Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
NICOLO
For a moment, I’m warm and safe, wrapped in Sebastian’s arms. In the next, I’m wide awake, cold and alone in an unfamiliar room. The house is dark and silent.
My heart slams against my ribcage, and I kick the blanket off.
Where is Sebastian? What if he left me in the middle of the night?
He promised. He pinky promised we’d stay together but what if . . .
I can’t catch my breath as I roll and fall out of bed, hitting the floor with a painful thump. The blankets tangle around my legs, and I can’t get them off no matter how much I kick. But I have to find Sebastian. I have to be sure he didn’t leave me again.
He can’t. He can’t abandon me again. I won’t let him.
A sliver of light parts the darkness as I struggle to catch my breath and free myself. When I look up, Sebastian is standing in the doorway holding a bottle of water, his basketball shorts low on his hips. A half smile pulls at his mouth. My eyes burn with relief and embarrassment.
“Going somewhere?” he asks as he steps into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him. I blink in the darkness before a light beside the bed flares to life.
“Bathroom,” I lie, because I don’t want him to think that I don’t trust him, that I don’t believe him. I do. Of course I do. If not Sebastian, who else can I trust? But everything feels fragile, like with the snap of a finger, he can be taken away from me.
“Not on the carpet, I hope.” He comes around the bed and helps me free of the blanket before pulling me to my feet.
“I . . .” I shut my mouth and look anywhere but at him.
“Nicolo?” He runs his hand up and down my arm. “What is it?”
If I don’t tell him, he’ll keep asking until I do.
“You weren’t in bed when I woke up and I . . .” I bite my bottom lip and wrap my arms around my midsection. “I got scared. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Nico.” Sebastian tugs me into his arms and tucks me under his chin. “Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The steady thump of his heartbeat under my ear shouldn’t be as familiar as it is after all these years apart, but I recognize the sound from my childhood, when he used to hug me and promise everything was going to be alright.
I sniff and run my hand under my nose. “I’m being a baby.”
He already promised he wasn’t leaving me. Why would he leave me now? If he was going to disappear into the night, he would’ve done it without dragging me to the middle of nowhere.
“You’re not.” He gently eases me backwards and combs my hair out of my face with gentle fingers. “A lot has happened, Nicolo. It’s going to take a while to settle into the new way of things.”
I nod and press my face into his chest. He wraps his arms around me and I do the same, clinging to him like I’m a child again.
Sebastian presses his cheek against my hair. “You’re going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. In a couple weeks, maybe not even that long, we’ll have new identities and a place of our own. After that, things will start to feel normal in no time.”
I’ll have to take his word for it. He’d know better than me.
“It’s just—” My fingers curl against his spine. Sebastian doesn’t speak. He’s always given me the space and time to gather my thoughts when I struggle to know exactly what I want to say. “I lost you once. I’m scared I’m going to lose you again, and I’ll never be able to find you.”
He can understand that, can’t he?
If it was the other way around, if I was the one who’d disappeared for ten years, he’d feel the same way I do. Maybe, for all I know, he already does. Yeah, I lost him because of choices he made, but he lost me because of those same choices.
Sebastian has been out here on his own for ten years, no more aware of my wellbeing than I was of his. At least I had Mom. Sebastian had no one. If he did, they’d be here with us now.
“You’re not going to lose me, Nicolo. I’m not going anywhere.”
I inhale, exhale and finally nod. “Okay.”
Sebastian combs his fingers through my hair and I press into his hand. “Do you want to try to get more sleep?”
I’m not sure I can but I nod because getting back in bed with Sebastian means him wrapping his arms around me, holding me against his chest, and not letting me go until the sun paints the sky a kaleidoscope of colors.
“In you go.” He shoves me and I stumble, collapse when the backs of my knees hit the edge of the bed. He laughs and unfurls the blanket as I huff and shift until my head is resting on my pillow again.
“I’ll cry if you’re mean to me,” I whine as Sebastian climbs in beside me after turning off the bedside lamp.
He wraps his arms around me and drags me against his chest. “I’m never mean to you.”
I snort. “You can try to forget about your cold-hearted, cruel and senseless betrayal, but I’ll never forget the day you handed me a candy apple that wasn’t an apple at all.”
Sebastian laughs but I’m dead serious. He ruined onions for me and I’ve never trusted another candy apple. When I die, I’m going to make sure a stipulation of my last will and testament is him being reminded of the day he broke my heart.
“If it’s that serious, how can I make it up to you?” He runs his hand down my bare spine, dipping his warm fingers into my waistband. My next breath is shallow and shaky as my cock starts to harden between us.
There are a lot of ways I’d like him to make it up to me, but none I can voice aloud. Or . . . Or maybe I can.
He touched himself in the shower, thinking about me.
Maybe it was a one-off—a response to seeing me again after so long. But maybe . . . What are the chances Sebastian is struggling to see me as his little brother, the same way I’m struggling to see him as my big brother?
“Promise not to hate me?” I whisper.
“I’m never going to hate you, Nicolo.” His fingers dig into my skin. “Nothing you say or do could ever change how much I love you.”
“I really hope that’s true,” I say before I surge upwards and slot my mouth over his. Sebastian spasms against me but instead of pulling away, he shoves his fingers into my hair and licks his way into my mouth.
I’ve never been kissed, don’t have a fucking clue what to do as his tongue slides along mine, but that doesn’t stop me from throwing my arms around him and climbing into his lap. It doesn’t stop me from grinding against his hard cock and moaning when one of his hands settles on my ass, dragging me impossibly closer.
Maybe it’s wrong to want my big brother the way I do, but he wants me too, and if we’re both going to burn, at least we’ll do that together.