Chapter 366: Emma World of Denied Desires 2

She wanted to be seen, wanted the ache inside her to be answered, but he carried himself like a boy already ruined by responsibilities he couldn’t name.

Then his phone had buzzed.

Sofia Delgado;

Can’t stop thinking about last night... best ever, Peter. Thank you for EVERYTHING.

Sofia. Jack’s girlfriend?

The same Sofia who’d watched Emma’s brother bleed on the asphalt? Peter had fucked Jack’s girl? Made her scream "

best ever

."?

The text was a grenade in Emma’s gut.

’He chose her. Her. Over ME.’

Humiliation burned hotter than shame.

Hours later, Madison arrived. The moans began—

"Peter! GOD! RIGHT THERE!"

—each cry a nail in Emma’s coffin. She pressed a hand over her mouth, the other stealing between her thighs, fingers moving frantically as Madison’s raw satisfaction echoed through the house.

Emma came shuddering, tears wet on her cheeks, the image of Peter with Sofia, with Madison, seared into her.

’Why not ME?’

Linda and Sarah returned, footsteps soft, the three Carter women bound by shared, silent shame.

She knew, oh god,

she knew

. Her and Sarah—whispered giggles in their shared bathroom years ago, accidentally walking in on him changing.

Yes, even then, before the pill or the system, before Eros, he’d been...

endowed

. Very much so. So enormous. Madison’s scream wasn’t just pleasure; it was confirmation. Proof.

And in that moment, hearing the raw satisfaction in another woman’s voice, a thought, dark and desperate and utterly forbidden, had seized her:

’That. I want that inside me. I want him to be my first. Take my virginity.’

The sheer impossibility of it, the taboo depth of the craving, had made her shudder violently. But the need remained, a constant, gnawing ache.

Now, standing here, bathed in the soft dim light of his room, looking at the devastatingly handsome, impossibly

charged

version of Peter, all that history, all that buried longing, collided with the present.

His words, low and hypnotic – "

Sounded less like surprise... and more like discovery

" – weren’t just a tease. They felt like an accusation. Like he

knew

.

"Peter,

stop

, this is wrong." she whispered, the protest utterly hollow. Her breath hitched as his thumb stroked the frantic pulse point on her throat. His eyes held hers, dark and knowing, seeing right through the flimsy shields she’d used for years. He wasn’t just her stepbrother anymore.

He was Peter. The boy who bled for her. The man who saved her. The source of her deepest, most shameful hunger. The rationalizations–

it’s just gratitude, it’s sibling affection

– vaporized like smoke in a hurricane.

"Is it?" he murmured, his lips achingly close to her ear. His breath was warm against her skin. "Feels pretty...

right

to me, Em. Feels like..." He inhaled, drawing her scent deep, and the intimacy of the act made her tremble. "...like you’ve been starving. And I just walked in, smelling like the only thing you want to eat."

Starving.

The word resonated deep in her bones. It was true. Years of pushing it down, denying it, starving herself of what she truly craved:

him

. His protection. His strength. His touch. His body. His cock, filling her, claiming her.

The memory of Madison’s scream flooded her senses, mixing with the scent of Peter’s skin, the heat radiating from his body where her hands still rested on his chest.

The dam, built over a decade of guilt and denial, finally shattered.

A choked sound escaped her – half sob, half raw need. Before she could think, before the fear could stop her, she surged forward. Her lips brushed the corner of his mouth. A desperate, trembling peck. Scalding hot. So close to the forbidden line it burned.

A low groan rumbled in Peter’s chest, vibrating against her. The sound vibrated through her, undoing her completely. Instead of pulling back, he turned his head. His lips met hers. Not a brush. A soft, searching

touch

. Warm, firm, deliberate. A question asked with heat instead of words.

She froze. Every muscle locked. The shock of actual contact, the

reality

of his mouth on hers, ripped through the haze of desire.

’This is happening. This is PETER kissing me back.’

The fear was primal, screaming

NO

.

But the fire was stronger. The years of hunger, the memory of his sacrifice, the echo of Madison’s screams, the sheer, undeniable

rightness

of his touch – it all roared back, engulfing the fear. The freeze lasted less than a second.

A guttural sound tore from her throat – pure, unadulterated surrender. Her hands flew up, fingers tangling desperately in the thick hair at the nape of his neck, anchoring herself to him. She pushed up onto her toes, pressing her body flush against the hard, warm length of him.

The dam Emma had built since she was fourteen detonated.

"Peter!"

The cry tore from her—surrender, rage, and ten years of desperate love. She surged forward, crushing her mouth against his. Not tentative. Vicious. Possessive. Her lips literally crashed against his again. Her hands fisted in his hair,

yanking

him impossibly closer, grinding her hips against the hard ridge pressing into her belly.

She poured

everything

into the kiss:

The eleven-year-old boy bleeding on asphalt for her. The lie in the principal’s office. The savage satisfaction of seeing Trent break. The hollow ache of his hands staying chaste on the couch. The sting of Sofia’s text. The echo of Madison’s pleasure beneath her own frantic fingers.

She kissed him like she was trying to erase Sofia and Madison from his soft lips, consume Madison’s memory, claim the martyr and the monster. He wasn’t just her stepbrother anymore. He was her ruin. Her redemption.

And he was finally,

finally

, kissing her back—like he recognized the wreckage in her eyes and knew, at last, it was his reflection.

This was no tentative brush. This was a conquest. Years of pent-up longing, of secret fantasies, of forbidden need exploded out of her. Her mouth opened against his, demanding, insistent.

Her tongue swept against his lips, seeking entrance, claiming him with a ferocity that shocked even herself.

Every hidden desire, every stolen glance, every suppressed moan muffled into her pillow at night – it poured into that kiss. She kissed him like she was drowning and he was air. Like he was the answer to a prayer she hadn’t dared to voice in ten years.

The boy who bled for her. The man she craved. Her stepbrother. Her Peter.