Dirty Laundry (16 page)

Wildfires create their own weather. The air becomes a storm, whipping up high winds and lightning that arcs sideways, slamming into anything in its path. Sliding into Jae’s body was like falling naked and drenched in gasoline into the middle of a firestorm. I knew my death would come, but the rush was pure adrenaline and it was an experience I couldn’t live without.

He was home. Exotic and welcoming. A familiar mystery that drove me insane as I fought my instincts to cling too tightly when I was afraid he’d walk away or to throw my hands up in the air and run as far as I could when I didn’t understand him. Nested deep into Jae, I felt my soul pour out into the furthest corners of my consciousness and fly.

Jae straightened, pulling me deeper. Resting my knees on the cushion’s edge, I begin moving. Slowly at first, long, deep movements to pierce through his desire. His sweet spot clung to my cock, dragging over the ridge of my shaft. Snagging it again, I pushed down on the small of his back, closing his ass cheeks in so he could feel the burn rip through his body. Shuddering around me, Jae twisted and grabbed my hair, pulling my head forward until our mouths could touch.

We stayed that way, locked in a dual kiss of tongue and sex. I thrust harder, striking the sensitive nerves inside of him. His body went awry, unable to hold onto any semblance of restraint as I pounded the control right out of him. I felt his ass clench over my base, then a ripple under his skin telling me he was close to the edge.

I slid a hand over his hip bone, found his slender cock, brushed over its head, palming the seed it’d already leaked to rub it down his shaft. Jae hissed, startled at the too-sharp touch of his sex’s yearning then curved into my grasp, fucking my palm when I tightened my fingers around him.

Neither of us had words. Not anymore. Our names became our only language, combined with whispering moans and the creaking slam of the couch against the living room floor when our efforts grew too wild for the furniture to handle. Jae’s cock jumped in my hand, the first jerk of its coming, and I wrapped my arm around his chest to heave him back.

“Cole, so close,” he panted. Jae dropped his head forward, and I scraped at the back of his neck, marbling the skin there with red welting lines.

Pistoning him on my cock, I drove into Jae, holding him aloft while milking him dry with my fingers. Slamming up into his heat, I continued to mark him, biting where I could reach and pulling at the flesh until I left something behind. I wanted to engrave a part of myself onto him… into him… and for the first time since he’d mentioned it, I realized I really wanted to have him without anything between us… no latex… no lies… no family pressures… nothing but the sound and feel of each other’s bodies.

“
Saranghae, agi
,” I whispered into his ear, nipping at the lobe. “I love you so much I never want to let you go.”

He came. Violently. One second Jae was a writhing mess of passion on my lap, and the next he was filling my palm with his release. The hot spill on my hand sent me deeper into the firestorm, and I finally succumbed, letting my control become ash and my body swirl up into the fiery winds.

The world spun into a black whirlwind, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Choking on my own breath, I continued to plunge into him, drawing out every last gasp and mewling cry I could. Our torsos were slick with sweat, and other than the sounds of our limbs striking wet skin to wet skin, my ears were filled with my pounding heart and Jae’s grunting release.

I unraveled, spilling out into my lover. The rush started up between my legs, catching my nerves unaware and twisting them about until I could no longer feel the difference between inside my body and without. Jae pressed back, his spine curved into the hollow of my belly and chest, and I sank into his curled form, bringing my arms up to hold him tight against me.

My cock continued to jerk, pumping its desire into Jae’s slackening channel. No longer primed and painfully tight, he held me gently between his cheeks, undulating softly to pull me to the end. Kissing the tiny scores I’d left on his shoulders, I fell sideways into the cushions, taking him with me.

We lay there, still joined and doing nothing more than trying to catch our breaths. I made trails on Jae’s belly with my fingers, using his sticky spill as it dried under my fingernails. He shifted, only enough to get comfortable, but my latex-wrapped cock slid free from him and I sighed, resigned to losing the feel of him around me.

“You know,” I said when I finally could find my tongue in my mouth. “I don’t think I spent enough time on your nipples.” I tweaked one, and he hissed. “Huh, guess I spent enough time on them to make them tender. Give me a minute and I’ll lick them better.”

“I can’t stay,” Jae whispered. “I… didn’t mean for this… to happen.”

“What?
This
?
This
always happens, baby.” A rush of cold air chewed up my body when Jae slid off of me. “I love
this
. I love
you
.
This
is what happens when people love each other.”

“No, Cole-ah.” Jae reached for his jeans, refusing to meet my eyes while he tugged them up over his slender hips. “I didn’t come here to make love to you. I came here to tell you good-bye.”

I
WASN
’
T
going to have this conversation naked and with my cock wrapped in a semen-filled balloon. The condom came off with a tug. It ended up in the small trash can with all the stupid ad-cards magazines shoved in between their stapled pages. Still sticky from our joining, I peeled myself off the couch and tugged on my boxers, nearly bashing my head against the apothecary chest in my rush to get them on.

I didn’t need to hurry. Jae wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he’d pulled on his jeans, then fallen back onto the couch, overlooking the fact that we’d spread most of our sex over its cushions.

Fallen back was too strong of a word. Looking down at him from the end of the sofa, his long body curled up tight in on itself, replete was a much better choice. Devastated was also a good choice, but I liked shattered best.

“I’m not going to let you say good-bye,” I murmured, climbing onto the couch next to him. Lightly touching his arm with my fingertips, I ran them up over his elbow and down to his wrist. Working my fingers into his, I was shocked to find out how cold they were against the heat of my palm. “Jae, talk to me. What did you mean…
good-bye
?”

“I can’t do this,
agi
.” He looked up at me, his eyes shiny with tears. They clung to his lashes, growing heavier as I watched. Then one fell, coursing down the cheek I’d kissed moments ago. Another followed, trailing down after its brother, and their combined weight formed a single drop, its heavy curve poised to fall from Jae’s jaw.

“What did you mean?” I pressed, kissing away that tear before it fell onto his shoulder. I felt like I needed to keep his sorrow from falling onto his chest, away from where he kept his heart… away from where he kept his love for me. If I could do that, then I could keep him safe from whatever chased him… from whatever hurt him.

It was silly nonsense, and to spite the silent nightmares galloping through my mind, he smiled at the gentle brush of my lips across his face. He hated to be touched when emotional. He hated feeling weak and needing someone. I usually had to wait until he turned to me for comfort. In this instance, I wasn’t going to wait.

Not while a blood-numbing frost spread through my chest and into my fears.

My own pussy-ass fears could wait. It was time to chase off Jae’s boo-wigglies. Mine could stand by pulling on their own puds and wait their turn.

I pulled him into my arms, cradling him in my lap like I did his cat when she wanted attention. He sat there, legs pulled up under him, and let me rock him, even sighing when I stroked his hair. We stank and stuck together where our skin met, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that our skin met, and his rigid, tense spine began to relax.

The sun set on us, lengthening the shadows in the living room. The pendant light I’d left on in the front hall gave me enough to see him, but it wouldn’t have mattered if we’d been drenched in darkness. Half an hour into Jae’s crumple, his threadbare control gave way, and his shoulders shook with the force of his sadness.

It hurt as much to hold him as to hear him say he’d meant to tell me good-bye. He’d held me when I’d fallen apart in the car after the worst dinner of my life. I could stand holding him through this. Even as every tear he shed burned down through me as if they were drops of molten metal on my plastic soul, he was worth the pain… worth the anguish. I told him as much, murmuring and rocking him while he cried. Jae cried ugly, shattering cascades of broken sounds and shuddering shakes in his bones.

“No matter what you’re going through, Jae,” I whispered into the shell of his ear. “I’m going to be here. Whatever you need, I’ll make happen. It’ll be okay. I promise you, baby, I’ll make it okay.”

The quakes subsided after an hour, but he remained in my arms, sagged over and hidden behind a veil of his black hair. I ached in places. My shoulder throbbed from my boxing bout with Bobby, and there were crawling shivers along my abused knees and thighs from the sex I’d had with Jae. A crick formed in my neck from holding Jae tightly, but I stayed still, letting him soak up whatever he needed from me.

If I died there—holding him while he cried—that would have been okay too.

“I came here to tell you good-bye… to tell you I couldn’t… do this… be this anymore, but I can’t. I can’t do that. Not to you. Not to me.”

“What happened? Was it your sister? Jae, we can work through this. You just have to trust me. Have some faith in me… in us.”

“My mother called me.” I barely heard him through the curtain of his hair and the occasional hiccup, but the dread his words caused in me was immediate.

A left turn in the conversation, but I followed behind him. “What did she say?”

“Uncle wants Jae-Su.” He bent back, and I shifted to cradle him comfortably. Turning him slightly, I could see his face, a drawn beauty overburdened with other people’s pressures. “She’s lost her mind over it.”

“Okay, much like playing Pictionary with you, I’m lost.”

“Uncle Kim… Hyun-Shik’s father… he wants to formally adopt Jae-Su. Make Su his
real
son. His
legal
son.” Jae let loose another one of his shuddering exhales. “My mother isn’t taking it well. She’s… frantic. It’s why Tiffany ran away. My mother went after her with scissors during an argument. Things up there aren’t… good. It’s too much, Cole-ah. My mother. My brother. Then Tiff finding out about us… it just became too much.”

Okay, so his mother was crazy, but his however-many-times-removed cousin he called Uncle adopting Jae’s older brother didn’t make any sense. Said uncle didn’t have too great of a track record. His daughter killed Hyun-Shik, his closeted gay son, and then murdered practically everyone else connected to Hyun-Shik. I’d sooner want my nuts cut off with a pair of dull, rusted toenail clippers than be part of that family.

“Back up a bit and explain that to me.” I kissed the edge of his mouth when he gave me a slight frown. I was going to need a whiteboard to diagram the family’s shit out. “The Jae-Su part. We’ll work on the other shit later.”

“Jae-Su is Uncle’s son.” Jae shrugged. “My mother… she was Uncle’s lover. Now that Hyun-Shik is dead, he needs someone to step in as his heir, and since Grace is—”

“Wait a second.” My stomach dropped, and I was almost sick from the thought. “Hyun-Shik was your…
brother
?”

“Not me.” Jae rolled his eyes at me. “That’s sick, even for you. Just Jae-Su. Tiff and I had the same father. I don’t know who Ree’s father is. I don’t know if my
mother
knows who Ree’s father is. Didn’t I tell you this? I thought I told you this.”

I’d not liked what I’d found out about his cousin while investigating Hyun-Shik’s murder. He was a manipulative asshole who fucked an underage Jae, then pimped him out to a gentlemen’s club to be a dancer when Jae’s aunt kicked Jae out of the house for being gay. I almost would have kissed his sister Grace when I found out she’d killed him if she hadn’t been trying to kill me at the time.

“No, I can honestly say this is the first time you’ve ever told me this.” Jae’s mother was kind of a whore, but that I kept to myself. Instead I focused back on the conversation. “So your aunt… Grace’s mom… knows that your mom… um—”

“Had Uncle’s son?” Jae sniffed. “Yeah, it’s why she hates our family. Uncle is my mother’s cousin, remember? They were… close when they were in Seoul, and she came to work for his family. My mother got pregnant, and when Uncle moved here, he moved her too.”

Now it made sense why Jae was American-born and his brother Korean. “Is Jae-Su older than Hyun-Shik?”

“No.” He bit his lip, thinking. Jae rubbed at his face. If anything, his hands seemed to spread the tired from his eyes down to his mouth and cheeks. “Younger. A year, I think. Maybe less.”