One (Love by Numbers Book 5)

by E. S. Carter

  My legs bracket his spread thighs, my hand finds his shoulder, and achingly slowly I place the tip of my covered cock at his entrance.

  “Do it, fuck me, babe. I need it,” he encourages, pushing his arse back until his eager hole swallows the very tip of my cock.

  Moving both hands to his hips which I swear I’m going to bruise with my tight grasp, I still his movements and slowly, so fucking slowly, edge myself into his body.

  He’s so fucking tight and unbelievably hot. It takes all my willpower not to just fuck him hard and fast when his willing body squeezes the last of my control. Inch by fucking painfully incredible inch I push myself deeper until I’m buried to the hilt inside Isaac Fox. When I bottom out, and my balls rest against his smooth skin, he releases a gloriously sinful moan, and his inner muscles tighten even further. Without withdrawing, I grind myself against him and slide my hand around his waist to grip his bobbing shaft.

  “Flynn, you have to… I need to… you’ve got to,” he pants incoherently. But I know exactly what he wants because it’s the same thing I do, he wants me to move.

  I lean over his back until I’m fully covering him, one hand on the bed to steady myself, the other gripping his cock like a vice and as I pull back my hips to slide slowly out of him, I place my lips on the curve of his neck where it meets his shoulder.

  When only my tip remains inside his hot channel, I angle my hips and thrust forward at the same time as I open my mouth and bite down into his skin.

  “Yeeeeesssss,” he all but screams when I repeat the move and nail that spot deep inside him that makes him see stars.

  “You’re. Mine. Now,” I growl out single words with each thrust.

  “You’ve put your mark on me, and I’ve claimed you.”

  I get in three more thrusts punctuated with, “Don’t. You. Forget” before he’s roaring out his orgasm, his seed painting my sheets and spilling over my hand at the same time as mine barrels through me catching me completely off guard and stripping the air from my lungs. His arms shake, the power of his orgasm stripping him of strength as the aftershocks of mine ripple through my body. We collapse in a sweaty heap. My weight forcing him deep into the mattress, likely restricting the air into his lungs but he’s not complaining so I’m not moving.

  I’m lying, balls deep inside another man, with my chest plastered to his back and the remnants of his release clinging to my fingers and I’ve never felt more at peace.

  Why did I ever fight this?

  Why did I ever think I could win against the power this man has over me?

  He owns me.

  “Can’t breathe,” I cough reluctantly.

  Flynn’s substantial weight has me pinned to his mattress as he sprawls across my back after having just fucked me into next week and collapsed on top of me.

  If I could get more air into my lungs, I’d let him stay right where he is because his weight feels good. Right.

  “Pretend you’re underwater. Just give me five more minutes,” he grumbles into my ear making no attempt to get off me.

  I use the last of the air in my lungs to huff out a laugh before I buck my hips in a useless attempt at dislodging his weight.

  We both groan as his cock slips free.

  “What did you do that for? I was comfortable,” he grumbles like a big kid before rolling off me onto his back and allowing sweet blessed air into my lungs.

  I roll onto my side to face him and hook my leg over his, dragging his limp body across the smooth sheets until he’s pressed up against me.

  “Yeah, were you? Well, I wasn’t, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be responsible for my early demise.”

  I lean my head on his broad and sweat-damp chest, inhaling deeply and letting his scent wash over me like a soothing balm.

  “Did you just sniff me?” he asks, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and absently playing with the ends of my hair.

  “What if I did?” I throw back, revelling in his relaxed and comforting touch.

  He only sighs in response, his arm tightening around me until our bodies are flush.

  “That was fucking unbelievable,” he mumbles into my shoulder, a languorous roll of his hips has his rubber clad, semi-hard cock pushing into my thigh, leaving a sticky trail in its wake.

  “Shouldn’t we go and clean up?” I ask, unbothered but looking for a reaction.

  “Nope.” He thrusts again. “I’m good right here.”

  We lie in each other’s arms, a comfortable silence surrounding us. It’s the kind that soothes, the kind that tells you you’re with someone special, the kind that binds you to another person because it doesn’t create distance, it closes it.

  I’m halfway between sleep and awake when his voice rumbles over my skin. “Tell me something, something good.”

  “Like a fairy tale? You want a bedtime story to send you off to sleep?”

  He pinches my side hard, and I yelp.

  “No, you funny fucker, something good that’s real. I’ve been living a good life, but it hasn’t felt real for a long time. Tell me something about your life that’s good.”

  “That’s easy,” I reply while trailing my fingertips up and down his arm. “Ivy-Leaves and Arty.”

  He rises enough to look into my face, “Cartoon characters?”

  I chuckle at his scrunched up face, “My brother Josh’s kids. I stayed with them for the last year, and they kind of took over my life.”

  “He gave his kids weird names. How come you took a year off to stay with them?”

  I lift my hand and trace my fingers over the thick arch of each of his brows, his eyes closed at my touch, his mouth parting slightly on a heavy exhale.

  “Josh lost his wife. She died suddenly after childbirth. He lost the love of his life, his soulmate and best friend. Added to his grief was a new born baby and toddler to care for, and for a long time he struggled. They needed me.”

  His eyes flick open, and I drop my hand to my side. He looks at me intently. His gaze was searching the depths of mine seemingly stunned by my admission.

  “You sacrificed your career and put your life on hold for them.” It’s a softly spoken statement, not a question.

  “It wasn’t a sacrifice.”

  “Yes, it was.” He leans in and kisses me softly, sweetly and with meaning. When our lips part, he rests his head back on his hand and just looks at me.

  The moment feels heavy, weighted down with emotions too strong to be felt this soon. Needing to remove his intense appreciation of me, I ask a question of my own. One that’s been on the tip of my tongue since the night at the pub.

  “How old was your brother when he died?”

  His body tenses and the look of adoration on his face that was making me uncomfortable morphs into one of discomfort. I immediately regret asking, and I’m about to tell him not to answer when he quietly speaks.

  “Nineteen. He was two years older than me to the day. We shared everything, including our birthdays.”

  I shuffle my body further down the bed and place my head on his chest, giving him the opportunity to speak without me staring and making it more difficult.

  “Clark and I were like chalk and cheese, but we fit, you know.” He begins to run his fingers through my hair. “He was slight with curly auburn hair that he absolutely hated. Where I was sporty and popular in school, he was reserved and shy, but he had the most sarcastic sense of humour that often got him into trouble at home.” He chuckles lightly, lost in a memory and my head jiggles around on his chest with the vibrations of his controlled laughter.

  “What happened? Was he ill for very long?”

  His body stills completely, and his hand stops dead in a tangle of my hair.

  “You don’t have to keep talking about him if you don’t want to.”

  He takes a deep, shaky breath and his hand resumes its movement, sifting his fingers through the longer strands at the top of my head.

  “He hung himself from a tree in the yard of the construction c
ompany where he was a carpenter’s apprentice.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. What do you say to someone who has experienced that level of loss?

  Nothing. There are no words to offer, so I pull him a little closer and squeeze him a little tighter. Telling him with my actions that I’m here, with him.

  I’m here for you.

  “Clark could make anything with his hands. Give him materials, and he would create masterpieces, give him scraps of wood, and he would make items of use and beauty.” He lifts his head from his hand and lays down flat on the bed, pulling me with him. If he wants to talk for hours, I’m not going to stop him. The way he speaks, it’s as if he’s never told anyone any of this before.

  “The month before he died, he finished this amazing table for my mother’s birthday. His boss had given him some wood, to me it looked like half a rotten tree trunk, but he made this unbelievably incredible coffee table. He sliced down the trunk lengthways, so the top of the table had all the tree rings exposed. Years and years of this tree’s life revealed like infinite perfect circles of existence.”

  His voice tremors when he continues.

  “Just a few weeks later the hands that created the table that still sits proudly in my parents’ living room were cold and limp. The life he showcased in that old tree stump, no longer flowing through his veins.” The next words are wrenched from his throat as if they cause him physical pain.

  “He went to the yard on the weekend when the place was closed. It’s set back off the road and down a narrow lane so he knew nobody would find him until Monday.” His body trembles and I want to beg him to stop because I can feel his hurt, the pain of this retelling a brutal open wound that I can tell has not scabbed over despite the passing of years.

  “He climbed the tree that sits towards the back of the property with a bottle of vodka and a bag full of pills. There he penned a note addressed to our mother. The letter begins by saying he’s not doing this to hurt anyone, and the more he drank and with each handful of pills he swallowed, his words start to jumble, his reasons and thoughts mutating into a nonsensical string of nothingness.”

  I can feel his shivers increase into full body shakes and I lift my head needing to be closer to him, needing to take away this burden. What I see when I look into his face guts me. His eyes are squeezed shut and rivers of tears coat his cheeks.

  “Babe, don’t keep talking if it’s too hard for you. I didn’t know, and I would never have asked the question and made you relive all this had I known.” I kiss his forehead and clutch him to me, trying to tell him he’s not alone. I’ve got him.

  With a ragged inhale he shakes his head and continues, “He dosed himself with a lethal amount of booze and pills to be able to go through with it. He fell unconscious with the rope around his neck.” Sobs choke his last few words.

  “He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t… so he sat there, up in that godforsaken tree just waiting to pass out and let gravity steal his last breath. He died alone, Iz. And nobody found him for over twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m so sorry, babe. I’m so fucking sorry.” I absorb his pain, kissing his scrunched up forehead over and over again, gently rocking this strong, powerful man in my arms until his sobs ease and completely spent, he falls asleep in my arms.

  Love hurts. It gives, and it takes away. It’s brutal with its beauty.

  Holding Flynn Phillips tightly to my body I understand I’m putting myself at risk. I’m gambling with love, toying with the inevitability of pain because if I allow this man to burrow any further into my soul, I’ll be giving him the power to annihilate me.

  Is love worth it?

  Josh and Flynn’s stories tell me it’s not. They tell me that I need to guard myself and remove that risk. This thing between Flynn and me can’t go any further than this.

  With a heavy heart and acute pain in my chest, I careful release Flynn and cover him with his white linen sheets. Then I slide out of his bed but not before placing one last kiss on his soft lips.

  He exhales heavily at the contact, but he doesn’t wake. So I grab my discarded clothes and quietly leave the room.

  It’s the best for both of us.

  Neither of us is emotionally ready for anything more than sex. Tomorrow I’ll tell him before it’s too late. Before either of us puts our hearts on the line.

  I haven’t seen Isaac for four days.

  The first time I have sex with a man and I decide in our post-coital glow to spill my guts and lay out most of my skeletons.

  Awesome idea Phillips, way to fucking go.

  I’ve never told anyone about how Clark committed suicide. I even skipped most of the details during therapy, finding it too hard to describe the last moments of my brother’s life.

  I didn’t get to tell Isaac the reason why Clark thought his pain was too great to overcome, or should I say the catalyst that pushed him over the edge, because even I know that I can’t blame just one person for my brother’s issues. It was a combination of factors, ones he kept well-hidden even from me.

  I had crumbled into a pathetic mess before I got that far and after sobbing myself to sleep in his arms, I woke up alone.

  Disorientated and aching all over, I dragged myself out of bed. The used condom still on my now soft cock was a visual reminder of what had happened between us. I thought Iz would be downstairs or at the very least, in the shower.

  But he was gone.

  My house was empty, and the sun had long ago set.

  I toyed with the idea of going over to his house and talked myself out of it. Maybe he had somewhere he needed to go and didn’t want to wake me before he left? Maybe he had a family emergency?

  Four days later and those maybes have died a sad and pitiful death. He’s avoiding me.

  When I ask around, trying and failing to not look overly interested in where the film’s cinematographer has disappeared, I find out he’s at another set location despite his schedule having him down as being here in Cardiff with me.

  “You’re up in ten minutes. All principles on set.”

  I nod in acknowledgement towards Callie, the young production assistant who has just given me my ten-minute warning and continue to stare directly ahead. My scarred face mocks me from the mirror. The realistic prosthetics a visual reminder of the internal lesions I carry. With a deep breath, I stare into my face and decide that it’s long past the time to be rid of my festering wounds.

  With determination I haven’t shown for quite a while, I stare at my reflection and promise, “I’m coming for you, Isaac Fox. You can run, but you can’t hide.” Grim, my alter ego in the mirror agrees.

  Today’s scenes require nothing more from me than hanging around in the background. I have no lines to deliver and no direct screen time for the next couple of days. That’s fine with me. I’m not sure I could concentrate on delivering a performance with any real believability anyway. My head is all jumbled up, and only one man can make that right.

  Jake, Isaac’s brother and my director, has also been avoiding me where possible. Yes, he gives me direction on set and is polite to me backstage, but we used to share a joke or have conversations about fitness. Now, he’s distant, and I dare say aloof towards me.

  I guess if he thinks I’m using his brother then his attitude towards me makes sense. God forbid if he found out exactly how I treated his brother previously, I think he’d lay me out on my arse, after firing me of course. But things are different, at least I thought they were.

  “Okay, folks. That’s a wrap for today. See you bright and early at five tomorrow morning.” Jake dismisses us and leaves the set to go into the editing room and run through today’s footage.

  What I’m about to do may be foolish, but I’m at the point where I couldn’t give a fuck. I wait until the set clears and walk right up to the trailer that contains the editing suite, rapping my knuckles on the door sharply. I don’t pause to be invited in I just push it open and step inside. Luckily, Jake is alone. He’s likely dismissed the techs to
review the scenes on his own before calling them back in to clean them up. He swivels in his chair to face me, a pleasant, professional smile on his face.

  “What can I do for you, Flynn?”

  Looking him straight in the eye, I realise I’m going to appear quite confrontational, but I’m struggling to keep my emotions in check.

  “I’ve been looking for Isaac for a few days, and I wanted you to get him to call me.”

  “I didn’t realise you two knew each other that well, is there something I can help you with?” His tone holds a bite of sarcasm.

  “No, only Isaac can help me. So if I could get his number from you, or if you could pass on mine, I’d appreciate it.”

  He spins back around in a move to dismiss me and throws over his shoulder, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Yeah, I’m about to get fired.

  “With all due respect, I didn’t ask for your thoughts. I asked you for his number.” I try and fail to keep the ire from my voice, and it gets the reaction I expected.

  He flings himself back around to face me and stands, the momentum leaving his empty chair spinning like a top.

  “With all due respect, Mr Phillips, I own you for the next few weeks, so everything is my fucking business.” His eyes blaze with fury, and he steps right up into my personal space in a move made to intimidate. “Whatever the fuck is going on between you two is jeopardising my movie, so the answer is no. I will not play go-between, and I will not be giving you his number.”

  I bite down so hard I’m surprised my teeth don’t snap but I manage not to clench my fists and knock my boss on his arse.

  With a herculean effort I grit out, “If you have any issues with my work, then and only then will I allow you to talk to me like you own me. Nobody fucking owns me, but one person has come close. So you can imagine how fucking determined I am to fix whatever the hell has gone wrong between us.” I step forward enough to show that I will not be backing down. “What I do and what your brother does in our free time has nothing to do with you. Trust me when I say, the only person that can make me stay away from Isaac is him.”