Ranger shivered, his kiss wavering as he snatched a shaky breath.
Utter madness drove me to slide my tongue into his mouth. To forget the times such a thing had been forced on me by other men.
He is not other men.
And I was no longer a boy. But a deep and wicked part of me did not understand, and bombarded by mixed messages, my heart reacted, beating so loud and so hard that I could not hear the music.
“Easy.” Ranger’s voice was rough whatever volume he spoke at. But his palm on my chest was gentle, even as he applied enough pressure to ground me. “Let’s go smoke.”
Cigarettes. He meantcigarettes. And I caught the wayward spark in my broken brain before it manifested.
I kissed Ranger again. To prove that I could.
To myself.
To him.
I did not know.
But perhaps he really did want a cigarette, and despite the rules for such things being somewhat lapse in my club, I led him away from the crowds and back to the safe room.
Ranger perched on a desk and lit up. “We could’ve stayed out there. Or gone to the balcony where every other cunt is smoking.”
“Everyone here is a cunt to you?”
“Figure of speech, luv.”
Luv.Love. Though I knew it meant nothing, I liked it when he called me that. I liked tasting his kiss on my lips and wearing the imprint of his touch on my skin.
It’s not enough.
“Can I ask you something?” Ranger eyed me through a haze of tobacco smoke. “You can tell me to fuck a cactus if you want.”
“I would not want. Ask me.”
Hesitation danced in Ranger’s dark gaze. Then he shrugged—to himself, not me. “If that other room was for Jake’s ma, where washegonna sleep?”
“With me.” I answered without hesitation. “Or at Katya’s house on the sofa. He has never been here enough for it to matter.”
Ranger smoked some more.
It took me a few seconds to catch up. “You are asking if Jake and I fuck?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
Another shrug. “It wasn’t my intention, but here we fucking are.”
“Here we fucking are...” I parroted his words as he extended his arm, offering me the cigarette, but I didn’t want it. I wanted something else. I wanted the only thing on earth that could pull me away from the warmth and light this man gave me just by existing. And I only wanted it—dope—because I knew what I was about to tell him might mean he’d never kiss me again. “Jake and I have been brothers since his father stole me from a trafficking ring and made me a soldier. But we are not biologically related.”
“So you are fucking?”
“Wehavefucked. But it is not...” I searched for the English words to explain what Jake and I were to each other. “We are not together. Is not... monogamous or?—”
“You’re fucking other people too?”
“I have not for a long time.” Since I methim. “And... I have never with a man that was not Jake. Not by choice.”
