One Step Too Close - Coffin Nails MC Louisiana (Gay Biker Stepbrother Romance) (Sex & Mayhem Book 6) (14 page)

Ryder

The rain had Ryder
completely drenched by the time he followed Jed down a road leading through the
woods. He had his lights switched off, and he was positive it made him hard to
spot in the downpour. Even if Jed heard another engine, that wasn’t a reason
for worry on public roads. He couldn’t possibly know he was being followed. For
once, a storm was on Ryder’s side.

The darkness got eerie
though when Ryder realized where Jed was heading. His chest tightened when the
red bike rushed past the cement blocks put across the road leading to the
disused bridge across a deep lake. It was a great spot for quick hookups, and Ryder
knew this much, because he used to come here with girls. Had it transformed
into some kind of gay cruising hotspot since?

Knowing that the other
side of the bridge was completely blocked and Jed couldn’t just be illegally
crossing, Ryder switched off his engine and started pushing his ride by the
side of the road. The asphalt was covered by a wet pulp of dead leaves and some
broken branches that must have fallen off the trees throughout the last few
years and just remained where they were, so he had to be extra careful not to
slip as he pushed his way toward the road bend where he intended to hide his
bike. He was halfway there when the steady sound of Jed’s engine died,
instilling unrest in Ryder’s heart.

He rushed his bike off
the road and left it behind the bushes before cutting short the way to the
bridge by walking between the trees. The wet grass didn’t bother him because of
the knee-high boots he was wearing, but running over such soft ground wasn’t
easy either. All Ryder cared about was getting to Jed and witnessing what he
was secretly up to. He ducked as he left the shelter of the trees and climbed
up the cement stairs that led him to a pillar at the entrance to the bridge. He
cursed, immediately noticing that the portable fencing had been opened just
enough to let a bike comfortably pass through.

He scooted down to see
what was going on on the bridge. The moment he saw the flash of red that was
Jed’s Honda, he dropped to one knee, wincing when it sank into a puddle. Not
that it mattered, since he was completely soaked anyway, and the constant rain
wasn’t helping either. Through the rusty metal gate, Ryder saw Jed looking
through a piece of fencing that used to offer additional protection where
fragments of the original railing had crumbled, opening a deep void of air over
the dark waters of the lake. Who was he waiting for anyway?

Through the dark gray
curtain of heavy rain, Ryder watched Jed peel a section of the wire fence away,
creating an opening the size of a standard doorway, with a dot of red light
moving with his face. He stepped closer and looked down before dropping the
cigarette into the void. He looked down, following its descent into waters that
were now probably dotted by droplets of rain hitting the surface.

After a few tense
seconds, Jed walked back to his bike, and rolled it closer to the unprotected
edge of the bridge before taking a seat on a block of cement that stabilized a
fragment of the fencing. Only then Ryder noticed a large gray bag sitting next
to it. Jed brushed his wet mane back and opened the bag. Ryder frowned as two
large kettlebells, possibly around 35 lbs each, left the bag. Jed then tied
thick rope to each of them before leaning down, but Ryder couldn’t really tell
what he was doing. For a few moments, Jed was just staring at the lake before
he stood up and pulled up the kickstand with his foot, moving the bike closer
to the cut in the fencing.

With thunder in the
background, and lightning illuminating the sky for a second, he looked like an
evil villain, about to sacrifice his own child. Hairs rose all over Ryder’s
skin as he watched him, not sure what he was witnessing. This was extremely
weird. Did he want to hide his bike for some reason? Why here of all places?
Uncomfortable didn’t cut what it made Ryder feel to watch Jed act like this. He
couldn’t be on drugs, could he?

The worst thing was that
in the darkness, he couldn’t even see Jed’s face well, and the blur of rain
made the whole image fuzzy. Nothing was uncertain though about Jed pushing his
bike forward through the hole, all the way until it fell off the bridge,
disappearing into the darkness and leaving Ryder in a state of numb shock. Jed
held on to the fence with one hand, and only then Ryder noticed a handcuff
attached to his hand. Rope was snaking between his legs, the same that Jed tied
to both the kettlebells.

As shock wore off, Jed’s
words from earlier that day came back to hit Ryder in the face.

You’re important to
me, no matter what
.

Ryder shuddered, staring
at Jed approaching the edge, reaching for the kettlebells at his feet. The
terrifying truth was yanking on Ryder’s collar and choking him. Jed had let his
bike drown in the depths of the lake, and now he wanted to follow it into the
void with his hands cuffed and his feet tied to weights.

Ryder got up so quickly
that his foot slipped, and he fell to one knee before breaking into a run. His
feet hurt as they thudded against the asphalt, his joints strained, water was
getting into his nose and eyes, but he fought through and yelled at the top of
his lungs.

“Jed! Stop!”

He regretted yelling as
soon as he did it, because it seemed to have startled Jed, and he stumbled
forward to the hole in the fence that would swallow his life. But Ryder was
there. He grabbed the back of Jed’s cut and pulled him back with all the force
he had.

He could hardly breathe
as he took Jed away from the edge of the bridge, cradling him in his arms as
hard as he could, and yet even that couldn’t remove the paralyzing fear that
screamed into Ryder’s inner ear. He clung to Jed and stared down. Even with the
layer of white spray from the countless droplets hitting the surface, the lake
looked like a giant’s mouth. It was deep enough to swallow Jed’s life and never
reveal its secrets. If Jed threw himself in there, it would be as if he just
disappeared. Just left, and Ryder would have come back here to reminisce about
the times they played here as kids, not knowing that Jed was right there, alone
in the endless cold.

“What did you want to
do? What is this? Tell me!” demanded Ryder, grabbing Jed’s shoulders and
shaking him hard. He could hardly breathe with a furious pulsing blocking his
airduct at the neck. “What the fuck? Did you want to just leave me?” he uttered
in a broken voice.

“You weren’t supposed to
know,” Jed whined, and only now, from up close, Ryder could see that Jed must
have been crying. His face was wet from the rain, but it was his red eyes and
shaky voice that revealed the truth. Jed looked back to the lake, and Ryder
took a glance at their feet, becoming more terrified by the second. He had been
right. Jed had not only tied the kettlebells to his ankles, but he’d done it
using several loops, and even tightened the contraption with two carabiners, as
if he wanted to ensure his body wouldn’t resurface. They would have never found
him. He would be stuck down there, slowly decomposing after choking to death,
trapped several feet underwater and pecked on by fish like a slab of meat.

“It doesn’t matter!”
yelled Ryder, shaking Jed again. His knees were so soft he was hardly standing.
This was true fear, incomparable with anything felt before. Being involved in
shootings and fights was Ryder’s life, but losing the most important person in
his life? That he couldn’t live with. He gave a shuddery breath. “Oh, God... if
I hadn’t followed you... oh, fuck...”

“I’m fucked up, Ryder.
You’re better off letting me go.” Jed took deep breaths, and even seeing rain
drip down his face made Ryder think of the water swallowing him up forever.

Ryder slapped Jed across
the face, shocked by what he just heard. “What the fuck are you talking about?
Why would you...” He gestured at the lake, shuddering from the shock. Rain was
welcome to cool off the burning heat in his skull.

“I don’t like girls.
Never have, never will. My life is so useless. Everything’s fucked up. I can’t
take it anymore. I don’t even know who I am.” Jed tried to pull out of Ryder’s
grip, but there was no way in hell Ryder would let him.

“What...?” Ryder stopped
breathing as he stared at the rain-streaked face in front of him. Jed’s mouth
twisted in a pain so visceral Ryder wanted to simply hold him forever.

“I don’t want to be like
this.” Jed gasped for breath, looking utterly lost. “I don’t understand why it
has to be me! My mom…” He sniffed and rubbed his face. “She knew, I bet she
knew, and left me with you because she didn’t want to take care of someone as
rotten as me.”

Rage burned underneath
Ryder’s skin. “Your mother was a worthless cunt who couldn’t even keep her
panties on when Dad wasn’t looking and left her son behind! You’re better off
without her.”

“If Wolver knew what I
feel, he’d strangle me himself…” Jed shook his head, hiding his face with the
wet hair.

Ryder chewed on his lip,
staring straight at Jed, blinking away the wetness from his eyes, irrationally
afraid Jed would jump off the bridge the moment Ryder stopped looking at him.
“What do you mean...? I haven’t told anyone about Tom...”

Jed looked up at him
slowly, his bright blue eyes sucking in all of Ryder’s attention. “I love you.
If you knew the things I want to do with you, you’d push me yourself,” he
whispered.

Ryder clenched his hands
on Jed’s shoulders as reality finally sank in. The soft yet intense stares Jed
was giving him, the way he stayed in a hug for far too long, the way he seemed
so comically jealous of Ryder’s time with Jess... it all made sense now. It was
a terrifying discovery, and yet it fueled a fire that had been dormant in
Ryder’s own heart for such a long time he didn’t even know when it had started.
Jed didn’t like girls, so he said. He liked men, and Ryder had punished him for
it, told him it was wrong and needed to stop.

He felt sick about
himself. He’d pushed Jed so far that he’d rather die than live unable to have
what he clearly needed. Ryder was the worst piece of shit that ever lived. A
hypocrite on top of that.

“What things?” he
uttered.

Jed laughed out loud so
hysterically Ryder flinched. “You want to know what your fag brother wants to
do with you?”

Ryder gave a slow nod,
tense as a string around the heat deep within. He was hardly blinking,
hypnotized by the blue gaze that for once spoke volumes about tenderness and
lust. As if this encounter somehow broke the code Ryder couldn’t read all this
time.

Jed’s grin stretched,
but it wasn’t joyful. It was menacing, like he was about to plunge a knife into
Ryder’s gut and laugh about it. “You wanna know?” He slowly put his hands on
Ryder’s chest, and stared into his eyes without blinking even when raindrops
kept falling on his face and thunder rolled above the lake. “I want you to fuck
me with your big pierced cock. I want to feel you on top of me. And then I
wanna fuck you as well. Right up your tight ass. You wanna push me yet?” he
finished breathlessly.

Ryder shook his head,
bombarded with fantasies of their bodies stretched together in the sheets. He
slid his hands up Jed’s slender neck and cupped his face, brushing some of the
wetness away with his thumbs. “No. No, I’d never push you,” he whispered, and
without thinking much, he pressed his lips to Jed’s. At first, Jed stirred, but
then his lips opened slowly, letting Ryder’s tongue in. His mouth was in such
sharp contrast to the cool skin outside that it had Ryder gasping and pushing
closer, until he was chest to chest with Jed. His head exploded with sensation
as a jolt of pleasure trailed down his body, curling around his dick and balls,
caressing his thighs and chest. He was trembling in the best possible way even
as his mind screamed that he could have lost Jed over this. Over the thing he
actually wanted but always had been pushing away.

Having Jed’s stubble
brush against his own was such an odd and new sensation, but not an unwelcome
one. It was just another element that reminded Ryder of who he was kissing. And
at this moment, it didn’t matter that it was a man, because it was
Jed
,
and no one ever felt more right in Ryder’s arms than Jed. The way Jed’s tongue
was greedy to explore Ryder’s lips bordered on obsessive, and when Jed’s arms
slid over Ryder’s shoulders to wrap around his neck, Ryder was sure he couldn’t
fight back even if he wanted to. The cool, sharp touch of the handcuff that was
still dangling off Jed’s wrist made Ryder gasp.

He pulled Jed even
closer, so lost in the kiss that they ended up stumbling onto the wobbly fence.
No other kiss in Ryder’s life had felt like this. There was an urgency behind
it, and the fact that Jed had been ready to die because of Ryder only fueled
the desperate need to stay close.

Ryder finally ended the
kiss and hugged Jed with all his strength, wishing he could just melt into him.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He’d never seen Jed so
broken. Both of them had been taught to keep their emotions inside, or express
them with their fists. The few times they’d cried as kids, they were met with
Wolver’s angry words or slaps. But now Jed shook in Ryder’s arms, and Ryder
wanted nothing more but to make everything better in his life. It was still
hard to comprehend that Jed would say he loved Ryder in a way other than
brotherly, that those forbidden feelings Ryder had suppressed for years by
sleeping with more women than he could count had been reciprocated all along.