Strong Signal (Cyberlove #1)

by Megan Erickson

  She ashed her cigarette in the sink and leaned against the counter as I began straightening up the room. Without a task, I needed something to do with my hands. There was too much to think about, and too many decisions to make, and the weight of her stare was like body armor bearing down on my shoulders.

  “There’s no way Kai will move if I move,” I said. “And I can’t give him up now that I just found him. It’s not fucking fair.”

  The cigarette was flicked into the sink to dampen and turn brown. A thin line of smoke drifted up from the carcass. I stared at it as she moved closer to me, and didn’t look away until she drew me into a hug.

  “There has to be compromise in a relationship, baby. You can’t give up on what you want because of him. Trust me. I speak from experience. Your dad wasn’t always a monster. Once upon a time he’d been charming and handsome, and I’d dropped out of school to move away and be with him. I love you and Nicky, but it was the worst mistake I could have made. My entire life changed because of a man.”

  There was a tightness in my chest that hadn’t been there before, because she was right. I knew she was right. And I knew I’d hate it if I missed my chance at a solid position and got stuck here to work a dead-end job.

  But I also knew that all the money in the world wouldn’t mean anything without Kai.

  * * *

  Kai

  I couldn’t stop fidgeting. I hated cleaning but I’d cleaned my apartment three times. I’d also streamed for eight hours straight as a thank you to my fans for sticking with me during my absence.

  Shawn came over once or twice, but he was busy doing his own thing. He actually had a life now. Well, I had a life now too, I guessed, but I wasn’t used to having issues and dilemmas in the real world. Before Garrett, I’d only used the real world as a bridge to gap the times I was online. Now, I got online when I wanted to waste the time between when I saw Garrett.

  My life had been status quo for three years, until Garrett Reid busted in like a tornado.

  And now, he was coming back. He’d texted a couple of hours ago—stopped to piss & get a burrito—and that he’d be at my apartment soon. It’d been about a week since I’d seen him and, as much as I hated the separation, it was probably good for us. I’d been able to get my head around life with Garrett, being with Garrett, without the distraction of getting dicked every other hour.

  Every other hour was a slight exaggeration but whatever.

  I was stress-eating the last of my ice cream when there was a knock at the door. I bolted over, threw it open, and leaped.

  I thought belatedly I should have looked first, because it could have been Shawn or some unsuspecting delivery man, but as soon as those arms wrapped around me and his scent filled my nose, I knew it was Garrett.

  Burying my nose in his neck, I locked my bare feet at the ankles behind his back. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, only the pants Garrett so fondly referred to as my leggings. He gripped my ass, his mouth kissing any part he could reach.

  “I missed you,” he said between smacks of his lips as he bumped the door shut behind him with his hip. “I missed you so much.”

  I pulled back, gripped his face, and said the one thing I’d thought about saying every single day since he’d left. “I missed you too. I love you.”

  Garrett’s expression didn’t change. For a moment, he simply stared at me before saying, “Kai—” I kissed him, a hard press of our lips together, like I needed to imprint a seal onto those words. They were official. He pulled back. “Hey, you didn’t let me finish.”

  “Finish what?”

  “Finish telling you that I love you too.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “Oh my God, we are disgusting.”

  “Completely disgusting,” he agreed. “Costigan would cringe.”

  “No one will ever want to hang out with us if we act like this.”

  “I see absolutely no fucking problem with that.” Garrett kissed me again. “I can’t stand other people.”

  I leaned forward and bit his lip, pulling it into my mouth and sucking hard, wanting to bruise him. He turned us around and slammed my back against the door before threading our fingers together. He held our hands beside my head with his weight anchoring me so I didn’t fall.

  He ground into me and I rolled my hips, giving him as good as I got with the limited amount of body motion I could manage. But God, it’d been a long couple of days. Before Garrett, I’d gone without for so long, I’d almost forgotten how good sex was. Well, actually, it’d never been that great, so each of Garrett’s absences left me aching for his touch.

  “You thought about me while I was gone?”

  “You know I did,” I panted.

  “Tell me,” Garrett said. “Tell me what you thought about. Me waking you up with my tongue in your ass? You on your knees in the shower with a mouthful of my cock?”

  I clenched my thighs tighter around his hips, letting my head fall back against the door so I could watch him, red-faced and eyes blazing. “I thought about…dancing for you.”

  His hips stuttered as he sucked in a breath and licked his lips, leaving them glistening. “Dancing?”

  I arched my back. “Yeah, a striptease. Take off my clothes until I was wearing nothing but a jock. You’d have to sit on your hands. No touching. And I’d bounce on your lap, shake my ass in your face until you couldn’t take it anymore.”

  His nostrils flared, the veins in his biceps bulging as he gripped my hands to the point of pain.

  “Then I’d lower myself onto your dick, and ride you until we both came.” I curled my lips as his thrusts intensified. My balls drew up. “Would you like that?”

  “What do you fucking think?”

  “I think you’d come so hard,” I whispered, knowing I was the one who was close. The friction of him thrusting against me was too much when combined with my own words and his wild-eyed stare. All it took was one press of his knee against my dick, and I came with a shout.

  “God.” Garrett licked the side of my face as I shuddered against him. “That’s so hot. I’ve never seen a guy come hands-free.”

  “I’ve never come hands-free before. You just drive me nuts.”

  With a tug, I pulled away and dropped to my feet before descending to the floor. I ripped down his zipper and pulled out his dick. He only got a flick of my eyes and a smirk before I swallowed him to the root.

  There was a thud above me, and I looked up to see Garrett’s forearm braced on the door, his head bent, watching as I sucked him.

  “I love seeing those lips stretched around my cock,” he panted, gripping my hair. “And you take it all the way down…”

  I grinned as best as I could, rolling his balls in my other hand.

  “Fuck, Kai. I’m gonna come.”

  I was ready for it when he flooded my mouth, so I swallowed it all down and didn’t wince when he clutched the back of my head while releasing ragged moans. When he finished, I collapsed back on the floor with a wet smile. The neighbors probably thought we were insane.

  Garrett slid down the door and dropped onto his ass. He stared at me, breathing hard, before stretching out beside me. I turned my head and met his lips in a slow wet kiss.

  “I really do love you, Kai.” He searched my face as if trying to ensure that I understood. That I believed him. “Maybe it seems sudden or whatever, but to me it’s not. I fell for you months ago. And I don’t fucking care if no one gets it.”

  “What do you mean?” I furrowed my brow. “Gets it?”

  “Yeah…” Garrett touched my chin. “I’ll be honest and say I used to be skeptical of online relationships. I didn’t trust shit like OKCupid or Tinder. But now…I don’t know. I don’t think this would have happened any other way. We’re both too introverted, and I’m hostile on top of it.”

  Smirking, I wrapped my arm around his waist. “Introverted is a really tame way of describing what I am.”

  “You know what I mean.” He shrugged. “I’m just saying�
�I don’t give a damn if people think it’s weird that we met on a video game. I don’t give a damn about anyone. We don’t need other people. Well, except for my family. They have to spend time with us no matter how disgusting we are.”

  He said it in such a flat, serious tone that I couldn’t hold back my laughter.

  “What?”

  “Nothing! Nothing.” I pulled him closer, drawing him into another kiss. “I’m perfectly fine with it remaining just the two of us for as long as we can pull that off.”

  I thought he’d grin, but his mood had visibly dampened.

  “Hey,” I said softly. “You okay?”

  “Just thinking about stuff back home. You wanna eat?”

  I turned to the kitchen, but the tension rolling off of him was making me uneasy. It was impossible to tell if his moods affected me so much because it’d been so long since I’d had to read another person’s body language, or because I’d never shared a space with someone. At least cooking would give me something to do with my hands.

  Garrett’s preoccupation didn’t go away though. He picked at his dinner and zoned out with a pensive frown. I could tell he was trying his best to stay focused, and be as chipper as he could ever get, but this was nothing like his previous homecoming from Rickston.

  It seemed like our honeymoon period was over.

  CHAPTER NINTEEN

  Garrett

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Kai slid his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, and rocked on the balls of his heels. He was staring at the door like there was a zombie horde from Apocalypse waiting to devour us on the other side. For him, agreeing to go to a crowded location was just as terrifying.

  “I can go by myself,” I said for the fifth time. “Seriously. It’s not a big deal.”

  “No.” The word was firm and sharper than usual. “If you want to go, I want to go. I can do this.” Kai nodded. “I can.”

  “It’s just the grocery store. It’s not a big—”

  “It is a big deal!” Kai swung his gaze from the door to me. A flush had risen up his neck and to his cheeks—the first sign that his anxiety was triggering and this could end very poorly. “I want to be able to go to the fucking grocery store with my boyfriend and pick out apples and frozen pizzas and whatever else stupid shit you didn’t get to do while you were stuck on that base for nine months.”

  As concerned as I was about him forcing himself to take this step, my heart swelled in response to the statement. I hadn’t told him why I’d insisted on going to the grocery store myself. I’d never gone into detail about how trivial things like doing my own shopping, and changing my mind on the fly about what I wanted to eat, was one of the things I’d always missed while on deployment.

  He ripped a hand through his hair, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. I ruined the effect by kissing him. The air whooshed out of him as he laughed against my lips. There were times when he looked up at me with such obvious affection that I couldn’t believe the connection we shared was real. I couldn’t believe he wanted me, out of all the guys who’d tried to pursue him online, and out of all the guys who’d tried wooing him for the years he’d been on Twitch. It was me he’d responded to. It was me he’d chatted with. It was me he’d fallen for.

  And now I was going to potentially crush that for a job.

  The glow of warmth seeped out of me until I was hollow again.

  “Let’s go,” I said, grabbing his hand. “It’s not too far away, right?”

  Kai shook his head and adopted his warrior expression again. I could almost hear his internal mantra. I can do this. No one will bother me. No one will get too close. I can be brave.

  “If this sucks, it doesn’t mean anything. You’re not a failure and you’re not a coward. You can’t help the way you are, and I’m not trying to change you.”

  “Well, maybe I’m trying to change me.”

  I bit my tongue, and together we headed outside.

  We’d decided on going to the market in the middle of the day because it was less likely to be packed with most people still at work, but the day was sweltering. The sun was so intense that I could see the air shimmering before us as we hit the pavement, but I barely reacted to the heat. After months in the desert it was nothing even if the humidity sucked. Kai on the other hand flinched away from the light and slapped on a pair of Ray-Bans.

  I had no idea where the market was and it became apparent that he didn’t either. We wound up standing on the corner as I opened the GPS on my phone with people passing all around us. Kai practically pressed to my side as I navigated, and his fear seeped into me before morphing into tension. All of a sudden, I regretted telling him that I wanted to pick out my own food. I should have known it would lead to him feeling guilty and offering to come.

  My worry increased each time the crowd around us grew too thick. By the time we got to the market, I was just as on edge as he was and trying not to growl at anyone who stepped too close. If anyone had something to say about Kai clinging to me, they kept it to themselves. I was in the mood to break someone in half, and the grim set to my face probably made it all too apparent to the people around us.

  “We’ll make it fast, all right?” I grabbed a black basket and moved through the automatic doors. Cold air immediately whooshed out and enveloped us. “It’s pretty empty, so it shouldn’t take long.”

  Kai didn’t respond. Not too surprising. I was being a huge pain in the ass by continuously talking about how uncomfortable he might be.

  “I want a feast of frozen pizzas. All of the good shit.”

  “We could order.” Kai slid his hands into his pockets. His eyes darted around before following me toward the frozen food aisles. “There are much better pizzerias in Philly than in Rickston.”

  “I will admit that I have a weakness for frozen pizza. It was our version of pizza night when I was a kid. My ma would cook a couple of Totino’s pizzas and we’d act like it was delicious. I hated it after a while but now I keep going back to it.”

  “Isn’t Totino’s the dollar one?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what I’m here for today.”

  Kai snickered at how serious I was taking this mission. He slid his arm through mine. “Did you do go shopping with your parents when you were a kid?”

  “No.” I surveyed the aisle. The array of choices in the long lane of refrigerators was almost overwhelming, but I knew exactly what I wanted. Red Baron. Definitely not the high end of the frozen pizza spectrum, but it was my fucking jam. “My mom worked late, my dad was worthless and thought grocery shopping wasn’t his job, so I did it alone. I used to push this little shopping cart for blocks like an old person.”

  Kai watched me toss a few pizzas into the shopping cart. “I like to picture you as a kid. All chubby cheeks and curly dark hair.”

  The cart squeaked as I pushed it away from the refrigerators. “That’s not too far from the truth. Maybe you’ll see pictures one day. My mom would love to embarrass the hell out of me by showing you the evidence that I used to have acne.”

  “Oh my God, were you an awkward teen?”

  “Yup.” I snagged our grocery list from Kai’s back pocket. “Puberty was kind to me.”

  “Fuck yes, it was.” Kai sidled up to me and patted my ass. “I’m loving puberty right now. I’ll worship at the altar of the puberty god every night.”

  “Your time will be spent worshipping something else.”

  He elbowed me with a smirk.

  “What were you like as a kid?”

  Kai shrugged, and for a minute, I didn’t think he’d answer. Then he sighed. “I was scrawny and weird-looking. Like all eyes, you know?”

  I nodded. “Like a gremlin.”

  He smacked me, but he was smiling. “I totally did look like a gremlin. Anyway, I was told I looked like my mom but the only family I had was my dad’s side. And they were all huge, like, you. Football players and shit. I was buying dance clothes, and they were trying out new
cleats.” He grabbed a box of oatmeal, and threw it in the cart. “Maple sugar, okay?”

  I was continually impressed with how Kai grew up with zero support and managed to accomplish what he had. “Maple sugar’s fine, babe.”

  Kai smiled easily, and for a moment I thought things would be okay. We’d collected a number of other items—wine, beer, cookies, popcorn, Monster, and enough vegetables for a salad—before the gates of humanity seemed to open. Everyone and their dog flooded into the store, including what appeared to be two stations worth of firefighters.

  Beside me, Kai went stiff. He paled and his eyes darted around.

  “I guess that means you prefer dudes in fatigues to suspenders,” I said, failing completely at a joke. “Good news for me.”

  Kai forced a chuckle, but his hands had curled into white knuckled fists. “Did you get everything? Are we done?”

  A quick glance at the list showed we were nowhere near done.

  “Yeah, we’re good.”

  “No.” Kai rubbed his hands over his shirt. “No, we’re not. It’s okay. I’m fine.”

  He wasn’t.

  I aborted this mission a few minutes later, steered us to checkout, and broke into a sweat at the sheer glut of people who’d amassed at the registers. The need to get Kai away and out of a situation that was clearly stressing him became my focal point, but I tried to hide my impatience. I pointed to the shelf next to us. “Hey, check out that magazine.”

  “What?” Kai was gnawing on his thumbnail and trying to squeeze himself between me and the rack of candy to my left. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s an article on Fable Legends. Can you read it to me while I unload? I’ve been dreaming about that game for two years.”

  Kai grabbed the magazine and zeroed in on it with single-minded focus. His hands were too rough on the pages, wrinkling and nearly tearing as he hurriedly flipped through to find the article. The impatience I was trying to hide seemed to have been absorbed by him, until he found the article and began to read.