Chapter 1: Wrong Never Felt So Right
The bulb above the bed flickered like it couldn't decide whether to die or keep burning, and Josh watched the light stutter across Ender's spine—a pale map of freckles and scar tissue, some raised, some faded, all of them telling stories Josh wanted to read with his tongue.
He slowed his hips to a crawl. Barely moving. Just enough friction to keep Ender trembling, to keep those broken, desperate sounds spilling from his throat.
"You know this is wrong," Josh murmured, dragging his thumb down the knobs of Ender's vertebrae. "Don't you?"
Ender's fingers twisted in the pillowcase, knuckles white, the fabric already damp with sweat and tears and whatever else he'd been leaking for the past hour. His back arched—a shallow, pleading curve—and Josh felt the movement everywhere. In his chest. In his gut. In the place beneath his sternum where he'd been storing years of wanting like a hoarder stores garbage.
"Say it," Josh said. Soft. Patient. A teacher coaxing a lesson from a slow student. "Tell me you know."
"I know." Ender's voice cracked on the second word. He turned his face, just barely, enough for Josh to catch the wet shine of his eyes in the dying light. "I know it's wrong. I don't care. Please."
"Please what?"
The question hung between them, thick as the cigarette smoke staining the curtains. Josh held himself still. Completely still. Buried deep in his brother's husband, in the body Pete had touched with boredom and contempt and a thousand tiny cruelties, and he waited.
Ender made a sound—not quite a word, not quite a sob, something feral and wounded that clawed its way out of his throat. His hips jerked backward, trying to force Josh deeper, but Josh pulled away, matching the movement, maintaining the distance.
"Use your words, sweetheart."
"I need—" Ender choked. Swallowed. Tried again. "I need you to fuck me. Please. Harder. I need—I need to feel it. I need you to make me feel it."
"Feel what?"
"Everything." The word came out broken, a confession and a prayer. "Anything. Just—please, Josh. Please."
Josh exhaled slowly through his nose. There it was. The moment he'd been waiting for since the first time he'd seen Ender standing in Pete's kitchen, wearing a sweater three sizes too big and a smile that didn't reach his eyes. The moment Ender stopped pretending he had any dignity left to protect.
The moment he begged.
"Wrong," Josh said, and his voice came out rougher than he intended, scraped raw by something he refused to name. "You know what this makes you, don't you? What you are?"
Ender didn't answer. Couldn't, maybe. His breath hitched in that way it did when he was trying not to cry, and Josh felt a spike of something dark and satisfied twist through his gut.
"Say it. Tell me what you are."
"I'm—" Ender's voice broke. He pressed his face into the pillow, muffling the rest. "I'm your slut."
The words went through Josh like a current. He closed his eyes. Breathed. Let the confession settle into the hollow spaces of his chest before he moved again.
Hard. Fast. Exactly what Ender had asked for.
The sound Ender made was almost a scream. Josh caught it with his palm, pressing his hand over Ender's mouth, feeling the wet heat of his breath, the desperate push of his tongue against Josh's skin. The bedframe groaned. The headboard knocked against the wall in a rhythm that would've been embarrassing if either of them had any capacity left for shame.
"My brother's husband," Josh said through his teeth, and it wasn't an accusation—it was a claim. A brand. "My brother's pretty little whore."
Ender sobbed behind his hand. Nodded. His hips worked backward, meeting every thrust, and Josh could feel the tension coiling in his body, the way his muscles trembled, the way he was already teetering on the edge.
"You like that?" Josh pulled his hand away, letting Ender's broken sounds fill the room. "You like being my slut? Being Pete's discarded toy that I picked up and decided to play with?"
"Yes." Ender's voice was wrecked. Ruined. Perfect. "Yes, yes, God, Josh—"
"You're going to cum for me." It wasn't a question. Josh reached around, wrapping his hand around Ender's cock, feeling the desperate pulse of it against his palm. "You're going to cum, and then I'm going to keep going. I'm going to fuck you until you forget how to walk. Until the only thing you remember is my name and how good I make you feel."
Ender's whole body shuddered. He was crying now, Josh could feel it—the tears dripping onto his forearm, the way his breath came in jagged, hitching gasps. But he was also grinding into Josh's hand, also pushing back onto Josh's cock, also chasing exactly what he'd been promised with a desperation that bordered on religious.
"Please," he gasped. "Please, please, please—"
"Please what," Josh said again, because he couldn't help himself. Because hearing Ender break apart on the realization that he had to ask, had to articulate his hunger, had to lay himself completely bare—that was better than any orgasm. "You know what I want to hear."
"Make me cum." Ender's voice cracked on the words, raw and shameless and utterly destroyed. "Make me cum, Josh. Please. I'll do anything. I'll be anything. Just—just—"
"Keep going." Josh's hand moved faster, his hips matching the rhythm, the room filling with the obscene slap of skin on skin. "Keep begging. You're doing so good. So pretty when you beg."
"I'm yours." The words tumbled out, one after another, a flood of confessions. "I'm yours, I'm yours, I don't care if it's wrong, I don't care if it's a sin, I just—I need you. I need this. I need—"
Josh felt Ender break apart in his hands.
The orgasm ripped through him like something violent, something that left him shaking and gasping and sobbing into the pillow, his fingers clawing at the sheets, his body clenching around Josh so tight it almost hurt. Josh rode it out, kept moving, kept fucking him through it until Ender went boneless and limp and completely pliant beneath him.
And then he kept going.
"You said you'd make me forget how to walk," Ender whispered, hours later, when they were both wrecked and disgusting and tangled in sheets that would need to be burned. His voice was hoarse. Shot. There was cum drying on his stomach and tears staining his cheeks and he looked utterly, catastrophically ruined.
Josh laughed—a low, rough sound—and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. "Give me twenty minutes."
A pause. Then Ender's hand found Josh's, laced their fingers together, squeezed once before letting go.
"You're worse than he is," Ender said quietly. Not an accusation. Just a fact. "You know that, right? You're worse."
Josh smiled against his skin. "I know."
Ender shifted, turning his head just enough to meet Josh's eyes. His were red-rimmed, exhausted, empty in a way that should have bothered Josh more than it did. "Why do I want you anyway?"
"Because I give you what you need," Josh said, matter-of-fact. "Because he never did. Because when I call you a slut, you know I mean it as a compliment."
Ender snorted. It was an ugly sound, half laugh and half something darker, and Josh felt the vibration of it travel down his own chest.
"That's fucked up."
"Everything about this is fucked up." Josh brushed the hair back from Ender's forehead, gentle in a way he rarely allowed himself to be. "That's why it works."
Ender closed his eyes. Didn't argue.
The bulb overhead flickered once more before finally, mercifully, dying. In the dark, Josh listened to Ender breathe—slow and even, already drifting, already halfway gone. He should leave. He knew that. Pete could come home any time. He could walk in and find them like this, tangled together like they'd earned it, like they'd made it, and then things would explode in ways none of them were ready for.
But Josh stayed.
He stayed because Ender's hand was still reaching toward him in his sleep, fingers curling through empty air like he was searching for something to hold onto. He stayed because the weight of Ender's body against his was the most honest thing he'd felt in years. He stayed because the guilt was there, sure, coiled at the base of his spine, but it was quieter than the hunger.
It was always quieter than the hunger.
Ender's phone buzzed on the nightstand. Once. Twice. Three times.
Josh reached over and looked at the screen. Pete's name glowed in the darkness, followed by a message that made something cold twist in Josh's gut.
On my way home. You better not be asleep.
Josh looked at Ender—at his closed eyes, his parted lips, the marks Josh had left on his neck that would be visible in the morning. He looked at the way Ender's hand had finally found him in the dark, fingers wrapped loosely around Josh's wrist.
He should wake him. Should let him prepare, let him find a way to hide the evidence and the shame and the desperate, hungry thing that lived between them.
Instead, Josh set the phone back down and pulled Ender closer.
Let Pete come home. Let him see.
Maybe it was time for all of them to stop pretending.