“Fuck me,” I said while my mind was screaming to beg him to make love to me. To love my body gently, to show me that I was not alone in this.

He ran his hand down my bare arm. “Tonight, let me take it slow.”

I knew that if he took it slow, I’d break into a million pieces. I desperately wanted it, but I was too weak to have it. “Not tonight. I need you inside me. Now.”

His pupils grew larger and the sweet left his eyes, replaced by raw hunger. He wanted it as much as I did. He didn’t order me to get naked this time around. Instead, he did it for me, jerking my tank top off first, then pushing me back onto the grass so he could pull my shorts and panties off. “I spent a fucking hour in the shower this morning thinking about this,” he growled tossing his shirt aside and unbuttoning his jeans. “How tight your pussy is, how wet it gets, how it feels when you claw my back.”

I let my legs fall open and his eyes went directly to my wet opening. “Keep talking like that and I’ll orgasm without you,” I panted, my chest rising and falling rapidly.

“You sure you don’t want me to take my time? I could eat this pussy until you’re screaming for me to stop. Then fill you up nice and slow.”

What woman wouldn’t want that? But my heart begged me not to take it.

“Please, Asher,” I pleaded.

His body came down over mine and with a firm thrust he was inside me. I screamed, curving my back and lifting my legs to wrap myself tightly around him. He started moving immediately. His arms flexed with each thrust, his breathing deep then short and shallow. He murmured words in my ear that I had to close my eyes to block out. Hearing him tell me how much he loved me and what I meant to him was splintering my heart because I felt the same way and couldn’t tell him. Not before it was safe for me to do so.

When I began to tremble and cry out in release, he held me close. I let myself just inhale his scent, feel him inside me and everywhere around me, and a small tear tricked from the corner of my eye and hid in my hair. In that moment, we were as we always should have been. We were happy, connected, complete. A second tear followed when I realized we might never have this again.

Asher Sutton

YELLING PULLED ME out of my sleep the next morning. I was up in the attic but I could still hear the words being hurled downstairs. Jumping out of bed and grabbing a pair of sweats to quickly pull on, I ran down the stairs as quickly as I could. We’d been waiting for things to escalate between Brent and Bray and it sounded like that moment had arrived.

I came to a stop as I turned the corner and walked into the kitchen. Bray swung his angry snarl at me. “Go the fuck back upstairs. We don’t need a referee,” he scowled knowing well why I was here.

“The hell you don’t,” interjected Dallas. “Calm them the fuck down.” He was looking at me now.

“Or why don’t y’all let me deal with this myself? The motherfucker was screwing my girlfriend. Dixie broke up with Steel, but not because she was fucking Asher. Because Asher wouldn’t do that to his own brother.” Brent’s tone was hard, but calm. He was angry, but he wasn’t on the verge of hitting anyone.

“It ain’t you we’re worried about. It’s the crazy ass one,” Steel said looking pointedly at Bray.

“She left. She fucking left. She left us both. What the fuck does it matter now? She obviously didn’t feel the same way either of us did,” Bray said without the anger I expected to seep from his words. He sounded hollow. Empty. A feeling I understood all too well.

“I just want to know why? Am I asking too much, Bray? Can’t you even give me a fucking reason why?” Brent was getting angrier now.

He slowly turned his gaze to his twin who simply replied, “No.”

“You motherfucking asshole,” Brent roared and moved fast. He was almost on top of Bray when Steel and Dallas grabbed him by the arms.

“He’s already got a black eye and swollen nose because of Asher,” Steel said holding him off Bray.

“Let him at me. I’ll give him one shot. Then I’m fighting back.”

I just watched it all unfold, not sure if this was their fight to finish. There was pain on both sides. They were closer than the rest of us. They had a bond none of us had. But what had happened with Scarlet was hard to overcome.

“You just take whatever you want, not caring about anyone but yourself, and when you end up hurting people, you use your temper as an excuse. You pitch a damn fit whenever you can’t get what you want.”

I was the oldest. They were waiting on me to arbitrate between them. To stop them when things got out of hand. It was what I had always done. But this was different. They were men, not boys anymore. “Let Brent go. This ain’t our fight to stop. But if you’re going to hit each other, take it outside and out of Momma’s kitchen.”

Brent stormed past everyone and opened the screen door. “Then get your ass outside,” he said shooting a challenge back at Bray.

Steel and Dallas looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I turned to them and shrugged. “It’s their fight. They need this.”

Bray was at the door when he put his hand on the screen and glanced back at Steel then me. “Since we’re all getting our shit out and dealing with things, why don’t you tell Steel about the fact you’ve been fucking Dixie down at the lake since she left him.”

I turned just as Steel’s fist met my face.

“Better take that shit outside,” Bray drawled, disappearing out the door.

“Holy hell,” Dallas muttered as I followed Bray outside. “Are y’all really about to just beat the shit out of each other?”

No one looked at him. No one even acknowledged his question. We all heard it but there was too much anger in the air to stop any of it now. I watched as Brent slammed into Bray and they went rolling down the grass hill behind them. Then I turned and looked at Steel. “You can have one more. Then I’m getting mine. Because I had her first. She was mine before she was yours.”

Steel glared at me. “You broke her heart.”

“And you know I had a good reason.”

Steel advanced on me. “We never even had sex.”

“Good.”

That was all it took. Steel’s hand connected with my jaw again and I let him. I took in two hits and then I just wrestled him until he was out of breath, evading his hits as well as I could. He put his hands on his knees and stared at the ground for several moments before tilting his head back and looking at me. “I loved her.”

“I still do. Never stopped and you knew it. Just didn’t care.”

He winced and looked away. “Always wanted her. She was my age. Too young for you, but she only ever saw you.”

“We didn’t plan this. You can’t plan what your heart wants.”

Steel sank down and sat on the ground. He stretched his feet out in front of him and got in a relaxed position. “Fuck if I know that.”

“I never touched her when you were with her.”

He nodded. “I know.”

I looked down the hill where grunts and hits were still filling the air. “Think we should stop them yet?” Steel asked.

“They’re gonna fucking kill each other,” Dallas said glaring at the two of us like we had lost our minds. “If you two are done, then help me save Brent’s face before Bray bashes it in. All this over damn women. Jesus, could y’all not just find other women and stop falling for the same ones?”