The Delicious Series: The First Volume

by Stella Starling

  His attempt at words dissolved into those delicious little sounds that Nick could live on, and he swallowed them like wine as he used his fingers. Jeremy was intoxicating, and Nick knew that even if he had him every day, he’d always want more. It wasn’t just his delectable body—although God, as Nick finally eased his way inside Jeremy’s tight entrance, he readily admitted that it was that, too—but it was the way every single thing about Jeremy felt like his perfect match. It was like they were a lock and a key, and all the things that had been sealed inside Nick—both love he hadn’t known the depths of and fears he’d never been able to let out—were finally freed, now that he’d found the one who could open his heart.

  “Nick,” Jeremy gasped, the word coming out more like a prayer as Nick moved within his body. “Yes… that’s… exactly… what I… needed.”

  Nick couldn’t look away. A warm flush crept up Jeremy’s chest, his lips falling open as he rocked underneath Nick. His words felt like they’d been plucked from the truest part of Nick’s soul.

  He was exactly what Nick needed.

  Would always need.

  He pushed J’s sleep mussed hair away from his face, cradling it between his hands, and captured his mouth again, needing to be joined with him in every way possible. From the moment Nick had first met Jeremy, he’d felt connected to him. But now—as he thrust into the perfect, gripping heat of J’s body, slow and deep, wanting to make it last—their physical connection felt like it went beyond the touch of their bodies.

  Beyond, even, the bond of their hearts.

  Nick wrapped his arms around Jeremy without letting their mouths part, gathering the man he loved against him tightly. He wanted to memorize every moment, didn’t want to miss a single thing. Not the joy-filled, playful sex that could keep them up all night or the almost desperate, needy fucking that spoke of their time apart, and definitely not this. This perfect moment of lovemaking that seemed to hold the promise of everything he’d ever wanted.

  Of forever.

  Nick’s arms were locked around Jeremy, he couldn’t have let go if he’d tried. He felt frozen, as if the moment had become timeless and nothing existed outside of the two of them. His whole world shrank, reduced to nothing more than the beat of Jeremy’s heart, the rhythm of his breath, the sweet tension building between them with every slow thrust. It was exquisitely unbearable, coiling and tightening and consuming him, and still, he never wanted it to end. But finally, when Jeremy’s body started to tremble in his arms, tightening around him, and J’s panting, gasping breaths turned into the low, urgent moans that told Nick he was on the edge—when Jeremy’s roaming hands clenched tightly on his ass, begging Nick without words to push him over it—Nick rose up on his knees, hooking J’s knees over his arms and grabbing onto his hips so he could drive into him.

  “Oh… God.” Jeremy’s head fell back as Nick thrust deep, filling him completely.

  Jeremy’s entire body shuddered in bliss as he found his release. It was the sexiest thing Nick had ever seen, and when J finally opened his eyes—still dark with their shared passion and brimming over with love—and smiled up at him, that was it. Nick came in a hot rush that blotted out his senses, left him floating, anchored to earth only by the man below him.

  He collapsed on top of Jeremy, rolling them both so that they stayed connected, and tucking him against his chest so that the moment didn’t have to end.

  “I want this all the time,” he said, the words slipping out without thinking.

  “Sex?” Jeremy asked, laughing breathlessly as he leaned forward to kiss him. “Mmmm. Me too.”

  “No, not sex,” Nick said. Then had to laugh at the look J gave him. “Okay, yes. Sex, too.” Although it had felt like much more than just that, and he could see the same thing in J’s eyes, despite his teasing.

  “Sex, too, and… what?” Jeremy asked, his tone softening as he traced a looping pattern on Nick’s chest with one finger.

  Nick hesitated, but there was no point in holding back. Even if he didn’t have an answer, he was done keeping his feelings inside.

  “I want this,” he said. “You. Here. I want you to stay. I know it’s not fair to say… I know it’s not an option right now—” He swallowed, squeezing his eyes closed in denial. But that wasn’t going to do any good. “—but I want it anyway. I want to be with you, always, and I can’t stand the thought of you leaving again. Maybe I can fly back out to Tulsa in a few—”

  Jeremy’s excited rabbit squeak cut him off, and even though his eyes welled up with tears, he was smiling—beaming—his radiant expression sparking hope to life in Nick’s chest, even though he had nothing to base it on.

  Nothing but J.

  “Pumpkin…”

  J dashed his tears away, crashing his mouth into Nick’s as he tried to kiss him, talk, and laugh, all at the same time.

  “Dammit, Nick, you said I could go first next time.”

  “You can go first, Pumpkin,” he said graciously, as his boyfriend did a fair imitation of bouncing with excitement. Nick still didn’t have a clue what had caused it, but Jeremy was glowing again—almost buoyant—and even without knowing the cause, his obvious joy uplifted Nick’s heart.

  “Okay,” Jeremy said, biting his lip. Not the nervous way he did sometimes, but as if he wanted to hold in more of the bubbling laughter that had spilled out of him a moment ago. “Nick, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, J,” Nick said, raising an eyebrow as his lips twitched with amusement.

  “Stop interrupting.”

  Nick laughed, stealing a kiss, because he had to. “I thought you liked hearing it.”

  “I do, but it is My. Turn.” He emphasized the last two words by jabbing a playful finger into Nick’s chest, narrowing his eyes in an attempt to look serious. Fucking adorable. “So stop it.”

  “Stop telling you that I love you?” Nick asked, unable to resist needling him.

  Jeremy’s eyes narrowed even more.

  “You already said it, though,” Nick continued, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Again. How this incredible, beautiful man could take him from panting with need to feeling like his heart had wings in the space of a few minutes never ceased to amaze him. And damn, but it was fun to rile him up, too. “You said you wanted a turn to go first, J, and you did—you told me you loved me first this time—so now that that’s out of the way, I think I’m entitled to interrupt if I have something important to say. And telling you that I love you, too, is at the top of my list of important things.”

  “Telling you I love you is not what I’m using my turn for.”

  “Oh, so you don’t want to tell me that you love me, after all?”

  “Of course I do, Nick, but—”

  “Because if not, I can be the one to tell you.” The look on Jeremy’s face was priceless. “I don’t mind saying it again, J. I love—”

  “Nick,” Jeremy said, slapping a hand over Nick’s mouth. “Can I move in with you?”

  Nick froze.

  For a moment, it felt like his heart actually stopped, and then—when it started up again—it pounded so loudly that he couldn’t hear anything over the sound. He snatched Jeremy’s hand off his mouth, searching his boyfriend’s eyes. Was this more of their teasing?

  Could Jeremy actually mean it?

  “I want this,” Jeremy said, gesturing between them. “I want to stay. I want to be with you, always, and I can’t stand the thought of leaving you again.”

  He’d repeated back Nick’s words, almost verbatim, but even though his lips had curved up on one side—letting Nick know it was intentional—J’s voice was steady. Sincere. Real. It wasn’t a joke.

  “Nick, do you want me to move to Seattle?”

  All the reasons it would be unfair to ask Jeremy to move crowded into Nick’s mind at once, but… that was the thing, wasn’t it? He wasn’t asking, Jeremy was.

  Nick smiled.

  Then he kissed his boyfriend.

  Then he laug
hed, feeling something shift inside him, rise up and soar with the promise of a future he wanted so badly he could taste it, but hadn’t been able to figure out how to make happen. But in the end, he hadn’t had to—not by himself—because he and Jeremy were in it together.

  “Is that a yes?” Jeremy asked, smiling with his whole body, as if—even though he’d asked—he was already 100% confident in Nick’s answer.

  “Yes,” Nick said, giving it to him anyway.

  Because he loved him, and he would keep loving him—keep giving him everything he asked for—for as long as Jeremy would let him. Jeremy hadn’t said why or how or what had changed, but those details could come later. For now, yes was enough.

  Jeremy loved him, and Nick had said yes, and the two of them together could do anything.

  Over, under, around, or through.

  Team Us for the win.

  Forever.

  Epilogue

  Jeremy, Fifteen Months Later

  Jeremy slipped out of bed quietly, only managing to restrain himself from waking Nick in one of his many favorite ways—seriously, the man was completely mouthwatering, and morning sex was definitely on Jeremy’s top ten list for favorite things to do with his boyfriend—because he knew he was running out of time. Christmas—their second one together—was less than a week away, and so far, Every Single Time he’d tried to sneak off and wrap Nick’s present, the man had managed to interrupt him.

  It was like a superpower.

  And okay, probably Jeremy could have managed to get it done at some point while Nick was away at the gym, but somehow that time always seemed to pass in a blur. Although fine, a big part of that was Jeremy’s tendency to lose track of time when he was writing, but that wasn’t the only factor. Even though he missed his friends back in Tulsa, he managed to keep his social calendar pretty full between Cash, Nick’s circle of friends, and the new ones he’d made at the rock-climbing gym Nick had helped him get a part-time job at.

  Jeremy grinned, secretly pretty impressed with himself for managing to conquer his fear of heights enough to actually become an instructor.

  It was totally J2oh of him.

  He peeked in at a sleeping Ava as he passed her room. Perfect. He’d managed to get up before both of them, a true Christmas miracle. He padded into his office, slipping on the glasses he’d left near his laptop the night before. His next book was due to the editor in just a few weeks, but for once, he was actually ahead of schedule.

  Although maybe he should just check to make sure that nothing had changed with his editor’s schedule due to the holidays… but no. If he opened his laptop, he was bound to get sucked down the rabbit hole of checking Just One More Thing, and then he’d never get Nick’s gift wrapped in time.

  But Kelley had promised to message him and let him know what the book club had thought of his last release. Maybe he should just check on that one thing, and then log off. In fact, he could probably multitask. It’s not like gift wrapping was an activity requiring 100% of his attention, right?

  He pulled the little box out of its hiding spot, deciding that multitasking was a good win-win solution. He’d just hunt up the tape and scissors while his Mac booted up, and then hope that the news was good. It should be. The book had gotten good reviews online, but… these were real people. Well, okay, fine. The online people were real, too, but they didn’t have faces. Well, okay, they probably did—God, he hoped so anyway, otherwise that was definitely not a good visual—but the point was, Real Live People had read the story that had started out as just an idea in his head, and then—eek!—sat around and talked about it in front of Kelley.

  Jeremy totally needed to hear every detail.

  Well, hopefully just the good ones.

  Hopefully there only were good ones.

  Oh, God. What if they’d hated it?

  His finger hovered over the keyboard, but then he remembered that he did not give in to fear, so he stabbed at the button to open his email.

  Relax. They didn’t hate it :-)

  Oh, thank God.

  He dropped into his office chair, the air whooshing out of his lungs in a relieved sigh, and silently thanked Kelley for knowing him well enough to give him the news straight up, in the subject line of the email.

  Not that he’d really thought they’d hate it. Nick had liked it, after all. But still, no matter how many good reviews he got, he always got tangled up in a bundle of nerves when someone new read his work.

  Well, someone new who wasn’t Nick. Nerves were definitely not a problem when Nick read—well, okay, heard—Jeremy’s stories.

  He grinned, kind of loving the fact that the only way to get feedback from his boyfriend was to read Nick his manuscripts out loud. Nick’s reading had actually gotten better over the last year or so, now that he was working with a specialist, but it would never come easily to him. Still, he was definitely Jeremy’s biggest fan… although Jeremy was never quite sure if that was because Nick liked his stories for themselves, or because Jeremy tended to enlist Nick’s help as his, um, “research assistant” when it came to plotting out the steamy bits.

  And, oh, God, reading those parts out loud was always… rewarding.

  “Will you make me chocolate-chip pancakes, Jeremy?”

  Ava’s voice startled that damn hare sound out of him, and he spun around in his chair, glad he hadn’t let himself get too lost in the thought of the steamy bits before she woke up. Still, best to keep his hands covering his lap for a moment. Before he could answer her, though, Ava’s eyes lit on the little box he’d been about to wrap.

  “Is that a present for me?” she asked, her morning sleepy face instantly replaced by gleeful anticipation.

  “No,” he said.

  Shit. He never was going to get it wrapped, was he? Well, actually, he could just do that now. He grabbed for one of the rolls of paper near his desk, cutting off a square of it and slapping it around the little box.

  “Where are the ones for me?” Ava asked, peering around the room but keeping her hands clasped tightly behind her back. They’d already had several discussions about not trying to find hidden presents, but as usual, she couldn’t seem to restrain herself from at least looking.

  “They’re hidden,” Jeremy reminder her, biting back a smile as he taped the paper up. Huh. Not great, but officially wrapped. Although maybe he should add a bow.

  “Can I have just one of them now?” she asked, giving him her patented irresistible puppy eye looks. “Pleeeeeeease, Jeremy?”

  “Not yet,” he answered. He’d built up immunity.

  She narrowed her eyes, doing another quick scan of the room, but not going so far as to start poking into anything. Smart girl. He might have had to pull out a tickle monster attack if she’d crossed the line.

  “What did you get me?” she finally asked. She flounced over to him and plopping down on his lap, adding an adorably imperious, “Spin the chair!”

  He did, grinning.

  “If I told you, it would ruin the surprise on Christmas morning, right?”

  “Christmas Eve! I’ll be at Mommy’s on Christmas morning, remember? So we get to open all mine on Christmas Eve.”

  “Okay, but the point still stands.”

  She crossed her arms, going into mini-courtroom mode. “I’m not sure it’s a valid one.”

  “I am,” he said, tweaking her nose.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  He narrowed his eyes.

  She narrowed hers even more.

  He wiggled his eyebrows.

  She giggled, officially giving him the win. Daily stare off standings, 1-0 for Jeremy… but that was likely to change before bed time. Somehow, Ava always came out ahead.

  “So, who is that present for? Daddy?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Jeremy said, giving her a little push off his lap so he could stand up. They did have bows, right? He thought Nick had bought some a few days before.

  “Can I see what it is?” Ava asked, trailing him around the room as he
looked for the bow box. “It’s not for me, so it wouldn’t ruin my surprise.”

  “Nope,” he said, grinning down at Little Miss Nosy Pants.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s already wrapped.”

  “Okay,” Ava said, giving in graciously. “Do you want to see the card I made for Daddy? I mostly used pictures instead of words, since they’re easier for him.”

  Jeremy bit back another smile. That was questionable. Ava’s drawings were still… sometimes hard to decipher. But still, he loved her easy acceptance of Nick’s disability. During the school year, they usually only had her on the weekends—the current Christmas break was a nice exception—and she’d taken to practicing her reading by doing it out loud with Nick. Although Nick did tend to get a little pouty when she wouldn’t read ahead, especially back when they’d been going through the Harry Potter books.

  Not that Jeremy could complain.

  Nick had been willing to go to great lengths to convince Jeremy to sneak in extra chapters, so that he could find out what happened next.

  Ava was already reading far above grade level, which wasn’t surprising. The girl was scary smart. The assessment she’d had before starting second grade had landed her in an advanced placement program, and she’d admitted when pressed that the work she’d been given back in Tulsa had simply bored her.

  Well, that and the fact that she took after Nick.

  Ava was a people person, and being uprooted in the middle of the school year and missing the friends she’d grown up with had taken a toll on her. Once they’d settled back in Seattle, Nick had taken a firm stand, making sure that—in addition to all the “enrichment activities” Heather was constantly lining up for her—she got enough time to just play with her friends and generally just be a kid.

  The truth was, Ava did thrive on being mentally challenged, but Nick was right, too. She also needed her downtime.

  Heather and Nick may not have been compatible as a couple, but between the two of them, Ava had a healthy fun-physical-mental life balance, in his opinion. And of course, she had Jeremy in her life, too. He liked to think that his contribution consisted mostly of making sure she got a healthy dose of chocolate in the mix, on top of all that other stuff. Honestly, her parents were both a little too obsessed with foods that did not contain sugar. If he hadn’t known it wasn’t possible, he’d almost think Ava had inherited her sweet tooth from him.