Using one packet, he coated my ass thoroughly until his fingers slipped around with ease. Because we were against the back wall, the water didn’t fully hit us, which kept the lube exactly where we needed it.
Arrow moved into position behind me, and I tilted out, giving him better access. I felt rather than saw him coating himself with more lube, and I almost groaned because he was touching himself.
Balmy air brushed over my arms and legs. The tip of his head pushed against my giving hole. With a single push, he slid home, and noise rushed out between both our lips. Arrow raised his hand, covering mine, while the other clamped around my hip as he thrust in and out.
My body nearly melted down the tile. Arrow held me up, using not only his body, but the force of his thrusts to keep me on my feet.
“Fuck, Arrow.” I moaned as he brushed over my prostate over and over again. “Goddamn, babe. You feel so fucking good.”
His chin brushed over my shoulder. Words echoed along with the sound of rain in my ear. “I love you, Hopp.”
I panted. His hand fell, and both grabbed my hips. I bent farther so he could go even deeper.
Reaching down, I grabbed my dick, using my wet hand to slide over the quivering flesh.
“No,” Arrow intoned, reaching around and forcing my grip away. “You’re not allowed to come yet,” he demanded. “You aren’t allowed to come until you’re inside me.”
I jerked up a little, but he seemed to realize I would and pushed deeper. Both of us moaned.
“In you?” I asked when I could talk again.
“Oh yeah,” he murmured, pulling out and then driving back in. “We’re pulling a double. Right now.”
We hadn’t done that before. Usually one of us putting his dick in the other was enough to send us both shooting. Hell, I was barely holding on now.
But I had to admit the thought of getting inside him, releasing all this pent-up desire, all this pent-up energy right into the man who made me this crazy made dark spots actually form in my vision.
I glanced back up; there was enough lube. We could do it. If I could hold out.
“You better fucking go, then, babe. ‘Cause just feeling you move in me makes me want to burst.”
His fingertips tightened on my hips. Water splashed over my toes. I felt him holding back, but it wasn’t what I wanted, and I knew it wasn’t what he wanted.
“Harder, A,” I demanded.
With a sound, he pulled out and drove into me. Then again. And again. My mouth opened as pleasure bloomed inside me and my nerves sang with bliss. I felt the front of his thighs shaking when they came into contact with me.
My palms slid down the tile, and I shoved myself down over him.
Arrow made a sound, a rough sort of grunt. One arm caught around my waist and held as his hips pumped against me in small, insistent movements.
Suddenly, a moan filled the steamy shower, and I felt him pulse deep inside me.
On impulse, I reached around, delving my hands between his crack and caressing his ass.
He shivered and jerked inside me some more. His mouth slid over the back of my shoulder, kissing softly, licking over the water.
Arrow didn’t languish inside me like usual. Instead, he pulled out and moved back. I turned from the tile and swooped in to kiss him. We stepped beneath the waterfall, both arms wound around the other as my hard dick pulsed with need between our stomachs.
After a long, hot kiss, A pulled back, gave me a hot stare, and pushed me toward the long marble bench on one side. The tile wasn’t cold because everything in here was hot. The seat was wet from the showerhead on this side, water pouring down and falling over my shoulder and chest.
My dick sprang up away from me, but I did my best to ignore it. I was so close to coming I knew if I touched myself, I might.
Arrow handed me the packets of lube and put his hands against the tile. I went to work instantly, working his crack and teasing his hole. The fact that we were both already so hot and he was already completely relaxed from being inside me made it a little easier.
Once he was good and slick, and so was I, I tugged him around.
Arrow straddled my lap, and I positioned my dick so he could slide right down over it.
My eyes closed and I shuddered the second his body sheathed me. His hips rocked, and I moaned.
“I like being in your lap,” he whispered, his forehead resting on my shoulder.
“No more than I do.” I grunted and thrust inside him.
We moved against each other, fucking in the shower, as water slid over our skin and words of pure pleasure dropped from my lips against his ear.
I lasted maybe a minute. No more.
The second my fingertips dug into his back, he bore down, rocked into my lap with perfect pressure, and wrapped his arms around my back. “Give it to me, babe,” Arrow demanded.
I exploded, the intensity of the orgasm momentarily robbing me of sight.
It was powerful the way it rocked over me, probably because he told me I wasn’t allowed to come until just now. Holding it back only made it more desirable.
I collapsed against the wall. He followed, and I wrapped him in my arms. I stayed inside him until both of us were able to move. When we finally could, we washed each other with Jell-O-like limbs before shutting off the water and toweling each other dry.
The air out in the bedroom was downright chilly compared to the steamy heat in the bathroom. Neither of us bothering with clothes, I pulled back the covers on the bed and slid between the sheets. Arrow hesitated just slightly before slipping in alongside.
We both knew this conversation was coming. I was pretty much resolved to it. Maybe that’s why it seemed strange he appeared more reluctant.
“You’re feeling pretty fucking possessive today,” I murmured, rubbing a hand up his bare back.
“I’m possessive of you every day,” he rebutted gently.
“Protective, yes. Slightly possessive, yes. But growly, predatory, and double sex possessive? No way.”
His eyes swung to mine. Doubt and something else swam in their depths, something that made my chest hurt. He was bruised. Something was causing him pain.
“Was it too much?” he asked, a little insecure about our totally fucking boiling sex session.
I grinned. “Are you kidding? Hell no. That was probably the hottest sex we’ve had to date.”
Relief softened his eyes. “You ever done that before?”
Inching closer… We were inching closer to the real subject.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Double sex?”
He nodded, almost as if he were afraid.
My hand slid from his back down to his bare ass cheek. “Never. But you can bet your sweet ass it’s not going to be the last.”
He laughed, a genuine chuckle that warmed my heart. “Yeah, we need a shower like that.”
I didn’t say anything else. I just waited him out, letting my fingertips dance along his lower back, something I’d developed a habit of doing. I watched his face. His eyes grew heavy as I caressed him.
I thought maybe I was going to have to stop, pull back, and force whatever it was out of him. It was unusual. Normally, we were so open. So honest, almost painfully so, with each other. Just like I’d told him outside, I was see-through. And he’d agreed.
Just as nerves twisted my guts, he sighed. “I’m not really a jealous guy. Everything you’ve been through, the people who’ve been part of your life… they’re part of you. And I love all of you, so I can’t be jealous about what made you who you are.”
“I know that, babe,” I said gently. “But you know, it’s okay to still get pissy when someone calls me Jay or when you’re not too kindly reminded I was in a relationship with someone before I met you.”
“I don’t want to be pissy,” he whispered. “I want to be happy.”
My heart squeezed. I loved him so goddamn much. So much it felt like my skin was stretched with the emotion. “Ah, babe. I love you so much.”
My mouth was dry. My chest hurt. My limbs weighed a million pounds. I forced my voice to be low and free of any kind of emotion. “What?”
“If he hadn’t passed… if Matt were still alive today…” He hesitated, then rushed on. “You wouldn’t be in love with me right now. We likely wouldn’t be together.”
Ah, fuck.
That explained it. The reason Arrow seemed more reluctant to have this talk was because he was. I knew something that I didn’t realize until this second he didn’t know. I knew the sooner we had this talk, the sooner my past was out in the open, and the sooner I dealt with shit I let drag on way too long, there was an entire life on the other side.
A life with Arrow.
A proposal. A marriage. A future.
Yes. I knew he was going to say yes. I would take no other answer.
I didn’t know which was worse. Knowing how much my past was affecting him or realizing he wasn’t as absolute about what happened next.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said, pulling back so he wasn’t able to lie on my chest.
Arrow moved back, rested his head on a pillow, and gazed up at me, almost shy.
Holy fuckity fuck, his inhibition was always my ultimate undoing. He never expected anything from me. Every moment since I said the words, Arrow acted as if my love were a gift and something he would never take for granted.
Supporting my weight on my elbow, my head in my hand, I smiled down at him. I made a soft sound, brushing the damp hair out of his eye.
“I could wait and tell you this on a different day, maybe on a more… pivotal day between us.” Ahem, like our wedding day. “But something tells me it wouldn’t mean as much as it would right now. Right here. This feels like a pretty pivotal moment, doesn’t it?”
“Good pivotal or bad?” he asked, still kind of reluctant.
I tugged his hair and scowled playfully. “Good, obviously.”
That earned me a ghost of a smile. I sighed. The last thing I wanted was to make him wait, to make him teeter on the edge of not knowing and think the worst.
He nodded, one quick, decisive nod. “All right, Hopp. Tell me.”
I chuckled even as the extreme weight of the words I was about to utter pressed down. God, this was fucking hard. So fucking hard.
All at once, Arrow pushed up, as if he suddenly knew about the boulder-sized lump in my throat. “It’s okay, whatever it is. You don’t have to tell me. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
I swallowed. The action scraped my throat. “It does matter. I want to tell you. It’s how I feel; I just…”
He tucked his legs under him, scooted close, and tugged the blankets up. Grabbing my free hand, he lifted, kissing the backs of my fingers.
I drew so much strength from him. So much courage.
“Seeing him today, you know, on the screen, so big…” I began.
Arrow nodded encouragingly. “It was hard for you.”
“Yeah. I hadn’t allowed myself to look at a photograph, any kind of picture of him… us… for almost five years.”
“Was it how you remembered him?”
I swallowed. “Yes and no.”
Arrow tilted his head and gave my hand an encouraging squeeze. If he could tell me that dark fear I knew ripped right out of his deepest place, then I could tell him the one thing that haunted me, that made me feel like the shittiest human being to ever live.
Even shittier than being responsible for Matt’s death.
It was just such a betrayal to say, even if it were true. It was almost like blasphemy. Something maybe Lorhaven had forced out, or at the very least forced open the metal gates that caged the words in deep.
I knew rationally… I knew voicing the feeling was really not that different from feeling it. But that was the thing about speaking vs feeling. Feelings could be kept secret. They could be held private. Speaking, though. Putting voice to the feelings made them real, didn’t it? It made them near impossible to hide.
It was like a high-functioning addict standing up in a crowded room and boldly admitting he had a problem.
“Matt, was, ah…” I began. Just tasting his name on my lips hurt. “My first love. He was my forever.”
Arrow shifted. I felt him pull away from me.
I hurried on to say, “Seeing his picture was like a punch right in my gut… but not in the ways I expected.”
“It’s okay, Hopper. I understand.”
“No,” I said, taking his hand, forcing it against my chest beneath the heavy blankets. “You don’t.
“My reaction to the TV earlier hurt you, and for that I am so intensely sorry. I did get dragged down into some kind of world, some kind of trance. It wasn’t because I remembered how much I loved him, and it wasn’t because if he were still here, I would run to his side.”
Arrow’s eyes lifted to mine.
I nodded. “I couldn’t be at his side today; my infinity was never his. It always has and always will be yours.”
Arrow’s breath caught.
I plunged on, wanting to say it all before regret and betrayal clogged my throat. I was loyal to Matt; I would be always. But when it came down to loyalty to him or the pain of the man I loved more than life itself… Matt would lose.
“I realized it when I saw him today. I miss him. He was my best friend. And yes, I loved him… but, Arrow, I love you more.”
Arrow’s shoulders actually slumped as if he were so relieved he was physically going to collapse.
I shoved up off my side, mirroring his position. Our knees knocked together, and the blankets and pillows fell all around us.
My heart was beating so incredibly fast my chest actually hurt. But I’d said it. I spoke the words that were the heaviest I’d ever known.
And remarkably, I felt a little lighter. Like their weight just wasn’t as foreboding.
“I love you more,” I whispered, grabbing his hands, linking us together. “I will never love anyone as much as I love you.”
“I feel how much those words cost you,” he said, breaking one hand free of mine and brushing his fingers across my cheek. “I never would have asked you to say that.”
“I know,” I said, pushing against his hand a little farther. He would never ask for something that might cost me. He’d rather suffer forever. It was exactly the reason I had to say it.
Someone as fiercely loyal and protective as Arrow, someone who wholeheartedly only wanted the best for me deserved everything. Even my deepest secret.
“We would be together today, A. Right now. All the minutes after. We would, no matter what. Maybe Matt and I would still be friends. Or maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe he’d be living in the burbs with another man and some kids. I don’t know. I do know I would want him to be happy. It wouldn’t have been with me. I can’t love him the way I love you… I can only give my heart away like this once.” I turned my wrist up, revealing the infinity tattoo with an arrow through it. “I can only give this kind of love to you.”
Moving swiftly, Arrow lunged forward, wrapped both arms around me, and held tight. I returned the embrace, and we both rose onto our knees, kneeling in the center of the bed, clinging to each other as our hearts beat in sync.
“Thank you.” Arrow’s voice cracked, muffled against my body. “Thank you so much for that. You never have to say it again. Ever. Because just once is enough to carry me through all eternity.”
I squeezed him tighter.
I thought admitting I loved him more made me a bad person. I thought it would somehow make me feel like the lowest scum on the earth. That giving a voice to that sentiment would break me in a way I hadn’t broken before.
I was wrong.
Loving him this much didn’t make me a bad person.
/> Giving him the words he needed so desperately didn’t make me scum.
It was just the opposite.
I was better now. Stronger. And oddly… maybe even more deserving of Arrow’s love.
Did the feeling of betraying Matt, of what we once had, still niggle at me?
Yeah. It might always. It was hard to be happy when someone else didn’t get the chance.
But it wasn’t going to crush me. And it wasn’t going to crush Arrow.
I pulled back far enough so I could look into his eyes. He smiled at me, and my heart melted. “That’s why I have to do this interview, A. The tell-all. It’s why I’m finally opening up. It’s time to move on. You and me. It’s time for us to have the life we’re meant to have. No more hiding.”
He nodded, full understanding dawning over his features. “For a minute, I thought you were cracking under pressure, agreeing to all that shit,” he admitted.
I laughed. It felt good. “Not cracking. Healing.”
“Healing,” he echoed.
I kissed him deeply, feeling him smile against my lips.
I licked the smile up, swallowing it down.
Now more than ever, even in the midst of all my past coming to light, I was convinced that proposing to Arrow was exactly what I wanted to do.
“Do you trust me?”
Looking between Hopper and the blindfold dangling between his fingers, I laughed.
“I got on an airplane with you even though you refused to tell me where we were going or why, yet you still ask?”
Hopper’s teeth flashed. I loved the contrast of his pearly whites against the dark stubble of his jaw. Lifting the blindfold a little higher and rocking back on his heels, he asked again. “Do you trust me?”
“Always,” I replied. “No matter what. Even on a plane in the center of an unknown sky, even traveling toward an undisclosed location. Even blindfolded with impossibly dark fabric. As long as it’s you beside me, I’ll go anywhere.”
His hand fell to his side. Our shoes bumped when he stepped close. “That answer is exactly why we’re here right now.” He murmured and brought his lips down.
#FinishLine (GearShark #5) Page 5