Chapter 5
FIVE
HENRY SALMAN
Something is seriously wrong with me.
Maybe over the last few years owning my own MMA gym—training those who are willing to learn how to throw a heavy hit, taking one if necessary—I’ve taken too many gloves to the head.
What are the chances the last concussion I sustained gave me brain damage?
If the direction of my thoughts—and the way my body is reacting to my little brother straddling my lap and clinging to me—is any indication . . . high. Really fucking high.
I’m not sure how to politely disengage.
If he’s anything like he was as a child, any attempt to pull away before he’s ready to let me go will be met with pouting, and if that fails, outright pleading. I’ll fold like a cheap fucking suit, and then what?
Nicolo, who is certainly not a child anymore, not with the way he feels in my arms, will have an up close and way too personal meeting with his big brother’s overeager cock.
Yeah. No. Even the thought of trying to explain to my little brother why I have an erection with him in my lap is horrifying. Actually having the conversation—I shudder and nudge him backwards.
His grasp tightens for half a second and he whines in the depths of his throat before he allows me to deposit him on the sofa at my side. If he dares to look—even with bloodshot, swollen, damp eyes—the tent I’m pitching in my shorts will be unmistakable.
“Let me shower, and we can see about getting you settled in. Yeah?” I tuck a wild brown curl behind his ear and brush my thumb over his helix piercing. It suits him. As does the soft flush to his face.
He really is so fucking pretty.
He tips into my hand as he takes a shaky breath. “I can stay?”
I roll my eyes. “As if you’d leave.”
He cracks a smile; it’s so much like the one he used to give me as a boy, but it’s different now too. There’s uncertainty in the tilt of his lips and the glow of his gaze.
Now that he knows I’m alive, and I’m here, he’s going to be reluctant to let me out of his sight until he’s sure I’m not going to leave him behind. My leaving before probably gave him a handful of lifelong abandonment issues.
If I try to send him back to his dorm, he’ll try to camp out on my porch. Or buy a literal tent to pitch in my overgrown backyard.
It’s easier to let him stay, and truthfully, I want him here, even if having him close at hand is going to be torture until my body understands: lusting after my little brother is weird as fuck at best, and simply twisted at worst.
Not to mention, it’s safer if he stays with me. If anyone in the family comes looking for him my identity will be blown, but at least I’ll be able to protect him. Keep them from dragging him back to a life that will slowly kill the light in his soul.
“I don’t have a lot of stuff.” His voice softens as his mouth turns down. He blinks several times and swallows.
I reach out and tug him against my chest, unable to refrain from comforting him when he so clearly needs it, but carefully angle my hips away from him.
Chances are when he had to leave, he was only able to take what he could carry. He wouldn’t have been allowed to take anything of value, just his personal belongings. Maybe not even all of those, depending on what value was assigned to them.
“It’s okay.” I tuck him under my chin. “We’ll get what you do have and bring it here. Anything else you need, I’ll take care of.”
Does he even have the means to support himself? Job skills? Money?
Surely our mother didn’t send him into the world without cash on hand to buy his necessities. Even if she had to dip into her own personal accounts and hide the hand-off from Vincent, she would have given Nicolo something to ease his way into life cut off from the Family. Or so I hope.
He sniffs and nods against my shoulder but makes no move to pull out of my embrace. “Okay. I have a couple job interviews lined up so I’ll be able to pay rent and stuff.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. Just focus on school and getting your feet under you.” I ease him back and dry his face with my fingers. I hate when he cries, but I’ve never begrudged him his tears. “You’ll take my bedroom until we work something else out. Just let me change the sheets.”
I stand and turn away, adjusting my misbehaving dick before he can get an eyeful.
“Sebastian.” Nicolo’s warm fingers curl around my wrist and he tugs me to a stop. “I’m not taking your bed from you. We can share.”
Share. A bed.
With Nicolo.
It won’t be the first time, of course.
As a child he climbed into my bed more than once after a nightmare chased him from his own, but things are different now.
He isn’t a child anymore, a fact I’m all too well aware of. Sharing a bed with him sounds like torture, and not because I won’t enjoy every second of his slender body pressed against mine.
“I’m fine with the sofa.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t be a stubborn idiot.”
The idiotic thing would be agreeing to share a bed with my far too attractive little brother, but if I can’t explain exactly why I’m not willing to sleep next to him, he’s only going to pout until he gets his way.
No way I’m telling him. Some things should be taken to the grave, and the way he makes my body sing is definitely one of those things.
So long as he stays on his side of the bed, what’s the worst that can happen?