Page 14 of Psycho
“To keep you safe. Protect you.”
“You can’t protect me from my own brain.”
“I can try,” August said. “You could at least let me try.”
Lucas examined August. He looked so sincere, like he was trying so hard. “This is crazy. I feel like I’m hallucinating.”
“Please, let me stay,” August said, giving him his biggest, saddest eyes.
Lucas snorted. “Now, you’re just manipulating me.”
“Of course, I am. Is it working?”
Lucas took a huge breath and let it out. Yeah. Yeah, it fucking was. They should have left him locked up in that psych ward. “Fine. But take your shirt off.” A smirk spread across August’s face as he began to unbutton his shirt. “You’re bleeding,” Lucas reminded him.
August glanced down as if he’d forgotten. When he peeled his shirt off, Lucas realized he’d definitely made a mistake. August wasn’t built like a stripper, as Lucas had originally imagined, but he was toned, his chest and belly coated with dark curls. He should have let him keep the bloody shirt.
August helped Lucas change the sheets. Lucas slipped between them, then erected a pillow barrier between them.
August watched, clearly amused. “Can I take my pants off?”
Lucas gave a surprised laugh. “No.”
“Please?”
“Ugh, fine.” He gave in, just wanting another couple of hours of sleep before he had to get up for work. August dropped his pants, then slid between the sheets. Lucas closed his eyes. August’s head popped up over the pillow wall. “Can I take you to breakfast in the morning?”
“No.”
August flounced back onto the bed. “I can’t kiss you or touch you or take you to breakfast? You’re taking all the fun out of this sleepover.”
Lucas chuckled. “Then go break into another man’s home.”
August reappeared. “There’s no other man. Just you.”
Lucas wasn’t August’s man, but he didn’t say as much. It wouldn’t matter if he did. August was nothing if not stubborn, and he seemed to have come to some internal conclusion that Lucas was his. The idea of being the sole focus of a homicidal psychopath should have sent Lucas into another panic attack. Instead, he rolled over and quickly drifted off to sleep.
“You broke into his house and watched him sleep?”
August rolled his eyes at Adam’s amused statement. “When you put it like that, it makes me sound like a stalker.”
August had stopped by Adam’s loft on his way to the college to try to figure out how to make Lucas love him…or, at least, like him more than other people. They sat at the kitchen table with Adam’s boyfriend, Noah, and their other brother, Archer.
Noah always looked like he’d just come from a church social with his big brown eyes and freckled cheeks, in direct opposition with his brother’s inky black hair and pale blue eyes. Yet, they seemed a perfect match.
“Youarea stalker, dude. You can’t just break into a guy’s apartment and sneak up on him while he’s sleeping,” Noah chastised.
August frowned. “Why? Didn’t Adam do the same thing to you?”
Noah stopped short, looking at Adam. “You totally did. Your whole family is creepy.”
“My whole family murders people. You knew that going in. Seems like it says more about you than it does me,” Adam said, grinning at Noah before pulling him in to kiss the top of his head.
“That. The whole kissing and cuddling thing. I want that,” August said.
Archer made a disgusted noise. “Christ. I’m not drunk enough for this.”
August hadn’t expected to find Archer at Adam’s place. It was surprising to find Archer anywhere before noon. A professional poker player and amateur reprobate, Archer had somehow turned his vices into a lucrative career.
