The Spiral Down

by Aly Martinez

  A huge smile split my lips.

  “How was the southwest omelet this morning?” I asked before kissing the top Henry’s head.

  “I wouldn’t know. Didn’t get to eat. Your mother dragged me out of there before I could even finish my first cup of joe. See, Sally Walters brought it to our attention that you seem to have forgotten to tell us something.”

  I tensed as guilt pooled in my stomach. “Um…like what?”

  “Um…” he mocked. “Like the fact that you’re dating Henry Alexander.”

  My head fell back against the pillows. “Shit. John, I—”

  “Yeah, shit is right. Someone else is eating my omelet right now. Meanwhile, your mom is swirling around this house, snapping at me, and polishing the silver with a toothbrush because, obviously, if you’re serious enough about this guy to be swallowing his face in public, you’re serious enough to be bringing him home for dinner. Evan, I swear on my life the woman is acting like The Pope himself will be blessing us with his presence.”

  I chuckled because I knew he wasn’t exaggerating. My mom was a little, well, enthusiastic when it came to entertaining. And, considering John had mentioned Sally Walters, the biggest gossip in San Francisco—or, at least, in my parents’ circle—I’d guessed that Mom had heard Henry was famous.

  “I see the pictures from last night leaked to the press,” I said.

  “Leaked? From the way everyone at The Sunrise was talking…there was a fucking flood. I thought your mother was going to need CPR when Sally produced a photo of you and Henry going into a hotel two months ago. Son, if you need me to paint a picture for you here, she was so upset she didn’t even touch her Diet Coke.”

  That was really bad. My mom did not mess around when it came to her morning Diet Coke.

  “She’s really flipping out, huh?”

  “Evan, you have a boyfriend who is famous enough for Sally Walters to know he’s your boyfriend before your own mother, I’d say she’s more than flipping out. She’s hurt.”

  I flinched. I hated that she’d found out that way, but there hadn’t exactly been a good time for me to sit her down and tell her about Henry. Things had been so tumultuous with us from the start—mentioning him to the parents had felt a tad premature. Hell, I’d spent most of those two months trying to find reasons why we couldn’t be together.

  “It’s not like that, John. Shit. This thing… It just kinda happened.”

  “I’m calling horseshit. I’ve met Henry Alexander. Nothing just happens with him. Did he mention that he was on that AirUSA flight of mine? He begged me to be his personal pilot for months after the accident. I swear to you I was retired and had no interest in a new job, but he was so convincing I nearly agreed.”

  I smiled. Yep. That was my Henry.

  “You know how I feel, then. Tell Mom that I fell victim to his persistent charm and didn’t have a chance to call and tell her.”

  He barked a laugh in my ear just as I felt Henry’s head tip back.

  “Victim to my persistent charm?” he accused softly, the skin between his eyes pinching together in pain.

  Last night, I would have apologized profusely that he’d gotten the wrong idea about my conversation. Today, after the promises we’d made to each other both verbally and physically last night, I was almost frustrated that there could be any doubt in his mind.

  I twisted my lips and glowered.

  Lifting my phone in the air, I pressed the speaker button and John’s voice came through midsentence.

  “…you serious about this one, or do I need to stop your mom from redecorating the living room?”

  Henry began worrying his lip as he waited anxiously for my answer.

  I couldn’t fight the grin as I replied, “He’s the one, John. And I’d honestly say that even if he weren’t sitting here, staring at me like I was about to kick his puppy.” I held Henry’s gaze as I lifted my hand in a Vulcan V.

  He smiled, and the breath he was holding rushed from his mouth.

  “Oh, hell! Didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

  “No problem. You’re on speakerphone too.” I motioned for Henry to say something.

  His eyes flashed between me and the phone as though I’d asked him to sacrifice himself to the parental gods. Finally, he timidly said, “Hi, John.”

  Forget the grin. I outright laughed.

  “Mr. Alexander. So we meet again.”

  “Yeah, but this time, I’m sleeping with your son.” His face flashed red as he slapped his hand over his mouth, turning apologetic eyes my way.

  Stunned, I cocked my head in silent question. Henry entertained thousands on a daily basis, yet one conversation with my dad turned him into a bumbling wreck.

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that and just keep talking, if that’s all right with you,” John said with more than a hint of humor. “I have to say, when Jackson told me you hired Evan, I wasn’t surprised. He’s the best pilot I’ve ever met, and I took the liberty of including myself in that pool.”

  I smiled huge. Praise from a man I respected never got old. Neither did the way Henry’s eyes lit as he looked up at me.

  “However, I have to say, you dating my boy is taking stalking to a whole new level.”

  Henry finally laughed, and his arms tightened around my midsection. “I wouldn’t have been stalking you at all if I’d known Evan back then.”

  “Well, excuse me for not introducing you sooner.”

  I chuckled, secretly enjoying the ease with which John was accepting Henry. While my parents knew I’d been with a man, Shannon and I had been done before they’d ever had to deal with it. This would definitely be a first for all of us.

  “Anyway…I’ll let you two go. I didn’t mean to…uh, interrupt.”

  I grinned. “Sorry about the omelet, John.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s always next weekend. I’m going to try to get a Diet Coke in your mom and see if I can calm her down. Give her a call in a little while and tell her when you can bring Henry home for dinner.”

  I glanced at Henry, one eyebrow raised in question. His only response was a megawatt grin.

  “I can do that,” I replied.

  “Love ya, son.”

  “Love you too.” I hung up, dropped the phone beside me, and then aimed a scowl at Henry.

  He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “For?” I gave not a single damn that he had talked about us sleeping together in front of John. I did care that he’d started to panic when he’d first overheard my conversation.

  “You know why,” he replied, pushing up on his arms and then prowling up until his lips were on mine.

  “I do know why, but I love hearing you tell me anyway.”

  He nipped at my bottom lip and tugged back the covers between us. After slinging his leg over my hips, he settled in my lap, both of our cocks growing hard when they made contact.

  He huffed when I didn’t react to his blatant advance. “Fine, because I assumed you were saying something else and, instead of trusting you, I let it bother me.”

  I gripped his ass, gently pulling his cheeks apart as I ground him against me. “You have to trust me, Henry.”

  “I didn’t freak,” he defended, taking both of our erections in one of his hands. “I can’t change overnight. I only assumed. You can’t be mad at that. Actually, I’d say that’s a huge step for me. And, if you want my opinion, I think you should reward me for such a great effort by rolling over and offering me that sexy ass.”

  My eyebrows hit my hairline just as my phone started ringing again.

  “Here. Turn it off,” he said, nabbing it off the bed and passing it my way.

  Scott’s name flashed on the caller ID. He must have seen the pictures of Henry and me too and was calling to pretend he hadn’t while still covertly conveying his congratulations in a series of coded comments that would require a legend to decipher.

  I could call him back.

  Powering it down, I asked,
“Why isn’t your phone blowing up? The pictures of us, including the ones from a few months ago, are all over the place, apparently. Don’t you have an agent or someone who should be yelling at you right about now?” I asked, swapping my phone for the bottle of lube on the nightstand.

  Henry’s smile split his face like a kid’s on Christmas morning. Snatching the lube from my hand, he replied, “Because I know better than to leave my cell phone on when shit is about to hit the fan. And also because it was my publicist who released the pictures of us from two months ago in the first place. They’ve probably been working all night.”

  My head jerked in surprise. “What?”

  Pushing up on his knees, he swirled his finger in the air, motioning for me to roll over. I wasn’t about to argue.

  Careful to tuck my straining hard-on for fear of breaking it, I flipped beneath him.

  “Jesus, this fucking ass,” he murmured, gliding his lubed fingers down my crack. “This is going to be so much better than the first time I was inside you. You’re still okay with bare, right?”

  “Yes. But first get to the part about your publicist,” I demanded.

  He folded over and dragged his tongue up the valley between my shoulder blades. “I paid a ton of money to buy the pictures off the paparazzi from that first night you came to my rescue and guided me inside the hotel. I didn’t want to risk you freaking out and running off after our first night together, but also because I can only imagine how terrible I looked in the throes of a panic attack.”

  “You bought all of them?” I asked in a mixture of surprise and awe. The fact that he’d gone to such lengths to ensure he didn’t lose me made my chest warm.

  “I did,” he mumbled, hooking an arm under my hips to pull me up to my knees. Then he began massaging the lube over my ass. “And I gave permission for the good ones to be released this morning along with your name, age, occupation, and new relationship status of”—he paused, his hand dipping between my legs to find my cock—“taken.”

  I wanted to be annoyed that he hadn’t discussed this with me first, but the possessive way in which he spoke turned me on more than his hand stroking my shaft.

  “My phone will probably stay off for a while too,” he added, gliding his hand back up my ass. “The media is going to be hounding us both. Let me take you somewhere quiet for a while. I have two weeks off—three if I rearrange my schedule.”

  My body rocked forward as his finger sank inside, forcing a deep moan from my throat. “Where?” I asked—not that it mattered. I’d have gone anywhere with him.

  “Wherever you want. I own a house on Lake Tahoe though. We could be there by lunch.” He added another finger, but that wasn’t why my chin snapped to my shoulder so I could see him.

  It would have taken at least eight hours to drive to Tahoe. We’d have been lucky to be there by dinner. However, a flight would take less than ninety minutes.

  He smiled sheepishly. “I know a pilot who could probably take us on short notice.”

  “You’re going to let me fly you?”

  He shrugged and then curled his finger inside me. “I trust you, Evan.”

  I would have kissed him, something deep and reverent that could convey how much it meant that he was willing to face his fears with me. But, on my knees, with his fingers inside me, I was in no position to take his mouth.

  I thought he got the message though, because seconds later, he was inside me.

  Minutes later, I was crying his name as I came.

  And, hours later, Henry had a drink in his hand as I gave him a kiss and then climbed into my cockpit in order to fly my man to Nevada.

  “FUCK,” I CURSED, staring down at Evan between my knees, taking my cock deep to the back of his throat.

  Tahoe had been our quiet retreat for over a week, and if people were still all aflutter with Henry and Evan—or Heaven, as we’d been so creatively dubbed—I hadn’t been sure. Our TVs, telephones, and laptops had remained off since we’d landed—which, by the way, had been incredibly smooth.

  My fear of flying was still firmly intact, but my faith in Evan kept the panic at bay.

  One hand massaged my balls as he drove me closer to release with every swirl of his tongue. While it had taken some time for Evan to finally go down on me, it’d quickly become his favorite pastime. I’d woken up with his mouth around my cock more often than not over the last week. This morning being no exception.

  I was so damn close to coming when the jarring sound of tiny fists on the door distracted me. “Cookie? Are you awake yet?”

  Awake and halfway to my first orgasm of the day if she would back away from the fucking door.

  I gritted my teeth, trying to keep from flying off the bed, snatching open the door, and tossing her my credit card to stay at one of the nearby hotels. I loved Robin more than life itself, but a family vacation wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind when I’d suggested this trip to Evan. And this kind of interruption was the prime example of why. However, I needed Carter to accompany me in case Evan and I wanted to leave the house. And, after Robin’s latest incident, I couldn’t chance leaving her alone again.

  On the plane ride over, Carter and I had broached the topic with her of doing another thirty-day inpatient program at a new rehab facility up in Chicago. When she reluctantly agreed, I was elated. Even Carter looked visibly relieved, his face softening as he took her hand in his paw.

  Carter and Robin were interesting—and surprisingly not gross—together. They weren’t lovey-dovey, thank the Lord Baby Jesus. Really, they just seemed to quietly fight all the time. I had no idea how they liked each other with that much bickering, but every night, Carter’s bed remained empty and Robin’s door—thankfully on the other side of the house—remained locked. Clearly, it worked for them.

  “I’m up,” I ground out.

  “Oh good! What time do you guys want to eat dinner tonight? Carter and I are going to hit up the grocery store so I can get a few things.”

  “Five is good!” Evan called out before going back to work on my cock.

  “Five?” she shouted. “The meat has to marinate for at least eight hours. I can’t have it ready any sooner than six.”

  “Then six!” Evan and I yelled in unison, his jaw ticking in frustration, matching my own.

  “Next time, we’re coming alone,” I said, pulling at his shoulders until he pressed to his feet.

  He kissed me briefly then nudged my arm to signal for me to roll over. As much as I loved seeing Evan’s ass in the air with my cock disappearing inside him, I was equally in love with the feeling of his powerful body covering mine as he took me. Actually, there wasn’t much I didn’t love with Evan. And that included him.

  While Evan had been open that we were together and we’d both admitted to falling in love, no further declarations had been made. I didn’t need them though. His actions spoke louder than words. And trust me—Evan’s body wasn’t quiet about his feelings for me. I still struggled on a daily basis with believing him and not allowing my pessimism to taint our relationship, but as I fell asleep each night with his arms securely wrapped around me, it was easier to convince myself that this was forever.

  “We’re almost out of lube,” he said, pouring it over my ass, and not just where it was needed. I’m talking about the entire thing, cheeks and all.

  “Then stop using so much,” I retorted, pressing back into him.

  His hands found my hips and lifted me, forcing my ass to slide up and down his stomach. “No way. I fucking love the way you feel fucking me from the bottom with your slick ass grinding against me.”

  Damn. Now that he mentioned it, I loved that too.

  “We’ll buy more,” I replied promptly.

  He chuckled, gliding a damp hand up my back until it wrapped around the base of my neck. Then he slowly glided inside, a gasp escaping my mouth as he filled me.

  “Evan,” I breathed, rolling my hips in a circle as he folded over to reach around and grip my cock.

&n
bsp; “Be fast. I’m not risking another interruption,” he rasped in a voice that said, “Be fast because I’m not going to last long.”

  I could definitely do fast.

  I fucked him from the bottom while he stroked my cock until neither of us could take it any longer. He pulled out just in time to pump warm ropes of his release on my back as I filled his hand.

  As he fell to the side, dragging me down with him, I teased, “Fast enough for you?”

  Laughing, he nabbed a towel off the nightstand and wiped my back. “We’ll go longer tonight.”

  “We definitely will.” I rolled to face him and found him looking like the cat that ate the canary. “What are you smiling about?”

  He discarded the rag and then cupped my jaw before gently touching his lips to mine. “You. Us. This.”

  I felt the heat rush to my face.

  “You,” he repeated, trailing his thumb over my pink cheek.

  My smile grew to match his. “I’m happy too. But you know, in a few weeks, we’ll have to go back to reality. I’ll be on the road a lot. And the world has now seen the sexy beast who shares my bed, so men and women alike will be beating down your door, trying to take you away from me.”

  “Let ’em try.” He smirked confidently. “And I’ll go on the road with you if you want. I’m pretty sure my boss will be understanding.” He winked.

  The high swirled in my veins. “You will?”

  “Of course.” he pressed a lingering kiss to my lips. “I’m not fond of driving, but I’m pretty fond of you.”

  “Well, that’s definitely a positive thing considering the things I’m going to do to you.”

  He pulled me against his chest so my head rested on his shoulder. “I’m looking forward to it. I vote we skip dinner. I’ll make us some sandwiches, and you send Carter and Robin out on a date.”

  I sucked in an eager breath, realizing Evan was a straight-up genius. Then the landline started ringing on the nightstand. I groaned, rolling from his arms to retrieve it from the charging base.

  Very limited people had the number to my lake house, considering I’d changed it the day we’d arrived so no one could interrupt us. And, by limited, I meant: Levee.