Page 96 of Fool Me Twice

“Absolutely not!” Hart said, grasping Cane’s shirt. Panic was an emotion he did feel in that moment. Cane couldn’t leave. “If you go, I go.”

“Hart,” Cane whispered, looking deeply into his eyes. “This isn’t worth fucking up your relationship with your brothers over. You don’t want that.”

Didn’t he? Hart didn’t know anymore. All he knew was that he wanted Cane.

“He can stay for a few days as long as he keeps away from my scrapbooks,” Black said in a muted voice.

“I don’t like the ultimatum,” Fix said with a disappointed look at Hart before sighing. “But I don’t want you out there while people are trying to kill Cane. So I guess I vote he can stay until we figure the curse out.”

“He can stay,” Midas signed.

“Are you all insane?” Ash asked in shock.

“Ash…” Morgan tried to soothe him.

“Out of everyone, I figured you’d be the most likely to let him stay. You know him best,” Fix said.

“Exactly!” Ash said. “I know him as the criminal asshole who can punch people’s skulls in. Not the person fucking my brother!”

“That isn’t any of your business,” Hart growled at him.

“So your vote is no?” Fix asked.

“Fuck no!”

“Majority rules,” Black said. “Even with Wren, you’d be outnumbered.”

Hart hadn’t even realized Wren wasn’t there.

He looked around the room. There was a distant part of him that shouted in the far distance that he should check on Wren. That he’d been upset the last time Hart saw him.

It was swallowed up by the darkness.

“Then that’s that,” Fix said. “Cane is staying.”

Chapter 20

Cane

He’d never thought he’d like waking up to someone until he met Hart all those years ago. He just didn’t think he’d like people in his space when he was vulnerable. Even with her it had been uncomfortable. And then the cursebreaker had crashed into his life and just flipped it upside down in every way Cane could fucking imagine.

Waking up to Hart, naked and warm from sleep felt right. It felt exactly as it should. Except for one tiny detail.

Hart’s behavior.

His clothes were strewn all over his room, there was a near full ashtray on the windowsill, and his alarm clock had been snoozed more times than Cane could count. He was insatiable in bed, and as true as that had been for them before, it now felt…different.

Cane couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt it clearly. Like someone or something else was the driving force behind Hart’s actions. Like his mind just turned off sometimes and allowed something primal to take over. It was unsettling.

Cane frowned and stretched his aching body, his mind not allowing him to come to the right conclusions that early in the morning. His wounds still felt tight and tender. Because he wasn’t giving them time to heal. Hart was on him every waking moment when they were alone, and Cane knew he’d never tell him no.

Hart hadn’t given him a clear response yet. Cane didn’t know if they were for real this time around. And somewhere deep down, he knew he was taking everything Hart was willing to give on the off chance the answer was no. Just in case Hart walked away again.

He wanted more from him. Something he could keep for after they crashed and burned.

He turned onto his side, looking at Hart sprawled on his stomach, his naked back littered with the bite marks and bruises Cane had left on his body in the few days since he’d moved into the cursebreaker home.

He leaned over to kiss his naked shoulder, softer than he had in a while…maybe ever. They weren’t gentle with each other. It just wasn’t how it worked between them. But it didn’t mean Cane saw Hart as anything less than exactly what he wanted in life.