Page 3 of Requiem Of Him (Of Solace And Sin #1)

Jameson doesn’t bother waiting for me to get out of the SUV as he trudged up the stairs, nearly ripping the front door off the hinges and slipping into the house.

I’m not in a rush to follow him, taking my time to light a cigarette.

Listening to Alessio try to charm his way out of being reprimanded seems more entertaining anyway.

Leaning back against the cool metal of the passenger door, I watch the breeze sweep up the smoke exiting my lungs and carry it off into the abyss of the night before settling my gaze on the house that nurtured me for years, only to find it more unfamiliar than the city had become.

Vines from the overgrown foliage climb the aged white sandstone.

Cracks spiderwebbed, fracturing the once pristine exterior where the foundation had begun to settle the same way Alessio and Jameson had splintered their parents’ relationship that still hadn’t recovered.

Both were to blame, but Jameson did what he could to triage and remain obstinate while Alessio did everything in his power to wear his stepbrother down.

But deep down we all knew what Jameson’s actions after his parents found out what they were up to behind closed doors did to Alessio, and it was devastating.

He loved Jameson in his own fucked up way, but it wasn’t enough.

That was one thing we had in common, much to our mutual displeasure.

I do my best to shake the thought from my head, taking one last drag before I stub out my cigarette on the bottom of my boot and flick it onto the hood of Alessio’s car as I pass it and force myself to climb the stairs.

Hopefully, Alessio drugged Nyx up enough so he wouldn’t remember this shit.

It was a fucked up thought, but it was better than the alternative.

He’d been here for three hours, but fifteen minutes was all Alessio needed to inflict irreparable damage, physical or psychological, and as much as I didn’t want to imagine what had been done, I still knew.

When I reach the front door, I see a glassy-eyed Nyx leaning against Cortland right inside the door in an all too familiar fashion that makes my blood boil. It isn’t his fault he’s so blitzed out of his mind that he needs help to remain upright, but it still doesn’t piss me off any less.

Silently, I slither my way into the house undetected and settle against the wall of the entryway.

I light another cigarette as I watch the scene unfold in front of me.

Jameson yelling at Alessio for messing with one of his boys, Nyx grappling with trying to find some semblance of control, Cortland trying to soothe him in a way that makes my stomach roll.

Alessio sprawling out in a chair is the picture of nonchalance as Jameson continues berating him about messing with his boys and going to their father about this, but the hearts swirling in Alessio’s eyes as Jameson takes him apart is proof that this is all he wanted.

He’s struggling to hold himself back, the indecision is plain as day, but Jameson is too fired up to even see the adoration and lust aimed his way by his stepbrother.

It’s unbearably heartbreaking watching Alessio each time he’s in the same room as Jameson, but no one says a word.

Even his twin, Andreas, steers clear of them when they’re near each other.

It has gotten so bad that Jameson’s friend Xander opened his home to him since Alessio has been back in Atlanta for all of two weeks, and he’s already wreaking havoc.

Jameson might be a pocket-sized twink, but his wrath is something to be reckoned with.

He’s always been tiny ever since I’d met him, and really, I wasn’t sure how his very soft, very enlarged heart that was a sucker for basket cases and broken things could manage to fit in his lithe body, but it did.

One of Alessio’s men grabs Jameson by the waist as he invades Alessio’s space, and all hell breaks loose.

Alessio wrenches the man’s arm behind his back, pressing his body into the nearest pillar of the entryway and threatens his life.

His tall, muscular frame dwarfs the man easily, and for a moment I think he’s going to dislocate his arm from his shoulder, but Jameson simply places a hand on Alessio’s back, soothing the beast prowling beneath the surface.

A small whimper breaks my fixation on them, and I return my attention to Nyx and Cortland.

The sight gnaws at the soft, gooey pieces of me that I’d buried deep many years ago, and the air around me thins as I watch it all unfold around me.

But this time I can’t break the tether between us as Cortland looks in my direction for just a split second.

My breathing becomes shallow, and needles prickle along my flesh as I wait for him to say something, but he breaks the connection first.

All as I stood there like a fly on the wall, watching the man who haunted me each time my eyes grew heavy enough to pull me into the ether.

Eight years has not been enough time, not when I would always crave even the slightest hint of his presence, his attention.

Though I was no longer recognizable to the naked eye, I expected more than a dismissive flick of his whiskey irises, but I got nothing more than an irritating once over before he returned his attention to Nyx.

I don’t know why I expected more when every trace of Aubrey Sorensen had died, and for that I was grateful, but Cortland’s presence threatened the life I had sacrificed everything for.

“Nyx, come,” I demand without an ounce of empathy for him.

Nyx complies like an obedient dog, shrugging Cortland’s weight off him and stumbling into my arms when he reaches me.

I feel a sick sense of satisfaction that he’s no longer touching Cortland.

The momentary distraction allows one of Alessio’s men to pull Cortland’s attention away from us, giving me enough privacy to catalogue the damage they’d inflicted.

I lift Nyx’s chin to get a look at his eyes, knowing with Alessio, it wasn’t a party without favors, and I know Nyx already has a little bit of a problem.

Blown pupils nearly overtake his irises, the blood vessels of his sclera screaming from stress, and I can almost guarantee there is hemorrhaging.

He doesn’t fight me while I check over the rest of his body, finding welts covering the back of his thighs and ass that leave little to the imagination of what else I might find beneath the scrap of clothes they dressed him in.

If I had to guess, he’d been given a heavy cocktail of an upper and a downer, enough to make him compliant, agreeable even, and Alessio had the means.

I wonder which welts on his skin belonged to Cortland, what he had done to Nyx. I’m curious if Cortland was the one who broke him.

As Nyx’s body sways into my own, the overwhelming scent of Cortland’s sweat and piss coats the back of my tongue.

Onyx dissolves in my arms the moment I’m not holding him up, and I can’t help but bury my nose in the delicate slope of his neck.

I inhale deeply, getting high off the scent embedded in his flesh.

I catch my breath, only to do it again, making Nyx shiver in my arms. A choked moan escapes him as my fingers bite into his battered skin, his cock brushing against my thigh that was meant to be holding him steady, but he chases the friction a little too eagerly, and I break the connection.

Jameson glances in our direction before turning his attention back to his brother, chastising him in front of his men.

When I hear Jameson drop Cortland’s name with a familiarity he shouldn’t have, shock takes over my body, and I want to do the only thing I’m good at—run.

It’s the second time tonight Jameson has carelessly mentioned a man’s name that he should have no connection to whatsoever.

I watch closely as Cortland joins their already heated discussion, my insides quivering as the familiar cadence of his gravelly, baritone voice swamps my auditory cortex.

I let myself seek him out once more, using Nyx as a shield but also to ground me in place, keeping me stationary.

Even though I’d seen him more than a handful of times in recent years, it wasn’t like this.

Cortland is every bit of the man I had imagined he would be.

Aged like fine fucking wine. He’s as imposing as he had ever been, but he sticks to the shadows, keeping attention diverted elsewhere, which is not the man I had known him to be.

Maybe it was the hero worship that warped my image of him as a child, but there was something missing—something that had been taken from him.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, not that he would want anyone to.

I ache to run my fingers through the stubble lining his sharp jawline.

I want to feel the roughness of it against my tongue and commit his taste to memory.

I want to tug on the sandy blonde hair hidden under his black cowboy hat, to hear him hiss and groan under the pressure.

The thought of it alone makes my dick hard as moisture seeps from my hole, drenching my briefs.

And fuck if I’m not tempted to wrap myself around his leg and worship his filthy Lucchese boots until my cum soils them further and my inner thighs chafe from the leather while he shoves my face into his crotch, holding me there and forcing me to inhale his sweaty musk after a long day of riding.

It’s disgusting and shameful, the things I want him to do to me, but I can’t get myself to stop, and I don’t care. I want it all.