Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“Yes?”
“Tell me what you want.” A pleading, almost frightened look darted toward him, but beneath that trepidation was a touch of ferocity. “Don’t just…give me what I want. I want to know that you…that you want me, not that you’re just giving in to me.”
With a sigh, Brand tightened his grip on Ashton, letting his fingers slip down his arm, stroking over smooth skin. “I have been restraining myself rather forcibly for three days, young Master.”
“O-oh.” Ash blinked. “I couldn’t tell.”
“You weren’t meant to. Boundaries are boundaries.” Brand smiled slightly. Leaning in closer, he rested his brow to Ash’s, meeting those dark, confused eyes frankly. “Yes, Ashton. I want you. And if you are amenable, then we can be lovers.”
A slow smile broke like the dawn over Ash’s lips, before he laughed and pulled away, looking away and tucking his hair behind one ear. “I like that song.”
“What song?”
“‘We can be lovers…we can’t do that. We can be lovers…and that’s a fact,’” he sang softly, then laughed, burrowing against Brand’s side. “It’s the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge.”
Brand arched a brow. “I’ve never seen that.”
“We can fix that.” With a groan, Ash sagged against him. “When, I don’t know. We have to go to work, don’t we.”
“We do.” But Brand gathered Ashton closer, closing his eyes and settling deeper into the bed. Deeper into Ash, learning how the young man felt against him, absorbing these feelings until he was in a better place to sort them out and understand what they meant. “But we may stay a touch longer.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Ashton said, and draped himself against Brand in a tangle of warmth.
Brand said nothing. He simply let it be, breathing in Ashton’s scent and listening to the rising sound of bird-call through the windows. He found that this was rather comfortable; rather nice. Soothing, at the very least, and easing some of the hollow, yearning feeling inside him. It wasn’t quite what he ached for.
But it would serve, while he gave his young Master space to learn what he wanted from Brand.
THE SUN WAS ALMOST FULLY in the sky before Ash could bring himself to speak again.
He didn’t want to break this. He wasn’t quite sure how he could feel so comfortable, so right with a man he’d met—and hired—only three or four days ago, but with the turmoil and chaos he’d lived in for the past week he wasn’t about to ruin his first moment of peace. The first moment he felt truly good about anything in a long time.
Yet he couldn’t escape his thoughts, either. The helplessness, the loss that had sent him running away yesterday; the frustration that still circled pointlessly through his brain when he couldn’t find any solution that would delay the inevitable. His father said he hadn’t given up, but he’d skipped over the idea of Ash’s bone marrow without even trying. What if Ash had been a match all this time?
He swallowed, wetting his dry throat. “Brand…?”
The behemoth of a man stirred with a drowsy sound, and cracked one lazy green eye. Despite himself Ash almost smiled; Brand after sex was a very different creature from Brand before sex, one stiff and upright and the other a melted sprawl of languid muscle and darkened eyes.
“You’re going to ask me to get up and make you breakfast, aren’t you, young Master?”
“No. Not yet, anyway.” Ash smiled faintly and looked down, where his fingers rested splayed against the tanned ridges of Brand’s stomach. “I…” He trailed into a squeak, then tried again. “If I volunteer for a bone marrow transplant, he can’t stop me, right?”
Brand went very still, very quiet. When he spoke, his words were measured, careful. “They cannot force him to accept the transplant. But he also cannot stop you from being tested,” Brand pointed out neutrally. “It is likely that in the course of his early treatment, they tested his bone marrow. I can obtain the number for his private physician, if you wish to seek their counsel and at the very least determine if you are a match.”
“I already know her. It’s Dr. Singh. She’s the family doctor. He’d have gone to her, and refused to work with an oncologist without her there.” He bit his lip. “Could you just…make me an appointment?”
Brand studied him discerningly—then leaned in and pressed a soothing kiss to his brow. “Of course, young Master.”
DR. APARNA SINGH WAS READY to see them just after lunch. Ash wasn’t so sure he was ready to see her. Not that soon—but she’d always been ready to drop everything for the Harrington family, as long as it didn’t endanger another patient.
He’d been a fidgety mess all morning. A fidgety, flustered mess, when he felt like the moment he walked into the office with Brand at his back, both of them slotted back into their places as Mr. Forsythe and young Master Harrington, Ms. Vernon could tell with one glance that last night Ash had wrapped his legs around Brand’s hips and begged the man to crush him into nothing with pain and pleasure.