6. Jordan #2
I cleared my throat and realized that my muscles were knotting with tension.
“Anyway…that’s all I wanted to say…I mean…
” I looked everywhere but at him. My mumbling, stumbling tongue betrayed me.
“…I didn’t mean to…you know…” And then I said the worst thing possible.
“Interrupt whatever you were…” Asher flung his head around to face me.
Sparks were flying from his eyes, nostrils flaring.
“Not that there’s anything to interrupt.
But in case you wanted to, I dunno, sleep, maybe. ”
The redness in his cheeks only intensified with each stupid word that left my lips. “Get out,” he said tightly.
“Right.” But I couldn’t get my legs to work.
Panic sent my heart into overload. My palms were slick and I rubbed them against my knees.
I resolutely did not let myself think about it, although the clues were everywhere.
Hell, even the tissue box was on the nightstand.
I spotted it and then looked in the opposite direction, but my mind kept swirling.
The pillow in his lap. The hesitation when opening the door.
The sweat on his brow. The musk in the air.
I had chosen the worst possible time to apologize.
“I should go. Yeah. Okay. Um, goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” The word ripped from him more in embarrassment than in anger. He flung it at me as I jumped up from the bed and all but ran from his room.
I slipped into my room before I knew where I was and then released a long breath of air.
Of all the fucking times I could have done this, I just had to catch him pleasuring himself.
Like the tension between us wasn’t palpable already, I just had to sit inches away from him while his pulse was still fast and his crotch on goddamn fire.
And now that I had an entire wall separating us, I let it all sink in.
The exact instant when I realized what was up was like a road forking in two directions.
One was a path to doom, and I’d had the most delicious urge, for one instant only, to take it.
To leap in and put my hand on him. To offer to help with what I had interrupted.
To take care of him in more ways than he could imagine.
I could do such wonderful things to him; he would lose his mind.
He would forget about this clusterfuck that we called family.
He wouldn’t regret a single second of it.
But even as these things crossed my mind, I knew it was my dick talking.
There were no assurances in this dangerous game.
I played with fire. The only wise thing to do was to keep it in my pants.
And to lock up my heart tighter than ever.
It was the solitary confinement of the soul but for the greater good.
I did a good job not bringing him into my fantasies often.
There had been times, especially when I had been with someone for a night, that Asher’s lithe and athletic body would show itself in my mind, almost like a trick, just as I would near my climax.
And I had to admit, there had been times when I had brought him to the forefront of my mind intentionally, only to taste the bitter guilt for days.
I wasn’t completely free of sin, but I rationed it.
I crossed my room and opened the balcony door, then stepped out. The air was cooler and fresher than I had expected. It was nothing like being stuck in the city at the height of summer. The forest surrounded our house and summers held the same kind of magic as they had when I was just a boy.
Inhaling deeply, I looked up at the big, full moon and leaned against the protective railing. My stepbrother’s room was dark again, but that was as far as I was willing to look.
The strenuous relationship I had with Asher didn’t reflect most of my feelings.
In fact, Asher Sullivan and I had clashed on everything pretty much since the moment we had met, but that didn’t change the fact that I saw something beautiful in him.
I saw him as someone who needed every ounce of protection I could offer.
It was just unlucky that whatever protection I attempted translated into a lecture in his view.
I didn’t know how to fix that. I didn’t know if I should.
The only thing I knew for sure was that going after him was the opposite of protecting him. Sadly, the biggest threat to Asher was the abundance of attraction and longing I carried for him. If I let that run unchecked, we would both be screwed.
I bit my lip. A nasty, vile sliver of jealousy was like an oily stain on my soul. Who are you thinking about? Who is in front of your eyes to make you so flustered and red? Who gets you to sweat and lose your breath, Ash?
I pushed myself back and turned on my heels before the devil dragged me over to Asher’s door. This balcony was a constant temptation.
Sleep eluded me. Even almost naked and with the AC pumping cold air into the room, I found myself tossing, turning, and sweating. It was like a fever that burned from deep within me.
I never should have come here alone with Asher.
I’d underestimated how badly I would want him.
This entire year, I’d managed to keep myself in check.
Then again, there were a bunch of guys living with us and more than enough college students looking to hang out for a night.
I could get my mind off Asher whenever I wanted back at Northwood.
But to be alone with him so deep in the woods, that even God was blind to us, was a whole different level of danger.
The moment the night surrendered and the sun’s rays lit the eastern sky with its golden rays, I got up.
The few hours of sleep I’d had were restless and filled with weird dreams. Not an image remained of them in my memory, but I carried a sense of guilt when I walked into the bathroom and washed the sweat of the night away.
I was quiet as I wiped myself dry and dressed, but waking Asher up wasn’t my biggest fear.
Facing him was. I was no wiser this morning, so I tiptoed to the kitchen and made myself a fruit salad with the things Chuck had dropped off at Dad’s request. I added just a teaspoon of honey to sweeten my breakfast, then sat at the kitchen island and ate quietly.
Seeing him was inevitable, but I wanted to postpone it for as long as possible.
I had interrupted something private. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I made a total fool out of us both by freaking out.
I should have ignored the clues, but my heart had sped too much, and my face was about to combust in flames, so I stumbled through my words and made it abundantly clear that I knew exactly what he had been doing. And that it spooked me.
God dammit.
I left my empty bowl on the counter and walked around, waiting until a more decent hour to call my best friend. And when I calculated that it was alright to call him in his time zone since he was an hour ahead, I walked in front of the house for a breath of fresh air.
Beckett picked up after a couple of rings.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said sleepily. “I’ve been up for a few hours.”
“Where are you? At the hospital?” I asked.
Beckett cleared his throat. “No. Uncle Nate’s apartment, actually.”
“How is he? Did you see him?” I pressed on with the questions before I could control myself.
Beckett inhaled through his nose. “Not the best, to be honest. Mentally, I mean. He’s very bitter. But can you blame him? His career is as good as done.”
I couldn’t recall his exact age, but Nate was Beckett’s father’s younger brother.
He might have been thirty-seven or -eight.
I doubted he’d blown out forty candles. And even so, he was pushing it with how long he could keep playing professionally.
Most hockey players in the NHL retired in their thirties, although it wasn’t unheard of that players played a game or a few after turning forty.
I also knew that Nate had been flirting with the idea of retiring for some time, especially because the press had suspected it was his time and the questions about his retirement plans had been steadily increasing in the past two years.
I had watched it happen in real-time with Beckett.
“And his injury? Aside from hockey, will he be alright?”
“He will. As good as you can hope, I guess,” Beckett replied in an exhausted voice. I hated that he was stuck in this position. If there was only something I could do to help…
“And you?” I asked.
Beckett was silent for a moment. His voice sounded better, more refreshed when he replied, “I’ve got Caden with me.
” That meant everything was fine. Caden would know how to handle Beckett’s moods in these stressful times and how to keep him focused on the positives.
The two had had a bumpy ride early on, but their relationship had blossomed into something as strong as steel.
“How are things there? Where are you, even?”
I snorted. “I’m holed up with Asher at the lake house.”
“Just the two of you?” Beckett asked, mock concerned. “Hide the knives, buddy.”
“Ah, I think I’ll be fine,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you, Beck. I just wanted to check in and see if you needed anything.”
He thanked me although I did nothing at all to help him. A few idle words later, I decided he was better off taking a nap before the hospital visit and then returned inside.
I washed the bowl and the fork, then unloaded the clean dishes from the dishwasher.
While lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear his footsteps.
Turning around, I froze. Asher stood still in the kitchen, watching me.
His lips were slightly parted, his eyes big, and his hair messy from sleeping.
He was easily the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, but I pursed my lips before grunting a good morning.
My throat was dry all of a sudden. It helped me none that Asher had decided to come down in his briefs and nothing else whatsoever.