“What if you and him fuck it up? Would you leave me?”
It was a fair question, and perhaps one that meant more to Gus than anything else. Everyone else had left—his mum, Mia, Luke. Even his wankstain married lover. And I had form for running out on shit I couldn’t handle. I’d done it to him at the first sign of trouble.
I’d done it yesterday when his stubborn silence had pushed me over the edge. If I hadn’t perhaps we’d be having this conversation at home, not in a hospital bed with him attached to tubes and wires and—
“Billy.” Gus gripped my chin. “Wherever you just went, don’t. I just need to know I’m not going to lose you to our combined bad habits. I’m not asking you to change your DNA.”
“I know that. It’s just...”
“What?”
“I can’t help thinking that if I’d stuck around yesterday instead of flouncing home on the bus, none of this would’ve happened. And that’s me being kind to myself. If I hadn’t been a dick a week ago, I’m even more sure you wouldn’t be lying in this bed.”
Gus snorted. “If we’re playing that game, how about if I hadn’t spent all week sulking, I wouldn’t have stayed late last night, and you wouldn’t have had to come back for me. You got hurt too, and that was my fault.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It really was. I’ve felt sick for days. Maybe if I hadn’t been stuck in my feelings I’d have realised something was wrong sooner.”
“When did you realise? Do you remember?”
Gus shook his head. “Not really. I remember you leaving, and hating myself for driving you away. Next thing I know I was in here and Mia was bollocking me for scaring her, so...”
“Yeah, you definitely drew the short straw there. I woke up to Luke, and he’s quiet at the best of times.”
“He wasn’t quiet when he was boinking my sister in my kitchen.”
I cringed. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really. If this—” he gestured between us “—is real life and not my imagination having a rave, I’m kind of looking forward to getting my own back.”
“You want to fuck me in Luke’s kitchen?”
Gus laughed for real this time, and something shifted back to the brief moment in time when life had been easy. When we’d had nothing on our minds but each other. “Maybe not literally, but I want you, Billy. For real, and for a long time. Is that okay with you?”
We were talking about far more than sex. But I was sold on both counts. I pressed my forehead to his and lost myself in his molten gaze. “It’s okay with me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Three months later...
Gus
I was tired for a long time. Billy made me eat and go outside a lot, which helped, but it was early winter before I felt like myself again, and by then, the world—my world, at least—was a different place.
Billy was everything. Not just to me, but to Luke too. And Mia. Family dinners were loud, and funny, and long days at work were filled with laughter and the kind of bickering that made people happy. It was a trip I never wanted to end.
“Shame you had to nearly die to make it happen, eh?” Mia remarked one night when she caught me mooning over Billy and Luke building a pizza oven in Luke’s frosty garden. They were squabbling over the consistency of the cement, and they were both wrong, but observing them was far more fun than setting them straight.
“I didn’t nearly die. Don’t be so dramatic.”
Mia shot me a dark glare. “You have a selective memory.”
“I remember the important things.”
“You’re important, Gus.”
“I know.”
And for the first time in years, I did. How could I not when I woke up next to Billy every morning? Even when he was in a grumpy mood—he hadn’t changed that much—he still managed to let me know I mattered. And when he wasn’t in a grumpy mood? Yeah. I wanted to bottle that feeling so the whole world could have it.
Mia got up and fetched more beer from the outdoor fridge, but I waved away her offer of a cold stubby. Getting drunk reminded me too much of how I’d felt when I’d nearly lost my equilibrium for good.
Besides, I had plans for Billy when we got home...plans I’d been formulating since the morning I’d opened my eyes to clear vision and a head that didn’t pound every time I bent over.
As if he’d heard the dirty path my thoughts had taken, Billy glanced over his shoulder. He smirked, and I smirked right back, much to Mia’s disgust, but I ignored her complaints. Her and Luke had driven me half mad before she’d moved out of my place. It was only fair that I returned the favour, even if I was grateful that the strength of her relationship with Luke had landed Billy in my spare room in the first place.
Grateful didn’t seem a strong enough word.
Mia disappeared inside. I thought about following her to help with the dishes, but I was too enchanted by Billy to move. I watched him win the argument over the cement and lay the bricks for the dome of the wood-fired oven. He moved his hands with grace, and his tongue was caught between his teeth. The bricks were going to fall down, but I’d learned over the last few months that failure didn’t mean you couldn’t try again.
The pizza oven fell. Twice. I could’ve helped, but I didn’t. I ate apple tart and plotted ways to convince Billy to leave it for the night and come back tomorrow. But in the end, I didn’t need to. Mia’s impatience was my good fortune, and with Luke otherwise occupied, I finally had Billy to myself.
I hustled him to the van and drove us home.
Billy fidgeted in his seat and picked dried cement from his fingers, but his restlessness was no longer something I feared. Instead, I watched him work on the rooftops, growing stronger each day, and revelled in his boundless energy.
Energy I had plans for tonight.
And he knew, of course. Billy knew most things without me having to say them. But I’d made him a promise that, good or bad, I’d voice my feelings out loud more. Guessing was a stressful way of life for him, and I loved Billy at peace too much to waste it on repressed angst.
We made it home.
Billy slid out of his seat and disappeared into the house to feed Grey. I followed, locking the door behind me, and trooped straight upstairs. I heard Billy come up and get in the shower. Habit took me to the bedroom window to wait for him. Over the last few months, Billy had built decking at the bottom of the garden—it had given him something to do when I’d done nothing but sleep for days and days and days. He’d carved holes for solar-powered lights, and now every evening the local cats seemed to treat the deck as a hangout, while Grey howled at them from the kitchen windowsill.
It wasn’t the most relaxing nightly ritual, but I liked it.
“Watching cat TV again?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Billy was a heartbeat behind me, wrapped in a towel, and dripping water all over the floor like he always did. Drawn to him in ways I couldn’t describe, I turned and pulled him to me with little conscious thought. “They’re not out yet. Must all be having their dinner still.”
“Or lurking round mouse town up the road.”
I hummed and caught a bead of water as it ran down Billy’s chest. “You should let Grey out to play. I think he’d be all right.”
“I think he’d be a fucking hooligan.”
“Like you?”
“I’m retired, but okay—Jesus, stop doing that.” He shivered under my touch but didn’t pull away.
And I didn’t stop, because I knew he loved it.
I knew a lot about how to play his body, but we hadn’t fucked since before the accident at the cottage. Despite spending hours and hours in bed, figuring out what made each other gasp and squirm, the right moment had never arrived. My near-death experience had done odd things to my head, and my subconscious had demanded to be whole before I’d put myself inside Bi
lly again.
Tonight, watching him with Luke, a final fragment of myself had slid into place. Everything was right in my world, and I wanted everything it could give.
I wanted Billy.
He leant into my touch, and I spread my hand over his damp skin. His heart pounded against my palm, and kicked up a gear as I let my fingertips brush his nipple.
His towel fell to the floor, revealing every inch of his beautiful body, all long lean muscles, defined by months of good eating and hard graft. That was the payoff of the weeks he’d spent coaxing me to eat through constant nausea. He ate too. And the philosophy of practice what you preach had spread to other things. Regular physiotherapy had eased the chronic pain in his shoulder. As my fingers danced over his scars, he didn’t flinch.
Instead, he reached for my belt buckle.
I let him undress me, but once we were both naked, I caught his roaming hands and pinned them over his head.
Billy’s upper lip curled, and a low growl escaped him. “Like that, is it?”
“Maybe. That okay with you?”
“Find out for yourself.”
Challenge accepted, I nudged him closer to the bed and pushed him down. I crawled over him, keeping his hands in place, and ground against him the way he liked, drawing out the first shudders of pleasure. He wrapped his legs around me and arched his back, chasing friction, and I gave it to him, setting his hands free the moment I knew for sure he was going to dig his fingernails into my back.
I loved that, almost as much as I loved him. Months of foreplay had taught me what made him tick, but more than that, I’d learned as much about myself. The itch to lose myself in empty encounters and faceless fucks just wasn’t there anymore, and I had a new fascination with how my body responded to the touch of one person, over and over again.
Billy kissed me, and I bent his leg to his chest, letting my dick slide down to press against him.
He moaned. “Don’t tease me, you fucker. Just do it.”
“Yeah? You want me to fuck you?”
“You know I do.”
In answer, I pulled away and dragged him up the bed so I could kiss him and reach for the lube at the same time. No condoms. I’d got tested on one of my many hospital adventures, and Billy...well. Turned out he’d never had unprotected sex in his entire life. So much for the terminal rebel.
I lubed up and positioned myself where I could ease slowly inside him without breaking our kiss. His body fit perfectly to mine, and there wasn’t an inch of space as I curled around him, my thighs locked against his, his dick caught between us.
Billy let out a long, shuddery groan. “Fuck, I forgot how good that was.”
I hadn’t forgotten, but I was unprepared for the sensation of him clamping down on my naked dick. I hadn’t got bareback with anyone in years, and it wasn’t that I’d forgotten how good it was, it was more I’d never known.
Locked together, I moved inside him, fucking him slowly at first, then harder as the tension left his body. He threw his head back and raised his hips clean off the bed, meeting my steady thrusts in the middle. Skin slapped skin, and my bed jumped against the wall.
I gripped the bed frame and hooked his legs over my shoulders. The change in position drove me deeper, and as heat ambushed me, I was certain of two things: first, that I loved him beyond measure.
Second, that toxic levels of carbon monoxide hadn’t killed me, but maybe this would.
Billy
Gus was fucking glorious. And glorious at fucking. Whichever way I looked at it, it was a win for me.
He held me down, fucked me hard and deep, and every scrape of his cock over the bundle of nerves he’d discovered inside me sent me freewheeling into ecstasy.
I was a mess. My dick was caught between us, then he reared back, lifting my hips higher, and I closed my fist around myself, jacking in time with his thrusts.
A shout of pleasure burst from my lungs, and I pushed back against him, urging him on. He’d been careful with me before, and over the last few months, I’d returned the favour, but he didn’t need that anymore. All he needed was me.
An entire summer of gentle wanks and quiet blow jobs exploded between us. Gus slammed into me over and over, and I still wanted more. Pleasure grew inside me like a weed on crack, a coil of heat that unravelled inside me with every crazed sound he made.
I came without warning. Orgasm jumped me and pushed him off the same cliff. His rhythm faltered, and I scrambled to save it, but there was no safety net for either of us, and as long as we had each other, we didn’t need one.
After, he lay over me, careful as ever not to crush me, though I wouldn’t have minded. I liked the sensation of his body swamping me. It made me feel safe.
“You know it’s never been like this for me, with anyone, don’t you? I’ve never felt like this.”
I gazed up at him. “You don’t need to tell me that.”
“I know. But I need to say it.”
“Why?”
“Because it needs to be heard.”
He rolled off me without specifying whether he meant by me or by him, and the details didn’t matter. I listened to him whistle in the shower and tell Grey to shut his yowling up, and wondered how the hell I’d got so lucky. Gus wasn’t perfect—fuck, he was as pigheaded as any Daley brother—but he was perfect for me. And god, I loved him. So much. It hurt my heart that it had taken almost losing him for me to have the balls to tell him, but life was a bitch, man. I was done worrying about shit I couldn’t change.
Gus left the bathroom and went downstairs. I pictured the contents of the fridge and pondered what he might bring back, mildly horrified by the fact that I was hungry again after the Viking-sized feast I’d put away at Luke’s house. And I blamed Gus for that. He’d lost his appetite after the accident, and getting him to eat had turned into a long-running game of chicken. Now I had the appetite of a bodybuilder—one that was allergic to the gym, cos, you know. Fuck that shit.
My phone buzzed with a message from Luke, checking we’d got home okay. I rolled my eyes and messaged him back. One day I’d get used to his constant presence in my life. He was still annoying as fuck, and I was still prone to being a prick about it. But over time, I’d found how I felt mattered less than the fact that he was just...there, at my side, being my brother. And I loved him for that.
Gus didn’t come back to bed. I held out for all of five minutes before I went to find him.
He was crouching at the back door with Grey, watching the decking.
Bemused, I joined them. “Bit late for that, isn’t it? TV hours are over.”
“Shh. Look.”
I followed his gaze to the decking. There was a cat I didn’t recognise eating kibble from Grey’s spare bowl. It was bedraggled and thin, with weepy eyes. A stray. “I’ve never seen that one before.”
“Me neither,” Gus said. “I’ve fed it. Do you think we should bring it inside?”
“Is that even a question?”
“I guess not.”
Gus passed me Grey and slipped outside, bollock naked, surprising me, as ever, with how quietly a man of his size could move. He scooped the cat and food bowl up in one fluid motion and returned to my side.
I shut the back door and set a scowling Grey on the kitchen counter. “Best keep them apart for now. Grey’s had his jabs, but we need to get Moses checked out.”
“Moses? No way.” Gus carried the stray cat out into the utility room.
I gave Grey some treats to placate him, then trailed after Gus. “What’s wrong with Moses?”
“For starters, it’s a girl.”
“So?” I found another dish and filled it with water while Gus settled his new she-cat with her bowl of food. She seemed happy enough. I fetched her a bed and filled a shoebox with litter. “Can we keep her?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I think so, i
f she wants to stay.”
“She’ll want to stay.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
I tickled the cat’s cheek, then tugged Gus away from her and to the utility room door. “Because if I was a cat, I’d stay with you.”
“You’re not a cat, and you still stay with me.”
“That’s my point.”
“What is?”
I shook my head. “Never mind. Leave her be a little while. I bet you’ll come back later and find her fast asleep.”
“Later? So we’re not going to sleep?”
The devil in Gus’s gaze came back, making it easy to forget how long it had been gone.
I grinned and brushed his cheek with a kiss that turned into a bite. “Not yet. I want you to fuck me again, then I want to stay up all night arguing over the best name for our new cat.”
Gus turned in my arms and pressed me against the closed utility room door. Up close and naked, I felt every inch of him. He kissed my forehead, my cheek, and finally my lips. “Works for me.”
* * *
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About the Author
Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer, cover artist, and book designer. Her debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits, was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards, and she was again a finalist in 2017 with Rented Heart.
In 2017, she won the EPIC award in contemporary romance with her military novel, Between Ghosts, and won in the contemporary romance category in the Bisexual Book Awards with her novel What Remains.
When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.
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