Daybreak

by Kate Hawthorne

  I supposed that was all I needed to know.

  This wasn’t…

  This wasn’t going to be the next big thing. Liam was not going to be the second love of my life. It was okay for me to be attracted to Liam and not want to have a relationship with him. He was good looking, and he was young, and just because being in a relationship was all I’d known, didn’t mean that’s what I needed to know.

  I groaned, thinking about all the things I did need, the things I wanted.

  Behind me, the door opened and footsteps came softly across the sidewalk, then Liam’s warm body landed beside me on the bench. He wiggled around, hauling his shitty West Coast winter jacket up over his shoulders.

  “You left,” he said, no accusation, just a sad resignation. “Was it bad?”

  “No,” I answered.

  It hadn’t been bad. It had been good. Too good. Watching Liam’s fingers twist and bend over the frets of the guitar as he sang a song I’d never heard before had been agony because it had sent my mind spinning in a thousand different directions. And then Emmett and Tai had come at me with their questions that I didn’t have answers for, and it had all been too much.

  “Why did you leave then? Did you like the song?” He shivered.

  “It was nice.”

  “Compared to the original?”

  “I haven’t heard the original,” I told him.

  Liam turned, giving me a doubtful look. His eyebrows pressed together and his mouth twisted into a grimace. “Really?”

  Before I could stop myself, I reached up and dragged my thumb up the bridge of his nose, trying to smooth out the wrinkles that had formed there.

  It worked.

  Liam’s expression immediately morphed into one I recognized—shock—then a quick shift to trepidation.

  “Sorry.” I pulled my hand away, but I noticed the way Liam chased after my touch, his body leaning closer to mine.

  “You’ve really never heard ‘I Really Like You’?” he asked.

  “Really,” I said.

  “Do you know who Carly Rae Jepsen is?”

  I shook my head.

  Liam still leaned in, his breath visible between us as he exhaled. He repeated some of the lyrics to me, his voice lifting as he quietly sang the high parts. I closed my eyes and listened to him, and I didn’t startle when his hand landed on my thigh. Liam had delicate hands with long fingers and I was aware of the way they wrapped around me, flexing into my muscles.

  He kept singing until the song was over, and neither of us moved. His hand had settled and I didn’t even feel the weight of it. I could feel his breath, the way it landed between us, the way it smelled like cinnamon and spice and wine.

  “That was good,” I told him. I shifted, and he moved his hand. I became aware of it again, like his presence and touch had been renewed and pushed into the front of my mind.

  “You don’t strike me as the type to enjoy being around people,” he observed. His middle finger twitched against me.

  I huffed out a quiet laugh. “Not so much.”

  “This isn’t your scene, is it?”

  “No,” I answered. “It was nice before. At home.”

  “Just you and me on the porch?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “Just you and me here,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Jasper.” His voice sounded closer, or maybe just more insistent.

  I opened my eyes and stared back into his blue sky colored irises. In the darkness of the street, they practically glowed. I was utterly and completely transfixed.

  “Jasper,” he said again.

  “Liam.”

  At the sound of his name, his shoulders shook and he broke our stare, sucked in a deep breath and looked back up at me, the blue of his eyes nearly obscured by his dark pupils.

  “I would really like to kiss you.” The words left his mouth so softly, I almost missed them in the wind.

  “What?”

  Those wrinkles reappeared between his eyebrows, but he smiled. “Can I kiss you?”

  This was it.

  This was my opportunity to back up the things I’d told myself at home in the shower, the things I’d told myself just minutes before on the bench alone. It was okay, and it was time, and I wanted this. I really wanted it, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to have it? He didn’t ask me for anything more than a kiss. I could do a kiss.

  “Yes,” I said, and before I could think about the repercussions of the answer, Liam closed the space between us.

  He used my leg to leverage himself, pushing down and raising himself up toward my mouth. He hesitated for the slightest moment, our lips so close to touching I could taste his wine on my tongue. I knew he was giving me an out, a last chance to change my mind. But with him so warm and so ready, I didn’t want to. I closed the space, pushing our mouths together, and his tongue darted out, licking against the seam of my lips until I opened for him. Liam’s other hand raised and he cupped the back of my neck, holding me still and steady, and then he kissed me.

  Fuck, did Liam ever kiss me.

  It wasn’t rushed or urgent. There was no frantic desperation in his touch, only a calm and calculated assault that had me unraveling into a tangled mess beneath his hand. He pulled back for breath and I gasped for air, dipping my head down and pressing our foreheads together. I could taste Liam in my mouth, and between my legs, my cock throbbed in the confines of my pants.

  “Damn, Sparky,” he whispered, “you sure know how to kiss a man.”

  “Liam,” was all I could say, his name a mix of need and confusion, but he leaned back in and crushed our mouths together, kissing me until I had no doubt left about where I was and what I wanted.

  I reached for him, threading my fingers into his hair and holding him steady, taking control of the kiss. The shift in power had Liam groaning into my mouth and I hated that we were in public. I hated that I couldn’t take him to a bed, or a couch, or anywhere more private.

  “Anyone can see,” I said, working myself out of his arms and straightening up. I tried to adjust my jacket, my pants, but it was no use.

  “We can leave,” he offered.

  With the space between us, Liam shivered, and I recognized the familiar pink cheeks that came from being outside for too long in the winter.

  “We should,” I agreed, “but Liam…”

  I stopped myself, reaching for him as he stood. The fly of his jeans was at my eye-level and it was impossible to not notice the bulge there, the way his cock had hardened and pushed at the denim. I flexed my fingers, instinctively reaching, but made fists and balled my hands together in my lap instead of touching him.

  “I know,” he said, setting his hand on top of my head. He petted my hair and took a breath.

  “What do you know?” I asked, blinking up at him.

  “You’re not ready. It’s okay.”

  “That’s… that’s not it,” I told him. “That should be it, but it’s not.”

  “What then?”

  “This can’t be a thing.”

  Liam cocked his head to the side and answered with a small laugh. “I’m not from around these parts, remember? I have a lot of places left to see before I go home.”

  "Okay,” I said, conceding to so many things all at once.

  “Are you ready to get out of here?”

  The thought of going back inside and facing Emmett was enough to have me second-guess the plan. I didn’t want to explain, nor did I want them to gloat.

  “I don’t know what to tell Emmett and Tai,” I admitted.

  “You don’t have to tell them anything,” Liam said. “They’re smart enough to know.”

  “I don’t think that’s better?” I scrubbed my hands down the front of my face.

  “I’ll go get my guitar,” Liam said. “And tell them they can talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Also not better,” I muttered at Liam’s back as he headed into the bar.

  I stood up and cleared my throat, loo
king down Church Street like I would find an answer there. Of course, I didn’t and Liam was back before I had too much time to think about what had happened and what it meant. Before I could think about what would happen later.

  I paced the sidewalk in front of the bar for what felt like a lifetime, then the doors opened. A wave of heated air rushed onto the street and Liam was there, backlit with an aura of warm light circling around him like a halo. He didn’t stop, didn’t wait, just adjusted his guitar on his shoulder and walked past me toward the corner. He’d turned, almost vanishing out of sight by the time I shook myself out of my haze and jogged after him.

  Liam stood at the passenger side of my truck and I unlocked the doors from the edge of the lot. He climbed in and set his guitar in the back seat and he’d buckled up by the time I reached the door. Neither of us said a word when I turned on the truck, but Liam cast me an easy glance, a hint of a smile dancing across his lips. I caught the fire in his eyes as I pulled past a street lamp, and then I turned my attention to the road.

  The drive home, I could almost feel him vibrating beside me, the tension and the desire equally matched in my own bones. It was as if the kiss had opened a floodgate. Somehow, once I’d given myself permission to move on, permission to want, there was nothing left to stop me from taking everything I wanted.

  12

  Liam

  This was going to happen.

  The garage was cold, but the heat radiating off Jasper’s body would have been enough to keep the entire house warmer than the wood stove of his. In the laundry room, I toed my sneakers off and continued into the sitting room. I propped my guitar against the corner of the bay window and turned expectantly.

  I had no idea why I was still nervous. This was what I wanted, what I’d been angling for since my damn car had deposited me right on this man’s couch, but the look in Jasper’s eyes when I caught his stare had me taking a step back.

  Normally a little aloof and very grumpy, Jasper looked like the strings holding him together had unraveled completely. He shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it on the floor, continuing toward me with a deep hunger painted across his face. I let out a trembling breath, wondering if I’d gotten in over my head with this man.

  Jasper reached me, sliding his arm around my waist and hauling me against his chest. I startled, bracing myself against his pecs and staring up at him. I could feel his cock against my stomach, hard and eager, pressing against me.

  “Jasper,” I breathed out his name.

  His mouth pulled into the hint of a frown and his hold on me loosened.

  “Did you change your mind?” he asked.

  “What?” I balked. “No. Not even close.”

  “Then kiss me again,” he said. A plea.

  I slid my hands up his chest and twined my fingers together behind the back of his neck, tipping his face down toward mine. I pressed our mouths together, easy at first, but Jasper groaned against me, his cock twitched, and I was a goner.

  I pushed my tongue past his lips and acquainted myself with the topography of his mouth, my own cock leaking a wet puddle against my briefs. I tugged the side of his neck and turned him around, shoving him down onto the couch. We stopped kissing only long enough for me to move back to him. I straddled him, taking his face into my hands and crashing our mouths back together.

  “How much is too much?” I asked, sinking my teeth into his lower lip.

  For as much as I wanted Jasper, I knew this was a big deal for him. I didn’t want to rush him and I didn’t want him to wake up and regret anything. I didn’t want him to regret me.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, a flush creeping up his cheeks.

  “Talk me through it,” I said, tipping his head to the side and pressing a kiss against the spot beneath his ear. He groaned again, the sound vibrating through his whole body and mine. “Tell me what you like. What would make it good for you.”

  Jasper’s hands settled on my hips, squeezing and holding me tight. I continued to pay attention to the soft and delicate skin of his neck, thriving on every moan and whimper that tumbled out of his mouth.

  “I don’t know anymore,” he whispered.

  “That’s fine.” I kissed the shell of his ear. “We’ll figure it out together, then.”

  “Here?”

  I paused, breathing him in. He smelled like soap and sweat and the garage. It was a smell I could get used to, get lost in.

  “You tell me, Sparky.”

  “Here,” he said, voice rough.

  “I can work with that.” I unfolded myself from his lap and stood up, a few feet in front of him. I gave Jasper a long once-over, from his toes up to his knees, to the thick erection bulging between his legs and the lust-fueled look in his eyes. This man was a sight to behold and I couldn’t wait to take him apart.

  “Jasper,” I said, clearing my throat when I heard how hoarse and rough his name sounded against my tongue, “do you need to be in charge or…”

  “No,” he answered with a quick shake of his head. “You... you can.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t come in my pants. “Stand up then,” I said. “Come and help me get undressed.”

  I sighed when Jasper stood, his large body stretching and towering over me in a way I’d already grown accustomed to. He stepped toward me, raised his hands and fingered the lapels of my coat, then without a word, pushed it off my shoulders. It slid down my arms, landing in a pile on the rug with his earlier discarded jacket.

  He plucked the hem of my shirt between his fingers, breath hitching when his knuckles dragged across my stomach. Tentatively, he raised my shirt over my head and dropped it at our feet. He lingered there, with his hands at his sides and his stare intent on my collarbone.

  “Jasper,” I whispered, drawing his attention. “If you don’t touch me, I might die.”

  It was like a breeze at first, Jasper’s fingertips floating over my clavicle before they touched, and then his skin touched mine. His big hands closed around my shoulders and slid down to my arms, over my chest and lower. He popped the button of my jeans open with ease and pulled down the zipper. I wiggled my hips until my pants slipped down, and then Jasper hooked his fingers over the edge of the waistband of my briefs.

  He pulled them away from my body and down, just enough to expose my cock, which spasmed under the attention.

  “Shit,” he muttered, pulling his hands away.

  “Do you want to stop?” I asked, even though I prayed the answer was no.

  Jasper swallowed thickly and shook his head, his eyes trailing down my chest and settling on my cock.

  “Good,” I said. “Then, let’s get you out of some of these clothes before you start to feel overdressed.”

  I skated my hands up his chest and pushed his shirt over his head, revealing the broad muscles and coarse hair. I ran my fingers from nipple to nipple, and Jasper sucked in a sharp breath when I pinched one of the brown nubs between my nails.

  “You’re a sight,” I told him, hoping he believed it.

  I set to work on his pants, shoving them down and helping him step out, but I left his underwear on, even though his cock had already ruined them, having leaked a generous wet spot against the gray cotton.

  He shook his head and opened his mouth to protest, but I cupped him in the palm of my hand and his objection was lost in his throat.

  “Wait here,” I told him.

  I sat on the couch where he’d been. The cushions were still warm from him, and I reached over the side to dig a condom and lube out of my bag. Jasper had the courtesy to not look surprised that I traveled prepared. I set the supplies beside my leg and gestured for him to come closer.

  “I’ll snap you,” Jasper said, one eyebrow arched.

  “It would be worth it.” I reached out and curled my fingers around his waist. “Now do as I asked.”

  “Liam.” He flicked his stare up toward the ceiling, then diligently arranged himself on my lap. “When you talk like that.”
>
  “What about it?” I wrapped my arms around him and trailed my fingers down to the globes of his ass.

  “I like it,” he admitted.

  A surge of precum pooled in the slit of my dick and I tightened my hold on him.

  “Bend down here and kiss me,” I said, and he did.

  The move put his body right where I wanted him, and my fingers dipped inward, searching out the crack of his ass, the soft pucker of his hole. I pressed the pad of my finger against him, then kissed away his sound of surprise. Jasper moaned, a deep and guttural sound, then opened his mouth to me and rocked against my finger. The longer I kissed him, the more exasperated he became, pushing back against my touch, encouraging me to breach him.

  Normally I was a straight-to-the-point kind of guy, but something about taking Jasper apart by making him wait had me harder than I could remember being, so I teased him longer. With my mouth and my hands, I touched and tormented him until a sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead and he growled at me in threat.

  Jasper reached back and grabbed my hand, bringing it around to his face. He licked a hot stripe up the palm of my hand, from the heel to the tips of my fingers, then did it again and lowered both our hands between our bodies.

  “Please,” he rasped. “I need you to touch me.”

  I made a fist around his cock, and Jasper’s entire body trembled. His head fell forward on my shoulder and he rocked against me, pushing himself into the tight tunnel of my hand. He gasped and arched, and I flattened my palm against the center of his back, holding him up.

  “There you are,” I whispered, tipping my chin up so I could look at him.

  Jasper’s eyes were screwed shut, lines fanning out from the corners and betraying his age. For the first time, his jaw didn’t look like it was tightly set, but the muscles in his neck worked as I watched him try to bring himself under control.

  I knew by his expression that I wouldn’t need the lube, I wouldn’t need the condoms. I was going to bring Jasper around and bring him apart right here on a generations-old couch in the middle of his ancient farmhouse.