Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
“Me? Like what?” Miguel shifted to the side, but the collar only allowed him to move two inches. Fucking useless.
“I’ve thought about killing Father many times. I could have planned it and ran, I had access to him, but I never went through with it. You? You put a bullet in his head within fifteen minutes of laying your eyes on him.”
Miguel did think back to that moment with fondness even though it caused upheaval on a scale he hadn't anticipated. “You had too much tied up in him. I’m sorry I pushed your hand and drew you into my mess, but I couldn't risk waiting. I’m sorry for a lot of things, Nero. We’re both bad men, but I still think you deserve a new life. Even if just for your part in destroying Raul Moreno.” His lips dried when he noticed Nero’s fingers paling where the cuffs limited blood flow into his hand. It was somehow easier to speak frankly when not facing Nero's inquisitive gaze. “I… I used to hate you just because of whose son you were, but I can see now that it couldn’t have been easy to grow up in your father’s shadow.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Nero said in a soft voice. “He wanted me to be a real man, and I wasn’t up to the standard. Especially not after he found out I was gay.”
“It’s brave of you to live the way you do. I’ve been denying many things my whole life. Like my feelings for you.” Even now, Miguel couldn’t bring himself to say it louder, afraid the walls would mock him for such pathetic weakness.
The silence made Miguel’s stomach twist like a towel wrought of shame, but Nero eventually spoke, so close yet too far to touch.
“I—I don’t know what to do about this.”
Miguel sighed. “You don’t have to do anything. Especially not now. I just want you to know. I know you’ve had many lovers, but to me, you are special. You unleashed a part of me that I thought I lost.”
And he’d never feel so close to another person again, buried someplace on this damn farm, hopefully alongside the man who’d changed everything.
The chain clinked when Nero straightened his elbows, attempting to reach Miguel, but as Miguel leaned in as far as the collar allowed and stretched out his own arms, a pocket of air still remained between their fingers.
They both stopped straining at the same time and just panted from the effort it cost them. This time, it was Miguel who chuckled. “My whole life I tried to avoid touch, and now I’m dying to reach your fingertip.”
Nero threw his head from side to side. “Fuck.” Eventually though, he sighed, going limp on the table. “People would have loved you if they knew you better. So why did you—why would you avoid that?”
Miguel swallowed and hung his head, feeling as if he were sinking under the weight of his past. “I’m not good with people. You’ve known me for a while, and you must have seen that I can’t connect with anyone. You have this ease at talking to people, which I’ve always admired, even when I hated you. You step into whatever shoes you need, you charm the guys you want to fuck, or know how to push the buttons of those you want to annoy. I’m like a piece of dry wood next to you. All I know is how to intimidate others, because that was my purpose. My mother taught me that feelings get you killed. Guess she was right, because look at me now.”
“Your mother sounds like my father,” Nero said. “But what is a life worth without flavor?”
Miguel smiled. “I wouldn’t know. I only tasted you yesterday.”
“I only tasted you yesterday too, and it was—” Nero cleared his throat. “I was so preoccupied by the tension between us that I missed the red flags about this goddamn farm. And now we’re fucked. But I don’t know how to act around you now. I was never… important to anyone.”
After all they’d been through, and with the prospect of a grisly death ahead, Miguel might as well rip his heart open already, because having sex with Nero had been nothing short of transcendent. Never before had he desired a man enough to act on it. Watching attractive pieces of ass had been enough, but the presence of this man, with his teasing nature and contrarian personality drove him mad with the need to connect physically. When they’d touched, he was neither repulsed nor indifferent, and his lust had only grown until Nero occupied his every single thought.
“I’ve seen a lot of shit growing up around cartels,” Miguel said with his neck still aching from the pull of the collar. “Including rape when I was just a child. I think it broke something in me. I couldn’t see myself being… intimate with anyone. I had no interest in women, and didn’t allow myself to even consider men back in Mexico. By the time I left, it was ingrained in me that sex was just something other people did. That it wasn’t for me.”