I still crave him. His body. His heart. His everything. I know somewhere in there he wants the same thing, but he’s convinced himself that he doesn’t get to have it.
“It’s good to see you too, man,” I say as we take seats at the end of a long linen-covered table. From our place on top of a cliff the curve of the earth is visible, and the water is a calm, shimmering blue green. Floating circular glass candleholders have been strung above the table and twinkle like stars in the quickly darkening sky. Waiters move between guests, setting out chips and salsa and pitchers of red and white sangria.
“How’s it going with Indigo?” Aiden taps my shoulder.
When I finally broke down and asked him for reassignment, he switched me from the Sin City detail and assigned me to Indigo. She was one of the headliners for the South American leg of Sin City’s tour when I first joined the team.
Indi is super chill and has nowhere near the frenzy that surrounds Sin. She lives in Northern Cali, in the middle of nothing and no one. She really doesn’t need security, but she’s a single mom of a little boy; she’s being cautious.
I spend my days pretty much taking her kid to school and football practice. Listening to him brag about his macking skills, his words not mine, with the opposite sex. I smile just thinking about Blue. Yes, his mother named him Blue and her name is Indigo.
“Indi is good people and her kid is a fucking riot.”
“He been trying to school you on how to effectively get the pussy he’s never had?”
“And then some.”
“For a fourth grader he has some. . .uh. . .insights. There is something to be said for confidence,” he quips, holding out his fist for dap. I touch my knuckles, nodding in agreement.
“Can I have your attention please?” Jake says, standing from his seat at the middle of the table, tapping a fork against his half-filled wine glass. The chatter at the table quiets down and all eyes turn in his direction.
“We didn’t want to do anything too formal, like toasts or first dances, but I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for making the trip and taking the time to share this moment with us. It’s . . .” His voice breaks around the emotion clogging his throat. Sin leaves her seat to stand next to him. Her arm comes around his waist, offering support. He leans down to place a kiss on the top of her head.
Clearing his throat, he says, “It’s been a long time coming. I fell in love with this woman when I was eighteen, and twelve years later she’s finally mine. For those of you who have been here since the beginning”—his gaze drifts to Adam, Dan, and Miles—“I promise you’ll never regret entrusting me with her heart.”
He tips his glass to Connor. “To the realest hitta I know, who gave it to me straight, and had my back no matter what, thank you. And to my family, I know the price you’ve paid for supporting us. The fact that you came here after everything, means more than you’ll ever know.”
Jake’s dad, an older, more sophisticated replica of Jake, raises his glass and his sister dabs a napkin at the corner of her eye. “And we have just one more thing to announce before we let you get back to it.” He looks down at Sin and places his hand on her abdomen. She looks up at him, nodding, and a big smile erupts on her face. “We’re pregnant!”
The entire table erupts with cheers and well wishes. I spare a glance at Adam, unsure how he’ll take the news, but his knowing smile tells me he already knew and before I divert my eyes, our gazes lock again.
“Looks like your boy has something to get off his chest,” Aiden says, following the direction of my eyes.
I raise an eyebrow and turn my head to Aiden. “Looks can be deceiving.” When I turn my eyes back to Adam, his focus is elsewhere.
“Facts,” Aiden says.
The dinner is a traditional Mexican spread of ceviche, albondigas soup, carne asada, pollo con arroz, beans, rice, and homemade tortillas to wrap everything up. Instead of a traditional wedding cake there is a two-tier cheesecake. We all gather around a smaller table to watch them cut it. As the knife makes the first slice, celebratory fireworks burst overhead and everyone in attendance erupts in a wild applause.
I stand in line with the rest of the guests waiting to grab a piece and to personally greet the bride and groom. When it’s my turn I extend a hand to Jake. “Congratulations, man. I’m happy it all worked out.”
He’s probably the only other person on the planet who knows what it’s like trying to make a place for yourself with this close-knit group of friends. It didn’t work out for me, but I’m truly happy it did for him.
He squeezes my hand. “Thanks, Seth. When are you coming back to Vegas?”
Never. “Not sure yet. Plus, Sin has you now. She doesn’t need me,” I say jokingly. I can’t imagine a time when Sin won’t need security anymore.
“Not true,” Sin says, squeezing me in a tight hug. “I’m so happy you were able to make it.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” I place a kiss on her cheek and move out of the way so other guests get an opportunity to talk to the happy couple.
With my piece of cheesecake and quickly plummeting attitude I take the dimly lit path that leads to the individual rooms.
“You weren’t even going to say hello?” I stop in my tracks. Guess my departure wasn’t as slick as I thought.
My feet refuse to take another step. I pull in a deep inhale, squeezing my eyes tight before I turn around, but nothing prepares me for the sight of Adam, this close. His blue eyes colorless in the moonlight, and his hair a lot shorter than the last time I saw him, it’s cropped above his ears, sitting like a golden halo on his head. The angles of his face are sharper and more pronounced, especially in the shadows.
“Hey, baby,” I breathe in greeting. The name slips past my teeth before I realize I’ve said it. It’s natural and easy because from that first moment he looked up at me and whispered “Can I have you” he’s been mine.
One side of his mouth pulls up at the endearment. “Hey. Can we talk some place a little more private?” There’s a sinking feeling in my gut at those words. I read private to mean secret and I choke on the vitriol that floods my mouth.
“Nah, I don’t think so. Here is as good a place as any.”
He tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “My room is just a couple of doors down—”
“I said here is good. Now what sup?”
The muscle in his jaw ticks. That pissed him off. Good. I’ve been in a perpetual state of pissed since the first time he denied he was in my bed. I’m fucking tired and done with the middle-of-the-road, back-and-forth, wishy-washy bullshit.
“Nothing?” He doesn’t speak for the two beats I give him before I turn on my heels. “Then goodnight, Adam. I wish I could say it was good seeing you,” I say over my shoulder.
I leave him standing in the middle of the path and quickly follow the winding walkway down to my room. I pull the key, old-school grooved metal attached to a white plastic diamond key chain, out of my pocket. I have to jiggle it slightly to get it into the lock.
I feel Adam behind me long before I hear his footsteps. He doesn’t stop until his chest is flush to my back. His arms brace on the door frame on either side of me. The heat of his body, the familiar scent of sunshine and aftershave all too alluring. The plate of cheesecake clatters to the ground and the old-school key is left forgotten in the lock. I lean forward until my forehead rests on the rustic wooden door.
I can’t do this again.
“I just want to talk to you,” he whispers. His lip brushes the edge of my ear, and I can’t help the full-body shudder that results from the contact. “Please.”
I nod because I can’t find my voice. Since the day we met the only thing I’ve wanted is Adam opening up to me. Trusting me enough to expose all the dark corners. Allowing himself to be vulnerable and know I’d never exploit that vulnerability.
“Before I met you, I thought I’d found the perfect balance. My life was neat, tidy. I’d found a way to h
ave my cake and eat it too.” He rakes his teeth down the taut tendons on the side of my neck. I inhale sharply and muscles low in my stomach tighten.
This is what he does to me. I lose myself in him, his touch, his words, in the porcelain heart that is insanely beautiful yet intensely fragile.
He licks a path back up to my ear and my breath stutters out of my lungs. I reach down, clasping his thigh in a tight grip, trying to ground myself.
Breathe Seth.
He’s a solid warm anchor at my back, and I revel in the subtle contact of our bodies.
“But you wouldn’t stay in the box.” He chuckles, his warm breath raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck.
“The weird part was I didn’t want you to. You’re the first and only man I’ve ever wanted to spend the night. The only one I’ve ever invited to hang with my family. The fact I wanted that—wanted you—so badly scared me.” His hand drops from the door frame, and I watch fascinated as his long, elegant fingers trail down my arm to link with mine. “It still fucking scares me. Even when you’re gone, you’re never far away, at least not up here.” The fingers of his other hand tap his temple.
“I tried leaving you alone. I really did. But then you showed up here. So untouchable,” he mutters, his tentative hands delving under my shirt to stroke down my chest with an uncertainty, like at any moment he expects me to turn away.
“So self-contained. So fucking perfect and nothing was going to keep me away. Not from this door, this moment with you.”
“We have to stop this. You don’t want what I want, and I can’t accept the little bit you’re willing to give me. Not anymore.”
“I want you,” he whispers emphatically.
I turn in the cage of his arms, bringing us face-to-face, my hands landing on either side of his waist. I need to look in his eyes when I tell him no, but the words don’t come out. He traces the contours of my face with the pad of one finger.
The three inches that normally separate us in height is nonexistent. His eyes are right in front of mine, and in their depths I’m reading guilt, desperation, possession, longing, and . . . love.
More than his words, or his kisses, the love shining in his eyes demolishes the wall I’ve spent the last year constructing between his heart and mine.
It’s maybe the only thing that could. Adam Beckham loves me. The realization is bitter on my tongue, the juice of an unripe lemon that if given just a little more time and the right recipe would be so sweet.
“And you want me.” He leans in, his lips hovering over mine for the barest second before dropping down. My pulse jumps in response, reminding me it’s been over three hundred and sixty-five days since I’ve had those lips on mine. They’re still just as full, just as skilled, just as sweet as I remember.
“Of course I want you. But it’s deeper than that,” I say, wrapping my hands around his forearms.
“Exactly.” He presses his forehead to mine. “We are deeper.”
“Than what?” I demand brokenly. “Your career? Your fears? What is deeper than that because from where I’m standing everything with you is on the surface. And I . . . I can’t.”
I turn my head away from his earnest pleading in a last-ditch effort to remain detached. “Someday I’ll make it up to you. I’ll work at it every minute of every hour.” He cups my chin, brining my face back toward his. “I swear.”
He moves forward until his features blur in my vision. The first kiss is hesitant, light, seeking permission. When I don’t object, his hands curve around the back of my head, urging me to open to him.
He weaves a sensual spell that tugs my body toward his. On a moan, I open, inviting him in. Our tongues are frenzied, wild. Our touches both eager and anxious. We pull apart, panting, eyeing each other warily.
“Invite me in,” his gruff voice requests.
I turn back toward the door, twisting the key in the lock. Looking at him over my shoulder, I reach back grasping his hand in mine. Together we walk into the darkness.
Adam
I kick the door shut and pull Seth back into my arms. He accepts my hands on his body and my tongue in his mouth, but I want more than his acquiescence. Especially when I’ve tasted his passion and felt the intensity of his desire.
He’s silent in my arms. His heartache tinges the air, making it heavy, dipping this moment in need and coating it with melancholy.
“It’s okay,” I say tenderly as I run lips up the underside of his jaw.
I’m not sure if I’m telling him or trying to convince myself. We’re both unsettled, tiptoeing around each other on eggshells. He seems closed off to me when he’s always been open, and I hate I’ve brought him—us—to such an ugly place.
I finger the soft material of his shirt, undoing the buttons, pushing the garment over his broad, muscled shoulders and down his arms. Leaning forward I encircle one dark, pebbled nipple with my tongue.
Seth hisses and I smile because I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything better. That hiss turns into a low moan as I suck harder, biting the stiff peak. My hands scrape along the defined muscles of his abs before moving down to unfasten his pants, pushing them to the floor.
Running my tongue along the curved lines of his chest, I move to the other nipple, laving the nub until his hands tangle in the hair at my neck and he arches into my touch. Rolling his hips to the same bruising rhythm of my mouth.
“Adam,” he rasps in a strangled whimper when I tug the band of his boxer briefs down, using a tight fist to jerk the tip of his dick with measured, sure strokes.
I drop to my knees in front of him, rolling the briefs over his hips and gripping his erection. I swallow him to the back of my throat in one swift move, humming in satisfaction as he lurches forward.
“Damn, baby.”
The muscles of his thighs quiver as I tongue the salty slit of his tip. At the first splash of precum against my tongue I come unglued. Hollowing out my cheeks, I take him in with hard, fervent pulls, letting him slide out. The taste of him, warm and alive, is my drug. A first hit kind of high keeps me coming back to this, to him, again and again.
His hands drop, on either side of my head, holding it in place as he tilts his hips back, trying to ease away from the pressure of my mouth.
I shake my head but ease back to look up at him. “Why’d you stop?”
His thumb on my lips stops the flow of words, and I watch in fascinated silence as Seth drops down to his knees in front of me. At first, he doesn’t move. His eyes sweep across my face, and I’m obsessed with watching him watch me. I’m so transfixed on this beautiful man in front of me that I start when he reaches up with his index finger. First running it down the bridge of my nose, and then tracing a slow line over my lips.
My eyes flutter closed at the tenderness in that touch.
“Baby.” His low whisper falls heavy in the silence. That one word holds the entirety of us in four letters. A generic sentiment from his lips turns into intimate affection.
I squeeze my eyes tighter, swallowing the emotion trying to overtake me. I turn my head to the side, but his strong fingers find my face, his caress soft and deliberate.
“Open your eyes.”
He waits until I peel my lids apart and turn my hooded eyes back to his. He pulls me into a kiss that’s more profound than skin-on-skin contact. His gentle exploration tells me so many things.
Want me.
Need me.
I raise both hands, shaking my head, trying to get space from the overbearing emotion lapping at age-old wounds, whispering the truth in my veins that I can find refuge in Seth. That’s if I let him, he’d be my person.
“You feel that, right?” he asks in a needy growl that bunches the muscles low in my belly and spreads heat up my shaft. I nod, blinking rapidly to clear the moisture burning my eyes. “This . . .” he says, sucking my bottom lip between his, releasing it when I whimper. “Is deeper.”
This is deeper. The words he speaks reverberate in my ears, in my heart. We
are deeper.
“Seth?” I breathe into our kiss. “Fuck me,” I whisper my darkest desire, for him to possess me, claim my body the way he’s claimed everything else in my life wholly, completely. I’ve never bottomed for anyone, never wanted to until right now but with Seth I want to give him everything. It seems almost poetic that he be my first.
His muscles freeze under my hands and a small shred of doubt gnaws at my insides when he doesn’t immediately respond.
“You don’t have to . . .” I stammer. “I just . . . I never bottomed . . . but with you I just want . . .” I slam my eyes shut; the vulnerability of my request makes it impossible to hold his gaze.
“Deeper,” he finishes. I can’t see it, but I feel his body move into action, lowering by increments until his lips graze mine. “I’m going to go so deep that I’ll drown in you. But I need to see those eyes. Need to have you with me.”
My lids crack open and he kisses me, diving into my mouth, licking at my lips, sucking on my tongue with unmitigated passion.
I hum in a rush of relief that he gets it. Gets me.
He pulls back, his eyes searching mine.
I have to know. “Have you been with anyone else. . . since me?”
“No. There’s been no one for me since you.” Those words said in a low murmur with profound meaning are the perfect balm to my battered heart.
He offers his palm to me when he finds his feet. I wrap my fingers around the fleshy center of his hand and focus on the flex of his bicep as he lifts my weight from the floor.
He undresses me, kissing my flushed, sensitive skin as he removes my shirt, my pants, my socks, my underwear. He bridges the space between my vulnerability and desire, pulling me into his heavily muscled frame, mouth slanting over mine.
As my anxiety starts to wane, passion returns tenfold, burning down my spine, tingling in my limbs. Every swipe of his tongue and graze of his teeth wind me higher, tighter. He pulls back, looking at me through a thick fringe of dark lashes.
“Bed, baby, now,” he says in a hoarse growl, tipping his chin toward the middle of the room.
Exquisitely Hidden: A Sin City Tale Page 21
