Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

Dusty

Idon’t usually have a problem falling asleep after an orgasm, but I’ve been lying in bed for over an hour after jerking off in the shower while thinking about my best friend. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. It’s not even the first time I’ve done it while we’re in the same house, but for some reason, I can’t stop obsessing about it. Something about the way Morgan’s chocolate-brown eyes had been watching me earlier. The way they’d felt like a caress against my skin.

Has he ever looked at me that way before? Ever touched me with his gaze? All I know is I crave more. I want to get my fill of it, even though I know I never will. When it comes to Morgan Swift, what I have will never be enough. I will always want more.

If this had been ten years ago, he would be beside me in this bed right now. When we stayed in the same house, we always slept in the same bed. It doesn’t matter that we’ve never been sexual, never even kissed. That’s not what it was about. We’ve just always liked to be close to each other, and it feels strange knowing he’s on the other side of my house right now.

Time blends together while I lie in my bed, looking at the ceiling, obsessing. I hate that I’m going back to this, that I can’t stop my world from spinning for Morgan when he’s around, but…I also don’t hate it. Because it’s us, and it’s him, and we’re special.

The soft knock on my bedroom door surprises me. I turn toward it, sit up, blankets covering me from my waist down. I’m not wearing anything other than boxer briefs. Usually, I don’t even sleep in those, and I’m not sure what made me do it tonight.

“Come in,” I call out. Is he really out there, or have I imagined it?

The door slowly pushes open, the moon shining through the window spotlighting Morgan standing there, in low-slung sweats and no shirt. He’s got dark hair along his pecs, less than I have, his stomach’s defined, the edge of his black underwear peeking out the top.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, though somehow, I know it both is and isn’t. Being around his family fucks with Morgan’s head, but that’s not why he’s standing in my doorway now. He’s here because just like me, it doesn’t feel right to be so close yet so far away. Whatever this bond is, this connection between us, it’s fierce and unchangeable. It might only be friendship for him, but that doesn’t change how strong it is.

“Shut up. You know why I’m here.”

I swallow the boulder in my throat and nod toward the other side of the bed. Morgan comes in, closes the door behind him, pulls the blankets back up, and climbs in.

We don’t talk for a moment, both of us lying there, looking up at shadows of trees dancing along the ceiling.

“Your boyfriend won’t care that you’re lying here with me?” There might not be anything sexual between us, but if he were mine, I wouldn’t want anyone to share a bed with Morgan except me.

He lets out a humorless laugh. “No. Not at all. Rob and I aren’t really like that. In fact, I’m pretty sure he fucked a twink at the club the other night.”

My body stiffens. “You think he’s cheating on you?”

“No. We’re open. And despite what people who aren’t in that lifestyle might think, it’s not cheating. We have friends in their sixties who have been together since they were twenty-five who are open and the strongest couple I’ve ever seen. They love fiercely. Sex is just different for them.”

The tightness in my chest doesn’t go away, but my body relaxes some. “I don’t think it’s cheating, and I have no problem with people living their lifestyle. To each their own. I just…” Couldn’t imagine having him and wanting anyone else. It’s not like I can say that, though. “I wouldn’t have thought that’s what you want.”

He shrugs. “I’ve never done it with anyone except Rob, and honestly, I don’t play as much as he does. Most of the time, I only do it when it’s him and me with other men. The point is, he wouldn’t care that I’m in bed with you, even if we weren’t just friends.”

Because we are…just friends. Still, I’m trying to wrap my head around the guy who fought his brother because we kissed, being okay with his boyfriend fucking other men, being with him when he fucked other men.

Red flashes in my vision. He’s not even mine, and the thought makes me want to rage.

I guess the difference is, Rob has never kissed Rhett.

I’ll never forgive myself for that.

“I know you don’t understand it,” he says, breaking through my thoughts. “But like I said before, the way things are with Rob…that works for me.”

“Being open is one thing, but that doesn’t excuse not asking how you are. You have a whole fucking world of pain to deal with here, so much past and loss. I can’t excuse him for not making sure you’re okay.”

Silence bears down on us. The longer it goes, the more it squeezes my lungs, crushes my chest, makes me wonder if I said too much, until finally, Morgan speaks. “He doesn’t know, Dust. None of it. Not about Mom or Ella or Easton. Not the specifics about Dad or Rhett or…you.”

The stiffness sets into my bones again. “None of it?”

“No one does.”

I roll toward him, but Morgan stays on his back, looking up. “You haven’t let anyone in? Not for all these years? You’re so fucking stubborn. You can’t hold all that in. You’re going to lose it one day, Morgan. You’re gonna reach a point when you can’t hold back anymore, and you’re gonna explode. Goddamn fucking Swifts.” I want to kill them all but especially the man turning his head to look at me right now.

My body is shaking. I feel like I’m going to be the one to explode, to burst right out of my skin because there’s too much hurt inside this man, and if he doesn’t work through it, it’s going to eat him alive.

“I fucking hate your boyfriend. I don’t care if I shouldn’t blame him, and Jesus, Morgan, if you don’t start working through—” His hand wraps around the back of my head, tugging me down until my lips meet his.

I freeze at first, unable to make all the pieces fit together, unable to tell if this is really happening, but then Morgan’s tongue flicks at my lips, and it’s like a key, making them open for him. He sneaks inside, tastes me, tangles his fingers in my hair, sweeps his tongue from one side of my mouth to the other. I’m surrounded by his scent—amber and musk—finally, finally knowing his taste—mint and Morgan.

My brain hasn’t caught up, is short-circuiting too much to remind me this is a bad idea. That this will ruin things. That nothing will come of it except me getting hurt.

Morgan doesn’t want me right now; he wants someone, anyone, wants to feel something other than all the heartbreak that Birchbark gives him.

That thought is the spark that electrocutes my brain and makes me pull back. “What are you doing, Morgan?”

“Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

I must be the strongest man in the world because I pull back even farther. But if he doesn’t know, that sure as shit means it’s because he doesn’t want me.

“I can’t kiss you just because I’m here and you don’t have anyone better. If and when you ever kiss me again, it needs to be because you want me. Not just someone, or not because I’m the only person there. But because you want me.”

Morgan’s forehead wrinkles, his eyes cloudy and confused. “You don’t think I’m attracted to you? It almost killed me not to jump you in your shop before we left, and I spent the first twenty minutes in the shower jerking off to you. If you don’t think I’ve always been attracted to you, then you’re wrong, Dust.”

My nerve endings light up hearing him say that, pinpricks of pleasure dancing along my skin. It’s not a declaration of love, but it’s a declaration of want, and that’s more than I thought I would ever have from him. I still don’t know what to do with it. My instinct is to shut him up with my mouth, then push my dick so far inside him, he forgets anyone except us exists. But I’ve made one rash decision before when it came to having a bad night and sex with Swifts, and I don’t want to fuck up again. “Then why is this the first time I’ve gotten to taste you?”

He groans, like hearing those words lights him up from the inside the way they do me. “Because I was scared. I don’t know what it means or what I want, but I know I could never risk losing you. Even as a kid I understood that. My parents loved each other, but look at how they were. My dad gave her things to make her happy and to make up for the fact that he was never there. I was scared to fuck up with you, scared that my curiosity about how my best friend’s skin would feel beneath mine would make me lose you…or change us. Then things went to hell, and I knew I was leaving, that eventually I would go and you never would.”

“You’re still gonna go. That hasn’t changed.”

He looks away but doesn’t argue. When I grab his chin and turn his head so he’s facing me again, Morgan doesn’t stop me.

“You’re still gonna go,” I say again.

“I know. But I just…now I know what it’s like to lose you. I didn’t touch you, didn’t get to know what it felt like to have you, and I still lost you for ten fucking years. I guess the thought of that happening again, of never having you that way…I can’t shut it up now. A few days here and you’re already inside my head again.”

My heart thuds, bangs against my chest. My skin tingles, the pull inside my chest that I’ve always had with Morgan luring me closer. This time, I’m the one pressing my lips to his, the one with the key to make him open up for me. I taste him, suck his tongue, nibble his lip while the voice inside me begs for more, more, more.

Can I do this? Can I fuck Morgan, knowing I’m going to lose him? Knowing that it doesn’t matter what he does or doesn’t feel, eventually he’ll leave Birchbark, and maybe he’ll ask me to go again, and maybe he won’t. And if he does, can I leave it all behind, my business, my house, and go?

I force myself to pull back. “Not tonight. I need to sit with this a while. I don’t even know what you want.”

“To keep feeling what I only feel when I’m with you.”

“Jesus, man. Come here.” I lie on my back and pull Morgan with me. He fits in my arm, head tucked into my armpit. I hear him breathe deeply, feel him get closer and root around there.

“This okay? I missed the scent of sugar maples and your skin.”

My cock takes notice, blood rushing to my groin, making me throb. It doesn’t escape my attention that while I was jerking off thinking about him, Morgan was apparently doing the same.

“Yeah, this is good.” Better than good.

Morgan breathes me in more, takes my scent into his lungs, burrows in as close as he can. His lips press against my pit, once, twice, and then his tongue sneaks out and tastes me there. A tremble runs the length of me.

“Sorry.” His voice is low, sleepy.

“Don’t be. I like it.” Too much. I already know I’ll give him anything and everything he wants, even if I get hurt, even when I know he’s going to walk away. I don’t have the strength to deny Morgan anything, and sure as shit not to deny him myself.

I raise my arm more, making it easier on him. I don’t know if this is a thing for him—scent and armpits—but I’m willing to let him make a buffet of mine, while hoping it’s just ours, that my heart won’t shatter when this ends.