by Chara Croft
“Shhh, kitten,” I whispered when his voice got all choked up, taking the phone back from him and tucking him against my side again. “I’ve got this.”
“Look how much you’ve upset your brother, Jonah,” Mother said, sounding more impatient than concerned. “It’s best if you pack up and head back to school immediately. Even if you’ve already talked to her, we’ll have to follow up and ensure that Mrs. Hawthorne won’t be spreading these… these lies—”
I smiled. I’d already admitted that what Mrs. H had reported was true, but Mother was already spinning it… which meant I’d won and they didn’t even know it yet.
“—and we’ll get the rest of staff back on to stay with Caleb until we return from Aspen,” Mother went on, Father’s voice murmuring in the background as she laid out their plans to cover up what could embarrass them. “Once you’re back on campus, Jonah, we’ll have to—”
“No,” I interrupted, something in the tone of my voice silencing her. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I am leaving, but Caleb’s coming with me. We’ll both be gone before you get back from Aspen, and you can have the firm mail his final paycheck to my address.”
The frat house would forward it to whatever near-campus apartment I found for Caleb and myself.
Caleb’s eyes went wide and he nodded his head frantically, hope starting to replace the despair in his eyes.
“In the fall,” I went on, speaking into the phone as I smiled down at my brother, “you’re going to fund his college education as planned. You’re also going to contact Mr. Schuster—” our family attorney, “—and rewrite our trusts to release the funds when we’re twenty-one instead of twenty-five.”
I was already twenty-two, which would make the money in my trust fund available immediately. Whatever else my parents did or did not do, that alone would be more than enough to cover the rest of my education… and a start on whatever Caleb and I decided to do afterward.
A brittle laugh sounded over the phone. “That’s not going to happen, son.”
“You’ll also name me as trustee for Caleb’s trust fund until he’s of age,” I said, ignoring their denial. “You’ll use your contacts to open doors for us as needed, and in return, no one will ever have to know just how close your sons really are.”
I had an idea about how to keep our relationship off other people’s radar, but I didn’t consider that any of our parents’ business. I’d talk directly to Mr. Schuster about the details on that one.
Caleb looked up at me with wide, hopeful eyes as our parents sputtered and argued on the other end of the phone, but as their showy indignation wore down and we started hashing out the businesslike terms of our agreement, that hope started to turn to excitement.
“Is this really going to work?” he whispered, poking at the mute button while Father droned on about something to do with our trust funds and the image that the family business had to maintain. “Are they just going to… to let us be together? The way we want to? As long as nobody knows?”
“Yes,” I said, because even though I sensed that I wasn’t going to be able to get off the phone anytime soon, I would make sure it worked out that way, no matter what. I kissed his nose. “Go start packing, kitten. We’re leaving tonight.”
I’d had other plans for us tonight, but they would wait until I got him home. To our new home. The one I was going to make for us once I made sure that we were untouchable. Once I made sure that I used all the lessons I’d learned from the parents who’d neglected us instead of raising us to do what I’d always been meant to do: take care of my brother the way he deserved. Love him the way he was meant to be loved. Give him everything he needed, the way I’d been doing since they first put him in my arms and the way I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
It’s what I was made for.
He was mine, but I was his, too, and I would move heaven and earth to make sure it stayed that way.
Always.
CHAPTER TEN
Caleb
Jonah and I hadn’t taken much from our parents’ house, but between the little bit we’d packed and the stuff he’d already had in his room at the frat house he’d been living in, our new apartment already felt more like home than the house I’d grown up in.
When we’d gotten back to campus, most of Jonah’s friends had been gone—home for the holidays—but he’d still managed to round up a few people to help us move in. Everything had fallen into place so much faster than I would have believed possible, and I still had to pinch myself to believe how much my life had changed for the better.
My vision blurred with happy tears as I stared at the skinny little Christmas tree he’d set up for me in our new living room, making all the pretty colored lights run together into a rainbow. I swiped at my eyes, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. Jonah and I were more than just brothers now, and while we’d always have to be careful, he’d done exactly what he’d promised and made sure that we could really and truly be together the way we wanted.
“Everything okay, kitten?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me from behind as he came back into the living room after answering the knock that had sounded on the door a few minutes earlier.
“Everything’s perfect,” I told him, which was a hundred percent true. “Was that Mrs. Smythe at the door?”
His chin moved against my shoulder as he nodded, and a delicious shiver raced over my skin when he murmured “mhmm” against my neck and pressed a kiss just under my ear. “She brought us cookies.”
Our new neighbor had fussed over us like crazy when we’d moved in, inviting us repeatedly to join her and her grandchildren for Christmas once she found out that it would just be the two of us. After all we’d been through, though, I just wanted to be with Jonah, and he’d agreed.
In fact, with all the fuss of moving, I couldn’t wait to be with Jonah.
Just with Jonah.
Alone.
I definitely wasn’t going to turn down cookies, though.
I twisted out of his arms, making a beeline for the festive little tin full of sugary goodness. After all, if the rest of the day went the way I was really hoping it would, I’d need my energy, right?
A note was attached on top of the cookie tin—Merry Christmas, Jonah and Kit!—and I forgot all about grabbing a treat as I traced the letters of my new name with a stupid grin on my face. Jonah had done that, too. My legal name was Kit now, not Caleb, and I’d enroll in college in the fall under our mother’s maiden name. Eventually, Jonah was going to have the attorney change it back to our family name for my last name, but even then, he said we’d buy rings and just let people come to their own conclusions when they saw us wearing them and realized we had the same last name.
Jonah had set it all up so no one would have any reason to think we were brothers, and he’d already started introducing me as his boyfriend. It had gotten him a few weird looks from his friends who’d helped us move into the apartment, but he said they were just surprised that he was with a guy now when he’d been dating girls before, not that they suspected anything else about us. One of them had even given him a hard time about “robbing the cradle”—and that had made me and Jonah laugh so hard that they’d all given us really weird looks—but overall, no one even blinked an eye at us being together as a couple.
Of course, part of being a couple, as far as I was concerned, was being intimate.
More intimate, I mean.
Leaving our family home, and all the time it had taken Jonah to sort stuff out with our parents, and all those phone calls and meetings with the family attorney, and getting moved into the apartment, and then his insistence that we set things up to have a real Christmas here, just for the two of us… all that had felt like a whirlwind. It had taken days, and it had honestly been a little exhausting, and even though it had been wonderful to be so close to him and finally be able to kiss him the way I wanted and have his hands on me and all the other frisky things we’d gotten up to despite being so tired, he still hadn’t fuc
ked me.
We even had lube now and everything.
I pouted, tugging the note off the cookie tin and plucking off the lid to peek inside. If he wasn’t going to give me that, then I really needed a sugar rush.
A low, sexy laugh sounded from behind me, and I turned around to face my brother, forgetting all about the cookies.
“I know that look,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked so sinfully sexy that I may have whimpered, and when his eyes flared with heat and he smiled at me like he knew exactly what I’d been thinking, my knees went a little weak. “Come here, kitten,” he said, his husky voice sounding a lot like a promise.
“Why?” I asked as I crossed the room, my heart racing in anticipation. “Are you… are we… Jonah.”
My tongue had gotten all tangled up on the words, but as soon as I was within arm’s reach, he yanked me against his chest and scooped me up into his arms. He grinned down at me when I squeaked, carrying me right past our pretty Christmas tree and into our bedroom.
“Didn’t I tell you that the first time I fucked you, it would be in my bed?”
“It’s my bed, too,” I said, which I’d meant to be funny but which made his eyes go all soft and lovey instead. And that made my heart flutter in all sorts of unbrotherly, more than brotherly, only-for-him brotherly ways. “I love you,” I whispered, forgetting about my dick for a second as a whole lifetime of feelings welled up inside me. “Oh my God, Jonah, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, kitten,” he said, laying me down on the bed carefully, like I was something precious. “And I can’t wait to finally be inside you and show you how deep that love goes.”
“You didn’t have to wait,” I said, scrambling out of my clothes as he laughed.
I was so, so done waiting.
“I wanted to wait until I could give you everything I’d promised, baby,” he said, pulling his own shirt off and then starting on his pants. “I wanted to wait until I’d made you a home. Until I could make it special for you.”
He stepped out of his pants and underwear, cock already hard, and climbed onto the bed, pushing me down onto my back and hovering above me like he was going to do a push-up.
“It’s with you,” I said, breathless and horny and knowing for sure I was the luckiest boy in the world. “That’s all I need. That will always make it special, Jonah.”
My big brother—always the strong one—blinked fast, and I reached up to brush the moisture off his cheeks, shocked to see him actually tearing up. He lowered himself to his elbows—his body heat making my skin tingle even though he wasn’t quite touching me yet—and captured my hand, turning it over to kiss my palm and then giving me a deliciously wicked smile.
“I also wanted to wait until you were so horny you couldn’t see straight,” he said.
I groaned. Mission accomplished. He hadn’t let me come in days.
“You’re so mean,” I whined, pouting even though we both knew how much I loved the way he bossed me around.
He bit my pouty lip, just hard enough to make my dick jerk against my stomach and a needy whine escape my throat.
“I’m going to make you come so hard you pass out, kitten,” he promised, finally lowering himself down to pin me against the bed. He rolled his hips against mine, rubbing our hard cocks together, and for a second I thought I just might pass out, it felt so dang good. Jonah wasn’t done telling me his plans, but it was really, really hard to concentrate when he kept rocking against me… when he held me down so firmly, exactly the way I loved, so I knew he had me completely… when he whispered his promises against my skin, kissing and licking and sucking as he branded me with his words.
“And then I’m going to wake you up and let that pretty mouth of yours get me hard again.”
Oh, God. I wanted that so bad. I could almost taste him already. My breath started to come hard and fast as I arched up against him, trying desperately to get more. To make it happen. To hurry him up.
Jonah laughed, low and dirty. “And once you’ve gotten me hard, I’m going to flip you over and fuck you again. Make you come even harder than the first time, baby. All night long, until our bed is well and truly broken in.”
“Like… like this?” I asked, feeling breathless. “Can I… omigod, Jonah, can I come like this? Right now? Please?”
I wanted him to fuck me, I wanted it desperately, but I honestly didn’t know if I could make it that long, not the way he kept moving against me.
“No,” he said, his hand slipping under me to knead my ass. It shot heat straight to my dick, and the dirty words he followed it with made my balls tighten up so fast I got dizzy. “You’re going to come with my cock buried inside you,” my brother promised. “You’re going to come with my name on your lips and my cum in your ass. You’re going to come after I finally open up your sweet little hole and make you all the way mine, kitten. You’re going to come—”
“Jonah,” I shouted, jerking against him as I lost the battle to be good. My dick pulsed hard and let loose between us, even though I knew he’d wanted me to wait, and hot, creamy ropes coated our stomachs as I gasped and shot off like a rocket. I writhed underneath him, breathless and lost in it for an endless little slice of forever, until finally—finally—I started to go soft and feel all melty and happy with that sweet, fuzzy afterglow I always got after coming.
I smiled up at him. “Sorry.”
Not that sorry, though. I felt amazing.
I kind of thought Jonah might flip me over and spank me for not waiting like he’d said—which probably would have had me hard again in two seconds flat—but instead, he was just looking down at me like I really was his everything.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said, his voice all husky and low in that way that made me shiver inside. “You always have been. I want to see you come for me like that every day of your life, kitten. I will always be the one who makes you feel good, okay?”
I nodded, my throat suddenly closing up. He always talked like that. Said we’d be together like this forever. That he’d always be there for me. Showed me how much he wanted me, just as much and just as bad as I’d always wanted him.
He made me feel loved.
I had no idea how I’d gotten so lucky, but I knew for sure I would never, ever take it for granted.
“Please fuck me, Jonah,” I said, needing my body to be as close to him as my heart was. “I need you.”
He was still rock hard, his cock lying heavy and thick against my spent one, but he still took his time. Always taking care of me. Always making sure to give me what I really needed, not just what I thought I did.
He cleaned me up and kissed me all over, his hot mouth and dirty tongue making me crazy as he licked and sucked his way around my body, making every part of me light up with need, until my dick was leaking again and it took everything I had not to start begging him to please, please put his cock in me already.
Okay, I did beg, but Jonah just laughed and reminded me who was in charge, and approximately forever later—when I seriously thought I might be on the verge of dying from built-up horniness—he finally, finally, turned me over onto my stomach and pressed a lubed-up finger against my hole.
“Jonah,” I gasped, pushing back against it desperately as the touch lit me up from the inside out. “Put it in!”
“Be good,” he said, slapping my butt and laughing… which was just mean, since the light slap sent a hot tingle shooting through me that just made it that much harder to be good the way he wanted me to.
His finger circled my hole, round and round until I was quivering with want, and I buried my face in the pillow that smelled like him and chanted please please please into it, rubbing my hard dick against the bedspread because I just couldn’t help it, not with him touching me like that.
And okay, maybe because I also knew he liked me to be still when he played with me, and rubbing myself like that would get him to spank me again—hopefully the sexy
kind that made my dick get even harder, not the “you’ve really been bad” kind.
Although who was I kidding? Any kind of spanking generally ended with me hard and horny.
“You trying to get me to give you a hot bottom before I fuck you, baby brother?” Jonah asked, pulling me up to my knees. “You want me to have to spank you? To make your sweet little ass all rosy and pink and sensitive, so every time I slam my cock into you, you feel it inside and out?”
Oh my God. Jonah really could read my mind.
“Yes,” I panted, looking back at him over my shoulder. “Please?”
“God, I love you,” he said, laughing. Then he pushed his finger all the way inside me and I missed whatever else he had to say, because omigod… this was what my ass was made for.
He went right for that spot that always made everything inside me melt and coil up tight, both at the same time, and after he’d fucked me with that single finger for too long and not long enough, until he had me panting and begging and promising all sorts of dirty things, he lubed up a second one and pushed that in, too.
My eyes rolled back in my head.
“I’m going to come,” I gasped, rocking back to take his fingers harder.
“Not yet,” Jonah said with a stinging slap to my butt. “You already went off once, baby, but now you need to wait until you take my cock.”
I tried to nod but I was so close I couldn’t concentrate enough to do it; I couldn’t think of anything except how bad I needed to come again already.
Jonah spanked me again, this time for real, and my eyes shot open—I hadn’t even realized they’d drifted closed—and I gasped and clenched down around his fingers as the hard smack reverberated through my cock and balls. The sharp burst of pain only lasted for a second before turning into a liquid heat that flowed all the way through me, and it made me melt and tremble and need him so bad I could have screamed.