Emmett
I’ve been tossing and turning all night unable to sleep, knowing Kade is here and just one room away from me. He was so exhausted earlier he collapsed, and I figure his lethargy combined with the bitter cold outside should be enough to keep him here…for now at least.
The sound of breaking glass reaches my ears. I frown because no burglar would risk making that much noise, and the only other person here is Kade. I thrust open my bedroom door only to see Kade stumbling away from me. The light coming from my room must startle him, and he crashes into one of the shelves, knocking a vase to the floor where it shatters into fragments. I narrow my eyes at Kade, who looks up suddenly and blinks in the light from my room that illuminates the space.
“Kade, where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I demand, looking from him to the mess on the floor.
His cheeks redden, and he turns his head away to avoid my eyes. That’s when I see the blood staining his hair at the back of his head. I didn’t notice it before, I was too wrapped up in finally having him to myself.
“What happened to you?” I ask as I maneuver my way to him, minding where I step with my bare feet.
The last thing I need is to have to visit the hospital because I got a stray shard of glass embedded in my foot. Leading him into my room, I sit him down before grabbing the first aid kit from the bathroom and preparing to patch him up.
“Lean forward and lower you head, so I can see what I’m doing. You’re bleeding,” I order him.
Kade obeys without answering, and I grit my teeth because all kinds of scenarios are flying through my mind right now. I grab a few wipes and clean up the blood. It’s only a small cut, thankfully. But the area is red and swollen. He hisses when I touch it but holds still.
I kneel in front of him and lift his head to look at me, but he refuses to meet my gaze.
“Kade, tell me what happened?”
“Mom’s boyfriend Shane hit me…Mom didn’t care, she’s always drunk and high these days, Emmett. I can’t stand being in that house with her when she’s like that. Dad would’ve hated it,” he finishes bitterly.
I’m glad he wasn’t looking at my face when he mentioned Preston, because I know I didn’t manage to fully hide my expression. It pains me to know how much of Kade’s life I’ve missed, and I’m angry that they kept me away from him.
“You don’t have to go back,” I tell him honestly.
He lets out a derisive laugh, “Yeah, right. Like staying with you’d be any better. You fucking abducted me in the middle of the night.”
“I wouldn’t hit you or bring cunts like Shane around. I’d take care of you, and you’d never ever have to be afraid of me,” I bite out.
The truth in my words burns the inside of my throat. I want to take care of him…to love him like he fucking deserves. The only problem is I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to love him in the way I should.
Preston rejected me when he found out that it wasn’t just Ellis I wanted back then. Ellis was mine, and I was hers, but the truth was that I wanted him too. To top it off they threatened to out my secret to the whole goddamned town. I never acted on those cravings, but it didn’t matter to them, the damage was done.
That was bad enough, but the blow which hit the hardest was when he married Ellis and decided to raise my fucking kid as his own. Ellis was pregnant before he ever went near her with his dick, but there was nothing I could do about it. A couple of years after I left, Preston paid me a little call because he’d heard that our parents had asked me to visit them. He promised me that if I ever came home or went near his son, he’d make sure to ruin my whole fucking life.
I let out a sigh. “Look, there’s no going anywhere tonight. The temperature outside has dropped below freezing, and there’s a storm coming in. We’ll be perfectly safe here, but I’m not driving anywhere. It’s far too dangerous now.”
“Fine, I’ll stay,” he says in a solemn, dejected voice. I can tell he’s unhappy with this decision, but at least he’s not trying to run anymore.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner. I would never have let anyone hurt you,” I apologize quietly, and he frowns in confusion.
“Look, it’s late and I don’t think either of us are going to be getting any more sleep tonight. Let’s put on a movie or something and we can talk about this properly in the morning,” I say more loudly.
I straighten, and Kade glances up at me, looking vulnerable and unsure. I feel like a bastard for whisking him away from everything he knows even though it’s the best thing I could’ve done for him. I can’t help losing myself in those warm hazel eyes of his, and it tugs at my soul when I realize how much I already care for him. I have no words to explain to him the complicated, fucked up feelings in my messed up head. I ought to tell him the truth about me, but I can’t bring myself to shatter the illusion of who I am in relation to him, his mom, and his dead father. I don’t have it in me to tear down those walls just because I want him. I do want him, though…I want Kade so much it hurts.
Time didn’t change how I felt about my brother. But all of the bottled up desires began to twist into something I couldn’t control, slowly it began to manifest into something wicked and dark with a horrifically painful lust as the fuel. This is my second chance, and I can’t fuck it up. Familial ties matter very little in the grand scheme of things, and truthfully, I don’t give a damn that my blood runs in his veins…except for the fact that it binds him to me. I want Kade, and I’ll do everything in my power to make that happen.
“Come on,” I coax, holding out my hand to him. He reluctantly takes it and allows me to lead him toward the living room.
The walls of this cabin are thick and well insulated to keep the cold out, but it doesn’t stop the temperature of the room from dropping overnight. Kade shivers, and I quickly throw some logs into the fireplace and set them alight. Soon enough the crackling and popping of the wood replaces the silence, and the fire throws warm flickers of light around the room.
Kade settles on the couch, his back ramrod straight as he gazes unseeingly out of the window. I can tell he’s frightened. He’s unsure of me and of this situation; it’s all new to him, but I’ll show him he doesn’t need to feel like that.
“What do you want to watch?” I ask him, nodding at the shelves of DVDs sitting next to the TV.
“I don’t care,” he says tonelessly, and I have to fight down the panic, threatening to overwhelm me, that he’ll never warm up to me.