Page 31 of Under The Twilight Rainfall
I can’t want him.
I can’t have him.
“Dex.” There’s a hand on my shoulder, fingers lightly caressing the skin. “Are you okay?”
I blink, wet my lips, and ignore the pressure building behind my eye.
I’m fine, I think, but there’s too much going on and my thoughts are muddled.
Valen wraps his arm around me, hand stroking through my hair, and all of the tension in my body goes slack. My mind is still a roller coaster of thoughts, but my eyelids droop as Valen leans me back so my head rests on the couch cushion.
“I’ve got you,” he says.
I fight with my tongue to spit out, “I don’t need it.”
He chuckles beside me, absently scratching my scalp. “Just take a minute and I’ll leave you alone.”
It sucks to admit that he’s right. That a minute of silence with his soft touches to distract me is enough to quiet the whirlwind in my mind.
Except I’m not any closer to wrapping my head around the sudden onslaught of feelings I’m having for Valen.
I can’t want him.
I can’t have him.
True to his word, once I’m no longer paralyzed by the weight of my thoughts, Valen disentangles from me, and the squeeze he gives my thigh is dangerously close to my cock.
At least the erection got the memo we aren’t acting on our impulses tonight.
He lingers a moment too long, and when our eyes meet, I know I’m fucked.
I want him.
Fuck him for knowing me so well. For knowing what I need before I need it. For looking so fucking hot and sweet at the same time that I don’t know what I want more: to be fucked by him or kissed out of my mind.
My brain is bone-dry, empty as shit by the time I grip the back of his neck and pull him closer, pull his mouth right up to mine and drop my lips to his jaw, trailing to a spot below his ear that makes him gasp.
“Dex…?”
His voice is hesitant but his body is compliant. I nip his ear and listen to an exhale that signifies the fight leaving his head. My fingers find his rib cage just as his cup the back of my neck—and it feels so fucking good to let go of theI can’t, I shouldn’t, I don’t get toand just let what I want consume me.
I want Valen.
Maybe I can have a piece of him.
“Vally?”
The voice makes me drop my hands from Valen’s waist, heartbeat hammering as I see the little mop of dark hair standing on the other side of Valen’s sleep mat.
Valen cranes his head back, fingers tightening on my nape but rubbing soothing circles all the same.
“Hey, buddy.”
Even as he pulls away, his touch lingers. He smiles at the little boy standing with red-rimmed eyes, holding a stuffed dog that looks like it’s been through the ringer a couple of times. It pulls at the strings in my chest, because I remember being there. Having that one thing that still felt like yours after being moved around from home to home.
“What’s wrong? Hey, c’mere.” Valen opens his arms—now back on his own cushion—and Theo nearly trips over the mat to get to him. He buries his face in Valen’s chest, and the look of pure love on Valen’s face as he holds his little brother nearly knocks the wind out of me.
Because I’ve seen that look before. I saw it after school when Valen would sit on my bed and go over my homework. I saw it when he caught me sneaking out or following him to places I shouldn’t. When he saw my scars, and instead of saying the usual bullshit—“You’ll be okay,” or “Why would you do that?”—he smiled at me in that soft, heartfelt way and slung an arm around me, mumbling into my hair, “Life is fucking shit sometimes.”
