“Peyton,” he sighs, eyes falling closed.
“Are you going to invite me in?” I ask, flattening my palm against his sternum.
When he opens his eyes again they’re dark, so dark I almost forget what colour they’d normally be and then I’m being dragged, willingly, I might add, into the house.
Once the door closes behind me his mouth is on mine, his tongue pushing through my lips. Instant desire shoots through my body as he slams me against the nearest wall, my bags still hanging from my shoulders.
“God I need you,” he growls.
“I’m here,” my fingers dive into his hair, clenching the strands into my fists.
“Upstairs,” he says.
“Let’s go.”
I follow him, our footsteps echoing through the empty house until we make it to his room. The door clicks shut, the lock engaging and then all bets are off.
He storms me like a man possessed, snatching the bag from my shoulders and dumping it in the corner of his room. My coat and top come next and they’re also lost somewhere in the room. His mouth closing around the mound of my breast, his deft fingers work the button and zipper of my pants. His hands delve into my jeans, beneath the band of my panties until his fingers push through my folds, finding my clit.
Pleasure has my muscles bunching, my spine straightening as my head falls back, lips parting on a gasp.
“So ready,” he murmurs against my ear, teeth snagging my lobe in a gentle nip. “So wet.”
“Fletch,” I moan, my hips grinding against his fingers.
His mouth slams down onto mine, animalistic, primal, urgent. By the time I take my next breath, I’m stripped bare, naked all for a pair of lace panties.
He steps back, his hand coming up to scrub across his mouth, his chest heaving with each breath.
“You are so beautiful,” he mumbles, his features softening as he takes in my naked body.
I shiver under his intense gaze, my nipples pebbling, ready for him.
He reaches forward and grasps my hips, gently tugging me forward until my breasts are pressed into his chest. His fingers trace down my spine, a feather light touch that has goosebumps tracing over my skin. With a kiss that barely touches my lips I’m lowered into his bed, his body following mine. I tug at his sweats, pushing them down his legs until his cock presses into the inside of my thigh.
Pressing forward he breaches my entrance, a low groan rumbling up my throat as I stretch around him.
“I love you,” he whispers in my ear, “I love you more than I can even understand.”
His hips move, our bodies joining, becoming one until I can’t tell where he begins and I end.
My back arches as he quickens his pace, my climax building.
“Fletch, oh god!”
His mouth presses into mine, in a kiss that’s a complete contrast to what his body is doing to me elsewhere. It’s gentle where he’s hips are rough, it’s sweet and adoring where his cock is punishing.
He needed this as much as I apparently did.
And no amount of time, no amount of this was ever going to be enough.
Thirty-five
His arms hold me in a protective embrace, locked around my waist whilst I’m draped across his chest. My fingers draw circles on his chest, my ear pressed to his pulse listening to the steady thump of his heart.
Hours have gone by since I showed up at his door, the day melting away to night time, the fat moon hanging in the sky like a giant silver halo. Stars peek and wink in the darkness.
“What’re you thinking?” Fletcher mumbles, his voice rumbling beneath my ear.
“The library,” I admit.
He stiffens, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
I prop my chin on his chest and look up at him, following the sharp angles of his jaw and cheekbones, finding his eyes looking down at me, his lashes casting shadows across his cheeks.
“I’m not thinking about Nina.” Though I can’t say I enjoy watching women drape themselves all over him. It could all be avoided if they know I am the one he is seeing. “I’m thinking about the guys.”
He chuckles, “I’m not sure how I feel about that, seeing as you know, you’re naked in bed with me.”
I snort and swat his chest, “I’m serious!”
“Okay,” he captures my hands, wrapping his meaty hands around my wrists to stop me, “What about them?”
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, cocking my head to the side to gauge his mood right now. Any tension that was evident in the lines of his face have all smoothed out, his eyes hooded, his mouth pulled into a soft smile as he watches me try to work out my words.
“Come on,” he coaxes, “You can tell me anything.”
Instead of going with what I was planning to say I take a deep breath and push myself off of him, dragging the sheet to shield my naked body as I cross my legs.
The secret, my secret is on the tip of my tongue, I need to tell him.
“What is it, baby?” He strokes the small amount of skin on show on my knee.
“Me and Tyler,” I wince at how quickly he stiffens. The shutters coming down is almost instantaneous but not quick enough to hide the pain that flares behind his eyes. “Just hear me out, it isn’t what you think.”
His nostrils flare.
“We weren’t perfect, you know?”
His shoulders heave as he scoffs, “Oh please, they’ll be books written about your relationship only those will have a happy ending.”
“Then I guess they won’t be based on truth,” I tell him, “There were several things wrong with our relationship but not big things, things that if it were just that one thing it would be fine but because there were so many niggling things, it all just piled up.”
Fletcher pushes onto his elbows, watching me.
“We didn’t argue and I wonder if that was part of the problem, everything was just okay.”
I realize it now how true those words are. Nothing was ever good or great, it was just okay, fine, like it’s not the best but it’ll do. There was nothing wrong with Tyler but looking back at us now we weren’t compatible. We liked different things, had different plans for the future. He always wanted to be in the NFL, he trained hard through school, planned on entering the draft his junior year, as soon as he become eligible, and looked forward to moving across the country to join a team. He wanted lights and action and publicity and I wanted that for him, that didn’t bother me, it’s how much he was willing to move and give up and step on in order to get there. There were guys on his team who hated him because of how he manipulated his way through the ranks. He didn’t care who he stepped on to get where he needed to be, didn’t care who he hurt or used. Me included.
Don’t get me wrong, Tyler loved me, he did and I don’t really think he knew he was doing it half the time.
He was ambitious and rightfully so, he worked hard, yes he went the wrong way around it sometimes but he was a good player, the best.
“I’ll always love Tyler, I knew that then and I know it now. A part of my heart is buried with him in that cemetery.”
That cloud of fog hanging over Fletcher is only getting darker, the more I talk, the thicker it becomes but he needs to hear this. All of it.
“But it’s that part of my heart that matches Colt and Decker’s. He was my friend. My best friend and the time leading up to…” I trail off, taking a breath, “his death, that’s what we were. I think he knew our relationship wasn’t working but I think he was scared to lose what he knew. He had everything right there, all in order, organized and ready and originally I was a part of that future and he hadn’t planned a future without me in it.”
Fletcher’s brows have pulled low, almost casting shadows over his eyes but I can still see the vibrancy of the colour there, flecks of gold in the hazel and green.
“When we hung out that’s all we did but for me, it was months of knowing we weren’t moving anywhere new. We were in this limbo, neither of us really knowing how to mov
e forward. For me, I realized he wasn’t right for me when I started to get feelings for someone else. If I loved him, like truly and deeply, this other person wouldn’t have even been on my radar but you see, this person, he was always there. He was there at the back of my mind, never far from my thoughts.”
“Peyton,” Fletcher whispers, his eyes closing.
I reach out and link my fingers with his, looking at how his fingers link with mine, so perfect, so right.
“It had always been you. Did you know I had the biggest crush on you those first few years after we met but you never looked at me like that and I thought I’d gotten over it. But something happened that first year you went off to college. It was like the time you were gone I really grasped how much I cared for you, how much I loved you and I couldn’t wait to see you again, whenever I knew you were coming home I got these butterflies, no, not butterflies, it was like a whole damn zoo had escaped in my stomach and seeing you, it’s like everything settled. I lived for your hugs and the small touches you would grace me. I knew you wouldn’t look at me the same way and I would never have done anything whilst I was still with Ty, but I couldn’t stop it.”
“Stop,” Fletcher pleads.
“No, Fletch, I need to tell you this.”
His hand grips mine tightly, not painfully but I could see he was teetering on the edge. The edge of what, I wasn’t sure.
“Every now and then, I would see you looking at me, it wasn’t in the same way I was used to, I can’t even name it but it was intense. And sometimes, you would do something, brush my hair from my face, squeeze my hand, hold me in a way that just seemed a touch over the line.”
I brush my thumb over his knuckles, taking a deep breath as I prepare myself for the next part. Tears sting my eyes and nose, my throat becoming tight and hoarse.
“Even if you never felt the same way back then I knew I couldn’t continue with Tyler when the feelings for you were so strong. A few nights before the accident we were in the den at your parents house, I was dozing whilst he watched a movie and he must have thought I was sleeping because he started talking to me.
“It was nothing at first, how much he valued me, how special I was but then he said that you deserved me more than he did. That he had taken something that didn’t belong to him. I hadn’t thought much of it these last few years but I think he knew you felt for me like I do for you. I thought about it for a while and then that night, the same night he died, I was planning on breaking up with him.
“I didn’t know he had been drinking and therefore couldn’t drive, I hadn’t realized you guys were having a guys night or whatever so I text him and I asked him to come over so we could talk. I should have known when he responded he was tipsy and probably not in the right head space. If I had just told him it can wait maybe he’d still be here but I didn’t think and he text me back telling me he was on his way. He didn’t tell me you were bringing him.
“The same night he died I was going to leave him.”
My voice cracks at the end. Did he know? Was that his last thought when his heart stopped beating?
A tear slips from my eye, rolling over my cheek. I let it fall, feeling it as it follows my jaw line and then drips from my chin, soaking into Fletcher’s bed sheets like it never existed.
“I never told anyone,” I sniff, “I let people believe that we were this perfect couple, high school sweethearts who were destined to be together because I didn’t want people to believe I was part of the reason he was in that car with you. That he was on his way to me because I was going to break up with him. Him being in that car that night is my fault.”
Suddenly I’m grabbed by the tops of my arms and hauled into Fletcher’s scorching hot chest, his hands smooth down the back of my hair as he buries his face into the crook of my neck, his hands, his comfort soothing me. A few more tears leave me but he’s the balm to my pain. He always had been.
“None of it was your fault,” Fletcher whispers, “I didn’t want to go that night but he demanded I take him. I hadn’t been drinking so I could drive and he threatened he would go whether I’d take him or not. He would have driven himself if I hadn’t and who knows, maybe he would have driven himself into a ditch. No one can know what would have happened that night. You blaming yourself is the same as me blaming myself. It is not your fault.”
“And it’s not yours,” I press my hand to his increased heartbeat.
A silence stretches between us and then I say what needs to be said.
“We shouldn’t keep this quiet, Fletcher, our friends deserve to know. Even if it’s just them, we shouldn’t be lying to them.”
Before he can reply I stop him.
“They love both of us, they’re family, they’re not going to judge us for this.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do because I know them.”
“You can’t know that Peyton, Tyler was as much their brother as I am.”
“I don’t want to lie anymore.”
“You act like this has been going on for years rather than weeks,” he snaps, letting me go. He was getting pissed. And it was because I was right and he hated it.
“It has been going on for years,” I snap back, “you forget how long I’ve loved you. You’re everything and I hate hiding this, it makes me feel like you’re ashamed”
He opens his mouth to respond but a sudden pound on the door makes us both jump. We both turn to the door, brows pulling down, we didn’t hear anyone come in.
“Fletcher!” Decker’s voice booms through the wood, “open up!”
“Ignore it,” Fletcher says, “He’ll think I’m asleep and leave.”
“Maybe we should tell them now,” I prompt.
“No!” Fletcher whisper shouts, careful to keep his voice down.
I shake my head, chewing my lip. Maybe this isn’t the same for him like it is for me.
I have no worries about sharing this. It shouldn’t matter what anyone else thinks, its him and me, we can handle it but he’s also not giving much credit to the people who care about us.
We deserve to be happy.
Even if that means that happiness is found in each other.
“Fletcher open up or I’ll break the lock. You know I will!” Decker threatens.
“Shit,” Fletcher hisses, “He will as well!”
“Just tell them!”
“No, Peyton, not now!”
I shake my head, feeling defeated. A part of me just wants to scream and tell them all I’m here but my respect for Fletcher has the shout being swallowed back down my throat.
“I’ll just go to the door, you stay here, okay?”
I nod, my emotion trying to get the better of me.
Fletcher pulls on his sweats and creeps to the door feigning exhaustion as he cracks the door just enough to poke his head out.
“Who’s in there?” Decker demands, nosy as ever.
ME! I yell – in my head of course.
“Have you got a girl in there? Is it this new girlfriend of yours?”
This is it. This is his chance to tell him. This is it to clear the air, tell them and stop lying.
“It’s no-one…”
The door clicks closed as he steps out into the hall, leaving those two words hanging in the air like a wrecking ball on my heart.
No one.
No one.
Thirty-six
“It’s no one you know,” I tell Decker as I step from the room, Peyton’s words ringing in my head. She’s right. I should tell them. They care about us like family, the fact that I’m with Peyton won’t matter but that betrayal, that feeling I’m stabbing my brother in the back has the words hanging on my tongue, soundless.
They were going to end anyway. What does it matter?
The problem was, no one knew that, they came across as the most perfect couple, young but no less in love and maybe, just maybe if I had known, none of this would be happening.
Peyton and I could be together like a normal c
ouple.
But people still believed they were destined to be together and that was the problem.
How could it not look like I was homing in on my brothers girl because he was no longer around to stop it?
Decker scoffs and then I notice Colt hanging back, back leaning against the wall at the top of the stairs. He watches me intently.
He knows.
I can see it in his face. He knows who is in the room.
I don’t see anger on his face, I just see sadness, a sadness for me.
“Come on, Fletch,” Colt speaks, “talk to us, man.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I snap.
Decker’s nostrils flare and then he slams his palms into my shoulders, pushing me back.
“You think we’re stupid!?” He growls, anger forcing a vein in his brow to pulse. “You think we don’t know you? But mostly, you think we don’t know her?”
My eyes widen but I don’t have time to process what they’re saying, not when my door flies open and the very girl in question comes steaming through, a blur of tears and anger and frustration.
She slams past me, knocking my shoulder and then Decker’s, her sob of anguish barely restrained.
“Peyton!” I call, no longer giving a single fuck about the secret.
The pain is clear on her face, she’s hurting something fierce and I did that.
Oh shit.
No.
“Peyton!” Decker makes a move to grab her arm but she somehow manages to dodge him, slipping out of his grasp. She heads towards Colt and for a moment I think she might be going to him and hope springs in my chest. We can explain this. Together. I can’t figure out why she’s like this. Is it because I wasn’t willing to tell anyone?
Is it because I had forced our relationship into the shadows?
She didn’t deserve to be in the shadows.
I genuinely wanted to shout it from the rooftops that Peyton McKenna was my girl. My girl.
I was the luckiest fucking man on the planet with her, she was special and it really wasn’t just me saying that, I always knew she was. I always knew she was a key to a lock I wasn’t granted access until now and somehow she felt the same way for me.
Fletcher( Boys of HGU #1) Page 18