Page 54 of Fracture

“Oh.” The pain intensifies, and I chide myself silently for being a selfish fuck. “She probably really wanted to see her mom, huh?”

Levi laughs cynically and raises his eyebrows. “It did not sound like it. But with her family I don’t think she has much choice.”

“I guess not.”

“Did you know she lived with my mom after we were sentenced?”

I take another sip of coffee, and rub my chin. “Yeah, Zee told me. But when I try to talk to Stella about it, she just says that it doesn’t matter, and that it’s done.”

Levi sighs, crawling into the bed beside me and leaning against the headboard. He runs his hands over his face, and lets them drop heavily into his lap. “She said the same thing to me this morning.” He gives me a side glance. “So you and her, you made up?”

I shrug, placing the cup on the nightstand, resuming my position beside him simply to feel the warmth of his shoulder against mine. “I guess we did. I didn’t think she’d leave me alone like this, but…”

“I’m here,” Levi says, and slowly, hesitantly, he lays his hand over mine. I swallow hard, because all the pain and grief, the soreness that lies in every muscle of my body and the ache in my chest, they all dissipate just a little as his strong hand wraps around mine. “I’m sorry for what happened. With your grandpa, I mean.”

I scoff bitterly. “I’m not.”

“No, I mean-” He breaks off with a sharp breath, frowning at our joined hands. “I should have come to the hospital. I should have been there.”

“There’s nothing you could have done.”

With a strangled laugh he releases my hand and scoots to the edge of the bed, running his fingers through his hair. “God fucking dammit, Kovac, you really make it hard to look after you, you know that?” He looks over his shoulder at me, and there’s no swagger, no smirk on his face. Levi Fenton is looking at me with pain and longing, his eyes full of a desire for something neither of us want to admit to.

“I worried about you, all afternoon. All evening.” His brow furrows, and he grits his teeth as he sucks in a breath. “I miss you, OK? I miss you, and I’m at work with you, all day, I’m here with you, and I have to watch you and Stella navigate whatever the fuck you two have going on, and I’m just here, wondering who-” He cuts off, his head hanging to his chest. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what to do with what I feel for you. And it’s fucking killing me.”

I’ve never seen him like this. Not over anyone. Levi was always too cool to get caught up on anyone. But now he’s sitting here, suffering through a half-mumbled confession of something, I’m not even sure what, and all I can think about is how I just spent a night lying in this bed with Stella, and now I’m sitting here with her brother, wanting nothing more than to kiss him.

“We agreed it was just going to be the one time,” I say slowly, and Levi’s eyes flash over his shoulder at me as he laughs cynically.

“I think we both know that was a stupid fucking idea.” He turns to me, and rubs a hand over his mouth, before reaching out to take my hand again. “If there was a way, for us to be together-”

“There’s not.” I can’t even let that thought take hold. It hurts too much.

“But if there was… I mean…” He lifts his eyes to look at me, and his lip trembles, his brows drawn together. “Would you want to be?”

I pull my hand away with a grunt. “Why the fuck are you doing this to me?” I push the sheet away, climbing out of the bed and clawing my hands against my head. “I - I can’t fucking do this right now. I cannot believe you’d fucking ask me this.”

He’s in front of me in an instant, taking my face in his hands, his eyes almost frantic as they search mine. “I’m sorry! You thinkI want this? To drive us both half fucking crazy while knowing what it would do to Stella? I’m not doing this because I enjoy it.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, and his eyes move to my lips. “Because I need you.”

I’m suddenly aware of the fact that I’m naked, and he’s pressing his barely dressed body against me. Everything slips into sharp focus, the heat of his body and the brush of his fingertips against the stubble on my jaw. I know I should push him away. I know this is wrong. But I also know that Levi is right and that sleeping with him just one time opened up the floodgates on all the feelings I’d tried to suppress. It’s selfish. It’s selfish and wrong, and my better judgment tells me to push Levi out the door and out of my fucking heart and life as fast as possible.

But of course I don’t do that. Like the weak, desperate coward I am, I grab him and pull him close, my mouth descending on his and his answering moan making me hard in an instant. I need him too, in a way I never expected to. I’m selfish and greedy, because as I kiss him and taste his mouth and his hands roam over me in a frenzy, I wonder why I shouldn’t be able to have them both?

I’ve lost everyone in my life, don’t I deserve more? Why should I have to fucking choose? Why do I have to decide between the two people who own the fucking air in my lungs and every beat of my wrecked and ruined heart? Why can’t I have them both? Why can’t they both have me?

Levi pushes me on to the bed, and I lie back, letting his mouth and hands explore me.

“Fuck, pretty boy,” he says over a rasping breath, wrapping his hand around my cock. His eyes darken as he gazes up at me, and he licks his lips. “I’ve never done this before.”

I stroke a hand through his hair. “I’ll tell you what feels good, don’t worry.”

“Kinda new to me, wanting a dick in my mouth, you know?”

I throw my head back and laugh breathlessly, a hand over my face. “You don’t have to do this.”

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