Page 178 of Broken Brothers

For the longest time, I just stared at the wall, hoping that Layla would eventually give up. For just about any other girl that I had known, they probably would have for how stubborn I was.

But goddamnit, Layla was just as stubborn. The longer I stared at the wall, the longer she held me. It was like… it was like…

Like she really does care about me.

The thought had hit me before, but this particular moment seemed to resonate with me on a far higher level than anything ever had before. It was easy to be intimate and caring in an erotic moment or on a date or at the top of the Empire State Building. This was…

I didn’t know how to describe it. It was, honestly, a little bit like love.

That was my best guess.

“I saw Morgan,” I said, my voice shakier than I had hoped it would be.

I took a couple of seconds to take some deep breaths so I wouldn’t sound like a whiny embarrassment to Layla. I also didn’t want to cry in front of her and make myself look even worse.

“I played for him a recording that Andrew Patel, a client of mine, had sent over. It has Edwin basically berating the hell out of him, out of me, and all but admitting to illegal behavior. It’s really quite something else. I was so fucking stupid, though.”

“You’re not fucking stupid,” Layla said, kissing my back and my neck to soften me. “What did Morgan do then?”

“He…”

I sighed.

“He asked for the goddamn fucking recording,” I said. “And when I said why, he basically said things would be good in a couple of days.”

I made sure my eyes weren’t watering and rolled over to face Layla. She had on very little makeup right now—none, in fact—but that just made her more naturally beautiful. I didn’t want to see the dolled-up, sexed up version right now. I just wanted the real Layla, the one whom I… whom I… who was there with me right now.

“I just feel like I’m being told I’m going to a happy place but I’m really about to be executed,” I said. “Ideally, not literally, but I think Edwin wants to deliver something of a finishing blow to me. I know so much of this is in my head, but goddamnit, Layla, I just… fuck! You know? What if I die over this?”

Layla could have said something dismissive like “you’re not going to die” or “don’t be so silly” and she would have been absolutely right in her statement to me.

To her credit, though, she just squeezed me, kissed my forehead, and hugged me against her chest. It was, admittedly, a nice respite from the chaos in my head.

“I’m here to help however I can,” she said. “Know this, OK?”

I looked up at her, and from what I saw in her eyes, perhaps as watery and as emotional as mine, I knew that she was telling the truth. For as much as I doubted Morgan’s face, I knew that I had zero of that with Layla.

“Promise me you’ll love me no matter what happens.”

Suddenly, I realized just how much Layla meant those words. By the look she had on her face, she certainly loved me as much as she hoped that I loved her. That’s why she said that, I realized. Because she never stopped loving me.

If I had thoughts about what this meant for our long term future or what the road had ahead of us, I didn’t spend much, if any, time dwelling on it.

Because seconds later, so overcome with emotion, I did the only thing that felt right.

I leaned up and I kissed her.

But just as last night’s kiss at the top of the Empire State Building had not been erotic, so, too, was this more of a tender, gentle, loving kiss than the one that we usually shared.

Unlike the Empire State Building, though, we had very little clothes on now and a complete privacy that the building did not have.

I shifted my body in between her legs, and she eagerly spread them, wrapping them around my hips as her hands went to my face. We exchanged no words, because words would have failed what the moment was—a chance to show our feelings for each other instead of saying them.

I wanted to give my thanks to Layla first by going down on her. I started to kiss her neck and moved to take her shirt off, which slid with ease. She did the same to me, and now we were in nothing but our boxers.

And I swore if anyone tried to call me in that minute I was breaking my damn phone in half. There was no amount of emergencies worth interrupting most especially this moment. The building could be burning down, and I wouldn’t care. I’d die in Layla’s arms.

I again worked on moving down on her, kissing her breasts and drawing soft gasps of pleasant feelings from her. But justwhen I got to her underwear and took it off, she pulled me up to her. She reached down, pulled my boxers off, and stroked my cock.