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Lucas says my name over and over again, pushes back against me, rutting on the bed as I press my tongue inside him. My cum is there, on my tongue, salty and bitter and so fucking incredible. When I lean over Lucas and rest on his back, he turns his head and nods like he knows exactly what I’m silently asking. I take his mouth, kiss him, share my load with him, neither of us caring what it is or where it’s been. In fact, that makes it easier.

He tries to roll over, and I let him, sharing this filthy, sexy thing between us, bodies slick with perspiration as we rut and kiss and fall…or at least I’m falling. No. I’ve already fallen. I’m so far gone, there’s no coming back from it, and I don’t want to.

I pull back, look down at him. At the brown of his eyes, his clean-shaven face, that messy blond hair I love running my fingers through, and wonder if he feels how fast my heart is beating…how hard.

“I want you to be mine,” I tell Lucas.

“I am yours,” he answers without hesitation.

“For real. Not this nameless thing we do. I want you to be my boyfriend, and that’s so fucked up, Lucas. I get that. Jesus, how do we even fucking do this?” I roll off him, lying on my back.

Lucas props himself up on his elbow. “I get it,” he says softly. “I know a part of you will always belong to Ellis. I know you’ll always be in love with him, that if he were alive, you would still be his, but I want what I can have of you. I want what’s left for you to give.”

My eyes snap to his, all this sadness in my chest spreading, but it’s not for what I thought it would be. “Don’t do that. Don’t take less than you deserve, even from me. You deserve to be loved completely.”

“I want you,” he says, and damned if I don’t want him too, want him more than I could’ve imagined, want him more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else. “And I know that makes me a shitty person. I know I’m betraying my brother’s memory, but I want you anyway. I don’t care what I have to do to have you.”

“Christ.” I sit up on the edge of the bed. Lucas stalls a moment, but then he’s beside me. “I don’t know how I deserve any of this. How I deserved him and now you.”It was my fault. If I hadn’t let him leave. If I hadn’t told him. If, if, if.

It’s not until the drops begin hitting my thighs that I realize I’m crying, that my face is wet and my vision blurry with years’ worth of tears I’ve held at bay.

“It’s okay. Hey. I’m here. Whatever you need. If this is going too fast, we slow down. If you change your mind, I get it. I know how you felt about him.” Lucas wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. I take comfort in the warmth of his body, the power in his hold, and while it’s soothing, it alsomakes me cry harder, makes the guilt stronger.

That’s what he doesn’t get, what no one gets because I’ve been too fucking weak to tell anyone the truth, but it’s killing me to keep it inside, and I don’t want to lie to Lucas. I don’t want anything else between us.

“I wasn’t in love with him,” I admit. The air in the room stills, and then it’s like it’s being sucked out. Like no one can breathe or talk or even live here. “Fuck,” I say, shoving off the bed, hands in my hair, pulling until my scalp burns. “I loved him, Lucas. I loved him so fucking much. You have to believe me. He was my best friend. And I thought I was in love with him…and maybe I was at some point. I just know we were best friends and then we were together, and it felt right. Ellis was my first everything. I couldn’t imagine life without him, and I don’t know if that fucked things up in my head or what.”

Lucas doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, just watches me as I give him my secrets and my betrayal.

“I knew for a while I didn’t feel about Ellis the way I was supposed to, but I was so fucking scared of losing him and hurting him, of betraying the family that had given me so much. I kept trying to make it work, but you can’t make yourself be in love, no matter how hard you try.”

I press my back against the wall and slide down, sitting on my ass, naked on Lucas’s floor as I spill my guts about how I hurt his brother…after fucking Lucas, after letting him inside me. This is so messed up.

“I loved him. I swear I did. I didn’t mean to be confused. I didn’t mean to change things or fall out of love or whatever the fuck happened, but I just couldn’t fucking do it anymore. I couldn’t lie to him. He deserved better than that.”

The tears are flowing too much now, stifling my words, clogging my throat, pain and guilt and regret making a storminside me, but in the midst of it is the longing, the way it feels to be with Lucas. It’s so fucking new and so right.

A second later, he’s there with me on the floor, holding me, kissing my cheek, my temple, telling me it’s okay, that he’s here, that he’s not going anywhere. And then we’re lying down on the carpet, Lucas spooning me, our bodies slotting together as if meant to be, until I’m all out of tears.

The sun isrising when I wake up. I couldn’t have been asleep long, but Lucas had pulled the blanket off the bed, wrapping it around us. Soft light dances through the window, the world around us waking up, not knowing how my heart had bled for him last night.

I turn to face him, and Lucas stirs, his eyes fluttering, before focusing on me. “Hey,” he says, voice rough from lack of sleep.

“Hey. I’m sorry about last night…starting that and then falling apart. I’d like to finish telling you, if you don’t mind. I need to. Before we decide if we’re moving forward.”

He nods, but I can’t read his expression. Lucas stands, holds his hand out for me, and pulls me to my feet. He puts on a pair of sweats, and I tug on my joggers. “Come on. I’ll make some coffee.”

I follow him into the kitchen and take a seat at the bar as Lucas gets the coffee going. The words are so hard to say, but I need them out of me, need them in the open, at least with him because Lucas deserves to know. “I broke up with him,” I say, when his back is to me. He stiffens. “The day it happened…I broke up with him. I told him I love him, that he’s my best friend in the world, but I wasn’t in love with him…and then he left, Lucas. He left upset, and I let him. He died because I hurt him and didn’t make him stay. He was hurt and sad, and I let him walk out the door, and he died after I broke his fucking heart.”

Lucas turns around, his face wet with tears. Is this where he tells me to leave? That he can’t forgive me? That I should have made sure Ellis stayed?

Lucas walks over and stands beside my stool. He turns me so I’m facing him, steps between my legs, and hugs me. “I’m so fucking sorry. I can’t imagine how that feels, but it’s not your fault Ellis died. It was a tragic, devastating, life-altering accident, but it wasn’t your fault.”

“He died thinking I didn’t love him.”

“No.” Lucas shakes his head. “Ellis knew you. He knew you loved him. He would have never doubted that. No one could ever see the two of you or know the two of you and doubt that you loved him.” Lucas pulls up the stool beside me and sits down.