Fracture

12. Dylan

CHAPTER 12

DYLAN

Stella’s gone when I wake up, and the pain at her absence is visceral. I roll over and clutch the pillow she slept on to my face, drinking in the scent of vanilla that lingers. Her clothes are still draped over the chair in the corner. It could all be so normal, so different, if I wasn’t fucked up beyond repair.

She’s too good for me.

There’s a knock at the door, and before I can respond, Levi’s peering around the edge of the door, holding up a blue cup.

“Hey, pretty boy. Brought you a coffee.” He smiles warmly, coming to sit on the bed beside me and hand me the cup.

“Thanks.” I take a sip, and it soothes my throat that’s sore from crying the night before. “Where’s Stella?”

“Her mom’s back in town, she went for brunch with the family.”

“Oh.” The pain intensifies, and I chide myself silently for being a selfish fuck. “She probably really wanted to see her mom, huh?”

Levi laughs cynically and raises his eyebrows. “It did not sound like it. But with her family I don’t think she has much choice.”

“I guess not.”

“Did you know she lived with my mom after we were sentenced?”

I take another sip of coffee, and rub my chin. “Yeah, Zee told me. But when I try to talk to Stella about it, she just says that it doesn’t matter, and that it’s done.”

Levi sighs, crawling into the bed beside me and leaning against the headboard. He runs his hands over his face, and lets them drop heavily into his lap. “She said the same thing to me this morning.” He gives me a side glance. “So you and her, you made up?”

I shrug, placing the cup on the nightstand, resuming my position beside him simply to feel the warmth of his shoulder against mine. “I guess we did. I didn’t think she’d leave me alone like this, but…”

“I’m here,” Levi says, and slowly, hesitantly, he lays his hand over mine. I swallow hard, because all the pain and grief, the soreness that lies in every muscle of my body and the ache in my chest, they all dissipate just a little as his strong hand wraps around mine. “I’m sorry for what happened. With your grandpa, I mean.”

I scoff bitterly. “I’m not.”

“No, I mean-” He breaks off with a sharp breath, frowning at our joined hands. “I should have come to the hospital. I should have been there.”

“There’s nothing you could have done.”

With a strangled laugh he releases my hand and scoots to the edge of the bed, running his fingers through his hair. “God fucking dammit, Kovac, you really make it hard to look after you, you know that?” He looks over his shoulder at me, and there’s no swagger, no smirk on his face. Levi Fenton is looking at me with pain and longing, his eyes full of a desire for something neither of us want to admit to.

“I worried about you, all afternoon. All evening.” His brow furrows, and he grits his teeth as he sucks in a breath. “I miss you, OK? I miss you, and I’m at work with you, all day, I’m here with you, and I have to watch you and Stella navigate whatever the fuck you two have going on, and I’m just here, wondering who-” He cuts off, his head hanging to his chest. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what to do with what I feel for you. And it’s fucking killing me.”

I’ve never seen him like this. Not over anyone. Levi was always too cool to get caught up on anyone. But now he’s sitting here, suffering through a half-mumbled confession of something, I’m not even sure what, and all I can think about is how I just spent a night lying in this bed with Stella, and now I’m sitting here with her brother, wanting nothing more than to kiss him.

“We agreed it was just going to be the one time,” I say slowly, and Levi’s eyes flash over his shoulder at me as he laughs cynically.

“I think we both know that was a stupid fucking idea.” He turns to me, and rubs a hand over his mouth, before reaching out to take my hand again. “If there was a way, for us to be together-”

“There’s not.” I can’t even let that thought take hold. It hurts too much.

“But if there was… I mean…” He lifts his eyes to look at me, and his lip trembles, his brows drawn together. “Would you want to be?”

I pull my hand away with a grunt. “Why the fuck are you doing this to me?” I push the sheet away, climbing out of the bed and clawing my hands against my head. “I - I can’t fucking do this right now. I cannot believe you’d fucking ask me this.”

He’s in front of me in an instant, taking my face in his hands, his eyes almost frantic as they search mine. “I’m sorry! You think I want this? To drive us both half fucking crazy while knowing what it would do to Stella? I’m not doing this because I enjoy it.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and his eyes move to my lips. “Because I need you.”

I’m suddenly aware of the fact that I’m naked, and he’s pressing his barely dressed body against me. Everything slips into sharp focus, the heat of his body and the brush of his fingertips against the stubble on my jaw. I know I should push him away. I know this is wrong. But I also know that Levi is right and that sleeping with him just one time opened up the floodgates on all the feelings I’d tried to suppress. It’s selfish. It’s selfish and wrong, and my better judgment tells me to push Levi out the door and out of my fucking heart and life as fast as possible.

But of course I don’t do that. Like the weak, desperate coward I am, I grab him and pull him close, my mouth descending on his and his answering moan making me hard in an instant. I need him too, in a way I never expected to. I’m selfish and greedy, because as I kiss him and taste his mouth and his hands roam over me in a frenzy, I wonder why I shouldn’t be able to have them both?

I’ve lost everyone in my life, don’t I deserve more? Why should I have to fucking choose? Why do I have to decide between the two people who own the fucking air in my lungs and every beat of my wrecked and ruined heart? Why can’t I have them both? Why can’t they both have me?

Levi pushes me on to the bed, and I lie back, letting his mouth and hands explore me.

“Fuck, pretty boy,” he says over a rasping breath, wrapping his hand around my cock. His eyes darken as he gazes up at me, and he licks his lips. “I’ve never done this before.”

I stroke a hand through his hair. “I’ll tell you what feels good, don’t worry.”

“Kinda new to me, wanting a dick in my mouth, you know?”

I throw my head back and laugh breathlessly, a hand over my face. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.” When my eyes meet his again, they’re soft and desirous. He looks down at my cock, then back at me. “I want to look after you. Even if I’m no good at it, I want to - I want to learn what’s good for you.” His hand glides up my stomach, and he lowers his mouth to my hip, planting an open-mouthed kiss there, his breath hot as it washes over my skin. “I want to make you feel good.”

His touch is gentle, his lips and tongue questioning and hesitant. He runs his tongue up the underside of my cock, from base to tip, circling the head. A small hum vibrates through him as he licks up the precum that’s already beading there.

The pace of my breathing picks up, and I try not to buck my hips to meet him. He seems to sense the tension in my body, and his gaze skates up my body.

“Is this how you like it?”

I shake my head. “It’s OK, you do it the way that-”

“No. Tell me what you like.”

I tip my head back, staring at the ceiling. “You can be rougher. I like… that.”

“Rough, huh?” And just like that, the flip switches and Levi’s voice is full of swagger and all that fucking confidence. He nips at my thighs, and I hiss in a breath. “My pretty boy likes it to hurt?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Good.” His mouth descends on my cock, and he sucks hard, the brush of teeth and the pressure of his lips making me clench my molars. He spits on me and strokes his hand up and down, increasing the pressure as he strokes over the tip. He takes me back down his throat, and his mouth is huge and hot, his tongue almost punishing as it lashes up and down my length.

His other hand pushes between my thighs, and his thumb presses against my ass. For someone who said they didn’t know what they were doing, he sure as fuck knows something. It shouldn’t surprise me that someone like Levi knows what to do no matter who he has in bed, but fuck, the way he sucks and touches, the way he almost seems to answer each of my moans with a chuckle, like he’s so pleased with himself - it’s not just about him knowing how to suck dick or where to touch me to have my back arching off the bed.

It’s fucking heaven. For this moment I’m not alone, and he’s showing me just what I mean to him, how much I mean to him. Maybe I’m a fool, because the moment will pass and we’ll have to answer for this tangled web we keep on weaving for ourselves.

But right now, there’s just Levi, sucking harder and harder until the heat in my spine ignites, and I can’t stop myself grabbing the back of his head and jerking my hips to meet every stroke of his hot mouth. And then I explode, pumping my release down his throat as he swallows me down.

I can’t hold back the moan that almost crests into a roar, and when he runs his hand over my stomach again, his fingertips slide against the thin sheen of sweat that’s broken out over me.

All the tension now gone, my body melts into the bed, and the haze that takes over as Levi crawls over me and kisses me gently - maybe it’s some weird post-nut clarity, but I want to tell him I love him and that I want him more than anything, as much as I want Stella. Yes I want to be with you. If there was a way to be with you, I’d take it. Right now. No questions asked.

We lie in my bed, the sun washing over us, and my best friend kisses me like there’s no one else in the world.

He finally pulls back from me, propping himself up on an elbow, and he grins down at me. “Not bad for my first time, huh?”

“Smug asshole.”

He laughs, rolling away from me to get off the bed and head into the bathroom. The faucet comes on, and I hear him washing up. He reappears in the doorway, drying his hands on a towel.

“Come on, pretty boy. Get dressed.”

I raise my head from the bed with a frown. “You expect me to walk after that?”

“We have somewhere to be.”

“And where is that?”

He crosses the room to lean over me in the bed, and plants a soft kiss on my lips. “We’ve got to get our girl.”

By the time we pull up in the parking lot of the cafe where Stella is meeting her family, I’ve managed to compartmentalize the shame I felt the entire drive here. Every now and then, Levi’s hand strayed over to my leg, and I tried not to think about the fact that he was about to face Stella with my cum inside him.

Levi kills the engine, and turns on me with a wide smile. “Ready?”

“What exactly are we doing here?”

Levi shrugs. “I don’t know. Cause some shit. Save Stella from her mother.”

“Her family is going to lose it.”

Levi’s smile turns positively devilish. “Then get ready for the fireworks.”

The cafe is brimming with people, all the wealthy Bellford Heights families sipping juice from champagne glasses, tastefully dressed in beige and white. Their diamonds glint in the bright sunshine, and Levi and I look like two serpents slithering amongst the masses in our black t-shirts and arms sleeved in tattoos. Eyes follow us, tables falling silent as we pass, stares and glares meeting us at every turn.

Then, like a ray of sunshine, I spot her. Sitting at the banister, mimosa in hand, her hair swept up on top of her head. Her bright pink sundress stands out amongst the sea of beige.

Our girl .

Is it weird that those words sent an unnamed desire through me? I really am sick. I should be consumed by guilt after what Levi and I just did.

Lilly spots us before Stella does, her mouth falling open with a scoff.

“What are they doing here?” She announces loudly enough for the whole cafe to hear, and all eyes at the family table turn to us.

Stella’s face is filled with joy and confusion. Her cousins and aunt all stare daggers. Levi laughs jovially, and suddenly I’m filled with the same level of contemptible swagger he is. Fuck these people, all these people who left Stella to Gloria fucking Fenton when she needed them. We might be the criminals - at least we’re nothing like these people.

“Morning!” Levi says brightly, leaning over Lilly to drop a kiss on Stella’s cheek. She smiles, her cheeks flushing pink as her eyes drop to the table. Levi plucks the mimosa from her hand, downing the rest of it, and casts his smile over the table of glowering faces. “How is everyone today?”

“Fine until you showed up.” Lilly throws her napkin on the table, crossing her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here, Levi?”

“Why, I’m here to see my family .” His lethal grin lands on Stella’s mother, who looks like she’s already drunk as she holds onto her champagne glass with two hands. “Hey, Molly. How’s things?”

Molly’s head wobbles on her skinny neck as she turns to look up at Levi. “Who the fuck are you?” She slurs, and all eyes at the table drop.

They might act like they’re better than us, but Molly Hartmann is the one embarrassment they can’t cover up.

Stella leans over and puts a hand on her mother’s arm. “Mom, this is Levi. Gloria’s son. Remember?”

Molly narrows her eyes at Levi as he extends a hand to her, taking in his tattooed knuckles. “You look like you just got out of jail.”

Levi meets my eyes and we both laugh.

“It’s not funny ,” Lilly snaps, and Levi drops down to plant a kiss on her cheek, making her flinch and frantically wipe the kiss away like he’s going to give her a disease.

“Lighten up, Lil. Is Colin Bates still hitting that?”

Lilly’s cheeks flush bright red as her mother turns to her with a stern look. “Oh my god, will you both just go away?”

“We just got here,” I say, rounding the table to stand beside Stella, who gazes up at me with a soft smile. “Hey, guera. ” I stroke a finger along her jaw. “You look real pretty.”

“Thank you.”

“I was sad you weren’t there when I woke up.”

She stiffens, and gasps go up from the table. I lean down and press a gentle kiss to her lips, and she suppresses a smile.

“Can I borrow you for a minute?” I ask quietly, and she nods.

“Stella, tell me you are not going somewhere with these assholes?” Lilly asks loudly.

“Guess y’all don’t know we’re living with her, huh?” Levi laughs loudly as horrified eyes turn to him. “Oh yeah, it’s a regular little love nest we got ourselves there.”

Stella’s aunt, whose name I can’t remember, rises to her feet. “This is a family function. Neither of you are invited. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”

Levi snatches a grape from the table, putting it between his teeth and turning from the table with a shrug. “No problem, I’ll meet you back at the car, pretty boy.”

I pull Stella up from her chair, and we round the table. “Y’all can have her back in just a second.”

More eyes follow us as I drag Stella through the cafe, to the building housing the kitchen, down a narrow path and out the back towards the river. Once I know we’re alone, I round on her and pull her against me. She squeaks a smothered protest as my mouth claims hers, one hand grabbing her ass hard.

“What are you doing?” She gasps as she frees her mouth from mine. “What the fuck-”

“I wanted to come down here and remind you who you belong to.” I grasp her jaw in my hand, forcing her to look up at me. “I wanted to remind you that you’re better than all these fucking posers. Even if they think you’re slumming it with someone like me.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?” She asks, her body softening against me.

“That’s right.” I smile down at her.

“So I belong to you?”

“If you do, guera , you come home to me and you prove it.”

Her eyes flutter, and she sighs softly. “Dylan, I have to tell you someth-”

I cut her off with a hard kiss. I have to tell her something too, too many fucking somethings. But I’m not going to give her a chance to doubt this. I’m not going to give myself a chance to feel guilt over the morning I just spent in bed with her brother. I know this is fucked, I know I’m trying to reel her in harder so she won’t walk away when she finds out just what I’ve been doing behind her back.

I refuse to lose her. My girl. Our girl .

When I release her, my hand drops to her throat, and I squeeze lightly. “You come home to me, and you show me who you belong to.” I squeeze a little harder, and a small moan leaves her lips. “I told you, I’m a fucking animal for you. And I need you. All of you.” I put my mouth to her jaw, nipping her gently. “Now, you go back to that family of yours, and know you’re better than all of them.”

A shuddering breath leaves her lips, and she nods.

I release her, stepping back and feeling way too fucking smug over the fact that her hair’s come loose and her lips are full and red from kissing me. Knowing she’s going back to her family all worked up and thinking about what’s going to happen when she comes home later.

I head back through the gardens to the car, where Levi is leaning on the hood, smoking a cigarette.

“And?” He asks, grinding the cigarette out under his shoe. “Did we get our girl?”

“I think we’re about to find out.”

I spend the next few hours back at the house in the garage, working on my bike. Levi leaves for a while, then comes back and disappears into his room. The sun starts to sink low on the horizon, and Stella still isn’t back.

I go inside, heading up to the shower to wash off all the grease from the garage. I wonder when Stella’s coming back, if my little possessive display scared her off. I’m not much good at this ‘taking it slow’ thing anymore. The guilt is eating away at me, making me desperate and reckless.

But I need to have her. I need to tell myself that I won’t fucking lose her when she finally knows who I really am.

The setting sun hasn’t made the temperature drop, and it’s hot as fucking Hades when I get out of the shower. I dry off and pull on a pair of shorts, and just as I head downstairs, the front door flies open. Frantic footsteps sound in the hallway and then thump up the stairs.

Stella stares up at me for just a moment before she rushes the rest of the way up the stairs and into my arms. She makes as though she wants to kiss me, pulling back with a brief shake of her head.

“I need you to know that I love you.”

When I try to speak, to tell her that I love her too, she claps a hand over my mouth, shaking her head more emphatically.

“I need you to listen. I’m broken, Dylan. I want things I shouldn’t. And it’s not that you’re not enough. It’s that I’m not enough. I will never be good enough for you, and I’m sorry.”

I wrap my fingers around her wrist, removing her hand from my mouth. I turn her hand, placing a kiss on the back of it.

“ Guera , whatever it is, we’ll get through it.”

“I’ll hurt you.” Her lip trembles, her big amber eyes filling with tears. “I’ll hurt you, and you don’t deserve it.”

“You won’t hurt me.”

“Yes, I will.”

I’m standing on the step above her, so I’m practically towering over her, and when I sink my hands into her hair to yank her head back, her chin rests against my chest, wide eyes gazing up at me as a tear strays down the side of her face.

“Then hurt me, Stella. Fucking destroy me.” I brush the tear away with the backs of my fingers, only to have it followed swiftly by another one. “I mean it. Tear me to pieces every single day. I don’t give a fuck, as long as I’m with you.”

“But-”

I crush her protests with my mouth. No more. Enough. I’m not having this perfect creature weeping in front of me, berating herself for god knows what when the man she’s standing in front of is less than perfect. When I’m more broken and damned than she could ever know. But I want to deserve her. Somehow, some way, I want to deserve both of them.

I want to be fucking happy. I want to be brave enough to seize all of this with both hands, to have everything and everyone and be so fucking full of joy that all the dark, all those black spots of pain and damage that blanket my soul are blotted out.

I devour Stella’s sobs and tears, drinking in every part of her. Her hands scratch at my stomach, as though fighting a losing battle, too tired to fight this anymore.

“I’m yours,” she gasps against my lips.

I tear down the straps of her dress, teeth grazing along her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder, and she pushes a hand into my shorts. Her delicate fingers wrap around me, and she huffs out a breath against my heated skin. One hand braces against my chest, and she pushes me onto the step behind me. She peels off her sundress, then climbs into my lap, straddling me and hesitating for a moment, her shoulders heaving. Her eyes meet mine, her plump lips quivering.

“I waited for you,” she murmurs.

“I know.”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, lifting her hips so the head of my cock just caresses her entrance, and her eyes flutter shut.

“ Guera, I’ve got you.”

Without opening her eyes, she takes my face in hers, and with a small moan she sinks down onto me, enveloping me with all her slick heat. Just that sensation alone has me seeing fucking stars, just her naked warmth around me, her breath washing over my lips.

“You feel so good.” I run my hands up her back, into her hair. She’s so fucking tight, and with nothing between us, I have to claw on to my restraint not to come. She moves and I hiss in a breath, each circle of her hips taking me closer and closer to fucking heaven. “Fuck, guera , fuck. That’s it.”

The step behind me digs into my back as she rides me, the sensation unpleasant enough that I focus on that instead of the feeling of that sweet pussy working me. She doesn’t release my face, keeping me close as she moans, tiny sounds like she’s afraid of herself, like the desire is threatening to unleash something bigger than both of us.

“Let go,” I tell her. “You let go, it’s just us.”

“Put your hand around my throat.” She says, her eyes meeting mine, danger and need flashing at the same time. “I trust you. I want you to.”

I lean back on the step, bracing myself on an elbow as I extend my other hand, bracing it around the smooth column of her neck. Her head tips back slightly, a moan, louder this time, bursting from somewhere deep within her, and her hips start to work me harder.

“That’s my girl.” I lower my eyes to where our bodies join, and my dick is stretching her almost obscenely, her rosy pink clit rubbing against me. I squeeze her throat a little tighter, and the pulse that jolts through her pussy almost has me come undone right there and then. “ Fuck ,” I murmur over a heavy exhale.

Stella is lost in the moment now, her perfect tits bouncing as she rides me, one hand against my stomach and the other braced against the railing. Her pussy is so tight now, her climax drawing closer and closer. She starts to grind herself against me, and I lift my hips to meet her strokes, to provide that friction that she needs to come on my cock.

I should lift her off me before I spill inside her, I know I should. But she doesn’t give me a chance to think or be any semblance of fucking responsible. Her hips buck against me, her head thrown right back, straining against my hand, and as her stomach tenses, I feel that pulse again, followed by another, and another. She moans my name, curling her hand around my wrist, holding on for dear life as my cock twitches and releases deep inside her. I pull her down to me, sliding in and out of her as she lies against my chest, savoring every single clench of her pussy as she rides out her orgasm, as I fill her with mine.

Finally, we’re both sprawled on the stairs, her face tipped up into the crook of my neck, panting and sweating. All I can think, the singular thought in my head, is Finally . Maybe it’s crude to think that way, I don’t know. I don’t fucking care. Lying here with her in my arms, shuddering and gasping softly, my cum dripping out of her, all I can think is I finally had her . It was hurried and frenzied, and my back fucking hurts from these stupid stairs.

But fuck, I’ve had her, and she’s had me.

A door closes softly, and my heart roars.

It wasn’t just us. Levi is here too.

Stella doesn’t seem to have heard it, her body still lax and soft from her orgasm. I’m overtaken by that greedy feeling again, selfish and consuming, and I know it’s wrong.

But I still want them both. And I don’t know how to tell her that. This feeling is gutting, and I’m convinced this family is going to fucking kill me.

“Are you OK?” Stella asks softly, lifting her head from my chest to gaze up at me. She looks almost sleepy, drunk and satisfied.

“I just - I didn’t mean to come inside you, I shouldn’t have done that.”

She shrugs, running a finger along my jaw. “I have an IUD. I wanted you to come inside me.”

Those words are enough to have me getting hard again. Before I can get too entangled in that feeling, I lift her off me, and she gasps a little.

“You’re bigger than I expected,” she says with a little laugh.

“Well thanks.” I kiss her forehead, and groan as my back connects with the step again. “I need to get up.”

Her eyes widen with alarm, and she scrambles off me. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was worth it.”

It’s while we’re in the shower that I stare down at her, at this woman I love, and the gutting feeling comes back. The realization that I need to tell the truth before she gets in even deeper. I wash her gently, and she sighs.

“Stella, I have to tell you something.”

“Mmm?”

Five. Four. Three. I count down to the moment when I know I’ll lose her. I count down these precious seconds of her skin being against mine. I’m about to ruin everything, right when I had it all.

But the truth is stinging in my chest, and I need to get it out.

Two. One.

“I slept with Levi.”