Under the Covers
Page 18
In response, Chris pulled a file from the shelf above his desk, opened it, and held up a stiff cream card. “That is your name on there, isn’t it? I’m allowed one guest, as it’s for charity. I was going to send it this weekend.” He frowned. “But… that’s not until the end of the month. You can’t be here just for that.”
Jase flushed. “Yeah, about that….” He coughed. “See, the thing is… I’m moving back to New York.”
Chris stilled. “Is this a sudden decision?”
“Not exactly. I flew in last month for an audition, and I got the part. So—”
“Wait a minute. You were here—last month—and I’m just hearing about it now?” At least he had his answer. If Jase hadn’t wanted them to be over, he would have let Chris know he was in town.
“Will you just let me finish?”
Chris froze, startled by the sharp rise in Jase’s voice.
Jase sighed. “Sorry. I just want to have the chance to explain, and I seem to be making a mess of it.”
Something in Jase’s voice tugged at Chris’s heart. “I’m listening.”
Jase began pacing, and in an instant, Chris was transported back to his Las Vegas hotel room the day Jase had gotten the news about his movie part. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Start with why you’re not in LA. Is it just because this new movie shoots here? Does that mean you’ll be going back once it’s finished?”
Jase’s eyes widened. “I’m not here for a movie. I’ve got a part in a play, Off Broadway. We start rehearsals Monday.”
“A play? But… what about movies? Hollywood?”
Jase sighed heavily. “I never intended on making a life out there. I just wanted to act, remember? The movies were just a means to an end. But… I let them take over my life.” He gazed at the floor.
He sounded so forlorn that Chris couldn’t help himself. He took a step closer, his voice softer. “But you were happy.”
Jase raised his chin and looked Chris in the eye. “Was I? When I got your letter, it made me take a long, hard look at exactly what I had out there. And you know what? I was simply living to work. Remember my apartment? How minimalist it looked? Last week it looked exactly the same as when you saw it. I wasn’t making a home for myself out there.”
Chris gestured to the red velvet couch he used in shoots. “Sit.” Jase nodded and perched on the edge of the seat, and Chris joined him. “I’ll be honest. Before I wrote that letter—so we’re talking months ago now—I thought about moving out there.”
Jase gaped. “But… your work is here. Your studio.”
“And nowadays I work all over the place, not just here. I decided I could have a studio anywhere. Then I thought about it, about my reasons for moving.”
“And?”
Chris drew in a deep breath. “I realized my motivation was borne out of desperation, and doing anything out of desperation is not healthy. I came to the conclusion that it was too late for us. Writing that letter was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Jase reached across and took his hand. “That letter was exactly the catalyst I needed. Then I heard about your exhibition, and I knew I wasn’t where I wanted to be. So… I asked Juliet to start searching for productions in New York. Theater productions.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t come see me when you were here.”
“I had no time!” Jase said with a groan. “I thought the filming would be over by then, but they overran. I literally had one day to fly in, do the audition, and fly back.”
“But you could have told me what you were doing,” Chris protested.
“I wanted to wait until I knew I’d been successful.”
“And if you hadn’t gotten this part?”
Jase chuckled. “Then I would have auditioned for every part that came up until someone gave me a foot in the door.”
Jase’s hand was still curled around his. God, I’ve missed this. “Where are you staying?”
“I’m in a hotel. Once rehearsals start and I meet the cast, I’m hoping to find an apartment to share.”
Chris bit his lip. “So what you’re saying is, you’re kinda homeless right now.”
Jase nodded. “All my stuff in LA is in storage until I can find somewhere.”
Chris nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I happen to know someone who has a small apartment in Manhattan. Only thing is, there’s no guest room.” Come on, Jase, work it out….
Jase swallowed. “Seriously? But… what you said in the letter….”
“Yes. Let’s think about what I said. Something about right people, wrong time, correct?” Chris smiled and curved his hand around Jase’s cheek. “But everything’s changed. Right people, right time, right place. And something else I wrote that you seem to have forgotten. I told you I loved you and that nothing would ever change that.”
“Those words are what brought me here,” Jase said quietly. “I had to know if they were true.”
In response, Chris tugged Jase until he was in Chris’s lap, his eyes wide. Chris enfolded Jase in his arms and kissed him on the neck, his cheeks, his forehead, before finally ending up where he wanted to be. Their lips met, and Chris kissed him fiercely, as if he was trying to erase all those months they’d been parted. Jase clung to him, the kiss deepening, and Chris knew he too was attempting to eradicate the past.
When they parted, Jase looked him in the eye. “I love you. And I will never again let anything get in the way of that.”
Chris grinned. “Can I quote you on that when you’re rehearsing until all hours and I only have your picture to remind me what you look like?”
Jase smiled. “It doesn’t matter what I spend my days doing. My nights will always be spent in your arms, in our bed.” He glanced across the studio at the bed Chris used in photo shoots. “Even if it’s that one.”
Chris brushed his lips over Jase’s ear, loving the full-blown shudder that made its way through Jase’s body. “Remember that photo shoot a year ago with Gabe? Just before we went to the convention? You have no idea how much I wanted to be the one in that bed with you, my hands all over you, making love….”
Jase’s pupils were huge. “Go lock the studio door. And no, it’s not locked, because that’s how I got in. Then come back here to me.” Slowly, he took off his jacket and kicked off his boots. When Chris hadn’t moved, he chuckled. “Today might be good.”
Chris lurched up off the couch. When he got to the door, Jase called out to him, and he turned in time to see Jase standing by the bed, his chest bare, leisurely lowering the zipper on his jeans.
“If you can’t see me when you get back here, don’t worry.” Jase’s eyes sparkled. “I’ll be under the covers.”
K.C. WELLS started writing in 2012, although the idea of writing a novel had been in her head since she was a child. But after reading that first gay romance in 2009, she was hooked.
She now writes full-time, and the line of men in her head clamoring to tell their story is getting longer and longer. If the frequent visits by plot bunnies are anything to go by, that’s not about to change anytime soon.
K.C. loves to hear from readers.
Email: k.c.wells@btinternet.com
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Blog: kcwellsworld.blogspot.co.uk
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Website: www.kcwellsworld.com
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By K.C. Wells
DREAMSPUN DESIRES
The Senator’s Secret
Out of the Shadows
My Fair Brady
Under the Covers
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Now Available
The Professor's Green Card Marriage by Heidi Cullinan
I’ll marry you.
Professor Valentyn Shevchenko isn’t sure how to react when, after months of ineffective flirting, the cute barista’s first words to him are a proposal. In many
ways, Peter Grunberg is the solution to all his problems. With his work visa inexplicably denied, Valentyn is running out of options to keep from being deported. But is a green card marriage really the answer? Is it still a marriage of convenience when he’s this attracted to his potential spouse?
Peter came to his uncle’s coffee shop in Boulder, Colorado, to reset his life after his struggles with selective mutism returned with a vengeance. He never meant his first words to the handsome ecology professor to be an offer of marriage, but he’s not backing out now. It doesn’t matter that Peter struggles to find words. He can say everything he needs to with his body.
Though this relationship may have started out back-to-front, Valentyn and Peter are determined to make their fake marriage real. But one misstep in their immigration interview could bring everything crashing down. They’ll have to hope that their love is enough to overcome all their obstacles and give them the prize they’ve both been dreaming of: a certified happy ever after.
Home and Away by Ariel Tachna
Lexington Lovers
Taking their shot at love.
University of Kentucky senior Kit Parkins has his life planned out. He’ll graduate, get a good job, find a better apartment, meet the guy of his dreams, and settle down to a happy life near his brother and uncles, the only family he has left. But meeting Lincoln Joyner, UK’s star basketball player, calls all his priorities into question.
Like Kit, Linc knows exactly where life is taking him: to the NBA and as far away from his hardscrabble childhood as possible. There’s just one problem. He falls in love with Kit, who can’t imagine life anywhere but in Lexington.
Can they find a way to keep their relationship going without giving up on their dreams?
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DREAMSPINNER PRESS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Under the Covers
© 2020 K.C. Wells
Cover Art
© 2020 Alexandria Corza
http://www.seeingstatic.com/
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64108-238-9
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64405-804-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019952833
Digital published March 2020
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America