Chapter 19 Noah #2
Roman looks down at the table, running his fingertip along the surface. “I’m not going to explain to you every little detail, but no, intimidation does not always require torture, Torin.”
Torin pulls in a breath.
I’m still teetering on the mouth’s edge of that volcano, knowing one slip could make all three of us fall in.
I stay silent, because I can’t even begin to fathom how Torin got Roman to talk.
It’s like magic.
“So he didn’t show up?”
“He did not.”
“Hey, Roman,” Torin says. “You never did tell us what was in that fucking box. The night you made Noah go do your dirty work for you. What was it?”
“You don’t get to know that.”
“But Noah deserves to. What was in the box?”
“It was jewelry that the Maletti family dug up from my mother’s fucking grave,” Roman says, cutting Torin a serious look.
“That we took back from them. Is that enough of an explanation for you, Torin? I know you hate diamonds and jewels and displays of wealth, but when they were the ones my mother wore until the day she was murdered in front of my face, don’t you think my family has a right to get them back? ”
Torin is stunned into silence.
Roman has never told me that his mom was killed.
My heart aches, seeing the way his face changes when he speaks of her.
And I’ve never seen Torin react the way he does now, completely backing down, like he’s dropped his guard entirely.
“I understand,” Torin finally says.
Roman just looks back down at the table. “And if you think I don’t have everyone in my family trying to work on this issue, you’re very wrong. That’s all I have to say.”
I swallow past a tight throat.
“I’m sorry, Roman.”
He waves a hand through the air. “It’s life. Shit happens. Right?”
Torin doesn’t seem satisfied, but he looks down, eating a few more pieces of pineapple.
“I also apologize,” Torin tells him.
“How did you see me?” Roman interjects, his head snapping up.
“From my window. I told you.”
Roman hums. “That’s interesting, considering your window doesn’t face the front.”
Torin cuts a glance at Roman.
My chest goes tight.
Roman just stares at Torin for a while longer before he stands up, crosses over to toss his tray onto the pile, then walks out of Colossus.
Hours later, it feels like Torin’s caught something from me, because he starts acting weird, too.
After dinner with Roman, all he wanted to do was walk me home and then bury himself in a project. He’s been working on another one of the benches out back ever since, and when I tell him I’m going up to bed, he just gives me a short wave.
I finally walk into my room alone.
Push the feeling down.
It’s there, like a sinking stone in my stomach.
My room suddenly feels empty without him in it, even though he only stayed here for one goddamn night.
It’s such a familiar feeling, but with him it still feels unmanageable.
I shouldn’t want his presence at all.
I stride over to the edge of the room and glance down at the table, seeing the picture he took of me last night.
Jesus.
I look…
I look like I just got fucked.
I almost toss the photo in the trash but I can’t bring myself to do it. I shove it between two books on my shelf and then sit down on my mattress, gazing out the balcony doors.
And I proceed to spend the next half an hour overthinking myself into a fucking bottomless well of doubt.
I finally step out into the hall to shower and run right into Torin.
“Watch out,” he says.
“You fucking watch out,” I toss back, frowning at him.
I can’t take it.
He smells so good, even now, coming in from doing manual labor out in the yard, and I just need to get away from him for long enough to make my brain fixate on something else.
“I see you’re back in a mouthy mood rather than whatever weird little act you were putting on earlier.”
“Don’t know why it matters to you how I act, anyway.”
He cocks his head to one side. “You’re easier to deal with when you’re combative. I speak that language.”
I give him a shove. “Just let me shower and get out of the way.”
His hand lands on my neck like he’s collaring me.
It’s gentle, actually, and he doesn’t use force.
But the gesture is enough of a command in itself. He cups my throat just below my jaw, gently tipping my head.
His lips land on mine and I resist for a moment, not kissing him back, as a thousand different impulses spark through me at once.
“I need you to kiss me,” he says against my lips, pulling back just enough to speak.
“I need you to get the fuck out of my way so I can shower.”
He exhales on my skin. “Please kiss me, Noah.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s been too long since we last did, and I was starting to feel like I might lose it without feeling your tongue on mine,” he says, a sudden urgency in his voice. “Is that good enough for you? Kiss me.”
I slam forward against him, pushing him back against the wall as I open my mouth to his.
His low moan is more intoxicating than ever.
“God, I’m so fucking sick of you,” I say as I catch a breath, pushing my hand up against the wall near his head. “We can’t do this here. We can’t be doing this anywhere—”
“I’m showering with you,” he says. “Just go.”
I don’t have any fight left in me, and I want his presence so badly I fold instantly. He follows me into the bathroom and we slam the door shut, locking it and stripping naked.
Under the hot spray of the shower, he washes me. His hands move over my body, lathering me up, and nothing about it is rushed or a tease.
He kneads his fingers along my shoulders as I lean against the wall.
It feels incredible.
And I want this so much that it’s pushing me nearly to my breaking point.
When does it end?
When do you leave, and I have to learn to be lonely again?
His hands run along my back, down to my ass, and he wraps his arms around me from behind to tug me close, and I can’t help but feel the whole weight of the truth heavy on my chest.
I love this.
I love every part of being physical with him.
I love his scent, his hair, his fucking eyes, and I love every goddamn thing he does with his hands.
I feel safe with him.
Not just from the actual, imminent danger my life is in right now, but from everything.
I hold it all back. I stay silent during the shower, because I wouldn’t know what to say without being a complete fucking mess again anyway, and I know I’ll either end up crying, or screaming so hard I’ll lose my voice, or coming in his hand while my entire body shakes for him.
After we dry off, I’m prepared for him to head back to his room.
And instead, he joins me in mine.
Wordlessly, I get in my bed, and then he slides in next to me, under the covers.
And if my heart could beat out of my chest, it would already be gone by now.
I can’t say anything.
Don’t get used to it, I tell myself as Torin wraps his arms around me from behind in bed.
Wanting things never leads to anything good.
But he sneaks into my bedroom the next night, too.
Very late, after everyone has gone to sleep, and I’ve already convinced myself there was no chance he was going to come.
He shows up already rock hard, slipping into my room in the dark and joining me in bed. He tells me he was going to jerk off and go to sleep, but that he couldn’t bear the idea of me going to bed without giving me his cum.
The night after that, he doesn’t even bother making a stop at his own room.
We both walk upstairs after hanging at the fire pit with the other guys, and Torin just follows me, as if we both know where we are going to end up.
He fucks me hard.
Really hard, up against my dresser drawers, and it’s definitely my fault because I’m the one who turned around and told him I needed him to hurt me tonight.
And fuck, he knows how to deliver.
A couple of books fall over onto the floor with a heavy thud. Torin has every inch of his cock pushed deep in my ass and then a second later, I have to shout toward the hallway that everything’s fine when Roman knocks and asks if I’m okay through the door.
Torin uses my ass and tells me that it’s exactly where his cock belongs.
When he comes, he breathes my name into my ear, and it settles through me, so low and deep and all-consuming in a way that almost single-handedly destroys me.
He cradles my body after he makes me come.
And that undeniable fact settles in my blood like the darkest secret I’ve ever had, something I have to keep trapped far below any other bad decision I’ve made in my life: I want this. I want all of it, and I don’t want it to stop.
We wake up at 3 a.m. that night and fuck again.
Because if his cock is right there behind me and it feels that good, what the hell else am I supposed to do other than rut up against him?
And when he whispers good boy against my neck when I’m half-asleep, how could I ever deny that I’m starting to love every fucking thing this man does to me, and I could probably love it forever?
It’s like when a double whiskey on the rocks hits the ice, cracks, and goes down smooth and cold, the first drink of the night.
But better.
Because I don’t feel like absolute shit the next day. I feel like I’m walking on electric air.
You quit the liquor.
You can quit him later, too.
But then there are the texts.
Periodically, throughout the day, he starts sending me pictures of old, vintage bookstores.
Secondhand stores, too, with beautiful book sections.
He sends pictures of old cafes inside them, and even links me to a website I’d never seen before that collects photos of long-dead bookstores and shows what was on their shelves.
Stepbrother Psychotic: God, these are so fucking sick. Imagine if you did the cafe like the one with the wooden beams on the ceiling?
It’s gorgeous.
We could do it. Well. I’d do the woodwork, you take care of the matcha lattes.
Matcha isn’t even coffee, Torin.
Ask me if I give a fuck, *Noah.*
It’s the first time anyone’s taken the cafe idea seriously after I told them.
And definitely the first time anyone’s even remembered to talk about it with me again.
And it’s those fucking texts.
Those texts finally spell the end of my self-delusion, because I can’t lie to myself any longer.
I’m falling for him.
For real.
I’ll never tell him, I promise myself. And I’m taking it to the fucking grave.
But I already know I’d probably do anything for Torin at this point.
I’m caught in his orbit.
Until the inevitable day comes when he does what he always does, and leaves. Nothing is more certain than the fact that Torin will always be independent, and that this will never last.
But each night, when I fall asleep in his arms, I pretend.
That’s all I have to do.
Easy, right?
So fucking easy.