by Cee, Sammi
Nodding, I allowed him to maneuver my body onto his lap. When his arms enfolded me, the rightness of it unnerved me a little, but I’d been scared and unsure for so long, and there was something about the way he spoke to me and how attentive he was. Or maybe it was how he let me see his vulnerabilities. Whatever it was, I curled into him and talked into the night. He peppered me with questions about my brother and the night I ran from Saul’s. He rubbed my back as I cried and massaged my neck when I’d calmed down. We talked about Emma and the boys, and the real reason why she didn’t want to come into the soup kitchen with me working there.
It was way past our normal bedtime when Caleb and I walked upstairs to go to bed. Surprisingly, instead of saying goodnight at the top of the stairs and going to his room, he followed me to the doorway of mine and stopped, bending down to pull me into a hug. I squeezed him back with everything in me.
“Thank you for sharing your story with me tonight.”
“Thank you for listening…and still wanting me here,” I said back into his chest.
He tipped my chin up with his fingers. “You’re welcome here for as long as you want to stay. The longer the better.”
Caleb really had no poker face, or if he did, he didn’t use it with me. His sincerity was there in his eyes and in the gentle smile, the one I’d noticed was only for me. As cushiony as the bed in my room was, as secure as his big house with the alarm system kept us, Caleb’s honesty and tender treatment of me was my safety. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he asked back hopefully.
I nodded with a small grin.
Caleb’s eyes darkened and he leaned his head down into my space. The smell of the garlic from the sauce earlier hung in the air between us as we both panted. Our lips came together in slow motion, soft and clinging. “Is this okay?” he whispered against my lips.
“So okay.” Then his lips captured mine, harder than before, pressing in as his tongue slid across the seam of my lips, licking across them before sliding his tongue into my mouth to stroke it against mine. He kissed me thoroughly and sweetly, treating me like I was precious. His arms held me securely to him, and I wrapped mine firmly around his neck and pulled him closer.
He backed away, leaving one last kiss on my cheek. “Goodnight, Jasper,” he whispered, then he raised my hand to his lips and kissed it before turning and walking to his own bedroom.
I floated into my room and changed for bed on auto-pilot. I was halfway asleep, reliving that glorious kiss in my head over and over when I realized that after spilling my guts to him I hadn’t needed to fantasize to escape my life. And even if I had, instead of playing make-believe, dreaming of the improbable, Caleb had left me with a memory that would carry me for many nights to come.
Chapter Thirteen
Caleb
It had taken a couple of weeks, but one night after we closed, I finally convinced Jasper to tell the people at the soup kitchen who loved and cared about him his story. Watching their faces, it eased the hurt I’d been harboring on his behalf in my heart. We’d talked a lot about his life now that he’d popped the cork out of the bottle of his emotions. He told me stories about his mom, and together, talking through things, we’d decided that she probably had been more aware than she’d let on about how his step dad felt about him. The weekly trips to Saul’s for just the two of them were no coincidence.
“So I still don’t understand why you won’t let us pay you,” said Jonathon.
The shameful expression that crossed Jasper’s face clued me in to the fact that it had something to do with Howard, the step dad from hell. I put my arm around his shoulder and pulled him close without thinking about it. He turned shocked, but bright, glittering emerald eyes on me, and I realized what I’d done. We hadn’t made the advancement in our relationship known yet, but there was no way I’d let him suffer through this story on his own.
“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” Ben said, smirking.
“Sorry,” I muttered to Jasper.
He leaned in closer and stuck his tongue out at Ben. Everyone, including Jasper, laughed and I mouthed a thank you to the old man for lightening the mood. Della realized what he did, too, and elbowed him playfully in the side while smiling over at us.
Jonathon let us all settle, then said, “Paying you? Yes? No? Maybe?”
Jasper’s face fell and he reached down and grabbed my hand. I squeezed it tight, he smiled up at me gratefully and said, “When Howard packed up all my stuff, he didn’t include my social security card or birth certificate or anything. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t until Saul died that I realized I didn’t have what I needed to get another job. It just hadn’t ever come up before.”
“So you never got a driver’s license?” Fisher asked.
Jasper shook his head ruefully. “No, Kamari’s parents offered to teach me, but...it was the last thing my mom and I had been doing together. We’d go to parking lots and she let me practice. I wasn’t ready to let that go. By the time it hit me that I really needed a license, I knew I couldn’t afford a car and Saul took us back and forth to work so…” He shrugged.
“So you didn’t want to go on payroll because you couldn’t provide your social security card?” Avi asked.
“Yeah, I actually found a job the week after Saul passed and I went in to fill out the paperwork, and that’s when I realized how bad I’d messed up.”
“Well, if the adults in your life, like Kamari’s family and Saul, who all seemed to genuinely care about you never thought of it, why would you? You were what, fourteen you said when you started working for Saul?”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s why you were always chatting me up about the kitchen, huh?” Fisher asked with a small grin.
Jasper pinkened. “Yeah, Saul hadn’t let me do a lot in the kitchen yet because he said I was too good with the customers, but I really wanted to learn. We’d just started talking about me shadowing him more when…“
“And the lady who comes in with the two brothers? Miss Emma, Archie, and PJ? They’re your people, right?” Avi asked gently.
Jasper’s eyebrows rose in panic. “Um, well—“
Zach cut Jasper off. “It’s okay, Jasper. We knew the minute they showed up that they were friends of yours. The red and black and teal and gray hat and scarf sets gave it away.”
“Shoot, I didn’t think of that.” Jasper shook his head.
Della clucked her tongue. “I didn’t even know about the hats. My first clue was how you avoided them. You talk to all of the kids who come in here and make them feel welcome. You avoided looking in their direction and those boys watched you like a hawk.”
I bit back a grin because it was true. I hadn’t mentioned it to Jasper because I didn’t want to freak him out, and I knew how important it was for him to set eyes on them the days they were supposed to come in. It was like he held his breath until they showed up, and then he came alive again.
Then Avi turned to Jonathon. “Is there something we can do about getting him his social security card and birth certificate? He’s going to need that.” Avi had been fighting tears since Jasper said his mom died. I knew that both his and Zach’s moms had passed when they were younger, so I had a feeling if Jasper thought they smothered him before, he hadn’t seen anything yet.
Jonathon rubbed his chin. “Yeah, there has to be something. I’ll look into it. Don’t you worry, kid. I’ll hook you up, one way or another.”
The conversations continued around me for another hour with Jasper tucked safely into my side, right where he belonged. Before we left, he was smothered in hugs and words of love. Jasper made plans to have lunch the following day with Avi and Zach, and Ben whispered in my ear that he thought it would be good for all three of them.
Walking out to the Mercedes to go home, I noticed Jasper didn’t have his trusty backpack. The thing was normally like another limb attached to his body. “I can’t believe you,” I teased. “You better run back in for your backpack before Fisher locks up.”
Jasper shrugged. “I left it back at the house today. I couldn’t think of any reason I’d need an alarm clock or a throw blanket.”
The desire to stop dead in my tracks and gape at him was strong, but I knew he needed me to make light of it, so I just said, “Okay,” and kept walking. My heart soared as I drove home with the significance of him leaving his security blanket at home. That meant...it meant he trusted me with more than his safety. Could it be that he trusted me with his heart? I sure wanted to give him mine.
As soon as we got into the house—before I lost my nerve—I swallowed and asked the question that had been hovering on my lips for days. “Do you want to just plan on sleeping in my room tonight? We keep ending up in one of our rooms together anyway, so I figured why not just do it on purpose?” Jasper stared up at me without answering. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, uh, do either. We can just kiss and stuff, but I’d like to sleep with you where it’s comfortable without one of us sneaking out before morning.”
Jasper frowned, and my heart plunged. “So you’re not trying to get in my pants? Because all the kissing and stuff has been nice, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex, and I’ve only been with guys my age, so I thought it would—”
I picked him up and slung him over my shoulder, relishing the sounds of his happy giggles all the way to my room. I strode right to my bathroom and set him down on his feet. “Shower first and then we’re going to bed so I can make love to you.”
Jasper gasped. “You want to make love to me?”
I finished adjusting the dials to turn the water on and took the two steps back to him. I cupped his precious face in my hands and smiled. “More than anything.”
“I’ve never made love before,” he murmured.
“Good. I haven’t either.” Then I sealed our mouths together. We kissed until the bathroom filled with steam and our hard cocks strained against our pants. After divesting each other of our clothes, we jumped in and I washed him quickly, scared that we’d come in the shower without me inside of him if we didn’t get clean, dry, and in my bed. As soon as he rinsed the shampoo out of his hair and the soap off of his body, I sent him out to dry off and wait for me in my bed.
The sight of his black hair lying against my emerald green sheets was as striking as I’d expected it to be when I ordered them online. I’d scoured the internet until I found the sheets that were the exact color of Jasper’s eyes. I stood over him and stared down, drinking up this moment.
“Are you coming?” Jasper asked.
“Not yet,” I teased.
He groaned. “That was so dorky. Get supplies and get in here.”
When he lifted the sheets to invite me under the covers with him, I soaked up finally seeing what the blankets the night of the storm had concealed from me. Jasper was beautiful.
“You’re making me self-conscious. Why do you keep stopping and staring at me like I’m a freak?”
Since our first kiss, we’d begun calling each other out on ogling the other in the gym. I knew his attraction to my body was as strong as mine to his, so I dropped the towel.
Jasper’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit. Your cock is gorgeous. Your balls are so big.”
“Oh, youuuu.” I grabbed the lube and a condom out of the side table drawer and jumped into bed on top of him, mouthing his neck until he squealed for me to stop.
After that, we slowed it back down. I stroked over his skin tenderly, tracing every little scar and blemish on his alabaster skin. I lavished him with the love he’d been denied at the hand of unfortunate circumstances and cruelty. He went crazy and bucked under me as I licked and sucked on his nipples, but then he found one of my spots when he rubbed his toes up and down the back of my calf. I shuddered over the top of him and he said, “Oh, you like that. And I can do that anywhere. We don’t have to be alone or naked.”
“You better watch it,” I growled.
Then as I moved down to take his cock into my mouth like I’d been desperately wanting, he stopped me with his hands on my shoulders. “Can we do that next time? Or tomorrow morning? Or even later? Right now I really need to feel you inside of me.”
“Whatever you want, Jasper.”
We stared into each other’s eyes as I prepared him. I’d been so careful to not rush him, to make sure it was clear that every choice he made when it came to us was of his own accord. He’d been cautious, but with baby steps, had learned to trust me since the night I’d searched for him. Tonight wasn’t about getting off or sex, it wasn’t even about making love as much as acknowledging with our bodies the love we already shared, love that had grown and blossomed every day.
Once his body was ready for me, and I’d slid on the condom, I positioned the head of my cock at his entrance and stopped. “I love you, Jasper.
“I know,” he said. “I feel it every time you look at me, smile at me, touch me—”
“Feed you?” I teased lovingly.
“Especially when you feed me,” he said in mock-seriousness. “I love you, too, Caleb. Not because you rescued me, but because once you saw me, you were so willing to just be, whatever and however I needed it... I don’t know the last time I’ve felt someone’s care for me like I do with you.”
“Good. You deserve to feel how much I love you.” I pushed into him slowly, memorizing his face and his sounds as I thrust into him again and again. I’d never experienced the rush of emotions during sex that I was having with him. When I hit his prostate and he screamed my name, I angled to do it again and again. I never wanted to forget this first time. As he fell apart beneath me, I let my own pleasure consume me, bucking into him until I filled the condom. It didn’t surprise me at all to find his eyes upon me reflecting the same awe that I felt coursing through me.
After we caught our breath, I said, “Let me go get a washcloth and clean you up, then we can snuggle.”
“No, I got it.” He jumped up before I could protest. “I forgot to grab something from my room.”
He scurried out and I yelled after him, “You better not be going for pajama pants.”
His laugh floated back to me. Then he came in with his green and plaid backpack opened in one hand while he pulled out the throw blanket he’d had propped under his head in the car that night. He set the backpack next to the table by the wall, and my breath hitched knowing that he’d pick his side of the bed in what I hoped would be our room now. Then he tossed the throw blanket on the end of the bed onto the black satin comforter and he set the alarm clock on the nightstand. He smiled proudly, but hesitantly, at me once he situated it to sit just right.
“Looks perfect there,” I said gruffly, choked with emotion.
Relief swept across his face, followed swiftly by joy. I held my arms open and he crawled into bed next to me, snuggling in tight. “Thank you for being my alive fantasy,” he said.
“Thank you for waking me up,” I responded, then kissed the top of his head and closed my eyes.
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