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Letting my head fall back against the door, I closed my eyes. “I’m going to hurt him. It’s bad enough what I’ve done to you. To think about all he’s been through, I can’t do it.” I wanted the dream. I truly did. But it was just that. To imagine a world where the three of us could be happy? I didn’t know how to do that for myself, let alone for the others.
“You hurt me because I let you.”
My eyes flew open and met his. “You can’t be serious.”
“I could have walked away, Cas. For as many times as you did, I could have done the same. I’m in just as deep as you are. There’s no abandoning you. There’s no leaving here like nothing ever happened. Or sitting at the dinner table and seeing you across it. You’re so much more to me than my brother.”
“Stepbrother,” I grumbled.
His lips tilted up in a smile. “You take the bait every time.”
“It’s not bait, it’s you. I take everything you give me. All of you gets consumed. Where does that leave you? With my cum cooling on your body and my scent on your skin? I take and take and never give. Fuck, Reed, why the hell do you want me?”
He leaned forward, moving toward me until he was on his knees, and they were on either side of my legs so he could straddle me. Until his hands braced against the door beside my head, caging me in. Until his sweet breath coasted over my lips, millimeters away from my touch. “Don’t you listen when I talk? I love you. Every growly, possessive, gorgeous inch of you. Inside you is the man I know you are. The one you’re still scared to show the world. The thing is, I’m not asking you to. Show me, baby. Give me everything you have. Let me be the judge of what I deserve.”
“Elic told me I wasn’t allowed to use that word.”
“He’s a smart man. He cares about you. You think you hide so well, but you can’t. Not from me and not from him. We see the tortured soul in you. Let me in, Cas. Let me love you like I’ve always wanted.”
Gripping his hips, I surged forward until I had him on his back and I was climbing over him, our bodies aligning perfectly. “I’ve done a lot of shit to you. A lot of things I can’t take back. I can apologize until I’m breathless, but it won’t ease the ache. Do you know how many times I’ve told myself to let you go? To leave you alone so you can live your life? But then we’re in the studio or at the farm or on the fucking road, and I’m in your orbit. I’m pulled in because when you’re in the room, I can’t help but be drawn to you. How deep is the pain I’ve caused you? How many mornings have I left you cold and alone because I couldn’t get my shit together? There’s a hole so vast in my chest, I don’t think it can ever be filled. I ruin. I destroy. I’m not worthy of your love.”
Reed lifted his hand to place it over my heart. “Let us be the judge of that.”
I pushed myself up from the floor, then reached down to help him stand. Turning, I went toward the kitchen and opened the cabinet beside the fridge. Inside, nestled one next to the other, were bottles of liquor. I pulled out a bottle of scotch.
“Do you remember when we took time off from each other?” I didn’t wait for him to answer before continuing. “You dated and even had relationships. I wanted to be happy for you. Fuck, every day I told myself it was better this way. You needed someone who could give you everything. And me? Well, I needed to be numb to witness you moving on.” I turned the bottle to look at the label for something to do, rather than see the hurt in Reed’s eyes. I’d already seen enough of it to last a lifetime. “This stuff became my best friend and the devil on my shoulder. When other men held your hand, kissed, or hugged you, when they claimed you in public, I wanted to rip their arms off and shove them down their throats.”
“They didn’t matter.”
“They did at the time. You were happy with them.”
“Temporarily,” he said and came closer to take the bottle from my hand.
I pulled another one out of the cabinet. This time, I twisted the lid off and went to the sink. “Opening myself to you and Elic, to give you the access you want…” The bottle tipped in my hand as I began pouring it down the drain. “There isn’t enough alcohol in the world to numb that shit if you don’t like what you see. I don’t know how to be good for you, Reed. My idea of being together is fucking you, sometimes holding you, then acting like it never happened while it consumes every one of my thoughts.”
By then I was so desperate for love from a father, I accepted everything he gave me. But that voice, it still liked to dig in and remind me I wasn’t good enough. That if I was, my father would have stuck around.
I realized how fucked up that was when I was in my late teens, yet I couldn’t silence it. Then when Reed and I went further together, I worried I’d treat him the same, so I pulled back. Every time I gutted him, yet I couldn’t stop. He was my entire world and I treated him terribly because of how I saw myself.
Placing the bottle on the counter, I still held it in my hand as if it could anchor me, keep me here instead of drowning in my past transgressions. “Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I run through the memories of us together in bed or against a wall. I make myself live through each one to remember your panted breaths and the way your heart pounded beneath my palm. Then I remember walking away without looking back, like you were nothing more than a game I played and discarded as quickly as I picked it up. I recall the look in your eyes when you don’t think anyone notices and you watch me with your heart on your sleeve. It breaks me to know how much pain I’ve caused you. How much of your life I’ve stolen because I’m too fucking greedy to let you go, to finally step away so you can be free.” I released the bottle and braced my hands on the counter, hanging my head, much like I did that night in Reed’s kitchen right before I fucked him.
His gentle touch burned through my shirt to my bare skin. “You were keeping your distance from me. You have layers in place so I wouldn’t see you. The pain you’ve caused me, I recognized it in your eyes. It reflected back at me when you tried to put more barriers in place. You weren’t just hurting me, Cas, you were hurting yourself. That’s why I kept coming back. That’s why I never let you push me away for good. I could have left and not look back too. But that would mean not getting to have your arms around me again. Not getting to sleep with you beside me, where I feel safe and cherished. When you sleep, you reach for me. You hold me so damn close. I love it.” I’d had too many nightmares to count where Reed was the one leaving me repeatedly, no matter how often I begged and pleaded for him to give me another chance. I’d wake and find him there, hugged tightly to my body. Even in sleep my insecurities tortured me.
Reed wrapped his arms around me from behind, pressing his cheek to my back as he held me, stopping me from upending any more liquor down the drain, or from moving at all. “I love you, baby,” he whispered. “Everything we did, every moment we breathed, every tortured beat of our hearts, I’ve loved you. I won’t stop because you don’t think you deserve me. I won’t give up on you because of the hurt you’ve caused. Our love isn’t easy. It’s a roaring fire with embers floating in the air, catching more ablaze the longer it burns. But that fire is us. It’s who we are. I don’t want to change you, Cas. I just want you to admit you want me for more.”
I turned slowly, causing him to ease his hold while keeping him close. A lock of his pink hair drifted onto his face, so I brushed it aside to see him. “It wasn’t a matter of not wanting you. It was me feeling like the scum of the earth for everything I did to you. I hate myself for what I’ve said and done, for who I’ve allowed myself to become. Your dad welcomed me home in a way I hadn’t been before. He showed me how fathers were supposed to be. But the damage had been done. My mom stood steadfast in her love for me, but my own father couldn’t be bothered to give a shit. That eats me up, Reed. Even now this feeling of self-worth should be stronger, but it’s not. And I keep making it worse by allowing my demons to stay. I let them drag me down, not bothering to fight to get through it. I’ve created my own hell and, in the process, brought you down with me.
Tear-filled eyes met mine. “I’ll help show you the worth you don’t think you have. I’ll be there to remind you how fucking special you are to all of us. You’re finally letting me in. please don’t shut me out again.”
“I’ll try.” I meant it. I would. How good I’d be at it was an entirely different story.
He peered up at me with hope in his eyes. My first instinct was to step out of his embrace, to put measurable distance between us. I couldn’t seem to get my feet to move or my heart to get on the same page.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
A shaky breath escaped my lungs. “More than I can say.”
“Then stop hurting us and let us thrive. Let us love each other.”
