Page 62 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Rich boy,” I say.
“Maybe,” he says back, and then his lips are on my neck. Right above my collar, hot and hard, a kiss immediately turning into a vicious, toe-curling suck.
“We can’t,” I say, finally opening my eyes. His face is buried in my neck, and so I can see the back curve of his head—caramel hair, thick and gleaming—framed by the barley ceiling. “We can’t, Auden.”
“Then why did you come?” he says into my neck, biting me hard enough that I feel it in my marrow. My cock jolts in neglected agony, as if it’s trying to get closer to Auden, as if it’s seeking its owner. “Why did you come here at all if you don’t want this?”
Why doesn’t he understand? Wanting is exactly the problem when it comes to him. Wanting is why I can’t trust mys
elf around him, it’s why I’m here shivering against a wall while he brands me with his mouth instead of safely at home where I can’t be tempted.
Auden seems to realize this the moment he asks the question anyway. I feel his lips curl against my neck. “You do want it, though, don’t you?” He pulls away enough that his fingers can find the buttons of my shirt. They slide between the buttons, teasing little touches against the flat skin near my navel. And then he deftly unbuttons the three above my waistband. “Look at how you tremble when I touch you, stubborn boy. Look at how you flutter those long, gorgeous eyelashes and nibble on that lip piercing. I think you more than want this, I think you need it. I think you need it from me.”
I can’t stifle the noise I make when he unfastens my trouser button or when he unzips me. My cock pushes against the sudden freedom, seeking the cool air, seeking the wicked heat of Auden’s hand.
“I don’t want to want it,” I mumble, my head dropping onto his shoulder as he finally takes me in his hand. “I shouldn’t. We’re—we’re not right for wanting each other.”
Auden strokes my throbbing cock like it’s his favorite pet. “It doesn’t have to be a transgression,” he soothes me. “Who has to know we’re brothers? Half-brothers? We didn’t grow up together. We didn’t know until just weeks ago. We can forget. I know we can forget it if we try hard enough.”
When I look down, I can see it all. His hand with its large, elegant wristwatch slowly jacking me off, the crisp lines of his tuxedo as he shuttles his grip up and down my aching sex. His fingers curled around the grosgrain lapel, turning my tux into an expensive, tailored prison.
“We didn’t know,” he repeats, his touch patient but wicked. “We didn’t grow up together.”
But the thing that terrifies me?
I think I would have loved him anyway.
Even if we had known for years. Even if we had learned the truth when we were sixteen.
There’s no dose of Auden that inoculates you to him, there’s no amount of him that breeds familiarity. I could have seen his face every day and I still would have worshipped the graceful arrogance of his features; I could have spent every waking moment with him and I still would’ve been hungry for any spare word thrown my way.
And there’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for him when we were sixteen, there was nothing too shameless for me, nothing too obscene, and I just can’t imagine that sixteen-year-old Saint would have felt any differently if he’d known Auden was his brother. But that doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t make it any less twisted to do now.
Maybe it’s more twisted knowing that. Maybe it’s worse.
Oh God, it’s definitely worse.
“Auden, we can’t.”
He doesn’t loosen his grip. He doesn’t stop stroking. My cock is so hard now that I can feel my heartbeat in it.
“Auden.”
“You know how to stop me.”
I do. I do know how. But once again, I can’t make the words come out.
Auden knows it too. He seals his smiling mouth over mine, taking his kiss like a king takes tribute. “You look so fucking pretty like this,” he murmurs into my mouth. “All undone for me, all tormented. Your cock out and hard for my hand while you keep telling me we can’t.”
Said cock surges in his hold, and I can feel his pride surge right back in response. “Turn around, stubborn boy.”
I should say no.
No—not no. Auden would let me bleat all the nos and we can’ts I wanted, he’d allow these little reflexes of conscience, because that’s what they’d be: reflexes. If I said no to him, I’d have to do it in the language we agreed to speak together. With the words agreed on precisely because they were not reflexes, because they had to be thought about and searched for and chosen.
I should say may I, and end this. I should because I want to, because I know it’s the right thing to do, because if I don’t, I’ll regret it the rest of my days.
He’s turning me now, releasing his grip on my cock so that he can take hold of my hips and spin me toward the wall, and my entire body is humming, singing, alive. Goosebumps erupt every place he touches, he’s sowing responsiveness like a farmer sows seeds, and the noise he makes when he presses his entire body against mine could feed me for years. His lips find my neck above my collar, and he fists my dick again, his own erection grinding openly against me.
