HUGE HOUSE HATES: Chapter 17

I should dash back up to my room and lock the door, but I’m so stunned by what River has said that I end up striding into the kitchen and then pivoting on my heel, staring around at the tidy space, with my mind in a total jumble.

We have to tell Cora we all want to date her.

Maybe I imagined it, I think. Maybe I didn’t hear right. Maybe they were talking about another girl called Cora, and I’m jumping to conclusions. But then my mind skitters over all the lingering looks and warm smiles, all the little touches and considerate acts that have existed between the Carltons and me recently, and I know.

They weren’t talking about anyone else. They were talking about me.

They’ve seen Maggie’s home life and want the same thing for themselves.

I rest my hands on the cool marble counter and draw a long shaky breath.

Footsteps sound on the tiled floor, and I spin around, finding my five stepbrothers have gathered behind me with worried expressions.

“Cora…” River says, as though he wants to explain, but I don’t want to hear those words repeated. My heart beats faster in my chest as he takes a step forward.

“Don’t,” I say, raising my hand. I need to keep the space around me because I know my resolve will disintegrate if any of them get too close.

Danny takes a step forward, not caring about my resistance. Of course he wouldn’t. Of all the men in front of me, he’s the one who pushes the hardest. “Cora, listen. You heard only a part of the conversation.”

“I don’t want to hear any more.” My back is against the counter, so I can’t move away any further, and he gets close enough to loom over me, staring down at me with his black hair flopping over his forehead and his crystal blue eyes swamped by wide dark pupils.

“Why,” he says. “Because we disgust you?”

“No,” I blurt quickly. “Of course not.” Can he not see how his proximity affects me? All he has to stand close, and my heart is pounding, and my chest heaving. Even knowing eyes are on me is enough to set my pulse racing.

“Then what?”

I hesitate, drawing my bottom lips in to moisten them. Danny watches it all, his pupils dilating at such a ridiculously simple act. Except it isn’t. My lips tingle to feel the press of his against them. The touch of each of these men standing in front of me is an ache I don’t want to accept.

“This is crazy,” I say, glancing across the group and finding only serious expressions. No one is laughing. No one gives any indication that this is a joke.

“It’s not crazy to feel something for you,” Danny says softly. His hand reaches out to touch my hair, and I’m stunned at the reverential slowness and innocence of his actions.

“Do you have feelings for us?” Mark asks. “Because sometimes, I feel this crackling connection between us. I’ve noticed you looking at my brothers in a way that’s made me wonder if you think of us as more than just housemates .”

Shrugging is a ridiculous response but it’s the only one I have.

“She doesn’t want to acknowledge it,” Alden says.

“You want to bury your feelings?” Danny asks.

“I don’t know what I feel,” I say. Liar, my internal voice says as Danny’s hand rises slowly, his fingers trailing over my cheek, eliciting a shiver. He’s watchful of my responses, trying to work out in the most subtle of ways if Mark and Alden are right.

“I can’t,” I say, my denial sounding foolish. Can’t what? Deal with five of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen standing close and declaring their intentions? Can’t accept that they would want me? Can’t deal with the feelings that are bubbling in my chest?

It’s all of that and more.

“You can,” Danny says, those terribly amazing fingers trailing down the sensitive length of my neck and brushing over my décolletage.

Swiping at his hand, I slide further along the counter so he’s not so close. “I can’t, and I don’t want to.”

“You do,” Tobias says softly. “I know you feel it too. The connection between us…it’s real. I feel it and I know you do too.”

“Real or foolish?” I say. “You hated me five minutes ago, and now what? Your feelings have flipped one-eighty?”

“We didn’t hate you, Cora,” Alden says. “It was all a stupid game.”

“Danny hated me.”

“I didn’t,” he says, moving closer again. “I just…” He draws in his bottom lip and releases it looking glossy and perfectly kissable. I can’t blink. My whole body is frozen but vibrating beneath the surface with want and need that I don’t understand.

These are Carlton men, and Carlton men are my enemies. They’re supposed to be horrible, but when they look at me with kindness and longing, and when they treat me like a princess, I don’t know how to reconcile it with my feelings of resentment.

It’s too confusing.

They’re too different from what I built them into in my own mind. Too different from what I expect from every man I come across, except Charli.

“We want you,” Alden says, and his brothers all turn to look at him as though they’re as surprised to hear that as I am.

“We want you,” Mark says. “We want you the way Dwayne and John and the rest of those men want Maggie.”

“You don’t.” I shake my head, so determined to deny what he’s saying that I cause a nerve to twinge.

“You can deny it,” Tobias says, “but that won’t make it any less true.”

They all take a step forward, and then another until Alden and Mark are to my left, Danny and Tobias to my right, and River directly in front.

They’re all so huge, looming and brooding with hungry eyes and lips just calling out to be kissed. I’m so confused because my heart is pounding, and I’m warm and achy between my legs, but there’s a hot lump in my throat that just won’t go away. A lump that feels a lot like brewing tears.

“I can’t handle this,” I say in a voice that doesn’t sound like my own.

“You don’t need to handle anything.” River’s hand reaches out to take mine, his thick fingers sliding between my slender ones, and my eyes watch it all as though it’s happening to someone else entirely. I never understood what an out-of-body experience would feel like until now. “We’ll take care of you, baby. We’ll take care of everything.”

His words settle over me like a soft downy comforter. How does he know what I most need to hear? It’s been so long since I’ve been able to put aside my worries and relax in my life. The little girl I was before Dad left didn’t know insecurity. She didn’t know how tough she’d have to become to get through life without breaking apart.

All I want is to know is that someone has my back. I want the comfort of arms around me, and a strong masculine force who can help me take on the world.

It’s lonely to have to face all my worries and troubles alone.

River has summed up all my needs in just those few words.

I rest my hand on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart, his coiled strength and solid form, craving to shove him as far away as I can but also to acquiesce and let him closer. I’m trapped between the fear of allowing anyone near and the fear that I’ll always be alone.

“Just let me go,” I say, finding just enough strength to push him out of my way. As I start to stride away, Tobias takes hold of my wrist.

“We don’t want to let you go, Cora. We want to show you what it would be like to build something great together.”

“But I’m…I’m…” I stutter, the words not wanting to escape my lips because voicing them will make them real.

“Scared,” Mark says softly. “It’s okay to be scared.”

“It is?”

“Of course,” he says softly. “Do you think any of us is standing here right now without a little fear about moving forward? Taking chances is always difficult. Not knowing how things would turn out. We get that.”

“This isn’t something we’ve ever even thought about doing before,” Alden says. “Before you.”

“But we’re willing to try if you are,” Danny says. There’s something so sweet and hopeful in his voice that I blink, confused, unable to reconcile the Danny from before with the man in front of me.

Before I know what I’m saying, the words, “I’m too broken,” slip out and I bring my free hand to my face to cover my embarrassment. All the pressures of my life wash over me; the effect of the incident with Kyle, the breakup with Travis, the breakdown of my parents’ marriage and the financial struggles. They weigh me down so much, that it’s hard to think past it all.

“No,” River says, pulling me close. “You’re not broken. You’re strong and resilient. You’re a fighter, Cora. A fighter to the core.”

My hands that have braced on his chest curl, grabbing fistfuls of his soft shirt. I gaze into his mesmerizingly light eyes, feeling his words rest deep inside me.

A fighter.

Is that the way they see me?

Strong and resilient.

They’re two characteristics that I’ve always wanted to have but struggled with too. Always being in fight mode has made me brittle and sharp. If I could just step back and lower my guard, I know I’d feel happier and more settled.

“Can you give us a chance?” River asks softly, pushing my hair behind my ear. Just that simple touch has my knees weakening and my fingers trembling.

“Cora,” Tobias says as he eases me from River’s arms so he can talk to me face to face. “I know this seems like a lot to process. It is for us too. But I feel something here…” he places his hand over his heart. “Something I’ve never felt about anyone before. And I don’t want to let that slip through my fingers. None of us do.”

He nods, letting me know he’s done talking, and it’s my turn to respond, but my tongue feels swollen and glued in my mouth.

I understand what he’s saying because I have that same feeling in my chest too. A tenuous connection to these men that feels like soft threads drawn between us.

But that’s not enough, is it?

“Do you feel it here?” he asks me, pressing his big, rough hand over where my heart beats. The softness of the top of my breast rests beneath his palm, and my mouth drops open to speak, but no words come out because it feels so good.

His hand was made to shape to my body. His arms, that held me so tight when I felt like confetti in the wind, were made to keep me safe. And suddenly, I don’t have any more fight left in me. Stepping up onto tiptoes, I press my lips to his with a sudden rush of sensation. His lips were made for mine, too.

Tobias gasps, not expecting the quick contact, not understanding why I’m staring at him agape, feeling the skittering of my heart.

I look around at all the men surrounding me. River, with his serious brow, confused as to why Tobias has managed to reach me where he couldn’t. Danny, who’s waiting to see what I’ll do next with just a glimpse of a smile dancing across his lips. Mark, whose head is cocked to the side as if trying to solve a complicated equation: Cora plus men to the power of five equals unending joy or unending heartache. Alden, whose thumb is tucked into the belt loop of his jeans, is watching everything with that eldest brother’s detachment. They’re all so different, but all…

I’m not sure there’s a word that can sum up so many men.

But do I need to sum them up? Isn’t it their differences that make this prospect as awesome as it is terrifying?

“I feel it,” I say in a rush, knowing that if I leave it any longer, I’ll slip back into the safe space of denial. I don’t want to push them away anymore. I want these men to continue to be the rocks they’ve become in my life.

“You do?” Tobias asks.

And even though my heart is racing, and my palms are sweating, I manage to nod. “I do.”

Those two small words are the trigger to the beginning of something huge.