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The orgasm slammed into Roman and sent him hurtling over a cliff into darkness that was dotted with brief flashes of light. He screamed as he shoved his hips into the bed over and over again and then let out another shout when he felt his tortured ass try to draw Hunter in even deeper. Hunter called out his name as he shoved into Roman as far as he could go and began convulsing deep inside his body. Fire burned Roman’s insides as the heat of Hunter’s release burned through the condom and heated him from the inside out. Every spasm of Hunter’s body on and in him had Roman’s cock answering with another aftershock. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there for before Hunter carefully withdrew from him and then rolled him onto his back. He waited expectantly for Hunter’s kiss but it never came. Because Hunter’s lips closed over his cock instead and as he gently licked Roman clean, Roman let the darkness of sleep claim him.
* * *
“Roman,” Gray said in surprise. “Come on in.”
Roman shifted uncomfortably on the porch and said, “Um, you mind if we go for a walk or something?”
He could tell that Gray had already gone on alert and Roman had no doubt it was because of the tone in his own voice. And after the disaster of a dinner on Saturday night, he couldn’t blame Gray for being confused.
“Sure, I’ll get my jacket.”
Roman waited on the porch and automatically began running his hand over Ripley’s head as she pushed against his leg. He wondered if someday he and Hunter would have a dog together and then immediately regretted the thought because all it did was make him think of how hard it had been to leave Hunter this morning.
After dinner with Gray and Luke on Saturday night, there hadn’t been any question as to whether or not Hunter would be spending the night with him again – it was just a question of where. They’d talked about going back to the lake but with the nights getting cooler, they’d agreed that a warm, soft bed was in order. They’d barely made it inside of Roman’s hotel room when Hunter began tugging Roman’s clothes off as he reminded him of the promise he’d made to let Hunter have free roam of his body. A marathon session of lovemaking had followed and had lasted well into Sunday morning and they’d ended up sleeping till almost noon. At that point they’d eaten a quick lunch at the hotel restaurant and then Roman had taken Hunter back to his dorm room so he could get some homework done. Roman had gone back to the hotel to try and focus on some of the work he’d been neglecting in the weeks since he’d met Hunter but it had ended up being a monumental waste of time and he’d spent much of the afternoon reading and re-reading the texts Hunter had written but never sent him. Some had made him laugh while others had ripped him open. All of them had had him wishing there was some easy answer as to how he could build a life with Hunter.
When he heard the door open and close behind him, Roman steeled himself for what was to come. He’d taken everything Hunter had said to him about needing to figure out if he still trusted Gray to heart but as Saturday night had rolled around and he and Hunter had arrived at the cabin for dinner, it was like something inside of him had shut down and he couldn’t bring himself to even be alone with Gray. Roman had ended up dumping the responsibility of carrying a conversation with Gray and Luke entirely on Hunter.
“All set,” Gray said and Roman followed him down the porch stairs and around the back of the cabin. They followed the same trail that Roman had confronted Hunter on several weeks earlier and when they walked past the tree he’d pinned Hunter up against as he jerked them both off, Roman felt his skin heat. He glanced at Gray to see if he noticed but luckily his brother was focused on the overgrown path beneath their feet.
“How are you feeling?” Roman asked. While Gray looked a thousand times better than he had when Roman had first seen him, he still seemed off somehow. Physically he looked fit and healthy but something in his eyes looked…haunted.
“Pretty good,” Gray responded. “Had another CT last week – still all clear.”
Relief went through Roman. While Gray’s initial diagnosis of testicular cancer should have been highly curable with just radiation, he’d run into complications when the disease had spread to his liver. Chemo had taken care of the tumors but even Roman knew that the risk of reoccurrence was high.
“You look tired. Are you getting enough sleep?”
Gray shook his head. “Not as much as I probably should,” he admitted.
“Are you trying to figure out how to get Nick Archer out of that trunk?” Roman asked.
Gray laughed. “You read it?”
Roman bit back a smile. He’d picked up the first book in Gray’sDetective Archerseries by chance when he’d been walking through the airport in London several years ago. There’d been a total of six books so far but the main character’s fate was unknown since the guy had been stuffed in the trunk of a car that went over the edge of a cliff in the very last scene of the most recent release. Fans of Gray’s work had lit up social media with arguments over whether the series was over or not and Gray had been decidedly quiet on the issue.
“Every word,” Roman admitted.
Gray fell silent for a moment before saying, “I haven’t been sleeping well because I keep trying to imagine what things would be like if I hadn’t been such a selfish prick when you were a kid.”
Roman stopped walking and swallowed hard. God, wasn’t it supposed to feel good to hear Gray admit it?
“Gray…”
“I keep trying to use the excuse that I wasn’t much older than you but that doesn’t really change things, does it? You needed me and I wasn’t there.”
“Gray, stop,” Roman said softly. “I don’t want this…I thought I did but I don’t.” He looked up to find Gray watching him with pained eyes.
“Roman, I swear to God, I’d change it if I could.”
“I know,” Roman responded. And he did. He finally fucking got it. “I don’t want to try to go back and fix the past.” At Gray’s crestfallen look, he hurried on. “Gray, I’ve been punishing you for months now but instead of walking away, you took it. All the unanswered texts, the deleted voicemails, not telling you I was in town…and then I show up on your doorstep because I had no place else to go and you were right there, no questions asked. If that doesn’t make you one hell of a good brother, I don’t know what does. But the part I need to figure out now is how to be a good brother to you because so far all I’ve done is condemn you for failing me.”
“You didn’t-”
“Cancer, Gray. You had fucking cancer and you never came to me for help. Because you weren’t sure I’d give it to you, right?”
Gray dropped his eyes and Roman had his answer.
“Can we just start over, Roman?” Gray asked. “We don’t have to pretend none of that shit happened but can we wipe the slate clean or something? Can we figure out how to be a family?”
