Eyes that seemed to soften only when he looked at his cat.
Or me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, warning bells sounded again, but I ignored them and stepped closer as Billy drew me in without doing a single thing. I put my hands on his shoulders, lips tingling as I imagined pressing them to his, but my courage failed at the last minute. I stopped and rubbed soft fingers over his bad shoulder, tracing the scars beneath his T-shirt. “What happened earlier?”
Billy shifted, pressing up into my touch. “Define earlier.”
“When you came back to work. I saw you walking away.”
“And I saw you with your arms around my brother.”
“So? I hug him all the time.”
“I know.” Billy stole his hypnotic gaze from me and scowled at something behind me. “You must hug that prick every day with his fucking moods.”
I couldn’t deny it. Luke was Luke, but I was a tactile bloke. Somehow we’d made it work. “I do hug your brother a lot, but it’s not the same as this.”
“This?”
“Yeah, this. Don’t pretend it’s not happening.”
“What? That I’m so caught up in you I got jealous of you hugging my gold star straight older brother? Yeah. Okay.”
Billy rolled his eyes, but I caught his chin in my hand before he could look away. “Why were you jealous?”
“You know why.”
“I don’t. Say it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Billy screwed his eyes shut. Obstinance rising in him as fast as heat was rising in me. Was he really going to pretend he didn’t want this as much as I did? That the crazy desire building in me was mine alone? My brain was still telling me to run a mile, but every other facet of my being was shouting louder.
Much louder.
I tightened my grip on Billy. He twisted his head and bit my finger, catching my knuckle between his teeth, bruising and hard, but not sharp enough to do anything but pull me in more. I crushed him against the sink. For a long moment he resisted, then something inside him seemed to melt away. He wrenched himself free of my grip and released my finger from his teeth. His chest hit mine. I stumbled back, but he caught me, dragged me in, and kissed me like he had five years ago.
Chapter Eleven
Billy
I was halfway between panic attack and dreamworld. Me and Gus were kissing, like, really kissing, and my body was on fire, but as he spun us, seized my hips, and lifted me onto the counter as if I was made of fucking feathers, it fast became clear that he was better at this than I was.
Which made sense, as he’d probably last been with a bloke, like, yesterday or some shit.
Not yesterday. He was with you.
But still. Gus kissed me like we’d kissed a thousand times over. He pushed me back on the counter and covered me with his body, his weight pressing against every part of me that needed him most. I ached for him. My mind raced ahead. I pictured him tearing my clothes away, and then his. Imagined us naked and bent over the counter, him easing inside—
Fuck. I couldn’t cope. I clung to Gus, using his solid bulk to tie me down to the world.
Losing myself in his kiss was easy. Drowning in him, I slid my fingers into his short, silky hair, and roamed his muscular back with my other hand. God, he was anyone’s fantasy. He was my fantasy, and he had been ever since our first kiss all those years ago. I’d compared everyone to him, men and women, and thought of him often in moments I shouldn’t have.
He straightened up, taking me with him, our lips still fused together. He towed me to the hallway, the stairs, and before I knew it I was flat on my back on his bed.
Too fast. Too fast. I wanted Gus—fuck, I wanted him—but I wasn’t like him. I didn’t know how to do this. I couldn’t put my hands on him and be sure I was doing it right. I—
“Hey.”
Gus touched my face, sliding his palm along my jaw and cupping my cheek. We weren’t kissing anymore. His dark eyes were wide and serious.
Too serious. I’d fucked it up. Already.
“Hey,” he said again. “It’s okay, we don’t have to do anything. We can stop.”
“Stop?”
“Yeah. Stop. It doesn’t matter. We can go and eat more food and watch telly downstairs.”
As kiss addled as I was, I didn’t see how he could possibly eat more food, but that was a different conversation altogether. “I don’t want to stop.” God, I didn’t want to stop. “I just...”
“What?” Gus stroked his thumb over my cheekbone. “What is it?”
I couldn’t find the words to explain how much my desire for him scared me. That the race of my heart was so terrifying I didn’t know what to do with it. Being with him brought me to life in ways that were brand new. Everything with him was brand new. I trembled beneath him like a virgin who’d never been kissed. And perhaps I hadn’t been, not since him. Not really.
Gus shifted sideways. For a heart-stopping second, I feared he would roll away, but he didn’t. He settled beside me and laid his other hand on my heaving chest. “You know, we can just do this? It’s been a long time since I just snogged someone all night.”
“How long?”
“Forever. I don’t think I’ve ever done it.”
“Why not?”
Questions fell from me with little conscious thought. I didn’t want to contemplate how he’d spent his time in bed with other people if he wasn’t kissing them, but at the same time, I kind of wanted to know every single thing about him. I wanted to fill my mind with as much of him as possible, cos despite the fact his physical presence was giving me a heart attack, everything about him soothed my soul. Even the shit that made me rage with a possessive jealousy I had no right to feel.
Gus leant over me, his face close enough that his nose brushed mine. “I’ve never done it because I’ve never wanted to. You were the first person I ever kissed that made me feel anything.”
“Bullshit. We were grown men.”
“So? Fucking people isn’t the same as this.”
I don’t know if he meant to kiss me to emphasise his point, but the moment his lips touched me, I understood. Sensations soared, and yet melted away. My body cried out for more, but at the same time, kissing him was all I’d ever need.
Fearless, I rose up from the bed and pulled him on top of me. Unbearable heat pooled in my groin, and throwing my leg over his hip, anchoring us together, came so easily I didn’t question it. I kissed him back, over and over, and clung to him as he made a cradle for himself between my legs. His hard length found its place pressed along mine. We were grinding, and kissing, and grinding, and kissing, and I couldn’t see how we’d ever stop.
Gus
Kissing Billy seemed to last forever, but at some point we fell asleep, fully clothed and wrapped around each other like star-crossed lovers.
I woke to darkness sometime later. Billy was on his back and I was pressed against his side, one arm thrown possessively over him. He was clinging to my wrist as if he was scared of something, blunt nails digging into my flesh, scarred knuckles straining. I sat up on my elbow and unpeeled his fingers from me. He shifted and rolled to face me. I pulled him close, tucked him against my chest, and went back to sleep.
It was morning when I woke next. Billy was quiet and still. I figured him asleep. Then I felt his morning wood straining against mine, and realised he was wide awake. And hard.
Hard for me.
The tunnel vision I’d fallen asleep with returned full force, and I was on him before I could truly contemplate what I was doing. Kissing him was like breathing. An unconscious action, but at the same time, so conscious I felt every fragment of our connection as though live wires were buried in my nerves.
I’d never wanted someone so much. Never craved to be inside someone so deeply my brain turned to mush. On
ly the reality that he wasn’t ready kept me from tearing his clothes away and reaching for my bedside drawer. In my head, my touch was bruising, demanding, but I ran gentle hands over him, ghosting over his clothed skin. I needed him to know how much I wanted him.
I needed him to know I could wait. That it didn’t matter.
Like he’d read my mind, he pulled back, fixing me with his trademark cynical stare. “I can’t let you fuck me.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You want to, though.”
“So?”
“So... I don’t want you to be bored.”
“Bored? With what? This?” I brushed a soft kiss to his cheek, taking care to keep my hips still. “You’re out of your mind.”
“You don’t wish we’d spent all night fucking like a Grindr hook-up?”
Words formed to tell him I wouldn’t change a thing. That the night we’d shared was perfection, but the dick print behind my sweatpants betrayed me. All I had was the truth.
I moved fast and rolled Billy onto his stomach, pressing against him before the startled gasp had left his lungs. “Don’t tell me how I feel.”
Billy laughed. “Why not? It’s true.”
“I’ll tell you what’s true.” I thrust against him just enough to make my eyes roll. “We live together. Work together. Now we sleep together, and we’ve got all the time in the world to get to this. If it’s what we both want.”
Tension rippled through Billy as he fought the desire he couldn’t deny. He groaned and raised his hips a fraction, once, twice, three times. I drove the heel of my hand into his back, and met him in the middle, chasing friction. If he didn’t want me to fuck him, he was doing a terrible job of showing it, and my willpower had limits.
Hard limits. It would’ve been so easy to slip my hands beneath his waistband, and then my own. I pictured it as we ground together, slowed it down so every clothed thrust ramped up the torture. Billy’s groans grew breathless, and his hands balled into fists. “Please, Gus.”
Sweat beaded my brow, and then it hit me that he wasn’t asking me to give him more, he was asking me to stop. To take control of us before he lost it and did something his head wasn’t ready for.
It was a strange thing that he’d always been the one I’d wanted most, and yet the only man I’d ever physically pulled away from. Hook-ups were mutual. Premeditated, and even the thrill of the unknown was dulled by the inevitable. Billy was something else. I wanted him more than I could put into words, but I cared about him more.
So much more.
I eased off and dropped down beside him again. I couldn’t bring myself to apologise for throwing him around, because I wasn’t sorry. And when he finally rolled over and faced me, he didn’t look sorry either. His gaze was clear, his cheeks flushed, and the gentle heave of his shoulders went straight to my dick. Wow. Way to rein yourself in.
Billy scrubbed a hand down his face, then let it drop to the wrist he’d been clutching as he’d slept. He wrapped his fingers around it and pressed his thumb into my pulse point. “I’m not ready for you.”
“Perhaps I’m not ready for you either.”
Billy snorted. “As if.”
But we were talking about different things. I could’ve fucked him a thousand times over if he’d wanted me to. That was the easy part. It was the rest of it I was unprepared for. Without the distraction of him melded against me, my mind raced. What if we had fucked? What if I’d slept with him and then pushed him away like I did everyone else?
Worse, what if he’d pushed me away? History taught that it would’ve suited me, but the razor blades in my stomach said otherwise.
Billy sat up. He opened his mouth, but his phone cut him off, ringing from wherever on the bed it had landed while we’d been rolling around in our clothes.
I found it by my feet and passed it over, curious. Billy’s cracked and ancient iPhone never rang, and the only messages he ever got seemed to be from his phone provider reminding him to settle his account or they’d cut him off. Not that I ever peered over his shoulder or anything. Of course not.
Billy answered the phone with a grunt. “What are you calling me for when your secretary lives in the same house?”
Luke. I turned my head to hide my smile as Billy listened in silence to whatever his brother had to say. Luke spoke too softly for me to eavesdrop anyway, so I lay back and stared at the ceiling. Billy’s hand found its way to my belly and drew absent patterns on the bare skin my rogue T-shirt had left exposed.
His touch was fire. I shuddered and bottled the feeling in case I ever found myself on my knees behind him again. As if I needed a reminder that everything about Billy was hotter than the sun, no matter how far it went.
“Okay,” Billy said. He dropped his phone on the bed.
I assumed Luke had gone and shot him a quizzical glance. “What did he want?”
“No work today. That school job got cancelled.”
“Day off?”
“For you. I’ve been summoned for a parent child contact day.”
“A what?”
Billy’s expression soured. “Brotherly bonding. You know, organised fun that’s no fun cos it’s awkward as fuck.”
“You don’t know it won’t be fun. Your bro’s hilarious when he’s had a few.”
“Yeah, but it’s arse o’clock in the morning. Even I’m not drunk yet.”
Billy hadn’t been drunk since I’d found him passed out on the bathroom floor. Another shudder ran through me, but of an entirely different kind. I hadn’t told him I’d thought he was dead. That for a fleeting moment, my overactive imagination had gifted me a vision of his lips turning blue and his skin grey. I was the sane one, remember?
I didn’t feel very sane with him still drawing pictures on my abdomen, but his conflicted expression was enough to pull me from my own head. “What are you fretting about?”
“Hmm?” Billy blinked. “I’m not fretting.”
“Oh really? So why have you chewed a hole in your bottom lip?”
“Because I’d rather stay in bed with you than spend the day with my brother and I know that makes me an ungrateful bastard.”
“It doesn’t. It makes you human. I was terrified before Mia came back that we’d have nothing to say to each other.”
“I’m not terrified.”
Liar. I didn’t know Billy as well as I wanted to, but I knew fear when I saw it. Fear of failure. Billy loved Luke, but he was scared a few false starts would drive them further apart. Too scared for me to fix it with my dick, as if a magic dick could ever fix anything. Ask me how I know.
I sat up, mourning the loss of Billy’s touch as his hand slipped away. “Tell you what, if you can go and spend the day with your brother without stropping off, I’ll cook you dinner.”
It was a deal Billy was, apparently, prepared to make. We shook on it and he disappeared for a shower. He left my bedroom door wide open and didn’t seem to notice me peeping at him when he came back, wrapped in nothing but a towel as he crossed the landing.
His torso was glorious. Sinewy and strong. Flawless skin marred only by the scars from his shoulder injury. Beautiful face twisted in a frown as he contemplated the day ahead. I wanted to kiss the scars away so he’d never been through that pain. I wanted to hug him like I had Luke and tell him everything would be okay.
I didn’t want him to ever leave.
Chapter Twelve
Billy
“You want to have a picnic in the woods?”
Luke eyed me like I’d grown horns, and that was his own fucking fault for not having a plan of his own when he’d decided my day off belonged to him and Mia’s tiny hatchback.
I shrugged. “I haven’t been since I got back.”
“Fair enough. We’ll swing by the farm shop on the way.”
I’d expected more of an ar
gument, but stubbornness kept my gaze on the window as Luke drove us out of town. That and a preoccupation with the man I’d left behind. At home. In the house where I lived with him. “We live together. Work together. Now we sleep together, and we’ve got all the time in the world to get to this. If it’s what we both want.”
If. God, if only he knew there was nothing I wanted more. I closed my eyes and recalled with flawless clarity how he’d felt grinding behind me. How his dick had pressed against me and set my blood alight. In that moment, I’d craved nothing but him easing inside me, but away from him, nerves struck me again. Man, the dude was a fucking stud. And if we did fuck, what next? I wasn’t exactly relationship material, but I liked him too much to be a notch on his bedpost.
“Still awake?”
“Hmm?”
Luke shut the car engine off and turned to face me. “Gus said you got some new meds for your shoulder pain. Are they working?”
“When did Gus—never mind. Yeah, they took a while to kick in, but they’re helping.”
“Good. I’m sorry I didn’t consider your shoulder when I came back to work. You’ll tell me if it gets too much again, won’t you?”
Back when Luke had been mown down by a car, I’d sworn I’d never tell him another lie. We lost so much time to both of us being obstinate pricks, I figured it was the least I could do. I hadn’t banked on how hard it would make conversations like this. “Uh, yeah. I guess.”
“You guess? Just nod. It’s not a fucking contract.”
“Might as well be with your photographic memory.”
“I don’t have a photographic memory.”
“When was the last time you put something down and couldn’t remember where you put it?”
Luke sighed. “Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m not. It’s a fair question.”
“So was mine.”
“And I gave you an answer. I’ll try and tell you, but it’s not like we talk much. Maybe I’ll just tell Gus, and he can add it to the daily briefing.”
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