Touch And Go - Aiden Bates Page 0,94
nodded, took his hand, and kissed his fingertip. “They’re not all my stories to tell, though. Maybe one day you can ask the brothers.”
He smiled like he was holding a secret, and I tilted my head to try to urge it out of him. He just grinned and shook his head. “I know that it’s probably not, like, easy to talk about that stuff. And I really appreciate you opening up about your side of the story. But I already know what happened.”
I blinked and sat up a little. Scared. A little offended and defensive. “What do you mean? These aren’t predictable stories, Seb. Trust me.”
“Yeah, I know.” He waved his hand but looked at me seriously.
“What exactly do you know?” My voice rose at the end with my panic.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “All of it.”
“How?”
“Your bros have been hounding me for the last two weeks, loitering around my apartment nonstop. It was only a matter of time before we ran out of small talk and they started to yack about something substantial.”
I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t get past the idea my brothers had been to his apartment while I was slumped on the couch, let alone get my head around the idea that they’d opened up to him. These were my closed-off, stoic, tight-lipped brothers we were talking about, who had as a hard time as I did letting anyone in. “Wait, they actually told you their stories?”
His smug smirk was so cute I couldn’t look at it without my heart feeling like it was exploding, so I covered his face with a pillow while he cackled and tried to wrestle it away from me. “What, like their secrets?”
“Yeah, their secrets!” I thumped his shoulder with the pillow, then looked at him seriously. “As far as I know, that’s not the type of information they share with just anyone.”
“Then I guess they like me.”
A smile punctured my scowl. My brothers liked Seb enough to confide in him about their past? Or rather, our shared pasts. They didn’t let people in very often, but when they did, it meant the person was all in. And their bonds were for life. It was the stamp of approval I hoped for, though I wasn’t sure why I was so surprised they’d given it to Seb already—they had been nagging me to get back with him for a reason. As far as they were concerned, he was already part of our family.
“Just so you know, I’m filthy jealous.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, but the hurt in his eyes was obvious. I took his hand and held it to my chest, then nodded to urge him to say more. “My brother is a piece of shit. He’s going to prison. I’m going end up testifying against him. But you have this amazing…family you built.”
“Hey.” I kissed his knuckles. “I have some brothers to spare. Take one. Or three.”
He threw his head back with force and laughed, then let out a long, heavy sigh. “I love you, baby.”
God, I loved when he called me ‘baby.’ My entire body warmed, and I held him. “I love you, too.”
He kissed me with sweetness that quickly turned into a firm bite of my lower lip, and I felt a surge of love for him rush straight to my crotch. He was on it. He knew what he’d done, and he firmly wrapped his hand around the base of my cock as he peppered my neck with tiny nips and kisses. “I don’t think you heard me,” he purred. “I love you.”
“Hm? Say again?” I craned my neck and he kissed my collarbone.
“I love you.”
I moaned as he took a nipple between his teeth. “Sorry, I’m so old, my hearing is touch and go. Didn’t quite catch it…”
He mumbled a few more words and squeezed me in his fist before popping his lips off and nearly shouting, “I love you, Dr. Dish!”
I laughed, grabbed him by the hips, and rolled on top of him for a long, slow afternoon in bed with my first true love and his perfect, smug smirk.
28
Eli
The Cumberland State Forest was one of my favorites in Virginia, situated deep in the Piedmont plateau, and populated with pines and fertile soil that threw up mushrooms throughout the year. Uno and I were doing our rounds of the peripheral trails and documenting our fungus findings late on a fall evening. There had been enough leaf fall early in the season that our steps crunched