continue to the café. Garnet also increases sexual intimacy.

With a sneaky smile, Annie serves us extra mini-muffins with Jace’s coffee and my tea.

“How’s quality time with Jace going?” she asks when Jace goes to the bathroom. “He’s really

turned out to be more than a brother hasn’t he?”

I freeze and set down my tea before I spill it. “Wh—what?”

“I mean, you guys are like best friends. I’m sorry you’re breaking up.” She winks. What does that

mean? “But it’s only for a year, right? Then you can study down there with him.”

Across the café, Jace is rounding tables, heading back to us. He winks, and everyone including my

sister disappears.

I’m already planning to move to Dunedin. Just so I can be with you.

“So I was thinking,” Jace says, sitting back down and watching Annie leave to serve another table,

“after this, maybe we could shop for some music? I’d love to get my hands on a few more

compositions.”

I sip my tea with a shaky hand. “Yes. Of course.”

* * *

After the music store, I take us out to dinner at a restaurant on the boat where we ate for his

seventeenth birthday. I secretly hope it will rekindle Jace’s memories of the cave that day, when I gave

him the hook.

I’ll never take it off.

We sit by the window overlooking the ocean. Jace touches the hook as if he knows what I’m

thinking about, a fond smile playing at his lips.

Still wearing it.

A waiter lights the tea candles between us. Jace and I blush, shift uncomfortably, and stare out the

window, which partially reflects our faces.

I wait a beat before I glance at his image. My heart jumps when I find he’s looking at mine, and

we’re thirteen and fourteen again, standing at the bus stop, peeking at each other over our books . . .

Are we nearing the end of our duel?

My mood crashes and I spend the rest of the dinner paying too much attention to my seafood

ravioli.

When we arrive home, I yawn even though I’m not tired. “I’m going to crash.”

Jace frowns and stops me on the stairs. “It’s only ten.” He places one hand next to mine on the

banister, and he tugs my fingers with his other hand. “Something’s up.”

“No. I’m fine.” Sad. So fucking sad.

“Let me play you a new piece before you go to bed?”

I swallow. Nod.

In the gaming room, he perches himself on the piano stool. A single lamp offers just enough light

for him to read his music.

I lean against the wall. Music beats against my skin and speeds up my pulse. Jace is completely

focused on the music, an endearing frown etched between his eyebrows. When he finishes, he stares at

the keys and smiles.

“Not bad,” I say.

“Not bad?” He shakes his head. “I’ve never played that before. It was bloody perfect.”

A trace of the grin I’d lost reappears. “Play something else. Sing.”

“Sing?”

“I like it when you sing. You’ve got a good voice.”

“What do you want me to play? I can do a couple of U2 covers.”

“U2?”

“Mum’s favorite. I learned a few when she was sick.”

I move to the stool and sit next to him facing away from the piano, giving him just enough space to

play. “Okay,” I say. “Play one for me.”

His Adam’s apple juts out in a hard swallow, and his gaze sweeps over my face. “For you,” he says

slowly. A slight tremor passes through me.

He focuses on the keys, running his fingertips over them.

Then he starts.

I want to cry, want to laugh, want to curse him for making every hope swell to a breaking point. I

know this song—Lila and my mum love it.

Now I love it.

When he sings the word diamonds, he smiles at me.

All I Want Is You.

I can’t look at him, but I can’t pull away. I silently beg for him to stop, but I wish he’d go on

forever.

He remembers what you said to him that night. He never forgot.

I try to keep my tears back but they seep through my eyelashes.

Jace says diamonds again and his voice breaks. He stops playing. “Cooper?”

My voice is hoarse. “Yeah?”

He looks up, touches my cheeks. “Cooper—”

He kisses me.

His lips scrape over mine like a whisper. I freeze for three quick beats of my heart, and then we’re

frenzied. Fast, urgent, needy. He brings one hand to my neck while his other hand caresses my arm. His

tongue meets mine like a drowning man fighting for oxygen. He tastes like the caramelized sugar on the

crème brûlée we ate at dinner. His kisses leave my mouth and find my jaw, my neck, and—

My hands have found their way under Jace’s T-shirt. His skin is hot, the planes of his back smooth

and hard.

I want to explore more but the damn stool is making it difficult. As if reading my mind, Jace stands,

pulling me up too. He steers me around it, leans on the piano so the higher notes clunk, and draws me

fully against him. No inch between us. No question of where this is going.

He kisses me again, and breathes me in. My lips tingle as the air moves. His blue gaze is heavy as if

he’s probing me deeply. We are kissing again, his hands pulling at my T-shirt. I move back an inch to

take it off and remove his.

I run my tongue down his neck and nibble at his collarbone before sinking to tease his nipple. He

arches and a satisfying moan slips from him, stirring me to taste every inch of him.

I’m harder than I’ve ever been, and each time our groins mesh, he pumps me with desire. Need.

More.

Now!

I fumble to undo the buttons at his fly. Jace’s breath hitches as I cup him through his boxers, and he

nips my ear and works my jeans. Our pants shimmy to our knees, followed by our boxers. Jace kisses

me again and I take hold of his cock like in my fantasies. His groan vibrates over my lip. The piano

keys tinkle as he pulls me closer and takes my cock.

Look at me!

This time he does, and he pumps slowly, like he wants this to last forever. He licks his lips, then

releases me and gently removes my hand off him. Our cocks touch and I press closer to rut against him

as our fingers entwine.

The piano keys produce a cacophonous sound that mingles with our moans and heavy breaths. We

ride the wave drawing us closer and closer—

“Cooper,” he moans in my ear.

I cry out, orgasm shuddering through me, and a few seconds later Jace releases too.

“I . . . I . . .” Jace throws his head back as he catches his breath, and when he look at me again, his

expression unnerves me. “Jace?”

He hesitates, then kisses me once more. It’s slow, languid—a goodbye kiss? I grip him harder, kiss

him harder. I don’t want him to leave me. Ever.

He draws back and touches my lips. “I’m sorry.”

The ache and shock of his apology startles me. I jump back, and Jace slips from my grasp.

He comes back, pants buttoned, holding a warm cloth for me, but something’s different. When I’m

cleaned and dressed again, I face him.

I stride over to him. “Why are you apologizing?” That was the most touching moment of my life.

“Because . . . because . . .”

“Because what?”

He turns away but I don’t let him go that easily. I follow him into his bedroom. “Talk to me, Jace.

Please, for God’s sake, talk to me.”

“I’m sorry because I shouldn’t have done that. Not with you.”

“With me?” I laugh but I’m far from amused. “Because I’m gay and you’re not?”

He swears under his breath, then yanks out the brown envelope from his desk drawer. “No.”

The envelope looks darker now. More ominous.

Jace slaps it on the desk between us. “Because you might be my brother.”

rudstone

“Might be?” My mind refuses to piece together what he’s saying. “We’re stepbrothers,” I say.

“We’re not really related. We aren’t even stepbrothers! We’re just guys who met as teenagers and spent