Elijah
Eva gave me a sidelong look. “I’m just saying, it’s not like you.”
I rolled my eyes, handing her a beer. “Have I ever told you that you read way too much into things? To a concerning level.”
“There’s a possibility you’ve mentioned it once or twice,” she said, taking a drink of the beer and setting it on the end table closest to her.
Her legs were curled under her since there hadn’t been a coffee table in front of the couch since The Incident.
“But even if I occasionally look too deeply into things, that’s not always the case. ”
“Sure,” I told her amiably enough as I dropped into the armchair beside the couch. “If that makes you feel better, be my guest. Ignore the sense of self-delusion while you’re at it. That isn’t a helpful feeling.”
“Asshole,” she muttered, but I could hear her grinning as she took another drink. “But you have to admit, it’s weird as hell for you to go two weeks without hitting me up to hit this.”
She slapped her ass for good measure, and I shook my head. “You know, there’s more to this friendship than sex. At least that’s how I feel.”
Eva snorted. “Are you trying to use girl logic on me? I’m not falling for that trap, we both know there’s more to this friendship than sex, just like there was more to our relationship than sex...really great sex.”
“So that’s why you’re being needy and weird,” I said with a laugh as I crossed my legs under me. “Your boy toys aren’t scratching your itch.”
“They’re not boy toys...but maybe,” she said, looking away shiftily.
After a moment of silence, she let out a beleaguered sigh.
“What do you want me to say, Eli? That you’re the best sex I’ve ever had?
That anyone else I’ve slept with, even guys I went on dates with, are basically only there for their own nut, and then look at me like I’ve grown a third arm when I expect them to help me along?
You’re the only asshole who actually cares about what I need when there’s fucking involved.
You fucking ruined most guys for me, and I hate you for it. ”
I blinked. “I feel complimented and slightly objectified here.”
“How does that work?”
“Because you’re seeing me through the lens of the sexual pleasure I give you. Might as well call me a vibrator held in skilled hands and move on.”
Eva scoffed. “You’re so sensitive sometimes, you know that?”
“Not often I get accused of that.”
“Well, that’s because the only people who see that about you are related to you...and me.”
“Aren’t I lucky?”
“Don’t be an ass.”
I gave her a helpless gesture. “What do you want me to say, Eva? I just haven’t felt like hitting people up for sex.”
Which was about as far as it got from the truth without being an outright lie.
I had a reliable and steady source of sex living in the apartment, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
Milo and I hadn’t said we wouldn’t mention the recent addition to our shared lives, but I knew we agreed.
There were just too many ways telling people the truth could go wrong, especially with our family.
They might have teased and joked, and at times, tried to express that they would be alright if something like that was going on between Milo and me, but I was reluctant to test it.
Which was even more true when it came to anyone outside the family, even those we were supposed to be close to.
In truth, I knew there wasn’t anything morally wrong with what was going on between us.
There wasn’t a drop of shared blood between Milo and me, and we were less than a year apart in age.
That wouldn’t stop people from looking askance at us, though, because ‘step’ or not, people would see the ‘brother’ at the end and.
..well, there were just some judgments in life that you didn’t want to deal with.
Still, it begged a question I hadn’t yet entertained.
What if we kept going? Or better yet, what if things became serious between us?
If either happened, we might not have a choice but to come clean to other people.
Then what? Assuming everyone was okay with us being together, what about the rest of our lives and other people?
Just how often would we be forced to navigate the awkwardness of people finding out we were in a romantic and sexual relationship. ..and that we were stepbrothers?
It was a lot, which was why I locked it away to deal with if it became a problem.
“Look,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I know you weren’t the horniest of guys, but for you to go like what...over two weeks now? Two weeks and two days?—”
“Not that you’ve been keeping track,” I said dryly.
“Hell yes, I have been,” she grumbled. “But that’s unusual as hell for you. Just say you’ve been getting it elsewhere.”
“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “I’ve been getting it elsewhere.”
Her eyes widened. “No shit? If you weren’t...well, how? I’d ask when you started picking up women, but that’s never been your style. So now I have to ask, who are you seeing? What’s her name?”
“There is no ‘her,’” I told her, because again, that stuck to the truth.
She squinted. “Is it a he?”
“Really?” I asked, eyes going wide as my stomach lurched. “I don’t hit you up for sex for a couple of weeks and tell you I’m not dating some girl, and you immediately go for team switching?”
“Eh,” she said, wiggling her fingers at me. “I always got a bi vibe from you.”
“You have literally no reason to believe that, other than the fact that you used to talk about how hot it would be if I was willing to try a little of the other side so long as you were involved,” I reminded her.
“That’s not a reason, that’s a fantasy,” she told me airily. “And watching you dick down some guy or get dicked down would be hot. I don’t care what you say.”
Well, privately, I had to agree, dicking a guy down had proved to be pretty hot.
Once upon a time, I would never have thought myself capable of that, but life was weird and liked to surprise you on occasion.
It was fair to consider me surprised because there was no denying that sleeping with Milo was hot .
I might not have given real thought to what he was like when it came to sex, but I was thrilled I knew now.
The guy pulled off a mixture of aggressive and submissive that should have canceled each other out or at least come off as bizarre, but it worked for him, and well, it worked for me too.
I cleared my throat, pushing the thoughts away before I started making a display of myself.
I was wearing a tank top that stopped at the waistband of my thin lounge pants, so if I started getting hard, Eva was bound to notice.
It had been a couple of days since the last time with Milo, since we’d both been busy lately between friends, school, and family.
Eva had a point, though. I was usually easy to sexually sate if I got it once or twice a week, but I found my appetite had grown more voracious with Milo.
“Come on, you seeing someone would make a lot more sense than anything else,” she said with a huff. “And while I’m sure it’s that, it better not be because we agreed that if we started seeing someone, we would tell the other.”
“I’m not dating anyone,” I told her. Sure, it wasn’t exactly what she’d said, but my slightly altered version was closer to the truth.
Milo and I weren’t dating...he was dating Raf.
Which of course was something else neither Milo nor I had talked about.
Again, we hadn’t done anything wrong; he and Raf had been in an open relationship for a few months before anything started between Milo and me.
And as far as I knew, Raf hadn’t enacted their agreed-upon rule that Milo had to tell him the truth if Raf were to ask.
So, we weren’t doing anything wrong, but we carefully threaded that particularly touchy needle very narrowly.
Eva narrowed her eyes, and warning bells went off in my head when her mouth thinned and twisted up thoughtfully.
Eva was in second place in the competition for who knew me the best. She was good at sensing my bullshit, and even worse than Milo about calling me on it.
The sheer narrowness of her eyes as she scrutinized me showed she already had an idea that I was being evasive for a reason, but was trying to figure out how to work her way around my many tricks and thick walls to get me to tell her the unvarnished truth.
My chest tightened when her mouth opened, and then froze when we both heard a voice from outside the apartment and the familiar rattle of keys in the lock.
Her mouth snapped shut, and she leaned back into the couch, eyeing me suspiciously as Milo’s voice grew louder and the door swung open.
I played my part and gave her a questioning look, which earned me a roll of the eyes.
Yeah, she definitely knew something was up, and now she knew that I knew she knew and was going to be on alert to nail me down.
I wasn’t saved; I had just earned a reprieve.
What pleasure I felt at Milo’s return soured when I heard another familiar, far less welcome voice.
It had been a while since Milo had brought Raf around, and while I knew it wasn’t an intentional act on his part, I felt my mood pivot at the man’s admittedly pleasant, deep voice.
He was chuckling at something Milo had said, and I turned when I heard them enter the living room.
“Wasn’t expecting you for another hour or two,” I told Milo as he entered, and felt warmth blossom in my gut and groin at the sight of him.
His hair was still damp, which meant he had either just gotten done having sex or had headed back from the gym after a shower.
I was really hoping it was the second. I did not want to get turned on because he’d just gotten done having sex with Raf.
..or anyone for that matter, that wasn’t me.
Christ, was that jealousy? Fuck.