Falling Bundle (17 page)

Max started rocking into him steadily, watching his flushed face, judging the intensity of his pleasure by the rhythmic flexing and tightening of his grip on Max’s shoulders. Each slow, hot slide in and maddening drag out got Arjen arching and clutching at him. Max wrapped a hand around his cock and started to jerk him off. “Wait,” Max told him. “Until I let you come.”

Arjen fidgeted under him, biting his lip, his eyes hazy. His fingernails were starting to dig into Max’s broad shoulders. “Max… I…”

“Wait,” Max said sternly.

Arjen barely lasted ten seconds. He tipped over the edge, shuddering around him and crying out. Max laughed against his hot throat; he had noticed that nothing got Arjen off faster than telling him to wait. He cupped Arjen’s ass and started to hammer him in earnest, pounding him hard as his own pleasure broke over him in a wave, swift and intense.

Afterward, as Max kissed his beloved and eased gently out of his body, he realised that tears were stinging his eyes.

I’ll keep you.

The next morning Max was startled from his breakfast by the doorbell. He glanced at the antique clock on the kitchen windowsill. Half past seven. Too early for the post. He got up and padded barefoot to the door still eating a spoonful of cereal. He swung the door open to reveal an icy day, crisp with frost, and froze.

Standing on the doorstep was his brother Tyler.

They stared at each other. The silence iced over.

“Max.” His brother smiled, like sliding in the knife. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

Max could only stare. Shocked. Stupid. He’d been half asleep, shirt unbuttoned, dozing over his cereal, totally unprepared. Now he was waking up in record time. Because his brother was an absolute psychopath.

Tyler. Max had lived in terror of his cruelty all through childhood. Max had feared his brother even more than his father. Now his heart was pounding against his ribs, and the same old panic locked him in place, a child again, waiting to be hit.

“Nice house,” said Tyler, still with that smile that did not touch his eyes. “Mind if I come in?” He pushed past Max without waiting to be invited.

Max should have physically barred Tyler’s path. He should have shoved Tyler back. He should have slammed the door in Tyler’s face. But Max couldn’t make himself move. And Tyler passed him without a glance, straight into Max’s nice, warm, welcoming house.

It struck Max helplessly how similar he and his brother must look these days. They were both powerfully built, with the same short-cut blond hair, the same icy blue eyes. Tyler was bigger than him, of course. Always had been.

“What do you want?” Max’s voice came out a croak.

“Maybe,” Tyler said, “I want what you’ve got.” He sauntered into the living room with its glossy flat-screen television and whistled. He ran one finger along the back of the leather recliner. “This is way too nice to be yours. Who are you fucking for this?”

“That’s none of your business,” Max growled. If his brother even looked at Arjen, much less laid a single finger on him—

“You’ve been away a long time. And now I see why. Busy earning your keep.”

Max’s jaw clenched. “What do you
want?”

“Dad’s dead.”

The impact was like hitting a wall. “He—What?”

“You heard me.” Tyler said it indifferently.

Max’s father had been an unmitigated bastard. He’d walked out on Max’s family when Max had been a child, setting up with a new wife, new kids. He’d been drunk more often than sober. And he’d had a few choice words to say on the subject of Max being, in his phrase, a “fucking queer”. And yet somehow his loss still managed to shake Max’s world to its foundations.

Max couldn’t imagine not dealing with his father’s cold, sneering behaviour any more. Not being needled and undermined. Not knowing that he was a disappointment to his father. The absence of his father would leave him adrift in the world, all his memories coming up out of the water, everything he’d worked so hard to drown.

He’d never quite had the courage to cut his family off entirely. Then he wouldn’t matter to anybody in the whole world.

Max suddenly craved Arjen, his anchor in this bleak sea. Max could slip back into their bed and Arjen would snuggle into him all warm and sweet. That would make everything better. “Get out,” Max said, his voice cold.

“Is that how you treat family?” Tyler breezed into the kitchen and started poking around. Max followed him so he didn’t steal anything. “You’ve got a nice setup here. How do I get a piece of it?”

“Get. Out.” Max spoke through his teeth, his panic starting to rise. He had to keep all this away from Arjen. He couldn’t let Arjen find out, he especially couldn’t risk Arjen with his brother. He had to get his brother out of here before—

Footsteps creaked on the stairs.

No, no, no. Max came around the kitchen table in a hurry, trying to get between the two of them, but his brother was already there with a crocodile grin.

Arjen walked barefoot into the kitchen and stopped dead. Sleepy, ruffled, half-dressed Arjen, all small and defenceless, still drinking his morning coffee. Now staring at Tyler.

The sight of him hit Max like a punch, the protectiveness so fierce it drove the breath out of him. Max would kill for him. Genuinely kill. “Don’t you dare touch him,” Max hissed to his brother. “Don’t speak to him. Don’t even look at him.”

Tyler eyed Arjen up and down in a way that made Max prickle with jealous fury. Tyler had clearly noticed that Arjen was scorchingly handsome, with his dark eyes, his sharp cheekbones. “Well, well. So this is your naughty little secret, Max. This is who you have to fuck to live in a house like this.”

Arjen put his coffee cup down on the table. His face was closed, expressionless. “Max? Who is this?”

“My brother.” Max’s voice came out strangled tight.

“Your brother.” Arjen repeated that with a complete lack of inflection.

“Hi. I’m Tyler.” Tyler held out his hand.

Max’s handsome, charming, smiling brother had won over everybody they’d ever met. Arjen looked at him coldly, ignored his hand, and went to move past him to join Max.

Tyler slapped his hand against the opposite wall, barring Arjen’s way. Tyler loomed over him deliberately. His shadow fell across him.

Max’s panic cranked up a notch. “If you touch him I’ll—I’ll—” Max’s voice cracked and he stopped, horrified. Because the truth was that he’d probably do what he’d always done when confronted by his brother. Hide.

“Yes,” Tyler said. “I’m sure you will.” He was still looking Arjen up and down.

“It’s all right, Max.” Arjen sounded perfectly calm. He hadn’t flinched for a second. “This is just a crude intimidation tactic. If you ignore it long enough it devolves into a childish tantrum.”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed. He stepped closer still, forcing Arjen to lift his chin to look up at him. “You’re a talker, aren’t you. I can think of better uses for a mouth like that.”

Arjen’s mouth curled as he looked at him. “Does your brother know anything about me, Max?”

“No,” Max said, his voice hoarse. “I’d never tell him about you. Never.”

“I can tell,” said Arjen. “Because he thinks he can get in my face and push me around.” Arjen laughed, as though Tyler wasn’t six inches taller and probably sixty pounds heavier than him. “Here’s what you missed, Tyler. I am a criminal lawyer. Let me repeat that for you so you can get it through your head. A
criminal lawyer
. What do you have, a few priors for assault? Not even that? And you’re trying to frighten me? Please. I see men like you in jail every day. You think this kind of display impresses me?”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed even further. His set jaw struck pure fear into Max, who knew exactly how much it hurt when his brother lost his temper. “Max, you need to tell your piece of ass to shut his mouth.”

“Max quite likes my mouth,” said Arjen with a particularly dangerous smile. “And he would never tell me to shut up.”

“He’s fucking you for your money. You know that, don’t you? He doesn’t care about you. He never has.”

“Alas,” said Arjen. “And there I was hoping he was fucking me for my house.”

Tyler started to laugh then. “Why don’t you tell him the truth, Max? Tell him why you’re really with him. Because you’ve got nothing and he’s got everything. Because you envy him. Because you hate him. Because fucking him gives you power over him.”

“I—” Max’s voice cracked and he had to stop. He wanted so badly to tell the truth:
I love him so much it scares me
. But Tyler had broken every toy Max had ever played with as a child. Tyler had destroyed things just because they belonged to Max. If Max let on for a second that he loved Arjen this much, Tyler would hurt Arjen, maybe even kill him.

Max had hesitated too long. Tyler’s blue eyes lit with a spark of unholy glee. “Really, Max? That’s adorable. Isn’t that adorable?” He turned to Arjen, who eyed him icily. “I take it back. Max
likes
you. How cute.”

“Please don’t hurt him,” Max said helplessly. “Please don’t scare him away.”

“Max.” Arjen cut across his increasing panic, that steady voice a lifeline. “It’s all right.”

“Max, you are even more stupid than you look,” Tyler said. “You actually like this kid? Some fancy lawyer type? Look at him. He probably went to private school. I bet his family are loaded and they have some pile out in the country. You’re just his bit of rough. Once the thrill wears off he’ll ditch you and go find another lawyer.”

It was like a stab. Because it was exactly what Max was most afraid of. That a man like Arjen wouldn’t settle for a man like Max forever. “That’s not true,” Max managed to say. “He loves me, he—”

“In a few years he’s not even going to remember your name.”

“That’s enough.”

Arjen had cut across the silence in a deadly low voice. The effect was freezing. “You’re done, Tyler. Time to leave.”

“Oh, I am nowhere near done. I still haven’t—”

“I wasn’t finished,” Arjen said, still in that deadly voice. “You are pitiful, Tyler. You are worthless. Everyone can see that you’re nothing, that you use threats to cover up that cringing place inside you where you keep your fear. You’ll never be worth anything. And in a few years when I’m still happy with Max, I won’t remember
your
name.” Tyler was rapidly turning a dark red. Arjen faced him with all the icy sureness of a man with several generations of adoring family behind him. “I suggest you scuttle back to your hole before I call the police.”

“Nobody talks to me that way,” Tyler bit out. “I’ll come back. I’ll hurt you. I’ll—”

“Out. Now.”

They glared at each other. Tyler was taking sharp breaths, fists clenched. The colour was high in his face. He jerked his gaze away and stalked out.

Max could not believe his eyes. Nobody had ever stood up to his brother before. The relief as the front door slammed was intense and yet he could not relax; he feared the worst was yet to come.

Arjen turned on him already storming. “Your family is appalling!”

Max flinched. He knew exactly how appalling his family was. Arjen had seen his true colours now: Arjen understood what type of man he was, what kind of background he came from. Max began to plead. “I can fix this. I can fix everything. I can do whatever you want. Please don’t leave me, I love you, I—”

“For Christ’s sake!” Arjen nearly snarled. Max wondered numbly if Arjen was about to hit him. Max was twice his size and yet Max could not even attempt to defend himself against this man. “How can you say that? What are you thinking? Have you not listened to a single word I’ve ever said?” Arjen was getting steadily louder. “Did you not hear me when I said I’d never let you go? What, do you think I was lying? What did I ever say to make you doubt me?”

Max shrank. “I don’t…”

“Let me spell this out for you
again
. In simple words this time.” Arjen prodded him in the chest with each sentence. Hard. “I’m in love with you, you idiot. I’m absolutely, totally, helplessly in love with you and I plan to spend the rest of my life with you. You need to get this through your thick skull, because you don’t seem to be listening to me. I want to marry you. And in my family we marry for life.”

It hit Max suddenly that Arjen was proposing to him. Max sputtered. “Are you—is that—”

“Just give me a sign and I will. I’ll give you a ring, I’ll do it by candlelight, the whole nine yards. I’ll marry you and I’ll keep you forever. But you’d better be sure, because I’m only asking you once.”

“I don’t… I…” Max swallowed hard, trying not to crack. “I’m—I’m not sure.” He forced out the word that mattered. “Yet. I’m not sure yet.”

Arjen reached up and took his face in his hands, looking at him in a way that killed Max a little bit with how intensely Max loved him. “Then I’ll wait. I’ll wait, Max. I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to be sure.”

“What if I’m never sure?” Max whispered.

Arjen melted Max immediately with his smile. Arjen really was adorable. “I think you will be. Some day.” Arjen took his hand, fingers twining through his. “Now come back to bed. I’m not finished with you.”

Max’s relief burst out of him. Thank God he was forgiven. He let Arjen lead him upstairs to bed by the hand, then Arjen took his time undressing him lovingly before Max slipped back into the reassuring warmth of their bed. “You’re not mad at me?” Max asked him, just checking.