Double Heat [Twin Ties: 3] (5 page)

Fifteen minutes later, Luka was finally home. The four of them were sitting around the table with hot, mouthwatering lobsters slathered in lemon butter on their plates. Evan was eating, too hungry to wait any longer. Luka was frowning at all of them, or maybe just the ominous mood in general, and Alek was watching Brennan very carefully. Brennan had his hands folded in his lap and was chewing at his lower lip, his food untouched.

“So, I know you’re not pregnant,” Luka was saying. “And if you’d been arrested, you’d be in jail, not here with that funny look on your face. If aliens had invaded, other people besides you would be concerned. Did you find out you’re not actually related to Evan and your identicalness is just pure coincidence?”

“Please just tell him so he stops trying to guess,” Evan begged. “And if you’re not going to eat that, I will.”

With resignation, Brennan picked up his fork and stabbed the lobster meat, the shell already cracked open by Evan to spare his brother the trauma of having to do so himself. Brennan left the fork stuck in there as he said, “I’m going home. For a visit.”

“Alone,” Evan added.

“That counts as speaking in tandem!” Luka exclaimed triumphantly, pointing at Evan.

“Goddamn it,” Evan cursed. He’d vowed to himself ever since meeting Brennan that they would never succumb to the freaky twin behaviors he always saw the Popović twins displaying.

“You owe me five dollars,” Luka said to Alek. To Brennan he said, “Please continue, my darling drama queen. So, you’re leaving us forever and we’ll never hear from you again?”

“I leave on Friday morning and come back Monday night or Tuesday morning, depending on how much the drive sucks. I’ll be staying with a friend and visiting Mom’s grave and stuff.”

“That’s terrible,” Luka replied. Then he shook his head. “And here I was thinking you were overreacting with your frowny face of doom.”

“Why don’t you want company?” Alek asked Brennan, ignoring his brother completely. He was leaned forward and sat directly across from Brennan, whereas Evan was across from Luka. In addition to providing running commentary, Luka was also busy eating his lobster and making faces at Evan.

“It’ll be too weird,” Brennan groaned. “The main reason why I’m going is because it’s Mom’s birthday. I promised I’d always bring her flowers. After everything, I can’t disappoint her by not following through, especially since I don’t know if anyone else will be visiting her grave on that day. It’s kind of up to me to make it special, just like it was always all up to me. But, people know I’m coming, so they expect me to socialize. I can’t just take one of you, and I can’t take all of you and it’s too much to explain and it’s just... a visit. When Evan said he wasn’t ready to go, I knew it had to just be me. I’m sorry.”

“I am so offended,” Luka said with dramatic, sarcastic flair. “To make it up to me, I demand ferocious, nonstop cuddling until you leave on Friday.”

“You have work and I have school,” Brennan pointed out, but smiling. It seemed Luka’s tactics of lightening the mood were working, as they typically did.

“Your logic has no power over me.”

“Are you done?” Alek asked Luka. “Please be done.”

Luka simply ripped off a piece of lobster meat and looked Alek dead in the eye while he popped it in his mouth and chewed.

“Are you worried about the trip or something?” Alek asked Brennan, returning his attention to him.

“No, I think I was more worried about telling you guys,” Brennan said. “I mean, it’ll be weird to go back there and face all sorts of questions, but I think I can handle it.”

“How did you think we were going to react?” Alek frowned.

“Handcuff him to the bed to stop him from going?” Luka suggested. “Threaten tickling? Hysterical crying?”

Evan smiled at Luka, who instantly began playing footsy with him under the table, rubbing Evan’s ankle with his toes.

“I guess I thought you’d be mad or something. This is all really last minute since I kind of avoided thinking about it until I absolutely had to. And I’m not going by myself because I’m ashamed of you guys or anything; it’s just too soon to go skipping around my old high school, holding hands with three guys, one of whom is my twin brother.”

“Huh,” Luka grunted, looked thoughtful.

“Stop imagining it,” Evan begged.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Aleksy skip.”

“But you’ve seen
me
skip?”

“Don’t encourage him,” Alek sighed.

“You’re all ridiculous. At least Luka’s honest about it.” Evan took another bite of lobster and moaned. It was so good. “Gimme your lobster,” he said to Brennan.

“No way!” Brennan scoffed, taking his first bite. His eyebrows went up with surprise at the taste and he quickly took a second bite, then a third.

“If you’re not ready to give people much information about your personal life, it’s not a big deal,” Evan chimed in. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“So you’re not mad?” Brennan asked them, looking first at Alek, then Luka.

“We’re not mad,” Alek assured him, reaching across the table to take Brennan’s hand.

“Good,” Brennan grinned, looking relieved. Perking up considerably, he added, “Now it’s Evan’s turn!”

“Thanks, Bren,” Evan groaned as Alek and Luka both turned to look suspiciously at him.

“Are you kidding?” Brennan retorted. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day!”

Chapter 5
Two on One

“I don’t need a
turn
,” Evan insisted, losing his appetite quickly. “It’s nothing. There’s no news.”

“He’s worried about being alone with you two,” Brennan blurted out.

“Thanks for that,” Evan said sarcastically, shooting a glare in Brennan’s direction.

Alek and Luka were staring at him. There were no quips or jokes from Luka, and that made it worse. Feeling his face growing hot and turning red, Evan folded his arms and tried to shrink in on himself.

“Why are you worried about being alone with us?” Luka asked, sounding hurt.

“Oh, so with me, I get the serious treatment and Bren gets jokes? What the fuck?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“You! This! This exactly!” Evan exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “The two of you together and our history... it’s a lot. It’s a lot to handle on my own and I don’t want you fighting with each other or being weird with Bren not here to balance things. But it doesn’t mean anything. I wasn’t even going to bring it up, because who cares if I’m worried? I’m worried about a lot of things, not just this. It’s not like I have all of my shit figured out, and when three other people are counting on me not to screw things up, it’s kind of a lot of pressure.”

There was a long, awful, silent moment where no one said anything, so Evan demanded of Alek, “Why are you being so quiet and staring at me like that?”

“You don’t need to handle us,” Alek replied, picking up his fork and plucking off a piece of meat.

“Sometimes I do! And I suck at it!”

“It’s four days,” Alek said gently. “Trust us to be able to take proper care of you. If anything, you’ll have less to worry about because more of our attention can be focused on you.”

Evan’s stomach swooped, his knees suddenly so weak, he was really glad he was sitting down. It was the same feeling he used to get when Charlie would take off on a work trip, leaving Evan all alone with zero supervision. The freedom was great at first, but not having family keeping an eye on him also meant there was nothing stopping him from letting instinct lead him to bad places.

“They’ll listen if there’s anything you need to tell them,” Brennan told Evan calmly. “And they’ll be on their best behavior, right?”

“Of course,” Alek answered.

“And you won’t smother him to death in his sleep, since we figured Luka would be migrating over to your bed for the duration?” Brennan asked.

“Ooh! I get to snuggle!” Luka said happily.

Evan covered his face with his hands and moaned, “Oh, this is gonna be so weird.”

While Brennan and Luka tackled clean-up after everyone was finished eating, Alek lured Evan over to the couch. First, he guided Evan to lie down on his back, then lay down atop him. Brushing Evan’s short, dark blond hair back from his forehead, Alek gazed intently down at him like he was trying to catch a glimpse of everything Evan was trying to hide. Evan was still blushing, since there
was
a lot to hide. Feeling Alek’s firm body on top of him was making Evan hard, which made his blush worse and talking more difficult.

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Alek whispered, playing with Evan’s hair. “I love you. Luka loves you.”

“I know,” Evan sighed. “But there’s still a lot we haven’t figured out yet.”

“Mm,” Alek hummed. “That’s because we’re all being careful. That’s a good thing, right?”

They hadn’t all lived together in the apartment long. It had only been a matter of weeks since Evan had officially moved in. They all had such different schedules, just figuring out practical things was a challenge, like who was coming or going and when, or the timing of meals, or who ran which errands. Sometimes Evan wished they had a chart posted to the wall so he didn’t forget anything.

Less practical things, like the particulars of their intimate life, were also still in flux. Evan and Brennan hadn’t had sex together since Evan had officially moved in, or done anything more than watch the other engage in sex with one of the twins. For the most part, sex had been happening only between the original couples—Evan with Alek, and Brennan with Luka. When they
had
crossed lines, it was always as a foursome. At those times, Evan or Brennan, or both, bottomed, and they always swapped partners for multiple rounds of sex, but it was a strictly collective experience. The attention of the others was always divided equally between everyone involved, so the pressure was lessened. For his part, Evan wasn’t entirely sure why sex had been working out that way. Threesomes hadn’t happened, Evan figured, because that would mean one person was being excluded, and that wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to have sex with Luka, alone, or had a problem with Alek being with Brennan privately. Maybe it was because they were afraid of hurting feelings or acting inappropriately, but maybe that wasn’t it at all.

Plainly put, Evan had never been alone, intimately, with only Alek and Luka. It had never happened. He didn’t know what to expect now that it seemed like it was going to happen, other than to be the one giving it up. Since Evan didn’t have a clear idea what he wanted, sexually, out of that sort of threesome, he’d probably be going along with whatever the twins wanted. But what if the twins wanted too much? It would be two against one, and Evan with zero experience at standing up for himself in bed.

“You just have to be able to talk to us,” Alek urged. “Tell us if there’s anything on your mind, or what you want; what you’re comfortable with or
not
comfortable with.”

“I guess.”

“Oh, you can do better than that,” Alek said while thrusting slightly against Evan’s erection.

“Fine. Okay. I agree.”

“You’ll talk to us?”

“Yes,” Evan sighed.

“So, what’re you in the mood for, Jailbait?”

Closing his eyes and biting back threatening moans, Evan tried to distract with, “Bren’s the one leaving. Shouldn’t you be asking
him
that?”

“Mm, but Bren’s not the one nursing a hard-on.” Alek nipped at Evan’s chin while goosebumps spread over Evan’s skin as his inner alarms went off. Nervousness and excitement twisted around each other until Evan couldn’t distinguish anything but how hard his heart was beating. There was danger here, but he told himself Alek and Luka loved him, would never hurt him. “Should I call Luka over here? Give you a preview of what you have to look forward to?”

“Fuck,” Evan breathed, undulating up against Alek, who groped at Evan’s hip and sucked at his neck.

“That sounded like a yes,” Alek teased. “Luka!”

“Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck,
” Evan gasped.

“What? What am I missing?” Luka asked, getting closer. Evan tracked him by sound, as he was still unable to open his eyes.

“Let’s show Ev how well we can take care of him. He’s hard as a rock.”

“Nice,” Luka said approvingly, from right by Evan’s head.

“Hold his arms,” Alek instructed.

“Oh, this is gonna be
fun
,” Brennan said eagerly. There was no way Brennan couldn’t tell how nervous Evan was, almost like it was his first time or something. A few feet away, the overstuffed chair’s springs creaked. Evan assumed it was the sound of his brother making himself comfortable, maybe wanting to watch and see if Evan would realize his worries were unfounded.

Alek’s weight eased off of Evan’s chest but stayed on his legs. A moment later, Evan felt his arms being guided up above his head. Two arms overlaid them, keeping them in place. His breathing quickened. Evan next felt silky soft lips brush against his, so he tilted his chin up, following the touch. Luka’s tongue slipped into his mouth as he kissed Evan upside down. Evan moaned and felt his pants being opened. That had to be Alek.