by Mary Calmes
The turning point was when I tattooed him on my arm to remind myself, to see him in the mirror, and I’d put my hand on my bicep at night and hold myself the same way he once had. I’d been okay, it had been enough. All I’d needed was a quick fuck once in a while, and I was fine thinking that was how my life would go… until Scott.
The craving for another person after so long had been unexpected, and what I’d thought had been friendship was instead something far deeper. I had been insulated and safe until Scott Wren showed up and started slowly, inexorably, chiseling away at the wall around my heart.
“Boone,” he whispered, breaking the kiss, staring deep into my eyes, his pupils blown, lips red and swollen, panting softly. “Give in already.”
I scrutinized him, realizing that whatever I did in this moment, there was no going back.
“Let me hold you, kiss you, love you,” he whimpered, squirming in my hands, tightening his long muscular legs. “It’s time for you to stop pushing me off on other people and keep me.”
Still I hesitated, holding on but not claiming him, not making him mine. “You liked Daniel, you wanted—”
“I fill my time,” he said, swallowing hard, his lips hovering over mine. “And I’m sorry I did, but you weren’t ready, you never are, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t watch you waste a second more of your time going through the motions of your life and not living it. I can’t let someone who doesn’t worship you, have you.”
I wanted to jump, I wanted to try, but losing love was the most catastrophic thing imaginable. And though I could not recall physical pain, I could remember every millisecond of Haru being gone, and then, those short months later, seeing him in his coffin.
“The first day I walked into your gallery I thought, damn, I know what I want.”
“You never said a word!”
“I cooked for you, I followed you home, I put my hands everywhere I could without scaring you away,” he said thickly, his voice deep and low as he bit gently down on my bottom lip. “I don’t even care anymore if you don’t want me. Just please take me to bed.”
“That’s a lie. You care.”
“I do,” he amended, “but I can love enough for both of us if you don’t want to keep me.”
Not want him?
Turning, I carried him from the living room to his dimly lit bedroom, and we tumbled onto the dove gray comforter, pinning him under me, his groin wedged against mine.
“Oh fuck, yeah,” he rasped, toeing off his shoes before sliding his sock feet up the backs of my calves. “Boone Walton, here with me… finally.” He shuddered beneath me, and when I lifted my face from where it was buried against the side of his neck, he tilted his chin back for my kiss.
I was out of time.
“You,” he croaked out, his voice full of aching, devouring need, “are going to fall madly in love with me.”
Grinding my mouth down over his, I kissed him hard, tasting and mauling, crowding his tongue with mine, sucking on it, letting him feel what a dominant lover I would be.
He returned each kiss desperately, forcefully, taking what he wanted, claiming, his hands rubbing over every part of me he could reach. To have nothing and then everything was overwhelming, and I tried to pull back, to slow down so my brain could process before my body just took what it needed.
“No-no-no,” he moaned, arching up off the bed, trying to get closer, tighter, hands scrambling over my belt buckle, tugging, pulling, wanting it loose. “Do not leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I argued.
“In your head, idiot,” he sighed, pushing my hair out of my face.
“I—”
“Be here,” he insisted, his tongue slipping over my bottom lip. “With me.”
Leaning closer, I couldn’t help smiling when he kissed the corner of my mouth before nibbling along my jaw. Everything I wanted to do to him, apparently he wanted to do to me.
“Kiss me again,” he ordered.
I was thorough, and when he was boneless beneath me, the mewling cries having become demands that I fuck him, I broke the kiss for air and stared down at him, panting. “Where’s—”
“There,” he gasped, pointing at the night table.
After lifting off him, I rolled sideways and got the drawer open, rummaged for the lube and came up with it quickly. When I turned back to him, I nearly swallowed my tongue.
That fast he was naked, and if I thought he was beautiful before, out of his clothes he was breathtaking.
“Jesus, Scott,” I said brokenly.
His smirk was wicked and smug, and it deserved to be. He was gold all over; his beautiful sleek skin covered a long, lean, tightly muscled frame I could barely wait to touch.
Rolling from the bed, I tore off my clothes and then crawled back up the bed to him, the condom between my teeth as I flipped open the cap of the lube. I was surprised when he reached out and grabbed the foil package and tossed it away.
“What’re you—”
“I don’t fuck without a condom,” he said, his eyes mapping every part of my body. “And neither do you, so we’re not doing that.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No condom.” He was adamant, and when his gaze returned to mine I saw nothing but heat. “We’re good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He grinned up at me. “Now stop screwing around.”
“Okay,” I agreed with a grin, squeezing lube onto my fingertips, letting whatever fear I felt dissipate, nothing else mattering but being inside him.
He lifted his knees and planted his feet on the bed, opening for me, the submission making my dick leak as I fingered his entrance, rubbing gentle circles around his rim.
“You don’t have to—” He gasped when I dipped a finger inside. “—do this. I’ve been ready for you since we met.”
“But I’m not,” I growled before I bent and took him down my throat.
Instantly his hands were in my hair, tight, insistent as his back bowed. “Oh fuck!”
He was frantic with his need, and if I’d been too stupid to hear it in his voice, then his actions were enough to clue me in.
“I’ve dreamed about you doing this to me,” he said gruffly, his voice ragged with lust.
I sucked and laved, using my teeth to gently score his beautiful long, thin cock, swallowing around him until he pushed me off.
“What?” I gasped, trying to catch my breath.
“Boone,” he almost cried, writhing under me. “I want you to shove that huge fat dick of yours in me as far as it’ll go.”
“Scott—”
“It’s all I fuckin’ want.”
“Lis—”
“No!” he snarled, reaching for me, hands out, sliding over my skin. “I want you to feel it, so you believe.”
“What’re you—”
“When you’re inside of me, you’ll know, and you won’t be able to hide anymore.”
“I don’t hide,” I snapped defensively even as I leaned close, curling over him and taking back possession of his mouth. I wanted to taste him more than I wanted to argue.
“You do,” he gasped between kisses, arching toward me, his cock dragging wet and slippery against my abdomen as I slipped first one and then the other of his legs over my arms. “But not anymore, not after this.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but neither did I care. All of me was laser-focused on being inside of him. As I slicked myself with lube, he watched me, eyes narrowed in hunger, licking his lips.
“That is fuckin’ huge,” he whimpered, hips canting instinctively. “Come here.”
But I continued stroking instead, enjoying the feeling and the effect it was having on him.
“Please,” he begged, clawing at my skin until he reached my shoulders and held on.
Grabbing the pillow beside the one he had his head on, I lifted him at the same time I shoved it under his hips.
“I’m gonna kill you if you don’t—Boone!”
&nb
sp; Breaching him, I’d slid the enormous engorged head of my cock inside of him—but no more. I wanted him to get used to me before I pushed in any deeper.
“Oh please.” His voice cracked, broke, and as he surged up to meet me, all his passion directed solely at me, for me, was too much to hold myself from. I thrust hard, burying myself in his body in one powerful stroke.
“Fuck,” was all I managed before all my words deserted me.
He felt more than good, and I knew why. It had happened to me once before, so I recognized the cause. Because sex was always good, but there was a reason that pushed it into feeling like you and the person you were with fused into one.
I had always known that I loved Scott as a friend, but stuck in denial, I’d missed when it became more.
“Look at me.”
I followed his order without hesitation.
“Don’t look away.”
His muscles were tight as they rippled around me, squeezing and releasing, the spasms milking my length.
“Boone,” he murmured, making my name sound like a prayer.
As I pulled out and then drove back inside, he pleaded with me for faster, harder, locking his arms around my neck so I couldn’t get free of him.
I never want to be free of him.
He was coming apart beneath me, the two of us locked in a primal rhythm until it was only me, pounding into him over and over.
“I want to know every little part of you,” he puffed into my ear. “I want you to let me in and allow me to see the dark parts too.”
But what if when he knew I wasn’t a good guy, he didn’t want me anymore?
“Whatever it is you think I shouldn’t know,” he said, his breathing rapid and shallow, “I need you to trust me with.”
Could I do that?
“I want you,” he rasped softly before his head fell back, mouth open, and his hoarse cry filled the small room as he spurted over his stomach and chest.
His muscles clenched around me all at once and I yelled his name as I filled his tight clasping channel and then collapsed, pinning him to the bed.
“I’ll move—” I heaved for breath, sweaty and shaking. “—in just a sec.”
“Oh no,” he purred into my hair, pushing it off my face where it had fallen across my forehead, sticking to my skin. “You stay where you are.”
So I lay there in his arms, still buried in his body, and let him hold me with his arms and legs and soft kisses.
I didn’t remember falling asleep.
Chapter 6
I WOKE up because my stomach was growling so loud it actually jolted me out of my sex coma. Scott was laughing from where he leaned in the doorway, sleep shorts and nothing else on. For some reason, the spatula in his hand and the dishtowel thrown over his shoulder were ridiculously hot.
“I’m hungry,” I grumbled.
“Yes, dear, I know.” He nodded, chuckling. “Get up and come out here.”
I climbed out of bed and pulled on my jeans but didn’t zip or snap them, just let them ride on my hips. He stopped me with a hand on my chest when I reached him in the kitchen. When my eyes met his, I noted the worry there.
“So,” I began softly, unsure what I was supposed to say. “You sure you wanna try this with me? I’m a dick to be around.”
He put the spatula down, then put his hands on my sides, and it was both possessive and tender. “Yes, Boone, I want to do everything with you. Especially have sex and sleep and cohabitate.”
I coughed. “You want to live with me?”
He answered without even a pause. “And keep this place as somewhere I can rent out or have guests stay or offer to friends for the night who shouldn’t drive… yes, dear. That’s what I want to do.”
It sounded like he’d already thought everything through and I was coming in late.
“What?”
“No moment of doubt? No worry? Just matter-of-fact about the moving in and then on to what you’re gonna do with this place?”
“Yeah,” he answered brightly, kissing under my jaw. “I want to move in. Why wouldn’t you know that already?”
I shook my head, giving up. “So, your place. You don’t want to sell it?”
“No. I mean, Florence and I get along well, and I don’t want her to have to get used to someone else. This way she’ll have solitude most times and company only a little. I think that might suit her.”
The lights flickered off and on, and lemongrass and honey scented the air. I looked around the apartment he owned and then back to him. “I think she likes the sound of that just fine.”
He curled into me, hands on my hips, head notched under my chin. “So you were maybe asking a down-the-road question about me moving in. Maybe you didn’t mean like right—”
“I was,” I confirmed while lifting his chin. “That way I can always keep an eye on you.”
His brows furrowed. “I don’t want to live with you because—”
“I know why ya wanna live with me,” I growled, taking his mouth in a hard, brutal kiss that went on until the irritation was over and he coiled his arms around my neck and melted. When I finally unsealed my lips from his, I realized he looked drunk. “You want to live with me because you want us to see if we can make this thing work.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Except I don’t have to see anything.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I know, Boone. I already know. You’re going to love living with me. No doubt in my mind.”
“Okay,” I breathed, grabbing and hugging him. It felt so good to do it whenever I wanted, since now, he was mine. “So where is your family staying when they get here? Did you get them a room somewhere?”
“What?” he asked as I released him. “No. They’re staying with me.”
I chuckled. “I’m sorry, where precisely are you putting them all in here?”
“Well, I was going to see if I could crash with you while my sister slept on my couch and my folks here.”
“On the bed we just screwed around in.”
“Well, I didn’t know we were gonna do that, did I? I mean, I hoped, but—and I’ll change the sheets, for crissakes.”
I snorted out a laugh and wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him in tight against me again. “I love that you want to live with me.”
He nodded. “You shouldn’t be surprised. Anyone in their right mind would want to move in with you.”
It made sense to me that someone would want to live in my place; it was a sanctuary, but with me was another story.
From the industrial-style kitchen with stainless steel counters and appliances, to the dark floors, gray walls, white trim, and the French doors that opened out to a terrace, it was a beautiful space. There was an exposed brick entryway, and reclaimed oak floors throughout the rest of the loft—except the kitchen, done in black and white geometric tile. It was an open and airy space that managed to be warm and cozy at the same time. It had taken me three years renovating it myself to get the space how I wanted it to be.
“You know, ever since the first time I was over there,” he said, nibbling at my chin, “I’ve wanted to make that kitchen my own.”
To hear the chef liked my kitchen, wanted to be there… I had no words but “Yeah?” I was so pleased.
“Yeah,” he mused, pressing into me. “The built-in hutch, the see-through cabinets, the shelf over the backsplash, the black woodwork and all the windows and—”
“Asshole,” I said, shoving him away. “You don’t want me, you want my loft!”
He started cackling and reached for me.
“No! Get off me.”
He was having a hard time breathing.
I darted across the floor and put the small dining room table between us. “I bet you want my bedroom too.”
He tipped his head back and forth like he was thinking about it.
“Jerk!”
That was it—he put his hands on his knees and gave himself over, absolutely falling apart, hea
ving for breath, ending by coughing just to pull in some air.
When he was at the sink moments later, flushed, drinking water, still chuckling between gulps, I wandered in.
“So you want my kitchen, my bedroom, and you probably have designs on my bathroom with the double showerheads too.”
He nodded. “The slate marble makes me hard.”
I grunted. “Good to know.”
“But you know, Boone,” he said, grinning wickedly as he crossed the room to me, to slide his hands up my chest. “Do you know what I want most of all?”
“No,” I rumbled, pushing the hair out of those beautiful charcoal eyes of his. “What?”
“You,” he husked, lifting for my kiss. “I want you.”
I leaned close. “Are you sure? This is really fuckin’ fast.”
“The only one who thinks two years is fast is you.”
“But you liked Daniel.”
“I was trying. I even got new clothes.” He chuckled. “But for the record, I didn’t sleep with him.”
“What?” I was startled.
He jumped up and I instinctively grabbed hold of him, my hands cupping his ass and squeezing. “I just couldn’t. I haven’t slept with anyone in over six months. That’s why I basically attacked you.”
“I liked being attacked,” I said before I bent and kissed him.
His hands were all over me, my hair, my back, as he gorged himself on my mouth, sucking on my tongue, one kiss seamlessly becoming another and another until I shoved him up against the wall and began grinding my groin against his.
Reaching between us, he rucked my open jeans just enough for my already stiff cock to bounce free.
“This is like holding a club in my hand,” he murmured as he squeezed tight.
“Scott,” I moaned into his mouth, yanking at the front of his shorts, jerking them down so his own leaking erection could shove up against mine, rubbing, dragging, the friction igniting the thirst for him all over again.
When he broke the kiss to gulp for air, my name came out guttural and edged in gravel as his semen spilled over my cock and abdomen.
“Jesus, Boone, what’re you doing to me?” he gasped, breathless and broken.