by A. A. Davies
“Nope.” I jutted my chin forward. “But I see you are.”
He grunted, fingering the wedding band. “Nah. Divorced with no kids. I just wear this shit to remind me of what could have been I guess.”
My chest tightened. “I’m sorry.”
Nick shrugged, giving me a small smirk. “Not a big deal. We were never right for each other anyway. After you, I just fucked any random hole I could find. Makes me sound like a dick but it’s the truth.”
“I get it.” And I did. We met and were attracted to each other almost instantly. The fact that we were related changed everything. I knew for myself, it made me believe that I didn’t deserve anymore than just random sex here and there. I didn’t deserve happiness or a family of my own because in all reality, I had wanted my uncle. My stomach twisted with unease.
“Listen, did you want to grab dinner sometime? Just as friends. Nothing more.”
I looked up at him. “I think I’d like that.”
We spent the next couple hours having a few more drinks and getting to know each other. I had already learned from my parents that they had become closer with Nick. Which I was happy for. But after he left my bedroom that night so many years ago, I applied to a college out of our city and moved, never to look back. Until now.
I was a little surprised that my parents never told me Nick had gotten married. Maybe they didn’t even know. It didn’t seem like he had been married for long. Or if he had, he definitely wasn’t happy. I felt sorry for the woman, knowing that I had something to do with their failed marriage.
When last call was called, Nick paid for our drinks and walked me out of the bar. We exchanged information and promised to meet up for dinner.
As I was slipping into the back of the taxi, he leaned on the edge of the door. “It was good to see you again, Rina.”
I smiled up at him. “It was good to see you too.”
He shut the door, giving me a wave.
The taxi started driving away, the image of Nick only getting smaller and smaller. I lifted my hand, giving him a small wave back anyway. It was probably the last time I would ever see him. I almost expected a sense of sadness to come over me but when it didn’t, I turned around in my seat and let out a small sigh.
Seeing Nick again, spending the evening with him, gave us both a sort of closure I never realized we needed.
Even though he was my uncle, whatever we had that one and only night together, felt right. It was wrong on every level to want to do it again.
Pulling my phone out of my bag, I opened up my messages and sent Nick a text, letting him know what hotel I was staying at.
Me: I’m in room 1604.
Nick: I’m on my way.
Stuffing my phone away, I smiled.
About the Author
J.M. Walker is an Amazon bestselling author who hit USA Today with Wanted: An Outlaw Anthology. She loves all things books, pigs and lip gloss. She is happily married to the man who inspires all of her Heroes and continues to make her weak in the knees every single day.
"Above all, be the HEROINE of your own life..." ~ Nora Ephron
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http://www.aboutjmwalker.com/
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Harley’s Aero
C.L. Matthews
Blurb
Blood.
Family.
Loyalty.
It was what my brother and I always lived by.
Somewhere along the lines, it got tainted.
Blood became our pact.
Family became our burden.
Loyalty became our livelihood.
It was only us.
Him and I.
Aero and Harley.
My devil, his trouble, our sickness.
Chapter One
Harley
The bond between brothers is unbreakable.
It precedes friends and succeeds changes.
It outlives fights and conquers every loss.
No matter how twisted and split we get, the blood and the bonds created between us are forever tethered. It’s probably why I risk so much for my insanity, knowing he’ll always come back and never leave me behind. Not forever, at least.
At least, that’s what I tell myself as Aero’s fists fly into the face of the guy in my bed.
What have I done now?
I guess I should explain how we got here.
For that, we have to discuss some troubling facts. The first, me being my position of desperation. The second, me being cornered and forced to give in my hand. Not always, but I’m sixteen and weak, and I’m done feeling left out when my brother discusses his sex life while I’m a virgin in nearly every sense of the word. Stupid or not, it’s a big motivator. Lastly, it should be said that this is exactly how I wanted this to go. Well, not in the case of Uly, but the reaction from my brother.
Red, red, red.
It splatters.
The color rains over my gray sheets, sprinkling like the water on our lawn in the summer. It marks the bedspread like an artistic tool, streaking it with strokes of anger, resentment, and jealousy.
He loves me.
He loathes me.
He can have me.
My brother’s fists hiss against Uly’s skin, striking him like a viper and bringing more damage than necessary. It’s deranged hit after hit, and neither Uly or me is able to stop the assault. Uly doesn’t fight back. I’m not sure why he easily takes the beating, being that he’s nearly the size of my big brother, but it’s as if he allows it to happen. Does he think he deserves this kind of treatment? We only kissed and fondled a little. There wasn’t even penetration.
Aero’s face gathers sweat from the back and forth motion of his arm. Exhaustion flickers in his eyes, but it doesn’t stop him. He barely falters as his skin splits unnaturally. If he keeps this up, he’ll knock Uly out or, worse, kill him. He’s close enough to eighteen. They wouldn’t bat an eye to sentencing him as an adult. I’ve got to stop him, to tell him it’s my fault, to do anything to force his wrath on me instead of the first guy I’ve touched. Why does he care? It was just fooling around.
Ulysses Dobric, like me, is gay. He’s open about it. It’s why I decided to pick him to take my virginity. Maybe picking the one guy at Oasis High my brother can’t stand wasn’t my best choice, but as I said, I’m desperate. It makes no sense why Aero hates Uly. I’ve never seen them interact.
“Aero,” I struggle to say steadily.
My brother pauses, his blond hair wet and dripping. Is it from blood? From exertion? Both? A mistake, that’s what this is. His eyes are so dark right now, black and lethal. Usually, one is sky blue, bright and lively. The other is green, dark, and troubled like the other, more depraved part of him. Right now, though, they appear obscure, deadly, and ready to end everything.
“Why him, Trouble? Why Dobric?” It’s a snarl. He spits with disgust and apprehension, making sure to attack every sense of mine easily. “Fucking Christ.”
He shakes his head, not expecting an answer, but the question burns in his expression along with disappointment. They never warn you how debilitating it is to have your favorite person in the world stare at you like you’re a failure. It’s like being punch in the nuts, where you lose your balance from a crippling ache that reaches the inside of your body.
My eyes scan Uly. His face, red and purple, is bloody, bruised, and so goddamn swollen it’s slackened. His naked torso that only minutes ago hovered over my body, kissing, touching, and making me groan with anticipation, now seems wrong.
He’s passed out, more than likely from the pain my brother has put him through. Despite Aero kneeling above an unconscious Uly, my brother is the one I’m worried about. His chest heaves uncontrollably, sporadic, almost unable to decipher which speed it’s supposed to beat at and drained from lack of breathing. Rage does that to a person. It blinds you,
seals your fate, and takes all conscience away.
“I’m sorry,” I try. My voice cracks. Out of the two of us, he’s the careful one. He’s the good child while I’m the troubled one. He’ll go places, and I’ll be lucky to graduate. It’s why he calls me Trouble.
We’re opposites.
He’s loved. I’m hated.
He’s coveted. I’ve avoided.
He’s popular. I’m a basket case.
“When did you know?” he questions.
“K-Know what?”
He couldn’t possibly understand or know that I’m sick in the head, heart, and soul, but I should know better than to underestimate Aero. Nothing gets passed him, not even my attraction. It’s an easy answer. Him. He’s when I knew.
“That you were attracted to men,” he states dumbly, like I’m an idiot.
Oh. That.
When I watched you tongue fuck that quarterback from Valley West. I don’t say that, though, especially since he’s not out in the open or even to me. That game, I snuck off to see where he left to, and boy, did I get an eyeful of them and a lungful of bitter rage.
What are the odds he’s not only attracted to the same types of guys as me?
“Last year. You?”
“Not sure,” he snips, but the curl of his lip speaks volumes. The way he grimaces makes me believe he doesn’t want to say the truth. That’s us. Lies. Secrets. Hatred. When did it change? Why does he hate everything about me to the point that he runs away from my bedroom?
“You’ve got to go. If he decides to freak out, the cops will come,” I try and explain.
He smiles evilly. It’s disarming the way he almost sees through me.
“Nothing will happen, Trouble. He’s too fucking stupid to ever go against me.”
As he says the words, he’s stalking toward me with purpose. I’m naked, my junk only covered by a sheet as I lean against the wall of my room. The crimson streaks on Aero’s shirt stare at me, a blatant reminder of my spoiled plan. When my gaze reconnects with his darkened one, I’m struck stupid.
“O-Okay,” I mutter dumbly.
His calloused thumb digs into my skin as he tips my chin roughly, glaring.
“Next time you decide to fuck,” he hisses, his statement slapping me with its ferocity, “do it with someone who has a good dick, Harley. Pencil penis over there doesn’t know how to use it on willing boys. He likes when they fight. With your luck, it’d go limp halfway through the first breach.”
I swallow the lump forming in my throat, hoping he doesn’t notice the way my body trembles at his proximity.
“I-I wasn’t—”
He smacks the wall with both hands, my head goes to where his hands connected with the drywall, streaking it red, effectively boxing me in with his built body. A war rages in me, one that’s been battling for the better half of a year, one that’s lost at every turn. It’s a no-man’s land, a desolate existence waging on pain.
“Don’t lie to me! Yes, you fucking were. He was going to stick his nasty shit in your ass and give you all sorts of diseases. When you’d beg him to stop, that’s when he’d get excited and hurt you so badly you’d be useless to the ones who actually deserve you.”
His cruel words strike me again, and though they’re menacing and harsh, they turn me on. Not the actions he believed Uly would have taken. No, the last half, where he insinuates someone else is more worthy.
In my mind, it’s him he’s talking about wanting me. It’s him who wants to defile me and bring me to my knees to choke on his cum as it spills down my gullet. It’s his body that worships and bruises me and makes me bleed, He would lick the wounds thereafter, his own kind of stitching to the madness he would inflict on me.
My dick hardens at the imagery, tenting the sheet, warming my flesh and sealing my fate as the fucked-up brother in lust with his own flesh and blood.
It takes Aero all but two seconds to notice. His arms that closed me in flex under the tensing of his shoulders. His palms that were flattened are now digging into the drywall. A low growl emanates from him. It’s harsh like him. Animalistic. Unhinged.
A ceaseless urge presses me forward.
My mouth touches his softly.
So softly I almost believe it’s in my head until his teeth bite into the plump lower swell of my lip, bringing forth a groan and whimper simultaneously. My body aches from the defectiveness of my cravings. It’s no longer festering. It’s suffocating me, putting its fingers around my esophagus, closing, closing, closing.
He lashes out at my mouth with his tongue, sliding it between my lips like a battle of its own, one neither of us will win. His body aggressively presses against mine. Beneath the softness of the sheet, there’s a sword pressing against mine. It’s a warning of demise, a silent promise of the end.
Our end.
But then he’s pushing back. His face looks almost inhuman with his distaste and repugnance. It’s true. I’m repulsive. He should run far the fuck away and never come back or end me now and save us both from my ill intentions, ones bound to kill us both by their severity and unnaturalness.
“Fuck, Harley. Fuck!” The morphing from disgust to abhorrence is swift and brutal. His fist collides with the wall behind my head. “You can’t fucking do that, Trouble. Fuck! You’re my fucking brother.”
He pulls at his hair, drywall dust coating the locks like powder truths and making my lies impossible to hide ever again. Now, he knows. I’m obsessed, enamored, in love with my own brother.
“Brother,” I repeat and shake my head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Lies. Lies. Lies. All I do is lie.
“It won’t happen again, Aero. I promise.”
That’s the thing about lies.
They’re only true in the moment.
Later, all is fair game.
Chapter Two
Harley
ONE YEAR LATER
My brother hates me. This much is true. It’s my fault, really. How can he not despise me when I’m constantly ruining his life? No, it’s not intentional. It’s from being young and dumb, but it’s also from the need for attention.
His attention.
And then there’s the kiss, the stolen one that made him cut ties with me entirely.
My brother walked out of my room and hasn’t been back since. Not there, his room, or the house except for the forced Sunday dinners to appease our drug-addled mother. Guess my plan backfired that night.
Instead of bringing him back to me, it completely pushed him off the cliff of dis-ownership. He moved into his own place when he turned eighteen eight months ago. School is only four more months, and then he’ll graduate. He’ll be completely gone and probably won’t come for Sunday dinners anymore either.
I’m nearly eighteen, but where will I go? He’s all I’ve got left.
We don’t talk when we’re in the same room. I try, but his eyes narrow, his jaw ticks, and then he excuses himself. Mom and Dad don’t notice a thing, not that they could. Dad’s busy fucking randoms from his office, and Mom is high on Valium and vodka, the only two loves of her life.
My best friend tries to keep my mind off my broken relationship with Aero, but it’s no help. She doesn’t understand. Of course she doesn’t know about the kiss Aero and I shared or the fact that every time I try to kiss someone, I can’t. It’s like I get whiskey dick but not as a result of whiskey.
“There you are!” Char yells, crossing the commons area.
Charlotte Ellis. My best friend, all of four-foot eleven-inches, runs toward me. Her bright fuchsia hair, straight and hella long, sways as she tries moving too quickly in her six-inch platform boots.
Did I mention Char dresses like a Suicide Girl? Tattoos litter her skin like it’s their job, and the pin-up-esque daily attire solidifies the entire getup. If I were into pussies, she would be one I would ram into, but alas, I like dicks, and she digs pussies. Two of the same yet opposites through and through.
We’re so similar, in fact, th
at I dyed my hair this summer to black with hot pink and teal patches to give it a variation. I look like Hot Topic puked me up and said, “Voila, your goth dick has arrived.”
My brother didn’t say anything when he saw my hair for the first time, but he noticed if the fists he made when he made eye contact with my change were anything to say.
I wait for Charlotte to catch up, seeing her septum piercing for once. She usually tucks it up like me. The principal likes to give us both a hassle for our body modifications, but she’ll just have to remember her dress code doesn’t refute it. Fair game and all.
“What’s up, SG?” I ask when she finally hooks her arm into mine.
She smiles at me. I remember the first time I called her that. She did not think I meant Suicide Girl. She thought I meant Stupid Girl.
“I’m thinking of ditching Social Studies and getting high behind the bleachers.”
Weed does sound enticing.
She raises her eyebrow, giving me the silent question. Coming or not, loser?
“I guess,” I mutter.
It’s not like I want to go to Hessler’s anyway. It’s the only class I have with my brother—gym, where he’s half-naked, sweaty, and making my dick grow and hanker for something it isn’t allowed to seek. Gym insinuates physical activity.
While I’m fit and work out daily, listening to the other assholes call me fairy and princess doesn’t really appeal to me. My brother lets it happen. Guess it helps that he’s in the closet about his sexuality.
He even dates Serenity Danielle. She’s the head of the Drill Team, a glorified cheer squad if I’m being honest. I would say she’s my worst enemy, but it would be a lie. She seems nice even if she talks about his dick too much.
