CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella) Read Free Page A

south immediately. I didn’t have to look down to realize what he was staring at with unconcealed hunger.  I never wore a bra to bed and my shirt – thin, white and the victim of laundry shrinkage – strained against my breasts. 
    It was an erotic, painfully taboo moment that ended an instant later when Stone’s head snapped up, the naked lust on his face replaced with the look of supreme boredom that he usually wore.  He hiked up his boxers and pointedly turned away as if I wasn’t even there. 
    I closed the window.  I shut the curtains.  I leaned against the wall, feeling strange and awkward and somehow completely wrong.  My skin tingled and somewhere in my head a hideous whisper reminded me that I knew how to force unwanted thoughts away. 
    No.  I wouldn’t do that right now, not for this.  Already the moment had gone stale and I started to wonder if it had even happened. 
    It had though.  It had happened.   Stone Gentry and I, for the briefest instant, had connected in a way that was unthinkable. 
    But that was all.  It meant absolutely nothing.  I loved Conway.  I didn’t have to think about it anymore.  I wouldn’t. 
     

CHAPTER TWO
    CONWAY
     
    My brother could be such an asshole. 
    First he shook me awake before the crack of dawn just to extort some cigarettes.  I wasn’t a regular smoker but there were two loose cigarettes in the drawer of my nightstand.  I threw them in his direction just to shut him up and then kicked off the bed sheet because sometime in the night the power was knocked out, taking the air conditioning with it.
    That’s when Stone decided to harass me about the morning boner that was making a tent in my boxers. 
    “That’s some serious frustration there,” he smirked, lighting up and blowing a cloud at the ceiling. 
    I threw a pillow at him.  “Fuck you.  Like you never wake up with wood?”
    “Not like that, man.  You see, I get my wood handled regularly.  Unlike you.”
    I rose up on my elbows. All I wanted was for Stone to close his mouth and go somewhere else so I could roll over and get off.  But that comment was a deliberate shot and I couldn’t just let it go by.   
    “I get my shit handled plenty,” I protested and it was only half a lie. 
    Erin and I fooled around all the time and the fact that we hadn’t sealed the deal yet just proved that what was between us was real.  She would have done it.  She would have done it to make me happy.  Yet when we had sex I couldn’t let the reason be because I’d pushed her into it.  We’d get there when she was ready.  In the meantime I was getting lots of mileage out of hand jobs and jerk offs. 
    Stone wouldn’t understand.  He was always full speed when it came to fucking around, like he might not live another day if he wasn’t being led around by a satisfied cock.  
    My brother blew another cloud of smoke and grinned with that kind of all-knowing Stone coolness that made me want to hit him something a whole lot harder than a pillow. 
    “Shut up,” I ordered. 
    “Didn’t say a thing, brother.” 
    “I don’t like what you’re thinking.” 
    He cocked his head and widened his eyes with mock innocence.  “I’m not allowed to think?”
    “Not if it’s something dirty about my girlfriend.” 
    “I wasn’t having any thoughts, dirty or otherwise, about your girlfriend.”
    “Bullshit.”   
    He laughed.  “You think I’m into Erin?  Forget the fact that she’s wrapped around your ugly ass, I don’t have the patience for that kind of noise.”
    My anger rose.  “What noise?”
    Stone pinched the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, examined it thoughtfully and then set it down on an ancient nightstand that was etched with years of battle scars.  He batted his eyes and clasped his hands in front of his chest as he spoke in a high-pitched female voice.  “Oh god, I love you.  I love you more than ice cream or cheesecake.”
    “Knock it