“Liam,” Manny said my name gently.
“It doesn’t matter. My car is getting fixed today and then I’ll be leaving.” As I said the words, they tasted like acid, and I realized with an acute flare of pain in my chest… I didn't want to leave.
Shit.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go home, I really just didn’t want to leave Vermont. I didn’t want to leave Burlington. I didn’t want to leave Jasper. But that was a useless want because Jasper wanted me gone. Or he needed me gone. I wasn’t sure which and it really didn’t matter.
“Oh,” Manny said softly, my silence speaking louder than anything I could have said.
“I’ve gotta go,” I mumbled.
“Liam.”
“I’m fine. I need to go,” I said. “Thank you for letting me know about my dad.”
I ended the call before I had to listen to another sympathetic syllable out of his mouth. I dropped the phone onto the couch and turned around, folding my arms over the back of the couch and staring out the window.
19
Jasper
The sheets were warm beneath me. I didn’t know what had possessed me to come upstairs while Liam was in the shower. It wasn’t like I was going to join him, but I was sure he would have let me if I’d asked. If I’d wanted.
You do want, my subconscious muttered, and I turned away from the bathroom, focusing instead on the scarce furnishings around my bedroom. My house used to be home, and I understood that Michael dying didn’t make it any less a home than it was before, that throwing away shit he bought that I hated didn’t somehow delete him from the memory of the wood, but it hadn’t felt like home to me in years.
I’d sat on the bed while he showered, staring at the door and fighting back a surge of surprise when he went downstairs instead of coming through the other door and into my room. But why would he come into the bedroom? It wasn’t his. He hadn’t been invited. And then I listened to him talk in hushed tones on his phone before fading out of ear shot. I wondered who he'd been speaking to…obviously someone I didn’t know, someone I’d probably never know.
I remembered the way Liam had looked the night before when he told me how he’d come to own his guitar, and the way his entire face always looked like it was a flicker away from frowning… until he started playing the instrument. When Liam played guitar, it was like he became a completely different person, a happier and calmer version of himself that didn’t need to hide behind flirty fingers and innuendo. I doubted he realized exactly how bare his playing made him, but I didn’t want to tell him. After all, there was only a handful of hours left for us.
After he’d gone silent, I called out to him, “Are you off the phone?”
“Were you eavesdropping?” he hollered back.
I stood, taking a step toward the door to go to him.
“No. No. I just heard you talking.”
“I’m not on the phone anymore.”
“Would you come up here real fast?” I shifted and sat back down on the bed. “There’s something I want to show you.”
I opened the drawer of my nightstand and pulled out a picture frame that I’d shoved into the drawer years before. Looking at pictures of Michael, of our life together, had been the hardest part for so long after he passed. But I’d started to look again, to remember in a fond way, not a painful one. The last time I’d looked at this picture was the day I met Liam, right before I pulled the sheets off the bed and hauled them to the garbage.
I clutched the picture in my hands, the corners of the frame cutting into my clammy palms. Liam climbed the stairs, the third one from the top moaning under his weight, and then he rounded the corner toward my bedroom. He hesitated in the hallway, just on the outside edge of the door frame. His stare dragged over me, to the frame, to the rest of the bedroom that I was sure left a lot to be desired.
“You can come in,” I said.
Liam stepped over the threshold and gave another look around the room, not coming any closer to me. He looked like a deer, all wide blue eyes laced with equal parts fear and interest.
“I’ve seen your room before,” he blurted, twisting his mouth and looking down at the floor.
“Oh? When?”
“When you went to pick up my car,” he said. “I looked around. I didn’t touch anything. I just…” Liam snapped his mouth closed and made a loose circle with his hand in the air.
“It’s fine.” I swallowed and moved the picture to one hand, patting the bed beside me with the other.
Liam closed the space between us and sat down, needing to jump a little to reach the height of my mattress. He scooched in and settled, the only thing between us, my hand on the comforter.
“What’s up?” he asked, holding his hand out expectantly.
I handed him the picture and his expression faltered, then fell.
“Is this your husband?” Liam traced his finger over the shape of Michael’s jaw and into his hairline.
“Michael,” I rasped, his name sounding foreign on my tongue after only saying it to myself for so many years.
“Where is he?” Liam asked the question I’d been avoiding answering for the past week.
“Dead.” I cleared my throat. “He died.”
“Shit.” Liam’s fingers tightened around the frame.
“It was a subarachnoid hemorrhage,” I said, before he could ask. “He just…”
“You don’t need to tell me all this.”
Liam set the photo in his lap and grabbed my hand, then seemed to think better of it, picking the picture up and fidgeting with the stand on the back.
“You told me something last night. I wanted to tell you something today.”
It was a bit of the truth.
“I told you about a guitar I stole.” He offered me a weak laugh.
“You’ve clearly never watched yourself play.”
“What?” Liam blinked and looked up at me.
“Nothing. That’s…that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
“What did you want to talk about?”
“I just wanted to tell you. To show you.”
From Liam’s hands, Michael’s eyes sparkled up at both of us, and I could hear Devon in my head.
“What was he like?” Liam asked. “If you wanted to talk about him. You don’t have to.”
“The opposite of you,” I answered with a soft laugh. Liam handed me the picture and I tucked it back into the drawer. “Michael was a dreamer, though.”
“Do you think I’m not?”
“Not in the way he was. Michael wanted and he waited. You clearly don’t wait. You take the things you want, or you find a way to.”
Liam reached up and cupped my face in his hand, his thumb stroking across my cheekbone.
“Is that what you think I do?” Liam’s lashes fluttered and the blacks of his pupils nearly obscured his bright blue irises.
“Isn’t it?”
Liam’s mouth was on mine before I finished asking the question. The kiss was rough, but chaste. A press of closed lips against closed lips that disappeared as fast as it had arrived.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, licking his lips and looking away. “That wasn’t appropriate.”
“It was… it was fine. Better than.” The muscles in my neck were strung tight and I could feel myself growing flustered, growing aroused. “I didn’t…I liked it.”
Liam’s body swayed, leaning in and pulling away all at once, then he surged forward, pressing our mouths back together with exponentially more intent than before. His tongue dragged across the seam of my lips and I opened for him, falling back onto the bed and taking him with me.
His hands turned wild after that, dragging under my clothes, clawing at my skin as he made quick work of devouring my mouth. A hand down my pants had a moan tearing out of my throat. I arched, back nearly breaking for how badly I wanted him. Liam tore our mouths apart and pressed our foreheads together, his hand still tight around my quickly growing erection.
&nbs
p; “Tell me I can,” he whispered, breath coming in harsh pants against my damp lips.
“I don’t… have anything.”
Liam sat up, his cheeks as pink as the patchwork pieces of the quilt beneath us. He exhaled a rough breath and looked over his shoulder toward the door.
“I do,” he said, gaze flickering back at me. “Will you change your mind by the time I get back? I mean, if you do, it’s fine. I don’t… I want you, but I don’t care. I mean I do…”
“Liam.” I cut him off by taking my cock out of his hand and giving a stroke from root to tip. “Go.”
Liam scrambled off the bed, landing on Gus, who let out an annoyed bark. I listened to him run down the stairs, something fell over, probably his guitar judging by the sound it made, a muttered curse, a zip, then furious footfalls and he was back, on top of me taking my dick out of my hand.
“Jasper,” he whispered, pressing a kiss against the corner of my mouth. “I feel like I’ve wanted you my whole life.”
It was a romantic sentiment that I couldn’t offer him in return, so instead I grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. The rest of our clothes followed, and then a long forgotten slippery wetness pressed between the cheeks of my ass.
“We don’t need to if you’re not ready,” Liam said, his entire body swaying, eyes hooded.
“I am.”
His fingers pressed into my body and there was no stopping the cry that escaped my mouth. Before I could be embarrassed at the noise, Liam stole it with a kiss, easing his fingers deeper inside of me until I could feel his knuckles pressed against my ass cheeks. He worked me like that, with slow and steady twists of his wrist until my entire body had slicked with a desperate sweat.
All the while he kissed me, cooing sweet words of affection against my mouth as he did unspeakable things with his hand between my legs. My cock pushed against our stomachs, slicking a clear line of precum with every drag of his body against mine. Maybe it was because it had been so long since I’d been with another man or maybe it was because it was Liam, I didn’t know, but my entire body felt like a stretched guitar string ready to snap.
“More,” I managed to push the word out on a breath. “More, please.”
Liam nodded, grabbing the condom from wherever he’d dropped it and tearing it open. With a heavy stare, I watched him roll the latex down his length, his erection straining proudly. He slicked his hand with lube, coated the length of his dick and notched the head against the place he’d just been.
“Jasper,” he said my name like a question, and I hooked my hand around the back of his neck and hauled him down so our noses rubbed together.
“I want you.”
Liam braced himself against the bed and eased his hips forward, the widest part of his cock breaching my ass with a sharp burn.
“Are you okay?” he asked, stilling above me.
“Liam.” I exhaled. “I’m not a virgin. It’s just been awhile.”
Liam’s eyes rolled back in his head and he pushed forward, spearing me apart with his cock. I bent my legs and made room for him, and Liam shifted, cradling my face in his hands. A move far more affectionate than the state of our relationship called for, but I didn’t have the ability to tell him it wasn’t important. That it wasn’t necessary.
“Jesus,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss against my lips. “Jesus, Sparky. Look at you.”
I swallowed, and Liam pulled out slowly. The drag of his cock against the muscles inside of my ass ignited heat that spun outward like a sparkler. I fisted the sheets and breathed through the burn, through the pain, and when he fucked back into me, the pleasure.
Above me, Liam shuddered. I pried my fingers out of the bedding and reached for him, daring to test the feel of his skin against mine. His body was slim and soft, burning with want and sweat. I closed my eyes. Dragging my hands around his waist to the small of his back, up his spine to his shoulders, I pulled him deeper into me. Liam groaned and dropped his head into the crook made by my neck and my shoulder, still moving. His body undulated, rolling against me and through me, and my fingers slipped against the angles of his back as I tried to hold on.
I’d been wrong about Liam before. I thought this could be easy, thought this could be a fling, but as he reached between our bodies and grabbed my cock, as he whispered pleas against my ears to let him make me come, to let him make us feel good, I wasn’t so sure. I came apart beneath his fingers, against his mouth, and when he milked my orgasm with those long and skilled fingers of his, I knew everything had changed.
20
Liam
Coming inside of Jasper was better than anything I’d ever felt in my life.
Well, coming into a condom inside of him.
But fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
Jasper’s legs trembled, and I smoothed my fingers over the coarse and curly hairs on his thigh, straightening his legs to lay flat. Once he settled, his face flushed and eyes closed, I pulled out, carefully removing the condom. I took it into the bathroom, tied it off, and tossed it into the trash can, then took a breath and studied myself in the mirror.
I didn’t know what it was about this place or that man, but I was out of sorts and I didn’t know which way was up. The call about my dad had not helped things. I pulled a washcloth out from under the counter and turned on the hot water. Absentmindedly, I ran my hand back and forth under the tap while I waited for it to warm up. An unexpected pang of guilt crested over me, and I closed my eyes, wringing the cloth together under the water until it was wet.
I knew what Jasper had just done with me was a big deal for him. I’d fucked a lot of people in my life and generally approached sex with a fairly casual outlook, but that…
I turned off the water and padded back into the bedroom. Jasper hadn’t moved an inch, and I settled a hand on the top of his thigh to let him know I’d returned.
“Are you okay?” I asked, swiping the cloth over the sticky pools of cum on his stomach.
He nodded.
“I mean like, okay okay.” I gently wiped between his legs, then took the cloth back into the bathroom and tossed it into the sink. When I made it back to the bed, Jasper had moved into a sitting position.
“I’m good, Liam. I promise.”
“I think the timing might have been shit,” I muttered, picking my jeans out of the pile of clothes on the floor of Jasper’s bedroom.
“It’s fine,” he said again.
“I…” I ran my hand through my hair and shoved my limbs awkwardly into the rest of my clothes.
“You.” Jasper stroked his fingers through his beard, his head tilted back against the wall and his eyes closed.
I chuckled, throwing a smirk at Jasper, who still lounged in bed fully naked and looking happier than I’d ever seen him.
“You look like you’ve been thoroughly fucked,” I said.
He slowly blinked his eyes open, a lazy smile settling on his face. “So I have.”
“You should do it more.” I threw his clothes onto the bed. “It’s a good look on you.”
The smile that had peeked out from beneath his beard faltered, and he leaned forward, pulling his underwear up his legs and dressing in silence.
I wanted to have more time to enjoy the way it felt to spear Jasper open with my cock, to watch the way his skin prickled and the way his jaw slackened when he came, but the guilt of the things hidden weighed heavier than it ever had before. I sighed and grimaced, glancing longingly at the bed before taking a step toward the door.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“About?” Jasper climbed off the bed and pulled his shirt back over his head and, God, he was a fucking handsome beast of a man. I shoved my hands into my pockets to stop from reaching for him, to stop from pushing him back onto the bed and fucking him until we both forgot our names.
“Can you just..” I gestured toward the stairs then headed down them.
Gus was curled on the couch, eyes closed and pa
ws tucked beneath his body. I sat down beside him and pulled my phone off the charger while I waited for Jasper to come down. The screen lit up, revealing the one thing I’d been dreading the most.
A missed call from my dad’s office.
The stairs creaked and I looked up, taking comfort in the sleepy way Jasper lumbered down the stairs. I palmed my phone and stood, giving him a pretend smile.
“I need to make a call real fast.” The words didn’t shake as I said them, and I held my phone up. Thankfully, Jasper was still too sex hazed to see the way my hand trembled, and I snuck past him and slipped through the kitchen and into the garage before he made it to the couch.
I closed the garage door behind me and groaned, dropping my head back and staring up at the splintered wooden beams of the ceiling. God, Jasper’s house was gorgeous. A testament to the tenacity and love that his family had shared for generations. The way the people who came before him had built a strong enough foundation for Jasper to always be safe, to always feel loved and unafraid of who he was and the things he wanted.
I was so jealous.
I hit the call button before I lost my nerve and my dad’s secretary, Cory, answered on the first ring.
“Congressman Luckett’s office.”
“It’s Liam,” I said quietly.
“Ah. Junior.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Well,” Cory chuckled. “You are.”
“I’m more than just a diminutive copy of my father, you know.”
“Sadly, yes,” he agreed. “I’m patching you through. Your father is eager to speak with you.”
The line beeped and I sat down on the stairs, staring at the lines and angles of the Mustang that looked like it hadn't even been thought about in a lifetime and a half, and then as the call reconnected, I realized.
The car had to be Michael’s.
“What are you doing in Vermont?” my dad’s booming baritone landed against my ear and I couldn’t stop myself from wincing and tucking in on myself.
Daybreak Page 13