Page 68 of Love Thy Brother
Rubi sighed and buried his face in my neck, muscles relaxing with every slow, even breath.
As tension left him, more flooded me.
I squeezed his hand tighter.Too tight.
He coughed a little. “What is it?”
“Don’t leave.”
Rubi wrapped his arm around my waist, drawing us closer, and hooked a leg over mine. “I’m not going anywhere, Riv. I promise.”
13
RUBI
I opened my eyes to a boner carving a hole in River’s mattress, and a text from Mateo.
Mateo:no drama overnight. let me no when ur awake
Rubbing my face, I messaged him back.
Rubi:I’m awake
His reply was instant.
Mateo:r u cumin to church
Mateo:COMING
I knew what he meant, but he always corrected himself, like any of us gave a shit if he mismatched a few letters. His question gave me pause, though. He’d asked me last night and I’d been too bamboozled to give him an answer. Too dazed to sayfuck no. Even if I fancied a road trip—and I didn’t—for the first time in my entire life, the MC compound was the last place I wanted to be.
I can’t leave River.For many reasons, but mainly because some cunt had tried to kill him last night and that shit wasn’t happening again.
Rubi:No. Catch me up later
Mateo:u tell cam?
Rubi:Can you?
Mateo didn’t reply straight away.I set the phone down on the chaotic stack of 78s River used as a bedside table, old seven-inch singles that were too dusty and warped to play. The top one was Rebel Yell. The fucking irony. I rolled away from it and flopped into the empty space beside me, listening to the soft sounds of River moving around downstairs.
It didn’t surprise me that he was up already. Fucker never could sleep past dawn, even when he was little and still called me Rooboo.
I miss him already. Too true. But his absence gave me a second to put myself back together. To take stock of a night that had thrown me in a thousand different directions, from the bottom of the sea to fucking Pluto and back.
And of course, my horny self chose to focus on the space race to ecstasy.
I saw him come.
Fuck, I’dfeltit against my dick. In every shuddered spasm his body had made. Every tensed jerk. I closed my eyes and pictured his face contorted in pleasure, teeth mauling his bottom lip, tendons in his beautiful neck taut enough to snap. Goosebumps broke out over my tingling skin and the stone column I’d woken up with returned, the sweet ache eclipsing the dull throb in the rest of my body.
Don’t touch it.Fuck. I rolled over with a groan.
A low chuckle answered me. I wrenched my head up, but a warm hand landed on my shoulder before I could fumble any further.
“Easy, boo. You don’t need to be doing anything that fast today.”
I oriented myself with the fact that River was sitting on the edge of the bed, and I’d been too caught up picturing him naked to hear him coming. Suppressing a wince, I shifted onto my side. “What’s special about today?”
