Page 65 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
“You make him sound awful,” I said with a frown.
“No,” she said firmly, holding up a hand. “I am not saying he’s a bad person...it’s not like I knew him well enough to know if he was good or bad. But you don’t have to be a bad person to hurt others; sometimes, being a good person makes the pain you cause even worse. Marshall is...well, he’s?—”
I searched her face and found her uncomfortable with whatever was flitting in her head. It took me a minute, but intuition flared to life, and I snorted. “A lot like me, or I’m a lot like him.”
A grimace stretched her features. “I haven’t seen him in years, but there’s no denying that you’re the spitting image of him.”
“Practically a clone,” Eli muttered. “It’s worse than Dad and me.”
“I’m sure the bastard probably aged gracefully too,” Mom muttered, and I chose to take that as...actually, I didn’t know how to take that, but I chose to believe her bitterness was just reflexive rather than targeted.
“Yeah,” I agreed with her. “Which is kind of nice to know.”
“Why?”
“Because between you and him, I know I’m going to be hot for decades.”
Mom stared at me for a moment before sighing and rolling her eyes. “Buttering me up?”
“Is it buttering up if it’s true?” I asked with a smirk.
She narrowed her eyes, wagging a finger in my direction as a warning that I wouldn’t take too seriously. “Using my words against me? Not wise.”
“I’m just working with what I’m given,” I said with a grin.
Her expression curdled slightly before easing. “So...the two of you finally met. I wondered if it would happen.”
I frowned at her. “Look...I can understand that you’ve got a rough history with him, and it’s obvious you’re not happy he’s back and found me, but...this is my life, Mom. I’m allowed to pick and choose what happens to me.”
“No one ever gets to decide that,” I heard from behind me, turning to find Marcus entering the room, his expression pinched. “And why do I have Mason of all people telling me I should take an early break and come in here?”
“Because he’s dramatic,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
“Milo just told Mom he met his biological father,” Eli explained, leaning closer. It was a perfectly natural gesture between us that no one in the family would bat an eye at. They were all used to how physically affectionate we were, particularly me, but even Eli, who was typically wary of physical touch, made an exception when it came to me. No one in the room would look at him moving his chair up against mine, leaning against me, and think it was unusual or noteworthy.
Me though? I was immediately distracted as Marcus walked over to my mother, talking quietly but still clear enough if I wanted to listen...which I didn’t. At that moment, all I noticed was Eli’s body pressing against mine. Normally, all sounds were distracting, and I had to fight to keep them from grabbing my attention. With Eli touching me so closely, though, everything in the room was on the other side of a fog. The words from my parents were faint murmurs I couldn’t catch, the light glancing off the glass as Dom took a drink, even the smell of the liquor as Itook a hesitant sip, were dim and dull to the sudden warmth and feel of Eli’s hard body against mine.
That was bad enough, but given a minute to get my brain out of my groin, I would have been able to slip back into the conversation without drawing any attention. Apparently, Eli had other ideas, as he leaned forward as if interested in the conversation between Mom and Marcus. Which just so happened to make his hand slide up my thigh so it rested right beside my dick.
In truth, despite knowing that not so deep down, Eli was a playful, mischievous little shit when he wanted to be, Imighthave been willing to pass it off as an accident, a product of him moving forward and his hand just drifting. It was a desperate idea that was immediately dashed, shattered, and burned the moment his fingers twitched, pushing against my dick—which I was desperately trying to keep soft—and then stretched to close around it.
Caught off guard, I jerked, my knee thumping the underside of the table hard enough to draw attention. Eli’s hand slipped away, and that and the pain shooting through my knee were enough to bring me back to reality. Not the way I would have chosen to break that brief but powerful spell, but I wasn’t going to argue if it worked.
“You good?” Dom asked as my eyes watered from the pain.
“Yeah, just...twitchy still, I guess,” I replied, trying to make it obvious that I was being a smartass and unaware that Eli’s hand had moved but wasn’t completely gone. The mixture of horror and arousal came back sharply when, despite the dull ache in my knee cap, I felt Eli’s hand close around my groin again, the moment everyone’s attention was diverted, assured that I was being the same old Milo.
What the hell was he doing? Our family wasright there. As thrilled as I would have been to find out that apparently fuckingaround the other night was something he enjoyed and was coming back to, it really wasn’t the time or place.
I looked around as I rapidly stiffened under his touch, making sure no one was paying attention to us before glaring at Eli. If someone didn’t know Eli well, they might assume he didn’t notice the dirty look I was giving him, but I knew the bastard pretty damn well. He was fully aware of what he was doing and that I was giving him a filthy look for it. What gave him away was the slight twitch at the corner of his lips, saying he knew what he was doing, knew I was fully aware of it, and that I was also helpless to stop him, least of all because my dick was doing a lot of my thinking at that moment and his touch felt fucking good.
Forcing myself to look away, I tried to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do. The problem was that, other than the fact that his touch was distracting and arousing, and he was fully aware of what he was doing, there was something else there. It took me a moment to realize if I applied what I knew of Eli, that fitted and yet didn’t. Eli was generally not that bold or risk-taking, unless I was there to egg him on, which I definitely wasn’t doing. Maybe he was adventurous when it came to sex, and I was learning that. At the same time, the playfulness, the slightly mean fun of what he was doing fitted him completely, the man could be a little shit when he wanted, but I’d never considered it could apply to the sexual side of him as well...until then.
Oh God, I was learning who Eli was as a sexual creature. I had, of course, dreamed and fantasized about what that could be like, but now I was actually finding out in the most direct way possible. It was precisely the sort of thing I’d always wanted to know, but it had never occurred to me that it could happen at a time and place where I would feel conflicted.
My underwear and pants were too tight, pinching the most sensitive part of my body. That was until I felt Eli’s grip shiftslightly to get hold of my dick through my clothes, and with a twitch of his wrist, my dick was no longer partially bent against my thigh, but allowed to stretch out along the leg of my pants and underwear. The relief was enough to make me let out a breath, which cut off when his fingers closed around the shaft again and...began stroking slowly. So slowly that an outside observer would have to pay attention to see it. Even then, they’d have to be on our side of the table, but that had been taken care of when half the family had left.
So now I was utterly at the mercy of a man willing to press all my buttons when I was in a position that left me helpless to do anything. All I could do was sit there and feel his fingers casually stroking along my shaft as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It was not the actions of a man who had just had his first sexual interaction with another guy. There was no real curiosity to his touch like there had been that first time...well, there might have been, but there was definitely no hesitation. Eli was touching me with the kind of deft skill of someone who knew how to please another man, and was perfectly comfortable with the act, instead of the newbie he was.
