Page 100 of Broken Brothers

I didn’t say anything, which I think Claire took as a sign of me maintaining some semblance of me being her Master. But I was just too wrapped up in my head. Everything that I had pushed to the side over the last half hour had come roaring back, and I knew that it was going to get ugly.

And I now had Claire dragged into this, for better or for worse.

“I need a shower,” she said, flicking sweat off of her. “Would you care to join?”

I wouldn’t escape the fears that came to mind for some time.

But for at least one night…

“Why not,” I said, smirking. “Beats being dirty like this.”

42

I’m sure both of us had thoughts of going for a second round after the shower, but the truth was we were so fucking tired that we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. Claire suggested it a couple of times, to which I would half-heartedly make moves, but both of us knew after only a few minutes neither of us had the energy to make a second round occur.

And so, before 11 p.m. had hit, both of us were fast asleep in Claire’s bed, a week of stress and chaos laid to rest for at least the time being.

When I woke up at sunrise the next day, however, all of that chaos came roaring back in the form of something unexpected.

I didn’t intend to wake up that early, but when I did, I saw that I had beaten Claire to waking up. She was rolled over on her side, breathing softly, her breasts rising gently against the covers of the bed. She looked so beautiful, so…

I had to stop myself. I really was getting carried away. Maybe, I thought, I should just tell Claire my growing feelings. If I did that, then perhaps she would have to push me away, solving theproblem for me. Instead of wondering how I could handle myself around Claire, I would just sabotage myself.

Fucking crazy? A tad. But smart?

You’re a better man than that. Fess up if it’s becoming that much of an issue.

I rolled back over to my side and reached for my phone. I had a couple of text messages about some baseball games from the night before but didn’t pay more attention to them other than reacting to a few with thumbs up that I didn’t really match with my waking mind.

Of greater interest, though, was the fact that someone had messaged me on Facebook, which was an extraordinarily rare occurrence. I opened the app and saw a name that immediately sent daggers to my stomach.

Sarah Hill.

“Hi Chance, how have you been?? It’s been so…”

That was all that the preview showed me, but it told me so much more than the words ever could.

It told me that Sarah was excited to talk to me. The multiple question marks said it all.

It told me that she had been thinking about talking to me for some time—if it was just friendly, she probably would have said something early in our Facebook friendship.

It told me that my life was probably about to get a lot more interesting. I immediately began to wonder if Sarah was soon going to be making her way over to New York City. And if that happened…

Well, I just had to hope it was temporary and that I could keep it quiet and on the down low for a variety of reasons.

I opened the message and was surprise to see that it was so long it didn’t fit onto a single screen on my phone. Curious, I scrolled to the top and began reading.

“Hi Chance, how have you been?? It’s been so long since I last spoke to you! I can’t believe how handsome you look!”

That brought a nervous smile to my face. It always felt good to have a beautiful woman compliment you, especially one like Sarah Hill. But it didn’t feel especially great to be reading this conversation in the bed of another woman, especially one I cared about.

“I’ve been going through and trying to add people on Facebook I haven’t seen. When I first saw your picture I didn’t think it was you—you’ve added a little bit of stubble since we were so young at 12! But it’s nice to see you doing well. I wanted to let you know that I will be in New York City in about a month.”

Well, fuck. There it is.

It was real. I was going to see Sarah Hill for the first time in years. And it couldn’t have some at either a better or a worst time, depending on how the next month played out with Edwin Hunt. Either I would feel on top of the world for conquering him even more, or I’d feel so crushed by his assaults on me and Morgan that how I felt after the Taylors would feel mild by comparison.

“I’d love to see you and catch up with you! Gosh, it feels so weird typing this out, to think that this is really going to happen. But I said we’d hang out when we got older and here we are! Let me know if this works for you :-) !”