The Other Brother (Snow and Ash Book 3) (2 page)

He’s going to marry me because I don’t mind his scars? I might actually cry. “I meant what I said. I’ll have sex with you if that’s what you want, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to. You can have a girlfriend. I won’t say anything.”

“No.”

I blink. “No, what?”

“If we’re married, you will sleep in my bed every night. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to, but I won’t disgrace either of us by keeping a girl on the side.”

I bite my lip and peel off a layer of skin. If I marry him, I’ll secure the alliance, make everyone happy, and keep thousands of people safe. Eventually, though, I’ll have to face my fears. A man who radiates this much testosterone won’t be put off for long. But the alternative is unthinkable.

“You’ve made a bad bargain,” I warn him.

His body relaxes as though, like me, he’s been holding himself together with staples. “Is that a yes?”

“Of course.” God help me.

~ ~ ~

“She’s built like an eleven-year-old boy.”

“Well, he’s not going to do much better. Look at him.”

An hour ago Kent Barry and I stood before a Catholic priest and vowed to spend the rest of our lives together. The whispers aren’t meant for my ears, but I catch them, and if I hear them, that means Kent can too. You would never know it to look at him, but I sit next to him and tension bleeds off him like waves of radiation. If anyone gets close to us with those pitying looks, they’ll feel it. They’ll burn.

“You don’t prefer rice?” he asks.

“I do.” I swallow the flutter in my throat. “I mostly eat vegetables. Meat too, sometimes.” On my plate rests the tiniest portion of chicken, and the rest is filled with asparagus and mushrooms. Protein is important to forming muscles, and vegetables feed the body. I’ve pushed the uneaten rice to the side of the dish. I feel bad about it, though.

“You’re picky then?”

“No!” There are people out there who are starving. Thousands of them. I would not insult humanity by turning my nose up at anything. “There isn’t much I don’t like. It’s just, I mean, I work out a lot. I try to eat things that will”—I clear my throat—“keep me fit.”

He gives me an inscrutable look, but he lets that go.

I don’t have an ounce of fat on me. Anywhere. Men don’t like muscular, curveless women. Most of them find it a turnoff, actually, and I do whatever’s necessary to keep myself that way. So no sweets. Not much fruit, either. Definitely no starches.

Kent’s plate is empty. So is his brother’s, General Lawrence Barry. The general and I have barely spoken. He’s opened his mouth only enough to acknowledge that I exist and that he approves. Nico, the good-looking brother who fled the second I said I hated sex, didn’t bother to show.

I stir my food, trying to put off the inevitable.

Finally Dad gets to his feet, the buzzing voices still, and my stomach sinks. He holds up his glass. “To the bride and groom.”

A roomful of people raise their glasses and repeat the toast.

My heart thunders in my chest, and my stomach squeezes down to the size of a walnut.

“To the alliance,” counters General Barry, and again glasses are raised.

Dad glares at me as though to say, don’t you dare screw this up, and everybody else seems to be giving me pitying looks. Why do I feel like one of Henry VIII’s wives?

If I hear one more comment on my lack of boobs, I think I’ll kick the person in the teeth. Well, I’ll picture it, anyway.

Kent leans toward me. “Do you want to get out of here?”

My heart chugs to a halt. The titters and condescending glances whirl about me like some bad-movie visual. I don’t know what’s worse, staying here or going to his bed.

He did say I didn’t have to have sex. Lord help me. I have to face this sometime.

When I suck my lips in and nod, he says something to his brother, then takes my hand and gets to his feet.

The room erupts into applause. Kent guides me through the throng, and all I can think is what am I doing here?

“She looks terrified, poor thing.”

“Well, can you blame her?”

Rage overcomes fear, and I whip around to glare at the speaker. The dumpy-looking woman with the fuzzy hair shrinks back, her face pale and a hand at her throat.

“Coming?” Kent asks, and I hear a hint of relief in his voice.

“Yes.” I raise my chin and grip his hand firmly. I sweep the room, searching for other signs of disrespect, and the contempt I sense shifts to wariness.

We pass through a series of hallways and enter the private area reserved for the Barry apartments. I don’t think I’ll ever find my way around this massive place.

“Don’t be nervous,” he says as we climb the stairs. “I promised I wouldn’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”

“Okay,” I say stiffly. “Thanks.”

I read glumness in his sigh.

I’m disappointing him already. I try to think about all the people who won’t get murdered in the constant raids between the Barrys and the Masons. Doesn’t help that sick, shame-filled feeling that settles in my stomach. If only I could be normal.

Kent opens our door and reveals a room dimly lit by a small fire. In the center rests a queen-size bed with mahogany fence-post-like slats at the headboard and footboard. On the lower corner lies a pair of women’s flannel pajamas.

You can’t get more sexless than flannel pajamas. I almost giggle, but I’m too embarrassed by this obvious communication that there will be no sex tonight.

“I’m going to take a shower.” He indicates the bathroom door with a nod of his head. “Do you need anything in there first?”

“I just want to brush my teeth.” And pee.

I grab the pj’s, scuttle into the bathroom, and do my business. In record time I’m changed and back out again.

He looks like he’s trying to decide whether to laugh or throttle me.

I flick my eyes at the bathroom and squeak, “Yours.”

His lips thin and he turns away.

I take the nearest side of the bed and pull the covers up to my chin. The Barrys rule an area smack-dab in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. Can’t they find a few sticks of firewood?

When Kent emerges from the bathroom, he’s wearing sleep pants but he’s bare-chested.

Holy crap. The body on this man. Every inch of him is chiseled. Even his chiseled pieces are chiseled. If I was the type of woman who could feel anything whatsoever, I’d attack him. And he’s so graceful. For some reason this comforts me.

He climbs into the opposite side of the bed, turns away from me, and settles himself in to sleep.

Slowly, as it sinks in that this is it, I begin to relax. When the heat from his body reaches me, I want to scooch closer to him. He doesn’t scare me at all.

Well, all that much.

“No way. No way in hell.” I turn to go, but he catches my hand. We’ve just left dinner, where, I might add, he keeps feeding me evil things like chocolate cake and mashed potatoes.

“You will,” he insists, pulling me back toward my seat. “I require it. Now be quiet and sit still.”

I shake my head. “This is terrible! Do they know we’re here?”

He frowns. “No, of course not.”

I flick the window a glance, and my face goes hot. “This isn’t right. It just isn’t right.”

Kent’s expression grows stern. “I’m in charge. I say what’s right. Now keep your voice down or you’ll scare the bejesus out of them.”

I sink into my seat, utterly mortified. We’re sitting, audience-style, in front of a two-way mirror. I think that’s what you call it. We can see them, but they have no idea we’re here. By them I mean the couple that’s making out right in front of us. They think they’ve been awarded a night at the Biltmore House for some kind of accomplishment. Ha!

I cross my arms over my chest. “Remind me again why you’re making me do this?”

He sighs. “Because you don’t know what it’s supposed to be like between a man and a woman. All you’ve experienced is hate. Look. See there, how he’s cradling her face?”

I flick them a glance. Shit.

“He’s being very gentle with her,” Kent observes.

The guy sweeps his hands back into the girl’s hair, down her back, and with a flick he unhooks—mother of God—her bra.

The girl doesn’t protest; she shrugs out of the garment like it’s in the way, and she tilts her head back as the guy cups her breasts and traces a trail of kisses down her neck. He squeezes and massages her boobs, runs his hands over the tips, and strokes and pulls her nipples. The girl’s eyes flutter shut, and she arches into him.

I shift in my chair, desperate to find a more comfortable position. They’re, you know, doing it.

Kent puts his arm around the back of my chair like it’s no big deal, but I go absolutely stiff.

“She’s pressing herself to him,” he says softly. Why does his voice have to sound so damn sexy? “She wants to get closer to him. Why?”

“Because she’s normal.” Unlike me.

He shakes his head. “Because he’s making her feel good. She knows he wants to please her, and she wants him to.”

“Mm hm.”

I try not to be interested as the guy takes the tip of one breast in his mouth and gives it a long suck, but moisture seeps out from that place between my legs. I need to look away, but I can’t. He does the same to the other side, and the girl holds on to him like she’s afraid he’ll stop. I kind of get it. I don’t want them to stop either.

“Have you ever felt anything like that?” Kent strokes my shoulder, not in a creepy way but like he’s trying to soothe me.

“No.” I don’t look at him. I kind of hate him for putting me through this.

He turns to me, and those gray eyes of his seem curious. “Ever been kissed and thought it felt nice?”

“No.”

His brows shoot up. “Ever?”

I let out a puff of breath. “Are we going to go through a whole list? The answer is no. All right? I don’t feel that,” I say, gesturing toward the scene in front of us.

Kent grimaces, shifts in his seat, and returns his attention to the scene.

The couple is now completely naked. I can see the guy’s penis, and although it’s not overly large, I feel that familiar panic eat my gut. When the girl gets on her knees and takes him in her mouth, I clap a hand over my mouth.

How can she do that? How can I watch this?

Kent takes my hands, both of them. “Look at me,” he commands.

But my eyes are stuck on the couple.

“Look at me,” he says, enunciating each word, and this time I obey.

I’m shaking.

“Has he touched her in any way that looked hateful?”

I glance back at the couple. The girl is bobbing her head over the man’s unit. He pushes the hair back from her face oh-so-lovingly. He arches his neck.

“No,” I admit, my voice shaking.

“Is he forcing her to do anything?”

“Not that I can tell,” I whisper.

The man steps back, pulls the girl to her feet, and presses her down on the bed. He parts her thighs.

Just like hands once parted mine. Like when I screamed and pleaded as several sets of hands anchored me in place and a man pressed his dick to my—

Kent squeezes my hand as the girl takes the man’s penis and guides him to her. Something the size of a bus crushes my chest.

The man slides into her, and soon they are rocking together. Her head falls back, and her lips part in what is obviously a moan of pleasure.

Watching them, all I feel is remembered pain, flesh scraping flesh as body after body invaded mine. I suffer all the humiliation from when they made me get on all fours and suck one man’s cock while another man plowed into me from behind. I remember the sticky, sweaty stink of my body when they were done with me as I lay naked on the floor, covered with blood and semen.

I squeeze my eyes shut. My heart hammers in my chest, and I’m angry. So angry. I want to be normal. I want to feel like that girl feels. I can’t. Tears flood my eyes, but they’re not from sorrow. They’re tears of rage.

Gritting my teeth is the only way I can keep from screaming. I shoot to my feet, intending to run from the room, but Kent pulls me down on his lap.

His lap.

I want to hit him. I want to scratch his scarred face. I know he has to see this in my expression, but instead of letting me go, he brushes back the tendrils of hair that escaped my tight braid. “I know what happened to you was terrible. I know you suffered and you still suffer.”

“Then why are you doing this to me?” I breathe.

He looks to the couple. They sweat together, and they rock and rock and rock. It’s clear even to me that they’re both on the verge of ecstasy.

“Rape is control,” Kent explains. “It’s a man’s way of showing a woman that she’s less than human. Making love happens between two people who love and respect each other. When there’s love and respect, it’s not ugly.”

“You don’t understand. I want to be normal. I’m just not.”

I wrench my hands from his and scramble to my feet.

With a sigh he lets me.

We walk back to the Barry wing in thick, suffocating silence.

As usual my pj’s are laid out for me. This time they’re still long sleeved, but the top is silkier, thinner, and it’s matched with a pair of sleep shorts. Our bedroom is much warmer than it’s been over the last two weeks. Someone must have finally found some firewood. At least tonight I won’t have to burrow with the covers practically over my head.

Is this on purpose, though? The pj’s aren’t sexy or anything, but he just made me watch live porn. He doesn’t expect me to miraculously want it now, does he?

Oh shit, if he does…damn.

He emerges from the bathroom bare-chested, but he’s wearing those sleep pants. Nothing has changed. When he climbs into bed, he still keeps his distance.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, and he sounds as though he means it. “I just want you to know it’s not always like that.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m failing him. He’s being so kind, and I’m not giving him even an inch. “I know.”

I want so much to creep closer to him, to find comfort in him, but it’s just not possible.

~ ~ ~

“Really, Kent? Really?”

He’s been making me watch people have sex for weeks now. I no longer cry when I see a dick, but it’s just so damn, well, uncomfortable. If you want the truth, I’m kind of offended. Tonight the two people are tossing each other around like starved lions on meat.