Chapter 4

Landon's POV

A soft, delicate rhythm pulled me from the depths of a whiskey-soaked sleep.

Fuck, that feels good.

I didn’t open my eyes. Didn’t want to. Instead I sank deeper into the half-life between drunk and awake, letting the fantasy bloom the way it always did when my guard was down.

Kasey.

It was never anyone else.

I could picture her so perfectly it hurt: those wide hazel-brown eyes that looked innocent until they caught mine and something wicked flickered behind them, just for a second. The way her chestnut hair spilled over one shoulder when she laughed, catching the light like polished wood.

And her mouth. The full bottom lip that was perpetually bitten when she was thinking too hard or how the pink turned darker when she was flustered. I’d spent entire nights imagining those lips parted, glossy, sliding down—

My hips gave an involuntary twitch, chasing the warm grip. A low groan slipped out before I could stop it. "

Fuck, baby… just like that. Don’t stop."

A soft, breathy laugh answered. "You like it when I do it slow?"

Everything inside me went still.

That wasn’t her voice.

Kasey’s voice was sweet and chirpy; a melody that could untie every knot in my shoulders and simultaneously tie a new one in my dick.

This voice was… different. Higher. It had a nasal, almost cartoonish quality to it, like someone had given a squeaky toy a vocabulary.

Oh, fuck. No. Please, no.

My fantasy shattered and the beautiful image of Kasey evaporated like smoke. A cold dread washed over me, sobering me up in an instant.

Please let it be her. Please let it not be that I brought some random bimbo to fuck last night. Please, for the love of God…

"Your dick has gotten soft," the wrong voice noted. "I could change that for you."

Nope. Definitely not her.

"Wanna fuck again, Reaper?"

My eyes snapped open, and I was blinded by the sudden, brutal assault of morning sunlight. I blinked, the world coming into harsh, unforgiving focus.

My eyes landed on the naked woman next to me. She was lying on her side, head propped on one fist, smiling like we were old lovers catching up. Bleach-blonde extensions fanned across my pillow; cheap, obvious ones that had started to mat at the roots.

She was not Kasey.

I had the wrong woman in my fucking bed.

"Who the fuck are you?" I asked, my voice a low growl as I ripped myself away from her touch, scrambling back against the headboard like she was contagious.

She pouted, those wrong lips forming a shape that just made me angry.

"Kendra. But you can keep calling me Kasey." That cartoon laugh again. "You did it, like, the whole night. Whispered it when you were inside me. It was kinda hot."

My stomach lurched so violently I tasted last night’s tequila at the back of my throat.

I’d called her Kasey.

In my bed. In the sheets I changed everyday just in case—stupid, delusional just-in-case—she ever ended up here.

And I didn't bring women back here. This was my space. This is the bed I imagined her in every single night. This woman being here was a defilement. A fucking violation of a sacred shrine she didn’t even know existed

She moved closer and tried to touch my semi-hard dick again. I jerked away, ripping myself out of her grip, scrambling back until my spine hit the headboard with a dull thud.

"Get your fucking hand off me."

Her brows pinched. "What? You were literally begging for it five seconds ago."

"I wasn’t begging for you." I dragged both hands down my face, trying to scrub the fog away.

"What happened last night?" I demanded, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to will the entire memory into existence or out of existence, I wasn’t sure which I preferred.

"The Clubhouse? You bought me, like, seven shots," she giggled, that squeaky-toy sound grating on my last nerve. She started to crawl toward me, her bare breasts swaying. "You said you loved my… energy. Then you brought me here and fucked me so good against that door." She pointed a manicured finger toward my bedroom door. "It was, like, super hot. You wanna go again? I’m still so wet for you."

The only thing I could remember from was last night was dropping a crying Kasey to her dorms, going back to the Clubhouse and drowning bottles and bottles of Don Julios. Nothing else.

Did I use a condom? I frantically scanned the room. No wrappers. No condom foil glinting in the light. No evidence at all that I’d remembered basic fucking biology.

My heart slammed against my sternum.

I never did raw. Never. The only exception lived in my head where it was Kasey’s thighs locked around my waist, her nails scoring my back and her voice breaking on my name while I spilled inside her without a single barrier between us.

"Get out," I said.

Her faux-sexy pout vanished, replaced by genuine confusion. "What? Why? Baby, come on…"

"I am not your baby. Get your fucking clothes and get the fuck out of my apartment."I threw the duvet off, standing up, naked and furious, stalking toward the pile of her clothes I spotted on a chair.

"Whoa, okay, rude much?" she said, sitting up, not making a move to cover herself. She seemed more offended than scared. "You weren’t saying that last night when you had your tongue—"

"Last night was a mistake," I deadpanned as I grabbed a tiny sequined top and a pair of ripped jeans. I hurled them onto the bed. "A fucking mistake fueled by my own spectacularly bad judgment and whatever part of my brain thought this was a good idea."

I scrubbed a hand over my face and exhaled hard. "So, please. Get dressed. Now. Before I completely lose my mind."

Tears welled in her eyes."But… but you said I was the hottest thing you’d ever seen. You said my name was so pretty."

"I wasn’t talking about you." I was fantasizing about someone else. "Now, for the last time, get the hell out of my house."

The tears started to fall, carving lines through her makeup. "You’re a dick."

"Yeah, well, you should have known that when I called you by the wrong name. Now move it before I drag you out myself." I turned my back on her, grabbing a pair of boxer briefs from my drawer and yanking them on, my skin crawling with the need to scrub the entire night off of me.

I heard the rustle of fabric behind me, followed by a few pathetic sniffs. "I could make you feel so good," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You don’t need to think about her. Just let me… let me suck your cock. You’ll forget all about that other girl."

Yeah, I wish it was that fucking easy.

I spun around. She was on her knees on the mattress, her hands clasped in front of her as if in prayer. The sight wasn’t enticing; it was pathetic.

"My mouth can make you feel so good, Reaper."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I scoffed. "The only thing your mouth is gonna do is say ‘goodbye’ on its way out the door. Now, I’m going to stand right here and watch you put every single item of clothing on. Then you will walk to that door, you will open it, and you will never, ever come back here. Do you understand me?"

Her shoulders slumped in defeat. The act was finally over. She started pulling on her jeans with a sullen expression. I stared her down, every second stretching into an eternity of awkward, seething disgust. My mind was already racing, trying to piece together the night that I could barely remember.

Finally, she was dressed, looking smaller and less bombastic than she had ten minutes ago. She shuffled toward the bedroom door, pausing with her hand on the knob. She looked back at me, one last attempt at a seductive glance. It just made her look cross-eyed.

"Your loss," she squeaked.

"I highly doubt that,"

She opened the door and slipped out into the hallway. I didn’t move until I heard the distant sound of my front apartment door clicking shut.

I stood there for a long minute, breathing through my mouth, trying not to gag.

I needed a shower. I needed to burn the sheets. Hell, I needed to bleach my fucking brain and maybe dunk my dick in holy water while I was at it, because apparently it couldn’t survive a single week without dragging me straight into chaos.

But most of all, I needed to hear her voice. I needed to hear the right voice.

I grabbed my phone off the charger, thumbed down through contacts until I found it.

Trouble.

I had her number because Tyler, my best friend, was oblivious. He was so comfortable with our relationship, so trusting of me, that he’d just assumed I had his little sister's number for things like coordinating family dinners or organizing last minute birthday presents.

He had no idea I opened our thread sometimes just to stare at the three pathetic, innocent messages we’d exchanged.

I knew exactly when she’d last been online—12:14 a.m. yesterday, because I’d checked at 12:19 a.m like the pathetic bastard I was. I knew she typed fast, deleted half her messages before sending, always added too many emojis when she was nervous.

I started typing before reason could catch up.

The message said: "Hey, you. You awake?"

But I deleted it.

Landon: Have you thought about it yet? Let me show you how to make Leo see you differently.

My thumb hovered over send.

But I couldn’t do it. Not when one word from me could ruin everything.

After all, I was nothing more than her brother's best friend.

The older brother of the man she loved.

And that was all I was ever going to be to her.