Free Blood and Sympathy by Lori L. Clark Page A

thought my muscles
were going to snap like rubber bands. My only contact with the opposite sex had
come from the counselors and teachers, and trying to figure out how to act
around Claire had left me coiled like a spring.
    It was all I could do to keep from spending a
little extra time soaping up my dick in the shower after my workout. I could
never make a girl like Claire happy, but damn, she would be the star of many
fantasies--those long legs wrapped around my waist, my fist wrapped in those
silky strands of hair. Fuck.
    After dinner, I collapsed onto the bed and rolled over
on my stomach, my dick throbbed painfully against the mattress. I decided to
answer her latest letter and thank her for coming to see me.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Claire
Copeland
     
    He probably thinks I'm some kind of mental case.
Practically the whole time I sat across from him, my face varied from one shade
of red to another. If I ever heard from him again, it would be a fucking
miracle. God . I felt like some kind of a lovesick teenager, and I never
acted like that.
    On the ride home, I silently digested our meeting
as I turned the music box over in my hands. From the corner of my eye, I saw
Jeb sneaking curious glances in my direction.
    I gave him a tight smile and sighed before winding
the tiny golden crank to listen to the song. "Braden's really quite
talented," I said quietly, mesmerized by the melody as though hearing it
for the first time.
    "He's a good boy," Jeb admitted.
"He's impressionable, eager to make people happy, and wants to do the
right thing. He'll be okay on the outside. His brother…" He stopped and
shook his head. "I don't have much hope for that one."
    "What do you think, Jeb? Do you think people
are born evil, or do you think society makes them that way?" If someone
had asked me that question before I met Braden and got to know him through his
letters, I would have had to think about it long and hard. I still didn't know
the right answer.
    "I don't know, truthfully. Just like asking
if, because the boys are twins, can one be good and the other be the complete
polar opposite?" He took his eyes off the road and gave me a quick glance.
"Take you and you sister, for instance. You're nothing alike."
    I frowned. "Olivia and I aren't twins."
    "Well no, but you were born close together
and raised with the same rules. I'm not saying you're evil, Claire, I'm just
pointing out the differences in your personalities." His fingers tapped
restlessly on the steering wheel to some imaginary beat.
    "Right. Olivia's the good daughter and I'm… well,
I'm not ." I rolled my eyes at him. It wasn't anything I hadn't
heard before. The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile.
    Rain was coming down in sheets by the time we got
back to Hensteeth. Jeb pulled up the driveway, dropping me off at the door. I
thanked him and ran to the house.
    The house was quiet, and even though I knew they
were both home, I was relieved to see no one sitting in the kitchen when I came
in. It was early, but I was tired. Sitting in a constant state of anxiety might
have been great for my butt cheeks--since they had been clenched the whole time
I was at WTJDC--but my energy was zapped.
    I wanted to sit down and pour out my feelings out
in a letter to Braden, but I didn't want him to think I was desperate or
grasping for something that was barely there, something as of yet indefinable.
How could I fucking identify what I was thinking and feeling about him when I
didn't even know? Nothing made sense.
    What he stirred inside of me was completely
illogical. I'd only known him for a short time. Most of that was through the written
word. But the way my stomach clenched, the way my heart squeezed inside my
chest ...  he got to me, and he probably didn't even realize it.
    "Ugh!" I groaned and headed down the
hall to take a long shower. When I came out of the steam-filled bathroom,
Olivia was leaning against the wall, staring pointedly at me, her arms crossed.
"What?"
    "What's going