Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

fierce need to focus on keeping his stomach contents inside his pitifully sore digestive organ. The dim interior of the room held only Aaron and himself.
    Aaron sat in the chair next to Travis's bed with his head tilted back and his eyes closed. One big hand lay spread out over the top of his thigh, and the other curled around the rail next to Travis's head. Travis cleared his throat. Aaron's fingers clenched on the bedrail, and his eyes snapped open, locking on Travis.
    "Hey." Aaron's voice came out in the same husky half whisper he'd been using since Travis begged him to shut the fuck up and stop killing his head. Seriously, who the hell was this guy?
    "Hey, Pod-person. Where the hell is the real Aaron?"
    Aaron flinched back, and then stood abruptly to his feet. "I have to run downstairs and grab a bite before the cafeteria closes. Do you want me to say goodbye to your folks for you?"
    A polite smile turned the corners of Aaron's mouth up but didn't reach quite as far as his eyes.
    Something hot and bitter curled up in Travis's gut. He squinted up at Aaron. "Um. Yeah. Sure. You coming back?"
    Baby snakes fought in his stomach as Aaron regarded him silently for a span of heartbeats. Then he dropped his gaze, thick black lashes sweeping down over his hot amber gaze. Turning away from Travis, Aaron strode toward the door, his gorgeous ass flexing as his long legs ate up the short distance. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, tension radiating across his broad shoulders. He turned just enough to pin Travis with another hot lance from those incredible amber eyes. "Count on it, T. I'm not leaving here until you do."
    The door swung shut behind him. Travis swallowed convulsively around the sudden dryness of his mouth. Wishing yet again for a magic pill to take the migraine and assorted other aches and pains away—one that wouldn't leave him five to ten points below the village idiot on the IQ scale—Travis eased himself back down against his pillows to wait for Aaron's return.
    CHAPTER 5
    By the time Aaron returned to the room, Travis was sleeping. Aaron set the tray he'd taken from the hospital cafeteria on the over-bed table and rolled it to one side. Travis's battered appearance shocked him all over again, driving any hunger he may have had from him. The bruises on Travis's face stood out in livid relief against the pallor of his winter-white skin. The younger man's lashes lay in a thick fan against his cheeks. Aaron pushed back the desire to lean across the bedrails and brush his mouth over those high cheekbones. The little shit needed to get better because Wasserstein was already going to pitch a giant fit over the delay in his shooting schedule and—
    Aaron sat down heavily in the bedside armchair. The images flashing through his mind had nothing to do with getting Travis well and everything to do with getting him naked, and…when the hell had he started thinking this way? Jesus. Timothy would—
    No.
    Timothy would most likely have kicked his ass first, but then he would have congratulated the two of them by throwing a big-ass party and announcing to the world at large that they were together. Not that they were together together. Or whatever. Aaron watched Travis's chest rise and fall. It just felt so right to be here, next to Travis. It felt like riding the Harley in the summer or when his bass riffs lined up just perfectly to some crazy line of notes Travis would wring—like tears from an angel's eyes—out of his guitar. A wry smile twisted the corners of his mouth up as he considered how badly Timothy would have pounded on him for thinking of his baby brother that way.
    Aaron's mouth hungered for a taste of any part of Travis's skin, but he wouldn't start anything here that he couldn't finish here. When they got sprung from this fucking mausoleum he'd take Travis home and then—then the youngest Morris wasn't getting out of bed for a least a day. Or three. And how fucking sick was he that he could sit here looking at Travis sleeping, face covered in bruises and abrasions, and still want nothing more than to lick him from head to toe?
    Aaron forced himself to eat a bit of the lasagna and garlic bread he'd brought up from the cafeteria, and then scrounged around until found a pillow and a blanket tucked into the back of the wardrobe in Travis's room. Flipping up the footrest, he settled back into the armchair and got as comfortable as he could.
    It was going to be a long night.
    Nurses and nurse's