Though he’d never admit it, the fact he gave in and agreed to being here like this was proof he wanted me.
We just sat for a while, my knees pressed against his side as I held the ice to his face with one hand and wrapped the other around his. The sight of his injuries was physically painful for me. The bruises and the dried smears of blood were reminders of the way he’d looked when my headlights first illuminated his body in that parking lot.
I don’t think a person can ever be prepared for that. For seeing someone they love—someone who had never been anything but strong and capable—look so broken.
Broken, but not beaten.
I think that hurt worse. Because even in the battered, unstable state he was in, I still saw him fight. He fought for balance; he struggled to stand. Even as he bled and hurt, he refused to lie down and give in.
Fuck Con.
Fuck the guys at Omega.
I might be a grown-ass man. I might not even go to that college. But I would never be too grown to protect my person. I would never be too mature to extract revenge. There were some things a man just couldn’t lie down and take.
This was one of those things.
I was so angry I couldn’t really think. I was too consumed with the man beside me to really formulate a plan.
But I would. And just like on the track, I wouldn’t back down.
I wasn’t sure how long we’d been sitting here, but it was long enough that the fingers on my hand holding the ice had gone numb from the cold. Slowly, I lifted the towel and lowered it off his skin.
“How’s it feeling?” I asked soft, studying the still swollen and angry-looking black-and-blue eye.
“Better,” he replied, glancing over.
His hair dropped over his forehead like it too was exhausted. Some of the strands fell across the bandaged gash. I reached out and pushed them back.
Trent’s eyes closed with the touch, and my stomach dipped a little.
Even though I didn’t need to, I repeated the action, pushing back his hair a little farther.
He sighed.
Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from his and snagged a bottle of water off the nightstand, uncapped it, and held it to his lips. He reached for the bottle, but I pushed his hand back and titled the plastic until cool water touched his lip.
Trent’s hazel eyes fixed on mine as he drank, slow, cautious sips. When a drop of water escaped and trailed over the rounded softness of his lower lip and down across his chin, I used it as an invitation to lean over and swipe it away.
“My blood is on your shirt,” Trent rasped, pulling back from the drink.
“I know.”
“Kiss me.” The request seemed to rip right out of him. You know that place I mentioned he never let anyone see?
With deliberate care, I capped the water and slowly set it aside. When I turned back, he was watching me, hunger and nervousness in his gaze.
It was a painful thing to want someone so much but to constantly deny yourself. It was even more so to let yourself believe the person you wanted so badly returned the desire.
I leaned forward, bracing my arm on the mattress on the other side of his waist, caging him in without touching him.
The back of his head hit the headboard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. The tip of my tongue wet my lips so they would slide right over his.
They did.
Oh, they did.
Trent held himself still; he didn’t kiss me back. If I didn’t know him, I might have taken that the wrong way, but I did know him.
I took his stillness right to my heart. It pierced like a clear piece of glass slicing right into that tender spot on the bottom of your foot.
He was taking something in that moment. Something just for him. Something he really wanted.
I was flattered. I was overwhelmed.
It was the first thing I’d ever seen him take.
Yeah, maybe it was just a kiss. But it wasn’t. It was so so much more.
I poured everything into that kiss. Everything into my lips as I rubbed them softly over his. The one side was puffy, and I took a little care there, licking over it with my tongue, making sure it was good and slick so he didn’t feel any kind of pain.
Between kisses, I would lift my head just a fraction of an inch and tilt my head a different way. The change in direction enhanced the kiss; it made certain I touched every last centimeter of his mouth.
He reveled in it. His body, which he’d held with stiffness and pain up until now, went boneless against the mattress. Small sounds I don’t think he even heard vibrated the deep part of his throat.
I sensed rather than saw his hands fist into the sheets at his sides with restraint, as if it took everything in him just to take and not give back.
But, oh, he was giving. He was giving me so much by just reacting. If I hadn’t already fallen in love with him, I would have right at that moment.
In fact, I think I fell a little harder.
It was a heady thing to be so incredibly wanted. To be the balm to a wounded soul, the answer to someone’s prayer.
“Forrester.” My name ripped from his lips when I sat back and shook out my trembling arms.
“Frat boy,” I answered, and a second of panic almost ruined the moment pressing in around us. I wasn’t supposed to call him that anymore.
Sure, he said he didn’t like it, but we both knew that was a lie. He loved it when I called him that. It was a term of endearment, something only I ever got away with. But now, to him, it was a slur. A connection to the men who jumped him.
I felt my eyes widen. His own cleared; a little of the passion glazing over his body cleared.
“It was—” An accident.
“No.” He stopped me and brushed the pad of his thumb across my lower lip. “You can call me that. You can call me whatever the hell you want, and I’ll always answer.”
“If it reminds you…” I began, and he shook his head.
“It reminds me of who I am to you. Only you.”
“Only me,” I echoed and went back for more of his lips.
This time, he kissed me back, his palms sliding over my jaw and holding. I smiled a little inside when he rubbed at the stubble and groaned.
The next thing I knew, he was holding my head and dragging his teeth down my jaw and kissing across my neck. I tossed my head back to give him better access as he sucked at the skin and made me moan.
The sound seemed to snap him out of his trance. His body stiffened and pulled back. My eyes sprang open, disappointed at the absence of his lips.
“Shit,” he swore and pushed my head back so he could stare at my neck. He grunted. “No mark.”
“That’s disappointing.”
Trent frowned. “I’m not gonna mark you where everyone will see.”
“Right. ‘Cause you don’t want people to know you love me.” My voice was bitter, and I pulled away from him.
“I don’t want you to be punished for this.” His voice begged me to understand.
My heart refused.
I shoved off the bed and paced the room. How easy it was to forget tomorrow. How easy it was to live in denial.
How easy it was for reality to come back and rip everything away.
Frustrated, I swung around. “I wanted that mark,” I said angry. “I wanted something of you. Something I could look at…” My voice trailed away, and I shook my head.
“Something what?” Trent pushed.
I turned away.
“Something of me that would be here when I leave?” The pain in his voice was as real as the stuff building in my chest.
“Maybe,” I whispered but didn’t turn around.
“Come here, Forrester.” The commanding tone in the words was almost undeniable.
I looked over my shoulder at him. I didn’t see the bruises and the Band-Aids. I didn’t see his scraped knuckles or the smear of red beneath his lip (guess I kissed him a little too hard).
All I saw was the look
in his eyes.
I rotated, stepping toward the bed.
“Lose the shirt,” he ordered.
With one hand, I yanked it over my body and dropped it at my feet. The second my knees made contact with the mattress, he moved. Without thought to his injuries, Trent palmed my waist and pushed me down. I didn’t fight him one ounce, so it didn’t cost him much strength.
Strong, defined thighs straddled my hips, and when his weight sank onto me, I bit back a groan because my cock was hard and the pressure of his body was heaven.
“Where do you want it?” he rumbled, dragging his fingers down my chest and across my sides.
“What?” All my attention was on his chest, his wide, strong shoulders.
He pinched my nipple lightly and rolled it around between his fingers. I groaned and arched up slightly, totally lost now. I had no idea what the fuck he was asking me, and I didn’t care.
“Here?” he asked, trailing a finger along my hipbone. “Or here?” He gave my nipple another tug.
I made an incoherent sound and shut my eyes.
The nipple was still a hard pebble, tingling with desire when he let go and trailed up a short distance. “No,” he whispered. “I think here.”
Trent’s big body came down, pinning me against the bed, and his lips locked onto my chest. On my pec, not far from the nipple he’d been teasing before.
At first, he swirled his tongue over the flesh and dampened it, kissing softly, and nibbled at the skin. Then the pressure increased as he sucked the entire spot into his mouth.
He was giving me what I wanted.
Both my hands locked onto his head. My fingertips dug into his scalp, and I pushed his face deep into my chest as he sucked.
“Don’t stop,” I growled, taking it all, even the tinge of pain when he obeyed and went deeper.
It was so satisfying, his mouth on me, knowing when he lifted his head, I would have a mark of where he’d been. I emptied my mind and just felt the pressure of him sucking, felt the pleasure/pain combination with soul-tingling emotion.
“Right there,” I whispered and arched into him more.
I didn’t want him to stop, but he did. Not all at once, but gentling so it was just a soft kiss before lifting his head.
“More, T,” I demanded, refusing to let go of his head.
He chuckled briefly against my skin but then pulled back. “You’re going to have a bruise for a week, man. No more.”
It wasn’t enough.
Trent pushed up off me, his body stiff, his movements controlled.
“Fuck,” I swore. I was supposed to be taking care of him right now, not demanding shit.
“I’m fine.” He started to laugh, but it turned into a gasping kind of cough.
Quickly, I slid out from beneath him and wrapped an arm around his waist, offering to take some of his weight as he settled back against the pillows.
“I’ll get more ice,” I said once he was still, and I reached for the towel.
“No,” he caught my hand. “Stay here.”
Guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to let him out of my sight tonight.
I palmed the first aid kit and rummaged around, finding one last cold pack. I held it up like it was a trophy before rolling it around between my hands and bursting open whatever it was inside that made it cold.
Once it was applied to the black-and-blue part of his side, I left the bed again to change out of my jeans and into a pair of gym shorts.
I wasn’t shy about it either. In fact, I felt his eyes when I fished around for shorts, so I tossed them on the bed and began unbuckling my jeans, almost like I was giving him a show.
Okay, not almost. I was.
I wanted to tempt him. I wanted to torture him a little. Make him see what he was trying to give up.
My thumbs hooked into the waistband, and I pushed down the material. I had to give it an extra tug to get them past my junk, which was still rock hard from him straddling my hips.
Even across the room, I felt the smolder in his gaze. His eyes locked on the most evident part of my desire and held.
Anyone who said cocks didn’t have a mind of their own were liars. Sure, most of the time, they only thought about sex and pleasure, but never as much as when the person who won their loyalty was within reach.
Yeah, loyalty.
My dick was a loyal fellow.
No, you may not call him Lassie.
I was positive, even after tonight, tomorrow my body would only respond to Trent. It was only him I would want.
Realizing that was overwhelming. It was jarring.
In the beginning, it was confusing.
Confusion came from conflict. From not knowing what you wanted. From being unable to admit what you wanted.
I might not have been ready to tell my father about the person my heart chose to claim. I might not have even been ready to tell anyone outside this house, but it didn’t make what I was feeling any less true.
Any less real.
I wasn’t confused anymore because I knew.
Trent was absolute.
Hell, my dick was at attention and my boxers looked like a tent as it pointed to him. The jeans hit the floor when I let go, and I glanced at the shorts on the end of the bed.
Just tonight.
Isn’t that what we said?
I wanted so badly to ditch the boxers and slip beneath the sheets completely naked, but I didn’t. It wasn’t because I thought Trent wouldn’t like it (he was a guy; of course he would like it), but because he was hurting and now wasn’t the time for messing around.
Even if all he was determined to give us was one more night.
I reached for the shorts, suddenly feeling incredibly grumpy.
“Can you hit the light? My fucking head hurts,” Trent remarked.
I dropped the clothes and crossed to the light switch. The room went into shadows but wasn’t completely dark because the lamp on my side of the bed was still on. I reached for it, too.
“Leave that one.” He stopped me.
I frowned. “You still got a couple hours before I can give you more pain reliever. Maybe the dark—”
“I want to see you,” he said in a rushed, quiet tone.
I didn’t acknowledge the admission with words, but everything inside me quaked. I’d been with lots of women in my life. Getting one in bed was never a problem for me. I drove fast, had dimples and blue eyes… Plus, I was good in bed.
I wasn’t being arrogant. Okay, maybe I was.
Even so, it was the truth.
So obviously, I’d had some good sex. My body understood what pleasure felt like.
But never before had I ever felt such a physical reaction to a person. No woman ever made my insides dip and tumble. No woman ever made my fingers shake and my breathing unsteady.
And it wasn’t just when we were in bed.
All it took was the sound of his voice. A look. A single gesture.
Trent possessed some kind of ability to turn me inside out with the greatest of ease.
That’s how I felt just then. Turned inside out. Shaken, not stirred. All because he wanted to look at me.
It was borderline insane.
But it was the best goddamned feeling I’d ever known.
“Careful.” I spoke quietly and gripped the blankets to peel them down the bed. His legs were over them, and I had to slide them from beneath his body. When his hips thrust upward making room for the blankets to move, my sight zeroed in on the rock-solid bulge beneath his tight red boxer briefs.
The way the fabric molded to his shaft, I could see the slightly larger head on the tip, and it made my mouth run dry.
I cleared my throat and forced my eyes away, back up to his face. He wasn’t watching me, but trying to disguise a grimace as he settled back against the mattress. A few curse words dropped into the air between us. I jetted forward and slid my arm and some of my shoulder beneath him. Almost instantly, he relaxed against me, allowing me to support al
l his considerable weight.
It was a weight I would bear willingly.
I’d bear it forever if he let me.
The thought was kind of like a bitch slap to the face. Sharp and stinging. Sometimes the truth hurt. Sometimes it took something heinous to really make everything completely clear.
I’d already known I was in love with T.
I’d fought my feelings for a long time.
We’d even begun exploring who we were to each other… And now he was hurt.
Beaten and aching.
The roughed-up shape he was in made everything so incredibly clear.
I wanted him. For now. For always.
Trent would always be my ultimate adrenaline rush. Not even a car or racetrack could beat him. He’d crossed the finish line in my heart a long time ago.
“I love you.” It came out like it was the first time I’d said it. Hell, it almost still felt like the first time.
Trent affected me profoundly. I wondered if I would ever get used to loving him or if it would always astonish me.
“Drew…” Trent warned, his voice wobbly and apprehensive.
My back and shoulder hit the headboard, but instead of easing my arm and side from underneath him, I settled back farther and spanned my fingers out at his waist, gently pushing so he would relax against me.
He did. He let me hold him. It was one of the first times we’d sat like this, with him in my arms this way. It was incredible to hold the very thing you loved most in your arms, to have it so close.
“Say it,” I whispered. “Please, frat boy.”
His back expanded against my chest when he inhaled. “I love you.”
My eyes closed, and I was glad he couldn’t see my face. I was the strong one right now, but his words… they broke me down.
My lips dropped, and I kissed the top of his shoulder as I softly looped my other arm around his waist so he was encircled.
We leaned our heads together and sat quietly while I listened to his breaths, silently making sure he was okay.
A few minutes later, he spoke. “It doesn’t change anything.”
I knew what he meant. I wanted to yell and put another fist through the wall. But I didn’t move. I sat there calmly and held him.
How did I do it?
I realized.
I felt.
Beneath all the anger, I was calm. Calm because there was no way in hell our love wouldn’t win out. We’d already been to hell and back just to make it to our first kiss.
#Rev (GearShark #2) Page 4
