The Muse's Undoing

I gulp, my throat thick and threatening to choke off my air. I’ve never seen him break down like this. Not even when he was in the worst physical pain of his life.

“You were so young…” he whispers.

I nod, totally understanding for the first time since he left.

He touches my mouth. “The first night you ever held me, I knew I could fall in love with you.”

My hands tighten, his ass bearing the intensity of how those words make me feel. “I would have let you.”

“Would you have broken my heart?”

“Not back then. I didn’t have it in me.”

“But now?”

“Now there is no me without you.”

His soft smile doesn’t quite translate in combination with his tear-stained cheeks. “For me, too.”

“Are you gonna let yourself fall for me this time?”

He leans in and whispers, “Yes.”

“Fischer, you’re finally saying what I want you to say.”

“I hope so.”

Keeping one hand on his ass, I slide the other up his spine and into his hair. “Promise you won’t stop being the worst big brother ever?”

“I swear. I will always be the worst kind of brother.”

“Then I think it’s safe for me to say it, too.”

“You love me,” he whispers.

“You love me, too,” I say.

He nods. “I do.”

“There’s more,” I tell him. “You wanna hear the rest?”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m deeply fucking in love with you, and I want you to move in with me.”

His breath escapes in a rush, like I punched him in the gut. “Okay,” he says after less than a second.

My heart lights itself on fire in my chest. I kiss him, too eager, too excited. “Tomorrow. Come to the loft tomorrow, and then don’t leave.”

“Okay.”

“Ever,” I say, pressing my mouth to his again.

“Never,” he promises me.

I flip him over, and he lands with a gasp on his back. I suck two fingers into my mouth, soaking them before plugging his hole with them and making him arch. “We might have to figure out a few logistics,” I say because he’s got a kid, and we share a family.

His eyelids are fluttering, and his cheeks are burning bright. “We will. Right now, all I need is you.”