Chapter 2
Present Day
Ryker Hart was pissed off.
Shocker.
Anger was the only emotion he seemed capable of for years now. The only thing left alive inside of him after…Just after.
He didn’t like to think about it.
Didn’t like to, yet it was all he ever seemed able to.
His friend Ares said there were two versions of the world in Ryker’s head, the Before and the After, with nothing in between. One was bright and hopeful and filled with possibility and a childish dream of the future.
The other was this.
Was fury and indignation and standing in the dark hovering over a sleeping form in the dead of night.
Ares didn’t know about that last part.
No one did.
And no one ever would if Ryker had any say in the matter.
The room was only slightly smaller than the one he called his own down the hall, filled with tiny mementos and reminders of the Before, when things had been better and Ryker had arguably been kinder.
Kindness was for fools.
He was no fool.
Not anymore.
Not for the person who’d shoved their hand straight through his chest, twisted, and yanked his heart out.
Ryker took a step closer to the end of the bed, eyes tracking the rise and fall of the sleeper’s chest.
Rue.
His Rue.
Or.
Not anymore.
Maybe not ever.
His hands balled into fists and he did the same song and dance he’d been doing at least once a month since he’d threatened Rue to return to planet.
He fought himself.
The struggle was real.
The ending was inevitable.
Even knowing that, even knowing he wouldn’t win against the burning desire coursing through his veins, Ryker tried to resist.
He’d give in, and come morning, he’d hate himself a little more.
That hatred would feed his anger, and he’d become a worse person for it.
A more deadly and dangerous person. It was to the point even his best friend, Illya, had warned him he was too close to the edge.
Reminded him that his father’s tolerance only went so far.
That he’d only cover for Ryker for so long.
He smirked to himself, wondering what dear old dad would think about what he was about to do.
What he’d been doing for the past five months.
Ryker lost the war with himself, hand undoing his fly, palm reaching past the material of his boxers to grip his hard length. A moan slipped past his lips as he rocked his hips, jerking himself off to the sight of his new little brother.
Better known as the man he’d once been in love with.
And who had ruined Ryker’s life.
Another wave of fury washed through him and he released himself and rounded the bed, practically tearing the covers off the sleeping form, only to pause again as soon as his eyes caught sight of him.
Rue was naked.
Naked and lying on his stomach, thighs partially parted already, almost as if…
No.
There was no way he knew what’d been happening to him, otherwise he would have brought it up.
Rue was quiet and could no longer maintain eye contact with Ryker for longer than thirty seconds, but the fire that used to guide him was still there, dwelling beneath the cowed looks and the caved in shoulders.
An act.
Ryker knew better than anyone that this man was an actor.
Whispering romantic confessions in his ear one night.
Abandoning him the next.
He climbed onto the bed and situated himself between Rue’s thighs, adjusting the smaller man to his liking. Using his knees, he spread the sleeping man’s thighs wider, so he caught a better view of his hole and his heavy sack.
Ryker spit in his palm then returned his hand to his cock, stroking himself as he stared at that forbidden place, picturing what it would feel like to bury himself deep in Rue’s ass and pound him viciously into the mattress.
If he fucked him hard enough, brutal enough, would it override the medication and wake Rue after all?
The sleeping pills he took nightly were strong. He never so much as stirred. In the beginning, the first couple of times they’d done this dance, Ryker had been a bit disappointed when Rue had remained unconscious. But now he got a kick out of it.
Aside from his knees pressed to Rue’s inner thighs, he didn’t touch him.
He could. Had thought of it, more than once, but that was always part of the war within himself he could actually win.
The fantasy was enough. The knowing that no one could stop him.
That Rue couldn’t prevent him from sneaking in here at the end of each month.
That Rue believed that he came in his sleep every time Ryker and him were under the same roof…
“Does it bother you?” he wondered aloud, hand working himself with more fervor. “Do you dream of me, little brother?” Ryker sneered the title, both disgusted and a bit more turned on by it all at the same time.
Maybe it was because of his blatant daddy issues.
The Hart estate held several buildings, with the main house large enough every creak of a floorboard echoed.
Their parents slept in a completely different wing, and rarely visited this part of the home, even when they’d been younger, preferring to send servants to retrieve them for meals and family meetings.
This room had been designated as Rue’s since middle school, when he’d spend nights over under the guise of the three of them studying together. After the death of his father, a helicopter crash during a business meeting, Rue had been even more welcomed.
The sensitive fool probably thought it’d been Rhys showing kindness.
Ryker knew the truth was his dad merely wanted a better shot of getting into Eulalie’s pants.
Since they were married now, both of their sons under one roof, guess Rhys had sort of won there.
Basically, they’d been raised as brothers even before the proposal had officially been given, and long before it’d actually been accepted.
In the eyes of the staff, their parents, and family friends, Ryker’s relationship with Rue should be no different than the one he shared with his legitimate blood brother.
Fat chance.
Anyone with eyes should have been able to see this tumultuous, sinful thing brewing between them as they’d grown into adulthood.
Fortunately for them both, neither Rhys or Eulalie had a tendency to ever really look at their kids.
The likelihood of Ryker getting caught masturbating over Rue, dripping precome all over the bouncy globes of his full ass, was slim to none.
But that didn’t mean Ryker didn’t still think about it.
Think about what might happen if his father or Rue’s mother ever stumbled in on a scene like this.
It was easy enough to guess what Rhys Hart’s immediate response would be.
He’d kill Ryker in the heat of the moment, and then he’d be out two sons.
Maybe he’d name Rue heir, as the only kid left on their newly minted fucked up family tree.
Rue would hate it, having to take orders from a guy like Rhys Hart. Growing up, Ryker had shielded him from the worst of his father, not wanting to trouble Rue’s delicate nature.
Back then, when their parents had merely been college friends and business partners, things had been simpler. They’d spent summers together, holidays, time after school…and it’d been innocent.
Even when things had taken a turn, had shifted from the innocence of close friends and entered the stages of something more, when Ryker had stopped viewing Rue as a confidant, and started to see him as a man, that had been okay.
Acceptable. He could have openly declared his feelings back then, could have weathered their parents fleeting disapproval, because at least it wouldn’t have looked bad on the family as a whole.
“You’re the reason I’m like this,” he growled. “Why we’re like this.”
The only reason Rhys and Eulalie had gotten married was to protect their public images.
Ryder’s incident had been downplayed. They’d kept the fact that they’d been told he’d mentally chosen to remain within a virtual reality from the main press, but rumors had leaked that Rue had been present when the game had malfunctioned, supposedly trapping one of the Hart heirs.
It was a twisted version of the truth, but it’d been enough to make their parents uncomfortable and rush to do damage control to save their reputation and their businesses.
Now, Ryker and Rue were stepbrothers. Family.
Family couldn’t fuck.
Even if Ryker did miraculously forgive him one day, now there was no way he’d be able to claim Rue.
And it was Rue’s fault.
“If you hadn’t run,” he growled at the sleeping man, thrusting into his hand hard enough to shake the bed, “If you’d stayed and explained and stood by my side, none of this would have happened. You destroyed everything.”
His brother—his real brother—was still trapped in a box, lost to the world, and yet here Rue was. Sleeping in a king-sized bed, nestled in sheets made of the highest quality silk.
He attended the most prestigious university this side of the galaxy. Ate meals cooked by five-star chefs. Wore clothes with fancy name brands, and sat his ass on toilet seats with temperature-controlled bidets.
And where was Ryder during all of this?
Where was Ryker’s real brother, while the fake sat at their table and played house with their things and their father?
Ryker hated that Rue was here and Ryder wasn’t.
Hated that he still didn’t know what actually happened the day of the incident.
Hated that his father seemed to have forgotten all about Ryder and was so obviously fitting Rue to take his place.
“I hate you.” Ryker hated himself more.
The day they lost Ryder and Uriel, Rue was meant to be there.
He was meant to be the game monitor, but for some reason he’d been absent.
Doctors had confirmed there was nothing he could have done even if he had been there watching, and Rue’s running off to Tulniri without a word had been explained away by a psychologist as unnecessary guilt.
The situation had been tied off with a pretty, and convenient, bow, but that wasn’t even the problem.
The issue wasn’t how questionable the whole ordeal was.
It was that Ryker didn’t care if it was true or not.