Anger was not an emotion that Brad often allowed himself to give into. Anger made people irrational, act rashly and stupidly, and those were all things that Brad preferred to avoid. But when anger did strike, it burned with a low, white-hot fury, just simmering in the pit of his stomach and bubbling up into his throat.
Because this wasn’t something he was used to, Brad had half thought that time passing would cool that anger before he met with Aaron. As time passed, each second ticking away feeling like a full minute, as he thought of everything that had happened between them, the anger only grew. It grew hotter and hotter, but in a slow burn kind of way, one that didn’t seem to want to burn itself out.
He had been such an idiot. He had let himself pretend that there could be something between himself and someone as amazing, and talented, and withdrawn, and remote, as Aaron was. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the blame wasn’t entirely on him.
Aaron had said that they were together, way back before they’d left Los Angeles. They had agreed to date, and then Aaron had turned around and acted like that meant nothing. Maybe Brad had been stupid to get his hopes up, but Aaron had been less than honest. Aaron hadn’t even thought enough of him to break up with him to his face.
By the time the door to the suite of rooms opened, Brad was agitated enough to be pacing around, unable to stay still for more than a second or two at a time. He would force himself to still, try to calm his mind by calming his body, but neither of them cooperated. Each time he dropped down into his seat, he found himself back on his feet again, wearing a hole in the expensive, plush carpet as he stalked around the room.
The truth was, in his current state, if Aaron had walked in surrounded by his friends, Brad wouldn’t have changed his behavior once. Hell, Aaron could have been surrounded by all of the paparazzi in the world, or the entire men’s ice hockey team, or the royal family of England, and it wouldn’t have changed anything.
The moment Brad saw Aaron, he was stalking over for him, reaching for him, wrapping his hand around the other man’s slender wrist and pulling him right into Aaron’s bedroom. The fact that Aaron had walked in alone was a nice bonus, maybe, but didn’t, ultimately, make any difference whatsoever.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Brad’s voice came out so softly that Aaron had to lean forward to hear it, and it was trembling, quaking minutely with rage. Brad did make some effort to keep it under control, and he even did, but there was only so much that even his vaunted self-control could do when he was as furious as he was.
“Excuse me? You’re the one who dragged me into my room like some sort of caveman,” Aaron told him, his shoulders straight and tense, his lips set in a tight line as he faced off against Brad. “Who even does something like that?”
“Well,” Brad told him, and his voice started to rise in volume as he looked into Aaron’s eyes and saw nothing but defiance there. No hint of what they had shared once upon a time. Brad had no idea why, or how, but all of that was gone. “I had to make you talk to me somehow.”
That shut Aaron up, and Brad looked at him, stymied. Now that he was here, he found that he didn’t know what to say. He had told himself that he just wanted the truth, but now that he was face to face with Aaron, was that even the truth?
“What are you doing, Aaron?” Brad finally asked, hating the small, almost not there note of vulnerability that he heard. Hadn’t he learned better than to let himself feel that sort of thing? Had he learned nothing? “Why are you doing this?”
“You know about my sister,” Aaron started, and Brad had to briefly close his eyes and step back against the rush of heat, pure and intense, that raced through him. Was Aaron going to do this? Was he really going to blame his sister for something that was entirely his doing?
Brad saw red. He had never actually believed that to be anything more than a figure of speech, but he really did feel like there was a blur of red over his eyes, coating everything in terms of the anger he felt.
“Shut up,” Brad growled, and his voice wasn’t quiet anymore. “Just stop it. Fine, you want to be with your sister, take care of her. That’s fine. And I get why you signed the short-term contract.” Despite all of his best efforts, Brad found himself stepping forward, gazing down right into Aaron’s defiant eyes and tense jaw. “But that doesn’t explain why you walked out on me.”
Aaron didn’t speak. He just stood there, his body tensed as if for a fight, or, more likely, ready to run away. It seemed like that was what Aaron was good at, running, avoiding things, and Brad knew that part of the reason that pissed him off so much was that he was the same way.
“We had something. I thought we did, anyway.” Brad looked at Aaron, his hands gripping into fists at his sides. He wanted to grab the man by his shoulders, shake him, get any sort of reaction out of him, but even in his anger, he knew that that wasn’t appropriate.
“… Brad …” And, for the first time in far too long, there seemed like there was something in Aaron’s eyes. Some sign of life, of emotion. Hesitant, maybe, but it was there, and Brad seized on it more eagerly than he probably should have.
He did grip Aaron’s shoulders, but instead of shaking him, he pulled the slender young man close to him.
“Please don’t leave,” Brad let himself say words that he could never remember having ever said to another human being. It was a horrible risk, and even as he spoke, part of him screamed at him to stop. But he pushed on, because maybe, just maybe, some things were worth taking risks for. “You don’t have to leave. If you want to stay with your sister, take care of her, that’s fine with me.”
He wasn’t begging. Not quite. But it was closer than he ever got. What was that to Aaron, though, who must have people flinging themselves at his feet all of the time? Brad had seen it, and not just in fans, either. Even Ken, who seemed blissfully happy with his boyfriend Justin, had this look in his eyes sometimes when he gazed at Aaron.
And Aaron just stood there, something in his eyes that looked a hell of a lot like pity to Brad. He could take a lot of things, maybe, but pity wasn’t one of them. Better to see outright dislike there than that, and with a soft growl, Brad pulled Aaron close to him and held him tight as he kissed him hard.
Their lips didn’t so much meet as they did collide, almost hard enough to bruise them, but then Aaron had always liked it when things got a little bit rough. Brad had no problem using that, and a strange, savage sort of satisfaction surged through his whole body, as powerful as a drug, or a shot of straight whiskey.
Brad’s hands slid down to grip Aaron’s ass, pulling him closer, as close as he could, making him feel how hard Brad was. And Aaron was just as hard, jutting out to bulge against the front of his pants. Eagerly, not willing to let this go, Brad rutted against his lover, the man who was his, damn it, and he could swear that Aaron knew it, too.
It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t get enough friction, and Aaron felt the same, Brad would be willing to bet, by the desperate little keening noise, a sound of pure need, that spilled from Aaron’s lips into Brad’s mouth. Without hesitation, Brad pressed with the whole weight, all of the strength, of his body, pushing Aaron backward into a wall.
As they went, Aaron’s hand, which was raising up to wrap around Brad, hit the lamp on the bedside table. Aaron’s fingers clipped it, sending it skittering forward onto the varnished wood, but Brad didn’t care. He didn’t even mind the clatter as it fell to the floor because he and Aaron were kissing, and Aaron was giving in to him because Brad’s tongue was pulsing, thrusting, fucking between Aaron’s lips, reminding him of just how good it was with them. Why they should be together.
And maybe he would have had a chance to make his case if the door hadn’t suddenly flung open. Brad glanced up just in time to meet the gazes of some very concerned Lost Boys, Aaron’s bandmates, Aaron’s friends, who had walked in to see far too much and at nearly the worst possible time.
