Lost in a Moment (Trials of Fear Book 4)

by Nicky James

  “Going through my stuff?” His eyes held a sparkle of curiosity, and I grinned.

  “Not my preferred reading material but at least I know you have a good stock of supplies.”

  “Be prepared I always say.” He winked and got up to search for what we needed.

  I crawled onto the bed and spent a minute removing my prosthesis. Beck watched me from the side of the bed, the hunger in his eyes almost as dangerous as my own.

  I didn’t know where his comfort level was at or if he had experience with anything anal. I wasn’t ignorant. I knew some women were open to the idea of a little ass play. The pensive look on his face gave nothing away.

  “Sit back against the headboard,” I demanded with a growl.

  He complied and dropped the lube and condom on a pillow beside him. I straddled his lap and crushed our mouths together again as his hands found my ass and kneaded it roughly. I wasn’t in an instructive mood, so I took the lube, prepared to coat a few fingers so I could prep myself, but when I grabbed the bottle, Beck caught my wrist.

  “Let me.”

  “You done this before?”

  He nodded and cracked the lid. “Just not with a guy.”

  Well, that answered that.

  I took hold of the headboard and balanced more of my weight on one knee while I lifted up so he had access. My dick bobbed, long, thick, and hard about five inches from his face. He stole a glance before looking away shyly as he focused on spreading the lube over his fingers.

  “Intimidated?” I asked.

  His gaze shot to mine, and he searched my face a second before shrugging. “Only when I consider that you’ll probably wanna stick that in me some day.”

  “I’ll make it good for you when I do. I swear it. I just can’t today.”

  “I know. I’m not sure I’m ready yet anyway.”

  He brushed a lubed finger over my crack, and I lost my train of thought, dipping my head, closing my eyes and groaning.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, drawing me back to the present as he nudged the tip of his finger inside me.

  “What? This right now? Fuck no. Feels good.”

  “No, I mean… you know. Getting fucked.”

  He pressed his finger in farther, and I rocked back against it, inviting it all the way inside my body.

  “Initially. But quickly pleasure joins the mix and starts taking over, and before you know it, you crave that bone-deep feeling of being caressed from the inside. It’s fucking glorious.” I paused, momentarily lost in bliss as he thrust that single digit in and out of my body. “There’s nothing quite like it.”

  I opened my eyes and peered down at Beck. He stared hungrily at my straining dick. When he licked his lips and darted his gaze up at me, I nodded. “Do it. Let me feel that mouth.”

  There was only a split second more hesitation, then Beck leaned in and flicked his tongue across my head. It shot an electric current over my body, and I gasped, digging my nails into the headboard when he did it again.

  “Fuck… Give me another finger.”

  He complied, and while he stretched me, he licked and suck experimentally, never taking more than the tip of my dick in his mouth, but it was enough to leave my mind in pieces.

  I didn’t think it was on purpose, but when he brushed my prostate, I nearly shot off the bed. My dick pulsed a spurt of precum onto his tongue, and he jerked back with wide-eyed surprise.

  I chuckled and tossed the condom between us.

  “Unless you want a mouthful, you better suit up because I’m gonna fucking lose it.”

  The flush in his cheeks spoke of his embarrassment. He tore the wrapper and rolled the condom on before coating himself in a generous amount of lube.

  “Hold yourself steady,” I instructed.

  He did, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His nerves were on the surface. Resting my forehead against his, I pressed down, just enough to line us up properly.

  “You ready? Because I’m not in the mood to be taken gently. I want you to fuck me like your life depends on it, got it?”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Believe it.”

  Bracing for the sting, I joined us, dropping onto his lap in one quick long glide. Beck cried out and caught my hips in a pinching hold, his head fell back on the headboard, and his mouth hung open.

  “Oh shit… you’re so fucking tight. Oh fuck… Holy fuck.”

  “Knees up. Heels on the bed. Fuck me, Beck. Now.”

  I took his mouth, and together we set a punishing pace that was uncoordinated and sloppy at first. Once we found a rhythm, it was exactly what I wanted. Blinding enough to make me forget the world and all the troubles I’d encountered since my accident. It was perfection.

  More than perfection… because it was Beck giving it to me.

  Digging his heels into the mattress, he met my every downward thrust. Our kisses were jarred and broken. Sweat prickled across our skin with the exertion. We melded together, fucking, panting, grunting, and taking all we needed from one another. Our skin slapped, our breathing became stilted. Beck trembled and clung with one hand on my neck, the other braced on the bed beside him giving him leverage for his upward thrusts.

  “Fuck… Gray…fuck…”

  His graveled words tore through me. He was close. I took myself in hand, jerking at the same speed as our bodies.

  Every negative swarming thought that had taken my brain prisoner earlier was gone. It was just Beck and me.

  His motions stuttered and faltered, then his cries filled the room as his body convulsed with release. The tendons in his neck stood out as he threw his head back in bliss, straining against the sheer power.

  Before he came down, I spilled over his chest with a roar. Pinching my eyes closed tight against the intensity, I trembled through each wave.

  The room buzzed. Silent but for our labored breathing. I couldn’t stop shaking with residual spasms.

  “Jesus. That was…” Beck snorted a burst of unwilling laughter against my shoulder. “I can’t believe that just happened.”

  I fell to the side, peeling us apart and let him take care of the condom as I lay against the headboard and caught my breath.

  “Was it okay?” I asked.

  “Okay? Are you shitting me? I’ve never fucked like that in my life. You’re a fucking animal.”

  It was my turn to laugh. I tilted my head to the side and peered at him. His face was slack, mouth smiling, eyes half-lidded, hair utterly disheveled. He looked wrecked—in a good way. Being there like that with him was a dream. One I never wanted to wake up from.

  Unfortunately, reality slowly returned. As I remembered what brought us to the bed in the first place, I sobered. I knew Beck wouldn’t let it go now. Not after tonight. Not when I’d had to call him to the hospital because the police wouldn’t release me otherwise.

  I’d fucked up. Big time.

  “What happened this afternoon?”

  And there it was. Plain, simple, and to the point. He wasn’t going to let me dance around it anymore.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I paused, digging deep for the words I knew I had to say. “Something keeps happening to me, and I’m not sure how to explain it.”

  “In light of what happened today, I think you need to try.”

  So I guessed this was the part where I openly admitted that I was losing my mind. If anyone was going to judge me, I knew it wouldn’t be Beck, so why was I struggling with it so badly?

  I blew out a breath and stared at the ceiling as though it held the answers. “It’s a little surreal, so I’m not sure it will make sense. Ever since I woke up in the hospital, I’ve had these moments where it seems as though time isn’t moving properly. I know how that sounds, but I can’t explain it any other way.

  “Sometimes it goes too fast, other times it goes so slow I’m convinced it’s stopped. It’s not just the concept inside my head either, it’s the physical world all around me. I have these episodes wh
ere everything starts racing. The world itself—and me included—is moving so fast, I can’t keep up. My body moves out of time with reality. I can’t anticipate the motion, and I fall. Or I just watch it all whiz by me and convince myself I’m losing my mind.

  “Other times, it’s like time stops altogether. Like the world is holding its breath. Sounds and movements and everything just ceases. Then I feel stuck in this place of non-existence, and I panic.”

  I shook my head at the ridiculousness of how it all sounded and sneaked a peek at Beck. He listened silently, worry splashed across his face.

  “It’s not constant,” I went on. “But it’s happening with more and more frequency, and I can’t seem to control it. I thought, maybe when I left the hospital it would stop, but it got worse. Then I thought if I stayed busy, got out of the house more, returned to work, something, it would go away…”

  “But it hasn’t,” Beck filled in when I paused.

  “They’re gonna fucking lock me up, Beck.”

  “They’re not. But I do think you need to make an appointment with this psychiatrist you saw in the hospital.”

  “Do you hear how screwed up it sounds?”

  “Would you rather wind up in jail?”

  I cringed as the memory of wailing on that clock at the dealership resurfaced. I’d been sitting in the waiting room, waiting my turn to see about getting alterations done to my truck. The ticking had resonated through me like an ice pick being dug under my skin. Louder with each passing minute. Then faster. Racing until time had skewed and warped, and I’d panicked because I was in public.

  The problem was, I’d lost all sense of myself in my quest to stop the ticking that had been raping my ears mercilessly. The roar of the constant, overlapping sounds had muted all sense of reasoning until I’d lost myself in a fit of rage. When I’d come back to myself, I was sitting in the middle of the floor with a thoroughly demolished clock underneath me and a bloodied fist.

  I stared at my fist, noting the dried blood and weeping wounds from being careless while we’d fucked.

  “The thing is,” Beck continued when I didn’t speak. “There is more going on than this skewed perception of time. Your nightmares are happening regularly, and you don’t do well in the dark, either.”

  “Way to strip me bare. So now I’m no better than a kid, hiding under his bed, afraid of the dark.”

  “I never said that. I think you’re having a traumatic response to your accident. If the lights go out, you relive it. You’re back there, under the house, stuck and helpless.”

  My chest pinched and released a hot flood of adrenaline into my veins. I couldn’t deny it, he was right on every account.

  “It’s okay to ask for help, you know.”

  “I just thought it would all go away eventually.”

  “I don’t think it will.”

  “I’ll call the hospital, see if I can make an appointment with her again.”

  Beck’s hand came to rest on my upper thigh. He stroked with his thumb as we sat in a void of silence for a long time. The relaxation I’d found after my orgasm was long gone. Sorrow, my new companion, wiggled its way back into my peace.

  It was Beck who broke the maudlin atmosphere.

  He slapped my thigh and turned his head, catching my eye with a smile. “I think I want to suck your dick.”

  I flinched. “Excuse me?”

  “Right now. Straight through to completion.”

  When all I could do was look at him in confusion, he crawled onto my lap, straddling me. “Don’t give me that look. Not gonna lie, it was daunting when it was right there in my face. I wasn’t prepared, and the effort I gave was pathetic and lacking. If I’m gonna be with a guy, then I best learn to suck cock, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “By all means. I volunteer to be your guinea pig. Practice makes perfect.”

  His smile was contagious. He pecked a sweet kiss on my lips before peering down between us. “You know you’re fucking hung, right?”

  I laughed. “If you say so.”

  “Please. The first time I touched that fucking thing, my ego flatlined. My pride deflated. I cried a little inside. I’ve been lying to myself for years. The truth be told, my dick is average, even when I made it out to be so much more in my head.”

  “Tell that to my ass because I’m gonna feel that pounding for days. There is nothing wrong with your dick, believe me.” I took his chin and angled his head up again so I could look him in the eyes. “I’ve been dreaming of this for years.”

  “You dream about my lips on your dick?”

  “More times than you know.”

  “Someday, maybe I’ll live up to those dreams, but for now, be prepared for a purely amateur blowjob. I apologize in advance.”

  It was far from amateur. Beck’s determination and willingness to push himself made it far better than I could have ever imagined. Watching him, listening to the sweet sound of suction around my length took me to another world.

  I offered some guidance and laughed with him when he choked himself.

  “Fucking mammoth sized dick,” he mumbled. “Seriously. Who are you?”

  I shoved his head back down and reveled in the full body bliss of Beck’s mouth. Before long, he knocked me over the edge into oblivion. Like a pro, he took every drop and only gagged once. The final dredges didn’t quite make it and trailed down his chin.

  I pulled him up and kissed him hard, tasting myself on his lips. We clung together afterward, holding each other and snoozing off and on. Some time later, I urged him under the covers, and we lay, touching, and savoring the newness of what we’d shared.

  When he reached to extinguish the light, I caught his hand.

  “Can we just…”

  I didn’t have to say more. A flash of concern crossed his face, but then he laid his head on my chest, and we both fell asleep with the light on.

  Chapter Twenty

  Beckett

  It came on slowly, softly, like a whisper against my skin. Over the following weeks, the way I viewed Gray changed. It frightened me and thrilled me at the same time. My best friend, the man I’d known since childhood, took on a whole new dimension in my mind.

  He was still the same Gray who’d shared his Hot Wheels and saved his McDonald’s Happy Meal toys for me when we were young. He was the same Gray who’d challenged me to stick fights and raced me to the bus stop every morning before school. The same Gray who’d talked me through my first break up with Melissa Applegate after she cheated on me in the tenth grade with Brian Burns.

  Yet, he was a whole different person now.

  He was more. Which was what made watching his downward slide even worse.

  Every time he stumbled, I was driven to cushion his fall. Every effort he made at hiding his pain, prickled tears to my eyes and pinched my heart. When he fought the monsters in his dreams, I wanted to invade his subconscious and slay his demons so he didn’t have to be scared anymore.

  I was falling in love with him, and the timing was shit.

  For all that Gray and I were best friends, this new level of intimacy was so poorly timed. I was a thirty-year-old man, discovering his sexuality for the first time. Not only had I not been given time to grow accustomed to it but the man I was involved with just couldn’t be there for me. Gray slipped further and further away every day. Consumed by this unexplained fear of time he seemed to have developed.

  He couldn’t get in to see the psychiatrist for three weeks after the fallout at the dealership, and it was the hardest three weeks I’d ever endured. Knowing his struggles, seeing them plain when he no longer hid them, terrified me. It was so much worse than I thought.

  Some days, I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t losing his mind.

  He slept poorly, he ate less and less every day, and his motivation petered out to almost nothing. He’d submitted to this inner deterioration, and I lost more of him every day. His depression intensified. He was bitter and angry. Overall, I thought he was too frustrated to cope.


  The only time there was life in his eyes was when we got lost in each other’s arms. Sex took on a whole new meaning for me. “Fuck me,” he’d beg. “Make it better.” There was little intimacy. It was raw and frenzied. Demanding. Required. Mind-blowing, yet somehow lacking. There was always a wall between us, and for someone falling in love for the first time in their life, it hurt.

  I’d considered I was being a sap, but deep inside, since breaking this barrier and accepting my sexuality, I wanted something more with Gray. Something deeper. Slower. Something with meaning. For the first time ever, I wanted a relationship and all that went with it.

  I couldn’t help feeling like he was using me as an outlet.

  “What time are you guys taking off?” Maria asked after the class of grade six students filed out the door.

  The end of the school year was approaching, and we were booked solid for class trip tours ranging from grades four to high school levels. I’d been spilling the same broken record passages from my mouth with such frequency, it had started to invade my sleep.

  “Six in the morning. The auction starts at eleven, but I want to get there early so we don’t miss anything. You sure you’ll be okay on your own?”

  Maria waved a hand as she tidied the gift shop where a whirlwind of students had picked through and moved all the sale items on the shelves. “Please, I’ll be fine. Besides, Gray needs to get away. Are you spending the night or coming home after?”

  “We’ll get a room. It’s too long in a car for me, and he can’t share the driving.”

  Maria knew the bare minimum of what was going on. Enough I was able to ditch work on a whim if Gray was having a particularly bad day, and she would cover. She knew we’d been stumbling into relationship territory but had enough sense not to razz me about it too often.

  “Are you going to hit our favorite haunts while you’re there?”

  Oakville and its surrounding cities had all kinds of places Maria and I like to scope for goods. There were antique shops, oddities shops, and second-hand stores galore. You never knew where the next gem would come from.

  “Maybe. Depends on Gray.”