The Way She Burns by Jessa Kane

The Way She Burns

Jessa Kane

1

Chloe

You’re doing the right thing.The only thing.

That’s what I keep telling myself as I climb the slick grass hill toward Rosewood Mansion, thunder booming behind me like a stern warning. Rain has saturated the ground and the grooves are worn out on the bottom of my shoes, so I keep almost slipping. The fact that I’m carrying a sleeping toddler in my arms is not helping my balance whatsoever, but I can’t wake him. I can’t. If he pins me with those hazel eyes so similar to my own, I won’t be able to do what’s necessary.

And leaving my baby brother at the mercy and kindness of one Mr. Sebastian Spears is my final option.

In town, they whisper about Mr. Spears. They call him a bastard. They call him arrogant and evil and malicious and bitter. But I know better. I’ve looked up into those cobalt blue eyes while dangling from the edge of a cliff. When I thought death was certain, he pulled me to safety, rocked me while I cried. I’m eighteen now and the incident happened well over five years ago, but I’m certain he’ll remember me. I’m certain he’ll hear my pleas for help.

While I’m positive Mr. Spears is still a goodhearted man all these years later, a lot about Rosewood has changed since I was an adolescent playing on the dangerous cliffs just behind the house. The ten-foot-high walls that run the perimeter of the mansion are the main difference. They are made of stone. Forbidding. But there must be a good reason Sebastian built them.

Just like there’s a good reason I used a hairpin to pick the padlock.

Curtis stirs in my arms and I slow my walk, using my body to shield him from the rain. I’m not sure how much of the moisture on my cheeks is tears and how much is precipitation. I love my little brother beyond words—he’s all I have left in the world—but try as I might, there is no money left over to feed him. Me, either. We go hungry most nights and I can’t stand to listen to his stomach growl anymore. It shames me. Tortures me.

Mr. Spears is the richest man in the county and beyond. He will care for Curtis until I can get a proper job and a roof over our heads. One that doesn’t leak. One that isn’t adjacent to the rough local pub, the customers knocking on our door at all hours of the night, threatening to break in and have their way with me. Tonight was the final straw. The padlock on the door was beginning to snap and I had to make a fast decision.

You’re doing the right thing.

Curtis deserves so much better than me. Than this life of scraping by and wearing rags. Begging in the streets when the factory manager neglects to pay me in full.

There is no one else I trust in town to look after my baby brother. My parents are gone, dust in the wind. Their friends have moved on, driven out by the rise of crime. The lack of employment. I have an aunt three towns over, but we haven’t spoken in so long, I’m not even sure she would recognize me. She and my mother were at odds for most of their lives, never close. And anyway, my aunt doesn’t have the money to feed two mouths, even if she wanted to. Her life is a lot like ours. Hand to mouth. Scraping by and making do.

Harding was once a beautiful seaside town, but it has fallen on hard times. Everyone—except for Mr. Spears—is living hand to mouth. I won’t let Curtis starve, though. No. I’ll make this sacrifice and one day, I’ll come back with enough money to support us both. Somewhere beyond the polluted skies of Harding.

Glancing upward, I notice the sky isn’t nearly as dirty this high on the hill. In fact, now that the stone wall isn’t blocking my view, I can almost make out the shape of the stars, the varying grays of the stormy sky. Just ahead, there is an outline of the rambling stone mansion and I increase my pace, wanting to get Curtis out of the rain before he gets sick.

I climb the sweeping front steps a minute later and stop at the front door, shifting side to side, holding my brother tight.

“It’s not goodbye,” I whisper, kissing his warm forehead, making sure the blanket is wrapped around him securely. “It’s just farewell for now. I’ll be back for you. I’ll be back.”

With a sob clogging my throat, I crouch down and position Curtis comfortably. Out of the rain. I slip the note out of my pocket and tuck it into the bundled wool, stepping back slowly, one foot at a time, my heart suffering in my chest.

Inside this mansion is food and warmth. More than I could ever give him.

Go.

I turn to leave—but I whirl back around with a gasp when the ten-foot-high door flies open and there, outlined in the glow from within, is Sebastian Spears.

Immediately, I’m flooded with alarm.

Hashe…changed?

My memory of the charming, compassionate man in his early twenties doesn’t align with this…scowling lord of the manor. He’s tall and handsome—that fact remains the same. With his unruly black hair, fit form and shaded jaw, he’s nothing short of arresting. A fine specimen is how some of the women in town once referred to him. Back when he came into town to do his grocery shopping and banking. Now an elderly man named Dobbs runs his errands for him.

Yes, Sebastian Spears is definitely…attractive.

And that’s when it happens.

That terrible/wonderful feeling in my belly. The one that signals destruction.

Willing destruction.

The place between my legs, untouched by anyone but me, begins that wet throb. The slow draw of muscles and tingling of private flesh is even more potent than usual—and that’s saying something. Is the wild streak inside of me expanding? Am I going to be completely unredeemable soon? If so, it’s just another reason to leave my brother where he’ll be safe.

Away from me.

As if it can keep my unruly nature contained, I pull my coat tight, tight, all the way up my chin, hiding as much skin as possible so Mr. Spears can’t see that I’ve become flushed in his presence. Normally the dreadful throbbing between my legs comes from idleness. Being left to my own devices for too long.

This is different. His sheer masculinity is causing the ache this time.

None of the men in town have inspired this twisting ripple in my belly. Not ever. Not even close. It’s only when I look at Mr. Spears do I think inexcusable thoughts. Such as…

Would I be able to breathe with him on top of me?

What would his hands feel like on my knees, the insides of my thighs, while pushing them open?

How much hair does he have on his big chest? Surrounding his sex?

God. It’s humiliating.

“How did you get past the walls?” Mr. Spears drawls, though there is an underlying sharpness to his question. “They are built to keep trespassers out.”

The way he bites off the final word makes me gulp. “Would you believe someone left the gate open?”

“No. I would not. Apparently the locks need to be reinforced.” A muscle snaps in his cheek. “Is that a child?”

I’m having a hard time concentrating with that voice occupying the air around me, rasping like velvet in my ears. It’s so deep, it seems to reverberate in my womb. “Yes,” I whisper, going down on my knees into the begging position. I’m very familiar with it. So much so that there are holes in every pair of pants I own. “Please, sir, I can’t take care of him. There is no money to eat a-and we are going to be evicted any day—”

“You expect me to take care of your child?”

I don’t bother correcting him. Curtis is my younger brother—a late-in-life accident for my mother, a year before her death. Because as far as I’m concerned, he is mine. He’s all I’ve got. “I’m asking you kindly to look after him until I can secure better employment and a safer place to live. The well in Harding has run dry. This is my only option.” I chew on my lip a moment, praying Curtis remains asleep. If the two-year-old woke up, he would never allow me to leave without him. “I explain it all in the note.”

“Ah, there’s a note,” he says with dull sarcasm, no trace of the sparkle I remember in his eyes. No, they’re hollow and haunted. He keeps them trained on me as he stoops down and retrieves my handwritten letter. Instead of reading it, however, he rips it cleanly down the middle and lets the halves soar away in the wind. “I’m not a babysitting service, girl. The answer is no. If I took in every unlucky brat from Harding, my home would overflow.”

The people in town were right.

He is horribly bitter now. What happened to him?

Where is the man who wiped my tears away with his thumb and promised not to tell my mother that I played too close to the edge of his cliff? Back then, he was new in town. The mysterious young man who inherited Rosewood Mansion. And I thought I’d solved him. He’s kindhearted and understanding, just a little misunderstood.

Oh dear, was I ever wrong.

He doesn’t even recognize me. Our connection was just a figment of my imagination.

And yet. Despite his callousness…

That heat he generates on every inch of my skin only gets…hotter. There is a confusing part of me that seems to almost…like his meanness. That makes no sense. Why would a man being intentionally cruel stir my belly like a cauldron? There’s a throb at the juncture of my thighs that has never been there before. No. No, this shameful wish for hedonism that lurks inside of me has to remain contained. With that thought in mind, I pull my coat all the tighter, lifting my chin. Trying to rise above the pull for rebellion. I’m a proper young lady, even if I was forced to steal this coat from an unlocked car on our way out of town. It was that or freeze.

Youwish you were a proper anything.

Mr. Spears watches me hide within the folds of the coat and tilts his head, leaning a sinewy forearm against the frame of the door, those cobalt eyes meandering down to my bloodless fingers where they desperately try and keep my disgraceful nature at bay.

“What is your name?” he asks, his gaze teasing the swell of my breasts.

Another rush of embarrassing lust makes my legs tremble. “Chloe, sir.”

“Chloe,” he echoes in a far deeper tone, running his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. “You’re a pretty little thing. Nice full hips for gripping, from what I can tell with that coat on. And I haven’t had female companionship in quite a while. So here’s a proposition for you.” He crosses his arms across his imposing chest, casting a glance down at Curtis. “I’ll allow your brother inside. I’ll feed and clothe him, give him a place to sleep. But you’ll stay here, as well.”

“Me?” I whisper, head spinning. “Why?”

“Like I said,” he responds, very succinctly. “I’m not a babysitter. You’ll look after him. And when you’re not occupied with the needs of the child, you’ll come satisfy mine.”