Page 34 of Breaking You Open

I’ve been glaring so incessantly at Maurice that I’ve failed to notice the company at Sparrow’s table. Company in the form of the trucker who ordered a beer earlier in the night.

He’s leaning into Sparrow over the table now, and Sparrow is…smiling. My face grows hot, and the kettle boils over when the trucker stretches to brush a strand of hair out of Sparrow’s face, and Sparrowdoesn’t flinch away.

What. The. Fuck.

One moment, I’m at the bar. The next, I’m behind the trucker, yanking him by the collar so hard he stumbles to his feet and wheezes, “What did I do?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I growl. “All that matters is you’re banned from ever entering this bar again. Got it?” I shake him by the collar, and he clutches at his throat, eyes bulging.

“Okay, okay, I’m going!”

I let go of him, and with a wheezed-out, “Fucking animal,” he stumbles toward the door.

I look up to find the whole bar staring at me. Maurice in particular looks dark-eyed, his mouth a thin line, while Sparrow stares at me with a strange expression I can’t begin to decipher.

The scene that just played out isn’t uncommon per se, but it usually doesn’t happen unless someone hasreallyacted out. Flirting with a patron is hardly grounds for a ban, but I don’t give a fuck.

“What?” I say, trying for a casual gesture with my arms out. “He was too drunk. And you,” I growl, wrapping my hand around Sparrow’s neck and leading him toward the back room. “You’re coming with me.”

I all but throw Sparrow into the room and slam the door shut behind us. “What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” Sparrow asks, defiant despite the obvious distress in his eyes. He backs further into the room, and I close up on him, herding him against the far-end wall.

“Who said you could flirt?”

“I wasn’t flirting! I was just being nice, and so was he.”

Is he serious? No, he can’t be, right? “That’s bullshit. Even you can’t be that fucking naive.”

Sparrow wraps his arms around himself, gaze falling to his chest. “Louis, you’re scaring me.”

“Yeah, you should be scared. You shouldn’t be nice to people like him. Or people like me.”

“Why not? You’re kind to me. You let me stay with you. You feed me amazing food and tuck me into bed.”

“That was just the once,” I growl, but with the memory of his lithe body in my arms, my surging anger dissolves into something else.

Sparrow lifts his hands to cup my face. “Don’t you want me?” he asks, eyes glittering with tears, his palms cool and soft on my rough, bearded face.

I grab his wrists and push them down. “You have no idea, little Sparrow.”

“No idea about what?” He seems at the end of his rope, cheeks growing red with frustration.

“You have no idea how much I want to fucking ruin you.”

His tearstained eyes flick up at me. “So why don’t you?”

I shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t.” But despite my words, my hand wraps around his waist and presses at the small of his back, bringing our bodies closer. “I can’t be with you.”’

Eyes closed, Sparrow breathes against me, squirming in my grip, looking like he has to gather all his self-control not to surge forward and capture my lips with his.

I grunt and flip him over, pressing my body up against his back. “You want this?” I ask, slotting my swelling crotch to his ass.

“Yeah,” he gasps. “Yes.”

I feel the heat of him, his trembling excitement. It’s too much. I can’t keep tempting myself with him, yet I can’t stop myself from nosing into his neck and inhaling his sweet scent. I imagine falling to my knees, tearing his pants down, and devouring his tight little hole.

But I can’t let myself do it. I can’t ruin him like I ruined Justin.

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