Celestial Seductions: The Complete Series: An MM Gay Paranormal Mpreg Romance Collection

by Odin Nightshade

  Josh’s hands settled over his own and forced him to stop what he was doing. Chad stopped breathing. He pulled his hand free and looked up.

  “Can I help you?” He was proud that his voice sounded strong and reflected none of the quivering that was going on inside him.

  “Don’t I at least get a smile?”

  Was Josh Holmes really flirting with him? Chad resisted the urge to laugh at him as he gave him a sarcastic grin. It was clear that he did not realize how funny it was that he, a man famous all across the country, would be flirting with him, a man with two dead-end jobs, facing the harsh reality of single parenting.

  “Come on, Chad.” Josh softened his tone and leaned closer. He smelled phenomenal. Chad had no idea what it was, but the cologne smelled like some ultra-masculine, exotic sent that sent his senses whirling.

  This man has no effect on me, he told himself. A little voice in his head said that this was a lie, but he ignored it completely.

  “I was hoping to see you this weekend.” Josh’s interest was apparent. “Why don’t you let me take you to dinner? I’d love to know what you’ve been up to.”

  Chad was surprised that Josh wanted to see him. He so wanted to say yes—now that he had seen him again, his heart was racing, and he felt alive. But he could not risk their meeting. His heart could not handle going through all that again.

  His memory flashed back to the month before he had graduated from high school, and he and Josh had really gotten to know each other. He had been handsome, friendly, down-to-earth, and everything that he had ever dreamed of. He had set the bar so high in the short time, that Chad had never met another man who came even close to meeting those standards.

  It saddened him that he had changed. The old Josh had been so innocent, so genuine. This one seemed smooth, hardened, insincere. Chad sighed. he supposed that fame could do that to a person.

  “Chad?” Josh pulled him from him thoughts and he realized that he must have noticed his distraction.

  “Josh, I think you had better go.” Chad offered him what he hoped was a friendly smile and gathered his napkin-rolled silverware in his arms. “It was nice to see you, and I would have loved to go to dinner with you but I’m really very busy…”

  “Don’t lie, Chad. You’ve been blowing me off for four years. I think I know a brushoff by now.” Josh stood to leave. Chad was surprised to find his voice did not sound angry. Instead, he sounded sad. “I know that you have to work right now, so I’ll give you some space, but I’m in town all week so if you ever find a free moment maybe we could talk.”

  Chad watched him walk away and it felt as if he had been punched directly in the heart. All of the other times he had been able to simply not respond to a message or a phone call. Rejecting Josh to his face was much more difficult than anything that he had ever done before.

  He could not stop thinking about him, for the rest of his long day at work.

  Chapter 7

  Josh was waiting outside the pub when Chad got off work. The sun was still shining as he watched him take off down the sidewalk. He felt a strange tension building inside him. Soon, their paths would have to cross and hopefully then he would talk with him. It had occurred to Josh after he had left the pub that Chad was an expert at avoidance.

  Chad was never going to make time for him this week, of that he was certain. Whether or not he was interested in him now, Josh wanted answers for the past. He needed them. If there was any hope that he would be able to move on he needed to know what had gone wrong. His heart had not moved on from him, for all these years. He needed closure, if nothing else.

  Across the street, Chad looked up to see Josh sitting on a bench outside of the local café.

  From his vantage point Josh watched him take a deep breath before walking toward him. The action had either been as a way to prepare himself and gather his fortitude, or an expression of frustration at seeing him again. He hoped that it had been the first option, but he was fairly certain that it was the second.

  Chad walked up to his tiny bistro table and placed his hands on the back of the chair across from him. He did not sit down.

  “You aren’t going to go away, are you?” Chad confronted him. Josh thought he heard a hint of amusement in his tone.

  He shook his head.

  Chad slid into the chair across from him. He flagged down the waitress and ordered a coffee for himself.

  Josh looked at him, as awed as he had felt the first time he saw him in the restaurant. Chad had become more solidly-muscled since the last time he saw him, although he was still lean and compactly-built. His pale hair seemed even paler, and his eyes more intense.

  “So, we have a lot to catch up on, eh?” Chad sighed. Josh nodded, astonished that he had volunteered to share news.

  That was the first in a series of surprises. To Josh’s utter astonishment, Chad made small talk with him for nearly fifteen minutes. Though he kept the conversation light, and continued to be vague about his personal life, Josh took it as a small success that he was still speaking with him.

  During the conversation Josh noted that Chad was not wearing a wedding ring, and he felt a small flame of hope light his heart.

  After some time in their conversation, Chad’s phone buzzed with a text. He apologized, and quickly read the message.

  “I’ve got to get going.” He seemed suddenly tense, and opened his wallet to pay for the coffee. Josh waved him away.

  “You’ve put up with me for a full fifteen minutes, the least I can do is buy your coffee,” he laughed.

  When Chad’s smile spread across his face and he released a note of genuine laughter, Josh felt as if time had suddenly stopped. He also realized something: that was the first laugh he had heard from Chad in the past two days.

  When had Chad become so serious? The laugh reminded him, devastatingly, of the Chad that he remembered. The lighthearted, shy but gentle youth who had captured his heart. Until that moment, Josh had not realized how much had changed. Never one to open up easily, Chad had become bitter, quieter, more inwardly-focused even than before.

  Josh watched Chad walk away and mentally chided himself. What was he doing, putting himself through this? He knew exactly where this road would lead. Straight down the track of heartbreak, that was where.

  It was clear that Chad was over him. Chad was so calm and collected while he, himself, was sitting there as a bundle of nerves, with his heart pounding so high in his chest that he felt as if he would not be able to swallow. What was it about this man that made him willing to torture himself?

  Suddenly, Josh noticed that Chad was waiting at the bus stop. He shouldn’t have to ride the bus home, when Josh himself was perfectly capable of driving him. He jogged over to where he stood, and offered him a ride. Chad instantly refused.

  Josh blinked. “Come on, Chad,” he tried again, “please?”

  Chad closed his eyes a moment, and then nodded. “Okay.” He sighed. “The bus usually late,” he admitted, lifting a shoulder.

  Josh felt his heart leap, and was surprised at how pleased he felt. It was a small breakthrough; and it gave him hope that he could somehow break the wall of silence that had grown up around Chad, cutting out the person he had been.

  When they pulled up to the apartment, Josh placed the rental car in park and turned to face Chad. He had no idea what to say, but he would do anything to have a few more moments with him.

  “How long you been here?” He gestured at the apartment building, but never looked away from Chad's pale green eyes. Chad paused for a long time before answering. Finally, he closed his eyes and spoke.

  “Four years.” His voice was barely a whisper. At first Josh thought that he had heard him wrong. Four years? That would mean that he was living here almost immediately after graduation.

  “How long were you at…” He failed to remember the name of the prestigious school that Chad had been planning to attend the following fall.

  Chad looked up at him with sad, but tearless, eye
s.

  “I never went,” he admitted. “I’ve been here the entire time.” His voice cracked with emotion as he spoke. Before Josh had a chance to respond he had vaulted out of the vehicle and slammed the door behind him. He sprinted to the door of his apartment building and never looked back.

  Chapter 8

  The next day, Chad spent the afternoon with Ashley choosing songs for the wedding ceremony. Chad had been relieved to find out that Josh was not expected to be at the Holmes house that day. Apparently, some of his old buddies from high school were getting together to play flag football and he had been invited.

  It seemed as if Chad and Ashley had never been apart. They quickly fell back into the roles of their old friendship and Chad felt an aching in his heart for the friend he had lost. He had missed this.

  Sometime later, Josh walked through the door to find the two friends sitting on the living room floor, with piles of paper spread around them.

  “This looks like old times.” His smile was infectious.

  Chad reminded himself that he had not meant it as a barb, but the comment had been hard to stomach. He desperately did not want to remember old times.

  “Josh! Look who’s here!” Ashley, who knew nothing of Josh having met with Chad, clearly, gestured to where he sat, cross-legged, beside her on the floor.

  Josh leaned forward and offered a hand to Chad, who shook it while trying to hide the confused expression on his face.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Chad.” His smile revealed nothing of their last embarrassing encounter. “It’s been a long time.”

  Chad decided to play along. Keeping their interaction a secret from Ashley, and everyone else for that matter, had always been a silly game that they had played. Chad was surprised that, after all this time, Josh had never clued his sister in.

  The three of them had been chatting for several minutes when one of the gardeners interrupted to tell Ashley that the tents were being installed in the wrong location.

  “Oh, goodness...” With the wedding emergency as her primary focus, Ashley exclaimed, distressed, and rushed from the room, leaving Chad alone with Josh.

  Chad began to collect the papers into a lopsided pile, while Josh lounged on the couch, watching him.

  “Do you remember that time that you and Ashley wrote your own musical play?” He asked, as he smiled at the memory. Chad had to tell himself to look away. It would be much too easy to get caught up in memories with Josh. “Our old living room was covered in paper, just like this.” Josh continued, smiling.

  Chad remembered. He and Ashley had run around the Holmes’s house all summer writing the songs for the production that they were sure was going to be a Broadway hit. They had been eleven, and the story had been abysmal.

  “Yes.” He laughed. “I also remember that you and your friends burned our master script the day after it had been completed.”

  Josh released a roar of laughter. “I could not listen to those songs any longer. They were terrible.”

  “They were, weren’t they?” Chad agreed. He grinned, slowly. At the time the loss had been devastating. As his skill had grown over the years, he could look back on them and appreciate that he had come a long way. He smiled ruefully at the memory and stood up to set the stack of papers on a nearby table.

  He evaluated his options for a place to sit and then remembered why he and Ashley had ended up on the floor in the first place. Almost all of the seating was covered with Ashley’s massive collection of wedding-planning materials. There were fabric swatches and silk flower patterns on one chair, an assortment of vases on another. The ottoman was littered with magazines, and the loveseat held several boxes of table favors that had yet to be assembled.

  The only place to sit was beside Josh, on the couch. From the look on his face, he was well aware of his dilemma.

  “Afraid?” Josh taunted.

  Never one to back down from a challenge, Chad straightened his shoulders and walked over to the couch, where he sat pointedly against the opposite arm. He crossed his legs beneath him and turned to face him. With his back to the arm of the sofa, he felt more secure, while giving off the appearance of calm assurance. Inside, he was shaking.

  “Do you know what I was thinking about the other day?” He needed to get the conversation flowing again. The silence left too much space for his brain to analyze the man sitting in front of him. Today, Josh seemed more like his old self. He was calm and casual. Chad wondered if being out of the public eye eased some of the cockiness that he had seen the day before.

  “Hmm?” the low hum-of-a-question sent a shiver down Chad's spine. Why did even his voice have to be sexy? Chad told himself to snap out of it. He needed to focus. He just needed to survive until Ashley returned, then hopefully Josh would leave.

  “At the café…” he continued, snapping back to focus, “I was thinking about the first time that you tried coffee.” He smiled as the memory played across his mind.

  “It was a dare.” Josh stated bluntly. It was clear that he still harbored resentment towards the friend that had dared him to chug an entire mug of black coffee, a large amount of caffeine for someone who had never had it before. Chad had been there, and had laughed at the appalled expression on poor Josh's face.

  “I see that you can hold your caffeine a little better these days.” Chad teased, lightly.

  “Very funny!” Josh shot back with a grin. “I wouldn’t have cared, except that it was on the day of my graduation, and I couldn’t even pay attention to the ceremony because I was so worried that I was going to be sick again.”

  Chad laughed. It was a full, hearty laugh that left Josh staring at him with an expression that he could not read.

  “Do you remember yours?” His voice was low, and Chad suddenly found it hard to breathe.

  “My what?” Chad asked, though he knew what Josh was trying to ask. Even as he answered, he shook his head. Why did his voice have to sound all soft and sultry when he replied to him?

  “Your graduation.” Josh’s eyes bore into his own.

  Of course Chad remembered. How could he not? After weeks of flirting and secret embraces, his graduation night had been the stuff of fairy tales. He and Josh had been able to sneak away from a bonfire that they had both attended. No one had noticed their absence and they had had the entire night to themselves.

  They had made love that night.

  It was something that he would never forget.

  Chad could not bring himself to answer, but his silence told Josh everything that he needed to know. He remembered. He remembered every detail as if it had been yesterday.

  They sat for a moment, and Chad could feel Josh's eyes on him. Josh reached across, slowly. He hooked his hand inside of Chad's bent knee, and pulled him toward him.

  Chad did not resist: he could not resist. Every cell in his body was aching for this man. Even though he knew that this was a terrible idea, he knew that a part of him had wanted to see in his eyes what he was seeing right now.

  Passion. He only wanted to focus on that part because he was afraid that there was something else that he could see there. Something that he did not want to confront. Something that he was certain was in his own gaze as well. Pain.

  When Josh leaned forward and pressed his lips against Chad's, he could tell that Josh was expecting him to pull away. He should have pulled away, he told himself, but he did not.

  Instead, he felt his lips part and he leaned into the kiss as if it was the last thing he would ever do.

  He had never stopped loving Josh. He knew that now.

  He might have been able to cover it up by hiding from him, but every second that he spent in his presence peeled a bit of his resilience away.

  Josh deepened the kiss. He was holding himself back, perhaps afraid of rejection, but it was clear he wanted more.

  Chad brushed his tongue against his lips and Josh broke.

  He ran a hand along Chad's neck and into his thick hair, and he pulled him as close as their
seated positions would allow. Their tongues met and Chad knew that there was no resisting. He leaned even closer, pressing their bodies together, feeling the rising ache of longing inside him. He wanted this man so badly.

  Suddenly, an image of Emmy flashed through his mind, and Chad forced himself away with a jolt. What had he been thinking? What had he been doing? He had a three-year-old daughter at home who needed him, and here he was giving into some juvenile passion, reliving what should be long behind him…

  Josh was taking ragged breaths and watching Chad back away out of the corner of his eye.

  “Why didn’t you ever give us a shot?” His words came in gasps with his breath.

  “I… I told you.” Chad was struggling to calm his own body as well.

  “No.” Josh’s voice was firm. “You said it was nothing.” He pointed at him. “That…was not nothing. It was something then, and it still is now.”

  Chad hated himself for how he would have to respond to that. Why couldn’t Josh just let it go? He could not possibly answer him now, and yet here he was, demanding answers.

  “Josh… I told you.” He searched his brain for the excuses that he had given all those years ago. “It just… wouldn’t work.”

  “Why? Because I’m Ashley’s brother?” He demanded. “Obviously, that doesn’t matter, because you don’t speak to her anymore, either. And, while we are on the topic, what the hell happened there?”

  Chad was feeling very panicked. He could not answer, so he just shook his head in silence.

  The answer to both of those questions was the same: Emmy. If the details of his daughter’s existence had been “normal” he perhaps he could have let both Ashley and Josh into his world of secrets. But the details would have been so incomprehensible, so unfathomable…

  It had been a necessary evil. One that he would do again to protect those that he loved. Including Josh.

  Josh scooted toward him. His eyes looked into the green ones of the man across from him. Chad blinked. What was he going to do? His throat closed as Josh gently reached across and dusted an eye-lash off his cheek. Afterward, his hand remained to cup his neck. Chad did not move, did not remove it. His heart twisted as if someone held it in a fist. He could barely breathe.