Page 60 of Wilde's End
“It is. And it makes me sad that you’ll never understand it.”
“Don’t be sad for me, brother. Be sad for yourself,” he says as he gets up and makes his way to the other house. Kennedy follows him, and it tears me up to see him so … flat. I have to do something about it. Something to bring the spark and hope back to him, but I’m so lacking in both of those things myself.
All I know is that unless we work together, this place is never going to happen.
We end up wasting too much of the day in Wayward, picking up a new drill, some screws, and the groceries we’ll need to get through the week. We spare time for lunch at the diner, and maybe it’s because we’ve been living off anything we can cook on a hot plate, but it’s the best meal I’ve had in a long time. None of us is in a hurry to get back, and I’m dreading what we’ll find when we do.
I’m relieved when, after a check of the site, I confirm that we haven’t come home to more headaches. We spend some time going over the shopfronts and making plans for what to do in there, and then it’s late afternoon, and I want nothing else but to escape the tension between the three of us. There was a man with longish black hair watching us today, who takes turns with Wilde, but he’s gone when I make my way back across the street to the house.
“Weird,” Kennedy mutters, and I turn back to see what’scaught his attention. He’s paused by the dirt bike, and as I watch, he reaches out to run a hand over the seat.
“What is?”
“Someone’s cleaned it.”
My gaze flicks to Hart, who looks equally as confused. “They cleaned the bike?” I confirm.
“Yeah, look. All the dirt is gone.”
He’s right. Other than the scratches in the paintwork, it’s gleaming as happily as the day we bought it. “Thatisweird.”
Hartwell laughs, scattered and hollow. “Fuck this place.”
I bound up the stairs before he can get into another one of his rants and head inside. Somehow out here, the days feel stretched thin, and while I’m not hungry and dinner is still a few hours away, I’m exhausted through to my bones.
I kick my shoes off as soon as I get back to my room and slam the door behind me. There’s no way I have the energy to deal with anyone else tonight, so I’m going to play mindless games on my phone until it’s dark and then hopefully knock myself out for the night.
The sun is beating straight into my window, so I cross to close the makeshift curtains when something catches my eye. The man who’s been watching us from the outlook all day is gone, and Wilde has taken his place.
The sight of his scruffy beard, red flannel shirt, and crossed arms makes me want to head over there and scream at him. Which will get me exactly nowhere because we’ve done that one too many times.
The restlessness in me grows, and if I can’t fight him, I can do the next best thing.
ItwasHart’s suggestion to trade a hammer for a hammering after all.
So instead of feeding into his game with anger, I reach backand pull my shirt over my head. I hug it to my front, almost one hundred percent confident he’s watching me as I let it slip off my arms and onto the floor.
Then I hook my thumbs into my gym shorts and push them slowly from my hips. They stick around my thighs before dropping, and while he’s too far away to make out the expression on his face, I don’t miss the way he shifts his weight. Don’t miss the way one of his crossed arms pops free so he can rub at his mouth.
And if he can’t see me, who the fuck cares? There’s no one else around. I lose my briefs next and wrap my hand around my cock. I’m not hard, but with Wilde, it doesn’t matter because I’ll get there soon enough. And once I am, I slide the window all the way open, then step back and do what I first planned to do. I close the makeshift curtain to cut off the sight and hope Wilde took my invitation for what it was.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
WILDE
Ireally should have lasted longer than this. I’m pissed off with myself, but not enough to turn and walk away. Critters rustle and titter through the trees around me, and as I approach the old house, a darkness settles over my chest. I promised myself I’d never step foot in one of these relics again, and here I am doing it for a third time. And all because of Hudson’s red-light district window show.
Even if his brothers were watching out for anything suspicious, they wouldn’t see me as I drift from shadow to shadow until I’m standing right beneath his window. It’s my last chance to walk away, and the ringing in my ears is screaming at me to do it. My feet are planted though, my gaze steady on that open invitation, my dick already hard at the promise of what’s waiting for me.
I wish I could pretend to be considering this, but when I reach up and grab hold of the windowsill, I know Hudson won’t be atall surprised to see me. Which only makes me more annoyed with myself.
It takes two steps up the side of the building before I’m able to haul myself through the window and get my feet back on solid ground. The sheet nailed to the wall above my head cuts off my view, but when I shift it aside and step into the room, I find Hudson on his mattress—a normal one, not the inflatable one this time—sitting against the wall, wearing nothing but a victor’s smirk.
His bare feet are planted on the floor, legs casually parted so his heavy balls hang between them. My gaze lingers on them for too long before skimming higher, following where his cock is lazily resting against his lower belly, to the rippled, pinkish-red burn, to his cuts and grazes and pretty nipples, before I reach his face.
We lock eyes, like Hudson is waiting for me to say something, but I only cross my arms and lean back against the wall. I’m as far from him as I can get, but it’s still not far enough. I don’t trust myself not to touch him.
