Page 30 of Love by Design (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #1)

SILAS

I t had been a really long time since I’d spent the entire day with Lincoln, and getting fired by my dad had sucked, but doing absolutely nothing with my best friend all day was exactly what I’d needed.

After getting off the phone with Marshall, I turned my attention back to the pasta I’d put to boil since I was still responsible for myself and for Lincoln, who sat at the counter with his chin perched in his hands.

“Everything good?” he asked.

“You can tell it wasn’t.” I arched a brow at him. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to play nice. You heard him. His brother…doesn’t know.”

Lincoln chortled. “Would kind of be weird if he did, right?”

“A bit, yeah,” I agreed.

The pasta was tender, so I carried the pot to the sink and dumped the contents into a strainer.

Lincoln was strictly a butter and cheese kind of guy, so there wasn’t any sauce to bother with.

I mixed the pasta with half a stick of butter and a few spoonfuls of the most expensive-looking parmesan flakes I’d ever seen in my life and served us both up.

There was enough left over to feed Marshall and his brother, though I doubted either of them would be hungry.

“I know his brother, actually,” I said, climbing onto a stool to sit at Lincoln’s side. “From college.”

“Is he cool? Is that weird?”

“He was quiet then. A little moody. And why would it be weird?”

“Because you know his brother now.”

“I didn’t know Smith,” I corrected, rolling my eyes. “He was cute, but it wasn’t like that.”

Smith Covington had been angry at the world but pretty enough to get away with it, and I was curious to see how he’d matured since freshman year. I didn’t even know if he remembered me from school or if he just recognized my name from the work I’d done as an adult.

Either way.

“I just realized I’m still in pajamas,” I groaned, shoveling a bite of pasta into my mouth before reluctantly peeling myself away from the counter.

“So?”

“So I don’t want to meet Marshall’s brother for the first time dressed in his gym clothes.”

“You said you knew him from school.”

“You know what I mean!” I called over my shoulder, already halfway to the bedroom. Lincoln’s laughter—and his footsteps—followed behind me down the hall, and he made himself at home on the bed while I dug out clothes that looked somewhat more presentable.

Marshall and I were not yet to the shared drawers at each other’s houses stage of the relationship, but I had at least one pair of jeans hiding out in his closet because I’d had them in my bag by accident Wednesday night.

There wasn’t much to do about a better t-shirt, so jeans and Marshall’s old college rowing team shirt would have to do.

“Do I look passable?” I asked, plucking at the hem.

My nerves had stacked on themselves since I’d gotten off the phone, and I didn’t know if I was more worried about meeting Marshall’s brother or making sure I didn’t slip up and call him Sir.

It had been easy to not in the very first days of being with him, but now that I used it, now that he’d earned it…

the feel of it in my mouth was as natural as breathing.

“If I found you attractive, you would be positively fuckable,” Lincoln said.

Scoffing, I pulled him up from the bed and into a hug that had the sides of our noses brushing together. His lips shined with butter from the pasta, and I kissed him quickly against the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you for staying with me today,” I said, threading our fingers together and walking backward toward the hallway.

“It was a hardship,” he assured me. “Sitting on that comfortable couch, watching all the premium channels, eating that expensive food of his.”

“We have all the premium channels.”

“Our couch is garbage,” he said. “I didn’t realize it until today.”

I laughed, making it back to the counter. “It is pretty nice. We’ll have to get a new one.”

Lincoln and I managed a few more bites of pasta before the garage door opened. At the sound of it, he turned to me with wide and playful eyes, then gave his shoulders a little wiggle.

“You ready?” he asked.

“No.”

“Too bad.”

He dumped another forkful of pasta into his mouth and spun the barstool around so he had a line of sight toward the door into the house. I tried to eat some more pasta, not because I had the stomach for it, but because it was part of my deal with Marshall that I would keep myself fed and hydrated.

The door opened and he was there, tall and broad as always, with a slump in his shoulders that was so slight, if you weren’t familiar with the way he normally carried himself you wouldn’t have even noticed it.

When he saw me in his shirt, he flashed a very brief—but hot—smile, then stepped out of the way to make room for his brother.

Smith was inches shorter than him and far slimmer, but even though they looked different, it was clear they shared a relation somewhere in the family tree.

Smith also looked like someone had kicked him in the ribs, and the urge to protect him was strong.

I understood why Marshall had made the decision to bring him home.

He closed the door behind him and looked up, giving me the barest of glances but lingering seconds longer on Lincoln.

“Smith, this is Silas,” Marshall said, closing the space between us and wrapping me up into a hug. He kissed the top of my head, and I managed a small wave to Smith, more of a gesture, just a raised hand in greeting.

“Nice to meet you.”

Smith clearly came from money. He was all manners even as whatever emotions he worked through bore down on him.

“This is my best friend, Lincoln,” I said, pointing at said friend.

“Nice to meet you,” Smith said again, softer.

“Do you…want some pasta?” I asked with a shrug. “I know you and Marshall normally have dinner together, but it’s early and I don’t think you guys had time to eat?”

Smith exhaled, sullen, then sniffed the air. “No, I’m good.”

“Butter and cheese,” Marshall observed, sliding his hand down my spine and letting it come to rest in the dip above my ass. “Have a bowl, Smith.”

“I’ll make it up,” I offered.

Marshall gave me a knowing look, and I went to the kitchen to serve up some of the extra pasta. Lincoln had sat back down at the counter to finish eating, and Smith took the empty barstool beside him.

“Do you want any?” I asked Marshall.

He shook his head and tugged at the knot of his tie. “I want you to finish what you’re doing and meet me in the bedroom.”

“Yes…yeah.” I cleared my throat and set a bowl of pasta in front of Smith.

Marshall cast a quick look down at the contents of my half-eaten bowl, then inclined his head toward the hallway. Lincoln waggled his eyebrows at me, and I gave him the finger.

“We’re good,” Lincoln said, seemingly to both of us, because Marshall didn’t move until the words had left Lincoln’s mouth.

I followed him into the bedroom and walked right into his waiting arms, burying my face against the front of his chest with a happy sigh.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m good. Honestly. Better now.”

“Did you talk to Cory?”

“All set for Monday,” I said.

Marshall hummed and slid his hands down my sides until they were bracketed around my waist and our bodies were notched together in the way that already felt so right.

“What happened tonight?” I asked, flattening my palms against the center of his chest. I dragged them up until I reached his tie, then fussed with the knot until it came loose. He answered me with an approving noise, so I pulled the tie off and set to work with his buttons .

“You know I have three brothers,” he said.

I tugged the tails of his shirt free from his pants, then slid the sleeves down until he was only in slacks.

“Yes.”

“Half-brothers,” he said. “Different mothers who all sold us out in the name of a payoff.”

“What now?”

“We all came to live with my father because after he found out about us, he bought us.”

Marshall explained it like he was reading something as commonplace as a recipe, which seemed impossible. I undid his belt and pulled down his fly.

“I was the first, then Finn and Hunter. They were young. Smith…he came later.”

“How much later?”

I helped Marshall out of his pants, then toyed with the waistband of his black boxer briefs.

“He was almost a teenager. He’s always been the baby, but for years now it’s just been the four of us.”

“They’re lucky to have you.”

“We’re lucky to have each other.”

He still had my hands, so I left his briefs alone.

“Hunter was recently made aware we have another half-brother. He’s down in San Diego, named Andrew. We just told Smith and Finn about him tonight.”

The breath left my lungs like air leaving a sail. “Oh, shit.”

He huffed out what might have passed for a laugh on a better day. “Smith is not taking the news well.”

“How are you taking it?” I pulled Marshall toward the dresser so I wouldn’t have to take my hands off of him, and he smirked at me but went along with it.

“It’s old hat to me at this point.”

“That can’t be true.”

Marshall buried his face into my hair and breathed me in with a groan.

His dick pressed against my hip, but he hadn’t asked me to touch it, so I busied my hands by reaching behind me until I found the dresser drawer where he kept his lounge clothes.

I slipped a folded up and clean pair of sweats between us, and he made a very unimpressed sound.

“It is true,” he assured me, taking a step away. “What else is true is that you may put those on for me. I rather don’t feel like doing it myself tonight.”

This was new. It was a different kind of submission, but a welcome one as I sank to my knees in front of him. One foot, then another into the sweats and I was back on my feet again, settling the waistband around his hips and tracing the muscle where the soft material met his skin.

“I don’t enjoy seeing any of my brothers upset,” Marshall said slowly, like he’d picked the words out carefully to make sure they were the right ones. He definitely had that way about him. “As for how it makes me feel, we’re all adults so it’s not anything like it used to be before.”

“Is your dad still alive?”

“So I’m told,” he murmured. “Get me a shirt, and I have to be honest, Silas. I love the way you look in my clothes.”

Heat flooded my cheeks, and I turned away to get a shirt from the drawer for him. Marshall held his arms up expectantly, and I dressed him in his shirt as well, smoothing my hands down the front of his stomach to set the thin fabric into place.

“I didn’t want to meet your brother dressed in sweats, but I didn’t have a clean shirt.”

“You look perfect,” he assured me. “Though maybe you should bring some clothes over.”

“Are you asking?”

He chuckled. “When have I asked you anything?”

I shivered, thinking about the numerous times Marshall had, in fact, asked me things. All the careful and thorough ways he’d negotiated consent with me and the ways he continued to do so even as we settled into a routine.

“What would you like me to bring over, Sir?” I whispered, tilting my head back to look up at him.

He rubbed his lips together, licked the bottom one until it was so thoroughly wet with spit that my cock ached in my jeans just thinking about what it would feel like to slide into his mouth.

All the things we’d done together, and he’d never sucked my cock. I wondered if he ever would. Wondered if he would let me come in his mouth or not…

“Use your best judgment, Silas.”

He pressed the side of his finger against the underside of my chin, then closed the space between us and brought our mouths together in an unfairly soft and chaste kiss.

“Yes, Sir,” I murmured.

He groaned and licked his tongue across the seam of my lips, then stopped and stepped back.

“I need to go check on Smith,” he said. “Or I’d stay in here with you all night.”

“He’s in good hands with Lincoln.”

“Just like you were?” Marshall arched a brow.

“We watched TV all day,” I explained. “I made us lunch, and I made us dinner, and I kissed him after I got dressed because I was so grateful to spend the day with him.”

Even though Marshall had told me it was okay for Lincoln and me to still kiss, to still cuddle, to still be ourselves , there was definitely a part of me that had been worried about how it would play out in practice.

“You’re allowed,” he reminded me, raising my hand to his mouth and dusting a kiss across my knuckles.

I exhaled and nodded. “I know.”

Marshall gave me a look so filled with longing I worried it was going to knock me over. I reached out to steady myself against him, and he let out a gentle laugh.

“I don’t want to keep you from your brother,” I said.

“You couldn’t if you tried,” he promised, and I knew the truth of it in my bones. “Now kiss me again, Silas, then go finish your dinner.”