Olivier’s eyes widened with surprise. He glanced up. Eric caught his arm, feeling the coldness of his skin past the thin shirt. Olivier was too thin, and the shop was too cold.
“You should be heating the shop,” Eric muttered. “It’s the middle of winter.”
Then he yanked Olivier against himself, wrapping his arms around his brother. Olivier was trembling all over, goosebumps on his skin. He was small against Eric, fragile.
Olivier gave a muffled cry, yanking himself out of Eric’s arms. “Don’t—don’t...”
He looked at the door, scared and upset. Eric’s chest squeezed. What happened to you? “Okay. I won’t do that again,” Eric said. “But I’m not leaving.”
Olivier looked as though he wanted to protest. Instead, he let the door swing shut, locking it. Then he turned away. “You’ll have to leave by the back door,” he said quietly.
“Fine by me.”
Eric followed him to the counter, staying on the other side of the glass. Olivier paused at the cash register, his face falling further.
“Business doing okay?” Eric asked, hating himself for it.
Olivier shook his head. Eric wanted to tell him the truth. Wanted to say, I’ve been causing that. But it didn’t feel right, not when Olivier was already suffering. So Eric reached across the counter, catching Olivier’s wrist. It was thin in his hand, warm.
Olivier froze. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” Eric said. That felt right.
“What are you sorry for?” Olivier squirmed. “I mean, I...”
Eric rubbed his thumb over the scent gland at Olivier’s wrist, feeling the thump of his pulse. Olivier gasped. His carnation scent filled Eric’s nose, and when Eric pressed down on that sensitive spot, Olivier tensed, shock and arousal in his eyes. He wasn’t leaving. He wasn’t jerking away in revulsion.
And that was the crux of things, wasn’t it? Olivier still wanted him.
Eric ran the possibilities through his mind. How could Olivier still desire him, ten years later?
“I thought you didn’t care about me,” Eric said, looking shrewdly at Olivier. What if... what if Olivier had been lying about something else entirely? “You were lying when you said you didn’t love me.”
It was a wild guess.
Olivier’s mouth fell open; he stared at Eric, his eyes wide and afraid.
Seriously? That’s what you were lying about? Eric felt stupid, then. How could he have been so blind? Because Olivier had been lying, but he’d been lying about something else. Eric had been too angry to see it until now.
Olivier had loved Eric. He just hadn’t wanted Eric to know.
“Fuck, Ollie,” Eric muttered, pulling him closer across the glass counter. To think he’d spent years thinking Olivier couldn’t care less about him. To think he’d spent all that time blaming Olivier. “You—you... I should’ve been there.”
Olivier shrugged, regret heavy in his eyes.
There was a silvery scar on Olivier’s neck, a bonding mark. Was he already taken? But Olivier only smelled like carnation—there was no woodsy alpha scent on him.
“Where’s your alpha?” Eric asked, his heart pattering with hope.
Olivier shook his head, tugging his wrist out of Eric’s grasp. “You shouldn’t,” he whispered.
It was too much to process, Olivier still loving him. Eric didn’t know what he felt. All he knew was that Olivier smelled good, he smelled like someone Eric wanted beneath him.
“Do you still love me?” Eric asked.
Olivier gulped, looking away. “I c-can’t answer that.”
It wasn’t a hard no.
“You’re lying again,” Eric said.
Olivier whined, closing his eyes. “You need to leave.”
“Why?”
Olivier locked the cash register with shaking hands, flicking the store lights off. Then he hurried into a back room, where the lights were dimmer.
Eric strode around the counter after him, finding his stepbrother at a desk stacked high with paperwork.
“Ollie,” Eric said, the name rolling off his tongue better than Olivier did. “Stop running away.”
Olivier’s shoulders hunched further. He crammed things into a worn messenger bag, clipping it shut.
Eric stepped forward. He wasn’t supposed to be doing this. He had a daughter to return home to, and he had to work early tomorrow morning.
Instead, he stepped up close behind Olivier, wrapping his arms around Olivier’s waist. Then he pulled Olivier snug against his own chest, running his palm up Olivier’s front, following the expanse of his midriff, the faint dip of his chest. This, too, felt good. Natural.
“Eric,” Olivier wheezed, his heart thumping against Eric’s hand. “You can’t—”
“I can’t what?”
It wasn’t like Eric had an omega now. Alice was dead. He’d loved her, but before that... it had always been Ollie. Despite all Eric had done to erase what he felt for his brother, something remained. Something that kept him here, something that made Olivier’s weight in his arms feel so tempting.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” Eric murmured in Olivier’s ear, dragging his lips along it.
Olivier shivered. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“But you want me.”
Olivier groaned, sagging against Eric. His breaths came shakily, and he tipped his head back, leaning into Eric’s chest. “I’m in heat.”
“Where’s your alpha?”
Olivier paused for the longest time. “I don’t have one,” he said eventually.
He was in heat, and he had no one to sate it with. Eric growled, pressing his nose in Olivier’s hair. Olivier’s carnation scent made something settle in his chest, made his grief ease further. “Let me be your alpha. Just for tonight.”
Olivier whimpered, stuttering. “We’re—we’re brothers.”
“Stepbrothers.” Eric’s desire swelled through him, tightening his pants. “We aren’t related by blood, Ollie.”
Olivier squirmed against him, musk coiling off his skin. “We still can’t—”
“Didn’t stop you the last time, did it?” Eric whispered, reaching down. He cupped Olivier between the legs, and Olivier’s breath hitched, his hips bucking up. His cock grew thick behind his pants, hungry. It made Eric want to growl.
“Eric—”
The way Olivier moaned his name... His voice was smooth, mellow. Exquisite.
“Want me to stop?” Eric murmured, squeezing Olivier’s cock ever so lightly.
Olivier whimpered, pushing into Eric’s hand. His hunger was heady, tantalizing. And something yanked behind Eric’s stomach, razing down his body, lighting up his nerves. His cock grew so hard it fucking hurt; Eric panted.
All he could see now was Olivier. The
