Page 13 of Promised Secret (Promises, Promises #3)

Chapter Ten

DAN

“We’re fine, Mom. It was just an accident. You and Uncle Victor go home and rest,” Clay said and tried to herd our parents toward the door.

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and watched them. I didn’t miss how Clay still chose not to call my dad lao-ba even after I told him to.

God, what a fucking mess.

I hadn’t expected Clay to try to kiss me, especially when our parents were here. It was like he didn’t care if they found out, which couldn’t have been it. He had to care, especially when I cared so fucking much.

Them finding out our relationship might have gone beyond just stepbrothers was all I worried about for years. Them finding out I’d been in love with my stepbrother the entire time we’d been playing happy family kept me up on many sleepless nights, and yet Clay was so careless.

He probably thought kissing me was nothing. It was just a form of comfort, like a kiss on the head or a hug.

Not having a guilty conscience must be great.

“Okay, but call us if you need anything,” Sandra said. She looked over Clay’s shoulder at me, worried still. “Goodnight, Dan.”

I sighed and kicked off the wall I was leaning against to give her a proper hug goodbye. It wasn’t her fault she had the most perfect son ever, and I was struggling to not love him.

Lao-ba clasped my shoulder. “You can always talk to me, son,” he said, then pulled me into an actual hug.

Fuck, did that make me feel even more guilty. He wasn’t really the hugging guy, not unless I made him give me one. And I knew he was mad that I’d let my anger take over, but instead of berating me, he was trying to be understanding.

I wanted to be half the man my lao-ba was someday.

First things first, I needed to un-fuck everything. Getting it through Clay’s head that there would be no more kissing was top priority.

I thought that was the easiest task on my list, considering it wasn’t like Clay wanted to kiss me. He did it to soothe me and nothing else.

Our parents finally agreed to leave. Clay locked the door behind them, then spun around to face me. He stared me down, his gaze a hot caress against my skin.

Was this how he stared at his perps? Focused and unwavering, like he wasn’t going to let you get away. If I were a wanted criminal and he was after me, I’d probably go with him willingly.

Alas, this was real life, and our circumstances didn’t allow me to submit, even if I wanted to.

I sighed and nodded toward the living room.

“We should talk,” I told him.

He made a sound of agreement and followed me to the couch. He tried sitting beside me, but I couldn’t be this close to him right now. I moved to the armchair instead.

Clay frowned at my relocating, but he didn’t comment on it. He leaned forward instead, elbows resting against his knees, and eyes still on mine.

“Are you finally going to tell me what the hell is going on?” he rumbled.

Guess we were getting straight into it, coming in guns blazing.

“I told you already. I want us to try being a family.”

His frown deepened, his green eyes turning murky in his confusion. “What do you mean, try? We are a family.”

I bit my tongue and held back from telling him that family didn’t have wet dreams about each other. Didn’t fantasize about stripping them down to their birthday suit just so they could worship their magnificent body.

I wanted to kiss the mole he had in the middle of his neck, as well as all the others scattered across his body. I’d tease them against my lips until I knew where each of them was by heart.

My gaze flicked away. I couldn’t meet his eyes, not when I was thinking such indecent thoughts about him.

“Exactly,” I rasped out instead. It felt like there was syrup stuck in my throat, but I pushed through it. “Which is why we really shouldn’t kiss each other anymore.”

He was silent, digesting my words. And just when I thought he was finally understanding how fucked up our relationship has been, he slipped out a single, “No.”

“No? As in, ‘No problem, Dan. No more lip locking’?”

“No, as in, I’m rejecting your suggestion,” he said firmly.

I swept a frustrated hand through my hair. It was getting a bit longer than I liked. Maybe I should ask Clay’s mom for a trim, too?

“Why are you being so difficult, Clay? It’s not like you even like kissing me,” I argued.

“I don’t not like it,” he offered, which only made me want to pull my hair out even more.

“Do you even understand how ridiculous this is? You want to continue kissing me because what? You don’t dislike it?”

“Because you like it.”

He spoke the words softly, but they still took the air out of my lungs. It was confirmation that this fuckery really was of my own making.

“It’s wrong,” I said just as softly. “You shouldn’t let me take advantage of you just because it’s something I want.”

“You’re not taking advantage of me. I’m offering myself up.”

I wanted to strangle him for making it so fucking hard to put an end to this. Or kiss him, but our kissing was the reason we were having this conversation in the first place.

“So what? You’ll let me do anything to you? You’ll be a good boy and do whatever I want? What if I told you to get naked right now, huh? You gonna strip for me?” I said, arms crossed in challenge.

I thought I’d won when he didn’t have a rebuttal, but I should have known Clay was never one to back down. He smoothly whipped his shirt over his head and tossed it behind him.

“What are you—”

Clay stood, unzipped his jeans, and was already kicking them off when I shot out of my seat to try stopping him.

“Clay, stop, stop,” I told him, begged him, because I was only so strong, and those thick, hairy thighs had my brain short-circuiting.

He wore tight black briefs that had to be cutting off circulation to his legs, but god, did they look good on him. I had to swallow down my saliva when my gaze landed on his bulge.

His thumb slipped under the top band of his underwear, and my eyes refused to look at anything else.

“Clay…” I rasped, warning him, still begging him. For what? I couldn’t answer, but Clay did the answering for me.

He slipped the briefs down his thighs, letting them fall down his legs before kicking them away. He slowly opened his arms, as if telling me he meant it when he said he was mine to use.

My eyes trailed down his body—a literal work of art.

What made it even more alluring was that I knew how hard he’d worked to get it.

All the hours he’d put in the gym, all the weights he’d lifted to make sure he’d never be at the other end of a fist again.

To make sure he could protect the people he loved.

It was no wonder that I failed at every attempt to stop loving him.

He was fucking perfect.

Clay sank back onto the couch, arms resting on the back on either side of him, his dick flaccid against his thigh.

My mouth went dry.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him naked, but it was the first time I hadn’t had to sneak glances at him, worried he’d catch me checking him out. He had to be doing this to prove something to me, and I wasn’t strong enough to not look.

“What now?” he asked, hands opened facing me.

“Now, you put your clothes back on,” I forced out, praying he got dressed before I sported a very inconvenient boner. Explaining why I got hard from seeing my stepbrother naked was not something I cared to do.

“Nah, I’m good,” he answered.

“Jesus, Clay. Just put your fucking clothes back on.”

My shouting didn’t faze him. He lazily looked me over.

“Or you could get naked with me.”

“I—fuck—and why the hell would I do that?”

The fucker shrugged. “The same reason you told me to get naked, I suppose.”

“You don’t even know—you know what, it doesn’t matter,” I said, letting out a frustrated sigh. I couldn’t look at him any longer because the danger of sporting a tent was a really high possibility.

But knowing what I needed to do and actually doing it were two different things.

My eyes kept dancing back to him. Clay continued to watch me watch him, and to my absolute shock and horror, his cock started plumping up.

“Clay,” I said, a whimper in my tone.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you hard?” I asked, peering at his now fully erect cock standing tall against his abs.

I’d felt him hard against me once, but we’d both been drunk, and we never spoke about it again. I never thought I’d actually be able to see it. Now I fucking see all of him and could confirm that he was absolute perfection.

I was so fucking fucked.

“Like your eyes on me,” Clay answered casually.

I forced my lids shut because otherwise I was going to pounce on him, and then we’d see how he liked it then.

“Don’t shy away. Look at me, Dan.”

He was fucking relentless, and I could do nothing but obey.

Imagine my surprise when I was met with his hand on his cock.

“Clay,” I hissed, my pants already feeling too tight. “This is wrong.”

“Maybe,” was his only reply. He continued a lazy stroke up his length, squeezing out a bead of precum I wanted to lap up.

“We’re stepbrothers.” I didn’t know whether I was trying to convince him or myself.

He shrugged again. “But before that, we’re us—Dan and Clay. Who’s to tell us what’s wrong when it’s right for us?”

I wanted to ask him if this was right for us. Had our relationship evolved to this point? To one of us watching the other jerk off?

My breaths came out shallow and labored, and my eyes were hot as I watched Clay slowly stroke himself from tip to base. He fondled his balls between his fingers, a delicious huffing moan coming from his lips as he squeezed them.

I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think—and that had to be the only reason the next words left my mouth.

“Will you really let me do anything?”

Clay’s green eyes almost glowed when he traced his gaze up my body to meet my eyes. I must have been transported into the desert, because why else was I so fucking thirsty and Clay was looking like my oasis?

“Anything,” Clay emphasized.

“Can I… Can I touch you?”

His answer was to release his erection and spread his legs wider in invitation. I was moving before I could even process it. The distance quickly shortened until I was standing right between his thighs.

Clay rested his arms on the back of the couch and looked up at me with a questioning brow. He didn’t shy away from me, and there wasn’t a single hint of hesitancy in his gaze either.

I wanted some of his certainty, because I had no fucking clue what I was doing. This was a terrible idea that could mess everything up way more than it already was. I knew the consequences, yet I was powerless to make myself stop.

I dropped to my knees to get a better look. This close, I could see the angry veins going down his length. I wanted to trace them with my tongue until I knew every single ridge of his cock. I wanted to press my nose into his pubes until his scent was ingrained in me.

Not wanting to scare him off with my intensity, I reached out a tentative hand instead. His heat burned into my hand. He was hard and velvety under my touch. The feel of him was so fucking addictive I didn’t know how to stop.

I could feel Clay’s eyes on me, watching me the same way he always did. Whether I was poring over a textbook or stroking his dick, his gaze held the same intensity.

It was all too much. The feel of him, his heavy eyes trained on me, and I was not expecting his fingers sliding through my hair, fiddling with the longish locks.

The boner I’d tried to keep in check fought to poke a hole through my jeans. I ignored it and slid my hand down the underside of his length. I memorized the weight of his balls in the palm of my hand and committed the breathy sounds he made into memory.

I probably wouldn’t get a chance like this again, so I made sure I took everything he was willing to give before it was too late.

Clay’s eyes were half-lidded. He had a lazy, comfortable look about him that made me want to rile him up until I brought out the raw side of him I’d never seen before.

My finger slid up his cock to swipe at the precum pooling at his head. I used it as a glide and covered his length in it.

“Feels good,” Clay breathed, his breath coming out shaky. “I’ve never noticed how nice your hands are, though it’s not surprising. Everything about you is nice.”

My heart rate kicked up at that, and I firmly told myself not to think too deeply into his words.

“You have nice hands, too,” I told him. He smirked, his fingers sliding over the shell of my ear, then burned a line down the back of my neck.

I almost purred from his touch. My cock liked having his hand on me even if he wasn’t the one getting the attention. At this rate, my underwear was going to be sloppy wet from my precum.

“So, we’ve established we both have nice hands,” I said lamely. “I, uh, should probably stop now.”

I reluctantly released his hard cock, because I knew if I didn’t stop now, I never would. His precum was still sticky on my palm. I wanted to run to my room and jerk off with it. It’d probably last me all night, or until my dick was rubbed raw.

I braced myself to stand, but Clay’s hand in my hair pressed me down. He used his other hand to retrieve mine. His grip on mine was surprisingly strong, and before I could question what he was doing, he’d already placed my hand back on his cock and covered mine with his own.

“Help me,” he all but growled.

There was something primal in his voice that held me frozen in place. All I could do was watch as Clay guided my hand to stroke his erection. He used me to pleasure himself…and god, I’d never seen anything sexier.

My heart was racing faster than a fucking Formula 1 car, and my cock felt like it would burst through the zipper of my jeans.

Clay parted his lips, eyes still locked with mine as he let out a soft moan that was going to star in my dreams for years to come.

And just like that, Clay was coming, his essence spilling over our hands as he continued to use my hand to stroke himself through his orgasm.

My own cock throbbed as I watched him, desperate to be touched, desperate to come with him. I ignored my own need and focused on Clay’s.

He was still watching me, his eyes intense as he gave me a look that reminded me of how I looked at him when I wanted comfort. And my comfort was always a kiss from him, so I gave in to my instincts and went for it.

Clay met me halfway, his mouth hard against mine. A delicious, throaty sound echoed in the living room as he hungrily devoured my lips. The metallic taste of blood from where I’d bitten him earlier only served to heighten my senses toward him.

Every single cell inside my body screamed it belonged to Clay Segall, and just like his stubble that was currently rubbing my skin raw, I wasn’t going to stop loving him, even if my heart was torn to shreds.