Page 22 of Deviant Need

He still gets into trouble nonstop and runs his mouth constantly, trying to get under everyone’s skin just because he can. Our mother is always mad at him because he can never behave himself, even though he’s the second oldest and should definitely have learned how to act by now.

They used to have full crisis meetings when we were kids, trying to figure out what to do with him. It didn’t work; he’s still annoying in the funniest, most infuriating way possible. Whoever ends up with him has my sympathy. They’re going to have their hands full and then some.

He narrows his eyes. “Who else was in on it? There’s no way he pulled that off alone. It would’ve taken hours to figure out where I stashed it. Alexei, right? That psycho would be all over breaking into my place. You didn’t help him, did you?”

I stay silent and watch him carefully because he’s fishing, trying to figure out who helped.

He leans back in his chair and sighs. “And now I have to fly to Vegas tomorrow, then Los Angeles right after. I’ve got three days to handle everything and get back before Father loses his mind. Three days. Do you know how much work I have to do in three days?”

LA. That’s unusual. What’s he doing out there? He’s not looking at me anymore, just staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t even have time to deal with Mikhail’s bullshit right now, but here we are.” He waves a hand vaguely at the papers in front of him. “Can’t catch a break.”

He opens his mouth to continue his rant, but someone knocks on the door. He stands immediately, smoothing down his suit and cracking his neck before crossing the room. When he pulls the door open, one of his employees says something too low for me to hear.

Yulian listens, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, then shoots me one last look over his shoulder before walking out into the hallway. The door swings shut, and I’m alone again.

My eyes drift back to the laptop screen in front of me. The code is still incomprehensible, just lines of text that might as well be in another language for all the sense they’re making right now.

Operation Avoid Mikhail is off to a decent start, I think.

Day one and I’ve already managed to ignore approximately fifteen texts from him and successfully hide out in Yulian’s office for the past two hours. If I can keep this up for another week, maybe the urge to confess my twisted feelings will fade enough that I can function normally around him again. Probably not, but a guy can hope.

Chapter 5

Mikhail

Ithink I fucked up somehow and hurt Daniil, but I have no idea what I did. The way he asked if I hooked up with someone keeps running through my head on repeat, those sad eyes staring at me like I’d crushed him. He looked like he was about to cry, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I don’t get why it matters so much to him. I didn’t hook up with anyone. Some girl tried getting me to leave with her, but I turned her down because I had zero interest and just wanted to go home to him. I wasn’t even tempted.

But he’s been off since that night. He won’t hang around me, and now he’s locking his door so I can’t get into his room at night, which doesn’t make any sense because we’ve always slept better when we’re together. He knows that as well as I do.

It’s been three fucking days of him dodging me, barely making eye contact, only speaking in single words when I manage to corner him somewhere. It’s driving me insane.

We do everything together. It’s always been that way. Work side by side, eat meals together, exist in the same spaces without needing to fill the silence. That’s our normal. And now he’s acting like being near me causes him physical pain or something, and I can’t figure out what the hell I did wrong.

My brain keeps circling back to that night, trying to find the moment I fucked up, but I come up empty every time. I’ve asked him over and over what’s going on, and he keeps feeding me bullshit. Says he’s tired or needs space or comes up with some other weak excuse that doesn’t explain anything.

Space from what? From me? Why would he suddenly need distance from me when we’ve never needed it before? We’re Danya and Mik. We don’t do space.

It’s killing me, and I don’t know how to fix it.

Maybe he’s upset I went out without bringing him, but that theory falls apart because he despises parties and clubs. He’d pick staying home and working over going out every single time, so it’s not that.

Or maybe he’s angry I came home high, but I’ve done that plenty of times before, and he’s never reacted this way. He gets annoyed, tells me I’m an idiot, makes me shower and drink water, but he doesn’t freeze me out entirely like this.

Glancing across the club, I spot him in one of the corner booths, staring at spreadsheets on his laptop while working on something our father assigned to him. He only came to Ozero today because he was forced to, which means he really is actively avoiding me and won’t even sit in the same area as me unless he has no other option.

That realization pisses me off more than it should, and I walk over, dropping into the booth and pulling him against my side before he can protest or slide away. He tenses immediately but doesn’t fight me, just shoots me this look with his cheeks going red as he tries focusing back on the screen.

Leaning down, I kiss the curve of his neck, my mouth open against his skin. Then I kiss him there again and let my lips slide up the length of his neck. He gasps, the sound strangled, and I pull back. His whole body goes completely rigid, and his mouth falls open as he turns his head around to stare at me with wide hazel eyes full of shock.

I don’t know why I did that. Kissing your brother’s neck is weird as fuck, but three days of being ignored have me doing things I wouldn’t normally do just to get a reaction out of him. I need him to respond to me, anything that breaks through whatever barrier he’s built between us.

“I’m trying to work,” he says, barely getting the words out as he glances back at his laptop. The blush crawls up his neck, and he shifts restlessly, squirming in his seat.

Sighing, I poke his shoulder. “Want to smoke?”