike Logan, I don’t need an excuse to fuck you. Dash has been buried a long time. He doesn’t get to be a factor anymore.”

  I open my mouth to throw my own dig at him but he kisses me again to shut me up.

  Those words should have done for me what the freezing shower water hasn’t—cooled me off. Instead, Killian shifts my leg for a different angle and starts to fuck me again. And I whimper into his mouth as my legs start to quiver.

  I curl my fingernails into my palm, desperately trying to hold onto any sense of composure. But it’s too much. His cock drives me over the edge into an orgasm that makes my toes curl. It feels like the ultimate betrayal as I get off on Killian’s cock after so desperately trying not to.

  This time he lets me pull out of the kiss.

  I stare up at the ceiling as my body tremors with aftershocks. It doesn’t matte
r now that I’ve gone limp, Killian is too far gone to give a damn. It only takes him a couple more minutes of fucking before he groans and stills, his cock jerking inside of me as he cums hard, the condom mercifully protecting me from receiving the full impact of that.

  He pulls out of me and steps back to reach out and shut off the water, I guess finally feeling the effects of the chill. I can’t feel anything anymore. My chest feels tight, packed with emotion that I can’t afford to examine too closely.

  I hate him even more now for turning me inside-out.

  The bathroom is painfully silent as Killian steps out of the shower and then tries to hand me my wet clothes. I wince at my soaking jeans, knowing there’s no way in hell I’m going to work the wet fabric back over my legs.

  “I need my shirt,” I tell him, the fabric noticeably missing from my little pile.

  “No.” He gives me a bored look as he shucks the condom, tying it off before dropping it in the wastebasket. I’m sure the housekeeping ladies will get quite the thrill out of guessing who he used it with.

  I shake my head as I slip back into my underwear, tucking the wet jeans under my arm with a wince. “I need the shirt. I can’t put these pants back on like this.”

  “Then don’t.”

  I hold in a scream that I can feel fighting its way up my body. I step out of the shower and shove past him, needing to get out of being confined is such a small space with him. I’m starting to seriously consider bodily harm as an option. I really should have considered it earlier.

  He follows me just to the doorway of the bathroom. Logan’s shirt—the one that’s been mine for years now—is balled up in his hand but he still makes no move to hand it to me.

  “Just give me the fucking shirt back, Killian.”

  “No,” he says sharper this time. “You can walk your ass next door dressed just like that.”

  “Fuck you.” I snatch the shirt away from him faster than he can stop me, but I’m so angry now that I can’t stay in here long enough to pull it on.

  Instead, I slip quickly out of his room and into mine in only my underwear. There’s no one out in the hallway to witness my little walk of shame, but the shame burns in my chest anyway. When I’m lying awake hours later, I make sure to bury my face in the pillows before the tears finally come.

  I could have screamed or tried to run, but I didn’t. And I don’t think I like what that might say about me.

  7

  “There you are.” Siobhan props her hands on her hips and stares down at me. I look up guiltily from the notebook I’ve been writing in, trying to make note of every detail I can remember about my last stay here. It feels suspiciously like journaling, which is embarrassing as hell.

  “I’m doing research,” I offer without being asked.

  She smiles, her eyebrows dancing in confusion. “Uh… okay. Why are you hiding on the side of the building though? You know there’s a perfectly good rec room inside, right?”

  I bite my lip as I study her for any sign that she knows what happened last night. I’ve spent all morning hiding out here, running Killian’s words about Dash through my head again and again. It’s the only way I’ve managed to keep the nausea at bay. I feel sick every time I remember the feel of his hands on me.

  I assumed that everyone would know about Killian since they’d all seemed to know about Logan.

  It’s not like I would have expected Killian to keep it to himself.

  But nothing on Siobhan’s face looks at me with the pity I’m sure I’d be getting if she knew I spent my night trying to wash away the memory of Killian’s hands on me.

  “This place hasn’t exactly been welcoming. I figured I was better off on my own out here.”

  “Yeah.” Siobhan nods, accepting that answer easily. “Well, you’re going to have to come out of quarantine for now. It’s visiting day, and you’ve got a visitor.”

  “What?” My heart rate kicks up. Had Killian lied about my father being out of town?

  “Older guy? Bald. Tattoos. He doesn’t have a teardrop tattoo though—I checked.”

  The rest of her words are drowned out by a whooshing in my ears. There’s no fucking way.

  I jump to my feet, tucking my notebook safely under my arm, and slide past Siobhan toward the back doors. She’s close on my heels, grabbing my elbow just before I make it inside.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks. “I’ve got friends here. They could help if you’re in trouble. I want you to meet my friend Juliet. Also, her boyfriend Patrick is a serious computer whiz. I asked him to get something for you.” Her eyes dip to the notebook tucked under my arm as if she could see through it to the words inside.

  “What is it?” I narrow my eyes.

  “You should see for yourself. We’ll be in the cafeteria; come find us when you get done with whoever the hell that is waiting for you.” She shudders. “He’s in the sauna.”

  My mouth moves like a fish as I grasp her words. It has to be Murphy. No one else in their right mind would choose the sauna, of all places, as a meeting spot. I rub my forehead as I leave Siobhan behind, turning down opposite halls from her toward the zen area I usually do well to avoid. I didn’t come here for massages and sensory deprivation tanks.

  The sauna is on, the door too fogged up to see through as I rip it open. I step inside the dry heat and blink a couple times to adjust to the dim lighting.

  Murphy sits dead center, his waist wrapped in a towel. A lazy grin stretches over his face as he holds his hands up as if presenting himself to me. I swear, every time I think I’ve gotten a handle on the fucked up family dynamics, I wind up very, very wrong.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Killer, isn’t it? I would have settled for a private room, but this is so much better. Out on good behavior and apology from the warden about the disregard for my safety.” He leans his head back against the wood bench, but his sharp eyes never leave me.

  I gape at him. “This was your plan?” The question is rhetorical. “You didn’t need protection at all, did you? You wanted me to have that guard assault you so that you could use it as leverage to get out.”

  “Smart girl. You definitely get that from me.”

  “Did the guard—”

  Murph makes a sound of disgust. “He’s fine. Helped me pin the whole thing on a guy who’d been causing me problems. You better nip that empathy bullshit in the bud, though. You get that crap from your mother. All it does is make you weak. We can’t really afford that, now can we?”

  “Fuck off,” I mutter.

  He throws his head all the way back with a laugh. I’m pretty sure he’d break someone’s limbs if anyone else dared talk to him like that. Up until a few months ago, it had been years since I’d seen Uncle Murph. But I’ve never forgotten the way people around him deferred to him.

  The man commands respect from everyone but me.

  He likes me mouthy, and I play into that twisted shit because right now I need someone with that kind of power in my corner. We share a common goal. Or rather, a common enemy.

  “What happens if my father finds out you’re here?”

  “Trust me, he’s a little busy at the moment.” His mouth tightens, his smile turning into something more sinister.

  It takes everything in me not to ask about Madison. Killian didn’t mention her when he said my father and Anita were out of the country. I have to remind myself that Anita’s daughter is not my problem. Just like the guard I paid off is not my problem.

  “Aren’t you hot?” Murphy asks, his eyes trailing over my white cut-off shirt and jeans.

  I try not to shudder when his gaze lingers on the exposed skin above my waistband. His tongue darts out to wet his lips before his eyes return to mine.

  “I’m fine,” I manage to ground out.

  “Suit yourself.” He pats the bench next to him. “Have a seat, my sweet little niece. We’ve got an issue to discuss.”

  “I’m fine where I am.”

  Murphy’s fac
e doesn’t change at all, but something dark passes through his eyes. This is not a man that likes to be disobeyed, but I’ve had enough alpha male bullshit for one week. The two of us are already even; I don’t owe him anything more.

  “Did you get my gift?”

  I press my lips together tightly, swallowing the words I’d actually like to say. I’m starting to think the gift wasn’t strategic so much as further proof that my uncle is a sick fuck.

  “Tight-lipped today, I see. Just tell me, did you wear my gift for Wilder or the Lake kid?” He narrows his eyes, staring at me with a possessiveness that isn’t even remotely appropriate for a man that shares my DNA.

  “Are you fucking spying on me?”

  “Trust is earned, Natalie. But apparently you’ve been betraying mine.” He stands and easily closes the small distance between us. “You’re supposed to be here working, and I don’t mean working on becoming a little missus.”

  “Do I really seem like the kind of woman to you that wants to be anyone’s wife?” Marriage in our social circle is rarely more than a business transaction—and a headache I don’t need.

  “Nah, but that only makes you more desirable. What man doesn’t want a woman he has to chase a little?” He runs his hand over my arm. Just enough contact that it could seem innocent, but it’s not. “If you want to fuck a man as a distraction and steal his empire out from under him, I’ll support that. I’ll buy you a whole collection of lingerie to highlight your… assets. But don’t you fucking dare hang around slumming when we’ve got work to do.”

  “Take your fucking hand off of me.”

  He takes a step back, no doubt realizing that he’s crossed the imaginary line that separates what kind of inappropriateness I’m willing to overlook. I can put up with a lot of bullshit, I’ve had years of practice, but I’m sure as hell not going to stand here while Murphy acts like a jealous lover.

  “If you had access to Banner-Hill already, I’m not sure what the fuck I’m doing here.” My uncle is the only person in the world who wants to see my father fall more desperately than I do.