Page 121 of Love Thy Brother
A flashback hit me. Him on his knees. Me fucking him from behind while he gripped the thick wooden bed frame.
His deep, gravelly moan as he came.
The memory was days old. Shiny and new. A match to dry tinder in my blood. What would it feel like a year from now? A decade?
What if we never got to find out?
Cam’s warning weighed heavy in my heart. I gripped the ropes and vaulted from the ring, my mismatched boots hitting the ground in the same moment Rubi came upright.
I was beside him before I could blink.
He blinked. Startled. Then a beautiful grin warmed his face. “Did you win? I had to stop watching. It was making me too fucking horny for you.”
“Watching me fight my brother makes you horny?”
“Watching you get all sweaty and boss him makes me horny. It has nothing to do with your neanderthal brother.”
“I didn’t boss him.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“You didn’t see it all.”
“Still standing, ain’t ya?” Rubi took advantage of the cover from the van doors and leaned in for a swift kiss. “Last dude sparred with Cam still has a lazy eye.”
“It wasn’t a real fight.”
“Looked real enough to me. For the point-two seconds I watched it.”
“Until the boxes fell on your head?”
Rubi laughed. “Fucking Nash. Couldn’t pack his dick in a paper bag.”
“You love him anyway, though.”
“Bible.” Rubi flashed a Vulcan salute, his gaze simmering as we stared each other down, making conversation for the fucking sake of it. His blond hair was a mess, tumbling over his shoulders, grime from the van smeared on his cheek, the yard floodlights catching the silver ring in his nose. He’d looked like death earlier, pale and tired, but something had changed while I’d been throwing hands with Cam. He was as scared and worried as I was. But there was more.
With him, there was always more.
I want him.
Fuck. I needed him, and it took everything I had not to push him into the van and slam the doors shut behind us.
We were out of sand in the hourglass.
It was time to go.
We ditched our phones for burners, mounted up, and hit the road.
Cam led us, Rubi and me flanking his sides, Folk tail-gunning at the back while the van brothers kept their distance, and it didn’t feel weird. None of it. The frost on the ground slowed us down, but the open road, my brother and my lover sharing the ride, goddamn. I felt so fucking human.
So alive.
Truro came up on us too fast. We left the van behind and hid our bikes close to the stash house to walk the rest of the way, keeping to the shadows and gardens, avoiding houses with doorbell cameras.
I saw the car first. Tatty black paint. Odd headlights and the missing alloy wheel. Phantom angry waves filled my ears. I tasted salt on my tongue. But most of all, the fear of losing Rubi squeezed my soul so fucking tight.
I can’t.
