Page 73 of Love Thy Brother
He tacked the sketch to the fridge with a Harley magnet and disappeared. I heard the shower turn on, and as tempting as it was to slink up the stairs and invade his privacy, I stayed where I was. My brain was a carousel right now and I couldn’t seem to get off.
The itchy weed cravings I’d managed to ignore all week made a sudden return and I tapped restless fingers on the counter. The only zoots I’d brought with me had taken a dip in the ocean, and River didn’t smoke. Not often, anyway.Dammit.I mean, I didn’t wish another dirty habit on him, but it was fucking annoying that green was the one thing he didn’t poison his body with.
Make more tea.Couldn’t hurt. I boiled the kettle and pictured River naked, soaking in the fact that I could retire my imagination for good. Myinferiorimagination. Cos let me tell you, the River I’d put my hands on last night was light years away from the one that lived in my filthiest dreams. Lean and mean muscles. Body hair that felt like velvet against my fingertips. Haunting white lines on his thighs.
Scars.
I sucked in a deep breath. Those marks were years old. Like the ones hidden by the ink on his arms. Sometimes I forgot River’s response to trauma and pain had always been to hurt himself a little bit more.
The scent of the food in the oven reached me. Lost in thought, I took it out and set it in the same place it had been all night in River’s frosty kitchen. My stomach growled, but I didn’t take much notice until River’s grumpy tread sounded on the stairs.
This time, I was ready for him. Mostly. The sight of him with damp hair slicked back and leftover water beading on his skin still turned me inside out.
I faced the counter to hide my dick print. “Better?”
River came close enough to dump his chin on my shoulder. “Than what?”
“I dunno. Whatever you want.”
He snorted and bit my neck, then drifted away to dig crockery from his shambolic cupboards. Forks from the rave of silverware in his cutlery drawer. Leaving me reeling with wonder that we’d somehow reached a place where his affection was so fucking easy.
Also, that after years of agonising restraint, it had taken less than a month for me to roll into his bed. Or onto his couch.
Whatever. I was living a different life to any I’d lived before, and despite the new bruising chaos it had brought, I felt more awake than I had in months.
“Is Alexei really that good?”
I refocused to find River waving a cereal bowl of cheesy, bacony goodness under my nose.Alexei. Hmm. Were there enough adjectives in any language to describe him? “He’s like bringing an atom bomb to a pub brawl.”
River nodded slowly, poking his breakfast with a bent spoon. “Then maybe you should go to church this morning.”
“Say what now?”
“You should go to church,” he repeated, as if it was a normal sentence for him to speak without launching a chair at the wall. “If what you said is true, we should probably do that.”
“You’d let Alexei help you?”
“Maybe.” River put his bowl down.
I picked it up and pushed it back into his hands. “I don’t have to go to church for that to happen. I can call him.”
“That’s not safe.”
“He can come here then.”
“Fuck that.” River grinned a little. “Cam might come with him.”
Unlikely. Cam had history in Porth Luck. A thousand notches on his bedpost. Pretty sure he didn’t want to give Alexei the guided tour. “He won’t come. And I can’t go there. I’m not leaving, remember? Not without you.”
River shrugged and finally began eating. “I’ll come with you then.”
14
RUBI
River didn’t come to church. Knew he wouldn’t. He followed me back to Whitness on his bike, then roared away at the last moment, swerving into the merchant yard to see Orla.
Shaking my head, I drove Cam’s SUV to its parking space and ditched it.Sickof it. I didn’t feel whole enough to ride, but I didn’t care. Cars were cages, and I had the open road in my DNA.
