Page 174 of Love Thy Brother
“Neither do I, but Mateo told me. It meansyou are my forever love, and I felt that, boo. For them. For us. Maybe it’s this place, but I don’t think I’ve ever loved you as much as I do tonight.”
“Hmm. Me too. I’m so emotional right now, I might die. Like, my actual heart is gonna burst.”
River kissed me slow and deep, plundering my mouth before he pulled back with a whisper. “Sounds like you need an outlet. Take me home?”
* * *
He drove me home. Cam’s car this time. No clue where anyone’s bike was, and I had no fucks left to give. We left Cornwall behind. And River’s house, habitable now, a new front door, boiler replaced, his bedroom turned into dinosaur land for Oscar’s young son.
River lived with me now. In our house, and it felt so fucking normal it was hard to believe only a few months had passed since he hadn’t.
Then we got home and the signs of his riotous existence were everywhere. Clothes. Vinyl. Engine parts. His mismatched boots kicked off in the hallway the moment the front door shut behind us.
I peeled my shirt off and tossed it somewhere, aiming for the stairs, trusting he’d follow. As good as we were at messing around on the couch, on the rug in front of the fire, him perched on the kitchen counter while I swallowed his dick, I needed him in my bed.
Our bed.
River caught up with me in the bedroom doorway. He pressed his lips to my spine and slid his hands over my hips, pushing my jeans away as I fought with my belt buckle. “What do you want?”
He asked me that a lot. What did I want? What did Ineed? Still stuck in that vortex where he thought I was selfless and he was a selfish bastard. Maybe that was why we hadn’t fucked in a while. Why we stalled out at blowjobs. At grinding each other into oblivion before we got our clothes off.
Or maybe those blowjobs were too fucking good to pull away from. It was a rare day I didn’t come in my hand while sucking him dry, I loved it that much.
River got my jeans down and turned me around.
I kicked them away, drinking in the sight of him already bare-chested, his inked torso ethereal in the dark. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
His eyes blazed with heat. “Fix it then.”
I stripped him and coaxed him to the bed, tumbling him down, revelling in the feel of him wrapped around me. Of his body coming to life in my hands. I kissed every inch of him I could reach. His chest, the hard planes of his abdomen. His scarred legs. I left his cock alone to preserve my fucking stamina, but I burned for him everywhere, covering him with my heavier weight, pinning him to the bed. “What doyouwant?”
River flexed beneath me, eyes heavy lidded, skin damp with fresh sweat. “I want you to stop thinking and take everything you’ve ever needed from me.”
He’d already given me everything I needed. He was happy. Healthy. Smiling every day without hurting himself. Helovedme, goddamn it. What else was there?
My brain didn’t know the answer, but my body did, yearning for him in every fucking pore. Straining to cross the one bridge we had left. I held his face in my hand, thumb stroking his cheekbone. “Can I fuck you? I’ll be gentle, I promise.”
River licked my palm. “If you’re gentle, I’ll make you stop.”
He’d have scared me less if he’d threatened my life. But I was careful with him anyway because it was how I’d always imagined it. How I’d fantasisedthis moment would be. I’d bang his brains out another day. Tonight I just wanted to love him.
We had no condoms left, so I slid into him bare, trusting him as much as he trusted me,slowly, inch by inch, as River cinched his eyes shut and mauled his bottom lip with his teeth.
I held his thigh in my hand, fingers digging to the lean muscle, my weight braced on my other hand, gaze darting between his tense face and where my cock was disappearing inside him.
His face won out.
His lips.
I kissed him, my hair coming loose and falling around us in a curtain, blocking out the world as I began to thrust a slow beat, jumpstarting a wild rush of hunger that I struggled to contain.
Sweetness escalated into something more. I kissed him harder than I fucked him, sucking on his tongue, biting his lip, pulses of want and need careening through my body. Would there ever be a time when I didn’t want him like this? As he arched beneath me, his groan ragged enough to rattle the walls, the resounding answer was no.
“You’re so hot,” River murmured through gritted teeth. “Don’t mess around, boo. I need you to fuck me.”
“I am fucking you.”
“Harder.”
