1. Dax
DAX
“ I can take him home with me. I’ve got plenty of room.” The words tumbled out before I’d thought them through, but Travis looked so damn hurt I couldn’t help myself. He’d shown up to save his brother, and he was afraid he’d be sent away. I couldn’t let that happen.
No matter how much he’d done to hurt Beau, I still remembered Travis as the sweet boy he’d been when I’d first met him and his brother.
I hadn’t seen Travis in years, though, and he sure as hell wasn’t a boy anymore.
He was all man, all fucking gorgeous man, but I would never take advantage of that.
He was my friend’s little brother, and he had a lot of healing to do.
I would offer him a room and food and absolutely nothing else, no matter how attractive his shy smile was when he glanced at me.
“You remember Dax, don’t you?” Beau asked. “I know you only met him a few times, but I promise he’s trustworthy.”
I hoped to hell Travis remembered me, and we’d all hung out more than a few times. Did Beau think Travis had been too young to remember our earliest meetings?
Travis nodded, then glanced at me. Was I imagining the appreciation in his eyes? What the hell was that about?
He looked away again and mumbled, “I guess that’s… okay.”
Was he scared of me? Could I really blame him if he was? How much did he know about the man I’d become? I didn’t want him to be scared, though, so I decided he thought I lived like my brother. “I have real plumbing and everything,” I assured him. “I wouldn’t last more than a day with Ambrose.”
Travis smiled, and I instantly felt better about the whole situation.
Beau had promised him I was trustworthy, and I would show him I was.
Beau talked to his brother like Travis was a wounded animal.
I was a monster but not enough of one to take advantage of someone in Travis’s position.
I’d give him food and shelter like I would anyone in need.
That was as far as things would go. He and Beau had a long way to go to repair their relationship.
Travis had proven himself today, but what did that mean for the future?
Whatever it was, my dick wasn’t going to be involved.
“How did you get here? Do you have a car or anything you need to pick up?” He was carrying a backpack, but it couldn’t hold much.
“I just have this bag. I borrowed a car. The… um… guy who lent it to me will pick it up.”
I assumed that meant the car was stolen, but that was the last thing I cared about.
Travis was mostly silent on the ride to my house, only speaking when I asked him direct questions like whether the AC was cold enough for him. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t a person who needed a lot of unnecessary chatter.
When I turned into my driveway, Travis spoke up. “What are we doing here?” He gestured to the Garden District home in front of us.
“This is my house.”
“Your… No way.”
I put the car in park and looked at him. His eyes were wide, and he was glancing back and forth between me and the house. “This is your house?”
“Yes. Is that so impossible to believe?”
“I just… I thought someone like you would… I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Someone like me? A mobster? A badass? I can’t have a nice house?”
“Nice like a mansion or some shit, yeah, but this is… cute.”
“Fuck right it’s cute, and it’s a bitch to maintain. It was built in 1875, and as soon as I get one thing fixed, another breaks.”
“So you’re remodeling it?”
I shook my head. “I’m preserving it. If I wanted some modern-ass abomination, I would have bought one.”
“Couldn’t you… um… hire someone to do the repairs.”
I snorted. “Trust someone else with my place? Trust them not to fuck it up? No thanks.”
“Okay, now that sounds like you.” He was clearly trying not to laugh.
“Tell me more about what you think of me?”
Travis chewed his lip and stared at me. “I… um…”
What was I thinking? He was scared, and I was putting him on the spot because I liked that he had an impression of who I was. It told me he did remember me. I wanted him to know me. “Never mind. Let’s get inside. I’m starving.”
The tension went out of his shoulders. “Me too.”
I studied him closely. “When did you last eat?”
“Um… yesterday some time. I don’t really know. Beau left me plenty of food and all, but I… I’ve been”—he ran a hand through his thick wavy hair—“not feeling so great.”
“Nerves?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“If you need a doctor…”
He shook his head. “No. I… No doctor.”
I’d see that he ate and send him to bed. If he still felt bad after he woke up, I’d call a doctor to come look at him whether he liked it or not. I wasn’t going to let him suffer.
“What do you want for breakfast?” I asked as I unlocked my house and turned off the security system.
Travis didn’t answer. He was looking around the room, open-mouthed. “This is gorgeous.”
I’d worked damn hard on my house, and I knew it was impressive, but Travis’s praise made me warm all over, and damn if I didn’t feel a flutter like butterflies in my stomach. What the hell was wrong with me? Travis was young and unsure of himself. Why was I nervous?
“No wonder you didn’t want anyone else to work on it.
You weren’t exaggerating when you said you were spending a lot of time.
This is incredible.” He walked around the room, looking at the built-in shelves I’d redone and the fireplace that—while I never needed it—was still fully functional.
He extended a hand toward a picture on the mantel, then drew it back.
“You can pick it up. I don’t mind.”
“Is this…”
“Yeah, it’s Uncle Etienne’s cabin, and that’s my grandad as a kid.”
“Wow. I thought that was you, but I couldn’t understand why everything looked so old-fashioned. I don’t ever remember you wearing overalls, only your uncle.”
“You probably rarely remember me wearing anything but ripped-up shorts. I wasn’t much for clothes in those days.”
Travis looked me up and down. He turned away quickly but not before I saw him blush. Fuck. Why the hell did I mention myself being nearly naked? “So… um… what do you want for breakfast?”
He shrugged. “Whatever is fine.”
“Travis, what do you want to eat?”
He glanced at me, then looked away again. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”
I imagined what Beau would say to that. The trouble Travis had caused Beau had landed Beau in prison for years, but my gut told me Travis was sincere now. My best guess was that Travis was starved for attention, but he’d never found the right kind. He probably wasn’t used to having choices.
“Right now, I’m hungry enough to eat the grilled nutria Ambrose tries to push on me,” I said. “Any less grotesque food choice is fine with me. I’ve got eggs, bacon, sausage?—”
His eyes lit up. “Do you have the sausage we would get out in the bayou? The handmade kind they sold at the little store?”
The wistfulness in his voice made me happier to have a well-stocked freezer than I’d ever been, even during a hurricane. “I sure do. I try to always keep some on hand. No other sausage even comes close.”
“I’d like that, please.”
“With eggs? Pancakes?”
“Both?”
“Absolutely.” I’d do whatever I could to see that smile on his face again. “Do you need anything before I start cooking?”
Travis shook his head.
“Okay. Let me at least show you your room.”
“Oh, I can sleep on the couch. You don’t have to?—”
“I have a spare room. It’s fine. Why don’t I show you around so you know where everything is?”
“You don’t have to. I’ll be leaving once I’ve rested. I really don’t want to be a burden for you.”
I shook my head. “You will stay here as long as I think you need to.”
Travis sucked in his breath. I was a demanding bastard, but I wasn’t taking my statement back. He would stay here. He wasn’t safe unless he was with one of us.
I started his tour in the kitchen, which had a vintage stove and refrigerator.
They weren’t quite as old as the house, but they were from a time when it had still been in its original state.
I’d removed the hideous paint the previous owner had put on the cabinets and refinished them.
Even the cabinet pulls were authentic. After a lot of searching, I’d finally located what I wanted at an antique store.
“Wow, this is even more impressive than the living room.”
“Thank you.” I kept my voice gentle, wanting to soothe him so he would keep telling me what he thought of the house. I was going to savor every one of his comments. Eventually, he’d ask me something about my life now, and he’d stop being so impressed with me.
From the kitchen, we entered a tiny room that had originally been a sewing room. It was now set up as a mancave-slash-office for me, but the wainscoting and blue paint were correct for the time period.
“You managed to make this modern but, like… not. I can imagine you in here gaming or watching a movie.”
I wanted him there with me, curled against my side, relaxed, happy. Fuck. I needed to stop thinking like that.
I walked into the adjoining room and realized that was a mistake.
We were in my bedroom, the last place we needed to be when all I could think about was how he’d respond to me picking him up, carrying him to the bed, and using my body to soothe him.
What was wrong with me? This was Travis, Beau’s little brother.
You’ve always had a soft spot for the wounded ones.
And that had always ended in disaster. Having Beau beat the shit out of me was about the best outcome of me seducing Travis.
But I knew the moment Travis looked from the big bed that barely fit across the small-by-modern-standards bedroom that it wouldn’t take much to persuade him into it. His eyes were huge, and he was worrying his bottom lip so hard I thought he might make it bleed.
“This is—” My voice came out so rough I had to pause and clear my throat
“Your room?”
“Yeah.”
Travis’s huge smile had my heart skipping a beat. “It’s… perfect.”
Goddamn, the longing in his voice nearly did me in. What exactly did he think it was perfect for?
“Is this bed…” His tone was low and soft, and he licked his lips when he paused.
Was he trying to fucking break me? He should know I was used to getting what I wanted. I wasn’t known for my self-control.
“Um… is it from the 1800s?”
He wanted to know it’s provenance, not… He turned to look at me, and his eyes were so dark they were blue-black instead of their usual jewel-like sapphire.
Home restoration. I needed to focus on telling him about the restoration. That’s all this conversation was about. My dick twitched as Travis kept watching me with his fucking hungry eyes, reminding me I was fooling myself.
“It’s a reproduction. They didn’t make beds this big back then, and I’m a big man, so?—”
Travis’s eyes widened, and I realized what I’d said. I needed to shut up. Why couldn’t I talk about something other than beds and things related to beds, or touching, or…
Travis walked toward the door that led into the small central hallway, and I followed him, showing him the bathroom, which I’d modernized more than any other room. I had to give myself some luxuries.
Once we were done there, I opened the door to the final room in the house. “This is your room. The bed in here is from the 1890s.”
Fuck. Beds again. Thank God I knew this frame wasn’t sturdy enough for what I wanted to do to him.
Maybe once I fed Travis, he’d get some sleep, and I could go see which one of my—we’ll call them acquaintances with benefits—I could rouse out of bed at this time of day.
If my dick got some action, maybe I could stop thinking with it.
A moment later, I knew that wasn’t going to work.
No way in hell was I leaving Travis alone.
If he woke up and I wasn’t there, he might run.
I would not let that happen. He’d been on a path of self-destruction, and now that he’d started turning himself around, I would do everything I could to help him see that through.