There were no words. I had absolutely no words. Wasn’t even capable of forming them in my brain. One thought would begin, and then be slammed into by another one, only to be railroaded by the next. My night of liberation had been at the darkest moment of his life. That night that I’d held onto as a flash of beauty, the symbol of permission for me to live, had been at Russell’s lowest point.
Although, maybe… it had sort of been a liberation for him as well. Maybe?
That’s what we had shared? Both of the worlds that made up our lives had shifted on their axis at the exact same moment?
And I’d been his first?
His first time with a man. His first fuck….
His first kiss.
Well, kiss with a man at any rate.
Words remained elusive, and Russell still sat there, pale and trembling.
I started to stand, to go over to him, but he shot upward, standing so quickly that the book fell from his lap and hit the floor.
“Sorry. I—” He held out his hand and looked truly terrified. “Sorry.”
I halted, then forced myself to return to a seated position in the alcove. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything else. Although you can if you want.”
He wouldn’t.
Maybe I shouldn’t either, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Thank you for telling me.”
He nodded, for an uncomfortably long time. And then pointed over his shoulder toward the bedroom. “I’m gonna….”
Suddenly I realized he was asking for permission. How awful. “Yeah. Of course. Get some rest.”
Still nodding, he turned, but at the last moment veered away from the bedroom door and enabled the alarm. Then he shut himself away.
I stared at the alarm box for a long while. Russell’s entire story had completely rocked me, but that last thing, that setting of the alarm, nearly brought me to tears. Even in that moment, after telling me what I was certain he’d never told anyone else, maybe the biggest moment in his life, he’d remembered me. Thought about my safety.
Even in that moment he was protecting me.
I sat there for I don’t know how long, opened to that eleventh page, though I didn’t pretend to read a word. Simply sat there with my forehead resting against the windowpane and let the thoughts swirl.
It was too much to figure out, too much to even try to consider or sift through. So I didn’t. Made no attempt to understand or try to determine what the next step should be. If there should be one at all. I simply sat there, let each new wave of emotion, and implication, crash over me again and again. Sat there until I was lost to a dreamless sleep.
In the dead of night, a presence at my side startled me awake. With a jerk, I sat up straight, my neck pinching from its crooked position against the window.
“It’s just me, Jasper. You’re safe.”
I looked up to find Russell standing over me, dimly spotlit through the window.
We stared at each other, a new sort of tension building.
After a while Russell reached out and stroked the back of his fingers over my cheek. “May I kiss you?”
I sucked in a breath and felt my eyes sting. I was only capable of managing a nod.
His hand unfurled over my cheek. Then he bent as his other hand rose to cup my face, and he kissed me.
Fourteen
Russell
The events of that day seven years before, and the week preceding it, had been mulled over countless times. To an obsessive level. The constant battery and self-flagellation around my failures. Followed by the terrifying wonder that had been my first experience with a man, with Jasper.
Shutting myself inside the bedroom, I marveled at what I had just done, all I’d admitted and shared with Jasper.
Not only had my career and everything I’d worked for been ruined, including my marriage, but I’d destroyed things with my family. I’d figured I might as well get it all over at once. I told them about losing my badge, Chelsea leaving, and that I believed I was a gay man, in one long and horrifying conversation. And though it truly hadn’t been my intent, and it came as no surprise, I managed to sever every bond with family and friends as surely as if I’d used a guillotine.
I saw people from time to time, my family and old friends. As the years ticked by, those occasions became fewer and fewer. People I loved, even the ones who shared my blood, faded to acquaintances. And I became a burden, one who was an embarrassment.
Despite the numerous times I’d replayed that night—the devastation and the awakening—as I told it all to Jasper, I relived it. As surely as if my body had been transported back to those seven years before.
I started to get into bed but ended up just sitting on the edge, stunned.
I hadn’t expected to ever admit to Jasper what he’d been to me, and most definitely not confess my shame, but now that I had, I couldn’t figure out my reaction. I wasn’t ashamed. Not even embarrassed. Saying it had been excruciating, but now that it was over… it was… okay.
Strangely, the other part I couldn’t figure out was that something about it had felt familiar. As if I’d gotten back something I’d missed. I couldn’t label it. So I replayed everything again, as I had a million times before.
Whatever the familiar thing was, I couldn’t find it.
I switched to replaying the conversation with Jasper. Then did it again. And again.
And with each new look, the realization grew, slowly. Bit by bit, gradual enough that I was able to accept it.
I’d been alone for seven years. I’d had no home. Chelsea took that, and I’d let her. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t need a home. I had enough money in savings and in my pension that hadn’t been taken away. And I made more money in my new “career” than I ever did as a cop. But I’d gone from place to place, from job to job. No family, no friends, no connections. Sure, there were those like Harrison who were friendly acquaintances, but that was it. The rest were clients who paid me for my services, or one of an endless string of naked male bodies who gave me release, touch, and a few moments of escape, but no connection.
That’s what I was feeling. In our days together, Jasper was no longer an acquaintance. He was no longer just a client, if he’d ever been. I didn’t know what he was, friend didn’t feel quite right. But he was real.
And, for the first time in seven years, I wasn’t alone. Maybe… considering everything… maybe for the first time in my life.
I wasn’t sure how long the moment would last. There’d be some climax with Neal, and then the job would end. And all those stories in the Lavender Love book or not, my life wasn’t a Lavender Shores kind of gig. So it would end.
But in the meantime? I didn’t have to be alone, didn’t want to be. And how magically right it felt that these seven years would be bookended by the same man.
There was no decision, no moment of springing into action. One second I was sitting on the edge of the bed, and the next I found myself standing beside Jasper, just marveling at him.
As he sat curled up in his little alcove, asleep with his head resting on the window and his glasses laying on top of a discarded novel, the true element of magic revealed itself.
It was Jasper.
He’d been magic all those years ago. But in a lot of ways, I figured that whatever man I’d ultimately been with that night would’ve been magic. Would’ve opened the door to allowing me to be who I really was.
But I’d been wrong.
It wasn’t just a moment that was magic. It was Jasper. I couldn’t deny it as I watched him sleep surrounded by the things in life I knew he held most dear. His favorite books, photos of his brother, mother, a few friends. Little knickknacks and keepsakes scattered among the books, things that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone, but I was certain each held a story or a moment that Jasper treasured.
How I envied the ones who had lived a moment with Jasper that he’d deemed important enough to capture for eternity in his alcove.
He sighed deeply, causing me to
think he was about to wake, but he only shifted silently and remained dreaming.
Maybe I should’ve woken him up, but I couldn’t. Creepy staring or not. He positively glowed in the moonlight. But it wasn’t simply the moonlight.
He was a marvel, and how unreal it would be that the man who I’d shared my first experience with, would be this man. A man of books, stories. A man who’d come through dark and scary days and yet remained tender and kind. A man who fought so much smarter and more effectively than myself. My fists on that boy’s father had done no good. The kid still died, and I’d lost everything. Jasper? With open arms and ears, he was changing life after life after life.
I supposed that made sense. It seemed to be what the man did. He’d changed my life seven years ago. And now, somehow, by listening to my story, he’d changed my life again.
Suddenly he jerked and sat straight up.
Shit, probably thought I was Neal. “It’s just me, Jasper. You’re safe.” I tried to make my whisper as soothing as I could.
He looked up at me with wide, startled eyes. They shifted almost instantly, his gaze growing soft.
We didn’t speak, just studied each another.
And whether it was magic or not, I wasn’t sure, but an awareness began to grow. Similar to the heat that had arced between us since I’d stepped into Lavender Pages—since he’d entered the sauna seven years ago—but different. Once again, softer in some way.
He was so beautiful. And more importantly, so Jasper.
Unable to stop myself, I reached out and stroked the back of my fingers over his cheek. “May I kiss you?”
I’d never asked permission to kiss anyone before. Ever. My heart paused as it waited for his answer, needing desperately.
Jasper sucked in a shaky breath and then nodded against my touch, his scruff scraping into the silence.
The beating of my heart returned, choosing a new rhythm, and I took Jasper’s face in my hands, his beautiful, life-changing face, and I kissed him.
He sighed into the kiss, his body stiffening as he fully woke and then relaxing once more.
His hands traveled up the back of my triceps and gripped my shoulders, pulling me deeper into him.
My entire body exhaled with the kiss, and not breaking contact, I shifted, lifting myself up so I straddled him, the two of us barely fitting in his cozy nook. I let my hands travel from his face, over his nape, and then down his back so I could pull him to me.
Jasper sighed again, his lips parting and beckoning me to enter.
I did. My tongue tasted his lips and then found his, caressing over the soft warmth of him.
His hands roamed languidly over my back as I curled over him, as our mouths continued their slow exploration. As the shame, disappointment, and failures that came before faded away. As they became nothing more than the steppingstones that led me to this moment.
I’d been wrong. This was my first kiss. Not the ones I’d given to women, or Chelsea. Not the ones I’d given the countless men since my fall, not even the one I’d shared with Jasper, though it had been a glimpse.
This was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Maybe Jasper had tasted it before, maybe in the pages of one of his books if nowhere else. But for me, it was a revelation. A heat that was warm and soft, healing. Lust that called out to his soul instead of grasping at his body. A kiss that whispered his name and echoed my own.
It was a kiss with someone I knew, truly knew—the number of days wasn’t important. A kiss with someone who knew me.
The kiss broke finally, and I lifted slightly, my back aching at the extended time spent in such a curved, cramped position.
In the soft light of the alcove, the golden glow from the streetlamps below and the silver stream from the starlight above, our eyes searched each other’s, and there was more confirmation of what I’d already felt. More magic. There were no promises of time nor future. No commentary on what came before or what would come after. Just a recognition of that moment, of each other. That we each saw who the other was and we found it beautiful.
Jasper’s fingers trailed over my face, tracing my brows, smoothing over my cheekbones and caressing my beard. His lips curved into a contented smile, pressed quickly and softly against mine as his fingertips trailed down my neck, over my Adam’s apple, and dipped to the top button of my shirt.
I straightened further as he unhooked button after button. At long last, he slid his palms over my stomach, over the planes of my chest and up to my shoulders. As the kiss before, the feel of his skin was a release. A permission to breathe, and I sank into the sensation of his exploration of my body. I let my head fall back, dropped my hands to my sides and got lost to the swirls of his touch, every new path his hands made bringing me further and further to life. Then he lifted them to my shoulders again, slid the shirt over them, and it fell free. I looked down at him once more.
He smiled softly, knowingly, and his hand slid down my arm, into mine, and he tugged ever so slightly, pulling subtly toward his bedroom.
I moved off him, managing to lift myself out of the alcove without tripping while still holding his hand.
Jasper slid out of the alcove as well, met my gaze, almost nervously… almost, and then led the way.
Once we entered his bedroom, Jasper closed the door, and released his grip. He walked over to his dresser, opened a drawer, removed a couple of things and placed them on the bedside table. He flicked on the lamp, quickly lowering it to a barely there glow.
I knew what the items were even before he’d turned on the light. The condom and lube were nothing more than an extension of the kiss.
The rest of our clothes were shed. Buttons and hooks unfastened, zippers released. Garments pulled away and stepped free of.
We angled slightly so the glow of the lamp illuminated us both, so our eyes could delight as our hands explored each other’s bodies.
Our time together a few nights before had been in the dark, and I’d thought, or at least part of me had thought, that I was with a stranger. But now, though older, more filled out, more solid and strong, I could see the man I’d been with all those years ago. He’d been lovely then, more pretty than anything else, but now, he was simply beautiful.
Rising on tiptoe, he slipped one hand behind my neck and pulled me down to a kiss, just a touch harder and more insistently than before, and then lowered himself to the bed, taking me along with him.
Though my body was so much longer and wider than his, as his legs wrapped over my hips and my arms slipped around his back, we fit perfectly together. And if hands traveling over each other’s bodies had been a bit of magic, it was nothing compared to the melding of flesh against flesh. To the slow and steady rhythms as we rocked gently, as our cocks, slick and wet, slid against each other, as our tongues continued their explorations, as I crushed him even tighter to me.
When the moment came, it arrived softly—an ache, a pleasant burn in my cock, in my gut, in the way Jasper’s fingers dug tighter into my muscles. We broke silently apart long enough for Jasper to grab the lube, for me to unsheathe the condom.
Moments later, Jasper’s legs around my hips once more, I lined myself up, met his gaze, and pushed in slowly.
He sucked in a sharp breath, then his smile grew.
The night ebbed in slow motion. Everything soft and quiet. Shaky breaths, trembling pants, and long strokes that seem to go on indefinitely.
Our kiss continued, my body enfolded in the embrace of his legs and clinging hands. I slid my arms around Jasper’s back once more and enveloped him again. Our rhythm remained slow and steady as I sank into him over and over, his tightness squeezing and caressing, feeling the stretch of his body as I entered deeper and deeper.
Never breaking his grip, Jasper built his own rhythm as he moved against me, rocking as I filled him, his erection thrusting against my stomach.
When he came, his orgasm spilled damp warmth between us as he cried out softly into my mouth and tightened around my
length.
Never releasing him but breaking our kiss, my own climax arrived with a couple more thrusts. I stiffened, arching my back as the electricity detonated then gradually began to fade, and I sank against him.
When we slept, Jasper was wrapped in my arms, his back pressed into my chest, and my body curled around him. Even in his sleep, a happy, contented hum seemed to radiate from his body.
A similar strum filled me. And when I finally drifted off, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t alone.
Fifteen
Jasper
The alarm woke me out of a dead sleep. I sat straight up, ready to attack if Neal was in the room.
Because that would work. He could subdue me with his little finger. But I was going to make sure that little finger didn’t come out unscathed.
“We’re fine.” A large warm hand smoothed over my back. “It’s just the alarm on your phone, not the security one.”
Despite my racing heart, I sank back into Russell’s touch and grinned sheepishly over my shoulder. “Sorry about that.” The sight of him in my bed, with most of his muscled, hairy body revealed by my attempted excavation of the sheets, made me pause. Nearly took my breath away. He was just so…. “You’re fucking beautiful.” I hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but they were true. Even so, Russell had freaked out the last time we’d woken up together. I probably shouldn’t push my luck. Though, the circumstances had been different from his point of view.
Russell’s lazy smile was both pleased and a little embarrassed. “I was thinking the same about you last night.” His hand left my back and roamed over my shoulder, then stroked my cheek. “And right now, for that matter.” He glanced at the bedside table. “You want to get that, or should I?”
The Alcove (Lavender Shores Book 7) Page 17
