My mouth felt dry at the same time that heat flashed through my entire body. Tate loved me? I was so overcome that I almost didn’t notice Tate shaking his head as he reached for the handle. I was on him in two strides and I slammed the door shut before he could open it all the way.
“No,” I snapped angrily. “You don’t get to say that to me and then just walk away!”
I pushed away from Tate and took several steps back as I tried to get control of my emotions. A maelstrom of them were going through me all at once. Joy, dread, confusion, fear.
Bone-wrenching fear.
Because I absolutely and completely believed Tate. And because it changed nothing. Except that I was going to end up hurting him again.
“It doesn’t change anything, does it?” Tate asked quietly, eerily voicing my own thoughts.
“No,” I finally managed to say.
“You could have something different, Hawke. With me…with Matty,” Tate whispered desperately.
I felt like I was having a panic attack as the pain in my chest increased. Why the hell hadn’t I just let Tate go after he’d made his admission?
“I can’t just let her go, Tate,” I said with a shake of my head. “What if every time I looked at you, all I saw was her? What if I only see the child I should have had when Matty’s talking to me about something? He deserves better than that. You both do.”
“We do,” Tate agreed. “Goodbye, Hawke. Just…just stay safe, okay?” Tate said, his voice breaking as he turned back to the door.
I shook my head in disbelief at what was happening. And I knew in that moment that I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready to tell him that I did love him. I wasn’t ready to tell him how much I wished there was a place in my life for him and his son. But more than anything, I wasn’t ready to let him go.
I closed the distance between us and used my body to press Tate’s front against the car door. “Don’t,” I whispered in his ear as I wrapped my arm around his chest and dragged him back against me.
Tate was shaking in my hold as his hands came up to grab my forearm where I was holding him, but he didn’t try to push me away.
“One more night, Tate,” I begged, wrapping my other arm around his waist. He stiffened against me and I knew it was because I hadn’t told him what he needed to hear. What I was asking was cruel, but I couldn’t will myself to watch him walk away. I couldn’t bear the idea of not feeling his body beneath mine one more time. I couldn’t not taste him again.
The last time I’d begged for anything was the night I’d been in that ER watching Ronan work on my wife. And my desperation was just as clawing now as it had been then. “Please, Tate.”
Tate let out a harsh sob and then he nodded and turned his head and searched out my lips. My whole body went weak with relief as Tate twisted in my arms until he was facing me and crushed our mouths together. And then his arms went around my neck and he buried his face against the crook of my shoulder. “I love you so much. So much, Michael.”
I wanted so badly to say the words back.
But I couldn’t.
I just fucking couldn’t.
So I did my best to show him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tate
The only thing Hawke grabbed besides my hand after I’d whispered my admission for the second time was his bag from his truck. He released me long enough to unlock the front door and I barely managed to close the door behind me before he dragged me up the stairs. The second we were in his room, his mouth sought out mine and the last of my tears dried up as he made love to my mouth. As heartbroken as I was that he would never love me back, I needed Hawke more than I needed my pride. I’d pick up the pieces tomorrow. Tonight I would take enough of him to see me through the times in my life when I needed to pretend again.
I lifted my arms as Hawke tugged my shirt off and then I was reaching for his. Our mouths barely parted as we undressed one another and the second I was naked, Hawke maneuvered me to the bed and turned on the small lamp on the nightstand. But instead of laying me on my back, he urged me to lie down on my front and then he was hovering over me, his warm body blanketing mine. He kissed me for a long time before lifting up just enough so that he could kiss the back of my neck. As impatient as my body was for more, I loved every second of what he was doing to me. It was like he was worshiping me as he placed unhurried, gentle kisses all along my shoulders, collarbone and neck. And then his lips were trailing down my spine and I felt the goosebumps rise on my flesh as he grazed his nails over my back as he worked his way lower. I expected him to stop once he reached the globes of my ass, but he didn’t. He just kept kissing me and didn’t stop until he’d reached my feet. As turned on as I was, my body also felt boneless and I didn’t protest when his hand closed over my hips and dragged me backwards until my ass was hanging off the bed, my feet flat on the floor.
Hawke split me open, but there was no lube pressed against my entrance, no finger seeking entry. Just cool air. I glanced over my shoulder at him and saw that he was staring at where he was holding me open. I looked at him questioningly and then held my breath when he licked his lips and suddenly dropped to his knees behind me.
There was no way he was going to…
But that was exactly what he did. I gasped when I felt his tongue tentatively flick over my hole. I’d never had anyone do this to me before and I had no idea what to expect. I’d never even been sure it was something I wanted because the idea of someone like Reggie rimming me had been a huge turn-off. And I definitely wouldn’t have thought someone who was just starting to explore another side of his sexuality would do anything so intimate.
But after the first soft caress, another one followed, then another. And it wasn’t just the tip of Hawke’s tongue that was exploring me. His whole tongue, lips, teeth, they all worked together to put me in an agonizingly blissful haze of sensual pleasure. I felt fingers drifting over my cock and balls and then Hawke fisted my shaft as he continued to play with my hole. I gripped the bedding in between my fingers as the coil of need inside of me started to grow. And then I felt it…Hawke’s tongue probing my hole more forcefully. Before I could even consider what was happening, I felt it push into me and I cried out at the sensation. Hands clamped down on my hips to hold me still, but that didn’t stop me from trying to push back farther on the tongue that was thrusting in and out of me.
“Fuck, yes,” I growled as Hawke’s tongue licked my insides. “More,” I ordered. But instead of continuing, Hawke pulled his tongue free and closed his lips over my hole and sucked gently. I began desperately rubbing my hips against the side of the bed in order to give my dick the friction it so badly needed, but Hawke took that away from me too by taking my leaking cock in his hand once again. He started dragging his thumb up and down the shaft as his mouth moved from my hole down to my balls and then licked along my cock before reversing direction.
“Michael, please,” I whispered as the need inside of me became unbearable.
“Tell me what you want, baby,” Hawke whispered against my skin, his soft breath stroking over my fluttering opening.
“I need to come,” I begged shamelessly.
Hawke didn’t answer me, but a second later his tongue was surging into me again and his hand began stroking me with hot, tight glides. And just like that I came. The buildup had been so slow and torturous, but the climax was the exact opposite because I was thrown over the edge with no warning at all. The orgasm was ruthless as it flashed through my body and seared every cell with pleasure. And through it all, Hawke kept fucking me with his tongue and fisting me with his hand. On the heels of the crushing ecstasy was the tingling that started in my core and spread out to all of my limbs.
I was struggling to catch my breath as the orgasm started to ease and I couldn’t move when Hawke lay down on top of me, his front to my back and searched out my mouth. The second he kissed me, I knew exactly what the salty, bitter fluid was that transferred from his mouth to mine.
It took very little effort for Hawke’s crown to push past my outer muscle since Hawke had done such a thorough job of relaxing it with his ministrations. He began fucking me with shallow thrusts that helped him work his way deeper into my body. My ass burned as it stretched to accommodate his thickness and once he bottomed out inside of me, he dropped down on my back and kissed my ear, my neck, my jaw.
“I need you so badly, Tate,” he whispered.
“I’m yours, Michael. Always.”
The kiss I got was desperate and needy and matched the frenetic pace Hawke set as he pounded into my body. I could feel my own cock responding as all the ridges of Hawke’s cock massaged my inner walls. Hawke remained hunched over me and sought out my hands and linked our fingers together as he humped into me. His breath was hot against my neck and every grunt drove my own need to come higher and higher.
“Fuck,” Hawke snarled as he began slamming into me urgently, signaling the end. He shifted his hips just the tiniest bit and hit my gland and I let out a hoarse shout. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything as Hawke controlled every aspect of my pleasure. I waited, I hoped and then I started begging Hawke to give me what I needed.
And then I was flying as I came again. Hawke shouted my name as he pummeled me with thrust after brutally deep thrust, and his weight held me to the bed as his release flooded my insides. My orgasm ratcheted even higher as I felt his dick slide through his juices before shoving into me hard one more time and holding there for several long seconds as more of his cum filled me. And then I heard it, barely a whisper.
“I love you, Tate.”
And I wanted to cry.
Because I knew in my heart that it wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t enough.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hawke
I hadn’t meant to say the words. Not because I didn’t mean them. Because I did. I’d known it the moment Tate had turned his back on me to get in that car.
To leave me.
No, I’d said them because as strong as my physical release had been, something deep inside of me had opened up at the same time and I’d felt whole again. But it had been fleeting – long enough for me to tell Tate the truth of what he meant to me, but not long enough to let go of the past or the promise I’d made.
Tate didn’t respond to my declaration, but when I leaned in to kiss him, he kissed me back without hesitation. We stayed there like that until I knew my weight was too much for him and I carefully levered myself off of him and pulled free of his body. The sight of my release dripping from Tate’s body set off something primal in me and I couldn’t resist running my fingers through the sticky white fluid and spreading it into his skin. When I looked up, I saw that Tate was watching me over his shoulder with glassy eyes. I wrapped my hand around his arm and gently pulled him to his feet and he pushed into my arms and dragged me down for a kiss. I took his hand and led him to the bathroom.
The master bathroom was one of the only rooms that Revay’s parents had gotten around to remodeling shortly before their deaths, so it sported a large walk in shower with a bench on one end. After I got the shower going, I changed the angle on the shower head to make sure the water would hit us the way I wanted it to and I led Tate to the bench and sat down. He didn’t need any kind of urging to sit down on my lap and as we kissed, I searched out the soap and began washing him.
Both of us were hard by the time we were done cleaning each other. Tate took charge of our pleasure as he rubbed up against me, his erection brushing mine. At one point, he took us both in hand and began jerking us off at the same time, but without warning, he slipped from my lap and dropped to his knees between my legs. I watched in rapt fascination as he licked my length from base to tip and then teased my slit with the tip of his tongue. I wanted the sensual torture to both hurry up and slow down at the same time, but that was my last rational thought because Tate’s mouth closed over my dick a second later. Blowjobs were something I’d gotten plenty of from Revay during our years together, but Tate’s mouth felt entirely different. He seemed to know exactly how much pressure to exert, when to back off and when to barrel on so that I was always just riding the edge of my orgasm.
As Tate sucked me down to my base, I let out a hoarse shout and put my hands on his head to hold him still so I could fuck his mouth the way I wanted. I was close to coming when Tate released my cock and looked up at me.
“Scoot forward,” he urged as his hands closed over my hips.
It took me a moment to realize why he wanted me to move. A niggle of uncertainty went through me as I understood what would happen next if I did as he asked. My relationship with Tate had progressed so quickly that I hadn’t given much thought to having him touch me the same way I touched him. But one look at his patient eyes and I knew I wanted it. I wanted whatever he would give me. Because he wasn’t doing it for him. He was doing it for me.
I shifted my hips forward until my ass was hanging off the bench. The position put my upper body at an awkward angle, but that was all forgotten the second Tate put his finger in his mouth, got it nice and slick with spit, removed it, and then sucked my cock back into his mouth. I flinched when I felt his finger brushing over my hole, but I forced myself to remain still. Tate’s mouth was still working me, but he’d eased up a little, probably so that I wouldn’t be too distracted from what he was doing to my ass.
Tate’s finger rubbed over my hole several times, the saliva making the motion smoother. At first I was struggling with the oddness of it all, but then I began to anticipate the little spark that shot through me every time the pad of his finger added just the slightest bit of pressure to my entrance. And when the finger disappeared, I actually started to protest until I saw Tate sucking his finger into his mouth to wet it again.
“Put your feet up on the bench,” Tate urged. As soon as I did, I felt awkward and horribly exposed, but then Tate’s finger was probing me again and he went back to work on my dick. And then Tate’s long, thick finger pressed inside of me and I gasped at the sharp sting of pain that fired through my ass. Tate eased back a little, then pushed in again. He kept repeating the move over and over again, burying more of his finger inside of me each time. At some point the burning had eased and besides the odd feeling of being filled, a lovely sensation had started to build inside of me. Tate was still sucking me so between his mouth and his finger, I was trapped in a vortex of sensation.
Until he did something inside of me that rocketed through my entire body all at once. And I knew without having to ask that he’d hit my prostate. Tate did it again as he increased the suction on my dick and I soon found myself trying to impale my ass on his finger every time he slid it back into me. And if that wasn’t enough, I looked down to where Tate’s lips were wrapped around my cock and nearly came at the sight of him using his free hand to jack himself off. After that, I lost track of everything except the need to come.
“Tate!” I shouted as the pressure in my ass increased exponentially and I had no doubt Tate was now working two fingers in and out of my body. He rubbed over my gland a few more times as he hollowed out his cheeks and sucked hard and I was a goner. I shot load after load of cum in his mouth and even as hard as he worked to try and swallow it, some escaped his lips as he parted them when his own release hit him. As we both came down, Tate pulled his fingers from my body and I leaned down and yanked him up and sealed my mouth over his. The water had washed the cum on his mouth away, but I could still taste myself as I licked over his tongue and
teeth. When I released his mouth, Tate wrapped his arms around me in a brutal hug and I just held him there like that.
Once my breathing had returned to normal, I took my time washing Tate and myself again and then dried him off and led him back to bed. He was asleep within minutes of me pulling him against my side, but I wasn’t so lucky. I laid there for hours trying to process what I was feeling, but nothing made any sense to me and the lack of control was frustrating. And as the first filtered rays of sun seeped through the window, I gently rolled Tate onto his back and placed soft kisses on his mouth and face until he woke up. I made love to him again, slowly this time and I felt a rush of joy when he whispered that he loved me before falling asleep again. I got him cleaned up and stared at the clock next to the bed, willing it to slow down. But when Tate started to stir against me a couple of hours later, I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again.
Not when he carefully eased himself from my hold.
Not when he got dressed.
Not when he leaned down to brush his lips over mine.
And not even when I heard the front door close and the sound of a muffled engine making its way down the driveway.
* * *
“I don’t recall giving you permission to track my phone,” I murmured as I heard the footsteps approaching from behind me. I was sitting on the dilapidated porch of my uncle’s house staring at the overgrown yard, so my back was to Ronan as he came around the house and up the steps on the far end of the porch. The railing had long ago rotted and collapsed so I had an unfettered view of the woods and mountains beyond as I sat with my back against the wall of the house.
“And if it really bothered you, you would have turned the phone off or gotten a new one,” Ronan said as he sat down next to me. I glanced at him and couldn’t help the smile that flitted across my lips at the sight of the stubble covering his head. It had been nearly three weeks since Tate and I had video chatted with Matty after he’d gotten his head shaved and I suspected that Ronan had continued to shave his own head for some time afterwards because it was just now starting to grow back.
Retribution (The Protectors, Book 3) Page 19