Seeking Sanctuary (Hometown Heroes Book 2)

by J. P. Oliver

  “Do you want to?” I asked.

  His lips pulled into a comfortable, wicked grin. I watch it melt around my cock, taking me in deeper with every bob, edging me back into the tight heat of his throat. I panted, watching myself disappear inside him, until there was none of my cock left and his nose pressed to my abdomen.

  Long, artistic fingers slid up my wet thighs and slowly, they coached me at my hips, pushing just a little deeper. I felt surrounded by him already, swallowing thickly; you can fuck into my mouth.

  Experimentally, I drew out of him and slid back in. If he wanted to change his mind and push me off, I would let him. Green eyes blinking up at me. The moment our gazes met, I knew he knew that; that whatever he wanted to do, I’d respect—but for now, this was what he wanted; what we both wanted.

  Out. In. A little more this time.

  The pace was slow at first, careful, but that waned as pleasure melted into everything, every sensation, and worrying about whether or not he would be fine became the selfish desire to enjoy every inch of him. Adrian was a tough guy. He was competent, he was strong, he was outspoken. And he was offering. Participating.

  I could let myself have this.

  Nervous little flexes became shallow thrusts. I focused on the silk of his mouth, and the hard slide of his piercing on the underside of his tongue.

  Adrian’s hand brushed mine. I opened my eyes, wondering if it was a sign to stop, but instead, he guided my hand into his wet locks. Made me grip them, hard. I wanted to ask if he was really okay with this, and then I caught the look in his eyes.

  They were slivers of green, watching me through a haze. He looked absolutely fucked out. It dawned on me: I’ve never trusted someone enough to do this before; this was just as much for me as it was for him.

  His mouth popped off and he moaned. Fingers wrapped around me, guiding my tip around his lips, smearing precum. I shuddered hard. The next time he broke his lips over my cock, I thrust inside and he whined, hand fumbling between his own legs to stroke some of the pain from his own weeping erection.

  “So good,” I exhaled, every breath burning. “You know your mouth’s perfect, don’t you?”

  He hummed around me, though whether it was an affirmative or not, I couldn’t tell. His hand moved faster over himself and his pretty lashes fluttered shut, unable to help themselves.

  “Fuck,” I huffed, head tipping back against the tile. “Fuck, Adrian, you have no idea what you do to me…”

  And it was true. It was getting truer every day, no matter how hard I tried to keep him away—keep the feelings away. I liked him, I liked being with him, and that scared the fuck out of me because I couldn’t deserve him. I’d done nothing in my life worth Adrian. For some reason, he wanted me, and I was falling for him. I was getting attached. Maybe my heart would just get broken again, but right now, I knew what I felt: I wanted him.

  Glancing down, I let him pull off, spit smearing his chin, shining. Adrian looked like a beautiful, wrecked mess.

  “Fuck me,” he begged, breathless.

  He rushed to his feet, stumbled back as I pinned him to the wall. I felt myself take control, hand wrapping around where he ached to be touched as we kissed, tongues licking into each other’s mouths.

  “Please,” he whispered, voice a wisp, a rasp pressed to my temple.

  I hooked a hand under his knee, pulling up and out. He whimpered at the sudden exposure, clutching tight as I pressed him up the wall—up onto his toes—adrenaline and raw need pulsing through me. Smeared with spit and precum, I eased in.

  Nails dug into my back as he panted, “Keep going.”

  Deeper. He took me in almost as easily as I’d slid into his mouth. The heat of him was more intense, tight, hugging every inch of me as I pressed past his walls, dragging friction like fire. I felt sparks breathe to life and die inside of me, my head dropping to his shoulder.

  Adrian’s fingers wove into my blond locks, gripping.

  I licked the water from his skin.

  “Harder,” he gasped.

  “Adrian—” I moaned, pain streaking through me as he tugged my hair and lifted my gaze on his own to meet mine, intent. “Adrian.”

  “Harder,” he repeated, firm but begging. “Nobody makes me come like you do. Nobody.”

  I pistoned up into him hard, his body shaking with the force of it. Hands twitched in my hair. His head pressed back to the tile, fucked out, mouthing the word, again. Again, again, again, I pounded up into him, until it was the only thing that made sense, until his body was the only thing that I could feel.

  The spray of the shower on my back. The steam throwing itself around us. Adrian’s voice echoed as he goaded me on mindlessly: just like that, baby, yes, oh, oh fuck, don’t stop, please, please, just wanna come, please.

  I was close, too; after fooling around at the overlook, after fixing the bike together, after sharing secrets in the privacy loaned to us by the dark and dogwoods. I needed to find that slice of perfection like I’d needed Adrian today—like I’d needed him these past few weeks, I realized.

  “Don’t stop,” I murmured to both of us. “Fuck, just—”

  I wrapped a hand around his cock and pumped hard, fast.

  “Victor!” Adrian gasped.

  I came with a hard twitch, my fingers squeezing around every part of him I touched, filling him with a deep push. He whimpered, even as I fucked up into him, rode him through the orgasm. My mind, in that moment, only knew two things: my own pleasure, and Adrian’s.

  Adrian wasn’t far behind. With a few swirling pumps into him—a small circular motion that made a squirming mess of him—and expert flick of the wrist, he came with a cry, collapsing against me.

  I chuckled, watching his shoulders shake as he caught his breath.

  “Twice in one day. You’re getting spoiled.”

  He slapped me on the chest weakly, nuzzling under my chin. “Shh.”

  I slid out of him carefully, set him on his feet, but never let go. We backed into the spray, letting it wash away the mess we’d made, evidence of our lovemaking sliding down the drain.

  When Adrian looked up at me, it was without fervor.

  When he kissed me, it was gentle and—loving.

  I cupped the back of his neck and made it deeper. Was this love? I didn’t know for sure, but it was something I loved doing. Adrian was someone I loved being around. We shared secrets and he understood me, respected me, made me laugh. We both loved bikes and hotrods and horror flicks and each other’s company.

  I love kissing him, I thought, warming at the thought.

  As he broke the kiss and patted my chest, Adrian laughed to himself, like he’d had his own embarrassing thoughts he didn’t know how to share. The thought that this deep—something—might be mutual was as brilliant a thought as it was dangerous

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” He licked his lips, kiss-red and waiting. “Just kiss me again.”

  14

  Adrian

  “Where should we put the leaves, Pops?”

  “Uh…”

  I pulled the black garbage bag shut and tied it off with a bulky knot, waiting for Robert’s answer. Instead, all I heard was him muttering to himself and the steady beat of a hammer against wood and nail picking up again. With a roll of my eyes, I glanced back at the shed, where he stood in his favorite worn flannel, fixing its door like he’d been promising to for over five years.

  “Pops,” I called.

  The rhythm of the hammer jostled out. He glanced up at me just long enough to miss the nail and catch his gloved finger instead. He let out a heated little, “Oh, Jesus fuck,” and dropped the hammer to the grass, clearly in pain.

  I dropped the bag, trotted over. “Shit, sorry, you okay?”

  I braced for blood. He pulled his glove off, grimacing, but all the skin was intact.

  “Fuck,” I sighed, relieved as I was sorry for distracting him. “No broken skin.”

  “No broken bones, either,�
� he said, testing it out. With a wave of his hand, he shook a majority of the pain out and said, “No hospital either. It’s all fine. Not the first nick I’ve had. Probably not the last.”

  Robert shot me a grin, but I shook my head.

  “What’d you want my attention for so bad?” he asked.

  I jutted a thumb at the collection of bags by the back porch. “Leaves. I raked them all up, I just wanna know where you want to put them.”

  “Collection’s not till Tuesday,” he said, eyeing them thoughtfully. “Here. Help me bring them around to the garage till then.”

  I did just that. Our yard wasn’t massive—we weren’t like the Savages, with heaps of land, acreage spread all over North Creek—but we were flanked by a lot of trees, which meant a lot of fall foliage, which meant a lot of raking. Usually, my mom would help out with the work and it’d take weeks, but she was getting older—they both were—so I didn’t mind helping. It was the least I could do for them, being home again.

  I handled two garbage bags full of twigs and leaves in each hand and waited at the garage door for Robert. He finally came following, struggling a bit with a bag in each hand. He was by no means weak, but… I felt it. The pang of realizing my folks were getting older. It wasn’t a pretty feeling, all hollow and strange.

  I jogged over and took one from him, falling into step with him.

  “You all right, Pops?” I chuckled.

  “Yeah,” he chuckled. “Wise-ass. I’m fine. Just takes a little longer these days, that’s all.”

  We heaved the bags down in the back of the garage. Robert clapped the dirt and hard work off his hands, satisfied.

  “I’m not being a wise-ass,” I said, half-grinning, half-serious. I crossed my arms against the cool air that breezed into the garage, rustling what was left of the trees. “It’s not just right now. With the bags.”

  I leaned my weight back against the wall as he sighed and sat back on a long bench—one he had made on his own, by hand, when I was just a kid. He’d let me paint the varnish on with him. I knew under the base of the left leg our initials were scribbled into the wood to prove it was ours.

  “What do you want me to say?” Robert asked, light and unbothered. “Damn things are heavy.”

  “There’s the raking,” I said. “And the work that needs to be done on the shed. I’ve seen you raking and mowing and shit. It just… takes longer.”

  “I’m in my sixties, son,” he said, cutting through with ease. “It’s going to take longer.”

  “Yeah. I’m just trying to say—” I paused, wondering what I actually was trying to say. “Just don’t push yourselves and overdo it. You and mom. I don’t want anything to happen to you two.”

  Something soft flickered across Robert’s face.

  I clamped down on whatever vulnerable feeling clawed in my chest.

  “Nothing’s gonna happen, son,” he chuckled. “We’re old but we aren’t that old.”

  Humor was how we dealt with shit best in this family, when things got a little too real, a little too serious. This was a way out of a trickier, scarier conversation, so I laughed and took it.

  “You’re both retired and you watch reruns of M*A*S*H, like, every night, Pops. I hate to break it to you, but you’re old.”

  Robert laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”

  I expected the conversation to turn to something menial after that—dinner, television, mom’s latest unnecessary department store purchase. Instead, Robert crossed his own arms, lifted his chin with a knowing smile, and asked, “So your mother was telling me about Victor.”

  I glanced away, sucked my teeth. “Oh, did she?”

  “She did.” He chuckled. “Said he was one of the Savage boys and that he was very polite and very handsome. She stressed that part a lot. Said he was almost as handsome as me.”

  I laughed. “Almost, yeah.”

  Warmth crept into my cheeks; why? I wondered what reason I had to blush or feel some creeping sense of longing when we were just talking about Victor. I talked with Robert throughout high school and college about which guys I was dating like most fathers and sons talked about girls. It was a comfortable, normal subject—so why?

  “That’s pretty handsome,” he drew, stroking his chin. “You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with him lately.”

  “Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “We’ve been having a good time together. Working together some.”

  All that was a more family friendly way of saying, He’s fucking me too good on a semi-regular basis and I’m helping his family’s business out so it doesn’t tank hard because of his dad’s cancer.

  “And is this good time serious?” Robert quirked a brow.

  There it was: that creepy feeling; that shiver of discomfort. It traced through me like fingertips skimming through a pond, sending out ripples. Serious; were we serious? Serious couples moved in together, got married, had fucking kids, got old, got depressed, got mean to each other, got divorced.

  I took too long to answer.

  Robert smiled, small and kind. “Nothing wrong with serious, you know.”

  I nodded and said, “Yeah, I know,” but I didn’t know, not really.

  Serious was what got my mom into so much trouble before Robert. Serious was what every guy who abused me—who tried smacking me around, who cheated on me, who locked me out, who tried to cut me off from friends and family and work—said they were after. I didn’t come to North Creek looking for serious; serious was a four-letter word.

  It wasn’t the commitment that terrified me; it was knowing Victor wasn’t like that, wasn’t like my biological father or boyfriends or any of them.

  “I don’t know,” I finally said, glancing down the driveway. “I don’t know if it’s serious. Maybe…” I shrugged and looked at him again, feeling his eyes pierce through me like they were so good at doing, a fatherly gaze. “Maybe it is.”

  He chuckled and said again, “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Dinner’s almost—! Oh.” My mom appeared in the doorway, swinging it open and shouting and then cutting herself off when she realized we were less than ten feet from her. With an apologetic smile, her eyes bounced between us. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” Robert said, standing with a labored groan. “We were just talking about Victor Savage is all.”

  I rolled my eyes as Robert whispered his name.

  “Hey,” I deadpanned. “I’m right here.”

  “Oh.” Mom’s eyes sparkled a bit. “Adrian’s not-boyfriend.”

  “The very one,” Robert said, kissing my mom’s cheek. “I was just trying to figure out how serious Victor was about our son here, May. Apparently, he’s planning on proposing.”

  “What?!”

  If my mother had been holding something, it would have dropped and shattered on the garage floor. If she had a phone in her hand, she would have called everyone, anyone. If she had a plane, she would have flown a banner clean across North Creek announcing, “My son’s gonna get fucking hitched!”

  I shot Pops a look as he chuckled.

  “No, Mom—”

  “Engaged? You’re joking me, you’ve got to be joking me—”

  “He is,” I interjected.

  Mom paused, eyes wide, before they turned up murderously to Robert as he broke out laughing. He laughed and laughed, even as my mom started cursing and beating him lightly on the chest; even as he stumbled backwards into the house to get away from her huffing and puffing.

  “That isn’t funny, Robert,” she said as I closed the garage door behind us. “He’s our only son, you can’t joke about that, oh my God.”

  “Take it easy, Mom,” I laughed, sitting at the kitchen table. “You’re gonna give yourself a heart attack like that.”

  She braced a hand against the counter and touched over her heart. “Your father’s the one who almost gave me a damn heart attack.”

  Things settled a bit as my mom pulled the pot of spaghetti off the stove. I stood and br
ushed her aside as she brought it to the sink.

  “Here,” I said, taking it from her. “I got it, Mom.”

  “Well, how are things going with Victor?” she sighed. “He seemed very interested when he was over here. It was very sweet.”

  “Did he?”

  It was news to me. I felt my heart pick up just a little as I poured dinner into the strainer, a burst of steam roiling up into my face.

  “He did. Couldn’t take his eyes off you the whole time you were around.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Well, will you stay in North Creek?” she asked. “To try things out with Victor? You’ve both got family here, after all.”

  I paused, holding her curious gaze as she took the bowls from the cabinet beside me, dusty pink and ceramic.

  “You two could always adopt, you know,” Robert called from the table.

  “That’s true,” Mom added. “There are plenty of nice kids out there that need adopting. In the state of Tennessee, even. I’m sure you two would make a nice home for them.”

  I’d never really imagined what it might be like to be a father, or if I’d be a very good one. Life was always in the moment: school, the club, the shop, art, tattoos, piercings, sex, get together, break up, fuck this, fuck that. Victor was—changing all that.

  I chuckled, hands a little tight on the strainer’s handles. “We aren’t at that point yet, Mom.”

  They dropped the topic eventually as we passed around plates and sat for dinner. I was grateful to stop the Victor-themed game of Twenty Questions, but the what ifs were still left to buzz around in my head: what if this was more serious? What if Victor wanted me in the real sense? What if I wanted him back?

  I thought of leaving; of returning to my apartment in Nashville and the shop and the usual crowd. I thought of the men I rode bikes with, tore up the interstates and pierced the night with, the men who had my back, who knew my name, who knew everything about me except where I came from, who my family was. To them, North Creek was just a name on a map, a blip with a recent historical status.

  The idea of leaving left a hollow place in my chest the size of North Creek.