The loud talking of the party-crowd behind the thin walls should have dissuaded him. On the third story of the ball, in the heart of the casino, only a few halls away from the giant doors leading into the chaotic fray, he was nearly crawling, pacing low and steady towards that forbidden thing that his heart compelled him to. As if, by being forbidden, he wanted it even more and feared to lose it, even more.

Luanne was waiting for him behind the hall, he was sure. His eyes narrowed. His pulse jumped.

It had been so long since he'd consummated with her.

Too long, in fact. So long, that he had to find every second of every opportunity to find a way to get alone with her, so long that he was now crawling the halls of his casino, dodging the lazy dragging cameras, to make his way to a small cornerstone of the hall, where the janitors closet was, where the emergency stairs were, where there was no one but her.

He checked his cell phone. A giant wall of text from his mother flashed. He turned it off, no time to read. No time for anything in fact, but to chase for the feeling that moved his loins.

He turned the corner, fearing disappointment (though he was sure she was there, and perhaps he only feared to add to the drama and the excitement, but his heart knew she would be there).

A smile formed on his face.

“Who’d you leave Little Flint with?” He asked.

“Jezebel. She's with him."

“That’s good. I love him, but he can be...distracting,” Floyd wrapped his arm around his sister’s waist. “All of them are distracting, aren't they? The heart-eaters, the bastards. It's suffocating…”

“We shouldn’t be here.” She mumbled.

“Why not?”

“I told mom I was courting another boy, the son of a critical CEO.”

“Oh, really, what company?” He pressed against her.

“An…insurance company. Auto...life - I think. Or something, another.”

“God, you’re a terrible liar. You don't know how to sell it, that's your problem...” His face approached her. “That’s why you shouldn't even bother. Just be honest.”

He kissed her immediately, swallowed her mouth, forced his tongue into her. His hand worked underneath her shirt with deliberation, like a surgeon reaching into the wound. She pulled herself out of his grip.

“Floyd. Stop.” She said. “We need to stop all of this. We already made one mistake, let's not make another.”

“What do you mean stop?”

“I mean, I’m a girl who needs good prospects. A life. A family. A husband. I know that doesn’t mean much to you, but there’s a certain impatience women have that a man could never understand.”

“What impatience? You already have the child you always wanted.”

“It's not enough.” She said. “I have the child, but not the future he deserves.”

"Future? He's part of a multi-billion dollar bloodline. What more future does he need?" He paused to stare into her. She was tight-lipped. "Am I not part of your future?”

“You never could be.” She was firm and stone-faced in her visage, she stood tall, and he felt hurt by her courage. At her animosity. He felt struck in the chest by the weight of her conviction and twitched in the eyes.

“You're not his father. Right? You're his uncle. Right? That’s all they’ll ever know, right?”

“Right,” He grit his teeth.

“And you, as the uncle, can never fill the role of a father that he needs.” She said. “So I need to find that man, that person willing to be the dad. And you need to support that decision.”

His nostrils expanded in the anger of truth. He felt wrong, not that she was making the choice, but that she had made it without his consent. And that was strange, even to him, that she would need his consent.

But he was sure. Sure in his anger, in his pride, in his lecherous heart, he was sure that she should have asked for permission.

His eyes went wide. His face passed around the corner, then back to Luanne who looked up to him, with her pretty blue eyes, with her full and red lips, slightly open.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

He did not know what to do, stuck in the paradox of contempt and want. To slap her? To embrace her? How best to convince her?

He pressed against her, harder now, until he felt her back hit the wall. His arms full encroached upon her sanctity, wrapping around her, clutching her by the waist.

“I’m not letting this go. I’m not letting you go,” He said. “You can have anything, I'll give it to you. If you need a father - if the last name means that much to you -" He bit her lip, she pushed him back.

He hoped his face conveyed some kind of confidence, but he was sure it didn't, for even he was shaking.

"If the last name means that much to you, I'll change it. We can leave this family, ditch all of this. I can be someone else, I can be the stranger in your life, the chance-love to be your husband. I can change, we don't have to be brother and sister. I'll leave it all. I promise you."

“Are you out of your mind?” She asked. Though she knew the answer. She had known it since they were together, he had lost his mind long ago, lost it in the battle with his heart. "We're not just leaving."

“Why not? Let's take Little Flint and get out. Mom’s already got her eyes set on the plan for this casino. She has her future and Junior will support it. She can take care of things at the homestead. What do we add by being here?”

“Mom needs you as much as she needs Junior. You know that.” She touched his face. It comforted him. Then she let go, and he went cold all of a sudden.

“And I will not allow my son to grow up with a lie. I will not allow him to grow up, a lie.” She said.

“A lie? Were the last ten years a lie too?”

“Stop it, please Floyd.”

She put her hands against his chest, to pry herself out of his grip. Her protest was insufficient, weak-willed. And Floyd was stuck in that strange place between lust and fear, a place he had lived in for all his life (for life to him had only started upon the first kiss with his sister dearest, Luanne). He pulled her closer. She didn’t know they could get closer, but here they were, a breaths distance away. She shook, but did not run. Ran cold down the spine, but was not weak.

Her elbows bent, but the bond did not break.

He pecked at her neck.

“Floyd, you're desperate.” She tried catching her breath. “Don't start, please.”

“We started a long time ago,” He said, exasperated. “We’ve sinned for so long, it’s a bit too late for cold feet, don’t you think?”

He rode her neck, with each nimble kiss, a kind of step up to her face. Then he sunk his claws into her, a wolf mounting prey. He clutched at whatever, soft and warm and flexible, whatever inch he could find his grip onto. He clutched onto whatever part; ass, hips, chest, waist, face, lips, neck, legs, thighs. Then he lapped and licked and stretched and scratched and ate. Ate her, right up.

She protested. And was forced to enjoy, for he was too forceful, and her routine too easy to follow. That was her flaw she hated most, being stuck in old ways.

She moved back and hit the wall again. The wall shook. A light fixture (the glass lamp shade) fell to the floor. It shattered into small, brilliant flaws.

“No one knows your better, every inch of you.” He said, beneath his breath, beneath her legs. She moaned and punched the wall and looked for the little will she had left. She slapped him and kicked him away. He looked up, falling on his ass. The warm blood coming down his nose fell into his mouth. A metallic taste.

"You bitch!" He wiped his face and looked up, perhaps it was only then that he felt guilty. And his conscious managed to lead in the racing motivations of his heart. He paused, looking at her. Paused, ashamed.

She waited against the wall, wiping tears, composing herself.

“That's all you think about, isn't it? Fucking, that’s all you care about?” She asked. "You don't even care about our son, do you?"

“Wait, that's-”

“This is why there is no future with you in it. Because you are a decade's long mistake incapable of any accountability because you don't have it in you to be a good father. Or uncle. Or anything good, really." She said. "Having a child made me realize what huge waste of time you were."

His conscious must have tripped, must have drag itself in the sand and lost itself in a ditch, for it fell. He fell. He lowered his face, his mouth pulsed with the racing hot blood going in and out of her.

"Me, a waste of time?" He asked, not to her, for she had no answer.

His eyes came up, dogged and dark, like two pits.

“You are letting go of so much.” He gripped her neck with a tightness even he was surprised of. “History. So much history between you and I. Too much, you stupid girl. The weight of our sin far exceeds your sudden moral character. You can't let go of what we have with words, with hope, with a 'plan'. We have too much.”

“Stop, Floyd.” She punched his chest.

“Ain't nothing to stop. This is meant to be, ordained, by the natural world. You can't stop what was always willed to be. I know you better than yourself. I know, I know.”

She tried to pull his grip away. He felt her scratching claws, saw her tenacity, felt his fingers hurt. He forced a kiss on her. Then another. Each one, blow for blow, until she hurt. She must have been hurting, she was crying. And he kissed her still, too, kissed her tears and her cheek and her eyes.

After a while, she gave up.

He loosened his grip on her neck.

She put her hands against the wall, pushing herself, which only seemed to stimulate Floyd, who came up behind her.

"I'll make you feel good, promise.” He said.

“Please…stop.” She cried. And the thought and the sound of her wanting to stop seemed to go nowhere, simply echo, even in her own mind.

Until all she could hear, from a far off distance, from her impotent mind-voice, were the words.

Stop!

Stop.

Stop...

Like a rock thrown, bumping, down an endless well.

Floyd kissed her neck, with eyes venomous and predatory, with narrowed intensity.

He looked to stuff her, for them to be forced into that forbidden place, in the secret corner of this casino, where the peering eyes could not reach them. Unabashed, unashamed, for what shame could there be, he must have thought, in copulating true love?

What shame is there in loving?

His member approached her. She closed her eyes, in the fear of anticipation, now full in the reality that it could not be stopped, now begging for it to be quick and for there to not be another mistake.

He would have had her, again, like before.

But the lights went out. And Apollo’s voice rung out in the darkness.

“Who’s there? Where are you?”