Seeking Sanctuary (Hometown Heroes Book 2)

by J. P. Oliver

  “Good, huh?”

  “Better than good,” Victor hummed, distracted. He took the lead this time, gently towing me along as he crossed to get closer to the edge. “You really kept this a secret the whole time?”

  I opened and shut my mouth before I could admit something embarrassing—something I hadn’t even realized until it was about to come out of my mouth: I wanted to surprise you.

  Instead, I nodded to him and took a step back, unlacing our fingers.

  “This should be a good place for the blanket.”

  Watching him lay it out, and crawling next to him on the soft, cheap felt made me feel like I was in high school again, sneaking off with my latest lay to fool around on the overlook. But this wasn’t high school, and Victor, I was beginning to realize, was no random lay.

  He didn’t wrap an arm around me, though, or try to make a move right away. We just sat close, thigh-to-thigh, shoulder-to-shoulder, letting the warmth seep through our jackets and melt into each other. When he breathed, I saw the soft puffs of white air drift from his nose, his lips. My eyes stuck to those lips; I bet they were warm.

  “Thanks for all this,” he said quietly, eyes trained on the dark valley.

  I shrugged. “Like I said. No thanks necessary.”

  “Yeah, I know, but… most people wouldn’t just do this.”

  “I’m not most people,” I said, probably a bit too cocky.

  Rather than call me out on it, Victor murmured, “No kidding.”

  The silence settled over us, comfortable, and I let myself relax into his side, even going so far as to rest my head on his shoulder. He let out a soft puff of air, grinning a little. Our fingertips brushed softly on the blanket between our bodies. An electric evening. I’d never had anything quite like it—at least, not in a long time. I felt like I was waiting for something big to happen, like my first kiss.

  “How’s your hand?” I asked.

  Victor lifted it, flashed it this way and that. “Feels fine. A little bruised up, I guess.”

  “Tough guy.”

  “You should see the other guy,” he teased, quiet. “Sorry about all that, by the way. I didn’t think it’d get that… ugly.”

  “I get it,” I said. “Trust me, I’ve seen some pretty fucked-up fights in my day. What’s a punch between brothers?”

  He chuckled, soft and affectionate. “Yeah. I don’t know. He just knows how to get under my skin. Sometimes, I feel like I’m about to explode when it comes to Winston.”

  “I think you handled it well. All things considered.”

  “Everything’s just been a lot lately, so… doing something like this is nice,” he said. “The distillery’s everything to my family. Keeping it afloat…”

  Something in the air shifted, subtle, romance turning a bit serious.

  “Yeah?” I prodded quietly.

  “It’s the only thing I’ll have left of my dad? You know, when he…”

  I nodded slowly, taking that small leap to tangle our fingers together for real. He met it fully, sighing as he held my hand tightly. I hadn’t known Victor my whole life—not seriously—but even with our short time together, it was easy to know he was a prideful guy. He carried a lot on his shoulders and on his own. But tonight, he was opening up. I felt privileged to know he trusted me enough to let those walls down.

  “I get it,” I murmured. “That makes sense, Victor.”

  “Yeah. I just feel like I’m driving myself crazy over it.” He smirked. “Especially with Winston around. He knows all about the anxiety and shit, he knows exactly what buttons to push.”

  “Anxiety?” I asked.

  Victor tensed slightly. I lifted my head off his shoulder to meet him in a gentle, nonjudgmental gaze. There were always times for jokes, but this didn’t feel like one of them; he looked so nervous, like he’d given something too personal away.

  “What? Like anxiety with a capital A?”

  He chewed on the question. The hint of shame in his face was answer enough, but eventually he nodded and looked back out at the sprawling scenery.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s always been a thing. Mostly it’s social anxiety, so just being around people I don’t know or crowds, having to perform, that sort of thing. But with all these changes and issues with work—”

  “That’d be enough to make anyone lose their shit,” I said, grinning when he felt brave enough to meet my eye again. “And that’s normal. A lot of people have social anxiety.”

  “I know. Mine just feels… it makes me feel crazy sometimes. Like today.”

  “So you don’t trust strangers.” I shrugged. “So you feel whacked out after dealing with your literal evil twin and running into road bump after road bump. That doesn’t make you crazy, that makes you a normal-ass person.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the oldest. I’m supposed to handle Winston, not fall apart. I’m the buffer between him and the family—”

  “Can I say something kind of candid?”

  He nodded, bracing.

  In a small reversal, I touched his chin and kissed him, the pull of our lips slow and sweet. He relaxed gently into it, hand brushing my cheek, cradling it. I was right: his lips were warm, and so were his hands.

  “You’re a good man, Victor. More than most of the men I’ve met,” I said, eyes closed. “Myself included. If I were in your shoes, I might have ditched a long time ago. I might have caved—”

  “Nah. You’re too tough,” he whispered.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Oh?”

  I peeked my eyes open and saw him grinning, a small light in his eyes.

  “You, Adrian Cole, tough motorcycle badass?” Victor chuckled, hand falling away from my face. “I find that hard to believe. I think the only secret, unexpected thing about you is that you can be sweet. After that—you’re an honest guy.”

  As I laughed, something felt off, guilt flickering in my chest, because no, I wasn’t honest. Not about anything, ever, at all. If I was honest, I would tell him all about the secret I was keeping. I would tell him about Troy and the people looking for me.

  I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my chin on them, watching an airplane streak across the sky, lights blinking against the black. “Everyone’s got a little monster in their closet.”

  “Yeah? Well, what about you? What sort of monsters you got in there, Adrian?”

  I huffed, grinning because he didn’t want to know.

  Oh, you know. A man died while confronting me in my club. His family is suing me for emotional damages. That’s actually what I’m going to see my lawyer about next week: settling the civil suit.

  I didn’t know how to say it, didn’t want to see the smear of regret and disgust in his face knowing he was kissing someone like me. Guilt crept along my throat. We were opening up to one another, and I owed him something—I wanted to share something with him, to show that trust was mutual—but Troy… I just couldn’t.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said, resting my cheek on my knees to look up at Victor. “You’re really different from the guys I usually see.”

  “Really?” he asked, grinning sideways. “How’s that?”

  “Every guy I’ve ever dated has been an asshole like my dad.”

  “Pops?” Victor’s eyes went wide. “He seems like such a nice guy—”

  “No, no. Not Pops.” I huffed a laugh. “Wait, you thought Pops was my biological dad?”

  “I… is he not?”

  “No? Oh my God, we don’t look anything alike.” Now I was really laughing, nudging his knee with mine. “No. Robert is my stepdad. Might as well be my real dad, though, since he was the one who raised me. My biological dad was around for the first handful of years, but… he was a prick. Abusive. That whole story.”

  Something like hurt twitched across his face in the moonlit shadows.

  “That’s why—I mean, you’re nothing like the guys I had back in the city.” I picked at a loose thread in the blanket; fidgeting. “They wer
e all… I guess I kept gravitating to guys just like him, looking for something in the relationships. Don’t know what, though. Anyway, I stopped doing relationships after that. Hooking up and never getting to know how shitty the other person was… it’s just the easiest way to go about it. You never get hurt that way.”

  The wind whistled through the tree branches. Shivering, I pressed a fraction closer, looking for—approval. For warmth. For shelter. Victor gave it to me, his hand drifting up over my back, soothing even through the leather jacket.

  “You haven’t had a relationship for a while then.”

  “Nah. I just… trusting people’s kind of a shit show, don’t you think?”

  I expected him to say something sappy, something in the name of love. He seemed like a guy who believed in all the storybook versions of romance: the courting, the love, the infatuation and lust at first sight. Instead, he said:

  “It’s a shit show. I know about as well as anyone.”

  I perked up. “What?”

  “Are you surprised?” he chuckled.

  “I… yeah, I guess so. You seem like the type of guy who believes in shit like true love and is into romcoms.”

  “I like the same shit you like,” Victor said. “Bikes and scary movies and tattoos.”

  “Yeah, but you also seem like a sap.”

  His laughter echoed over the valley. “I used to be. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Well… what happened to it?”

  Victor glanced away. He had a habit of doing that, when he was saying something particularly vulnerable—like looking away might hide how afraid he felt.

  “I’m not stupid,” he started, which seemed like a funny place to start. “I know why I’m… like this. I’ve always had anxiety—I think it’s just coded into me—but the whole thing with relationships and trusting people—trusting strangers—that’s because of my old boyfriend.”

  He paused and made a face, like it was an old, rueful inside joke.

  “My first boyfriend, actually,” he said. “My only boyfriend. Only serious one, anyway. I didn’t realize I was gay till I went away for college and let myself experiment. It was the first time I was apart from Winston. I was looking for love, something exciting and new and I found it. I thought I fucking struck gold with him. We were together for all four years.”

  I whistled. The only relationship I had that lasted more than four years was with my bike and my parents. Something turned over in my stomach; I could sense where this story was heading.

  “That’s a long time,” I murmured.

  Victor nodded. “We graduated. I was ready to move in with him, but he didn’t want to. I found out later he had been cheating on me for two of those four years with different guys. I actually walked in on him and—whoever he was fucking, so it was… messy, to say the least.”

  “Jesus.” I sat upright, huffing. “God, that’s fucked up.”

  “There are worse guys out there,” he said, watching me carefully.

  I knew there were worse guys; I’d handled them firsthand, but Victor—he wasn’t like me. He wasn’t rough and tumble, he was a family man; he was sweet and anxious, thoughtful, caring to a fucking fault. He was hot and a good fuck, too.

  “That guy’s a fucking idiot,” I said.

  Victor swallowed. “Thanks.”

  “What did I say about thanking me?” I raised a brow, eyes dropping to his mouth. “It’s not necessary.”

  Before he could answer, my lips silenced him with a kiss.

  It was deep on my part, an attempt to convey a message: he didn’t deserve to be cheated on, he deserved someone who’d take care of him, who would return the kindness and attention he gave to everyone else. Possessiveness flared inside me as he took my chin in his fingers, tilted his head, and deepened the kiss.

  If no one else would show him how good he deserved it, then I would.

  I flicked my tongue between his parting lips, drawing the little silver stud over the plush of them just to remind them I had it and that it could be put to good use. He groaned, the noise thrilling out here in the open. How far could we take it? How far would he let me…

  My hand brushed up his thigh, palming his cock gently, suggestively. He could push me off, if he wanted to stop, and I wouldn’t hold it against him.

  I shivered as he unzipped my coat with one decisive tug.

  “Is this okay?” Victor huffed against my mouth, hot air against my cheek. His fingers trailed over my chest. Lucky for both of us, I wore a button-up to stop by and see Beth. He worked each button open between our fevered kisses.

  “Yes,” I shivered again, his fingers brushing inside my shirt, over the skin, hungry to tweak my pierced nipple. Arousal pitted deep inside me, and I palmed him just a little harder through his jeans.

  He groaned again as I granted permission. I wanted to push him back, push his legs apart, lave my spit-slicked stud over the head of his cock until he begged to let me slide the rest of it into my mouth—but Victor had other ideas, acting on them just a bit quicker.

  I gasped softly against his mouth, letting him lay me down on the blanket. I blinked up at him, surprised. He hovered over me, a beautiful face set against the starry sky, the moonlight making a halo of his blond hair.

  I didn’t believe in romance before tonight, but he was making a believer out of me.

  “You stole my move,” I chuckled, a little breathless.

  Victor hummed, hand smoothing down my chest, unbuttoning a few more—just enough to push the side down, exposing my pierced nipple to the cold of the night. It was tight, peaked, hard, and he kissed around it, lips like fire in contrast.

  “I know you don’t believe in thank yous,” he mumbled, lips grazing my nipple in earnest and drawing a soft groan from deep inside me. “But let me do this.”

  “I don’t want it to be about that,” I breathed.

  He tugged the hoop between his teeth, a sharp jolt of desire coursing through me, before he trailed lower—as low as my half-open shirt would let him. His hand trailed over my cock—already hard. No need for working it up.

  Victor’s eye met mine, mischievous.

  I grinned hazily back. “That’s what you do to me.”

  “God,” he exhaled, half a laugh and half a groan. “I want to blow you.”

  His fingers played with the hem of my jeans, undoing the belt expertly with one hand.

  “I want to feel the weight of your cock in my mouth.”

  Then the button.

  “I want to taste you.”

  Then the zipper.

  I was squirming, my heart thrumming wildly in my chest. He was really going to—

  “Victor,” I gasped, tilting my head back against the hard earth.

  He mouthed, wet and with his tongue, just above the base of my still-trapped cock. The press of the fabric was killing me, and I think he sensed that. He drew me from the confines, and I shivered, full body, as my cock was exposed to the cool air, held firm by a hand made of flames.

  “I want to show you what you should have been getting from all those men,” he mumbled, lips brushing my shaft, trailing upwards. “They should have treated you with the respect you deserved.”

  It wasn’t dirty talk, but it was taking my breath away. The combination was hot; his voice was one rasp away from a moan as he breathed in the scent of my skin and licked the tip, laving through the precum.

  “God,” I whined.

  “You’re amazing,” he whispered, repeating the move, slower, measuring the weight of my cock on his warm, wet tongue.

  I’m not. I’m a liar.

  “The noises you make. I get hard whenever I think about them. Even when you’re not around, sometimes. It’ll just pop into my head and I’ll have to…”

  “What?” I exhaled.

  I could imagine what, but I wanted to hear him say it.

  Instead, he took my cock into his mouth, the liquid feeling of it like fire, flexing, breathing life into me. My back arched hard as
he kept going, deeper, deeper, bobs bringing him down without the bat of an eyelash, until I was nudging gently at the back of his throat.

  “Victor.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. He was the only thing that existed for a shining moment.

  “Victor.”

  His hands trailed over my thighs, drawing off me slowly, the drag of his tongue along the underside purposeful. He wanted to torment me as much as he wanted to make me feel good, knowing that this gentle torture was part of it.

  “You’re so hot,” he whispered.

  I whimpered, face screwing shut. “I’m not gonna last much longer, if you keep that up.”

  “Hm. I better keep it up, then.”

  I looked down at him, pushing up on my hands. “You don’t have to if—”

  Holding my gaze, he grinned and lapped slowly along my shaft.

  “If… if you don’t want—fuck—if you don’t want to…”

  I liked the angle of this, of getting to watch him mouth along, a sight to pair with the sensation. His tongue was hot and careful, his hands moved over whatever his mouth wasn’t occupied with. I shivered, all of my body on fire and meeting the cold breeze. My thighs shook as he took me in deeper again, setting this rhythm of bobbing and swallowing—and then pulling off to fuck around with some other part of me.

  “Don’t tease anymore,” I gasped, feeling my insides twirling, a knot tying itself over and over and over in my chest, merciless and tight. My cock twitched at the needy sound of my own voice. “Please, please, just—make me come.”

  I’d never begged, but tonight was different.

  Begging betrayed my personality, what my image was. I was never weak, I was always proud—too proud to beg—but Victor was different. Being around him… I could trust him to know that I could be both: tough and needy, a fighter and someone who could be brought to their knees. There was a freedom in it.

  Arousal pulsed through me like lightning, following the feeling of his lips.

  He drew off, eyes focused, face set. He jerked me off quickly, intent on making me come, giving me what I wanted. He held out his tongue, letting saliva drip onto my already leaking head; it was cool by the time it touched me, and I flinched, fingers fisting in the askew blanket.