Somewhere to Belong

by Caitlin Ricci

  “I don’t want you going back there,” Grayson said from the doorway as I finished stuffing my dirty clothes into my bag. I’d meant to do laundry too at some point.

  I didn’t turn to look at him. “I don’t want to stay with someone who won’t even defend me when their friend is being a jerk to my face.”

  He came forward and rested his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t shake him off. I didn’t finish packing either. I just knelt there under his hand and wished I didn’t feel like I was so angry I could cry.

  “I know. I’m sorry. But I don’t want you going back to your apartment, where you’re not safe. I’ll go to a hotel tonight. I’ll be out of the state again in a week anyway. And then when I get back, we’ll talk again.”

  I sighed and got to my feet. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment, and Brent, but I didn’t think that it was right that Grayson be forced to stay at a hotel when he had his own house just because he was worried about me.

  “Compromise. I stay, you leave me alone, we’ll talk later?” He smiled at me and tried to kiss me, but I pulled away from him. “I’m not done being mad at you.”

  “Of course not. Nor should you be.” He took a few steps back. “If you need anything….”

  I nodded. I knew where he was. But I really didn’t want to be around him right then. “See you later.”

  “Good night.” He left, and I dumped all of my stuff back out in the middle of the room. Then I kicked off my sneakers before lying down on the bed. It wasn’t even six o’clock, and I already knew that the next few hours until I was tired enough to go to sleep were going to be miserable.

  Chapter Twelve

  Grayson

  I RARELY baked. It was too much effort just for one person. But when I came back downstairs and realized my grand dinner plans were ruined, and also that I’d possibly lost Eli permanently this time, I decided to try my hand at cookies. Chocolate chip cookies to be exact. The first batch came out horribly, as did the second. I was surprised that I even had all the ingredients to make cookies in the first place. They’d been hidden in the coat closet for some reason, and I didn’t remember putting them there. By the third it was nearly nine o’clock, and I was starving. But at least they came out nicer than the last two.

  And they were the ones that brought Eli out of his room in search of food, so I couldn’t discount them completely. I was sitting on the couch with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the table beside me when he joined me with his own plate and glass. He didn’t say anything to me, just sat down on the other end of the couch and pulled his feet up under him. It was a chilly evening, and I’d brought one of my blankets down to wrap around my legs. I silently offered it to him as well, and just like that, we were sitting together under the blanket, eating cookies. I was careful not to touch him, in case he was still angry at me, but simply being near him felt like a blessing in and of itself.

  After an hour of just sitting together and watching a movie I’d long forgotten about, he laid his head gently against my shoulder. I put my arm between his back and the couch and rested my hand on his hip to hold him close. I was so much bigger than him, but he still fit well against me.

  “Do you really think of me as your boyfriend, or were you just saying that because calling me your fuck toy in public would be frowned upon?” he asked me a few minutes later.

  I frowned. I wasn’t really sure how to answer his question. “I never thought of you as just someone to have sex with. I always wanted to know who you were, but it seemed as if you would never let me close enough to find out, as if your body was the only thing you’d ever be comfortable sharing with someone else. So I took the only parts of you that you seemed willing to give. But I’m nearly fifty, and having a boyfriend doesn’t seem like the right word for how I think about you. I care about you, and I want you to be safe. I like having you here, and while I’m not ready to have us share a room, I enjoy sharing my house with you.” I took a chance and leaned over to kiss the top of his head. He didn’t pull away from me, so I took that as a good sign. “What about you? How do you feel about me?”

  “I realized tonight that I’ve never really tried to date. It was easier, somehow, to simply be the one who was used and live with that, as I assumed that all men only wanted that from me and somehow I was only ever worth what I could do in bed. But I like this, how we are right now. And I liked it when we ate ravioli together. I’d like to do more dating types of things with you. If that makes me your boyfriend, then that’s fine by me. I’d prefer that to the title of fuck toy any day. But if you want me to be someone who is in your life and not just in your bed, I need you to not let Nigel talk to me like that again.”

  He was right. That wouldn’t be happening again. “He isn’t allowed back here. He’s still my friend, and I’ll have dinner with him on occasion, but having him here with you isn’t going to happen until he learns to respect you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I nodded and rubbed my hand over his hip.

  “Do you like traveling as much as you do? Wouldn’t it be more fun not to have to go everywhere all the time?”

  I chuckled. “It would be, but this is the life I’ve had for years. I don’t know if I’d have any idea what to do with myself if I wasn’t gone half the week. What would you want to do with me?”

  I expected him to say something sexual to go with my teasing, but he simply shrugged. “I hear the fishing around here is pretty good. And we could go on walks through the woods.”

  Clearly he needed a push in the right direction. “We could wake up together some mornings.”

  “You could join me at the rescue sometimes. We have open houses once a quarter, and you could handle the bake sale portion. Or the grilling of the hot dogs. I always end up singed in some way from doing that. It never fails.”

  All right. I could take a hint. He settled farther back against me.

  “I would like you to consider moving in with me. Permanently. You’d still have your room. But you would be here, and you’d be safe.”

  He sighed and pulled his knees up to his chest. “I’d rather that you want me here because you like my company and want me around, rather than being worried about what I’ll do when I’m not here for you to supervise me. And, besides, don’t forget. A few hours ago I was ready to walk away completely, so moving in fully and giving up my apartment isn’t something that’s going to happen right now. As much as I appreciate your offer and as much as you want me to jump right into being your live-in boyfriend.”

  He was right. Of course he was. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  “And, if you were my boyfriend and if we were living together full-time, I would want you home more than half the month.”

  That wasn’t an unreasonable request at all, so I wasn’t entirely sure why I suddenly felt the need to balk at the idea of changing my life so completely for him. It felt like if I did that now, it would be on a whim and not because I’d actually thought things through. But, as I thought about it, I realized I would like to have that added time with him.

  “Stay here for a month, and if we still want to be together after that time, I would like you to give up your apartment and move in here with me, and at that time I will begin to scale back my clients so that I am only out of town a weekend per month at the most. Is that something that could work for you?”

  He lay back on the couch, pushing the blanket off of himself. “I can live with that. So you have a month to prove to me that you can be a good boyfriend. And I’ll have a month to figure out how to live with someone else and trust them.”

  I smiled at him and turned so that I was covering his body with mine. He opened his legs to me in a clear invitation, one I wanted to take him up on, but I’d realized something else too. In all the time we’d ever been together, I’d never once just taken care of his needs without any thought to my own. I wanted him, and having him pinned under me as I began gently kissing him was already making me hard. But for once I wa
nted to show him that I could do something just for him.

  I pushed my hand between our bodies and pressed against his fly. He arched toward me and moaned deep in his throat, as if he was needy and desperate. I loved having him like that. When he came and his face lit up with pleasure a moment before he closed his eyes and his whole body shook with the vibrations of his orgasm, that was a beautiful sight. I’d seen some of the most beautiful things in the world. The Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, the Grand Canyon, but I’d never gone back to any of them. Seeing Eli’s pleasure was addictive, and I needed more of it.

  His pants were easy to get undone, and he reached for mine as well, but I brushed his hands away. “Tonight is for you,” I explained as he looked up at me in confusion. Whether he believed me or not wasn’t really the point right then. But I was pretty sure that, judging by his mistrustful expression, he thought I wouldn’t be able to stick with that promise.

  He was naked under his jeans, something I loved about him, and I gripped him tightly and began stroking him. I sucked on his neck and pushed his sweater up to expose his stomach. I ran my fingers lightly over that thin trail of hair that went from his navel to the base of his cock. With every long stroke of my fingers over his cock, he arched against me. His movements were erratic, fueled by his pleasure but lacking any real rhythm. I didn’t mind.

  I touched him with abandon, savoring his smooth skin and his lean muscles as he moved against me. He curled his fingers over my shoulders, and once or twice I thought I heard him gasping my name. Then there was that rush of pleasure and beauty that flushed his skin as he came off the couch and arched into my hand with his orgasm.

  He lay panting and sweaty under me. I kissed his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead, and then his lips before I started to move away from him to go wash off my hand. I’d managed to contain most of his come to my fingers so there was very little to do as far as cleaning him up if he wanted to stay right like that for a while. With his jeans unbuttoned and his sweater pushed up over his chest, I wouldn’t have minded being able to look at him like that for a few more hours. But it was late, and I was sure he had to work at some point the next day.

  As I was getting up, he reached for the button of my jeans again. But I pushed his hands away, just as I had when he’d tried to undo my pants before. “Eli, I said that tonight was for you.”

  He let his hands fall back to his stomach. He didn’t seem concerned at all by his own nudity. “It doesn’t have to be. You don’t owe me this for failing to say something earlier.”

  Is that what he thought I was doing by giving him pleasure tonight? Mindful of his come on my hand and how I didn’t want to make everything dirty, I leaned down to kiss him.

  “I didn’t do this because I felt that I needed to apologize to you some more. I wanted to make you come without any expectations of having to return the favor.” I stood back up and headed to the kitchen sink. When I came back, he was dressed again and under the blanket, as he watched me.

  “There’s no such thing as one-way sex. Everything leads to more.”

  He sounded so sure of himself, like I was the one who didn’t know how the world worked instead of the other way around. “With me, it doesn’t always have to.”

  Eli frowned but said nothing more until it was time to go to bed. At that point I got up and headed upstairs.

  “Good night,” I told him. “I’ll be here in the morning this time.”

  “I don’t go to work until eleven. Maybe we can get breakfast at the diner.”

  I smiled at him. “I would like that very much.”

  “Me too.”

  Once I was safely in my room, I undressed and lay down naked on my bed. Just because I hadn’t needed anything from Eli that night didn’t mean that I hadn’t been fighting back a hard-on, which had been nearly painful in my pants. I was so sensitive as the cool air brushed over me that I was sure it wouldn’t take much to get me to come. I grabbed a shirt to have nearby and stroked myself with one hand as I cupped my sack with the other. I thought about Eli on his knees over me as he rode me like we so often did. He would toss his head back and slide his slick hole over my cock as he sought his pleasure before I took mine from him. I knew his whimpers and his soft cries. I could practically taste his skin against my tongue. He was always a bit salty, and he smelled clean, like he took care of himself despite the perpetual dirt under his nails.

  Fucking him made me happy. Seeing him come and getting to see that sated smile on his face that was just for me made me nearly delirious with pleasure. That was why I always wanted him to come first, because getting to see him like that nearly took me over the edge every time.

  I imagined our bodies slapping together as he rode me, and how he curled his fingers over my chest. Sometimes his short nails bit into the coarse curls on my chest. I’d thought to shave myself completely for him once, but then I’d remembered how much he seemed to like getting to touch my hairy chest and stomach, and I’d quickly abandoned that idea.

  It was thinking about him bucking against my cock as he came that sent me over the edge as I jacked myself to the memories of our times together in so many different hotel rooms. I wanted him in my bed, just as I’d imagined him being. I wanted to fuck him so hard into the mattress that I was afraid my bed would break. But I also wanted to enjoy him slowly and really take my time with him as I listened to each distinct cry that came from his throat. I loved having him both ways, and any other way that I could get him too.

  SOMETIME IN the middle of the night, he came into my room and joined me in my bed. He wasn’t naked, but I was, and that must have surprised him because he hesitated against me. I took his hand and silently brought him closer to me until his back was against my chest. I’d been limp while asleep, but now with his ass pressed so perfectly against my cock, I was starting to wake up fully.

  “You can if you want to. You know I won’t say no to you.”

  His quiet voice, and the words he’d used, were an instant splash of ice water over my libido. I wanted him, but not like that. He’d come to share my bed, not my body.

  I wrapped my arms around him and held him close. “Good night, Eli. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I imagined that he was smiling as he said good night to me too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eli

  I WAS up at seven, and I crept quietly out of Grayson’s bed and into the bathroom where I showered, which wasn’t nearly as quiet as I’d hoped it would be. Grayson was up by the time I came back to his room a half hour later, with my hair still damp, but I was dressed. He wasn’t yet, but he was getting his things together to get into the shower.

  “Thank you for last night.” It didn’t matter which part I was talking about, either the hand job or the hours I’d spent sleeping peacefully in his arms.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I shifted my weight on the balls of my feet. “It’s a new day. Does that mean we can start doing things to each other again?”

  He chuckled. “Is that your not-so-subtle way of saying you’re horny and want to have sex?”

  I laughed. He had me there. “Yeah. Pretty much. So….”

  Grayson smiled at me and put his things down on the dresser. “What would you like?”

  I began stripping off my clothes. It didn’t matter that I’d just showered. I could do that again. And we’d still have time for a quick breakfast before I had to get to the rescue to help work with some of the new horses Evaline had brought back from the kill auctions.

  I wanted him, and I knew I’d enjoy it. “You to fuck me.”

  He shook his head and took my hand as he led me over to the bed. “It’s a little early for fucking. How about I make love to you? Like I did the other time?”

  I nodded. That would work for me too. I slipped out my plug, and he took care of himself with a condom and some lube as I lay down in the middle of the bed and waited for him. He slid inside easily, and I hissed as he stretched me. My legs went around his waist
, and I laid my hands on his upper arms to hang onto him. This was all so familiar to me. His strokes were slow and deliberate. He’d be erratic later, but right now he was just getting started.

  Grayson kissed me gently, everything about him seeming to want to be careful as he dipped his hips to stroke inside of me. I wasn’t a fragile thing that he had to worry about breaking, and after our months of hardcore fucking in hotel rooms, I knew he understood that by now. But this early in the morning, he was right. I liked having him as I was this morning. This slow, sensual, deliberate way in which he wanted to take my body worked for me.

  “I heard you last night,” I told him softly as I ran my hands over his shoulders and down his chest.

  He chuckled and sounded nervous while he did it. “What do you think you heard?”

  If he wanted to play coy with me, I could beat him at his own game. I mimicked his voice and his volume as I said, “Oh Eli, yes, fuck yes, oh God, yes.”

  “I did not say all of that last night.”

  Yes, he did. But he probably didn’t remember it. His grunts and moans were mostly unintelligible, but they still worked for me because I got the basic meaning behind them. He was enjoying his time with me and liked being inside of me. Coming from a guy as sweet as Grayson was, that was a pretty big compliment, I thought.

  “What were you thinking about while you jacked off to me?”

  “That makes it sound like an invasion. I didn’t mean for you to hear me.” He sped up and panted a bit. My head fell to the side, and I chewed on my bottom lip some as he started rubbing against my prostate. I wondered if I could come completely untouched by him that morning.

  “It wasn’t, though. I’ve jacked off thinking about you lots of times. Tell me what you were thinking about? Please?”

  He groaned against my neck. It was a sound half of pleasure and half of frustration. But he did relent. “You on top of me. Riding me like you do before I flip you over and take you hard.”