Page 68 of A Brother's Secret

“I get it, come onup.”

She let me lead her to and up the stairs to the second floor and paused, touching the door to my old bedroom. I smiled and opened it up for her and I felt her shoulders slump with relief. This was a room I hadn’t changed. Nothing. Not a thing… but I also didn’t sleep here anymore. The twin bed definitely insufficient.

“We’ll revisit later, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay,” she agreed.

I led her down to my parent’s old room, the master suite, and she followed. I shut the door tightly behind us and she sighed, looking around relieved. This space was all mine, the new me, the ‘me’ that I’d been without Mali here, suffering daily through her absence. This room was very grown up and with her in it, almost felt foreignnow.

She took everything in, the muted masculine colors I preferred; the modern furniture, and slid out of my old jacket slowly. I took it from her and hung it on the coat tree in the corner by the closet, adding mine beside hers. I stared at the two coats, side by side, hanging innocuously there and felt a stricture around my heart ease marginally. She was here, really here with me in this space, but it still sort of felt incomplete. I didn’t know why, and when I turned, I saw it reflected in her eyes, too.

Maybe time? Maybe we just needed to get through a small grace period before things started to feel right. It was just so incredibly new, shocking almost, even though it was what both of us wanted so badly.

She sank down carefully on the side of my bed and leaned over, working the laces open on her boots and disengaging the zipper on the inside of each leg, lowering them to the floor. I pulled off my own and set them at the base of the coat rack like I did every time I took them off when I was home. She looked around with uncertainty and scraped her bottom lip between her teeth. I went over and took her boots from her and took them over and set them next to mine, beneath her jacket.

“I feel so out of place,” she said and looked at a loss when it came to saying more. I went to her and held my hands out. She obliged me and took them, letting me draw her to her feet. I pulled her close, twining her arms around my waist and cradled her face between my hands.

“You’re right where I want you to be. You’re right where you belong.” I lowered my lips to hers and her eyes drifted shut. She kissed me back, slow, sweet, and in no rush. We savored each other, our bodies relaxing, tension easing from muscles even as our mutual breathing pickedup.

“Clothes off,” she breathed and I hauled on the back of my shirt, up over my head. She gripped the hem of hers and they both drifted to the floor forgotten as we reached for one another, pulling each other tight.

“I thought you were tired,” I teased when she went for mybelt.

“I am, but I need you to put me in acoma.”

I laughed, “Yeah?” The smile melted off my face when she looked at me and her brown eyes were nothing but somber. It killed my boner, and I smoothed my hands up and down herarms.

“Talk to me, baby,” I murmured and didn’t care about the pleading that’d crept into mytone.

“I’m a magnet for disaster, Kyle,” she said helplessly. “I hurt everyone I come into contact with. I feel like a regular Typhoid Mary and I’m all of a sudden not so sure that this was such a goodidea.”

“It’s the best idea,” Isaid.

“I’m really not so sure. What if I fuck this up like I have everything else?” She grimaced and I held her tight.

“You didn’t fuck anything up, Mali. You shot the son of a crime boss who was trying to shoot your dad. You defended the only piece of family you had. If that’s on anybody, it’s on your pops. Notyou.”

I knew I was treading on dangerous ground. Mali was as loyal as a person could get where her dad was concerned. When we’d been kids, she’d come up with every excuse for him under the damn sun when he’d lose his shit and do something awful. She craved so badly to be loved and accepted by him; and on the surface? He tried to make it look good in front of other people that she was the apple of his eye, but I don’t think he was honestly capable of anything deep. As my momma used to say, that man was as shallow as God madethem.

I waited for her to make an excuse, to take up for him now, but she surprised me. She didn’t say anything in his defense, instead, she murmured, “Maybe I just need a good night’s sleep. Maybe, I’m just tired and will feel better in the morning.”

I nodded, “I have a thing tomorrow for my day job, but I think you’re right, baby. Sleep is the order of theday.”

She stepped back reluctantly but I beat her to unfastening her pants. I went to my knees in front of her and slid them down her legs, taking her panties with them. I took them off, then slipped off her socks one by one. I stood, trailing fingertips along her curves and supple skin. Learning her body by touch like a blinded man learning braille. I guess, in some ways, I was blinded when it came to Mali. I knew she had flaws but to me, they were nothing compared to her light and I was dazzled by that. I was so in love with her, I took seventeen years out of my life to find her and did things in that time that most men would call me crazy if theyknew.

I was crazy. Crazy about her. Always had been and always wouldbe.

I stood slowly, letting my fingertips drag along her body as she stood there, eyes closed and barely breathing. I was inside her space, drinking her energy in long before my lips touched hers for a physical taste. She whimpered against my mouth and the hard-on that’d lost interest was suddenly back and all about it. I unfastened my own jeans, shoving them and my boxers off my hips, Mali’s long, sensual fingers came out of nowhere, wrapping around my length, stroking me from root to tip. Her other hand rested on my hip, fingers digging, subtly begging for me to come that much closer.

I held her face between my hands and concentrated on kissing her and she took a half step back toward the bed. I followed, staying in her space, unwilling to let her go. Her talk of being toxic bothered me, made me afraid that she might try to leave again in a bid to protect me from my own heart’s deepest desire: that she stay. That she would live with me and be with me like this until we were both old and gray like we’d talked about so many times before, when we werekids.

She stopped, pinned between me and the bed. She broke our kiss and turned in my embrace putting her back to my chest. My arms locked around her body and my hand found her chin. I pinned her against my body, playing lips and teeth against the side of her neck. She gave a throaty gasp as I let my cock find its way between her ass cheeks, pressing it snug between them as I growled in her ear harshly, “What you do tome…”

“God yes, I want you to use it,” she moanedback.

“Hair down,” I ordered and her hands immediately moved to comply.

Her fingers unwound her braid and worked the mass of her tresses loose. I gave her a shove and demanded, “Lay down on your stomach.”

She climbed up onto the bed and lay on her stomach and the fact she complied was a heady cocktail of power and desire in my blood. I started low, kissing her calves, moving up her legs, steady, my heart rate and body heat climbing as I settled over her, hands on her ass and opened her up, I wanted to make love to her, but more importantly, I wanted things to be intimate.

So I played with her body, causing sensations, doing everything I could to make her melt, make her relax, and bring down the invisible walls between us. I would take all night if I hadto.

---