Touch And Go - Aiden Bates Page 0,34

touch him. To claim his mouth with mine. Again.

He cleared his throat with a fist in front of his mouth, and I sat back, my eyelids heavy and threatening to close mid-conversation as the weight of the day landed on me.

“Now you’re the one who looks dead.” His voice moved through me like it had when I’d been listening to his lungs and it reverberated in my belly.

“Long day.” I laughed lightly and ran a hand through my hair as I looked at him. “I don’t usually follow my all-nighters by ducking a flying toilet seat and, uh, half-showering.”

He snorted, and his smirk looked so pretty I wanted nothing more than to kiss it. Age aside, he was the type of guy I went for, when I went for anyone. Sweet, smart, and sassy, with a jaw that looked like it was carved from granite, and the soft curve of his lower lip that gave even his snarkiest smirks an air of kissable sensuality. He didn’t seem like he wanted to stay at all, which was really hot because sometimes it took an act of God and two or three brothers to get some of my one-night stands to go home. But not so much when I was trying to help him.

“Will you stay until I wake up?” I swallowed the pride that almost stopped me from asking.

He pursed his lips and hummed, just long enough for me to take it as a yes. I didn’t want to leave him alone, but the Tower was secure and effectively guarded by my brothers. Safest place he could be right now, and it would be easier to sleep knowing he was taken care of and had a roof over his head. Tomorrow would have to worry about itself.

“Do you want one of the brothers to come and keep you company?”

“Ha. Which one, which one…” He tapped his finger against his chin. “How could I choose between the fireman and the Marine?” He smirked, then nodded at me seriously. “I’m good. You sleep.”

I wasn’t sure if I could trust myself around him. I rose slowly and gave him the nickel tour of the apartment pointing out the various areas of interest, ignoring the rest. “Coffee. Spare bedroom. And you know where the main bathroom is.”

His snicker was equal parts adorable and endearing, and I took a long look at him before I headed to my bedroom, unsure if I’d ever see him again.

After a much-needed hot shower in my en suite bathroom, I slipped into bed, ready to pass out. But my mind wouldn’t shut down. I wanted Seb to still be there when I woke up almost as much as I wanted to close my eyes and let sleep take me. There was no denying my body craved Seb, and my mind was intrigued, too. But craving and wanting for one night was different than what was happening. Foreign. Mysterious and odd.

I bunched up a pillow and shoved it under my head, comforted by the fact I just needed to get him out of my system. He was a whimsy. Once I got to know Seb, his baggage would start to feel really heavy on my shoulders. That was the way it always went, and Seb’s baggage seemed chunkier than most.

12

Sebastian

I slumped against the back of the couch and let a day’s worth of stress leave my body in one long, heavy sigh. The Dish’s hot and cold flip-flopping was doing my head in—kissing me one minute, regret the next, begging me to stay, treating me like a kid. And the struggle was real. My crotch hadn’t stopped aching since he first kissed me, and I wished I’d taken Eli’s advice and packed a bag, if only to be wearing some pants that weren’t as tight as the hand-me-down jeans from the last of Derek’s charity cases.

I yawned, fatigued and wary, but the throbbing in my jeans wasn’t going to let me doze off anytime soon, and I couldn’t jerk off again. I had to figure out if my brother had tried to kill me.

I needed my laptop. If I could log onto a secure network, I had a chance of monitoring police reports and seeing if Big Ben had blundered across their radar, or if there was any talk of an armed hitman found unconscious at my apartment building. Or maybe I could just check Ben’s Facebook…

I sat up too quickly, and my head spun. Concussion maybe. Exhaustion, more likely.

If I