Page 51 of Breaker

When his gaze dips to my throat, then back to my mouth, I lick my lips, feeling how his body seems to tense and loosen all at once next to me. All thoughts of Delilah slip away and I’m suddenly a bit too aware of him. His clean citrusy scent. The warmth of his thigh against mine.

Of course, my head floods with the images of him on his knees before me, but I shove that away.

“Not yet,” I say my voice a bit hoarse. “Reaper wants her focused before he tells her our plans.”

Viper nods, eyes still on my mouth. “Is our girl still mad at us?”

My cock stirs, all of me flooding with fire and the memory if his mouth on my cock. Consumed with how his body language is shifting, changing. Heating up next to me. I swallow and his eyes dip to my throat again.

“I think she’s just upset at everything,” I say thickly, my gaze snaking down to his chest. Lower. His cock strains against his tight fatigues.

Shit. I move to stand up but he grabs my wrist.

“Stop running,” he says quietly. “Just stay.” He releases my hand when my gaze falls to his dick again. “Just sit with me for a bit? Like we used to?”

I breathe in, filling my lungs as memories crash through my mind. The school was harsh, and Fallon, the environment, did everything to break us down. Make as cold and roughly hewn as our surroundings. And it did for the most part. But I don’t think Fallon thought how when you put people together in a cruel place, they bond to one another. They seek comfort where there is none given.

My brother’s and I may be callous and cold, but we still kept space for one another. Breaker was so young, so naive in many ways, and his need for affection forced us all to soften.

We’ve grown up together. Fought for our lives together. Clawed our way through the last few years, trying to piece ourselves back together after Hunter’s death. We’ve fucked the same women, watched each other come with eyes open and our hearts bleeding.

We’ve hoped for the same things. Craved the same bodies.

We’ve formed our own family.

With a slight nod, I sit and lie back, crooking an arm under my head, my boots still planted on the floor. Viper lies down next to me, propping a heel in the edge of his bed. His shoulderpresses tightly to mine but I find I like the contact. After a minute the tension evaporates, and I feel myself and him relax.

Keeping my eyes on the ceiling, they trace the cracks in the paster, down to the ornate crown molding to the peeling blue wallpaper. Marie Antoinette blue Breaker calls it. He was such a weird kid.

Then again, none of us have any clue what he endured after Fallon took him from the cold room. A shudder runs through me at the thought of three-year-old Breaker being left hungry and cold in that room for three days.

He never told us where he was before the school, just said he didn’t remember and left it at that. I have a feeling that’s a lie, but I never pushed him. Just like we never pushed him to tell us how he earned his name.

We all found out eventually.

Shit. I miss Breaker, too.

I turn my head to look at Viper’s profile. He’s so stupidly sexy that it’s an assault to the senses. “Did he ever tell you why he calls it Marie Antoniette blue?”

He grins, shaking his head. “No. But it does remind me of the dress in her portrait.”

The backs of our hands brush. I don’t pull away and neither does he. We let them stay like that, flesh on flesh, slightly warming each other in the chilly room.

Chapter 17

Cora

It’s only been threedays since I was brought back, and I’m already exhausted. How I’m supposed to survive this, I have no clue.

Each day has gone by in a blur. I go to work and stare at the stacks of papers on my desk. I leave work and go back to Rune’s. Clyde makes me dinner I eat and go to sleep. It’s mundane and uneventful and somehow, we’ve ended up outside of Zane’s office for a meeting to discuss who knows what.

I’m spacing out more and more, like I’m floating through life barely feeling or seeing anything. I need to keep focused but the magnitude of my sorrow keeps pulling me under.

Clyde nudges my arm after he knocks on the door, and we wait for Zane’s assistant to let us in. “Do you want me take you shopping to pick a dress for the upcoming fundraiser?”

Fuck. Why I keep forgetting about the event, I don’t know. Maybe because the thought of being stuck in a public space as Zane’s arm candy and future wife makes me want to dive out of my office window.

After our encounter outside the office building, I’ve managed to avoid Zane. Mostly I’ve stayed in my office, staring at the files that stack higher each day, wishing I was back with Delly.

---