Free Breaking the Bro Code by Stefanie London

he zeroed in on a photo frame on the mantel. He strode across the room and picked it up. The photo had yellowed with time, the colours not as vibrant as they once had been. But it was undoubtedly Col and his father. A gap-toothed smile stared back, but the faint outline of a bruise marred the young boy’s upper arm.
    ‘He made me smile for this photo.’ Col’s voice shook, his shoulders bunched around his neck, jaw clenched. ‘He shook me until I agreed to smile. And now he has this photo up like it’s a goddamn happy memory.’
    Her chest compressed. She wanted to reach and touch him; she wanted to ease his pain. But she didn’t know what to do. She was so emotionally inept herself that she had no idea how to deal with this extreme emotion. Shame washed over her but she knew it wouldn’t even show a glimmer on her face.
    ‘Col—’
    ‘I thought I was over this. I thought I was over him .’ The last word came out as a growl as he hurled the photo against a wall.
    The glass exploded in a shower of tinkling particles. Elise watched them fall to the floor as if in slow motion, the sound of her heart magnified in her ears.
    ‘I’m sorry, Elise. You shouldn’t have had to see that.’ He turned his pain, palpable in the air around him, inwards. His chest rose and fell too quickly as he clutched at self-control.
    ‘It’s okay.’ She was frozen, rooted to the spot.
    ‘I shouldn’t have brought you here. I know you don’t want to talk about the past—’
    She couldn’t comfort him with words, but she needed to ease his pain. So she did the only thing that she could do, the only thing that felt natural.
    Her hands found Col’s neck and she dragged him down to her, her open mouth ready for his. Their tongues met with force, lips pressing hard. This wasn’t a comforting kiss. Hell, it wasn’t even a distracting kiss. It was a full-on, all-barriers-down, forget-everything-else kiss.
    One strong arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her so she could wind her legs around his waist. He moved and her back hit the wall, knocking the wind out of her. Col’s teeth came down on her lip, his hips grinding into her open legs.
    ‘My God, Elise,’ he groaned against her hair as her lips found the lobe of his ear.
    He had her pinned and she couldn’t have found anything sexier at that point. The hard length of him had all her senses firing at high speed, his hands cupping her arse to hold her in place.
    She writhed against him, eliciting a guttural moan from the back of his throat. Up close his scent invaded her, making her dizzy with lust and memories. His short hair was silky against her palms; she gripped it and tugged his head down. His tongue flicked against hers, his faint minty taste drawing her in to keep the kiss going on and on.
    ‘I’ve missed you,’ he breathed.
    The air was sucked out of her, reality crashing down like a derelict building—ugly and grey and harsh. ‘No.’
    ‘No?’ He pulled his mouth away from hers, his dark brows crinkled above his nose.
    She pushed against his chest until he released her, her sneakers hitting the ground with a thud. ‘You don’t get to say that to me.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘That you missed me.’ She was breathing as heavily as if she’d run a marathon, her chest rising and falling rapidly. ‘You don’t get to talk to me like you wanted it any other way.’
    ‘Damn, Elise.’ He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. ‘ You kissed me.’
    ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’ She glared at him, the old feelings of anger and shame returning with force. The feelings roared within her, crashing into one another and fighting for her attention, but she swallowed them down.
    ‘And kissing is your go-to move?’ he cried. ‘How am I supposed to respond to that?’
    ‘Oh, so you only kissed me because I kissed you first?’ Her chest burned, the heat clawing at her neck and face.
    ‘That’s not what I said.’
    ‘What are you trying to say,