Page 4

Ijolt awake with the memory of his taste on my tongue and lick my lips searching for a drop of his release, only for the cold grasp of reality to hit me with the force of a freight train—he isn’t really here. He haunts my dreams like an unrelinquishing nightmare that I am helpless to surrender to. I crave his brand of love more than anything. His searing touch, just the thought makes electricity skitter across my exposed skin as it prickles in the cool morning air.

My cock throbs, pulsing with the unmet desire my restless subconscious stirred within me. Snaking my hand down my abs gently teasing my fingertips over each dip and grove of my pebbled skin, I gasp as my fingers dip beneath the elastic of my boxers and brush against my sensitive tip. I swirl my thumb over my leaking slit collecting the beading precum and work it down my length. Groaning, I arch my neck pushing my head back into the pillow and palm my balls giving them a tight squeeze. I’m on a knife’s edge already and I don’t want this to be over before it’s even begun. I want to drown my body and mind in memories of him, hold them close and sink into them instead of facing another day alone.

I kick off the duvet that’s tangled around my legs and work my boxers down with my free hand, using my feet to push them free. Spreading my legs, I bring my right leg up, bending it at the knee, exposing my entrance to the door opposite me. A fleeting moment of worry coils through me that Gale will open it and find me in a compromising position but as my eyes flick over to the open window I can see the sky is still awash with the deep blues and purples of predawn.

Rolling my balls in my left hand I feel them tighten, drawing closer to the base of my dick as lust pulses along my shaft. I flex my fingers around my length adjusting my grip until it’s punishing and tight as it works up and down my hard length using my precum to lubricate it.

“That’s it, little devil, stroke yourself for me. I want to see you desperate and wet. Begging me to fuck your pretty pink pussy.”

“Fuck, yes,” I groan as his voice feathers through my mind tempting and teasing me with its depravity. I can almost convince myself it’s his long, dexterous fingers wrapped around me pumping up and down milking me.

“Touch yourself. Sink your fingers into your needy hole and stretch it for me.” I bite my lip nodding as my fantasy plays out. “Spit in your hand; use that to make it nice and slick. I want to see it glisten.”

Releasing my balls, I sink two fingers into my mouth, sucking on them like I would his thick length, swirling my tongue around them, soaking them in saliva. Once they’re slick, I trail them over my balls, making a shiver ripple over my body and the muscles in my legs tense at the onslaught of pleasure. Continuing down my taint I increase the pressure the closer I get to my entrance leaving a slick trail across my skin. My orgasm builds like a tropical storm brewing, deadly but distant. It’s been months since I’ve touched myself or even felt the urge thrum through my body. Not since that day when the world became ground zero and my heart disintegrated to ash. I’ve felt nothing but contempt toward myself, desire or any emotion beyond resentment for myself and everyone in it.

How dare the world carry on as if I’m not destitute and broken, bleeding into the very earth that’s meant to nourish us. They said it was unexpected, a tragedy but no one cared or felt his loss like I did–alone, adrift without purpose. But now being back here I feel closer to him than I have since I took my last breath and I’ll do whatever I can to find out what happened. To find him.

My muscles tingle and tense in anticipation. My blood surges through my veins pooling in my cock as it grows thicker in my hand with each tight stroke. I can feel the veins in my shaft pulse with the need to come as I swipe my hand over my tip collecting more precum, making myself nice and slick on the downward stroke and roll my bottom lip between my teeth to stave off the moan building in the back of my throat.

“Such a fucking cock tease aren’t you, big brother? You’re filthy. Stroking yourself like this for my viewing pleasure.”His groan echoes in my head like rolling thunder as a fresh bead of precum trickles down me. “Push those fingers in that pussy and fuck yourself for me. Make yourself come, so I can drink you down.”

“Yes,” I hiss.

“I want you in my mouth. Would you like that, hmmm? To come on my tongue?”

“Fuck. Yes.” I circle my fingers around my hole teasing the rim, making the muscles soften and give under my touch. I start to push one finger through.

“Two.”He barks. “Two fingers, Rhys. Feel the burn so you remember me burying my cock deep inside you.”

“Oh god.” I thrash my head from side to side biting down on the pillow as I push two fingers inside me straight to the second knuckle. Only to pull them out in time with my next up stroke and push them all the way in and peg my prostate. My hips lift and flex as if he was really fucking me.

“That’s it, fuck that pussy.”

“Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.” I chant, the heat pooling at the base of my spine morphs into an inferno, my shaft thickening and pulsing relentlessly in my firm grip.

“That’s it, baby, milk yourself on my cock.”

“Fuck! Fuck. Fuck.” My hips stutter as I lose my rhythm, muscles locking up tight and fireworks burst behind my clenched eyes. Cum spills down my shaft and over my fingers as ropes spurt from my slit as my orgasm surges through me like a riptide hitting my chin, chest and abs.

“Such a fucking little slut for me.”Wet heat engulfs my glans as he sucks the cum right out of me. “Mmmm, you taste so fucking good.” The bed dips under his weight as he crawls up my body. “Open up for me, baby?—”

The jarring ringtone of my phone pierces through the euphoric haze, shattering it into oblivion. “Damn it,” I snarl, gulping down ragged breaths as I strive to regain my bearings, grateful that the incessant noise has finally ceased. I throw my arm over my face inadvertently smearing my cum across my cheek. “Fuck.” I blindly pat down by my feet searching for my boxers to wipe myself clean when my phone starts ringing once again.

Rolling over I grab it off the bedside table without looking at the screen. “Hello?”

”That was appalling, try again.” My heart freezes mid beat, what the hell is he doing calling me at this time?

Clearing my throat. “Hello, father.”

“That’s adequate I suppose but you need to announce yourself when you answer your phone, Rhys, otherwise how will people know who they’re talking to?” He sneers, his words used as a weapon. Because they called me, duh! I want to reply but never in my life have I spoken back to my father no matter how much contempt fills me when I interact with him.

“I will endeavour to do better, father.”

“See that you do. I don’t need another embarrassment associated with my name...” I roll my eyes at his self importance. If you’d ask him my father would say he is the sun and everyone else is merely in his orbit pulled towards him but what he fails to realise is the moon is just as powerful in all its dark glory. I’ve always preferred the darkness to the light; it’s where my heart has always been drawn. It’s where he always lingered. He came to me at night when the walls separating us during the day melted into the shadows and we could be free to be who we truly were. “Are you even listening to me, Rhys!”

“Uh, yeah? Bad line, sorry.” I lied, not wanting to hear another word from him.

“Right.” He clears his throat, lowering his tone and ice crawls across my skin. “As I said I want you to go and pack up his things,” he says with disgust, as if his words were rotten carrion. “There are boxes in the kitchen waiting for you. I want it all gone before I return.”

“But… he might come ba?—”

“This isn’t a request, Rhys, it’s an order. I want all traces of his taint removed from Barton Grange before I return from London. The servants have already seen to everything of Kira’s, but as you’re home now you might as well make yourself useful.”

“I was hop?—”

“Enough! You will do as I say or you’ll find yourself without a home, a degree, or your inheritance before the week is over.” The call disconnects, silence blankets the room suffocating me with its weight.

“What the hell is going on?” I mutter on a sigh. I run my hands through my hair in frustration yanking at the strands and catapult my phone across the room dejectedly watching it smash into the wall next to the door. The thud it makes on impact reverberates through the room as it crashes to the floor shattering. Tiny little pieces ping across the exposed floorboards like the pieces of my heart. I choke on a self deprecating laugh as my life seemingly crumbles around me.

The thundering cadence of footsteps reaches my ears, leaving me mere seconds to yank the duvet back over myself before Gale bursts through the door, a shoe poised above his head like a deadly weapon. “What the hell’s going on?”

I can’t help my derisive snort at the baffled expression on his face as he scans the room, maintaining the shoe’s defensive position. His eyes flit from one corner to another before locking onto me. Swallowing hard, he inches closer to the bed, a deep red blush surging up his chest and neck. “Ow, fuck!” He hops from one foot to the other as he steps on the shards of my broken phone so rapidly he tips forward and loses his balance, nearly face-planting onto my bed.

“That... that was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages,” I manage to say between fits of laughter.

Pulling himself into a sitting position, still clutching the shoe like it’s his last line of defence, he retorts. “Shut up, you idiot.” A smirk plays on his lips. “I heard a bang and a crash, and I thought?—“

“You thought someone was robbing me?”

“Well, yeah?”

“Out here,” I gesture with my arms in a wide arc. “In the middle of the grounds?” I snicker at the forlorn look of confusion on his face.

“I guess it was just my fight or flight response kicking in,” he shrugs.

“What were you planning to do with the shoe?”

“Shoe?” He looks at me quizzically.

“Yeah,” I point to the offending item in his hand.

“Oh, ummm.” The red deepens on his cheeks as embarrassment turns to mortification.

“Bludgeon them to death? Knock them out cold with one hit? Make them smell it till they pass out?”

He huffs a disgruntled sigh. “I hadn’t really gotten that far... I just grabbed the first thing I could and ran down here.”

“At least it wasn’t the lamp, I guess… you’d probably have tripped over the cable and landed on top of them.” He rolls his eyes at me, finally dropping the shoe in his lap as he turns to face me properly.

“Wanna talk about it?”

I sigh, flopping back onto the bed staring at the ceiling. The bed dips and moves underneath me as Gale lands next to me. My eyes flit over to him, he’s mirroring my position flat on his back staring up at the perfect white ceiling. “Not really.”

“Rhys. You know I’m here for you right?” He reaches out, locking his fingers with mine giving them a squeeze. It’s meant to be a comforting touch but it makes my skin crawl. I don’t want anyone else to touch me but Kayden. It feels wrong like I’m betraying him even though I feel nothing for Gale but a brotherly kind of affection.

“I do. I do…” my voice trails off, my throat swelling with emotion as my fathers words flow through my head.

“I’m here.” Another squeeze. “This is a judgement free zone.” He turns to look at me, his hazel eyes obscured by his lashes. Biting his lip, a look I can’t name churning in the depths of his eyes before he blinks and it’s gone as he stares at me waiting patiently.

Relenting under the heavy weight of his gaze, I say, “I had a call from my father.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah,” I huff, scrubbing my hand over my eyes.

“That explains the dent in the wall and the broken phone.” He rolls onto his side, tucking his hands under his head. “What did he say?” He asks tentatively.

I lick my dry lips trying to give myself the chance to get the words to form in my dry mouth. “H-he said I-I had to clear all K’s stuff out.” I manage on a shuddering breath.

“What? Is he not looking for him? What about Kira?”

Shaking my head from side to side I allow the tears to fall freely down my face. “Said her stuff is already gone.” I sniff rubbing the droplets off my nose. “It’s like he’s erasing them,” I rasp.

“Are you sure they didn’t break up?” I pin him with a scathing look, he swallows hard as if I physically slapped him. “I’m just saying it might explain why they’ve both kinda vanished.” He says without any weight to his words, it’s more like he’s plucking abstract ideas from thin air, offering me a bone of hope.

“No.” I grunt. “People don’t leave Neil Dixon…well, not… unless… unless they’re dead.” My heart drops into my stomach as that thought rolls through me like a cruel north wind.

“We, ah, I could always check to see if they got divorced.” He rolls his bottom lip between his teeth. “Or I could check to see…” He shrugs. “You know.” He lifts his hand pointing two fingers towards his temple mimicking a gunshot.

I gasp. “Fuck! No I-I couldn’t.” I swipe at my face, batting away the tears still lingering on my skin. “H-he would have said if that was… I can’t imagine that she would… It would destroy K.” My heart thunders against my sternum. “I mean she was a ghost, dressed in a pretty skin suit but she was still his mum.”

Grabbing my chin with his thumb and forefingers Gale turns me until I’m looking directly at him, sadness seeping from his features. “You said it yourself she wasn’t happy here, wasn’t a mother to Kayden or you.” I nod emphatically as he edges ever closer to me. “You said people don’t leave Neil, unless…” His words trail off but we both know what he’s implying.

“H-how?”

“Births, deaths, marriages and divorces are a matter of public record. I can easily find out for you and let you know either way.” His lips are barely a hair’s breadth from mine unease coils through me, a foghorn blares in my brain screaming abort. Abort!

I bring my hand up to his chest in time to halt his progress, shoving him hard he rolls onto his back breaking his contact with me. In a fit of violated rage I push up off the bed and tumble to the floor yanking the pillow down with me. I shimmy backwards to the wall trying to put as much distance between us as I possibly can whilst my heart hammers hard enough to crack bone and bile burns the back of my throat. “What the fuck?!”

“I-I-I—” Gale stutters and I cut him off immediately.

“What the fuck, man? That was not okay, what the hell do you think you were doing?” I seethe, feeling like I had the last thing securing my fragile mental state ripped away from me, leaving me raw and untethered.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“There I was spilling my heart, my pain to you. Battling to break down my walls for you, to you so I could let you in because I trusted you and you what? Were you thinking now was your chance to make a move?”

“No! No I…” His voice cracks and I want to comfort him. I want to comfort him when he’s the one that took advantage of me in a moment of weakness. The last person on earth I thought I could trust? Ragged breaths tear up and down my throat so violently I feel like I’m going to be sick. I raise my shaking hand cupping it over my mouth.

Gale drops to the floor in front of me walking on his knees to get closer to me, hands raised in the air. “I-I didn’t mean?—”

“Stop!” I bark, he halts, instantly rocking to a stop two feet in front of me. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

“I know,” He hiccups a sob. “I don’t know what c-came over me. Rhys, please…”

“Enough. Get out of my sight. I can’t, I just can’t be near you right now.”

He drops his head into his hands, shaking it from side to side as a gut wrenching cry rips out of him. “I k-know. I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to.” Waterlogged hazel eyes peer at me through his fingers.

“Go.” He blinks as if he isn’t hearing me. “Just fucking go, Gale.”

“But?”

“No buts. Get out of my sight. You’ve made an already shitty day a million times worse.” I sniff, wiping away tears with the back of my hand. “I thought I could trust you.”

“You can,” he pleads.

“I thought we were like brothers.”

“W-we are,” he cries, his broken voice filled with remorse but the anger and revulsion pouring through me at the moment won’t allow me to acknowledge it.

“I thought you were my person. There for me through thick and thin?—”

“I am. I promise, I am. I just?—”

“Fucking go!” I scream at him. Staring at him through hazy eyes, I see the moment unsalvageable defeat washes over his face. His shoulders slump and he knows its game over. Pushing to his feet he silently steps over to the door clutching to the handle like it’s his last lifeline.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I made an impulsive mistake. Forgive me? Please?” He wrenches open the door as I scoff derisively watching his retreating figure but not really seeing him as my vision blurs.

“Forgive you? Not fucking likely,” I mutter as the door clicks shut, softly. I exhale the weight of the world curling myself around the pillow wedged in my lap and scream into it. I scream out my pain, heartbreak, betrayal, and utter defeat.

My eyes become heavy, the weight of emotional trauma draining me to my core, one that was barely functioning as it was. Is this how K felt? So broken and alone that even the thought of breathing was too painful? These last months have been like trying to walk through quick drying cement without a beating heart. No drive, no energy. I want to get black out drunk and never wake up—something I’ve always inherently feared. Take a gun to my temple and pull the fucking trigger. I just can’t, anymore. And now with my last safe haven ripped out from underneath me I’m free falling into the darkness and I don’t care. I give up.

I’ve found what comes after rock bottom, angel. Is that where you were when I was gone? I feel closer to you than I have in months. Closer, yet still so far away. It’s not like I can pick up the phone and call you. Are you even on this earth? Or are you galaxies away? Finally free from the demons that hunted you?

My heart tells me you are, but hearts lie. Just like people. I learned that lesson again today, this time it might stick. I can feel it burying deep within my bones, rotting them from the inside out. It wants to believe in the best, especially in people but today I found out you can’t trust anyone. Not even those you consider family, even if they’re not blood.

I’ve never felt like this, so hopeless. Adrift? Lost? I don’t know how to describe it. I’m untethered in a way that scares me. I came home for Christmas—summoned really—but I came for one reason. To find out the truth.

I need answers more than I need my next breath. What good is oxygen when my lungs don’t work? My body craves you, you’re all I need, all I want but I…

Fuck, angel. I don’t know how you did it. How you kept going, and managed to smile. How did you open up to me and let me in? You ripped down your walls for me and I wasn’t there to catch you when you fell.

I left you when you needed me most and I regret it every day. I’ll find out the truth. I’ll find you and make everything right. I have to… there’s no other option I’m willing to entertain.

I’ll find you, angel, be it in this life or the next. You’re part of me, more integral than my own DNA. Inked on my heart—in my soul—the atoms that make me up are created from you.

I promise you, I’m coming. Somehow, some way. I’ll do whatever it takes. Nothing and I mean nothing is beyond what I’m prepared to do to get you back.

I love you, with every broken facet of my soul. It’s yours, I’m yours, always.

If you’ll have me?