Seeking Sanctuary (Hometown Heroes Book 2)

by J. P. Oliver

  “Okay.” I sat up more, arms crossed on the tabletop. “Your turn to compliment me.”

  His laugh filled the space, even caught a few sideways glances.

  He leaned in on the table, too, eyeing me thoughtfully. I tried not to squirm, feeling like I was being studied. “You’ve got great eyes.”

  I rolled those great eyes of mine. “That’s textbook, Savage—”

  “Okay, okay.” All around us, there were screams of laughter and flashing lights and cheesy music with too heavy a bassline—and yet as his eyes dropped to my mouth, his own curving into a small, sexy smile, I suddenly felt like we could have been the only two in the room. “Your mouth.”

  “My mouth?”

  “Your mouth,” he confirmed. “Your lips always make me want to go in for it, even when I probably shouldn’t. You’re a good kisser and even better at giving head.”

  I glanced at the other tables, shocked that Mr. Gallant would say that in public.

  “And I know that the tongue you keep behind them is way too talented—”

  “Okay,” I laughed, nervous all of a sudden. “Okay. You proved your point, I—”

  The look on his face turned smug. He sat back, accomplished.

  “You’re about as good at smack talk as you are dirty talk.”

  I shook my head. “You’re an idiot.”

  “You’ve never heard me dirty talk before,” he said. “That was a low blow.”

  “Will I get a chance to?”

  Our eyes met across our shitty, cheap snack bar dinner.

  Tension.

  Was it wrong to be turned on in a bowling alley? Because I was, instantly. I felt the sudden urge to pull him across the table and rip him out of his shirt. I saw the feeling reflected in his eyes, too, before he turned away, grinning.

  The moment slipped away.

  “Want a rematch?” I asked, picking at the last burnt bits of fry. “I think I’m getting the hang of this bowling shit now.”

  “No.”

  My eyes snapped back to his; magnetic.

  “I want to take you home,” he said.

  I huffed, surprised by my own relief. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “Home sweet home.”

  “Fucking finally,” I groaned, peeling my coat off and letting it drop heavily on the foyer carpet. I shivered at the change in air. Outside, it was dark and pouring and fucking cold. Inside Victor’s house, he kept it nice and toasty. “I can’t believe we forgot the umbrella in the car.”

  “Twice,” Victor said.

  “Who needs them anyway?”

  We’d both taken a solid hit from the thunderstorm, our jeans sticking to our legs and our shirts soaked at the front. Water was still dripping from our hair as I watched him gesture to the living room.

  “Want to watch another movie?”

  “Did we even watch the first one?” I teased.

  “Fair.”

  “I’ve never seen upstairs,” I said, closing the space between us, my hands finding his hips. “Maybe you could give me a tour of your haunted mansion.”

  “Hey, don’t joke about that,” Victor chuckled, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “If I didn’t build it myself, I’d swear this place was haunted.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Something was in here the other night, moaning.”

  I laughed, shoving him back by his chest. “Tour time.”

  We trekked upstairs—the farthest I’d ever gone into his house. It was weird to think about it like that, just like it was weird to think Victor and I really hadn’t spent a lot of time together. Two dates and one hookup left things still pretty new; exciting.

  We toured the second floor, which had a couple of guest bedrooms that seemed to get little use, furnished simply and stylishly. There was a nice bathroom and an office he said he used occasionally.

  “It used to get more use,” he explained shyly, leaving the door cracked, “before I started taking over at the distillery.”

  The third floor was occupied almost entirely by Victor’s suite. His bedroom was stupid big, with a bed and closet, and a separate area for a sofa and coffee table. The photos that lined the walls here were fewer than they were in the halls. As he went to the closet—presumably to grab some dry clothes—I looked them over. They were of family, of course, and friends I recognized, either through knowing them from around town or remembering their faces as they breezed in and out of the Savage household with Victor.

  I lingered at one, tucked on the far wall and very small. It was old, from before Zach was born by the looks of them: Dominic, who was just a toddler, and Victor and Winston. It was a picture from Christmas morning, the two of them sitting in front of the tree with gifts and matching pajamas. Victor was leaning happily into Winston, who looked so… innocent. It was shocking, a stark contrast to how I knew Winston to be.

  “You can borrow whatever you want,” Victor said.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Victor stood in the open door of his closet, working the damp and sticking shirt off his torso. As he flipped through the clothes on their hangers, I padded softly up to him.

  “I’ve got plenty of sweatshirts and just plain old T-shirts…”

  I touched his hip gently, my arms winding around his waist. Victor paused, but didn’t tense; in fact, he seemed to relax under my touch as I pressed my lips to the nape of his neck.

  “Adrian.”

  I didn’t have siblings of my own. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to grow up with one who was manipulative. Knowing Victor, he probably tried his hardest to love Winston anyway. He was his brother. For the first time since knowing Victor, my anger towards Winston shifted into something else: feeling sympathy for Victor.

  “Victor.”

  Slowly, he turned around in my arms, content but curious as he tipped my chin up with his fingers, gentle as he drew me in. The kiss was soft, pliant. Unhurried. I could taste salt and root beer on his mouth from our date at the bowling alley. Something deep in my chest began to stir. I didn’t know what to make of the feeling, if it even had a name; it was something like fear mixed with the thrill of riding a rollercoaster and the ease that came when I rode my bike, cruising and in control I pushed away any other thought, another feeling there, too, one I knew well: arousal.

  The kiss broke and I saw it mirrored in Victor’s brown eyes. My fingers skimmed across his naked chest. “You haven’t shown me the bed yet.”

  The corner of his mouth turned up. “Is that part of the tour?”

  “It’s the best part of the tour,” I chuckled.

  Victor took me by the mouth, lips slotting easily together, a meeting and parting that was like a rhythm, a dance, as he backed me slowly to his bed. It was a massive king—too big for one person—with four intricately carved posts, dark wood like the rest of the house. My thighs bumped the mattress and I slid back over the soft cotton covers.

  His eyes never left mine; mine never left his.

  “You left your tongue ring in,” Victor hummed, gripping the post.

  I fished a condom out of my back pocket, flashing the foil at him before dropping it on the mattress. “You seemed to like it last time.”

  Victor’s smile betrayed that he did, in fact, like it very much.

  Clad in just his jeans, he crawled overtop of me as I surrendered myself to him. My hand hooked around the back of his neck to bring him down in a kiss that held me down on its own, powerful and slow. I’d become acclimated to quick fucks in dark places, in one-offs because they never meant getting personal; never meant getting hurt. But this time, I didn’t mind the idea of him taking me apart slowly.

  Victor’s hand began to peel my wet shirt up my stomach. His head went down, kisses trailing across my neck—over my nipples where they were firm through the thin, damp fabric.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  His teeth tugged one of the peaks, firm, possessive. The surge of arousal that pitted through me was instant, erupting fire—even w
orse when his lips brushed across to the other, to the piercing there. He took the metal and fabric into his mouth, the tug a sharp little burst of pain.

  Muffled by my pressed lips, I groaned, eyes shutting.

  “Like that?” he asked, voice as low as the dull roar of a fire.

  “Does it sound like I didn’t?”

  We met each other’s eye.

  Victor huffed, lips curling as he pushed my shirt up more, gathering the cool cotton below my chin—repeating the teasing with my nipples. Everything felt heightened; the heat of his mouth felt like so much more with my skin still chilled from our running through the rain.

  Teeth grazing, pinching.

  My legs parted for him, let him in closer. Flush against me, the lean muscle of his abs pressed down against my cock, hard thanks to his devout ministrations. I felt him smile as he kissed my chest, and, for unknown reasons, that had just as much an effect of me as his mouthing did.

  “God, you’re a tease,” I complained, flushing as that smile was pointed up at me.

  To prove me right, he flicked his tongue over my nipple before sucking it into his mouth.

  “Touch me,” I tried again.

  His head snapped up, and this time he was chuckling.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Forgot how needy you can be.”

  Victor pushed himself up on his knees, backing off the bed entirely. He surveyed my body as he gripped the post again, the lines of his body sensuous as he leaned in. His hand dropped from the post, gripping my knees and pulling me to the edge of the bed. I huffed in surprise, eyes challenging—trying to not waver in the face of his strong and sturdy fingers trailing up my thighs, unbuttoning my jeans slowly.

  “I don’t…” He paused, swallowing a little. “I don’t want this to be just another…”

  Another hookup.

  I nodded, not knowing how to feel about that exactly. I’d had only hookups, because anything more always went bad. I pictured, for a moment, what Victor might be like angry, but the thought never fully formed; I was too eager to get both our pants off. I opened my mouth to speak as he pressed his lips beneath my navel, following the trail of dark hair down, down, down—

  “Ahh…”

  I flinched, full body, as he pulled my cock from my clothes, sliding the jeans over the swell of my ass. Victor didn’t hesitate, lips brushing up along its side, down the other. He let his lips drag, tongue rimming the underside of my head.

  My breath came harder, deeper.

  It was teasing, featherlight. He smirked, knowing exactly what he was doing.

  With one slow push, he bent his head and took my cock in all the way. I’d only been with one other guy who could deep-throat, but he was kind of shit compared to this: to the warm, wet heat of Victor’s mouth.

  “Fuck—”

  I bit back against my own moan, trying to resist fucking up into the soft cavern of his mouth. He bobbed up and down, the drag of his mouth like heaven and hellfire stuffed into one, all-consuming place. My fingers twitched over the blankets.

  “Victor,” I gasped.

  He drew off in one helpless move, leaving my cock bare and neglected, wet with his saliva as it flopped against my thigh.

  My eyes shot open, feral and confused. “What—”

  He shoved my legs apart, hard and wide.

  The exposure was instant. I was vulnerable to him, my whole body on display as he knelt at the bed’s edge and wrapped a hand around my cock. Lips brushed again, all a tease, as he licked and sucked, jerking me off in slow, controlled pumps.

  “I-I’m ready,” I groaned, pushing up on one elbow. “Fuck, can you just put it in?”

  “I want you to come in my mouth,” he said.

  It was firm, serious. He meant every word of it.

  “I want to know what you taste like.” As he said it, his eyes flickered up to me, the brown of them darker than when we’d started. He was melting from the inside out, all the while stringing me tight and tense. “And when you’ve come once, I’ll fuck you till you come again.”

  I’d never begged for anything in my life, but in that moment, I seriously considered it.

  I needed Victor inside me, but he wasn’t going to give it to me so easily.

  Disjointedly, already in a haze of lust, I nodded, and he took me into his mouth again. It was unfair; where I would have challenged him, I found myself unable to—and unwilling to. The prospect of coming twice at his hand swirled around in my mind as I gasped and groaned. Victor was good at giving head, better than I would have guessed.

  Looks like I’ve got some competition.

  I want you to come in my mouth.

  His mouth: an endless expanse of searing heat.

  It wouldn’t take much more—I felt my hips twitch, seeking more, greedy to take all of him, whatever he’d let me have. Strong hands gripped my thighs as he went back to deep-throating me, faster, with purpose. Every slide upwards brought the punishing, sweet drag of his tongue, the pursed pillows of his lips, stretched and pinked.

  Victor, Victor, Victor—

  “Victor!” I growled. “Fuck, please, just—”

  His hands pushed at my thighs, my knees pressing up to my chest. A cool air touched my entrance, spread wide, desperate to be touched. I whined, the press of his weight against my own body—just his hands, and he could hold me down like this.

  “I… fuck, I…”

  My voice was getting tighter. Every part of me was getting tighter, but Victor was unrelenting. He could tell I was close. It was in the air, like waiting for a storm to break the humidity, thunder and lightning electricity in the air, just before cracking.

  I braced for one more deep sweep, for my cock to slide in the wet heat of Victor’s perfect mouth, but instead of that final bob—the thing I braced for, that I knew would shatter me—he pulled off entirely, lips curling into a smirk before his lips even popped off of my cock.

  My hand flung out, smacking against the blankets.

  “No.” My voice sounded weak and horse. I growled through my nose, eyes screwing shut as frustration replaced intense need. “Victor, what the fuck?”

  “I changed my mind,” he said.

  I sat up, rough and with shaking arms. “God, you’re a fucking prick—”

  He cut me off with a kiss. It was too sweet, too simple. I needed him to put his mouth back to good use, but he seemed to have made up his mind, resolve abundant in his kiss. When his tongue carved a path into my mouth, I could taste myself.

  Unable to help myself, I groaned.

  Our lips disconnected, a little strand of saliva breaking between our mouths.

  “You haven’t touched yourself yet,” I muttered, my forehead resting against his as I tried to gather what brainpower I had available at the moment. “You haven’t—”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Take your jeans off. Now.”

  He seemed all too happy to do so. I pushed backwards up the bed, working my shirt off completely as he shoved and kicked off his jeans and boxers. Left untouched for so long, his cock was rock hard, flushed, and beading at its tip. Crying. Desperate.

  “Hey,” Victor hummed as he followed me. “My eyes are up here.”

  “Yeah, I don’t care about your eyes,” I chuckled.

  Victor crawled between my open legs and took my chin in his fingers. Quickly, it was becoming his signature move—and I was falling for it every time. My eyes were forced gently away from his erection to meet his steady gaze. The corner of his mouth, quirked. Lips parting. I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth, humming into the kiss.

  Victor was a sweet guy. A part of me believed he would have been content with just kissing for hours, but I couldn’t. I felt restless, brought to the brink and denied. Blindly, my hand felt between his thighs, wrapping around his untouched cock.

  Victor moaned into my mouth, illicit and sweet as honey-whiskey.

  “You did such a good job,” I whispered, hot against the shell of his ear. “Let
me reward you.”

  “You’re dangerous,” he chuckled.

  “You don’t even know the half of it.”

  “Where’s the condom?”

  I reached across the sheets, flashing the foil packet between my fingers at him. As he reached for it, I pulled it out of his reach, smirking. I tore the foil and rolled it onto him, practiced. It was a move I was used to. Easy, even.

  “I want you on top,” he said, reaching for the lube in his nightstand drawer—one that didn’t seem to get much use, practically full.

  I shot him a funny look as I flopped back against the pillows. “Isn’t it a little late for that? I already put the condom on—”

  “No.” Victor laughed. “Not top. On top.”

  Arousal fizzled in my chest. “Oh.”

  Legs tangled. We maneuvered like we were wrestling on his large bed, hands grabbing and pulling and guiding, until Victor had his head on the pillows. I swung a leg over him, straddling his lap. My hands found the hard rim of the headboard, something to brace myself on.

  “I could get used to this angle,” Victor hummed, lube coating his fingers. He held my hip with one hand while the other slicked between my cheeks, the nudge of his fingers an itch I needed him to scratch as soon as possible.

  I hummed, arching into the easy slide of his fingers. “Not so bad up here, either.”

  Where his mouth was wet and pliant, his fingers were rigid and commanding. He sunk in, unrestricted, friction dragging, dangerous after being brought so close to the edge already. I dug my nails in against the wood, concentrating.

  Below me, Victor chuckled affectionately as his fingers pulled out of me. I whined at the loss, but held my tongue, knowing it was just the preface to something so much, much better. Slow and sure, he guided my hips down.

  I swallowed his cock like he’d swallowed mine: in one, easy slide, unresisting and exactly what I fucking wanted. Our voices mixed; now that he was inside me, I felt Victor’s willpower crumble.

  I clenched around him as he pounded upwards; saw him grit his teeth and lose that precious smile of his, exchanging it for something primal.

  “Like that?” I asked, head tipping back as he fucked up into me with intent—surprised by the sound of my own voice, breathy and rasped.