Flock (The Ravenhood Duet #1)(40)

“Fine!” I stomp through the front door and find Tyler and Dominic on the PlayStation in the living room.

Typical.

“Tyler, can you move your car?”

Tyler eyes Dominic. “After this game.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Chill, babe.”

Sean’s behind me now. I feel his warmth at my back as I stand there, hovering over the two of them huddled on the couch, helpless to my situation. I glance over my shoulder at Sean, who watches me intently as my anger builds and builds. Less than an hour ago, my day was perfect. Sean and I were fine, more than fine, and then Dominic took a Mack truck to all of it. The day, my carefully planned dinner and dessert.

Dessert.

Boiling over, I move to the kitchen and gather the carrot cake I had frosted earlier, Sean’s favorite, and walk back to where Dominic sits and smash it into the back of his head. He shoots up from the couch as I gather more ruined cake in my hand and slap it into the side of Sean’s smiling face.

“Didn’t want to leave you without serving dessert. You all can fuck right off.”

Dominic tosses his remote down, his vengeance filled eyes attempting to pin me as I drop the pan, snatch Tyler’s keys off the coffee table and make a break for the front door.

Sean and Tyler’s laughter echoes through the open door as I climb into Tyler’s truck, start it, and peel ass out of the driveway, leaving it running in the middle of the street. I run toward my car, where Sean stands waiting, shoving a fingerful of icing into his mouth.

“It’s good shit, baby.”

I’m just about to lay into him when he hauls me over his shoulder. Suspended, I beat on his ass with my fists.

“Let me down, right now.”

“Hell no, we aren’t wasting this,” he walks me back into the house where Dominic hovers over the kitchen sink, peeling his shirt off. His arctic eyes challenge mine as Sean takes the stairs one by one in what seems like a deliberately slow ascent. Choice fingers lifted; I flash Dominic a spiteful smile until he disappears from sight.

Sean closes his bedroom door and sets me on my feet, spinning my back into the door and presses into me. He looks infuriatingly gorgeous with a half-decorated face as he moves in and I turn my head to dodge his kiss.

“Even better,” he smears the frosting onto my face and chuckles darkly a second before I hear the rip of a condom.





TIME OUT.

I’m calling it.

If a man seems too good to be true, he usually is a liar.

That’s the stance I took that night I left Sean sleeping in his bed.

I’ve spent four weeks trying to piece together the dazzling puzzle of Alfred Sean Roberts, and I’m no closer to figuring out what his true intentions with me are. He’s not harmless, that much I do know. I don’t know if Sean’s a good guy or a bad guy.

Maybe he’s both.

For two days after I left him without a goodbye, I ignored his texts, and for those two days he left me alone on the line at work. He’s been unapologetic.

When I don’t respond, he doesn’t grovel. It’s what I had expected, even though we’d had some amazing angry sex. But it wasn’t exactly make-up sex, at least for me. I’m still pissed he didn’t defend me. Though with Sean, I’ve come to expect the unexpected.

It would be easier for me if I understood why he let a man who he considers a brother treat me so shitty.

So for now, I’m fine with mad.

I decide to pull back no matter what. Honestly, getting feelings for someone so soon is dangerous for a girl like me.

Am I creating drama for the sake of it?

I believe Sean about a lot of his observations. One, in particular, is we’re programmed in a lot of ways. Of course we are, but another part of me knows that we can program or, better yet, taint ourselves in different ways.

Through patterns of my past, I’ve learned that I’m drawn to dysfunction, and more so to the men who provide the questions.

I’m determined not to repeat my mistakes.

I have a misplaced theory that if you’re not suffering, you’re not loving hard enough, deep enough, and that’s just not healthy.

I gave Brad my heart and virginity and we broke up because he thought I expected too much.

With Jared, it was the same. I’d almost forgiven him for cheating on me, almost.

But then I chose myself.

The truth is, I do expect a lot out of my love story and the man I’ll share it with.

I expect passion and butterflies, and one or two fairy tale moments. When we fight, I want it to hurt. When we fuck, I want to feel it with every fiber of my being. When a man confesses his love to me, I expect him to mean it. I don’t want to question the words’ authenticity. I want to be claimed and owned and ruled and possessed by love.

Is that expecting too much?

Maybe it is, maybe I’ve read one too many love stories.

From what I’ve learned so far, maybe I do expect too much.

Especially if I can’t get the man I’m falling for to defend me.

Did I cause the drama? No. Dominic did.

Did I expect too much from Sean?

It breaks my heart to think I might have. That he’s incapable of being who I hope he would be because he’s given me so much of what I want already.

Should I compromise to keep him? Hell no.