“It might surprise you to know that getting Gus to talk about you is like pulling teeth. The best I can get out of him is that you’re still alive and you haven’t punched anyone.”
“It’s all true, baby. And it’s not going to change.”
“Well then.” Luke opened the car door and slid out like the elegant mofo he was. “No need for a daily briefing, is there?”
He thought he was so fucking clever, sauntering into the farm shop like he’d won an argument we weren’t even having. But that was how adult communication between us had always been, circles and games, with rare moments of perfect affection. Sometimes I thought we were getting better. Others I liked it the way it was and wouldn’t change a thing.
Today I was somewhere in the middle. I wanted to tell him my shoulder was still sore every night when I came down from the rooftops, but that I welcomed the pain because it was a sign I’d done an honest day’s work. Perhaps one day I’d tell him how much that meant to me.
Not today, though. Today I followed him into the farm shop and threw a turnip at his head, and bottled his laugh for the next time I decided he was a walking talking android.
* * *
For reasons that made no sense, seeing as he’d had no idea I’d want to eat a picnic with him, Luke had stashed a camping barbecue in the boot of Mia’s car. At the lookout point by the heron lake, he grilled sausages to go in the cottage rolls he’d bought from the farm shop.
I spread the rolls with salty butter, and slathered on the artisan chutney that had cost more than the sausages. “When did you get so middle class?”
“When you decided you wanted a picnic after we’d driven past Tesco.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I handed him the rolls and watched him slap sausages in them. “Wow. They’re huge.”
“You’re not on Gus portions yet? I swear, I put on a stone when I started working with him. Dude eats twelve times a day.”
“And he only goes to the gym, like, twice a week. How does that work?”
Luke passed me a roll and eyed me over his as he took a bite. “He used to go every day.”
“That so?”
“Yep. Maybe you’ve disrupted his life more than he’s letting on.”
“Or maybe he got bored poncing around in Lycra.”
“You think Gus wears Lycra to the gym?”
I knew exactly what Gus wore to the gym—joggers and a tight T-shirt that made me sweat—but I wasn’t about to tell Luke that. “Anyway...what’s with the big brother day out? Our cosy night in didn’t pan out.”
“That was my fault.”
“I know.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. Everything’s my fault, right? Always has been.”
“Don’t be a martyr. I’m just saying you invited me to your house and ignored me, so I was a dick about it. Facts, brother. You can’t deny it.”
“I’m not denying anything. But I didn’t ignore you, not on purpose, anyway.”
That, I could believe. The heron lake disappeared and I was abruptly transported back in time to the moment we’d found out our dad’s liver disease was terminal and he had weeks to live. He’d died in our living room, curled up on a hospital bed we’d burned the couch to make room for. A light went out in Luke’s eyes that day; I saw it happen through the smoke. Ever since he had a unique way of shutting the world out whenever life got tough, and it had got tough, over and over. Having dinner with his ball ache little brother had been the latest in a mile-long line of shit he didn’t have the capacity to deal with, but the method remained the same—stare at something no one else could see until it all went away.
Except, despite my intentions to do otherwise, I hadn’t gone away, and now here we were, eating sandwiches by the lake we’d rode our bikes around as children.
“I know you didn’t mean to ignore me. I didn’t mean to storm out either, it’s just...hard, you know? I don’t know what to say to you, then I get mad that you don’t say anything either, because even after all these years of bullshit, there’s a part of me that still relies on you to fix everything for me.”
Luke laughed without humour. “I’ve never fixed anything for you.”
“You’ve tried, though. I didn’t see it for a long time, but I do now.”
Luke nodded, and I knew he was done. At least, I thought he was, until he fixed me with a different stare. “I know what happened with you and Gus before you left Rushmere last time. He told me a while ago.”
“So?”
“So...do we need to talk about it?”
Given the scenic route we’d taken to the six sentences we’d just exchanged, I was going with a big fat nope, but as Luke finished his lunch and sat on the grass, handsome face turned to the autumn sun, something shifted between us. Imperceptible, and yet so cataclysmic, I couldn’t ignore it. He wanted to know about me and Gus, and...I wanted to tell him. “We can talk about it if you like. There isn’t much to say, though. Whatever he told you is true, and if he was a woman, we wouldn’t be saying anything at all.”
“You don’t think I’d be curious if you’d hooked up with Mia’s sister?”
“Curious, maybe. But you wouldn’t be wondering why I never told you I was straight.” I joined Luke on the grass and stretched out on my back. Soon, the sun would be warm enough to seep into my shoulder and finish off the dull ache the painkillers left behind. “Because that’s what you want to know, isn’t it? Why I never told you I like boys.”
“Not especially. Like you said, we never told each other we liked girls. And when would you have told me? It’s not like we’ve talked much in the last decade.”
True facts. I’d never had the opportunity to divulge my fluid sexuality to my family, but would I have bothered if I had? Probably not. So what did Luke want to talk about? Was he protecting my virtue or Gus’s?
I wasn’t going to find out anytime soon. Luke lay down beside me and closed his eyes. Within minutes I couldn’t be sure if he was dozing in the sunlight or blocking me out, so I did the only sensible thing a little brother could do and sprinkled grass in his hair to see if he’d stir. He didn’t. So I dug a marker pen from the depths of my bag and drew a cock on his arm.
Chapter Thirteen
Gus
“You drew a dick on Luke’s arm? Man, he’s going to kill you.”
Billy grunted. “Maybe. But it’s been twenty-four hours and he hasn’t said anything. He might think it was Mia.”
I had my back to him so I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the smile in his voice. Pictured it as I chopped chicken for a stir-fry I didn’t know how to make. “It is the kind of thing she’d do. She’d draw it in blood, though.”
“He said there’s no work until Thursday. Can’t get the materials for the bank job, and he doesn’t want us to start anything else before then in case it overruns.”
“I know.”
“Did you finish at the church hall?”
“Yeah.”
Billy sighed, and his exasperation poked holes in my back. Either that, or he was glaring daggers at me and I could feel every single one. And I didn’t blame him. I’d been in my own head since he’d left to go out with Luke yesterday, and I’d taken to avoiding him ever since, hiding at the gym last night until he’d gone to sleep in his own room, and taking a one-man job this morning.
Idiot. Yup. Especially given that all I wanted to do was roll around in my bed with him.
At least, that was what my dick wanted to do. The rest of me was freaking out. It was easy to get lost in how much I wanted him when he was right in front of me—or beneath me—but the moment he’d left yesterday, responsibility had kicked me in the nuts. I’d promised Luke I’d take care of his brother, not get him naked and fuck him. And what if we had fucked? What then? My heart told me it would never be enough, that I wanted far more from Billy than that, but what if
I didn’t? What if he didn’t, and I couldn’t deal? What happened to Billy’s safe haven then? When it was tainted by awkwardness and resentment?
I knew exactly what would happen. He’d leave, and with me a permanent fixture in Luke’s life, he wouldn’t come back, and I’d have robbed Luke of the best chance he’d ever had to rebuild his relationship with his brother.
And all because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants.
Billy came up behind me. I tensed, but he didn’t touch me. Which was worse for my willpower than if he had. To have him so close burned.
“I never pegged you for the moody silent type,” he said. “Something on your mind?”
“Like what?”
“Like whatever has turned you into Luke. I’m the one who spent all day with him yesterday.”
“How did that go?”
“We’re both still alive.”
A chuckle burst free of my tight chest. “That’s good news.”
“Is it? Cos you don’t seem that pleased to see me.”
I forced myself to turn around. He was a heartbeat behind me, face twisted in the faint sneer he usually reserved for other people, but his eyes held something else. Something I found myself wanting to believe he shared only with me. Uncertainty. Vulnerability. The real Billy that hid behind sharp wit and sarcasm. “Course I’m pleased to see you.”
“I wasn’t fishing, mate. Just wondering what was up. You normally chew my ear off.”
“Bit tired, that’s all.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t spend four hours at the gym then.”
Billy stepped back, effectively ending the conversation. In my head, I let him go and went back to murdering the dinner.
Real life me reached out and grabbed his arm. “I didn’t spend four hours at the gym. I spent two there then went to help Mia with her wedding orders.”
Billy glanced at my hand wrapped around his bicep, then turned narrowed eyes to me. “Do you do that a lot?”
“What? Work out for two hours, or help Mia?”
“Either. Both.”
“I help Mia when I can. Her ex left her with a lot of debt, so if I can save her paying someone for grunt work, I do. Luke helps too, but I’m better with the flowers. Got a light touch, see?”
“I do.”
Silence thudded between us. I waited for him to hiss out an impatient breath, spin on his heel, and stomp away, but he didn’t. He slowly peeled my hand from his arm and laced our fingers together, squeezing tight, as if to anchor himself, then he stretched up and kissed me, and once again, the chaos in my brain melted away.
His lips on mine made sense, even if nothing else did, and mindful of everything he’d said, I kept my hips still as my body quickly reacted to him. My dick went from zero to hero in ten seconds flat, but I ignored it and let Billy kiss me the way he wanted to, slow and sweet, his velvet tongue slipping between my lips like a gentle breeze. Never mind the hurricane in my heart.
For long minutes I kept my hands to myself, but eventually the call of Billy’s soft skin won out.
I slid my spare hand down his ribcage and to the hem of his T-shirt. My hand found its way beneath it in the blink of an eye and I flattened my palm across the base of his spine, drawing him closer.
The movement deepened the kiss, and something shifted between us, imperceptible at first, but then like an expanding vortex, sucking me deeper into the black hole of desire I’d carried for Billy too long to count the years.
He pressed up against me, and I felt his dick hard and trapped between us, rubbing along mine, until we were once again, dry humping through our clothes.
Frustration bubbled up inside me, merging with impossible attraction. I didn’t know what to do. I was lost.
Lost in him.
Billy drew back.
I protested with a low groan that seemed to come from someone else.
He gazed up at me with wide eyes, still gripping my hand. “Can we lie on the floor again? I’m scared of your bed, but I like being on the floor with you.”
It broke my confused heart that he was scared of anything, but I’d lie on the floor forever if it made him smile.
Billy
Gus was really good at making me feel like the strange shit that came out of my mouth was normal. He lay on the floor and gazed up at me, waiting for me to join him, and didn’t smirk once at the fact that I was clearly fixated on the bulge in his jeans.
I stretched out beside him. For a moment, it was amazing just to lie beside him, but the tingling in my lips wouldn’t let me stay still for long. I rolled onto my side, edging closer while he watched me. My chest hit his ribcage, and throwing my leg over his was easy. Too easy. I wanted to straddle him. To grind down on him while I kissed him, but I settled for looming over him, hovering, until he took pity on me and closed the distance between us.
His kiss was fire, and I was addicted to the burn. He pulled me on top of him, crushing us together, and slipped his tongue into my mouth oh-so-slowly.
I groaned, at war with myself. I still couldn’t handle the thought of him fucking me, but as he deepened the kiss, my resolve cracked. I slid my hands under his T-shirt. My palms met warm, electrifying skin, and I needed more. So much more.
The T-shirt had to go. I grappled with it, and eased it over his head, and his torso was as fucking glorious as I’d imagined it, broad and ripped, not lanky and scarred like mine.
Gus toyed with the hem of my T-shirt. He wanted it gone, I could tell, but he was too polite to be as presumptuous as me, and I was glad of it. I needed this moment to drool over him, not drown in a pity party of low self-esteem.
I kissed him again and laid my hands on his strong chest. His low moan and the heat of his skin made my head spin, and I could almost ignore the wobble in my shoulder as it protested at bearing my weight.
Almost, but Gus saw it, and I found myself on my back before I could blink. Gus nudged my legs apart and lay between them. The new angle gifted me the mind-bending friction of his dick pressing against mine. I sucked in a shaky breath. He smiled and tucked a wild strand of my hair behind my ear. “Feel good?”
I nodded and closed my eyes. “So fucking good.”
Gus chuckled, low and sweet. He brushed his lips along my jaw, and down my neck, and finally let his hand slip under my T-shirt. His palm ghosted over my abdomen and up to my chest. I shuddered and dragged him down into a kiss that was messier than any we’d shared so far, in this lifetime, at least.
My dick was so hard it hurt. I wrapped my legs around Gus’s waist, trapping him closer, and arched my back. God, I wanted him. I wanted him to ignore everything I’d said and tear my clothes off. To lie over me, kiss me, and fuck my fears away on the living room floor.
But at the same time, I didn’t want that at all. I wanted to kiss him like this forever and forget anything else existed, as if there were no consequence to how he made me feel.
Most of all, I wanted him to fly like I was.
He was still wearing too many clothes, but instinct told me he wouldn’t lose any more unless I did.
I stopped kissing him only long enough to yank my T-shirt off and lob it somewhere over his shoulder. I lay back and let him look at me, focussing on the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and his reddened lips. Next to him, I was a weed, but the way he gazed at me made me feel like a fucking king.
Gus returned his hands to my torso and swept over my skin with a featherlight touch. “In case we never do this again, you should know you’re beautiful.”
“Go home, dude. You’re drunk.”
I expected him to laugh.
He didn’t. His dark eyes narrowed. He gripped my chin. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Let the truth bounce off you like you don’t deserve it.”
“You have no idea what I deserve.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then let me show you how I see you.”
I had zero clue what he meant, but with his gaze piercing holes in my soul, I could only nod.
Gus undressed me, stealing my clothes piece by piece, and folding them into a neat pile by the couch. It was so civilised, the way my cock jutted out from my body seemed vulgar, but I had nowhere to hide. My only sanctuary was hiding in his jeans. “Take them off. It’s only fair.”
He shrugged and unbuttoned his fly, revealing that he wore no underwear.
I scrambled to help him, rising up on my knees so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. I knocked his hands away and pushed his jeans down his hips. Gus wriggled out of them, and suddenly, or so it seemed to my Gus-addled brain, he was as naked as I was.
There was nothing but skin between us, and I didn’t know what to do with that. My body thrummed with desire. I wanted to touch him everywhere. But I didn’t know how. I mean, I knew how, but Gus was so ridiculously gorgeous, I didn’t know where to start. And I was scared too. I hadn’t been sober and naked with someone in so long, I couldn’t remember it. Gus hooked up all the time, with dudes who had more going for them than chronic pain and a grumpy cat. Scratch that, an awesome cat, but still, that didn’t make me a sex god like Gus.
I stared at his dick. He sat back, leaning against the couch, and let me. Relaxed. Casual. All the while my blood roared in my ears.
“Billy.”
I blinked. “Yeah?”
Gus beckoned me closer and reached for my hand. He tugged me onto his lap, so I was straddling him in real life and not just in my skittish dirty mind. “Stop worrying,” he said. “I heard you when you said you weren’t ready to fuck. We don’t have to do anything, and we can stop whenever you say the word.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
“That’s fine too. More than fine. Just relax, okay? Stop thinking. It’ll only get us in trouble.”
Unforgotten (Forgiven) Page 11