by Witt, L. A.
“No. I didn’t.” He cupped my face. “That doesn’t mean I had any right to drag you into it.”
“You didn’t drag me into anything.” My voice was shaky, and I prayed like hell it didn’t break. “No, it wasn’t the most comfortable thing I’ve ever gone into, but if you needed me with you to go visit Sean, then of course I was going to be with you.” I ran trembling fingers through his hair. “I want to be there for you even when it’s hard or uncomfortable because I love you.”
Garrett exhaled, and when he sniffed, I realized his face was wet too.
Brushing a tear from his cheek, I whispered, “I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. I don’t know how to be in love with someone like this, especially not someone who’s still grieving for someone else, but if you’ll be patient with me, I’ll figure it out.” I cupped his face. “I just don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” he whispered. Then he smiled and kissed me again. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“No.” I pulled back and met his eyes. “I just love you. So much. I should have been more patient and just . . . not such a raging dick. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You had every right to be pissed, and God, I love you. I meant it when I said it before, but damn, I didn’t realize just how much until you were gone.”
“I know you meant it then. I was just too pissed off and stubborn to—”
Garrett cut me off with a tender kiss. “I’m serious—you had every right to be. And I mean, maybe we needed to go there so we could get here.”
I looked into his eyes, and the resounding truth in his words settled something—everything—in me. There’d been nagging doubts and second guesses from the start, but they were all quiet now. Neither of us could predict where things would go or what the future held, but right here, right now, I knew what this was. What we were to each other. Who I didn’t have to be and who he didn’t want me to be.
Forcing back that stubborn lump in my throat, I nodded. “I think you’re right.” Pulling him closer, I smiled. “You asked a few minutes ago if we could go back to where we were before. I’d say the answer is no.”
Alarm widened his eyes.
I lifted my chin for a soft kiss. “We’re going to somewhere so much better.”
He grinned, and he kissed me. “You really are amazing.”
“Garrett. We’ve been over this.” I buffed my nails on my shirt. “I’m fucking awesome.”
He laughed. Like, for real. With feeling. And he gathered me in his arms and just hugged me close. “Don’t ever change, baby.”
I smiled against his shoulder, closing my eyes and basking in his strong, warm embrace.
“You know,” he said after a while, “that bed in my apartment is awfully big with only one person in it.”
Struggling against a laugh, I looked up at him. “Is it?”
“Yeah.” He smoothed my hair. “Any chance you might help me out with that?”
I grinned, electricity zinging along my nerve endings as relief met arousal. “Yeah. I think I can help.”
Chapter 34
Garrett
We staggered in through my front door, and God only knew how, but we made it down the hall to the bedroom. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost my shoes and Jesse’s shirt was gone. As Jesse toed off his shoes, I fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, and we kept right on kissing as much as we could.
I gave up on unbuttoning the entire shirt. Instead, I broke away for a second to pull my shirt up and off, and it probably hadn’t even hit the floor before I was kissing Jesse again. His hands ran all over my newly bared skin, igniting nerve endings that had been aching for his touch for what seemed like forever.
“I want you so bad,” he said between kisses. “I’ve . . . I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Me too. I missed you.”
He whimpered softly, then kissed me harder, gripping the back of my neck painfully tight. Christ, I could’ve stood there like this all damn night, but there were still far too many layers between us. Time to do something about that before something caught fire.
As I unbuckled his belt, he groaned. Or maybe I did. All I knew was the room was filled with the sounds of two men who needed each other so bad it hurt, and it didn’t matter whose voice was whose.
The buckle finally gave. I unzipped and unbuttoned his pants, and as I slid them down, my hand brushed over his thick erection. A curse slipped off my tongue, barely audible against his lips, and I couldn’t resist—I dropped to my knees in front of him. Gripping his partially rucked-down jeans, I took his cock as deep into my mouth as I could.
“Ooh, yeah,” he moaned, sliding both hands through my hair. His hips rocked almost imperceptibly and pushed his dick just a little deeper into my throat. I took him eagerly. I loved the taste of his skin, the way he moved, the sounds he made—he was fucking addictive.
I hummed around his cock, and he rewarded me with breathy curses. The jerky movements of his hips intensified. Not enough to choke me, though—just enough to let me know he was definitely enjoying himself. I grabbed his ass and egged him on, taking him as deep as my well-trained gag reflex would allow, and the whispered swearing became throaty groans of inventive profanity that might’ve made me laugh if I hadn’t been so aroused.
His fingers tightened in my hair, slowing the movements of my head. “You want me to fuck you?” he slurred. “’Cause I’m . . . I’m not gonna last if you keep . . .”
I gave the head one last lick before I sat back on my heels and looked up at him. “What kind of question is that?”
He laughed, combing his fingers through my hair. “Then you’d better get on the bed.”
“Bossy.” I grinned as I stood, and he pulled me into a deep kiss.
It didn’t last long. He broke away and nodded for the bed. “Now.”
Oh, yeah, he was feeling bossy today. I loved it.
As we stripped off the last of our clothes, he said, “Grab the lube?”
I nodded—I was closer to my nightstand, after all—and reached into the drawer. I took out lube and a condom, but as I sat on the bed, I paused. I looked at the condom between my fingers, then at him. “Do we need this?”
Swallowing hard, Jesse joined me on the bed. His eyes flicked back and forth from me to the rubber. “You tell me.”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
He studied me, his expression unreadable. I considered dropping the thought—we could discuss it later when we weren’t both hard. Before I could, though, he plucked the condom from my hand.
And tossed it away.
Then he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, and we both sank back onto the mattress. I parted my legs for him, and his hips settled between them, and we just held on and kissed. As impatient as I was for him to fuck me, this was just too good to pass up. Any chance to have his body against me and his tongue sliding past mine? God, yes.
“I want you just like this,” he murmured against my lips. “On your back so I can see you.”
I moaned in agreement. I wasn’t going to say no to watching his face while he took me without that layer of latex between us.
He picked up the lube and poured some on his hand before dropping the bottle on the mattress—out of the way but still within reach. I spread my legs wider and held my breath as he pushed a couple of slick fingers into me. I was relaxed enough to take them easily, but I was so turned on I was afraid I’d come if he kept this up for long. He didn’t—he slid them in and out a few times, then withdrew them and put some more lube on himself. I couldn’t help squirming as I watched him stroking himself. It hadn’t even been that long since the last time we’d had sex, but I needed him like it had been years.
Jesse lined himself up, and as he started to push in, his eyelids slid shut. “Fuck . . .”
As the head pushed inside, I nearly closed my eyes too, but like hell was I missing one second of Jesse’s expression. Topping with a c
ondom felt good. Topping bareback? Fuck was right.
The furrows between his eyebrows were deep, his eyes screwed shut, but his lips were apart, almost forming an O. Withdrawing a little, he pushed back in, and a low, guttural sound escaped his throat as he worked his cock deeper. “You . . . mind if we go slow?”
“Mind?” I ran my hands up his back. “I love this.”
He made a pleased noise—somewhere between a hum and a moan—and took another long, slow stroke inside me. “Oh Jesus, you feel good.”
So did he. I was already in heaven as he started to fuck me, and watching him took this to a whole new level because, oh God, he was beautiful. His usually meticulous hair had been disheveled well before we’d made it into bed, and now it was tumbling into his eyes. His fair skin was flushed, smooth features taut with exertion and sensation.
I couldn’t resist—I reached up to touch his cheek. At the first brush of my fingertips, he sucked in a sharp breath, and then he opened those amazing blue eyes. Holy fuck. His pupils were wide, and there was a gleam of lust and love and need and relief, and suddenly it wasn’t his thick cock making it hard to breathe.
A prickle of panic reminded me how easily this all could have slipped through our fingers, how many ways we could have gone that didn’t result in us landing here in bed, and suddenly he wasn’t close enough. Deep inside me, but still too far.
“Come here,” I whispered, and drew him down.
He didn’t resist. He lowered himself onto his forearms and met my lips in a breathless kiss. I held him tight, fingers splayed in his hair and in the middle of his back. We were utterly locked together. As intertwined as two bodies could be. The deliciously invasive feeling of his dick sliding in and out of my sensitive, stretched hole made me dizzy, and so did the heat of his skin and the taste of his demanding kiss.
How he had the presence of mind to keep moving his hips, I had no idea—maybe they were just moving on their own—but it was spectacular. His slow, fluid strokes started mimicking our kisses—harder, more frantic. There was no finesse, no precision, no rhythm to speak of at all except an uneven cadence made of primal desperation.
I reached between us, partly to stroke myself and partly to keep my cock and balls from getting trapped between us and killing the mood. The second I started stroking myself, my entire body tensed, and we both gasped as I clenched around him.
Jesse broke the kiss with a low moan. A tremor rippled through him, pushing him deeper as his muscles quivered between my thighs, and he cursed, the sound so strained it inched toward a sob. “Fuck . . .”
“You feel so good, baby,” I murmured. “Holy shit.”
Jesse brushed his lips across mine, but only for a second before he let his head fall beside mine. Burying his face against my neck, he slid his hands under me and hooked his hands over my shoulders. His thrusts became even harder and more frantic than before, shoving the air out of my lungs each time he bottomed out.
I closed my eyes and let myself get carried away by the sensation of being soundly fucked. By the heat of Jesse’s body. By the very presence of him. By his cock inside me and his palpable need for more.
“I’mma come,” he slurred. “I’m . . . Do you . . . you want me to pull out, or—”
“No. Come.” I gripped his shoulder tighter and pumped my cock faster and rocked my hips as much as I could to complement his movements. “C’mon, baby.”
He groaned, thrusting harder, and the air seemed to thrum around us with the tension building inside him. I could feel his orgasm closing in as surely as I could feel my own.
All at once, the tension snapped. My entire body seized with the force of my release, and before the first drop of semen had landed on my stomach, Jesse cried out and shuddered. His hips jerked and tried to push him deeper, and we both gasped and moaned and fell to pieces in each other’s arms.
I slid my hand out from between us and slung it over him. There was cum all over both of us and on his back now, but I didn’t care. He didn’t seem to either. We were messy and spent, sweaty and shaky, and everything was exactly as it needed to be.
“I love you,” he murmured against my neck.
I lifted my head just long enough to press a kiss to his shoulder. “I love you too. And thank you again. For understanding and for giving me time.”
“You can have as much time as you need. I’ll be here.”
I smiled. “You really are fucking awesome.”
“Uh, yeah? No shit?”
I snorted, and we both started laughing. It felt good. Hell, it felt great. Despite plenty of stubbornness and stupidity on both sides—despite everything—we’d found our way back to this. To each other’s arms and to the easy banter we’d shared since day one.
I fully expected more bumps in the road after this, but I was confident we could make it past them now. The rough patches and fights and whatever else came our way were things we could work through. We knew how to talk things out, and I damn sure knew that it was worth the effort because of what we’d be saving every time we pulled ourselves through something.
We could do this.
We would do this.
Because we were fucking awesome together.
Epilogue - Garrett
The Following December
When Scott and Jeremy’s wedding venue had fallen through, they’d decided to hell with booking a facility—they were getting married outside. That was a gamble in Western Washington, of course. Rain shadow or not, the Olympic Peninsula did get rain, and this was December. In fact, it had rained for a solid week leading up to the wedding.
The day of, though, there wasn’t a cloud in sight as everyone trekked from the parking lot to the gorgeous—if slightly damp—lawn of the winery they’d rented in Port Angeles. Despite the shitty weather for the last few days, this was going to be a gorgeous afternoon.
And it turned out Scott hadn’t been kidding—his wedding was huge. Both of their families had shown up in droves. Even Jeremy’s ex-wife and his kids were there, which spoke volumes about the progress that family had made. When he and Scott had first started dating, things had been strained to say the least. His daughter had refused to speak to him. But with some patience and counseling, things were better. Much better. I wasn’t sure if Jeremy approved of his daughter’s visibly pierced and tattooed boyfriend, but he didn’t say anything. Not where I could hear it, anyway.
In addition to family and friends, there were a ton of people from Wolf’s Landing, many of whom I knew now thanks to Jesse. Hunter and Kevin. Levi and Carter. Of course Anna Maxwell—who had a different bodyguard so Jeremy didn’t have to work at his own wedding—and her fiancée Natalya.
Spirits were especially high among that particular crowd. For months, there’d been some rumors about possibly canceling the show, but given the sky-high ratings, everyone had mostly brushed that off as gossip. Mostly. Recently, though, the announcement had been made that the show was renewed for at least two more seasons, and Hunter and Kevin were apparently hard at work on the next book. That would keep everyone in Bluewater Bay busy and employed for a good long time.
At that, everyone on the set and in town had released a collective sigh of relief. It was funny how even the locals—the ones who hadn’t been thrilled about the arrival of Wolf’s Landing—were relieved that it was continuing. Sure, the culture and the landscape of the town had changed dramatically, but everyone seemed to agree that the change was for the better.
Maybe that was why I’d been drawn to this place. I’d visited Scott here in the days before Wolf’s Landing. Back when it had been a sleepy fishing and logging town in the middle of nowhere. It had been largely unchanged for decades before suddenly being hit with massive upheaval. There’d been some backlash and a period of adjustment, and it hadn’t always been easy for the little town to weather the influx of Hollywood and its people, but in the end, Bluewater Bay hadn’t just adapted—it had thrived. It had a whole new heartbeat now, and something told me that even when the
day came that Wolf’s Landing moved on, the town would continue to be this vibrant, resilient place.
So when my own world had been tossed on its head, I’d come to Bluewater Bay in search of a new start, and I’d found it. My life barely resembled the one I’d had before leaving Seattle. I’d gotten to know everyone at End O’ Earth, and sometimes I went in and helped out when a new release promised to swamp them. Simon and I had become especially good friends, particularly after I’d helped him revamp his bookkeeping system to be more efficient. That had actually annoyed Jesse—now that Simon didn’t have to devote as many hours to the shop’s finances, he had more time on his hands for creative things. Apparently, those were not his strong point, and Jesse usually wound up doing damage control.
“Should we go sit?” Jesse’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and I shifted my gaze from the mingling guests to the man I’d been in love with for the past several months.
Good God, he was gorgeous. He’d gone with a perfectly tailored dark-gray suit, and his recently bleached hair was flawlessly arranged. He did look a little tired, and he had some faint circles under his eyes, but that was my fault. What could I say? We’d only been living together a month, and the novelty still hadn’t worn off.
I kissed his cheek and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Sure. Looks like people are heading that way.”
We followed the crowd’s steady migration toward the rows of white folding chairs. There, we ran into Levi and Carter and ended up sitting beside them.
There was still something incredibly surreal about being friends with an actor I’d had a crush on for ages. That novelty hadn’t begun to wear off either. I could chat casually and easily with Levi now, but sometimes I still had to stop and ask myself if it was real.
Magic: The Gathering nights had become regular occurrences. Enough that I was used to finding Maine Coon fur on my clothes, since Levi’s cat Zelda had taken to perching on my lap while we played. She didn’t stick around much when it was Call of Duty night, though. The yelling annoyed her.