Page 49 of Milo
After five minutes I come to a stop, leaning against a tree and fumbling for my inhaler in my coat pocket. After a quick puff, I feel the tight grip of my lungs ease a little, but I stay still for a second. The woods are silent around me, apart from the wind rustling the leaves and the soft slither as they fall gracefully to the ground.
He hasn’t followed me. The fact is stark in my head, no matter how I try to bolster myself. All week I’ve looked on this as some daring experiment on my behalf, a chance to exorcise my childhood crush and move on with life. It had been so stupid because it’s not freed me from my infatuation. Instead, it’s entangled me further in its clutches.
I look up at the darkening sky, the sun sinking into the horizon and leaving behind a cold navy sky shot through with red, and I shiver as a chill seizes me. This week has been so amazing. I never knew sex could be like that. Before it had been painful and awkward and filled with a half-formed permanent fear that Thomas would really let go and hurt me. Being with Niall has been as different as night and day. Or maybe a deep, warm twilight when the whole world seems touched with purple and gold and hovering on the brink of beauty.
I’ve explored every inch of his warm body, inhaling the scent of him into my body, twisting him and turning him, all that power at my command. I’ve watched him shudder and come, looking more naked and vulnerable at that moment than I’d ever dreamed he could.
But he’s done the same to me, and I see now that while I revelled in my power to make him groan and cry out, he’s been exerting his own power over me and not just in the ability to make me come harder than I ever thought possible.
Instead, he’s talked to me. Lying side by side, sharing the same pillow with the sweat drying on our bodies, he’s shared things. Favourite things, childhood memories. He’s fed me, bringing plates of cheese and fruit to bed and licking the sticky juices from my lips. I’d seen it as just refuelling for the next bout. A sort of foreplay, but it wasn’t that. It was so much more.
I shake my head. If I’m not careful I’ll be right back where I started. Wanting him more than anything I’ve ever desired and somehow weak in that wanting. I square my shoulders. I’m not going back to that, begging for scraps of attention and becoming less in the begging.
Nevertheless, I look back once more before starting up the path toChi an Mor.
He didn’t follow me.
Niall
I watch the lithe and graceful figure of Milo disappear down the path. “Shit!” I say forcefully. “Shit!”
I go to step after him, but I’m brought up short by Gideon’s restraining hand on my arm. “Gideon,” I say warningly, but he shakes his head.
“I don’t think so. You and I should have a little talk first.”
“Talk,” Jacinta pouts, inserting herself between us, her slim body pale against the tan and brawn of our bodies. “Why are we talking? Let’s fuck.”
I look down at her, feeling as removed from this display as if I’m bricked off by an invisible wall. There isn’t even a stir from my cock and I know in that second that I’m fucking doomed. “Not tonight,” I say smoothly, detaching myself from her arms and stepping back. “I need to go after Milo.”
“I don’t think so,” Gideon says, and the coolness of his voice is roughened by either anger or concern. I can’t tell which, butfor the first time in years, his calm demeanour is looking slightly ruffled. “First we talk about my brother. What the fuck is going on between the two of you?”
“You’re fucking Milo?” Jacinta purrs, sniffing slightly and wiping her nose. “That’s so hot. Do you think he’d join us?”
“No,” Gideon and I shout in stereo and she shrugs sulkily.
“I can already tell this weekend is going to be fucking boring. The two of you are getting staid.” Then she brightens and roots around in her pocket before retrieving a small plastic packet with a triumphant air. “This will sort you both out. Just what you need. Have a bit of blow. It’s amazing shit.”
I push her hand gently back. “No thanks, and you won’t be doing that in my house either, Jacinta.” She pouts at me, but I shake my head sternly. “Not even once. I catch you piling that shit up your nose in a house where a baby visits and you and I are going to fall out in a big way.”
She shrugs crossly and turns to Gideon, winding her way around him. “Such a party pooper,” she slurs. “Niall’s no fun anymore. He’s got so boring and suburban lately. Fix him with your magic cock, darling.”
He stands still, his face set and chilly in the darkening light. “I don’t think that’s going to work anymore.”
I feel a pang of something like sorrow and loss in my belly and chest. It’s always been Gideon for me. The two of us bonded and have never let go since the early days at school. Silas has always been my best friend, but Gideon and I were something more. We were each other’s family and my loyalty to him was unswerving.
I’ve fucked him and Jacinta in so many different variations. It was hot and fierce but over the last few years, it’s been the only way that I could be with Gideon because he wields Jacinta and other women between us like a sword cutting off his real desires as if they’ll die and go away. I know it tortures him, but I can’t bepart of that. I know it with a sudden deep certainty, and looking at him, I can tell he realises it too.
Jacinta huffs and wanders towards the house, calling for her cases to be brought in, but he and I stand still staring at each other. For a few minutes there’s silence except for the distant hooting of an owl, but then he stirs and turning, he starts to walk to the house. I notice the fucker has left his bags as well, like I’m their butler as well as their co-fucker.
He looks back and inclines his head at me. “Come on,” he commands. “You and I need to have a chat.”
I look back longingly at the way Milo went but he shakes his head. “Now, Niall. You owe it to me to tell me what the fuck is going on with you and my baby brother.” The anger vibrates through his voice as well as something that sounds very much like pain. It’s that last note that makes my feet move reluctantly after him like he’s wielding the dark magic of my loyalty to him to make me obey. I look back once more at the now dark lane before shaking my head.
I have to make this right because otherwise there will be no going forward with Milo, and the desire to do that is becoming stronger every second I’m away from him.
Milo
I manage to get halfway up the first set of stairs to the attic without seeing anyone, but as soon as I hear footsteps behind me, I sigh resignedly.
