Page 11

Chapter 10

Louis

Ravi turns to me while we’re catching a break. He’s got his bandanna wrapped around his head as usual, his dark beard and mustache shaved to meticulous precision. He’s almost too stylish to be a part of the Black Claws’ otherwise unkept beards and muddy boots.

“Can you please stop growling at newcomers, Louis?” he says, brow quirked.

“I’m not.” I stare, sure, but I’m not growling—at least not loud enough to be heard over the rock music.

“Yeah, you are,” Ravi says with a snort. “One might think you’re ready to jump them just for walking in the door.”

“I don’t like outsiders.”

“You like it enough when pretty-boy twinks find their way in here.”

“Shut up.” I put a few wine glasses in the compartment below the bar top with more force than necessary.

Maurice has reminded me a thousand times that my job is to draw customers in, not scare them away, but I can’t help it; people aren’t my favorite thing in this world to begin with, and outsiders even less so. Regretfully, Moe’s Den is way too central a bar to be frequented only by my Black Claws brothers, and outsiders are crucial for our proceeds, but still. Ravi might not mind when students from Springvale University find their way here, point and gasp at the gritty imagery on the walls, and act tough in front of their friends, thinking it’s so exotic and daring to go to a biker bar.

Me, however? I fucking hate it.

“So,” Ravi says, “what happened with that Sparrow kid?”

“He’s staying with me. Temporarily.”

“Wait a minute.” His jaw drops, and he gestures wildly with his hands. “So now you’re living together ?”

“You missed one word: temporarily.”

“Yeah, sure.” A smirk spreads over his full lips. “All pleasure is temporary.”

I groan and lean my head back, working a kink out of my neck. “It’s not like that at all.”

“Oh yeah, just keep denying it.” Ravi nudges me in the side with an elbow. “I know you want a piece of that twink ass.”

“Stop talking about him like that.”

“You’re the one who let him suck your dick.”

Ugh. Ravi can be real annoying when he feels like it. He’s only a couple years my junior, but sometimes I think he might as well fit in with the twentysomethings currently fighting each other over the cue stick by the pool tables.

“Well, only because he wanted to,” I say, and it’s true, of course. It’s likely he wanted to start something again last night when he leaned his head onto my lap, but in that moment, I cared more about the softness of his hair than the tightness of his throat.

“Yeah, and shouldn’t you keep giving him what he wants?” Ravi drawls. “Who are you to deny him?”

I send him a dark glare. Ravi knows not to anger me when I’m in this mood, yet he can’t resist. Fucker. “I said shut your mouth about him.”

“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands, and a few seconds later, he nods to the entrance. “Speak of the devil.”

A small figure emerges between the swinging doors. Sparrow. He’s not dressed in his usual sweater and jeans—no, underneath his parka, he’s put on a tight turtleneck that makes him look both older and younger than he is, and is that…mascara? He’s brushed his hair too, and his lips look pinker and plumper than usual.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” I mutter under my breath. He looks like he came here with the purpose of finding someone to fuck, but I can’t imagine that’s what’s on his mind. He looks like it, though, and that’s bad enough.

“Yo, Sparrow!” Ravi calls out, sucking all the attention of the bar to the three of us.

In the corner of my eye, I see Maurice perk up and set his glass aside, eyes fixed on Sparrow. Hell no. There’s no way I’ll let Maurice have him. There’s no way I’ll let anyone have him.

I squeeze myself out of the bar and stop Sparrow in his steps. He almost bumps into my chest with how fast he walks toward me.

“What are you doing here?” I grunt.

“Oh, I was…I was just wondering how to turn on the dishwasher.”

“The dishwasher?”

His cheeks turn a hot pink. “Yeah, um, but besides that, I wanted to see you.”

“You’ll see me when I get home,” I say, low enough to not let the others hear over the music. I want them to know he’s off-limits, but at the same time, I don’t want them to think he’s mine. Because he’s not. And he won’t be.

“Well, maybe I wanted a drink,” Sparrow protests.

“You’re underage.”

“Just by a few months! One beer, please, Louis? Then I’ll go.” He puts his palms together in prayer.

I sigh and lead him to the bar with a rough grip on his upper arm. “Get him the weakest beer we’ve got,” I tell Ravi.

“Sure thing.” Ravi grins and taps him up a Bud Light, so weak it might as well be water.

Sparrow sips it with tiny gulps, grimacing with his obvious dislike of the taste. In the meantime, I glare around us, catching several of my brothers eyeing Sparrow like he’s a piece of meat and they’re a pack of lions. I better not keep my attention off him, but at the same time, I need to work.

“Didn’t you say that ex of yours can pop up anywhere?” I grumble.

“You’re here,” Sparrow says. “You’d protect me.”

“I wasn’t there when you were walking on the side of the road.” I lean closer to him, catching a whiff of his sweet scent. “Is this going to become a habit? Showing up here unannounced and distracting me from work?”

“I won’t be in the way, I promise.” He points to Ravi, who’s taking an order for Guinness from a big trucker-looking guy in his midthirties. “I can help. I can do what he’s doing.”

“You’re underage.”

“I didn’t know biker gangs cared that much about the law.” Sparrow rustles his arm, and I realize I still haven’t let go of him.

I groan and run a hand through my beard. I should punish him for this. I should bend him over the bar top and spank his insubordinate little ass. I know how to punish people with far worse methods, but when I imagine using those on Sparrow, my whole being clenches up and renders me unable to breathe.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I point to a table near the bar. “Sit there and wait for me to finish.”

“Okay.” Sparrow just seems happy I haven’t forced him to leave. He shuffles over to the table and continues to nurse his beer as if it’s a piping hot mug of tea, which is good, I suppose; he’ll hardly get drunk at this rate.

An hour passes without remark. No one approaches him, but he sends some curious looks around now and again, which annoys me to no end.

Maurice orders another beer and leans over the bar top with a wink. “Keep an eye on that one,” he says, jerking his head toward Sparrow. “Lots of guys here would love to turn him out, and I know you don’t like people touching what’s yours.”

“He’s not mine.” The words feel wrong as soon as I’ve said them, and something dark and possessive stirs in their wake.

Maurice smirks. “I saw the way you were touching him. If that’s not claiming what’s yours, I don’t know what is.” He leans his back against the bar and stares unabashedly at Sparrow. “So you fuck him yet?”

“What?” I growl. “No.” Why does everyone keep asking that? I wipe a glass and set it aside with more force than necessary. “He’s a kid.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before,” Maurice says. “Wasn’t that Antler kid a little young for you too?”

“Antler kid?” I ask.

“Joshua told me about you trying to get with someone a while back.”

“Oh,” I mutter. He has to mean that green-eyed brat.

“Didn’t work out,” Maurice drawls. “This one seems more willing though.” He waves his beer glass toward Sparrow, who’s got his eyes on the ongoing pool game a few feet away from him.

Oh, he’s willing all right. Too willing.

“Just remember what I told you,” Maurice says. “If you don’t take him, someone else will.”

He’s right, of course. I need to keep Sparrow safe. In this town, he’s helpless, and if I hadn’t scooped him up, someone else would have.

“Speaking of Joshua,” Maurice says. “I’m thinking of patching him in.”

I tear my gaze from Sparrow. “What? He’s a fucking idiot.”

“He’s good with importing, which is what we need. What if everyone was like you, huh? We wouldn’t have any customers left.”

I grimace but keep the worst of my displeasure off my face. “Do what you wish. It’s not like I can stop you.”

“That’s right,” Maurice says, sipping his beer. “I still haven’t forgotten your negligence at that party, you know.”

“Well, how do I make it up to you?”

“Start by talking with more respect, for one. Mellow down a bit. Getting laid might help. Been a while for you, hasn’t it?”

“Don’t talk about shit you don’t know about.”

But Maurice does know. He knows everything. He knows about Justin. He knows of my rage, my sickness, the monster lurking within. He of all people should know I can’t take Sparrow under my wing; he of all people should know I can’t let myself have him.

I’ve been glaring so incessantly at Maurice that I’ve failed to notice the company at Sparrow’s table. Company in the form of the trucker who ordered a beer earlier in the night.

He’s leaning into Sparrow over the table now, and Sparrow is… smiling . My face grows hot, and the kettle boils over when the trucker stretches to brush a strand of hair out of Sparrow’s face, and Sparrow doesn’t flinch away .

What. The. Fuck.

One moment, I’m at the bar. The next, I’m behind the trucker, yanking him by the collar so hard he stumbles to his feet and wheezes, “What did I do?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I growl. “All that matters is you’re banned from ever entering this bar again. Got it?” I shake him by the collar, and he clutches at his throat, eyes bulging.

“Okay, okay, I’m going!”

I let go of him, and with a wheezed-out, “Fucking animal,” he stumbles toward the door.

I look up to find the whole bar staring at me. Maurice in particular looks dark-eyed, his mouth a thin line, while Sparrow stares at me with a strange expression I can’t begin to decipher.

The scene that just played out isn’t uncommon per se, but it usually doesn’t happen unless someone has really acted out. Flirting with a patron is hardly grounds for a ban, but I don’t give a fuck.

“What?” I say, trying for a casual gesture with my arms out. “He was too drunk. And you,” I growl, wrapping my hand around Sparrow’s neck and leading him toward the back room. “You’re coming with me.”

I all but throw Sparrow into the room and slam the door shut behind us. “What the hell was that?”

“What was what?” Sparrow asks, defiant despite the obvious distress in his eyes. He backs further into the room, and I close up on him, herding him against the far-end wall.

“Who said you could flirt?”

“I wasn’t flirting! I was just being nice, and so was he.”

Is he serious? No, he can’t be, right? “That’s bullshit. Even you can’t be that fucking naive.”

Sparrow wraps his arms around himself, gaze falling to his chest. “Louis, you’re scaring me.”

“Yeah, you should be scared. You shouldn’t be nice to people like him. Or people like me.”

“Why not? You’re kind to me. You let me stay with you. You feed me amazing food and tuck me into bed.”

“That was just the once,” I growl, but with the memory of his lithe body in my arms, my surging anger dissolves into something else.

Sparrow lifts his hands to cup my face. “Don’t you want me?” he asks, eyes glittering with tears, his palms cool and soft on my rough, bearded face.

I grab his wrists and push them down. “You have no idea, little Sparrow.”

“No idea about what?” He seems at the end of his rope, cheeks growing red with frustration.

“You have no idea how much I want to fucking ruin you.”

His tearstained eyes flick up at me. “So why don’t you?”

I shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t.” But despite my words, my hand wraps around his waist and presses at the small of his back, bringing our bodies closer. “I can’t be with you.”’

Eyes closed, Sparrow breathes against me, squirming in my grip, looking like he has to gather all his self-control not to surge forward and capture my lips with his.

I grunt and flip him over, pressing my body up against his back. “You want this?” I ask, slotting my swelling crotch to his ass.

“Yeah,” he gasps. “Yes.”

I feel the heat of him, his trembling excitement. It’s too much. I can’t keep tempting myself with him, yet I can’t stop myself from nosing into his neck and inhaling his sweet scent. I imagine falling to my knees, tearing his pants down, and devouring his tight little hole.

But I can’t let myself do it. I can’t ruin him like I ruined Justin.

“Please,” Sparrow whines. “I need you, Louis.”

“You don’t.”

“I do. And I think you need me too.”

Erection pressed to the swell of his ass, I snake my hand up his torso, finding the frantic, birdlike beat of his heart. I tip my head to his neck, just holding my lips there, just inhaling his scent. We can’t do this, and least of all here. Not with my painful past welling up in my chest along with the knowledge that I’ll never be what he truly needs. If we do this, I’ll be his greatest regret, his gravest mistake, his destruction, and for what? A few minutes of pleasure? It’s just like Ravi said: Pleasure is temporary.

My hand sneaking up the hem of his shirt is temporary.

My aching erection pressing against the swell of his ass is temporary.

My breath hitching against his throat is temporary too, and so are the kneading motions of his narrow hips against mine.

But regret is forever.

Sparrow turns around. My heart shoots to my throat as he leans in, and our lips are moments from touching when there’s a knock.

“Louis?” Maurice—the fucker—calls from the other side of the door.

Sparrow parts his lips to speak, but I slam my hand over his mouth, stopping him from making a sound except for a pained gasp as the back of his head hits the wall.

“I know I said you should get laid, but I didn’t mean right now,” Maurice says. “You know I don’t like people fucking on my couch.”

“We’re not fucking,” I growl.

“Well, if not, then come back out and do your job. A group of students just came in, and Ravi is working his ass off pouring them their ridiculous fucking four-ingredient drinks.”

Maurice’s voice fades away, and I withdraw my hand from Sparrow’s mouth.

“Did I hurt you?” I ask, nodding to his head, which slammed against the wall in my eagerness to shut him up. When my emotions are high, I sometimes can’t control the force of my hands or my violent reflexes. Advantageous at work maybe, but the opposite is true with someone like Sparrow in the same room.

“No,” he says in a thin voice.

“Well, then. Let’s go back out there.” I walk ahead of him without a glance back, and behind me, I hear the sadness dripping from his words.

“Okay, Louis.”

Anger I can deal with. Drunken screaming, violent outbursts, and death threats I can deal with, but not sadness. Sadness reminds me too much of my mother, and I can’t think about her. I can’t think about how my father beat her. Can’t think about how I just let it happen, frozen in my terror and the worry of my father’s wrath turning on me.

I used to stand at the other side of the door and listen to my mother’s pleading, her sadness, and my father’s anger that he graciously gifted to me. Whenever I hit someone, I see my mom flashing before my very eyes. I imagine myself taking revenge for her, the way I failed to do before it was too late. Unsurprisingly, the men who resemble my father are the most satisfying to beat up, but Justin…Justin didn’t look like my father at all, so why did I do to him what I did?

I’ll never understand. And since I’ll never understand, I can’t let myself be with Sparrow for much longer. He has to be free of me, and I have to go back to my numb, lonely life, where I’m satisfied only by the smash of my fists hitting flesh. I have to go back to trusting no one and loving no one. Least of all myself.

The rest of the evening passes without incident. Good—I’m not sure I’d be able to handle any more men flirting with Sparrow, and I don’t think I can handle another go with him in the back room either.

He sits primly at the table I indicated, sipping a Coke this time. Head down, one foot up on the chair, expression sullen and forlorn. Missing my attention, is he? Well, he can hardly expect me to be by his side the whole evening, not even with that enticing outfit of his and his sad puppy eyes following my every step. Sooner or later, he must learn he can’t have everything he wants, even when what he wants happens to be me , which is a rare compliment if I do say so myself. I’m hot, but am I hot enough to bag a fucking twenty-year-old? Especially one as cute and sweet as Sparrow? I doubt it. Besides that, hot is not enough, and Sparrow ought to look elsewhere for what he wants. Soon enough, he’ll come to the same conclusion.

We close up shop at twelve thirty. Cleaning is next, but Ravi stops me in my tracks.

“You go ahead and go home,” he says, nodding to Sparrow. “That one looks like he needs some rest.”

He’s right; now that the music is off, Sparrow looks like he’ll nod off at any second, eyes half-closed and shoulders slumping.

I snap my fingers at him and point a thumb to the exit. “Let’s go home.”

“Home?” he asks, blinking. “Okay.”

He barely has enough strength to clutch onto my waist as I straddle the bike.

“Hold on harder,” I tell him. “Don’t want you to fall off, now, do we?”

“No,” he mumbles into my back.

Hm. Is he just tired, or is he still sad?

When we get home, I make the sofa bed for him, and he gets rid of his clothes and changes into his oversize sleeping shirt— my shirt—and mumbles something too low for me to hear.

With a hand on the back of his head, I haul him into a half hug. “Say again?”

He leans into my chest and sniffles. “Maybe I should leave tomorrow.”

What the hell? “Why would you do that?”

“You clearly don’t want me here. It’s better for you if I leave.” He turns from me and lies on the couch, pulling the covers up to his chin.

I sit on the side of the couch and lay a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t, remember? That psycho ex of yours will snatch you up.”

“But you don’t want me here,” Sparrow whispers, head turned and buried into the pillow. “You just think I’m an annoying little brat. A kid. You don’t want me to suck your dick again because I was too bad at it, and you don’t even want to try having sex with me because I’ll probably be bad at that too, right?”

“No,” I say, barely able to contain a laugh. “That’s not it at all.”

“Then why?” he whispers. “Why don’t you like me?”

I close my eyes and open them slowly, the words rising from a half-forgotten part of me—a place I rarely tread, and when I do, it’s with the utmost care and caution.

“I do like you.”

Sparrow turns around to face me, his huge blue eyes staring straight into my soul. “You do?” He smiles, but then his brow furrows again. “In that case…why? Why won’t you sleep with me?”

I lift my hand from his shoulder to push his bangs out of his face. He closes his eyes immediately, mouth parting. He’s so responsive. So soft to my touch.

“I’ll tell you someday, okay? I promise.” I withdraw my hand, and when his lids shift back open, he looks up at me with something like adoration in his eyes.

Why is he like this? Why does he trust me so much? Seems counterintuitive with everything I know of him so far—his upbringing in a foster home, his foster brother taking advantage of him when he was just fourteen years old…How come he’s so trusting and caring and sweet, whereas I, who haven’t been through nearly as much sorrow and pain, have hardened into a vicious grump of a man whose redeeming qualities are few?

The gap between us can’t be met. We’re just too different and in different stages of life. I can fuck him into the mattress until he’s a satisfied mess, sure, but I can’t give him what he truly wants. Why should I give him that hope—the indication that there might be something more between us—only to shatter it later on? Why should I take the risk of ruining him like I ruined Justin?

I know why: to have his naked body against mine, his tight hole opening against my tongue, and my cock between his cheeks pressing inside as his panting mouth tells me “more.”

Nine years ago, I would’ve given in. But I’m supposed to be older now, and wiser. I’m supposed to have control over myself. I’ve already given him too much and at the same time too little. I should establish some boundaries between us; I can’t keep touching him like this, and he can’t keep looking at me with those glittering eyes and anticipating mouth.

On the other hand, should I really rip that away, when he seems to have so little in life to rejoice in? A few touches and glances won’t do much harm, will they? And I can’t deny that part of me loves to tuck him into bed like this, and yeah, I also like it quite a bit when he looks at me like he does now.

Shaking my head at my own indecisiveness, I pull the covers up to his chin and kiss his forehead. Big mistake. When my lips touch his skin, he makes a surprised, breathy sound—halfway between a gasp and a moan—and the sound goes straight to my cock.

I stand up stiffly. “Well. Good night, then.”

“Night,” Sparrow says, cheeks red and eyes shiny on mine.

As I try to fall asleep, I hear noises coming from the living room: repeated gasps, sheets rustling, and a final repressed moan. Did he just…? Yeah, I guess he did. When I hear a hissed curse and a rip of paper towels from the kitchen, I don’t know if I should laugh or follow his example and jerk off myself.

I wait until I hear him fall asleep, then I settle for the latter. Might as well keep the lusts of the flesh at bay.