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“Nothing went wrong? You’re joking. Jordan, everything went wrong.” His nostrils flared as he looked up at me. He waited, lips pursed, then shouldered me aside as he trudged forward.
I stepped after him. It was my mistake that I didn’t think this through. I put my left hand on his right shoulder, feeling the firm, round muscle tense as I pulled him around to face me. The contact of skin on skin was enough to send a wave of heat over me. It was hot enough to pulverize me. “Don’t touch me,” he said, but it carried no venom or anger. It was a plea said without any breath to push it at me.
“What changed?” I demanded. “What changed so that you don’t want me anymore?” Now that was the right question. I knew it was so because Asher pressed his lips into a tight line. His skin was golden with a new tan and shiny from the sunscreen he had used. It was smooth and clear, taut over his bunching muscles, and I wanted to know what it felt like under my lips.
I had stepped onto this path that night. I didn’t know a way back.
“You do want me,” I said. “Nothing’s changed.”
He lifted his quivering chin defiantly. “We can’t.”
I was sick of hearing that. “Yes, we can. We can do anything we want. And I want to kiss you again, Ash. That’s all I want. You’ve lived in my head for years and I never let myself believe it could be real. I always told myself we couldn’t. But then, we did. And guess what? Nobody makes these rules for us. We make the rules.”
“What about them?” he hissed, although I was certain it was a sound he made from the lack of air in his lungs. He was barely moving, barely breathing.
“What about them?” I asked.
“Are we so selfish to ruin their lives for a cheap thrill?” he asked, a little more strength in his voice.
I narrowed my eyes at him as I closed the distance between us. “If me wanting you will ruin their lives, who’s really selfish here?”
“You don’t care what people will say? Perverts, deviants, degenerates. As if we hadn’t been called that enough through history,” he said. He was making a desperate point because his logic was crumbling and mine was sound. “You need to give it up, Jordan.” This he added in a shaking voice as it broke and faded.
“If you think I’m going to stop now when I finally felt like there was something good and real in my life, you can’t be more mistaken, Ash. And I don’t think it’s just me.” I stepped closer to him, almost brushing my chest against his. We had been this bare and this close only that one time and it had been enough to derail me from the path I had tread for years. What wonderful and devastating things could we do if we touched now? “You want me, too. I know you want me. Grow up and take what you want, Ash.”
He swallowed. The silence was impossibly loud. “We. Shouldn’t.”
“That won’t stop me,” I told him fiercely.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me like he was trying to find a blade sharp enough to sever this bond. “And what will?”
“Tell me you don’t want me,” I said. “Say the words and I will quit. I’ll leave.”
He rolled his eyes. “Where would you go?”
“Northwood,” I said off the top of my head. “Or join Beckett and Caden. Or to hell and back, I don’t care. Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll leave you alone.”
He grit his teeth. He couldn’t do it. His body was so tense that a shudder passed through his muscles.
I dared to reach with my left hand. I dared to place my fingers on his beautiful abs.
He tensed, then relaxed so abruptly that I half expected him to faint. His resolve was cracking through its core, splitting and shattering. And as I stepped closer, my chest brushed against his, and he didn’t jerk back.
“Jordan, please,” he said, eyes closed, lower lip trembling. “If we do this thing, there’s no going back.”
“Do you think I’d ever want to go back?” I whispered. “I hated what we were to each other, Ash. I hated the things I said to you.”
He shook his head and gave a weak, resigned smile. “The things we said to each other.”
“I hated keeping that distance,” I said. “But you…you hid your feelings so well. I had to be firm.”
He opened his mossy eyes and tears shimmered in them under the sprinkling of sunlight that beamed through the rich, green canopy. “Whether we like it or not, we are stepbrothers.”
“I was fifteen when I met you. It was too late for us to become a family, Ash,” I said, sliding my hand to the side of his torso and setting the right one on the other side. He didn’t move away from me when I set my open palms on his body. I had once found a sparrow that hurt its little wing. It had gotten stuck in tangled dry grass and I’d freed it as gently as I could. Then, knowing it would never survive on its own in the August heat and with no way to fly, I picked it up with both hands, cupping them together as a soft bed for the little bird. I had to carry the sparrow all the way through the forest and back to the house, careful not to inflict pain on its wounded wing and even more careful not to spook it into a flight that was destined to fail. I had to find a well of calmness in me and send it to the bird with the sheer force of my will. Gently, gently, I held Asher in my hands, and I radiated the same sort of calmness I’d learned so many years ago.
Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll do all I can to make you happy.
I thought he would push himself up on his toes. I thought he would give in to this incredible temptation. He folded his lips, then bit the lower one and looked away. His eyes were teary when he looked up at me. His nostrils flared briefly a few times and he held his breath. Finally, he shook his head.
