CHAPTER 10:THE BREEDERS [I]

CHAPTER 10

SIENNA'S POV

The fight started while I was still circling for parking.

“Art school, Sienna? That’s what you left for?” My mother’s voice was already tight, the way it always got when she thought I was wasting my life. “You could’ve stayed here, finished something useful. Instead you’re two states away throwing money at a hobby.”

I clamped the phone between my shoulder and ear and yanked the parking brake harder than I needed to. The sharp jolt matched the irritation crawling under my skin. “It’s not a hobby. It’s a degree.”

“A degree that won’t pay your rent when the scholarship money runs out.”

In the background I heard the low rumble of my stepfather’s voice. A second later he came on the line, calm, reasonable, the same tone he used when he used to talk me down from the inside of my own head while his hand was still between my legs.

“Let her breathe,” he said. “She’s already there. Yelling won’t unpack the truck.”

My stomach flipped so hard I felt it in my pussy.

Even now, miles away, the sound of him still did something filthy to me. I hated it. I hated that my body remembered the weight of his hand over my mouth, the way he used to fold me over the bathroom sink when Mom was downstairs watching TV. The way he’d push my panties to the side and tell me to stay quiet while he worked his fingers into me. I hated that I had spent whole nights after I left touching myself to the memory — two fingers buried deep, face pressed into a pillow — and then crying about it afterward like that somehow made it better.

I never told her.

She loved him. The real kind. The kind that would’ve broken her if she knew what we’d done in her house, in her bed, against her kitchen counter when she was working late. So I ran. Packed my things, took the scholarship, and put two states between me and the man I still got wet thinking about.

“I have to go,” I said, voice thinner than I wanted. “Movers are here.”

I hung up before either of them could answer.

For a few seconds I just sat there, forehead against the steering wheel, letting the shame and the heat mix the way they always did. My panties were already damp. They had been since I heard his voice. I pressed the heel of my hand between my legs and cursed under my breath when I felt how slick I was. My clit throbbed against my own palm like it was accusing me.

I was supposed to be starting over.

Instead I was grinding the heel of my hand against my cunt in a parked car because my mother’s husband had said five calm sentences through the phone.

I forced myself to stop, fixed my shorts, and got out of the car before I could do something even more pathetic.

The three men standing by the moving truck looked like they had been built for dirty work. Big hands. Thick necks. Clothes that clung to muscle earned the hard way. The one with the clipboard had a dark buzz cut and a chest that stretched his shirt every time he breathed. The taller one beside him had a short beard and the kind of heavy-lidded eyes that looked like they were already undressing me. The third was broader than both of them, a thin scar running through his eyebrow, mouth set in a line that felt more like a promise than a neutral expression.

They watched me walk up.

I knew exactly what I looked like. Old tank top, no bra, nipples already tight from the leftover adrenaline and the way their eyes moved over me. Shorts that had ridden up during the drive, the soft fabric clinging to the damp spot between my legs. Hair messy from the wind. Face still flushed from the phone call and the shame that never quite left me.

“Sienna Reed?” the buzz-cut one asked.

“Yeah.”

“Jace.” He tapped his chest, then jerked his thumb at the others. “Roman. Cole. We’ll get your stuff upstairs.”

I nodded and led them toward the building, hyper-aware of every step. I could feel their eyes on me the whole way — on the backs of my thighs, on the bounce of my tits under the thin shirt, on the way my ass moved in the shorts. Part of me wanted to tug the shirt away from my skin and hide. The bigger, uglier part of me wanted to arch my back a little more and let them look. Let them see the hard points of my nipples. Let them wonder if I was wet.

That was the thing about me.

I was always split in two.

One half disgusted by how easy I got soaked for attention, for danger, for men I had no business wanting.

The other half already wondering how rough those hands would feel pinning me down.

By the time we reached the apartment door, my pulse was a steady, shameless throb between my legs. I unlocked it and held it open. Jace passed first, his arm brushing mine, skin hot and slightly damp with sweat. The contact shot straight to my clit. Roman came next. His gaze dropped straight to my chest and stayed there long enough that my nipples ached, tightening even harder under the thin cotton. He didn’t smile. He just looked, slow and obvious, like he had every right. Cole came last. He didn’t bother looking away when I caught him. He just dragged his eyes up my body — legs, crotch, tits, mouth — like he was already deciding where he’d put his tongue first.

None of them said anything inappropriate.

They didn’t have to.

The air was already filthy with it. Thick. Charged. The kind of quiet that felt like fingers under my clothes.

I stepped inside after them, heart beating too hard, pussy slick and swollen against my shorts, and realized with a slow, sinking heat that I hadn’t moved to a new city to become someone better.

I had just brought the same hungry, shameful body with me.

And these three men looked like they could smell it on me already.