The Flesh Cartel #6: Brotherhood

his smoking had looked so sexy and cool and tempting to Mat, who’d been treating his body like a fucking shrine since he’d been nine years old, who would never have dared it himself but loved to just watch, the way Jonah’s lips had looked wrapped around the end of a cigarette, the way his cheeks hollowed out when he sucked.
It was enough. Mat hissed half in pleasure, half in relief. Now all he had to do was keep his eyes closed until the creepy pedo fucker came for him. Maybe even then. After all, Nikolai hadn’t told him he had to watch.
“Mat!”
Mat jolted out of his memories, cracking his head on the underside of the top bunk. No time even to touch the tender spot before Dougie had flung himself against him, and despite Nikolai’s warnings, Mat’s arms wrapped around Dougie’s bare, shaking shoulders before he could stop himself.
“Mat, Mat, oh God, Mat, you’re alive, you—” Dougie broke off into sobs and hiccups, smearing wet trails back and forth over Mat’s shoulder, and it was all Mat could do not to sob Dougie’s name back, to wrap him up and smother him and protect him and show him all the love he’d been holding so tight for so long . . .
Push him away.
You have to push him away.
“Dougie,” he croaked. “Douglas. Look at me.” He grabbed Dougie by the shoulders, harder than he’d ever even considered back in their old life, and pushed him back far enough that they could look each other in the eye.
It was the first time he’d seen his brother’s face since the auction, however long ago that had been, and he looked . . . actually, he looked okay. Crying and snotty, but no bruises or anything like that. Not too skinny, either. In better shape than Mat was, that was for damn sure. Had Nikolai been telling the truth?
You can’t ask. You can’t let him think you care about his welfare now.
“Listen to me.” He wanted to choke on the words, wished he could just die on the spot rather than speak in this cold voice. Dougie looked at him with perfect trust and patience, hands curled gently over Mat’s forearms, hanging on his every word. Like he’s always done. And needs to stop doing if he’s going to live through this. He wasn’t dressed up like Mat was. Not quite naked, either. Just socks hiked up mid-calf and a pair of adolescent-looking tighty-whiteys, the kind your mom would write your name on the waistband of before sending you to summer camp. Mat wondered if the sick fuck had that kind of attention to detail. “There’s a man coming into the room soon.”
Dougie sniffed, nodded. “I know. A buyer. Nikolai told me. He’s going to buy us together, Mat. Are you okay? Has he hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” Mat said, and the lie came so, so easy it shamed him.
Dougie nodded, clearly relieved, then seemed to finally realize what Mat was wearing, looked him up and down with wide, questioning eyes that lingered just a moment too long on his cock, gone flaccid again, hanging out of his jeans. He blinked, wiped at his nose with one hand. “He said, um, he said there were no cameras in here. To . . . to give the man privacy. He said to be good and do what the man said and then maybe he’d buy us both and . . . And why is your dick hanging out?”
He looked on the verge of laughing, like he was beyond everything, on the outside looking in, able to register the absurdity of this situation rather than the terror of it.
Maybe he really was okay.
Or maybe he’s more messed up than you thought.
“They told me to take it out. Sorry. Maybe you should get off my—”
“What in God’s name is going on in here?” a man’s voice bellowed.
Mat’s first urge was to guiltily push Dougie off his lap, but instead he just hugged him closer, glowering over the top of Dougie’s head at the man who’d entered.
He was wearing a suit. Some objective part of Mat’s mind registered that he didn’t look as good or as comfortable in one as Nikolai did. He wasn’t ugly or fat or anything, he just looked like the kind of guy more likely to wear a golf shirt and khaki shorts.
But he’d clearly chosen the suit for a reason, along with a fedora and a briefcase. Full-on Leave It to Beaver. Dad coming home from work. All he had to say was Honey, I’m home!
Except he didn’t look happy to see them, he looked . . . he looked furious. Mat’s stomach flip-flopped.
“I asked you a goddamn question, Mathias. What are you boys doing? Why’s your little brother in your lap in his skivvies?” He took