Here For You: For You: Book 4

by Oliver, J. P.

  When I broke the kiss, his eyes shone and his lips were swollen, and his breath hitched his chest. The clumsiness of our first real kiss aside, he looked as wild as a tempest, and frightened of nothing. I stroked his cheek with the backs of my fingers.

  “Was this…was this your first kiss, Beck?”

  He flushed pinker and nodded.

  My heart shuddered with joy that this beautiful man had given me such a gift. It was an honor, and it conferred great responsibility on me.

  “You are a beautiful, passionate man. But…” I touched his sides, hands on his waist, and backed him toward a wall. “But let me show you how to do it slowly. Sensually. How to make your partner crazy.”

  He nodded, lips parted and shining in the low light, and I pressed my mouth to his. The warmth and pressure and the sweet smell of his breath drove me on, but I held back. I lapped at him. Tasted him. Brushed my tongue over his. I sucked gently, and my hand slid under his sweater, under his shirt, and touched his hot skin. He whimpered in a very satisfactory way.

  I let myself get lost in him, setting the pace and keeping control, but letting the cool, gray stockroom melt away. It was just us, just Beck and me, and our mouths and our bodies. With my free hand, I stroked his hair and pulled his head back and kissed his neck. He moaned against my cheek and I growled against his throat.

  I was hard for him. Painfully hard. I thrust toward him, pressing my dick against his, and started grinding as though all those stupid layers of fabric separating us didn’t exist.

  “Ah! Ah!” Breathy and hoarse, he cried out, and shuddered, and collapsed against my chest.

  “Beck?”

  9

  Beck

  “Beck? Beck? Did you…did you just come?”

  I hid my face against his chest, wishing I could die. I’d never been so mortified.

  His big, strong hand stroked the back of my head, and we just stood there silently for a long time.

  “The sounds you make—the sounds you made for me. They were beautiful.”

  I shrank even deeper into my body.

  It was so perfect. I don’t know the exact moment I’d started wanting Flores like that. It had been there, I guess, at least a little, almost since I’d met him. But the last couple of days, he’d taken every other thought. Those coffee brown eyes that made me feel strong. Those big hands that felt like they could keep me safe. That dimple. The low voice that growled like he wanted to eat me up.

  And after two days of looks and hints, after yesterday in the restaurant when he’d almost made me lose it just by sucking on my earlobe, I had him. I had him alone, in a quiet room, and he’d kissed me and kissed me and pressed his body next to mine.

  And then the feeling of him, his cock, the heat and the hardness of it pressing into mine—I’d come. I could feel it getting cold and sticky on my skin.

  I wanted. To die.

  We stood a moment longer, and then Flores broke the embrace, hands on my shoulders. “Beck,” he said, firm, “look at me.”

  I couldn’t refuse him. My eyes rose to his. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  He laughed. “Again, still—maybe forever—you have nothing to apologize for.” He lowered his face close to mine, and that growl found its way into my ear, vibrating down my spine, settling in my gut where it burst into a billion butterflies. “It was sexy. Very sexy. If I can make you come like that”—his tongue flicked at my earlobe—“imagine what I could do if I was really trying.”

  I throbbed. I almost came again. Like a teenager. Like a stupid, goofy, horny boy who had just learned what…what all that stuff was about.

  “Beck.” His voice was hard again. No. Not hard. Firm. I looked back at him.

  “Please don’t be embarrassed, mi tesoro. It would kill me if I thought our first kiss—your first kiss—caused you shame. You’re beautiful, Beck. You’re sexy.”

  I flushed and shook my head.

  “Say it, Beck. Say, ‘I am beautiful.’”

  “I’m beautiful.” The words almost hurt coming out of me.

  “Good. Now, ‘I’m sexy.’ Nice and fuerte.”

  I laughed a little. “I’m sexy.”

  “Tell me you deserve pleasure. To feel good.”

  “I— I deserve to feel good.”

  “Bueno, mi tesoro. And, Beck, you make me feel good, too.” Suddenly my hand was in his. Then my hand was on him, on his crotch, cupping his cock. His big, fat cock, straining against the denim of his jeans. “Should a man who can do this to me feel embarrassed?”

  I smiled and shook my head.

  “Fuerte.”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  We smiled at each other for a long time, then he spoke again.

  “The White Hill Inn, Beck. ¿Recuerdas? Do you remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any time, Beck.”

  “Okay.”

  He smiled again. That dimple. After a too-brief moment of letting me stare at him, he spoke again. “You live above the shop, no?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go home and clean up. Change your pants. I’ll stay here till you get back, in case someone comes looking for you.”

  I didn’t know my face could get hotter, but it did. Even so, the shame was bearable. My...eagerness...it was a secret between Flores and me. A good secret.

  “Thank you, Flores.”

  He laughed, long and hard. It startled me. “Any man who turns me on like you can call me by my first name. Jamie, okay?” He leaned in again. “Only you can call me that, mi tesoro.”

  “Thank you, Jamie.” The name felt strange, but perfect on my lips.

  “De nada. Now, go clean up.”

  ...

  Jamie didn’t come back at lunch time, but that was fine. Jay made grilled cheeses on the panini press, and I ate contentedly, staring at the pages of an open book but not reading, playing and replaying the movie in my head of what had happened in the stockroom. Feeling his mouth on mine, his close-cropped beard scraping my skin, his arms pulling me to his body, his hand pressing mine against his erection.

  And when I stood, I had to adjust the hem of my sweater to hide the erection I’d given myself.

  I shelved in silence for most of the afternoon, having to actually concentrate to remember the alphabet. Luckily, no one talked to me, so it didn’t matter when I had to take a book I’d misshelved and put it back in the right place.

  I thought about going to Jamie’s hotel after work. It was only on the other side of downtown. I could do it.

  But was it too soon? Did anytime actually mean eight little hours after he’d made me stain my corduroys?

  I wished I could ask someone. Jay might know, but he’d already left for the night.

  Gavin might know, but the thought of telling him even a fraction of what I was feeling, what I was imagining, what I wanted Flores—Jamie—to do to me… I blushed, and had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the ridiculousness of it.

  “Hey, Beck.”

  “Ahhh!” I jumped, and dropped the copy of the Gormenghast trilogy I’d been holding. It bounced heavily off my foot. “Ow.”

  “Oh, God!” It was Gavin. He snatched the book off the floor and put it in my hand. “I’m so sorry. I know better than to sneak up on people, I promise. Are you okay?”

  I’d already been fighting laughter, and the penitence on Gavin’s face sent it bubbling out. “I’m okay,” I said, when I’d caught my breath, still smiling.

  Gavin looked at me long and hard, and then smiled back. “You seem okay.”

  I didn’t know what to do with that.

  “The shop is dead. The drawers are counted. The shelves look pretty good. Want to join me for a cup of hot chocolate while the reports run?”

  I thought about it, but I didn’t have to think very hard. Gavin and I hadn’t had time to sit down and chat for…for a few days. Since before Jamie had come to town. “Thank you.”

  “Great,” he said with a grin. “Put that monst
rosity back on the shelf and meet me in the café.”

  I was there a minute later, but Gavin was already behind the counter, steaming the milk. I’d have offered to help, but he never let me assist when we had our cocoa dates. He said he liked doing little things for me. I walked over to a couch and sat. He joined me a few minutes later, handing me my mug, then tucking his legs under him as he sat beside me.

  We sipped at the same time, and smiled at the soft slurping sounds we made. Nobody said anything for a while.

  Finally: “You holding up okay, Beck?”

  I nodded. Then, as though Jamie were there, his fingertips on my jaw, I said, “Yes.”

  Gavin smiled. “Good.” There was a long pause as he took another sip, his pale blue eyes staring into me over the rim of his mug. Finally, he lowered his cup, licked a fleck of cream from his lips, and spoke again. “You’ve…you’ve worried me a little over the last few days, Beck. Jay, too, I think. Like, right now, you seem as easy and content as I’ve ever seen you but there’ve been a couple of times this week when it looked like something got under your skin. I just—I know you like your privacy, and I don’t want you to ever feel like I’m checking up on you, but I never want you to forget that I’m here for you. Not just like a boss, either.” He set his mug down on the table and adjusted his body, pulling his knees up to his chest and hugging them. “I know you’ve put some trust in me, and that means a lot, and I’ve started thinking of you as a friend. Maybe even as sort of a kid brother, if that’s not too weird.”

  It was weird, but not in a bad way. I hadn’t had family I liked in well over a decade, and certainly not the kind of family who would make me hot chocolate and check in to make sure I was doing okay. I felt a wave of warmth wash over me, strong as a tsunami. The emotions were as powerful as those Jamie had given me earlier, although certainly of a very different variety. I blinked a couple of times, then cleared my throat before I spoke.

  “I like that.”

  Gavin grinned. “Good.”

  I grinned back, just looking at him, then took another sip of my cocoa when I felt things getting a little too heavy.

  “Soooooooo…” Gavin asked finally, stretching out on the couch again, “what’s been going on? Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything I should know to keep my recently adopted kid brother safe and happy?”

  I shrugged. In the back of my mind, though, I heard a voice, just a hair warmer than a growl, whisper, Fuerte, Beck. I swallowed, then spoke.

  “You know Jay’s friend? Ja— Officer Flores?”

  Gavin nodded.

  “He and I have hung out a little. He’s nice.”

  “Nice?” Gavin’s eyebrow cocked curiously, but I couldn’t tell if he was judging me or anything. I decided to trust, and went on.

  “Like, he buys me lunch sometimes, and we talk. He’s nice.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  I shrugged again, and heard the growl again, and said, “Just normal stuff, I guess. His family and stuff. And he’s…he makes me talk back. Like, actually say things.”

  “What kinds of things?” Maybe a little more alarm laced through Gavin’s voice.

  I smiled, remembering my accident in the stockroom, and hid my mouth behind my mug. “Nothing bad. Just saying yes or no instead of nodding and shaking my head. I think he wants me… I think he wants me to be less scared?”

  That was hard to admit, though easier to say to Gavin than to anyone else. I’d told Gavin some things. Not everything, but he knew more about my uncle than anyone who’d never lived with him.

  Gavin sipped again, and held it in his mouth a while, not quite looking at me while he considered that. Finally, he said, “Well, that’s good. I’m really glad. Is it working?”

  I shrugged. “A little? I think? It’s better than it was. He said that sometimes, if I pretend to be strong, I’ll start to forget I’m pretending.”

  “That’s good advice. I do that, too, sometimes.”

  That surprised me. Everyone liked Gavin, and he seemed to dance through the world like nothing ever bothered him. The idea that his ease was artificial, even sometimes, made me see him in a new light, and gave me something to think about later.

  “Anyway,” I said, looking down, “I like him.”

  “Okay,” Gavin said, still thoughtful. “So…why were you, you know, a little shaken up yesterday?”

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Okay.” Gavin let a moment pass. He never pushed too hard, and I appreciated that. Finally, though, the words spilled out of me.

  “Remember my uncle?”

  Gavin leaned forward, eyes narrow, lips thin. I’d never seen his face look that hard. “What about your uncle?”

  “Nothing. But we were at lunch yesterday, Jamie and me. And we saw someone who looked like him and…and I freaked out a little, I guess.”

  “But it wasn’t him?”

  “No. Just a waiter.”

  Gavin relaxed. “I’m sorry, Beck.”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay. Being with Ja— Being with Officer Flores helped. He calmed me down a little.”

  The look on Gavin’s face changed a little, though his eyes were no less probing. “I’ve noticed, Beck, that you sometimes call him Officer Flores, but you’ve called him by his first name a time or two. Even Jay just calls him Flores. You two must…really have hit it off.”

  I didn’t know what was hotter, my face or the steaming mug I hid it behind.

  “These lunches,” Gavin continued, “are they like…dates?”

  I shrugged, ignoring Jamie’s voice in my head, urging me to speak up.

  “He’s a good-looking guy. And, you know, I can definitely see how he could make a guy feel safe.”

  I still couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even look at Gavin.

  “I just—” He sipped again, finding his words. “I trust you, Beck. But you haven’t had it easy, what with your parents dying, and your aunt leaving, and that creep who raised you—if that’s even the right word for what he did. I just want you to be careful. You may not have the most accurate view of how the world works, you know? That’s not your fault. But.” He sighed, drained his cup, and fell back against the arm of the couch. “Just be careful, Beck. Flores seems like a good guy, and I can see you doing better, maybe because of him. But go slow, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt again, and plunging into something with the first hot guy who’s nice to you—”

  I glanced up. Gavin’s own face was red now, and he was looking off to the side again, like he was considering the next thing he said carefully.

  “I don’t want to lecture you, Beck. And lord knows I’m not always the smartest guy in the world when it comes to dating and stuff. But just…go at your own pace. Protect yourself a little. And know you can always come to me if you want to talk. I can give advice, such as it is, or I can just listen. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Gavin smiled, then shifted forward and kissed me on the forehead. I wasn’t expecting it, but it felt nice. It felt like love.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome. And, for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re doing well. I’m glad you’re happy and working on getting stronger. And Officer Flores”—there was a playful gleam in Gavin’s eye when he said the name—“seems like a good guy, and I’m glad you’re making friends.”

  “Me, too.”

  Gavin cocked his head for a minute, listening to the silence of the shop. “Sounds like the reports are done. I think I’m gonna head out.” He stood, stretching. I heard his back pop. “You can stay down here as long as you like. You’re off tomorrow, yeah? Just rinse out the cups before you head upstairs and I’ll give them a proper wash in the morning.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Beck. And have a good night.”

  I watched him walk away, and maybe a minute later I saw the lights in the front of the shop click off. The sound of the bell on the door. The soft metallic scrabble of
a key in a lock. I was alone.

  I thought about Jamie again. I thought about going to his hotel and meeting him and kissing him some more, of feeling his big, warm hands around my waist. I could. I had my own key to the back entrance. But—

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him. I did. But maybe I wasn’t in the mood for that right now. Gavin had given me a lot to think about. About brotherhood, and being strong, and protecting myself. I was so used to being alone that I thought maybe a quiet night in would give me time to sit and chew on all these new ideas.

  I ended up washing our mugs until they shone in the dim light, then going upstairs to think.

  10

  Jamie

  I’d half expected Beck to stop by last night. I’d showered and shaved and put on the one pair of underwear I’d packed that might pass for sexy, just in case. I’d even tidied up my little rented room until I felt like it was presentable for company.

  I’d finally given up and fallen asleep a little after midnight.

  My first reaction was to be a little grumpy, but I admonished myself for that impulse. I knew Beck was attracted to me—the memory of him losing control of himself in the stockroom made me smile, and made my insides glow—but the last thing the guy needed was me pressuring him into something serious.

  I just…I liked him.

  I knew it was fast, but I liked him a lot.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d liked someone this much, this quickly. I’d never gotten there with Noah, my ex, and the quickness with which I’d fallen for this shy, quiet, pale, scrawny, blue-eyed angel shocked me.

  I didn’t mind it, though. I had a sense there were hidden depths there, and that under the pain was a smart, loving young man who was built to make the world a better place. I just needed to give him room to blossom.