My sheets suddenly felt scratchy, the futon too lumpy, but that was only me psyching myself out and pining for the feel of a certain somebody’s warm body again. Soon enough I’d be plenty comfortable in my own condo, in my large queen-sized bed. There’d be more than enough room for Tally too.
25
Nick
As I fluffed my pillow, I thought about how strange my bed felt without Brin and Tally here, which was ridiculous since I’d slept by myself my entire life. Sure there had been women and a couple of men who’d stayed the night over the years, but nothing felt like it did when Brin’s warm body was connected to mine the past two evenings, our heartbeats in sync. The way he’d sigh and mumble in his sleep while I held him tight made most of the darkness recede into the gloomy corners of my soul.
But Elijah returned home for the first time since becoming ill on Sunday and suddenly everything felt different, on edge again, almost clandestine. And I supposed it was, unless Brin decided to confess it all, whatever the hell this was between us.
The more likely conclusion was that we’d never speak of it again once he moved back to his condo. I considered the possibility that these past few days he simply was taking me to the cleaners for how I’d treated him back then—using me for all I was worth until I was merely a dried-up puddle of overwhelming longing left to writhe on the ground.
But Christ, the way he used his hands and mouth on me was like he was just as starved. How he straddled me on the mattress, his lips slowly trailing downward burning into my skin with every whisper of a kiss. Feeling his warm mouth on my cock for the first time in eleven years had blown all of my fantasies out of the water about what had happened between us in that locker room.
He was more experienced this time around, that was for certain. And even though he was equally as tentative, given the circumstances, I could tell just how much he wanted it too—almost like it was a second chance for both of us. And I was so fucking hungry for him—for anything I could get from him—it took no time at all for me to shatter and spray my come down his throat.
It felt like I hadn’t come in years. And in some ways, I supposed that was true. Being with a man fulfilled me in a way it never had with women and deep down I knew I wasn’t being my authentic self. Brin knew it too, and for that, I was equally ashamed. But if he had the whole truth, he’d finally understand. And run in the opposite direction.
I flipped off the nightstand light and fell into a restless sleep, my heart thumping unsteadily in my chest. I awoke a few hours later in a cold sweat with the sheets twisted around my ankles. My hands were shaking and my chest was tight with a worry I felt deep in my bones—that everything in my life was about to change again.
Except it didn’t make any sense. Brin wasn’t leaving this world, only this apartment, but truth be told, he always felt really important in my life. I selfishly wanted to keep him around for longer—to see him, talk to him, hold him close before it all tumbled down like a house of cards.
Rubbing my eyes, I was startled by a soft intake of breath and realized Tally was faintly snoring at the end of the bed. What was she doing here again?
“Were you worried about me, girl?” I whispered. I reached over to stroke her fur, trying to calm my racing pulse. I was having difficulty stabilizing my breathing. Like everything I’d kept so carefully wound was unraveling at every turn. My skin, my bones, my heart.
“Or is my mattress more comfortable than that dog pillow?” She’d have the same opportunity once she got back to Brin’s condo—his bed was bound to have more room than the crappy futon he had to contend with.
Rolling out of bed, I used the restroom and splashed cool water on my face. I did the counting exercise Dr. Penny had taught me long ago as I stared myself down in the mirror. The guilt of having something for me was mixing with the shame of what I’d done. That’s what all of this came down to. I couldn’t have what I wanted and still make up for what I did at the same time. I didn’t deserve it and I’d been paying for it my whole life. Logically, I knew that and yet, I wanted the man down the hall like I wanted my last breath.
When I opened the bathroom door, Tally was lying on the floor. She had followed me out here and my gut twisted like a screw because I’d definitely miss her too. And that was why it was dangerous to get attached to people and things. They always left and nothing ever stayed the same.
My gaze swept toward Elijah’s bedroom door and even though I knew he’d be out cold, I placed my finger against my lips as if Tally would understand that I needed her to be quiet.
“C’mon, girl,” I whispered as I bent forward to stroke her. “Back to your owner.”
I walked her down the short hallway to Brin’s room with the intent of nudging the dog through the door to her pillow. If I couldn’t get back to sleep, I’d just start my day with an early workout.
But Tally was stubborn. Halfway inside she twisted back to look at me with pleading eyes. “Go lie down,” I muttered, gripping her collar and leading her to the dog bed near the futon.
Tally pawed at the pillow for a few seconds before finally sinking down, apparently resigned to her position. I straightened to back out of the room, only then allowing my gaze to slide over Brin’s sleeping form. My pulse spiked when I noticed his eyes on me.
“Not sure Tally will want to sleep without you,” he rasped out. The words were like a thunderbolt to my chest. As if he was referring to more than the dog finding her way to my bed.
“Not sure I’ll want to sleep without her,” I replied in a hoarse voice, attempting to get my emotions under control.
Without you. Because you’ve taken up residence inside my heart once again. But maybe you’ve always been there, winding inside my rib cage, coiling around my lungs. Making it impossible to breathe, to think, to stop wanting.
As I turned to leave, his warm fingers curled around my wrist, searing into my skin. My breath caught in my throat. It was the first time he made the first move and my heart bloomed into an impossibly large bouquet of hope and aching desire inside my chest.
Our gazes snagged and held as his other hand slowly reached for the edge of the blanket and pulled it aside. He looked all sleepy and warm, and a whimper rose in my throat.
“Nick.” His voice was strained and pleading and it made my cock plump right up. When I looked down at his boxers, he seemed to be having the same issue. My gaze lazily slid over the landscape of his body, from his knees to his chin. When our gazes finally met, his eyes were wide and glittering, like beacons of light calling me home.
“You’re gorgeous,” I stated and his eyes softened a fraction. But there were other emotions buried there too—fear, vulnerability, a shard of resentment. After everything we’d done, he was still wary of me and that was the kicker, wasn’t it? The people who meant the most in my life would always also keep me at arm’s length because of mistakes I made, and there was no damn way around it except to slice directly through the center.
I wanted to wipe all the doubt away and show Brin what he was beginning to mean to me. To make him feel happy and satiated. If only for a little while. That’s what he’d done for me—provided moments of pure undulated peace where I forgot myself for a time and all that I amounted to in life. I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. I wouldn’t want to trade him either, except I’d have to.
Brin was somebody I couldn’t have. Like trying to hold a fistful of sand. It would always slip through your fingers as soon as you relaxed your grip.
Reinforcing his clasp on my wrist, Brin drew me toward him. I sank down on the edge of the mattress as my face closed in and our lips aligned, breathing the same ration of air. His fingers reached up to connect with my neck as he hauled me into a deep and all-consuming kiss that made my skin prickle and my cock even stiffer.
When he drew back, raw need was reflected in his eyes. “I want you.”
“Goddamn, Brin,” I gasped as I searched his eyes to see if he was only playing me. “What are you saying?�
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His gaze wavered a bit before his arm swung down to rummage in the front pocket of his bag near the bed. He clumsily pulled out a condom and sachet of lube and tossed them near his legs. My heart climbed to my throat.
“Bet we’d have amazing hate sex.” He smirked and his gaze landed somewhere behind me as if he had trouble meeting my eyes right then. Maybe embarrassed by his admission.
I gripped his chin, forcing him to look at me. “There you go again, making light of this—whatever this is between us.”
“Fuck.” His eyes turned dark and desperate. “Don’t make me beg. I only want…”
“What?” I asked, pushing a curl behind his ear with a shaky hand. “What do you want? Tell me.”
“To feel you inside me,” he whispered and my heart stopped beating momentarily as he finally confessed his needs. “To be thoroughly fucked…by you.”
“I want that too,” I rasped. So goddamn much.
26
Nick
Looking behind me to Brin’s bedroom door, I made sure only a fragment of light was visible through the gap. My fingers slid up to grasp at Brin’s face and I crushed my mouth to his, my tongue digging deep until he moaned against me.
“Still hate me?” I panted against his lips, my fingers forking through his hair.
He slammed his eyes shut as if he couldn’t bear to look at me while he lied to my face. “Yes.”
Spurred on by a hunger I’d never possessed let alone quenched before, I licked down his throat, and sucked a mark into his collarbone, as his fingernails bluntly scraped against my lower back.
As I made my way to his chest and drew a nipple between my teeth, a noise burst from his lips—half groan, half sob. My hand snaked up to cover his mouth. “Shhhhh, you’re going to wake Elijah.”
He squirmed against me, his eyes blazing. “I can be quiet. Please.”
Holy shit. He made me so fucking hard, you’d have to pry me away from getting my taste of him.
I kissed down his stomach to the waistband of his trunks. My nose nudged inside, his coarse blond hair tickling my lips as I sniffed deeply.
His cock was engorged and leaking, pre-come sticky against my chin. “Goddamn, you want it bad.”
“You always make me hard,” he groaned as his fingers tugged my hair. “Even when I hate you.”
I grunted and gripped his thighs, nipping at his hipbone before laving the sting with my tongue. He squirmed beneath me, spurring me on. I wanted to devour him whole, feast on him for days.
Tearing his boxers down his legs and depositing them on the floor, I wasted no time lapping at his cock, savoring the taste of his pre-come bursting across my taste buds. “Still hate me? Your cock says otherwise.”
He arched his neck and gasped toward the ceiling, his fingers gouging at the sheets beside my head as I took him all the way to the back of my throat. My tongue worked on the underside of his vein as I increased suction, bringing him right to the edge.
His hips arched off the bed as he thrust toward me, urging me further. “My cock…just likes…a warm mouth.”
When I pulled off him, he clamped his jaw and groaned. His hands grappled toward my hair, trying to bring me back to his dripping cock for more. I fucking loved making him crazy like this.
Reaching for his thighs, I took firm hold and spun him around to his stomach. Brin clutched at the pillow and buried his head into the material, quieting his deep moan.
“Fuck, your ass is so hot.” I kneaded his cheeks, giving each side a kiss, feeling the translucent downy fuzz against my lips. Raising my hand, I gave one side a slap that rang out in the mostly empty room. He gasped and writhed against the mattress and fuck if I didn’t wish we were alone in this apartment.
Placing the heel of my palms on his firm globes, I pushed them outward and parted his cheeks. And almost came on the spot. Fuck. “That hole is greedy for me,” I groaned. “Just look at it.”
His hips jutted against the sheets seeking friction. “My ass hates you too,” he snapped over his shoulder.
“Oh, it’s going to hate me all right,” I growled, hauling his hips toward me to get a closer look. Holy fuck—that pink, puckered skin was all shaved and smooth, like it was just waiting for me.
Stretching his hands behind him, he slid his fingers over mine and brazenly spread himself wide open for me. Holy shit, this man was going to be the death of me.
Leaning forward, I took a long swipe with my tongue. He almost sprang off the bed, except I had a firm grasp of his thighs and dragged him back to me. I went to work on that pretty hole, licking and sucking and nibbling around the puckered skin. He moaned and wriggled, burying his head in his pillow, his fingers winding in the sheets beside his thighs.
When I nudged my tongue inside his entrance, a deep and keening groan released from his throat. Holy fuck, savoring him like this would fuel my fantasies for years to come. He tasted like soap and sweat, smelled like rain and grass and I could not get enough as I buried my tongue in that greedy hole and felt him pulsing against me.
As I drew my mouth away, I stretched my finger to his lips, encouraging him to open his mouth. Gripping my hand, he turned his head and sucked in earnest using his tongue and teeth. “Still hate me?”
He nodded, his eyes unfocused and practically rolling back in his head. When I pulled my finger away, I nipped at his lip before my mouth trailed up to his ear. “You’re ready for me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he gasped. “Please.”
My hand wound through his curls as I brought our lips together. I kissed him tenderly with my eyes open and watched as his eyelashes fanned over his cheeks. Fuck, I adored this man. And he was giving me the privilege of letting me have him, own him—at least for one night.
When his eyes opened, they were bright and clear. He stared at me as if seeing inside my soul, and I wanted to wrap him up and hold him all night. Touch him and kiss him for all of eternity. “Please,” he whispered again and I nodded.
When I speared my finger inside his hole, his mouth fell open and his head lolled to the side. I added a second digit and loved watching him come unglued while I pumped in and out of his ass.
I slid the condom toward me and tore it open with shaky fingers. I pushed my boxers to my knees as I folded it down my uncomfortably stiff shaft, my eyes nearly crossing with need.
“Tell me you want this,” I murmured, as I liberally lubed my length. I held my breath praying he wouldn’t change his mind.
“Wanted it even back then,” he replied, meeting my gaze and my heart knocked hard against my chest. “Always hoped you’d be my first.”
Holy fuck.
Growling, I gripped his curls as my head swung toward his shoulder blades and kissed his neck and shoulders and back. My arm wound around his chest, my lips against his ear as I lined up my cock to his entrance.
His entire body trembled as I nudged at his hole, barely breaching it.
“Maybe I always fantasized about being somebody’s last. Somebody like you,” I whispered against his ear as I thrust further inside. He gasped as his neck lolled back and anchored against my shoulder. My hand trailed up his chest to his throat, my fingers gripping it delicately, feeling for his battering pulse. Our heartbeats were in sync again, both of us all in.
I could never take back those words but I never intended to, because they were the truth. I’d thought about him and this very scenario too many times to count over the years, visualizing a different kind of life with somebody I’d never have.
“You shouldn’t say crap like that in the middle of a hate fuck,” he replied with an unsteady smirk. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were blown wide, and there was a sheen of sweat across his upper lip I wanted to lick off.
“Better be careful or I’ll fuck you straight through this shitty futon,” I replied with shallow stabs inside him, barely hanging on he felt so damn good. Tight and warm, the pressure perfect, like we were meant to fit together.
He fell forward on
to his elbows and thrust his ass higher. “Do it.”
“Yeah?” I speared further inside him, my teeth clashing together. “You need to be quiet or I won’t give you want you want.”
He whimpered into the pillow and goddamn did I love how responsive he was to every little thing I said or did. It made me wish we had all night in an empty house.
I watched as inch after inch of my shaft dipped between his smooth and round globes, almost losing it as soon as my entire length disappeared inside of him.
Inside of Brin.
Holy fuck. My breaths became ragged wanting to let loose yet wanting to prolong this incredible feeling at the same time. “Can you feel me? Goddamn, I’m so fucking deep.”
Brin moaned and swayed, completely lost to the sensation of my cock pulsing inside him. “S’good. Feeling you like this.”
I pulled almost all the way out and then watched my cock split Brin in two again, marveling at how fucking sexy he looked. My fingers tightening on his hips, I switched between slow rolls and longer thrusts, digging deep and making him moan every time I brushed that spongy place inside him.
But as incredible as this was, something was missing.
I needed to see him—see his face when I made him break apart.
“On your back,” I rumbled in his ear. After I pulled out, he flipped over, his eyes wide, his lower lip fished between his teeth. Not wanting to lose momentum, I shoved his knees to his shoulders and pushed back inside.
We both groaned in unison, but this time I could see his hooded eyes and read his facial expressions as I rocked against him. I leaned down to fit my mouth against his, my tongue splitting his lips as his flicked softly against mine.
I could feel his cock leaking between us, and I raised my torso enough to fit my hand around his warm, stiff shaft and began stroking. He tore his lips away from mine and moaned. “I need to come, Nick.”
Regret (Under My Skin Book 1) Page 13
