On My Knees For Him: An M/M Brother’s Best Friend Romance: Fire Season, #1

By Ezra Dao

Clay

When my brother blows off our summer plans, I find myself stuck in a lake house with an off-limits older man — my brother's best friend. Roman Dewan is handsome and openly bisexual, and he looks at me like he wants to devour me. But I've never been interested in a man before. So why does my body respond to him? His hot looks are making me uncomfortable, and not in the way you'd expect a straight guy to feel uncomfortable. Instead, I can't stop thinking about what it would be like to crawl into his lap and offer him everything. 

And when I find out his kinky secret, all bets are off. 

But what will my brother think? 

 

Roman

I have a very specific type, and the innocent young college student in the passenger seat of my car looks like he could hit all of my kinks. The only problem? He's my best friend's little brother. And my best friend is right to be worried about the wicked things I might do to the big-hearted, sweetheart of an artist. I'm not a good man. 

But when I find out what he's drawing in that sketchpad he always has on his lap, all bets are off. 

I never expected that my heart would be on the line. Hell, I didn't even know I had a heart. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ezra Dao
• Release date: Sep 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223366492

Book preview

one

Roman

The blinding summer sun glinted off of my best friend’s golden hair as he walked down his front path. He turned, squinting up at the sun as if it had offended him. When had he become so uptight? Oliver used to love the outdoors, but now he looked more like he belonged in a J.Crew ad. I tilted my head, wondering why the hell he’d chosen to wear khaki pants and a button-down shirt for our drive up into the mountains.

Ready for our summer of debauchery? I asked, trying to keep the concern out of my voice. If I projected excitement for the vacation, maybe he’d get into it. And maybe he’d change his fucking clothes.

Oliver and I did most things together — and picking him up for our drive was no big deal, because we shared a duplex. He lived in the east house, I lived in the west one. From our shared construction business to our social life to our housing situation, we were closer than brothers — and fine, we may have been a little co-dependent. But because of our closeness, I knew he needed this vacation even more than I did. And it frustrated me to no end that he didn’t realize that.

Uhhh… His hesitation made me want to strangle him. I was desperate for this break — it had been years since either of us had done anything significant to relax. Hell, he’d only agreed to buy this lake house because he thought it was a good investment, and Oliver was worried about vacations that put us too far away from home to deal with client disasters.

Where is your suitcase? I thought you were driving with me.

I’m driving separately, he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and avoiding eye contact. One of our clients called - the Yuan house. I need to stop by before I can come up to the lake house.

Fuck, I said, rolling my eyes. That woman is the worst client we’ve ever had. What could be wrong now?

Oliver crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw ticking as he leaned back against my truck. He looked as irritated as I felt, but still hadn’t had the balls to tell the woman no. I know you won’t agree with this, but I need to wrap this up to relax. If that’s hanging over me the whole time, I might lose it.

And you’re the calm one of the two of us, I said, laughing. Oliver was known for his icy cool personality, which matched his pale skin, blond hair, and light blue eyes. It was as if he’d been cast for a movie playing the ice king. I, of course, would have been cast as the hot-headed, dark-haired, dark-skinned bad boy, tattoos and all. Not exactly the dream role my Indian-American parents would have wanted for me, but whatever.

If Oliver was losing his cool, it meant things were really bad with this house. Do you want me to wait? To go with you?

No, I’ve got it handled. I’m supposed to meet the owner of the house at noon, Oliver said, shaking his head. I need you to do something else, though.

Anything, man. This answer was automatic, said without thinking, and when Oliver lit up, I almost took it back.

Pick up Clay, bring him along. He’s at Mom and Dad’s house.

You’re bringing your kid brother along on our summer of drinking and Tinder hookups? I asked, confused.

Clay smirked. You think there are going to be Tinder hookups at Larkspur Lake?

There are Tinder hookups everywhere, man!

He’s in a fight with my dad again. He needs some space, and I told him he could come, Clay said, shoving his hands in his pockets with a shrug.

Fuck, I whispered, my legendary fiery temper threatening to spill over. This is our first chance to relax since starting the business five years ago, and now you’re stuck in town and we have a little kid tagging along.

A small smile played around Oliver’s lips. Clay is 20, man. He’s not a kid. I’m sure he’d be up for debauchery.

I blinked. Since when is Clay 20? In theory, I knew Oliver’s little brother must be older. But I still pictured him as the thirteen-year-old pimpled brat who used to tag along behind us as we made plans to start our business.

Well, you may have noticed that he hasn’t been around lately. Because he went to college.

Oh, I said, frowning. Shit. Are we really that old that your baby brother is an adult?

Oliver hit me with a hard look. Are you really that oblivious that you don’t notice my goddamn baby brother growing up?

I shoved my hands into my pockets. I’d prefer not to answer that question.

Well, he’s been in school. And having some success with his art. But now he’s home for the summer, staying with my parents, and it’s driving him crazy. Go rescue him like the superhero you are.

I laughed, shaking my head, and climbed into my truck, forgetting for the moment about my irritation with Oliver. I had a mission, and I always did well with a mission. Besides, I couldn’t let Oliver down.

The route to Oliver and Clay’s childhood home was seared into my memory, and my body followed the familiar roads without really thinking about it. The neighborhood looked the same, maybe a little shabbier than it had when we were kids. Sure, the trees were bigger, and a few houses were different — new paint jobs and additions, but it was the kind of neighborhood that was so fucking bland that the blandness never seemed to change.

I spotted Clay as I turned up the sloped driveway and put my car into park. He was sitting on the front step, a duffel bag and backpack at his feet as he stared off into the distance. He looked a little sad.

He also looked really different. Gone was the skinny twerp of a kid, and in his place was a young man who looked like a free-spirited version of his older brother. Which was hilarious to imagine. Oliver would have a stress-induced heart attack if he even thought about being free-spirited.

Clay’s hair was longer than Oliver’s, longer than the last time I’d seen him, falling in golden waves over his face as he huddled around his signature sketchbook. I remembered that from when we were kids. Clay was always drawing. He always had a pocket full of pencils and graphite smudges on his hands. He left piles of notebooks everywhere, filled with the most detailed and exquisite sketches.

He’d looked up at the roar of my truck’s diesel engine, and the bright summer sun washed across his features — clear, pale skin, pink cheeks, and full, rosy lips. He tilted his head, looking a little confused, as I shifted into park.

Standing, he folded his sketchbook closed and tucked his pencil behind his ear. There was a smudge of graphite on his cheek, and two of his fingers were dark with it, but in looking at the familiar details of him, I couldn’t miss the whole — the broad, muscled shoulders and tall frame — almost as tall as his brother, but not quite.

Fuck, he got sexy, I whispered, my heart pounding. Because Clay was gorgeous and exactly my type in a way that his brother never had been. His confusion cleared as he recognized me. I pulled open the door to my truck and stepped out.

Roman? What are you doing here? he asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

Oliver told me to pick you up.

He hesitated, eying me like I was something terrifying. Thanks, but no thanks.

Still a brat, I see, I said. Has no one spanked it out of you yet? Why the fuck had I said that?

His cheeks flushed pink, and he ducked his chin, his eyes widening. Um. What?

Look, Oliver is stuck dealing with a prima donna client, and he said you needed out of the house, stat. I’m your knight in shining armor, fuckface. I wasn’t sure why Oliver and I always used to call him that, but it rolled off my tongue as easily as it had when we were eighteen and he was a kid and irritating as hell.

He blinked and looked up at me, smiling at the familiar nickname. Still the same Roman, he whispered. He eyed my shorts and tank top, which were a little over-the-top.

I never change, I said, shaking my head. He was gorgeous and sweet, and he’d blushed the cutest color of pink when I’d mentioned a spanking. I was so screwed.

two

Clay

Roman Dewan was the same as he ever was, bigger than any man had a right to be, intimidating, grumpy, and kind of an asshole. I stared at his thick wrists and forearms, at the hair growing on them for a moment, then he cleared his throat. As always, he’d noticed me being weird. I looked up, swallowing hard. He was staring at me, his dark eyes piercing into my very soul.

You coming, pipsqueak? he asked.

Fuck off, I said, smiling a little. At least I could count on him not to give me shit for being weird. He teased me exactly how he always had, as if I was still a little kid and he was still the king of the local high school, the guy who everyone looked up to. My brother’s lifelong best friend.

I leaned forward, grabbing my bag and handing it to him, ignoring the weird frisson of electricity as his knuckles brushed across mine. Dry air made static — it was science. Walking to the back of his truck, he lifted the bed cover and tossed my suitcase in. I clutched my backpack, which had my iPad and stylus in it, to my chest like it was something precious. Because it was something precious.

I’ll keep this with me.

Ooh, snacks? he asked.

Um. Shit. No. Just, you know… I glanced at my brother’s best friend, trying to determine if I had screwed up. Should I have brought snacks?

Your drawing stuff, he said, nodding. The heat was back in my cheeks as I climbed into the passenger seat of his truck, which was way too tall. He worked in construction, so he had a reason to own this kind of truck, but it still felt like too much vehicle for one guy. I needed to text Oliver about this whole situation. As much as I loved my big brother, this was obnoxious — he couldn’t ditch me and send Roman for me, not without warning me.

Roman turned on some music and went silent as he pulled away from my parent’s house, weaving down the hilly, tree-lined streets of our neighborhood toward the highway.

Oliver had said they’d gotten a cabin near a remote mountain lake in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, hoping to spend some time where their clients couldn’t reach them. The two of them had founded their construction company five or six years ago, and their client list had exploded recently. They were so busy that I rarely saw my brother anymore, and hadn’t seen Roman in months, if not more.

As he drove out of town, our small talk faded away, and in the silence, my fingers itched. I needed something to do with my hands, and there was only one thing I ever did when I felt like that. Long ago, a therapist had suggested drawing as an outlet for my restless energy, and I’d never stopped. Considering what had just gone down, my parents probably wanted to sue that therapist, but I wanted to find her and thank her, and maybe ask her how she knew.

I pulled out my iPad and stylus and opened my sketching app. I didn’t think, just drew. The lines on the page slowly formed into the thing that currently fascinated me about Roman — his big hands gripping the leather steering wheel. I chewed on my bottom lip as I worked out the shadowed bone of his wrist, the shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He didn’t ask what I was drawing — he was one of the rare few that never did.

When I was a kid, I used to reward him for that, giving him drawings I never showed anyone else. He probably hadn’t noticed.

We drove in silence, heading south on the highway for a while, then turning and winding slowly up into the mountains on one of the smaller, two-lane roads that led to the more remote and beautiful parts of Oregon. The next sketch that spilled out of me surprised me, though I’d never tell anyone that. People thought I planned my art. Sometimes I did, but usually not.

Usually, I began with lines, and the lines would slowly form into shapes, into something I couldn’t ignore until the drawing was finished. I blushed a little at this one, tucking my knees up and angling my body to be sure that Roman couldn’t see it. It was as if his spanking comment had lit a fire in me. I couldn’t stop picturing that, and that’s what I drew. In the sketch, I was bent over his thick thighs, my ass bare, as one of those huge hands slammed down on it, digging into the soft flesh.

I filled in the detail, my stylus moving rapidly over the screen, the sketch becoming more lewd, as my sketches often did. I studied the way his jeans stretched over his thick thighs, adding the bulge of a massive cock between his legs, hard and straining against the fabric. In the drawing, my cock was out, pressed between his leg and my stomach, spilling cum.

Would I really orgasm from rough treatment? My imagination said yes. My logical side was less sure.

Why the fuck had I drawn that? I blinked down at the image, my cock growing uncomfortably hard. I’d never thought about… well, any of this before. Not about sex with a man, not about spanking or pain or any of it. Sure, a lot of my sketches were erotic, and I made good money selling them. Sometimes they had some fun BDSM elements — ropes or handcuffs, but they were never about real people, and certainly never about two men.

Biting my lip, I scrolled back to the other drawings in my book — buxom women with cum spilling over their tits, big cocks penetrating little pussies. I never drew myself. I drew imaginary characters; humans fucking fairies and demons and monsters. I was accustomed to letting my imagination run away with me as I drew, to becoming aroused, and occasionally stroking one off so I could keep working. Sometimes I was even surprised at the lewd things that showed up in my sketches. But why had I suddenly drawn me and Roman?

His truck slowed, and I quickly swiped the drawing app closed, looking up as he pulled into a tiny roadside gas station.

Need to fill up, he said, glancing my way. You hungry? This place has the best fried chicken, but you can’t eat it in my goddamn truck. The truck is sacred, not a place for snacking.

I glanced around the truck, which looked pretty ordinary. Sacred?

Fuck off. This truck is my baby. You will not tarnish her with crumbs, Roman said. So what do you say? Chicken?

I can’t tell if I’m hungry. Drawing in the car makes me a bit carsick, I said.

And yet you still draw, he murmured, glancing at my iPad. I quickly closed the cover.

It’s not something I can really stop, I said, blushing. Fried chicken sounds good.

I stashed my iPad, so damn glad for the password that protected me from the scrutiny in those dark eyes. That was part of why I drew the sensual stuff on the