Chapter Twelve

 

Kaiden

The minute Emerson was outside the cabin, I flew to the bathroom and locked the door. Sliding to the ground with the hard wood at my back, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. My body was on fire, tingling in places it shouldn’t be tingling, and a sheen of sweat coated my skin. I was shaking so badly, I wasn’t sure I could hold my toothbrush if I tried.

I spent the next two minutes convincing myself that the semi-hard state of my dick was nothing more than morning wood. Perfectly normal. Right? Not at all the reaction to Emerson’s total, unwavering control, not his commanding tone or his hard body that pressed me into the mattress.

I shoved a palm between my legs, doing all I could to hide the fact that it was still there and still pulsing and growing with each lingering thought.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I needed to pull my shit together. This was happening with too much frequency, and what was worse, I didn’t know if I liked it or hated it.

“You don’t fucking like it. He’s your brother.”

I gritted my teeth and pulled myself to stand. With the water as cold as I could make it, I splashed my face, hoping to wash away all memories and feelings associated with my wake-up call. Why hadn’t I simply got up when the stupid alarm went off? Why did I push his limits?

The sound of the cabin door closing brought me to alertness again. My heart wouldn’t calm. I brushed my teeth for a long time before taking a deep breath and heading back into the single-room cabin.

“Your gear,” Emerson said as he nodded to my unmade bed. He was doing everything to avoid eye contact, fidgeting more than usual.

“Thanks.”

I dug through my bag and pulled out a pair of sports pants and a few extra layers for a day on the slopes. Before shedding my pajama pants, I eyed Emerson, all too aware of the fact I hadn’t bothered wearing underwear, and I was about to strip naked in front of him. It was an act I would never have thought twice about four years ago—maybe even five minutes ago. Except now, I feared how he’d react—or how I’d react, seeing as my dick was barely calm.

He buried his nose in his phone, brows furrowed as he scrolled through something, paying me no mind. Based on the look on his face, he wasn’t pleased. Either, I’d really pissed him off by not getting up, or he was just as rattled by what had transpired as I was.

Working fast, I shed my pajamas and dressed, all while keeping my back turned and a half an eye on my brother. Since when did it matter if he saw my naked junk?

Since the fire in his eyes burned with more lust, desire, and need than I’d ever seen on anyone in my entire life. Anyone.

Fuck, fuck, and again, fuck!

Once I had my clothes on, I slipped into my ski pants and draped my coat over my arm. My hat and gloves were tucked in a sleeve, and I wouldn’t need them until we hit the hills.

“I’m ready,” I mumbled.

Emerson jumped up and pocketed his phone. “About time.”

The walk to the chalet was quiet. The weight in the air pressed in on me. I was hyper aware of everything and struggling to focus on the day of fun we’d planned. It was time to succumb to the fact that our weekend together had turned awkward.

As we approached the chalet, Emerson finally broke the ice. “So, when’s the last time you skied? Do you need to do a few refresher-runs on the gentle courses first?”

“Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea. Last time I skied was Blue Mountain, actually.”

Emerson’s head whipped around, a single brow quirked. “Seriously? That was years ago.”

“Over five years. Yup. You know we don’t have ski hills nearby South Bell. I board. But I’m not too worried. It’s like riding a bike, right?”

Emerson laughed, and the tension between us eased to a much more tolerable level. “I hope so. God help me if I have to nurture your broken bones again.”

The morning continued on a gentle incline back into safe waters again. A lifetime of being each other’s best friend quickly erased whatever had happened that morning. We laughed over breakfast, revisited old ski trip stories, and planned our day. The moment we had our gear rented, we headed to the lifts, and it was as though nothing odd had transpired.

The day was a blast. We spent two hours becoming comfortable on the blue square—intermediate—hills before daring to head to the black diamonds. Emerson decided we’d be staying away from the double black since he was convinced I’d kill myself. If I’d have been boarding, they would have been a non-issue.

By the time the hills closed at nine, we were both too exhausted to think about sitting in the restaurant. Emerson drove to the nearest town and got Chinese take-out, and we piled on his bed and gorged ourselves.

“This was fun,” I said, dunking my eggroll in a puddle of plum sauce I’d squirted on my paper plate. “It sucks winter is almost over, we could have done this more.”

“Next year. Maybe we can get weekend passes.”

“It will depend if I work at the hills again. I would never be able to do both.”

Emerson didn’t respond. When I looked up, chewing my too-large bite, he was smiling.

“What?” I asked with my mouth full.

“It’s good to see you thinking ahead, that’s all.”

I shrugged and ducked my gaze to the selection of trays in our spread. I helped myself to another scoop of chow mein as I finished my bite of eggroll. “It’s different being here. Everything felt out of control before, but it’s… more balanced.”

Since I came here. Since you showed up in my life again, the chaos has been blanketed.

Was that it? Had I truly missed Emerson’s guidance? Did I really rely on him that much? Was I lost in the woods without him? It was something I didn’t want to consider at the moment. Our day had been fun.

After dinner, we both were too exhausted to do much more than lie in bed with shitty TV in the dark. The program—some biography about ancient Greece—wasn’t holding my attention. Emerson was enthralled and had positioned himself the wrong way on the bed to be closer, lying on his stomach with his hands propping his head.

The flashing, changing glow coming off the TV cast an interesting array of light across his face. His chiseled jaw was more pronounced. The curve of his nose and lips were perfectly silhouetted in the dark. His lashes were long like mine, and his hair was untamed since he’d done nothing with it after his shower.

In my half-asleep state, I found myself lost in his slow blinks and the slight shimmer reflecting off his irises when the lighting changed. Mesmerized, and too tired to fight what was morally right or wrong, my mind slipped to that forbidden place I kept being pulled toward since Emerson showed up again after a four-year absence.

What was it that I felt? What was I seeing in him?

That fire in his eyes called to me in a wrongful, corrupted sort of way. Everything about my reactions were disgusting and shameful. Wrong. Yet, whatever it was, I knew Emerson felt it too. That was why there was so much bloody tension between us. He was fighting it. I was fighting it.

Maybe that accidental incident on the boat wasn’t an accident after all. Maybe Emerson had been too drunk to fight reason. What if he’d done it from a place of desire?

What did it mean?

Probably sensing my burning gaze, Emerson turned his head and peered across the dark cabin. His smile was genuine as he stretched and righted himself on the bed.

“You’re so quiet, I thought you’d fallen asleep.”

I was grateful for the dark room because being caught examining my brother in such an open, almost lustful way brought hot blood to my cheeks. They flamed, and I copied his stretch to hide it, hoping he couldn’t make out a blush in the darkness. “Almost. Long day.”

“Mmm. I’m crashing. You can turn the TV off whenever you’re done with it. If you can manage to drag your ass up on time tomorrow, we should be able to fit in another half a day before heading home.”

“Yeah.” My voice was tight and strained. Instantly, the rebellious side of me wondered what would happen if I didn’t cooperate again. Would he wake me up the same way he had that morning? Would those feelings resurface?

Emerson curled up facing away from me, tucking the blanket only as high as his waist and burrowing into his pillow. Then, he stilled. For a few minutes, I watched the rise and fall of his breathing, mapping the curves of his broad shoulders across his shirtless back. Emerson had always been more fit and muscular.

I dashed my gaze from him to the TV, suddenly too aware of just how I was looking at him. Searching blind, I came up with the remote and flicked it off. Wide-eyed with realization, I stared at the ceiling. I was physically attracted to my brother. Sexually attracted to my brother. Envisioning such things made me squirm onto my side so I didn’t need to face him, but also pooled blood into regions that Emerson should have no part of.

What was worse, I knew how to get those reactions to surface in Emerson, and I spent half the night debating how wrong it would be to force them to happen. He’d crossed lines once. What if I pushed him to do it again? My dick throbbed as memories of one drunken kiss, four years in the past, permeated my mind.

How twisted and wrong was it to wish for it again? Maybe just to analyze it on a different level.

“Really, really wrong,” I mumbled out loud.

“Hmm?” Emerson grunted. There was shuffling on his side of the room. I didn’t look over.

“Nothing. Sorry. Goodnight.”

“G’nite.”

My dick was officially hard as steel, and I crammed my hand over it shamefully as though Emerson could somehow see it through the dark and under my blankets. Over the years the memory of that kiss had replayed in my mind. I’d forced myself to see it as ugly and disgusting because the reality of what I’d truly felt had been so vilely unsettling I’d never wanted to admit it to anyone. Not even myself.

The following morning, I didn’t fight Emerson when the alarm went off, and I hopped out of bed with a disturbing amount of speed. I’d barely slept and spent all night squirming and thinking, fighting an erection that wouldn’t go away. With every thought of pushing boundaries and testing Emerson’s self-control, butterflies monopolized my insides. When I finally decided I was determined enough to proceed, reality and its implications slapped me in the face. It was a vicious cycle I couldn’t break, and it had gone on and on all night.

We got ready for a morning on the hills and packed the truck so we’d be ready to hit the road after lunch. I showered after Emerson, dressing in the bathroom instead of the open cabin out of fear that my dick wouldn’t cooperate.

“You’re quiet this morning,” Emerson said over breakfast. “And you’re barely eating.”

I’d done little more than push my scrambled eggs around my plate. The chalet was buzzing with skiers ready to begin their day. Their eager anticipation and excitement to hit the slopes didn’t reach me.

“Didn’t sleep well.”

“Do you wanna just head home?”

“No, I’m okay.” In demonstration, I shoved a heaping forkful of eggs into my mouth and washed them down with a swig of coffee.

Emerson studied me a minute before returning to his own meal, breaking a piece of bacon in half and dunking it in his egg yolk.

“So, next week I’ll be starting to coach the senior girl’s basketball team at the high school. They practice Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you’re looking for something to do, I could use a pair of extra hands.”

“You coach girl’s basketball? Seriously?”

“Well, I didn’t use to, but the woman who ordinarily runs the afterschool programs, the female gym teacher, she’s about six and a half months pregnant. I’m taking over for her because she’s having a rough go and her nausea has never gone away. It’s enough she can barely make it through the day teaching, never mind afterschool activities. I volunteered to help out.”

I snorted as I ripped the crust off my toast. “Always a do-gooder. So, you want me to come and help you with a bunch of senior high school girls?” I smirked and wiggled my brows. “I could make time for that.”

It was a joke, but my act earned me a glare.

“I was kidding. Jesus, Emerson, what do you take me for?”

“I’d like to think not a pervert.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why do you need me there?”

“I don’t. I just thought it would give you something positive to do. You’ve taken a liking at teaching those kids to snowboard, why not try your hand at coaching. Maybe there is something in it for you. Who knows.”

“Coaching would require me returning to school.”

“Is that really such a bad idea?”

“Yes.” Emerson sighed and pushed his empty plate away. I was way behind and sat up straighter as I shoved more food into my face, talking with my mouth full to bursting. “I hate school.”

“Manners, Kaiden.”

I caught his glare and looked away, chewing and swallowing shame along with my eggs. “Sorry.”

“It was just a thought. I’m meeting with the old coach and taking the reins on Tuesday, so come by my classroom Thursday at about three if you’re interested. I thought it would be something nice we could do together.”

Basketball wasn’t exactly a favorite sport, but it wasn’t foreign to me either. Besides, it would be a good way to spend more time with Emerson, and after this weekend, I couldn’t ignore the urge to want to be around him more.

“Sure. I can do that.”