Maniac (Necessary Evils, #7)

by Onley James

He’d thought if he denied himself the one thing he wanted more than anything, maybe the universe would just let him have the rest.

as long as he didn’t have the one thing—the one person—he wanted above all other things. Aiden.

Me. I’m hurt. I’m bleeding. He wanted to tell him everything but all that came out was, “I need you.”

Thomas would’ve liked to say he took the time before Aiden got there to sober up, but that would’ve been a lie. He finished off the bottle of whiskey, then fell asleep in his chair, only waking when Aiden slapped him hard enough to penetrate the fog of unconsciousness. He opened bleary eyes to find Aiden on his knees before him, his cock taking notice of the position before his alcohol-soaked brain could catch up. Thomas reached for him, touching his bearded face before his hand fell, remembering Aiden wasn’t his to touch. Not anymore. Not ever, really. Aiden seemed to forget that as well, reaching up and cupping Thomas’s face. “What have you done to yourself?” he asked, his voice that same low rasp that did things to Thomas’s insides.

“I-I did something bad. Really bad. A long time ago. I…lied. And someone knows it. And they’re going to expose me.”

He didn’t even protest when Aiden shoved him into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He would have let him undress him, too, if he’d tried. He’d let Aiden do almost anything…but that was almost what put miles between them.

How long had it been since they’d touched? Not since that last night. Right there in the study. Right where Aiden sat now. Only that night, it had been Thomas sitting right there when Aiden crawled into his lap. “Why can’t I stay away from you?”

This time, it was Thomas who went to his knees, shock rocketing through him as he took Aiden’s rough hands in his own much softer ones. He forced himself to look him in the eye. “Don’t ask me to tell you that. Not yet. Please. If you ever fucking loved me, just let me keep my sins to myself a little bit longer. Please, Aiden.”

“I hate you sometimes,” Aiden told him, voice raw. “So much I feel like I’m choking on it.”

Because he loved Aiden most. He loved Aiden above all others.

Because he didn’t just love Aiden. He was in love with him. Had been for longer than he’d ever admit to another soul, even himself.

“Oh, I know you never wanted us,” Aiden growled. “You’ve made that abundantly clear over and over again. Except when you can’t fucking take it anymore. Right? Except for when you’re drunk and lonely and tired and there’s nobody around to fill that giant fucking hole inside you. Nobody but me.”

How could he stop caring when Thomas had owned his heart his entire adult life?

Nobody meant more to him than Aiden. They didn’t. They couldn’t. His world started and stopped with him.

“And by the time I did want you the way you wanted me, I knew I didn’t deserve you.” Aiden slapped his hand away. “How was that your choice to make?”

“I didn’t want better. I wanted you. I still want you. Who knows you better than me? I know all your flaws. I know all your secrets.”

“So, now I know. Now I know everything. What’s your excuse going to be this time?”

Deep down, underneath all those layers of guilt, the pragmatist I love fucking knows that.”

“I’m taking you upstairs. Don’t say no.”

Thomas was so tired of fighting it, fighting Aiden. Just once, he wanted to know what it was like to have everything he wanted.

“Don’t talk unless it’s to say please or yes or more. Understand? We’re doing it my way now. You’ve said no to me for too long. We both want this. We both fucking need this. Don’t we?”

“Then just let me do this. Let me have you. Please. Everything else can wait.”

It had been fucking years since he’d let anybody inside him. Shane had ruined that for him. Somehow, it seemed right that it was Aiden who changed it now.

“I do love you.” Aiden froze above him, and for a terrifying moment, Thomas thought he’d ruined everything. But then Aiden’s mouth was on his in a kiss that melted Thomas’s fears. It melted everything.

“You were the one who said I was safer away from the family.” Aiden shrugged. “I was just being selfish. I wanted to be alone with you. Wanted to find a way to get you to open up to me.”

“I’m not ready,” he admitted. “They’re going to be so…” Disgusted. Disappointed. Angry. “Sad,” Aiden supplied. “What happened to you is sad. That’s it. The feelings faction is going to cry buckets when they hear your story.”

“No. What happened is a young child was groomed, assaulted, and verbally abused by a narcissistic psychopath after years of emotional neglect from their parents. What really happened was a mentally broken boy convinced himself you were soulmates because he was too disturbed to understand the difference between shared trauma and romantic love.

I know that you will probably need therapy, but you’ve created a work of fiction in your head, Tommy. He wasn’t your boyfriend. He wasn’t your soulmate. He was your abuser. He was sick. And you have to make peace with that.”

One would think a family filled with serial unalivers, would take security more seriously, but with a lack of remorse or guilt came a heavy dose of hubris and audacity. This family really thought they were invincible.

Had Calliope refused to come? Was it that important to keep her identity a mystery? It seemed a weird hill to die on. They knew her son, they knew his last name. Twenty-five dollars and a Google search could have found her.

A blur broke from the sea of bodies and launched themselves into Thomas’s arms. Noah. It was always Noah. If ever there had been someone meant to be Thomas’s biological child, it was him.

Before he could finish whatever he was about to say, a female voice echoed throughout the marble halls. “Hello?” Noah stepped back, his expression going from misery to excitement far faster than any sane person could manage. “Calliope?” He looked to the others, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Calliope!”

“You really need to get it together, Tommy. You’re scaring the shit out of the kids.”

Calliope ignored them all, scrutinizing Thomas beneath false lashes before marching up to him and slapping him hard in the face. “Snap out of it.”

Lucas’s gaze cut to Felix. “A man with a grudge against our family handed a dead snake to my children in broad daylight. It's not harsh enough.” Once more, he turned his attention to Thomas. “You need to get your shit together.”

Lucas’s lip curled, and he shook his head. “You’re Thomas fucking Mulvaney, the head of this fucked-up little family. Start fucking acting like it before something happens to my children and I have to fucking kill you myself.”

When Thomas turned towards the stairs, Aiden said, “I’ll go with you.” “Oh, no, you won’t,” Calliope said, catching him by the ear. What the fuck? Not even his mother had ever done that. Why the fuck did it hurt so bad?

Calliope scoffed. “You will not be distracting him with your pelvic sorcery.” Aiden blinked at her. “My what?”

“Let’s ask our new stepdad,” Adam crowed. “Can we call you Dad? On that note, do you still call Thomas Dad or is it Daddy now?”

When Thomas re-entered the room, Aiden’s heart tripped behind his ribcage. Thomas wore white linen pants and a navy sweater, and his hair was dry and styled, his face clean-shaven. That was the man he knew. The man he loved. That was Thomas fucking Mulvaney.

Aiden was beautiful and forceful. And when he looked at Thomas like that—like he wanted to eat him alive—Thomas lost his ability to think of anything but the man before him.

“Yes, we’ll find this douche, and yes, we’ll catch him, but in the meantime, you all just need to be…nicer to Tommy, okay?” “Tommy, oof,” Avi said, then shuddered. “Make it stop.” “He’s Tommy to me. If you don’t like it, maybe August can get you some of those fancy ear plugs.”

“But listen very carefully. It’s taken me twenty fucking years to get to this point with your father. If you make him feel weird about our relationship, I will put every single fucking one of you through a goddamn woodchipper.

Go. I’m good. I never sleep more than four hours a night as it is.” “What? How are you alive?” “Sheer force of will,” Calliope promised. Aiden snorted. “Don’t you need your beauty sleep?” Calliope put a hand under her chin and fluttered her lashes. “Oh, darling. Petty keeps me pretty.”

“I’m sleeping with you tonight,” he said, making sure he knew it wasn’t a request. Aiden’s stomach dropped when Thomas said nothing, but then lips brushed his forehead. “I know.”

“I’m sleeping with you every night from now on,” Aiden said, his body forcing him to slide free of Thomas’s. “I know.”

Thomas’s kink was competence, it seemed.

“I don’t mind hurting for you. I’ve been doing it for years. It’s who we are. It’s who we’ve always been. But this is the kind of hurt I want.”

Thomas shrugged. “I love you.” “But…” Aiden said warily. Thomas shook his head. “No buts. I love you. And I think it’s time you come home. Forever.”

“I promise I won’t die on you. And I won’t let you die on me.”