Tryst Six Venom by Penelope Douglas

“I’m…uh,” Clay stammers, breathing hard as she stares at my oldest
brother. “Um… About the…”
He blows out smoke, his eyebrows narrowed, and I’m caught between
being amused at seeing Clay nervous, and being scared because no
conversation between these two will end well. Macon is an ass.
Her mouth opens and closes, Macon eating her for breakfast without
moving a muscle, and then she exhales and turns to me.
“Yeah, fuck this,” she says, kissing my lips once. “I’ll see you later,
okay?”
I smile tightly and nod. Yeah, I tried to tell you. “Bye.”
Clay leaves, and I lock the door behind her, turning and meeting my
brother’s gaze. “She was just trying to apologize for being in your room
during Night Tide.”
He doesn’t say anything, and I give up. There’s no talking to him. I head
for the stairs.
“Olivia?” he calls.
I stop, not in the mood.
I enter the living room again. “We’re not supposed to smoke in the
house.”
His rule.
He drops the butt into a leftover beer bottle, the little sizzle of the embers
extinguishing filling the silence.
He turns his eyes on me. “Finish with her.”
My muscles tighten. “It’s none of your business.”
“She’s using you.”
My eyes immediately sting, and I shake my head.
“She will always think she can use you,” he explains.
No. I can understand why he would think that, because I thought it too,
but he doesn’t see what goes on when it’s just us. It’s not like that.
“Because you’re less to her,” he says, rising from his chair. “And she’s
more.”
He moves toward me, all the feelings and doubts and insecurities I had
when I started this with her flooding back. I’m not attached. I like her. It feels
good.
I’m not attached.
“She thinks she’s more, because she’ll never want what you have,” he
continues. “Because she thinks you want what she has. Because she thinks