10. Daniil #2
“Me too.”
“That kiss was probably what you said, right? Comfort? We’ve been stressed out of our minds, and it just happened,” he says, licking his lips.
“We’re brothers.”
“I know.” He pauses. “It’s a bit messed up, I mean, but I’m okay with it. It’s just you.”
Just you. The words land like a punch to the sternum, and I shove the feeling down fast before it shows on my face.
“We’re weird,” I mutter.
“I’m aware.”
“We need to see a shrink for this codependency thing, Mikhail.”
“Hell no, I don’t need a professional telling me I’m fucked up when I already know that. Besides, what if they fix me and I stop being funny?”
I huff out a laugh. I missed him so much. I just need to shove these feelings down deeper and bury them so far they stop clawing their way to the surface every time he touches me, because I can’t pull away from him anymore.
“I know that we grew up together,” he continues. “But we aren’t blood-related, okay? I’m not surprised it happened.”
“You aren’t?”
“No.” He shakes his head against the pillow.
“Look at us. At our family, Danya. Father pushes all of us to the limit and then acts shocked when we act out and don’t fall in line like good little soldiers.
” He pauses, jaw working. “I mean, normal brothers don’t cuddle or hug or do what we do.
But we’ve been like this since we were kids, and it’s never felt wrong to me.
Not once. So can we just spend the next few days relaxing and not overthinking every single thing? ”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Good.” He hums in satisfaction and drags me fully onto his chest, so my head rests over his heart like a weighted blanket. He sighs in relief, and his hands spread across my back, stroking down my spine in slow, soothing circles.
Our hips are pressed together, his crotch right against mine, and I need to get it together before he notices how my body’s reacting to this. Heat crawls up my neck, and I force myself to breathe evenly, to stay still, to not think about how perfectly we fit like this.
It’s never going to happen, and I need to accept that and move on.
The doorbell cuts through the silence and drags me out of sleep. Mikhail stirs underneath me and barely cracks his eyes open before fumbling blindly for his phone on the nightstand. He squints at the screen and groans.
His cock is hard against my thigh, and mine is straining against my boxers, pressed right against his hip. I need to move before he notices, before this gets any more awkward than it already is.
He sighs. “It’s eight in the morning. Who the fuck is that? I’m going to murder them.”
“Our food delivery.”
“Go get it.” He shoves me off him and drags the pillow over his head. “And then murder them for coming so early.”
Crawling toward the edge of the bed, I adjust myself quickly and try to will my dick to calm down.
I glance back at him one more time. Morning light filters through the curtains and illuminates the bruises scattered across his ribs, but my eyes drop to where his cock strains against his white boxers.
The fabric is thin enough that the outline is painfully visible, and fuck, he’s big.
My mouth goes dry. Just morning wood. Doesn’t mean anything.
The doorbell rings again.
I throw on my hoodie and snag my jeans off the floor, hopping on one foot as I wrestle them on. The button fights me, and I’m still working on the zipper when I reach the front door and pull it open.
The delivery guy shoves his phone into my hands without a word. I scribble my signature across the bottom and hand it back. He doesn’t acknowledge me, just turns and trudges back to his van, leaving me with five massive shopping bags crowding the doorstep.
Bending down, I loop all the handles over my arms in one go. The plastic digs into my forearms, and the weight makes my shoulders burn immediately. Should’ve made two trips.
Mikhail appears in front of me, wearing gray sweatpants and a t-shirt. “You’re going to drop those.”
Before I can argue, he reaches around and lifts all five bags out of my grip. He carries them into the kitchen and starts unpacking, shoving things into the fridge and cabinets.
“We could eat breakfast and watch some TV,” he says, looking my way.
“Sure,” I say and bite my lip.
I start making us some sandwiches, so we don’t starve when a sudden flash bursts in my peripheral vision and I flinch. He’s holding that Polaroid camera I got him for Christmas. The photo slides out, and he waves it in the air.
“Stop shaking it. It’s not going to develop faster,” I say and grin at him.
He hums, and then he’s behind me with his lips brushing against my neck. Every nerve lights up at once, and I pull away fast with my heart pounding, staring at him with my mouth open.
The air between us feels thick and charged. We both know what happened, but we’re dancing around it like it’s a landmine. We talked about it, sort of, but not enough to clear anything up or make sense of what we’re doing now.
Is everything just back to normal? Are we pretending it didn’t happen?
I catch him staring at me and raise an eyebrow. His gaze darts away quickly.
Yeah. We definitely need to talk about this. Later though.
“Have you checked your email about the DNA thing?” he asks, still not looking at me.
“It should arrive either tomorrow or the next day. We should plan what to do after we get it, right?”
He hums, and his blue eyes flick to mine for half a second before darting away again. “We could always sneak into Father’s office once we get the results. Maybe he has something in there that could help.”
“He has really tight security. There’s no way we can get in there. I know because I built the system.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s why it’s going to be easy for you to get in there.”