Wanting by Lynn Burke

Addilyn

At Sunday brunch the next day, I sat quietly with my first hangover headache, my focus on my plate while trying and failing to talk away the guilt still eating at my mind.

Mother and Lloyd murmured about their dinner with friends the night before—and then onto business and stuff they needed to button up at the office on Monday. I ignored the two of them, same as I always did—but mostly due to the nausea swirling in my stomach.

Gideon had yet to make an appearance, and I forced myself to eat my dry toast and ignore the jittery flutters in my muscles. Lloyd had winked when I’d told Mother I hadn’t slept well and didn’t feel so great so I’d come home from Jenny’s before she woke.

But what would Gideon do or say? Would he act as though nothing had happened same as his father did? Be a jackass like usual?

My leg bounced beneath the table, hard.

“Addilyn Jane,” Mother snipped, and I glanced up to find her scowling at me.

The leg stilled immediately. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Lips pursed, she returned her attention to the supposed love of her life who sat back in his chair rather than leaning in close like he used to do whenever seated beside her. He didn’t seem quite as enamored with her after the last few outbursts.

Guess the unlovable woman finally got on his nerves.

The dining room door slid smoothly open without anything more than a whoosh, and I didn’t need to look up to know Gideon had arrived. I could feel his presence as if he’d physically brushed against me, the heat and friction of skin on skin pebbling mine from neck to knees.

Jackass.

Scowling over my heating face, I feigned interest in my toast as though starved, the memory of his thickness lodged in my throat choking off my desire to eat—and making me what he always claimed I was.

Shamefully wet.

Shit, if Mother ever learned what her pure daughter had done, the depraved act she’d been enticed into by her stepbrother…

I swallowed down rising bile.

Gideon sat across from me, and I didn’t give him the time of day, even though his stare sent pulses through my core regardless of my stomach wanting to upheave.

“Hungry, sis?”

“Don’t call me sis,” I hissed, shooting daggers at him from my eyes. But I feared my lust for more of what I’d tasted the night before shone in my gaze rather than the shame and anger twisting my gut.

He smirked, those blue eyes knowing. Winked while helping himself to the bowl of scrambled eggs the housekeeper had set on the table.

I tore my focus off the delicious perfection of him and went back to the toast that tasted like cardboard and made my mouth just as dry. The perfect food to settle my belly that refused to calm.

The doorbell rang, pausing the clinking of silverware and murmur of our parents’ voices.

Lloyd wiped his lips with his napkin and pushed to stand. “I’ll get it, darling,” he told Mother.

She beamed up at him, and I rolled my eyes, returning my focus to the crust still in my hand. One more bite, and I could escape her and Gideon.

Murmurs from the foyer. Male, I noted as their footsteps approached.

I glanced up to find Lloyd’s brow furrowed as he walked back into the dining room. Two cops followed behind him—one being the sheriff.

“Gideon Destil?” Sheriff Bradshaw rounded the table, intent on my stepbrother.

Oh shit…oh shit…I swung my gaze toward Gideon, my eyes wide—toast lodging in my throat and causing me to swallow hard.

“Yeah?” Gideon replied, gaze jumping from one cop to the other, his back ramrod straight.

“You’re under arrest for assault in the first degree against my son.”

My heart stuttered. “What?” I gasped.

Gideon simply stared at the cop.

“You have the right to remain silent…” The sheriff’s voice faded to a buzz in my ears as he pulled Gideon from his chair and spun him, snapping cuffs around his wrists.

“Lloyd!” Mother said, rising to stand. “What is going on?”

Her husband rounded through my periphery to grasp her hand, murmuring something I didn’t hear, but I couldn’t bear to tear my attention off Gideon to repeat Mother’s question.

He peered at me, his eyes fathomless. Empty of heat and teasing. He didn’t listen to the sheriff reading his rights any more than I did as the world closed in on us—in silence.

“Gideon?” I whispered, my eyes welling and causing his image to swim before me.

“Stay away from him, Addilyn,” he whispered back, his voice ragged, his steady stare begging me to obey him like I had willingly done the night before. “Stay away from him!”

The other cop jerked Gideon toward the door behind Devon’s father, breaking the connection between us.

Mother and Lloyd followed on their heels.

I sat in silence at the large dining room table. Alone and frozen in my seat. My ears buzzing and brain unable to process what had happened.

Handcuffs.

Gideon being read his rights.

My stepbrother, my protector, the jackass I shouldn’t want…was getting taken away from me.

“Gideon…” His name tore like a gasped whisper past my lips.

A tremor rippled over me, adrenaline rushing throughout my entire body.

I leaped up and sped through the foyer and out onto the porch, my gaze flitting, searching. Desperately seeking as I pulled up short of fleeing down the front stairs.

The sheriff handed Lloyd a packet of papers in my periphery while the other cop tucked Gideon into the cruiser with its flashing lights atop.

Blue and red. Blinding.

The clang of the car’s door hit my ears with a finality that stole my breath away, causing my temples to throb.

Gideon peered at me through the closed window, his shoulders rounded beneath his black T-shirt. “Stay away from him,” he mouthed at me, his eyes pleading, hair tumbling over his brow.

What are you talking about? What’s going on? I wanted to shout back while hugging myself tight against the cold creeping up through my center, choking my lungs, and keeping me captive on the porch.

I slumped down onto the top step, rocking myself. My gaze remained locked on Gideon until the cop car pulled away, leaving me with a migraine from hell and a head full of confusion. Tears coursed over my cheeks.

“I want answers, Lloyd!” Mother said while striding past me toward the front door I’d left hanging open. “You need to explain this mess to me!” Her voice echoed in the foyer beyond.

“Come along, sweetheart.” Lloyd grasped my elbow and helped me to stand.

“W-why didn’t you stop them?” I asked, my lips as numb as my icy heart.

“They had a warrant—and you saw what happened last night.”

“It was just a little fight!” I argued, hugging myself tighter as he steadied me on my feet. “Just a couple of young guys acting like…like guys!”

Lloyd held me close, tucking me against his side as we stood on the porch.

I clung to him, sniffling against his chest, trying to take strength from him like I’d done with Gideon what seemed ages ago. My heart broke all over again, ached for Gideon to be brought back to me. I’d wanted him gone for so long…

I’d been wrong. So terribly wrong.

“The sheriff said Gideon threatened to kill him,” he stated quietly, squeezing me tighter.

Gideon had done so dozens of times in school—but he hadn’t truly meant it, He’d simply been watching out for me. Thinking he kept me safe.

“You have to help him,” I cried, stepping away to peer up into Lloyd’s dark eyes. “You have to do something!”

“Oh, I will, sweetheart.” He shouldn’t have smiled. Shouldn’t have had a gleam in his gaze over what had transpired. “I promise, in time.” The squeeze of his hand on my hip caused ice to rush through my veins.

Lloyd shouldn’t have been happy over his son’s arrest, but I swore that was the emotion I read on his face.

A shiver slid down my spine like a droplet of cold water. I pulled away to sprint into the house on wobbly legs.

“Addilyn!” Mother called after me from the parlor door, but I ignored her, stumbling up the stairs badly enough to bash my shin against a tread.

“Let her go, darling,” Lloyd murmured to Mother behind me. “Everything is going to be fine.”

I didn’t believe him. Not one damn bit.

“Addilyn Jane!” Mother’s shriek rose from the first floor, and I curled into a ball on my bed.

She knew.

Lloyd must have told her the truth.

She called twice more, but I didn’t move.

My bedroom door slammed open, but I couldn’t stop my tears in order to sit up and face her like she’d expect me to do.

“You lied to me! I trusted you! Your desire to stay pure…yet you snuck out of Jenny’s house?” Her voice rang like a shrill fire alarm, making my eardrums bleed. “How dare you! I taught you better than this, Addilyn. You know the consequences for lying, for getting involved with boys—”

“Darling.”

Lloyd had arrived.

“No!” Mother shrieked. “I won’t be coddled by you, Lloyd. I won’t allow you to side with my daughter over me! She’s lied, and she’s going to suffer the full consequences this time. None of this taking it easy on her bullshit!”

He murmured a few things as I pulled my pillow over my head, but I peeled my eyelids open to watch them from beneath the inch between my mattress and soft feathers atop my head.

Lloyd peered at me from over Mother’s shoulder while speaking quietly against her ear, his hands running up and down her arms. Whatever he said to her loosened her rigid stance, and she eventually nodded, turning from the room. Shoulders slumped. Head hanging.

The man must have magic words…or something. The Mother Whisperer. A damn godsend, I realized and chose to ignore the strange reaction I’d seen outside. Perhaps I’d been so caught up in my own shame and grief that I’d misread Lloyd’s actions and words. Perhaps he’d simply been trying to soothe me, feign a positive attitude to boost my own spirits rather than happy about his son’s arrest.

He shut the door behind Mother and crossed the room to sit on the edge of my bed. “Addilyn.”

I moved the pillow enough to better see him. “What,” I rasped, swiping at the wetness on my cheeks.

Lloyd pushed the pillow completely off my head and smoothed back my hair.

Shivers wracked through me, but not the lustful ones Gideon induced. More tears spilled down my cheeks.

“Shh, sweetheart.” He rubbed his hand over my back. “I promise I’m going to make things right. Don’t I always?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I had to trust him. I didn’t have anyone else.

“I have to contact a lawyer, figure out what we need to do to get your Gideon home, okay?”

Lips tight to keep from sobbing, I nodded.

Lloyd leaned down and brushed his mouth over my forehead, his heavy inhale fluttering my hair. “Rest, sweetheart. We can talk more once I know what we’re up against.”