by Cameron Dane
“Nah, it wasn’t.” Devlin had a faraway look in his eyes as he answered. “I never felt used or wished for more with Kevin. He always kissed me back, and even though he closed his eyes while I blew him, it wasn’t because he was trying to picture someone else doing him. Kevin would put his hand in my hair and hold me to him. He said my name when he moaned about what he liked and what he wanted more of, and he even gave me a hand job in return if I didn’t come on my own while I was doing him. He apologized that it wasn’t a blowjob but said he couldn’t see himself doing more. I didn’t mind.” Devlin blinked and came back to Gradyn with a sheepish smile. “Hey, it’s nice to feel a hand other than your own pulling on your dick every once in a while, you know?”
“Hell yeah, it is.” Gradyn flashed a fast grin. “So what ultimately happened with Kevin?”
“He put an end to it. He said he felt like a selfish bastard taking advantage of me, and he was starting to have trouble facing himself in the mirror. He said if he could go all the way for anybody it would be me, but that it just wasn’t who he was, and that as a friend he wanted me to have someone who could get just as excited about sucking my dick as I got sucking his. He said he’d probably kick himself in the ass the next time he had to take care of a hard-on with his own hand, but that it was the right thing to do before someone got hurt or we ended up losing our friendship over what we were doing. I agreed that it was probably a good idea.”
Gradyn couldn’t help the twist to his lips. “Are you sure Kevin’s speech wasn’t a line of bullshit?”
“It wasn’t.” Again, Devlin didn’t pause with his response. “Kevin is a good guy, and he didn’t avoid me afterward. Shit, he still came to my apartment, alone, obviously not scared that the gay guy was going to attack him. Once we talked about it and agreed that we wouldn’t do what we were doing anymore, we didn’t. It was tough for me at first; I really did like kissing him as much as I liked sucking him off.” Devlin seemed to turn inward again, and he shifted to stare out at the water for a moment before coming back to Gradyn. “The fact that it was so difficult at first told me that stopping was the best thing we could have done. Too much longer and the little crush I’d developed on him might have turned into real feelings that would have made it very hard to stay friends afterward.”
“Do you think Kevin still thinks about what you guys did together?”
“I’m sure he remembers it,” Devlin answered. “But I don’t think he pines for it or has wishful thoughts about our time together, if that’s what you’re asking. That girl who didn’t know Kevin existed a few years ago? They’re engaged now. He’s completely in love with her, and she finally woke up and realized what a wonderful person Kevin is too. I don’t begrudge him any happiness with her. She is what he wants, and Emily is a good friend of mine now too. So, anyway,” Devlin scratched his fingers through his hair, shrugged, and did that hangdog smile thing of his, “that’s how I’m not entirely a novice when it comes to blowjobs. You can thank Kevin.”
Arousal slammed back into Gradyn with hurricane force. “Remind me to send him an e-mail.” He withdrew his wallet and slipped the appropriate amount of money he had promised into the restaurant billfold. “Did you ever find someone who could reciprocate your enthusiasm for sucking cock?”
“No.” With that one word, Devlin slid back to a complete blush. “Life got a little hectic after that, and Redemption isn’t exactly teeming with openly gay men.” He looked as if he swallowed something awful, and then added, “Myself included.”
Gradyn moved to Devlin’s side of the table and curled his hand against the back of the chair. He put his lips to Devlin’s ear and kept his voice low. “Then it’s well past time you put your dick in another man’s mouth. And you are in luck because I am so fucking hungry for a taste of you.” He drew Devlin to his feet and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Let’s go back to the motel.”
In a shot, Devlin leaned into Gradyn and slipped his arms around his waist. He burrowed himself right into Gradyn’s body and tucked his face against Gradyn’s neck. “I like you so much, Denny.” Devlin’s confession sank into Gradyn and shook him to his core.
With the life Gradyn led, it fucking terrified him to feel the same.
Against his better judgment, Gradyn whispered, “I like you too, beautiful,” and led Devlin out of the restaurant...
*
...Garrick blinked and looked up at the ceiling of his garage apartment to find himself half-hard on the memories of a man he could no longer be.
His chest ached with a familiar pain; his eyes hurt as sleep continued to elude him, and his mind spun with how he would handle this new wrinkle in his utterly stupid impulse to move to Redemption.
All that insanity five weeks ago to get himself safely to Redemption under another new name and life, and not once had Gradyn--Garrick now, damn it--considered what he would do if Devlin saw through this new name, face, and body to the person he’d spent one weekend with in San Francisco five years ago.
He saw Denny. He saw me.
Gradyn Connell should have anticipated better from the person he had somehow fallen in love with in two days, but Garrick Langley could not afford the impression Gradyn had apparently left on Devlin all these years later.
His life depended on it.
Chapter Three
Devlin dialed his brother’s number and then started pacing the length of his living room, his mind in a thousand places at once.
Primarily in one place, really, and he damn well knew it.
Stop thinking about him, you idiot.
Aidan picked up on the third ring. “What’s up, bro?”
“Hey, Aidan, listen; my date has to go into work tonight and called asking if we could switch to tomorrow. What do you say? Can I renege on my invitation to you and Ethan for tomorrow night?” A week ago, Devlin had invited Aidan and Ethan over for grilled steaks. This morning, when Darren had given Devlin the perfect “out” of their date, Devlin hadn’t had the heart to break it. “You guys could come over tonight instead. I have everything defrosting.”
“It’s cool if you need to call off tomorrow night, but I can’t do tonight,” Aidan answered. “I’m heading into work right now.”
“Shit. I forgot.” As a firefighter, Devlin knew Aidan’s schedule as Chief inside and out. He growled under his breath at the injury keeping him from work. In just this short time away things were starting to slip his mind. “I’ll call Darren back and tell him I can’t do it. It’s not a big deal.”
“Don’t do that,” Aidan replied quickly. “And don’t use me as an excuse if you don’t want to see Darren again.” For a brother who had spent much of his adult life far away from his siblings, Aidan had certainly slipped back into a lecturing tone easily enough upon returning to Redemption three years ago. At least Devlin thought so. “Call Ethan on his cell and let him know the change in your schedule. Unless he’s made plans since this morning, he can make it. He mentioned spending part of the evening grading papers, but since it’s a smaller number of kids with summer school, I know he can be flexible with that.”
Devlin passed by the kitchen and eyed the half-dozen steaks sitting on the counter. “I could do that.” Shit. That still left a lot of meat he couldn’t refreeze. “Maybe I’ll invite Wyn too.”
Aidan’s sharp bark of laughter rang loudly through the phone. “Willing to risk Maddie’s wrath, are you?”
Wyn Ashworth was Ethan’s younger brother. Maddie had spent a good part of her senior year in high school sending verbal jabs in the older Wyn’s direction. Wyn took it in stride and, on occasion, nailed her back. Then, a few years ago, it seemed as if they had called a truce of sorts. Their taunts felt softer, more like teasing--and maybe even light flirting. Until a couple of months ago. Something changed, and their friendship turned downright icy. Ethan couldn’t get anything out of Wyn about it, and Maddie gave Devlin and Aidan the stone-faced silent treatment whenever they asked her about it too.
With Aidan and Eth
an’s commitment to each other, though, Maddie and Wyn could not avoid contact. They were just going to have to get the hell over whatever bugs were up their asses and learn to be civil around each other. Devlin had no intentions of refereeing Thanksgiving and Christmas this year or any other in the future. He knew Aidan and Ethan wouldn’t either.
“Maddie can learn to deal with it.” Devlin forced a bit more bravado into those words than actually beat within him. “This is my apartment as much as it is hers and I am welcome to invite whoever I want into it. She can do the same.”
“It’s your funeral.”
“Don’t I know it.” Devlin threw himself down on the couch, and with a groan, covered his eyes with his forearm. “Nothing like one more battle to get my weekend started right.”
“Another battle?” Aidan’s voice rose in pitch and volume. “What are you talking about, Dev? Is everything okay?”
Damn it. A light pounding started behind Devlin’s right eye. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
Devlin heard Aidan sigh. “Now who’s keeping secrets?” his brother asked.
“If you’d let me come back to work,” Devlin squeezed his eyes shut, “I’d be a lot better.”
“As soon as a doctor clears you,” Aidan answered, his tone softening. “It’s not me. I need you at the firehouse as much as you want to be there.”
“I know.” Guilt had Devlin swallowing down a second plea. His brother could not treat him any differently than anyone else on his crew. “I’m just being a complaining ass. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Say goodbye so you can call Ethan. I have to go anyway or I’m going to be late.”
“Bye,” Devlin said. “Be safe.”
“Will do. Talk to you later.”
Aidan hung up, and Devlin quickly called Ethan and Wyn, who both agreed to join him for dinner. After he did that, he tossed the phone on the coffee table, and his brain took no time zeroing all of his thoughts in on one thing again. Gradyn Connell--who had become Garrick Langley.
My Denny.
Devlin couldn’t find out much of anything about Garrick Langley. He had not been able to track down a physical address in Redemption for where the man now lived. A search turned up only a local PO Box. No listed phone number either. Devlin obviously knew the guy worked for Mr. Corsini, but then so did Maddie. She practically lived at that garage, which meant Devlin didn’t have a chance in hell of cornering Gradyn there to demand answers for why he was masquerading as a man named Garrick Langley. Not without his sister turning on him and demanding answers of her own.
Devlin wasn’t ready to share what he knew about Garrick yet. Much in the way he hadn’t ever told a soul about what had happened that weekend in San Francisco either--or about what had developed in the six months of e-mails and phone calls that had followed. Devlin had never said a word to anyone about this man who had so completely captured his heart.
A chill went down Devlin’s spine right where he sat in his over-warm living room.
Maybe I knew, even back then, that something about him wasn’t right.
No, not true. All those years ago, Devlin had trusted Gradyn Connell with his very soul and had believed everything he said.
Today, an Internet search of both Garrick Langley and Gradyn Connell only swirled more confusion into some already murky waters.
Devlin could find very little information about Garrick Langley, which he knew didn’t have to mean anything. If someone were to do a search on him, that person wouldn’t find much information about Devlin, and he knew he was as real as the day was long. What Devlin had found was a website dedicated to a high school in the Midwest. The site had Garrick listed as a graduate for a year that would have put him at thirty-three years old now, and that was within a year of what Devlin knew Gradyn’s age would be today. The website had no individual class photos loaded, unfortunately, and nobody identifying himself as Garrick had ever left a comment in the forum there. Devlin could find nothing else about Garrick Langley.
Gradyn Connell was a different story. Or, more accurately, Devlin should say the one piece of information he had turned up trumped a search for anything else.
An obituary.
Devlin went cold all over again just thinking about what he’d read. Everything in that obituary: the age, the place of birth, the surviving relatives of a mother, sister, and uncle--whose names matched the ones Gradyn had shared with Devlin--all jived. The obituary hadn’t had a photo, but even the job and the city where the deceased had lived were the same as the Gradyn Devlin had known in San Francisco. The obituary said that man had died in a car accident two months ago.
Only, Gradyn wasn’t dead. Or, at least, whomever the hell Devlin had spent a weekend with in San Francisco was still very much alive. Something deep inside Devlin that he could not name recognized that man on a fundamental level. In his gut, he knew he would have felt something inside him hurt two months ago if Gradyn really had died. The draw to that man--Gradyn--who was now this Garrick person, felt so goddamned right and real. It pulled at Devlin today with just as much force as it had the night Devlin had given Gradyn his body for the first time all those years ago...
*
...Back at the motel room after their late dinner, Devlin leaned into Gradyn and looked into his beautiful eyes. As he did, their scorching naked flesh and stiff cocks came into full contact, and Devlin sucked in a deep, cleansing breath.
Keep it cool; you can do this.
Their bodies rubbed against one another with greater force, making Devlin gasp again at that searing heat riding his bare front. At the same time, a shudder rocked through Gradyn and went right into Devlin.
Nothing could have gotten Devlin out of his own head faster than that. “You’re trembling, Denny.” He brushed his fingers down the fierce tattooing that edged Gradyn’s face and then along the rest of the firm, ink-covered skin down his side, paying attention only to the reactions of the man’s body and not the way it looked. “You did the same earlier this evening.”
Gradyn tilted Devlin’s head back and brushed their lips together with the softest caress. “I want this to be as good for you as you were for me. I don’t want you to regret your first time.” The piercing depth of his gaze, and the crush of his hand curled around Devlin’s nape, pulled an answering constriction out of Devlin’s chest. Gradyn scraped their mouths together again, and said roughly, “I don’t want you to regret me.”
Oh, holy hell.
Devlin’s knees went a little shaky. He grabbed onto Gradyn’s forearm and lifted on his toes until their foreheads touched. “I will never regret you.” His blood raced with heady speed as he said those words, and knew he meant them. “No chance of that.”
“You are something special, beautiful.” Gradyn tightened his hold around Devlin’s waist and rocked them in a slow wave. “How are you so fucking sexy and sweet and incredible and bold all at the same time?” He shook his head, as if dazed. “What in the hell made me choose that bar tonight when I fucking hate techno music?”
“Same thing that kept me there longer than I wanted to be.” Devlin’s throat tightened with a vulnerability he never let anybody see, yet with this person it seemed to flow out of him without any of his usual caution. “I think I knew you would come.”
“Christ,” Gradyn said, “I’m glad I did.” He tripped Devlin’s legs out from under him and tumbled them both onto the bed.
The bedsprings squeaked as Gradyn came down on Devlin, and his additional weight created a dip in the center of the mattress. His thick cock dug into Devlin’s stomach, just like before, except this time arousal and a strange, incalculable trust in this man overrode the tentacles of fear still whispering inside Devlin over what they were about to do.
Gradyn braced himself on his elbows and brushed the backs of his fingers against Devlin’s hair. “Okay?”
Shots of warmth reached into every corner of Devlin’s being, and he nudged into the loving touch. “Yeah.” He let his legs fall open the rest
of the way, and he moaned as Gradyn settled in, filling out the space. “I’m good.”
A cheeky, sexy-as-hell grin appeared, and Gradyn lowered his lips to Devlin’s. “Glad to hear it.” He claimed Devlin’s mouth with an exploring kiss that quickly turned voracious, and he sought entry with a lick and tug on Devlin’s lower lip. It felt like sparks danced on Gradyn’s lips, and Devlin ignited the second their mouths touched. He eagerly opened up for more, taking with aggression and force.
Devlin writhed under Gradyn. He scratched at the man’s back and bit at his mouth, and Gradyn hissed and broke the kiss.
“Slow down, honey.” Gradyn wiped his lower lip, and his finger came away clean. Devlin hadn’t broken skin. “I like a good bite with my foreplay,” the edge of Gradyn’s mouth hitched up in a smile, “but we have all night to make this happen.”
His skin on fire, unable to remain still, Devlin moaned a hoarse “No.” He thrust his hips and dug his bitten-down nails into Gradyn’s buttocks. “Please...” He lunged up and tried to pull Gradyn flush against him. “Need you. Oh, shit, shit...” Devlin’s prick leaked a stream of early ejaculate and he couldn’t stop grinding himself against the solid barrier of Gradyn’s stomach. “My cock hurts, and I think my balls might explode.” His chest squeezed so tightly he thought he might have a heart attack. “I feel like I could rip you to shreds with my bare hands if I keep touching you.”
“Okay then.” Gradyn pushed himself into a sitting position. He straddled Devlin’s stomach, and Devlin could feel the tension coursing through his limbs. “So maybe you’re not feeling so good after all.”
Stricken, Devlin surged upright. “I’m sor--”
Gradyn slapped his hand over Devlin’s mouth and pressed him back down into the mattress. “Don’t apologize. You’re not doing anything wrong. A few hours ago, I felt pretty close to what you’re feeling right now. The difference is that I can’t go at you hard and fast the way you could with me.” Gradyn’s lips thinned to a tense line. “That’s not gonna work for your first time.”
