Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
I can’t stuff this Jack back into his box.
Niall
I have my hands full of dead tree branches when Frank, one of my men, ambles up. “You’re needed, Niall.”
“Needed for what?” I grunt, pulling the mass of the branches that we’ve just sawn down from a copse of trees and feeling them give slightly. “Am I needed to help Phil find the bottom of his tea flask?”
He laughs. “Now, you know he doesn’t start the day well without three cups.”
“I know and have the scars to prove it.” I pull again. “Motherfucking things. What the hell are they stuck on?” I look up. “Tell me they’re stuck on Phil’s inert tea-less body and I’ll cheer the hell up.”
“Get out of the way, lad,” he says, shoving me politely to the side. He nods over to the fence lining the field. “You’ve got visitors.”
I look up, shielding my eyes against the autumn sun which is lying low. Then I straighten so quickly I nearly fall over. “Shit!” I mutter.
Frank grins and releases the hand that’s just saved me from going arse over tit. “Bit eager, boss.”
“Shut up,” I grumble. “It’s my goddaughter.”
He sticks his tongue in his cheek, obviously trying not to laugh. “Aye, of course. Your goddaughter. Well, you’d best be getting over there quick or that good-looking lad will take your goddaughter away.”
“Fuck off,” I mutter and walk off, hearing his laughter behind me. I try not to smile when the laughter turns to a groan as he too tries to clear the branches. I look up and see Milo leaning on the fence.
He’s wearing old holey jeans and mid-calf lace-up boots with a red and white t-shirt and buttoned-up cardigan and over the top, he’s slung an old grey canvas jacket.
It should look ridiculous, but he has an unerring sense of style so that whatever he puts on looks right.
He’s windswept and rumpled, his pale sharp cheekbones dusted with red which seems to echo the shade of the leaves all around.
It’s like he’s a chameleon taking on the colours from the land that I love so much, making him one with it.
I shake my head of the flowery thoughts and pull off my thick work gloves before wedging them in the back pockets of my jeans.
I eye his deep brown hair which is tied up in some sort of messy bun arrangement which I shouldn’t find as charming as I definitely do, judging from the tightness in my jeans.
I sigh and swear under my breath. Why now?
Why has the fucking universe decided to screw with me now by making me suddenly notice how fucking lovely he is?
I’ve gone years looking on him as a younger brother.
Someone I owed the same loyalty and kindness to as I do my own siblings.
Maybe more because something about Milo has always just simply called to me and touched a soft spot inside me that nobody has ever reached before.
I’ve watched over him all these years and felt this strange protectiveness towards him.
He’s always just seemed so brave to me, coping with his nerves and stutter in such a dignified and stalwart way.
Gideon had always found it incomprehensible how soft I was towards his brother, why I welcomed him around us.
The simple truth is that I like his wit, intelligence, and sharpness.
Others seemed to miss it, seeing him as being stupid just because he stammered.
Even now people see the hunched shoulders to hide his height, his blushes and the frequent pauses and hitches in his speech, and they classify him as needing protection.
They never seem to see what I do. The flash of his eyes when someone is rude, the humour shining clear in those brown depths that he doesn’t share easily.
They don’t stick around long enough to get through the stammer to hear the caustic wit that lies beneath.
After I’d brought him home with me to Chi an Mor, I watched over him carefully and noted the way he slowly came back to life like a plant sending shoots up through the cold ground.
I’d annotated the life coming back into his eyes, the gradual cessation of his stammer and the way he unfurled a bit more every day, coming out from his shell like a rather gawky tortoise after hibernation.
I’d managed to see all that and keep him as a little brother until the other day when he laughed at something he’d said and I’d looked at him.
Really looked at him. And as if for the first time I saw the sheen in his brown hair that’s the colour of muscovado sugar.
I’d taken in the chocolate-button brown of his eyes with their thick lashes, the sharp bones of his face, the full pink lips, and the shy warmth of him.
I’d blinked and said something facetious, hoping that the heavy beating of my heart was just breathlessness but knowing that the stiffness of my dick belied this.
Ever since then it’s like a lid’s been taken off a secret and I can’t go back.
I can’t stuff this Jack back into his box.
He doesn’t fit anymore; the way Milo doesn’t fit my preconceptions.
I’ve tried to ignore it because the whole fucking scenario is like something from Hollyoaks .
I’ve slept with his brother, for fuck’s sake.
I slept with him a few months ago before all this started.
How can I move on straight from him to his younger brother who I remember playing with his toys? I shake my head. Get a fucking grip.
At that moment he looks up and sees me coming towards him and he smiles.
His smiles always look slightly mysterious to me, like secrets are resting on those lips.
I wonder if I kissed them if I could suck those secrets into my mouth the way I’d suck on those full pouty lips.
Take his smile into me the way I’d take his breath and spit.
My step falters and I stutter in a breath, and he straightens with a puzzled frown.
That right there is my salvation because it would never occur to diffident Milo that as I cross this field, I’m thinking of fucking him. He’d never believe it, the way he’d never believe that the rich arsehole coming to visit him wants more than his opinion on some poxy paintings.
I should seize this unawareness and move onwards, the way I’ve always done.
Good sex and on to the next, my life has a simple rhythm that I love.
Good friends, family, food, a nice house, and a hot, willing body whenever I want.
Life is great and complicating things with Milo could be disastrous, not least because of what I could do to him.
He has a need for security and stability that’s written all over him.
I would trample that underneath my feet as I walk away, the way I always do, and I can’t do that to him.
He means too much to me, this shy, gentle boy who I’ve known for so many years.
Resolved, I clear my expression as I reach him. “What are you doing here?” I say far too heartily, but he ignores it, giving me one of his wide smiles.
“We came for a visit. Cora needed some fresh air, so we’ve been for a walk.”
I smile because Milo’s love of walking is legendary.
He seemed to get a taste for it when I used to drag him all over the estate as a way of getting him out of the house, and now he’ll walk happily for miles in any weather.
I’ll often see him about the estate and wish that I could join him and walk together again, listening to his quiet voice and making him laugh, loving the sight of that half-cautious smile spreading over his face.
I look down at the baby cocooned in a sling held close to Milo’s torso so the only things that can be seen are her bright button eyes and rosy cheeks and a cute little red bobble hat.
I reach out to trail my fingers down her soft downy cheek and subtly inhale the scent of baby shampoo that clings to him along with his own warm scent of lemon and rosemary that always makes him smell a bit like a herb garden in summer.
Cora coos and wriggles frantically as she manages to extract one tiny hand in a little red mitten and waves it at me. I lean down and grab it, making munching noises on her fingers while she chuckles.
I look up and still at the intent look on his face and for a long second, we stare at each other until the sounds of the chainsaw and the men shouting in the background fade away so there’s just us and the gentle soughing of the wind through the trees.
I shake my head to clear it and search for a topic of conversation that doesn’t include the opening of, ‘I’d like to push you against that tree over there and stuff you full of my cock.’ I look down at the fabric baby carrier and find it.
“What is this?” I huff.
“It’s a baby sling,” he says patiently.
The slight hitch in his speech is barely noticeable now but I still hear it.
He doesn’t stammer much anymore which is a testament to all of the work he’s done with speech therapists, but if you listen carefully you can still hear the indrawn breaths and hesitations.
I like it because it’s so him. Such a subtle, barely there symptom of something a quiet man has striven so hard to conceal, yet it’s as much a part of him as his expressive eyes and herby scent.
It gives me a feeling of privilege that I know him so well that I can tell.
I shake my head, pulling myself back to the conversation as he looks at me, waiting with his lip quirked. “You’re carrying my goddaughter around in something that looks like it came from fucking Tie Rack. It surely can’t be safe.”
“She’s my goddaughter too,” he says patiently. “And yes, it’s perfectly safe. You’re just overprotective.”
Not just of her, I think, staring at his pale, eager face. Shit!