Problem was, disturbed turned me on.
Disturbed was sexy and forbidden and weird and uninhibited and just like me.
Maybe disturbed loved company as much as misery did.
“You can get off if you want, baby brother,” I said quietly. “I don’t mind.”
He swallowed hard and looked at me, visibly torn and turned on.
“I’m hard too,” I said.
He exhaled and closed his eyes.
I had to push. “What do you like the most in the scene?”
For a moment, all I heard were his shaky breaths.
I couldn’t look away from him. Part of me felt like a predator chasing his prey, but the biggest part of me felt there was no getting too close to Reese. Not to him. With him, if anything, I always wanted more. A little bit more, a little bit closer.
“Seeing the pre-come drip down from the man’s cock,” Reese admitted. Eyes still closed. “And the guy, how he hit him with the paddle. The sound when it made impact—fuck.”
I clenched my jaw and drew in a breath through my nose, and fuck if I couldn’t smell us. That first whiff of pre-come was unmistakable.
“He’s about to come,” I said, eyes on the TV for a beat. Reese was quick to open his eyes too, and we’d stopped pretending to be subtle about jacking off. “Whenever the camera moves in and you see how wet the man’s cock is, my mouth waters.”
“Fuck,” Reese groaned. “You’d suck his cock?”
“Yeah. To taste him—but to torture him, too. To make him beg even more.”
“Jesus Christ, River.”
Hearing him moaning my name almost set me off, and the memories from my dreams started assaulting me. As I stroked myself harder and faster, I saw my brother before my eyes. I saw us crossing every line in the book. Him on his knees with my cock in his mouth, I felt his cock pressing against my ass cheeks, I…I saw us making out.
“I’m close,” I groaned, out of breath.
“Me too. I’m gonna come.”
I sucked in a breath and curled in on myself as the pleasure exploded within me, and I accidentally went too far. I buried my face against his neck as I started coming in my hand, but he didn’t seem to mind. He groaned and turned a little toward me too.
In that moment, I stopped caring about right and wrong where my brother and I were concerned. It was the hottest experience of my life, and I was gonna hunt for more of them.
My way of hunting was just a bit different.
* * *
There was no sleep on the horizon for a while after what’d happened.
At midnight, we were scarfing down Reese’s homemade pizza in the living room, and he was back to his old, casual self. It’d been slightly forced before. Certain concerns lingered in the air, and I’d caught him glancing at me with enough confusion that I knew it was only a matter of time before we talked about it for real. He wasn’t one who could be quiet for long. But for now, things were good. I just had to wait him out and let him come to me.
To be honest, I kinda had to slow my own roll while I waited for him.
In a matter of minutes, I’d gone from “Those dreams mean nothing” to “Maybe they could mean something.”
“Best part about visiting Pop…” Reese trailed off and chased a string of melted cheese dripping off his pizza slice. He better not spill when he was sitting in Pop’s chair. I’d picked the couch for a reason.
“Him not being here?” I guessed.
He grinned. “And his TV.”
Truth.
The house could fall apart for all Pop cared, as long as he had his state-of-the-art, thirty-two-inch TV. We’d dug out the latest Die Hard, Braveheart, and Heat from Pop’s collection.
I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Christmas, to be honest, than pizza and Die Hard with my twin.
“That’s the life we want, Riv.” Reese gestured his pizza slice at the TV.
I snorted and cocked a brow. “You wanna work for the NYPD?”
“I mean the excitement, dumbass.” He chucked an olive at me, and I merely threw it in my mouth. I liked olives. “I want us to have that. I wanna travel and feel the adrenaline rushin’ through me.”
I nodded and chewed on a mouthful of pizza. “We will.”
He smiled faintly and nodded too. “Good. And no more stupid shit about you leaving me behind.”
I chuckled. “I swear.”
It wasn’t like I’d wanted to be away from him. Quite the fucking opposite.
“You laugh, but…” He raised his brows and shook his head. “I’d hunt you down and hurt you.”
I puckered my lips at him. “Come at me, baby.”
I should probably shut my trap. Once upon a time, I’d been significantly stronger than him, but then he started taking martial arts classes in Norfolk. He could probably defeat me now.
This time, he didn’t take the bait. He got pensive instead, and he spoke up after a couple minutes’ silence.
“Is it weird of me to see us livin’ together?” he asked.
His question threw me, and it packed more of a punch than I’d anticipated as it settled. I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Joining the Army would be difficult enough, as I’d be forced to give up my security blanket and sleep alone. I’d chosen to focus on the fact that we’d go through that experience together.
Reese lowered the volume on the TV. “The past five or six years, we’ve heard people change their tone about our relationship. What used to be cute and funny is now abnormal and inappropriate. And what the fuck are they gonna say if we keep at it? What if we go into the same field—we work together, we get an apartment together… Shit that’s normal if you’re friends. There’s nothing weird about buddies working together and being roommates, but just because we’re brothers, we can’t do that?”
He was preaching to the choir on that one. I was wondering that too.
At the same time, I knew there was an underlying draw that couldn’t be reasoned away. At least for me. Living together and working together—no fucking problem. But I wanted to go beyond that. For me, it wasn’t about finding logic in complicated issues. It was about being okay with them being complicated. It was about accepting the disturbed.
“I’m sick of giving a rat’s ass about what others say, period,” I admitted. “I wanna go with what’s right for us.”
He chewed on his bottom lip, hesitant but showing enough relief in his eyes for me to continue.
He needed to hear it.
“I just don’t care anymore, Reese. We’re all those things—we’re brothers, we’re best friends, we’re future coworkers, roommates…all of it. I don’t wanna put a limit on what’s too much in the opinion of others. Fuck ’em.”
For the first time in…probably ever, I was ready to jump into something before he was. I was ready to say fuck it. He wasn’t. I could tell. My usually spontaneous, reckless, and impatient brother was gonna drag this out.
I was okay with that. My guess was, I’d been thinking in these terms longer than he had. Maybe. I wasn’t sure. I went back and forth a lot. The voice of reason claimed I was only scared to venture out on my own. The rest of me didn’t agree. The rest of me still believed that Ma was right the first time—we shared a fucking soul, and…fuck.