by Anyta Sunday
“Every other night, since he was twelve.”
“He was never made to sit back down? Sent to his room?”
Chantelle pressed her lips together. A smudge of flour colored her black hair gray. “No one cared.”
Her words were a weight in Duke’s gut. He smoothed on an aching smile. “See? You don’t have to care either.”
Duke lifted his glass and drained the last of the wine. This time Rohan let him. He looked at Duke in a way that felt new. Like he was studying him from a different angle.
When Duke’s trembling hand moved to grab the bottle again, Rohan stepped forward between Duke’s spread legs and pried the neck of the bottle from his fingers with a surprisingly gentle touch.
Chantelle turned her back to them, busying herself with the stove. He gulped.
He’d calculated Rohan being a hardass. Maybe telling him off. Grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him back to the table.
He hadn’t calculated the softness in Rohan’s gaze or in his deep voice. “No more wine. Let’s head back to the table.”
Duke obeyed, sliding off the counter like Rohan was pulling invisible strings.
“Why?” He tried to sound petulant, put out, but the word broke.
Rohan clasped a warm hand on his shoulder, steered him back to his seat, and said low in his ear, “I care.”
The chicken cordon bleu tasted great.
Or maybe he was still high from that softly uttered “I care” warming his blood.
Of course, Rohan might stop caring if he knew the depravity of his thoughts, but tonight, he’d let himself believe that he meant it.
“What made you decide to visit?” Dad asked, glancing at Duke.
I’d rather be anywhere else in the world, but Rohan wanted me here.
“Because I’m not chicken.”
Dad frowned. “Come again?”
“Because of this chicken.” He held up a forkful. “I really missed Chantelle’s cooking.”
A foot kicked his under the table, and Duke looked into amused eyes. Rohan’s lips twitched.
Duke kicked back with a smile and got mileage out of it by turning it on his parents. “I’m having a surprisingly good time so far.”
“Good. Good.” His dad turned his attention back to Rohan. “I’m looking forward to Christmas.”
His mom jumped in. “Me too. I look forward to meeting Bianca.”
Duke shifted in his seat, glancing at Rohan. Why was his secretary coming? “Bianca?”
His mom clapped her hands. “Will your soon-to-be fiancé be at your side as you announce to the world you’re the new face of SmallQ?”
Soon-to-be fiancé?
Coldness plunged through Duke. He jerked back his chair and it scraped harshly against the buffed floors. He stood, aware that all eyes had darted to him. Aware mostly of Rohan’s gray ones. He mumbled, waving a hand toward his stomach, gaze momentarily snagging Rohan’s. “Maybe the chicken wasn’t so good after all.”
He tossed off a good night, left the room, and hurried upstairs. He halted at the construction on the upper level. What the hell? Mom was remodeling? Where was he supposed to sleep?
He picked his way over paint-splattered sheets and sawdust; the guest bedroom was turned inside out. Every room was like the last. At his old bedroom, he stopped, heat draining from his face.
Well, that said it all, didn’t it?
“Duke.”
Staring into his former childhood bedroom, Duke ignored Rohan calling him. Gone were his bookshelves and favorite posters. It was his parents’ house, sure, but he would have liked to know that his childhood room was being remodeled into a home gym. He slumped against the doorframe and swallowed a sigh.
“Duke,” Rohan said again. A warm hand pressed at his shoulder and Rohan stepped to his side. He let go and slouched against the frame. “I’m sorry.”
Duke swung on his heel, blinking at Rohan. “You’re sorry?”
“I’ve made a lot of assumptions about you. I was still . . . frustrated at that video you took.”
Duke swallowed.
Rohan continued, “I’m sorry for forcing you here. I’m sorry we’re talking about me taking over SmallQ in front of you.”
Wait. Did Rohan think he left the table because Rohan would own the SmallQ legacy? Guess he had sold that lie yesterday. “That wasn’t why I—” He cut himself short.
Actually, that was lie was much better than the truth. Let him believe it. “Yeah. Okay. I’m really jealous.”
Rohan hummed. “If you are interested in working in the company, I will find you a job.”
Clearly, Duke hadn’t thought this through. “I’m really only theoretically jealous,” he amended. “I’ll get over it. Where are my things?”
Rohan pushed off the frame. “We’re in the attic.”
A tight laugh lurched out of Duke. “Sorry, I thought you said ‘we’ are in the attic.”
Rohan charged toward the retractable stairs that led to the attic. “I did.”
Duke stopped at the base of the stairs, staring at the back of Rohan’s legs as he ascended.
“No, no,” he said, chasing Rohan up into the last-resort guest room. “This is not happening.”
The room was beautiful, like all the rooms in the farmhouse. But it was the smallest. Slanted walls, a bed, and a couple of trunks of old ice-hockey gear.
A discernable chill fluttered through a triangular window at the end of the room. He shivered, taking in both suitcases on the bed, Rohan bent over his.
“We can’t share a room.”
Rohan glanced over his shoulder. “Your mom said the same thing. Suggested organizing a room at the inn down the road.”
“Great idea.”
“You’re so spoiled that you need your own room?”
Let’s roll with that. “Yes.”
“It’s only a couple of nights.” Rohan sounded husky, and he cleared his throat. “We’ll live.”
Oh God, they wouldn’t just be sharing a room. They’d be sharing a bed.
He hurried downstairs and scrambled back into the attic with arms full of blankets.
Rohan shoved his suitcase under the bed, perched on the side, and toed off his shoes. He eyed the heaped blankets Duke had dropped, and paused.
Duke made a cursory attempt to straighten them into a makeshift bed. “Done. You can sleep here.”
Rohan laughed. “I’m sleeping on the bed. But you feel free to take the hard floor.”
Not a fun prospect. There wasn’t even a rug up here. “Fine. The inn sounds infinitely better than being here, anyway.”
He wedged his phone out of his pocket, and Rohan laughed again, the sound wrapping around Duke’s cock and emphasizing exactly why they couldn’t share a room.
“It’s late, Duke. Don’t bother Margaret for a room.” He patted the bed. “There’s plenty of room for the both of us.”
“Yes, but . . . .” Perhaps Duke’s best bet was to make Rohan reconsider sharing. Drive him out by making him uncomfortable. “I sleep naked.”
Rohan froze, then smoothly recovered. “Solved. So do I.”
He peeled off his sweater and undershirt. A wall of hard muscle lightly dusted with dark hairs at the chest stole Duke’s breath.
Solved? “You sleeping naked too doesn’t solve anything.”
“Sure it does. Neither of us cares, right?” Rohan studied him hard, and Duke hoped his flickering gaze gave nothing away.
“Neither of us cares.” If only that were true. “But I sleep naked, and sometimes wake up nutting one out.” Duke donned a cocky smile. “Not something you’d care to witness. Pick any pillow you want for the floor.”
Rohan’s tanned skin gleamed in the gentle light of the room. He crossed the six feet of creaking wooden floor between them, snapping open the button on his jeans and pulling down his fly. He hooked his thumbs into his waistband and smirked at Duke. “Forget about this game of chicken, Duke. I’ve always won that game.” He pushed his jean
s and underwear to the floor. “Nut all you like.”
It took all Duke’s composure not to look down.
Rohan stepped out of his clothes and kicked them into the blankets on the floor behind Duke. “What you do with your dick doesn’t concern me.”
“Seemed to concern you yesterday.”
Something flashed over his face, and Rohan looked at his lips for a long moment. “I take it back. I wish you wouldn’t screw just anyone.”
Duke laughed in his face. “Funny coming from you of all people. Or do you get to play by different rules if you have Bianca as a Beard?”
Rohan stared at him hard and long.
Temptation to snag Rohan and shove his tongue down his throat almost overwhelmed him. He jerked back, grabbing the blankets off the floor to hide his growing arousal.
Rohan took the blankets from him. “Bianca and I are helping each other.” He sighed. “I’ll take the floor.”
A stab of disappointment flirted in Duke’s stomach. He’d won, but he hated that he had. “Oh, whatever. We’ll share the bed.”
“Why do you get under my skin so much?” Rohan asked, barely masking a laugh as he tried to tug back the blankets for the third time that night.
Duke cracked open an eye, warm under three sets of down.
Squares of moonlight penetrated the curtainless windows outlining the spectacularly muscular form of his cousin, one leg hooked up, hiding his cock but allowing the tight curve of his ass to glimmer.
Rohan caught him looking and lifted dark brows, shadows not dark enough to hide the twitch of his lips. “Do you really need all of them?”
Duke yawned. “You wanted to share the bed.”
“One measly blanket.”
Snickering, Duke turned, pulling the tiny wedge of blanket off Rohan’s legs. “Good luck.”
The absolute wrong thing to say.
The mattress dipped suddenly as Rohan lurched to his side and whipped up the blankets, funneling chilly air over Duke’s back, ass, legs. The blankets didn’t resettle. Landing too close to the edge of the bed, they slid to the ground.
Duke instinctively curled into a ball. “Pick them up!”
Rohan huffed. His arm snaked around Duke, the skin of Rohan’s arm delivering a cool, shivery bite over his abdomen. Cool, hard muscle pressed against his back, molded around his ass and upper thighs.
Duke chased after a startled breath.
“Much warmer,” Rohan said, hot breath drifting along the ridge of Duke’s shoulder.
He shivered, even though Rohan had quickly warmed against him. Rohan’s arm shifted up, angling over Duke’s ribs, fingers tucking around the curve of his pec.
Duke’s heart pumped, and so did his traitorous cock. Almost completely hard, fuck. He had the urge to turn around and start humping the hard thigh that pressed against his crack.
Rohan had to get off him. Now. “Get off me.”
An amused laugh. “Good luck.”
Time to bring out the brat. “Move back and pick up the blankets.”
Rohan’s hips rolled away from him, and that arm around his waist retreated—
A smack punished his ass, loud and filthy-sounding in the night. The sting shot through Duke with an aftershock of arousal that had him gasping. “I’m not your servant.”
No, he wasn’t. He was his cousin.
A fact he should cling to.
Rohan’s arm snuck back over his chest. Duke couldn’t ignore his aching cock a moment longer and he squeezed the base, willing his erection to cease. “You’ll regret it,” he muttered.
A sigh tunneled down his shoulder blades, stopping where Rohan’s chest pressed against him. Chest hair silky against his skin. “You’re warm. I can sleep like this.”
“Fine,” Duke said, quoting Rohan from earlier in his Lexus. “Let’s see how much you don’t care what I do with my dick.”
Duke gripped his shaft and stroked lightly, hoping Rohan would roll to the farthest side of the bed, hoping he might easily joke it off later as a win in this game between them.
Rohan didn’t move. He dragged in a hissing breath and tightened his arm around his waist.
Duke grew bolder. This was a game. He could use this as an excuse.
He absorbed Rohan’s heat at his back, imagined Rohan demanding he jack off. Each rise and fall of his chest and the charged breath that followed it fueled Duke’s arousal.
His strokes grew harder and faster; his breath and logic halted.
He was close. He increased the rhythm of his fist. Pushed his head back against Rohan’s nose, mouth. Imagined the heat sifting through his hair was a kiss.
“Bet you wish you had that blanket now,” he said breathlessly, shoving his leg back between Rohan’s as he rolled his hips and pumped toward climax.
Rohan dug his thumb into Duke’s pec, right at the edge of his nipple. The bite of nail did him in.
He came, orgasm ripping through him. Delicious and forbidden. Ropes of come striped his stomach and Rohan’s forearm, wet and sticky.
Regret followed instantly.
“You really are a little shit,” came huskily in his ear, and Duke shuddered. Rohan moved off him and Duke rolled onto his back, mindless of the cold. “Stay,” Rohan said, leaving the bed.
Riding a wave of insolence-masked embarrassment, Duke shrugged and stared at the slanted ceilings. Rohan disappeared, and Duke threw an arm over his face and swore.
It had felt so good. He shouldn’t have done it.
He wanted to do it again.
Rohan stole to the bathroom and shut himself in with curse. His cock throbbed in the dark, and he left the light off as he leaned back against the wall and fisted himself.
It was miraculous that he’d made it here.
He worked his cock fast, Duke’s come drying on his forearm.
The gates of temptation had been flung wide open. Duke’s groan as he’d shot over Rohan’s arm had obliterated his senses. He jerked his shaft with ruthless strokes. Damn that sinful mouth and those teasing hazel eyes.
He came hard. Harder than he ever had by his own hand.
What was he doing? This was his cousin, dammit.
He should have ignored Duke. Should have slept on the floor. Christ, but Duke’s sinful, naughty glance as he’d stripped had rendered him stupid.
He cleaned up and returned to the attic with a warm washcloth. He resisted the urge to clean the guy up and tossed him the cloth. “Catch.”
When Duke was done, Rohan removed the cloth and draped them both in blankets.
Duke darted a look at him with a swallow that might have been embarrassment. “So?” he asked with boldness.
Then again, maybe not.
“Gonna say anything?”
He really shouldn’t play with fire. “Good night, Duke.”
Duke woke in the morning to Rohan watching him as he pulled on his jeans.
The best way to move past the moment of deep indiscretion last night was to play up his bratty behavior. Make out like he did that sort of thing all the time. Act like he didn’t have a conscience.
He wasn’t the worst actor.
Possibly there was a little truth to it, too.
“What?” he said, cocking his hips. “Want another show?”
“Christ’s sake.” Rohan laughed, his profile warmly golden in the morning light stretching into the room.
He snapped the button of his jeans shut, reached over and snagged the blankets. For a second time, cooler air washed over Duke. His morning wood made an unapologetic wave good morning too.
Duke flipped his cousin the bird and locked his fingers under his head like a cocky son of a bitch.
Rohan moved to the window and opened it all the way.
The cold air shuttled into the attic and spread goose bumps over him, making his dick shrivel.
“That sorts that out,” Rohan said, pulling on a fresh button-up shirt and layering it with a charcoal cashmere vest. “Now get your ass out of bed. We’re visiting Cas
ey.”
No mention of the night before. They settled into an easy bickering companionship as they drove to Rohan’s childhood home.
Duke opened the glove box and rifled through it, busying his fingers.
Rohan swerved into a gas station. The tank was half-full, but Rohan filled it regardless, and ducked inside the gas station store.
Two minutes later, Rohan resettled into the driver seat. “Catch.”
A small container flew across the console.
Duke snagged it. A box of Tic Tacs.
“Happy belated birthday,” Rohan said.
“My birthday was weeks ago.”
“Five weeks ago. The week after my last visit. Don’t think I didn’t remember.”
“Why’d you call me twenty-one, then?”
“Because as much as I’d like to be, I’m not perfect.” Rohan glanced at him, gaze sweeping over his face, lingering on his mouth. “My tongue slips. I say the wrong thing.”
“Doesn’t matter. Twenty-two isn’t anything special.”
“You’re special, though.”
Warmth rose in his chest. He didn’t know how to deal with it—felt big and clumsy, wanted to grin stupidly. “Yeah, nothing says I’m special more than Tic Tacs.”
“I had something—” Rohan cut himself off. “You always used to steal my Tic Tacs from the car. Don’t think I don’t know why you keep searching the glove box.”
Duke cracked open the seal and patted two mints onto his palm. “Want one?”
“Sure.”
Duke pinched a Tic Tac and reached to press it into Rohan’s mouth at the same moment Rohan reached out to take one. Their gazes clashed, and Duke stirred awkwardly. He lost his nerve and pulled back.
Rohan cuffed his wrist and pulled his fingers and the Tic Tac back to his mouth.
He focused on the road as his lips pressed warmly against Duke’s forefinger and thumb. The tip of a wet tongue briefly brushed his skin, and the Tic Tac disappeared.
Duke pinched the second Tic Tac from his palm, still feeling Rohan’s lips on his skin. He pressed the Tic Tac into his mouth, letting his fingertips dance a fraction longer than necessary on his bottom lip.
“I’d planned on celebrating with you somehow,” Rohan said, slowing as they entered the next town. “Then you royally pissed me off.”
