“I’m exhausted after sitting on a plane all morning.” Brian’s been dropping hints to get me to bed for the last half hour, but I’ve been ignoring them. He finally looks over at me as if to tell me it’s time for bed, like I have to go with him just because he’s tired.
I’m tired, too—I’m just dreading alone time with my boyfriend.
“We’re gonna take off, too,” Lizzie says.
“Just stay the night here,” Mark says to her. I don’t miss the hint of desperation in his voice. He doesn’t want to be alone with Brian and me.
“All my stuff’s at home,” she says. “It’s only ten minutes away. We’ll see you in the morning at the hospital.”
We say our goodbyes and they leave, and I find myself alone with Mark and Brian—what could easily be an erotic fantasy but is instead a fucking nightmare.
“Well, you two have a good night.” Mark heads to the counter and picks up his keys and the Sox hat his mom bought him earlier.
“Where’re you going?” Brian asks.
He glances up but avoids eye contact with me. “Out.” With that final word, he walks out the door.
I follow Brian to our bedroom, trudging along behind him, feeling like quicksand is swallowing me up, like extra weight is added to the top of my foot with every step I take.
When we finally get into the bedroom, Brian nods toward the bathroom. “I’m gonna shower. You want to get in there first?”
“Yeah, if that’s okay. I'll be quick.”
He slides his phone out of his pocket and collapses on the bed. “Take your time.”
As I brush my teeth and wash my face, I contemplate the strange feeling between us. Does he sense something’s up? He’s held my hand, pressed kisses to my cheek or my temple, but he hasn’t tried to hold me or be intimate. He hasn’t been as affectionate as usual. I’m sure I’m just reading into the situation, and even though we’re guests in someone else’s house and we’re here because of a family emergency, I can’t help but think he’s going to want to have sex.
I don’t want to have sex with him.
For one thing, I’m sore after yesterday’s marathon with Mark.
But on top of that, I’m not sure I still have those feelings for Brian. Oddly, I’d feel like I’m cheating on Mark if I have sex with my boyfriend.
I’m doing everything I can to be here for him, to appear like the perfect girlfriend, to hold his hand and help him through this, but, as Mark mentioned at dinner, at what cost?
When I emerge from the bathroom, the bedroom is empty. I hear Brian talking down the hall, but I can’t make out words. I slip into bed. If I’m asleep by the time he comes to bed, I can avoid the topic of sex even coming up between us.
I hear him step quietly into the bedroom a few minutes later, and then I hear the shower start up. While he’s in there, I send Mark a text.
Me: You doing okay?
I change his contact name in my phone to Mary just in case. I don’t get a reply by the time Brian joins me in the bed. He flicks off the light then blows out a long breath beside me, and as much as I want to pretend I’m asleep, I can’t. I do still love him, and I don’t want him to suffer.
“Are you okay?” I ask quietly into the darkness.
“Sorry. Thought you were asleep.”
“I’m awake.”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” He pulls my back against his front. This is usually where he thrusts his hips against me as the signal, but tonight he doesn’t. Maybe he just is exhausted like he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I am, too,” I say, and it’s the truth. While I’m not glad I’m here next to Brian, I’m glad I’m here in Chicago despite everything. “Tell me about your grandfather.” I stroke a finger along the arm he has slung around my waist.
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “He’s the smartest man I’ve ever known.”
“What makes him so smart?”
“He’s perceptive. I learned how to read people by watching him. He owned a small paper company for years and years, and he was a salesman until he retired. He could sell water to a drowning man. You didn’t even know he was trying to sell you something until you’d already bought it.”
“Even you?”
“Not in the literal sense, but he’d divert our attention when we were kids. If I wanted the toy Mark was playing with, Pops would sell me on a new one.”
“Did you always want the toy your brother was playing with?” I tease. I tense as I realize the gravity of my words.
“Not always,” he says quietly. Then he chuckles. “But most of the time.”
“So this competition between the two of you, that goes back to childhood toys?”
“Yeah. Since he was older, he got everything first. Got to experience things first, got all the good toys first. I was always stuck in second place with the leftovers.”
“Like what?” I ask, thinking about how very differently each brother views their relationship. Mark sees Brian as the spoiled brat while Brian sees Mark as the one who got everything first.
“Lego sets. Pops always got Mark Lego sets.”
“What did he get you?”
“Matchbox cars. He still sends them every year on my birthday.”
“Did Mark ever want to play with your cars?”
He chuckles softly. “All the time. In fact, just a few years ago he bought a real eighty-two Dodge Challenger because it was his favorite of all my cars. And all I wanted was to play with his Lego sets.”
I remember the Challenger from the garage tour Mark gave me. Was that just two days ago? “So you both always want what the other has?”
“Something like that.” He tugs at my shoulder so I’m lying on my back. It’s dark in here, but I feel him moving closer. His mouth covers mine. It’s a soft kiss, sweet, and that’s it. “Night, Reese.”
I lie awake and stare at the ceiling for what feels like hours. Brian’s sleeping soundly beside me, spent after traveling to face an emotionally exhausting day.
I’m exhausted, too, physically and mentally, but I can’t sleep. I wonder where Mark is, wonder what he’s doing and what he’s thinking, wonder why he never responded to my text. I think about my conversation with Brian and how these brothers always want what the other has. I can’t help the insecurity that peeks through—is that all I am to Mark?
My heart tells me it’s more. My gut tells me it’s more. Mark himself has told me it’s more. But what if it’s not?
I turned off the vibration on my phone so it wouldn’t wake Brian, and I’m still awake when the screen lights up sometime after two in the morning. I pick it up and read the text.
Mary: Destiny.
I don’t respond. Instead, my heart beats so loudly I’m afraid it might wake Brian. I hear it in my ears, feel it in my stomach. I listen for Brian’s even breathing, make sure he’s asleep, and slip out of bed. I find my flip flops on the floor and snag a foot in each one then head for the staircase Mark showed me earlier that’ll lead me up to the roof.
He didn’t take me there earlier, merely showed me where to go to get up there, so I have no idea what to expect. I open the door as quietly as I can then take the steps two at a time—a difficult feat in flip flops. I open the door at the top of the stairwell, and Mark waits for me just on the other side.
I don’t have time to drink in the view behind him because I can’t seem to take my eyes from the man himself.
I know the city sprawls behind him, that Lake Michigan is there somewhere in the blackness, that the lights on the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier light up the night sky along with lights from other skyscrapers surrounding us. But I can’t focus on any of that.
He stands there looking a little lost, a little vulnerable—like the man I’ve fallen in love with. His green eyes are lined with shadows that aren’t normally there. He runs a quick hand through his messy hair and drags that hand down his jawline, then he strides toward me and pulls me into his arms before the door even clicks shut behind me.
His mouth crashes down to mine, hard and fast, faster than he’s ever been. He’s always slow and sensual with me, and this different side to him has my blood pumping and my veins awakening. His mouth opens and he tastes like peppermint and whiskey. He kisses me like he needs all of me to survive, and this is what I need, too. I need to feel him here with me, to know he’s not going to turn around and leave me just because we have to pretend. Our teeth clash together, but that doesn’t stop him. He’s rough and raw, and I ache for him.
He rips his mouth away from mine. He holds my body against his, but he doesn’t look me in the eye when he speaks. He looks just over my head, out at the blackness of Lake Michigan. “Did you fuck him?”
I run my fingers along his jaw and touch his lips. I wait for him to look at me before I answer, because I need him to see the truth in my eyes. When his eyes finally flick to mine, the longing and the sadness I find in the depths take my breath away. “No.”
He closes his eyes for a beat, and when he opens them again, they’re filled with relief.
“How could I do that with him when I’m in love with you?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he lets go of me and walks over to a couch with a tall back that looks over the city. He collapses onto the couch, and from where I’m standing by the door, I can’t even see the top of his head over the back of the couch. I walk around and sit next to him. I want to sit with him the way we always do, with his hand on my leg and my arms hugging his arm to my chest, but I’m suddenly tentative. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act here, so I lean forward on the couch and look out over the view.
“Where’d you go?” I ask.
“Out.”
“Where?”
“Sevens.”
I turn to look at him. “That bar you told me about where you guys used to play all the time?”
He nods.
“What did you do?”
“I sat at the bar and drank whiskey.”
Were you alone? Were there women there? Did you keep your promise? “Did anyone recognize you?”
He shrugs. “Vinny was at the door and I wore a ball cap and long sleeves. I kept my eyes down on my drink.”
“Why’d you go out?”
He focuses his gaze on the buildings in front of us. “Was I supposed to sit around and wait to see if you two were gonna have sex in my home? Wait to see if I could hear my brother pleasuring his girlfriend when it should be me? Wait to see if he held your hand, kissed your lips, looked at you with all the pent-up longing of a man who’s been away from his girl for a few days? Fuck that. I had to get out.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say. I keep focusing on how hard this is for me even though I’m trying to be sympathetic for both Brian and Mark.
“He told me about the Matchbox cars,” I finally say.
He blows out a breath.
“He told me how you both always want what the other has.”
“That’s not what this is.” His answer is immediate and firm.
“You’ve said that before. But how do I know?”
He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him. “You just have to trust me.”
We sit quietly as I contemplate how to do that. He’s given me no reason not to trust him, but it’s still a thin thread. I’m getting to know him, falling deeper for him, but I still know him first by the reputation he’s built for himself over the years. I still know him through the lens of the things Brian has told me about him—Brian, another man who’s given me no reason not to trust him. The man just downstairs who believes I’m here for him, who believes I’m in love with him.
Are we doing the right thing? Is it protecting him to prolong the inevitable, to keep the truth from him? I’m not convinced, but I’m letting Mark take the lead on this one. I trust that he has the best interest at heart for everyone involved. I trust that he knows his family—his brother—better than I do.
He finally breaks the silence. “How do I know you want me and not him?”
His gaze is still out over the city. I want to touch him, to run a finger along his eyebrow, down his cheek. I want to feel the rough stubble lining his jaw. But even though he’s right next to me, he feels so far away.
“You just have to trust me.” I throw his own words back at him, and he sighs then stands and pulls me up with him. We look out over the city together for a minute, and my heart races as my body clenches in delicious anticipation.
I hate that Brian is just downstairs, oblivious to our betrayal. I hate everything about what we’re doing. I hate how I feel inside, like the guilt is going to rip me open and spew all over the ground in front of me. I hate walking around with a constant pain in my stomach and tightness in my chest.
Mark finally pulls me into his arms, and I’m not sure anymore if he’s comforting me or if I’m comforting him—or both.
He leans his forehead down to mine, and then his lips find mine. What starts off as a tender kiss quickly ignites into something dark on a rooftop in Chicago. His tongue brushes mine while his hands are everywhere at once. He breaks from me and his eyes meet mine for one heated beat.
“I need you, Reese,” he says softly. “I need this.”
I nod. I know what he’s asking, and I’d give him anything. Anything.
“Hands on the railing,” he says softly.
I follow his command.
“Bend forward a little.”
I do, but I stick my ass out because the fear of heights overtakes the needy ache forming between my legs.
He snaps the elastic band of the shorts I’d gone to bed in. The loud crack seems to echo off the buildings surrounding us, and he grunts out a chuckle.
I hear a zipper followed by the familiar rip of a foil packet. There’s a quiet moment, then his hands yank down my shorts just far enough so he can plunge a finger right into me. He reaches around to massage one of my breasts as I bear down on his hand, desperate for some relief as fear races through my chest. We could get caught up here any second by the man who believes I’m a faithful girlfriend. He’s asleep just a floor beneath us, unaware of the burning passion up here on the roof, ignorant to the need clawing at both of us—a need so strong that we’re sneaking out to meet each other in the middle of the night.
“You’re always so ready for me,” he mutters as he pulls his finger down, the sound of my arousal filling the quiet night between us. He propels his finger up into me with force, and I let out a needy grunt.
I want to reach back, to fist his hardness in my palm, to taste every intimate part of him, but I’m stuck here as he drives his finger in and out, pushing me toward my breaking point, giving me the pleasure I always crave from him.
He pulls his finger out then thrusts himself right into me without warning. My swollen sex is greedy for him, and my breasts hang weightily as they wait for his hands. He thrusts over and over, and while the force is hard, the movement is tender. I feel the love in our connection despite the carnal way he fucks me from behind.
I want him to still inside me so I can memorize this feeling, memorize what it’s like when we’re connected like this as he fills me and hands himself over to me. But he pulls back before driving forward again, over and over as he brings us both to our highest highs. Just when I’m sure I’m about to come, he pulls out, leaving me cold and desperate for my release.
He tugs my shorts up then pulls on my hip.
I turn around. “Why’d you stop?” I grunt with a glare.
“Because I need to see your face when I make you come.”
Oh my God, I almost come from those words alone.
He steps over to the couch and sits. I stand between his legs, and he pulls my shorts with my panties slowly down my legs. He’s still wearing his jeans, but his concrete erection points upward, waiting like a beast for my warmth.
Once my shorts are off, I straddle his legs. He grabs his dick in his fist then plunges it back into me. His hands settle onto my ass, and he pushes and pulls to help us back into our rhythm. I lean down and take his face in my hands. I press my lips to his, and his mouth opens as he kisses me with a quiet, sweet desperation that breaks my heart at the same time that it makes me whole.
I love him. I’ve never loved anyone like this before, never felt this sort of all-consuming, fiery passion for another human being. I’ve never felt like I couldn’t do life without another person, but the minute Mark stepped into my life, all that changed. He’s the half of my heart that I never had, and as he fills my body with his, I know that this is what it feels like to be whole. Complete. Unbroken. I’ve never felt this sort of soul to soul connection, never felt another man in my veins, in the very make-up of my cells. I’ve never known for sure that I could give all of myself over to another person, never felt so confident in what I share with a man—not until right this second, here with Mark.
He breaks our kiss to say, “I love you.”
My eyes open and focus on his face. “I love you, too,” I say, then I hold his jaw in my hands as I watch his face twist in pleasure. He thrusts up into me then holds still as I watch him come. I close my eyes and give into the pressure he built there, my body uncoiling like a spring beneath him as the rush of bliss overtakes me in a fierce climax born from adoration.
We both breathe out a sigh. He leans forward to kiss me again, and I wrap myself around him as he softens inside me.
Eventually he lifts me to pull out. I get up from his lap and pull my shorts back on. He tosses the used condom in some garbage can then walks back over to me.
He kisses me tenderly again before he takes my hand and pulls me with him around the rooftop. An elevator sits opposite from the door that leads down to Mark’s place. It’s basically an outdoor bar up here. We pass several small fireplaces with chairs surrounding them. A long bar with barstools by it sits near the elevator. Several tables are set up, like this would easily convert to a place to host a great party with killer views.
“Can anyone come up here?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It’s mine, but I occasionally rent it out for events.”
We stand along the railing that looks out over the lake. A few lights dot the water as boats make their way somewhere. He leads me back over toward the couch by the door I used to get up here. “I like this view the best,” he says. We’re facing away from the lake and toward a bunch of buildings. We both collapse back onto the soft cushions, and this time, his hand goes to my thigh just like when we sit in the back of one of his cars. I hug his arm to my chest.
“This is nice,” I say.
“I come up here all the time just to think. It’s my little piece of heaven on Earth.”
“I like it up here.”
“Feel free to come up here whenever you want. I love imagining what’s happening in those buildings. I even wrote a song about it.”
I scroll through my mental catalogue of Vail songs. “‘Fading Tower’?”
He glances over at me with a slight look of wonder. He huffs out a chuckle as he shakes his head. “Sometimes I forget you’re a fan.”
“Your biggest fan, I think.”
He barks out a laugh. “You know the name of the eleventh track on our third album, a song that never even got airtime.”
“And now I know where the inspiration came from.” I’m sitting in the same spot where Mark Ashton came up with the concept for one of his songs. It’s all a little overwhelming. A few months ago, I was just a fan with a fantasy, and now...well, I’m not quite sure what we are now, but it’s something I never could’ve dreamed. His fingers flex on my thigh, pulling me out of my awe.
We’re quiet for a beat, both of us lost in thought, and then I ask, “Are they all offices?”
“Some are. Some are mixed, like my building. Business and residential.” He points to one. “That’s a hotel.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“I bought this place almost five years ago, I think, but I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life.”
“Do you like it here?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I was born here. I have family here.”
“That doesn’t really answer the question.”
“I hate the winters, especially after living in LA. I hate the traffic, but that’s everywhere and I’m not usually the one battling it anyway. I love the people, though, and I love the food. I love the three nice days a year we get, because those three days are the most gorgeous three days you’ll ever feel. I love the buildings and the history. I love the hustle here—it’s more of a rush than LA, but it’s not as crowded and crazy as New York. I love the river that’s dyed green every St. Patrick’s Day. I love the Cubs and the Bears. I love that my parents and grandparents are twenty minutes away and my sister is a couple miles down the road.”
“Every place has its pros and cons.”
“What about you? Why did you choose to stay in Vegas instead of heading back home to Phoenix?”
“I liked the independence. I love my family, but my parents tend to hover.”
“What would they think of you being with someone like me?”
I lift a shoulder. “My dad would think it’s awesome. He took Jill and me to our first Vail concert when we were seventeen. My mom would just worry.”
“About what?”
“That you’d corrupt me.”
He laughs. “Nailed that one.”
I nod and giggle. “Yeah, you did.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He’s quiet for a minute, as if he’s thinking about all the ways he’s corrupted me since we met. The list goes on, and it’s pretty filthy—starting with a one-night stand and including sneaking around behind someone else’s back. “You should get back to him. He’ll wonder where you are if he wakes.” His voice is wistful.
“I don’t want to.” I clutch his arm more tightly to my chest. “Can you remind me why we’re doing this?”
He sighs. “I can’t help it if hurting him is a byproduct of me falling for you, but the one thing I can control is when. Between shit at his work and now this with Pops, I’m just trying to soften the blow. It’s too much all at once. He’s got a history of making bad decisions when he’s pushed too far.”
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry about it! I’m sleeping beside a man who has a history of making bad decisions? What kinds of bad decisions?”
“Calm down, Reese. I just meant sometimes he drinks too much. He doesn’t think about consequences. I don’t want to add to what’s already going on, especially not after how everything went down with Kendra. Just give me a few days. A week, tops. Okay? I’m just trying to do right by everyone the best way I know how.”
“Isn’t it a little late to be worried about hurting him?”
He tilts his head back, eyes up on the stars. “Yeah, probably. I don’t know. God, this is so fucked up.” He slings an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close for a minute that’s far too short. He presses his lips to my temple then lets go of me and stands. “Thanks for the hit. Should get me through to tomorrow.”
It’s his way of bidding me goodnight, and half of me is hurt at his easy dismissal while the other half basks in his choice of words. He took a hit like I’m his addiction. The thought is comforting in the chaos.