“So, um, did you have enough to eat?” he asked. I expected to find a smirk on his face but instead there was genuine concern.
“I ate the pasta and vegetables. Left the venison,” I said practically shivering at the thought.
“I’m not a fan of gamey meat either,” he said, shrugging. “So I ate the same as you.”
“Aha, a closeted vegetarian.” One of my eyebrows quirked and he shook his head, amused. “What about rattlesnake jerky?”
I thought back to that first day I met him. How strong and confident he looked in the face of that serpent.
“It sells well around here.” Callum shrugged. “We do what we can to stay afloat.”
That statement made me realize how indebted to the family the business Callum must’ve felt. I wanted to talk more about it, ask him his real thoughts about all of this. About everything, really. He was one of the most interesting men I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. I wouldn’t have said the same a few days ago.
20
Dean
When I next looked across the tabletops, the crowd seemed to be thinning out. The bride and groom were making their rounds to talk to their remaining guests, some of whom they probably hadn’t seen in a long while. Billie was beside Leo, who had arrived for the ceremony with his parents. Dermot and Cassie were talking and laughing, and by the looks of it, were now standing up to dance.
“I think Cassie is happy to see Dermot,” I said in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Dermot’s a good guy,” Callum said, watching them walk to the middle of the floor. “His family owns an orchard and he runs one of their roadside stands.”
“Nice,” I said, admiring his tall physique. Cassie’s modesty with him on the dance floor amused me. “Though, if Cassie spends the rest of the night talking to Dermot, our rouse is over.”
“What do mean?” Callum asked, looking from my eyes to my lips and back again. I was liable to jump him any second now.
“She might have to fess up that we’re only friends,” I said, knocking my foot against his beneath the table. “Your dad or Grammy might get suspicious. They’ll wonder why she’s not devoting more time to me.”
“True,” he said, a line of worry wrinkling his forehead. “But you can always make something up. Worked for me for years. I’ve been in the closet so long, it’s hard to even see the light on the other side of the door.”
“I understand,” I said, my heart squeezing for him. “I have a friend back home who joined a religious ministry to please his family. It’s painful to watch him ignore the best parts of himself.”
“How long have you been out?” His tone was serious, his eyes searching.
“Since I was a teen. After my brother died…like I said on our run, I just needed to be true to myself,” I said. “My parents still don’t talk about it. Like they think it’ll go away.”
“At least you were brave,” he said looking slightly green. “I didn’t realize I was gay until I was nearly an adult and look at me. I’m still hiding.”
“I think it depends on your circumstances. If it doesn’t fair well for your personal or financial safety, that’s something to consider,” I said, having heard one too many stories about friends who were kicked out on the street or lost their jobs. “I’m free, sure. Even if somebody doesn’t want anything to do with me. But I live in a different place than here.”
“I should at least open up to somebody who cares about me.” A flash of pain crossed his features. “I’ve decided to tell Cassie.”
“Sounds good. You need an ally in your family.” I looked over to Leo’s family table, where Billie and his friend sat conspiring about something. “And Billie is going to need one too.”
“Billie?” He stared hard at his brother as he sat near Leo, his innocent eyelashes fluttering, and realization dawned on him. “He tell you that?”
“No,” I said. “But it seems obvious to me. It’s only a matter of time before he needs a release, an outlet, somebody to share things with.”
“Fuck, my father is going to have a heart attack,” Callum said, his lips twisting into a distorted smile. “Two in one family.”
“Happens more that you would think,” I said, rushing my fingers through my hair. “DNA is like that.”
“Thing is,” Callum said, after chugging back his beer. “Billie would be the braver one and that’s just pathetic.”
Cassie was helping pass a tray around with wedding cake and as she approached, I reached for a couple of slices, placing one of the plates in front of Callum.
I winked at Cassie as we ate the sweet confection and watched as she offered Dermot and his date some slices as well. I noticed how she purposely skipped Jerry’s table and made her way to Grammy, where she sat with some older family members and the aunt who owned the furniture store in town that Callum talked about.
Callum’s gaze darted around the dance floor before landing on Jerry who was talking to the bridesmaid from earlier at his table. They looked pretty cozy now.
“Mr. Lorrigan knows,” Callum said motioning with his head in the family’s direction. “About me.”
I sat up straighter as Mr. Lorrigan narrowed his eyes in Callum’s direction. “What do you mean?”
“He saw me in town with Jason last year and since then he’s been treating me different,” he said in a lower register. “I figure he doesn’t want to merge our land if a faggot is involved in the business.”
I cringed at the use of that word, but he had made his point. “What exactly was it that you were doing in town?”
“Jason and I were coming out of a hotel room together,” he said. “The messed up thing about it was that Mr. Lorrigan was as well—with another woman. Motherfucker.”
I wanted to march over to Mr. Lorrigan and slap the shit out of him. “So it’s okay to cheat on your wife but not okay to be gay?”
“Exactly,” he said. “What he doesn’t realize is that I could hurt him as well. He thinks what he’s got on me is worse than what I got on him? Fuck that.”
“That’s what makes me most livid,” I said, tugging at my tie. It had suddenly become too constricting. “People’s fucked up logic.”
“If I come out, he’d got nothing to hold over my head anymore. We’ll lose business, which will kill my dad,” he said, shaking his head. “But Mr. Lorrigan’s marriage would be in jeopardy.”
We sat silently fuming and in that moment, I felt even more connected to Callum. He had shared something personal and I was grateful for his trust in me. It made leaving tomorrow afternoon that much more bittersweet.
“How do you think your dad would take the news about Billie?” I asked as the two boys ate cake and laughed, their eyes flirting. Young love was so fragile as it was.
“I think he’d eventually accept the idea,” he said. “He’d be sad, though, wondering if Billie will find happiness. He already worries about that.”
“Wouldn’t he feel the same about you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to disappoint him.” His mouth drew into a tight line. “He was so shattered when my mother died. All I’ve wanted to do was help him keep his legacy for this family.”
I thought about my own family. How my brother was dead and my father would have no heir and that same familiar guilt washed over me. Guess we’d always disappoint our parents in some way or another. But I could only live for me. It was exhausting constantly trying to please somebody else. Especially if they didn’t appreciate all the unique things about you in the first place.
I unfastened the top button of my dress shirt and loosened my tie, figuring it didn’t matter this late in the evening if I was dressed perfectly or not. Callum’s heated gaze followed my fingers.
“What?” I said, my throat suddenly dry.
“I just want to kiss you again,” he said. “So damn bad.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” I said, meeting his eyes. His red brown hair was brushed back from his forehead. He looked so handsome. “In
a lot of ways I wish your lips weren’t so addictive.”
He smirked. “Why is that?”
“Because I’ll be leaving soon,” I said, nearly breathless at the thought. “And I’ll have too much time on my trip home to think about that mouth.”
He looked slightly crestfallen and I realized that this conversation was probably way too heavy for only knowing somebody for a few days. So why did it feel like so much longer?
“Callum,” Grammy said, interrupting our conversation. I was so lost in Callum’s gaze that I didn’t even see her walk up. Fuck. She stood in front of us in her beaded dress, looking more like high society than country grandmother. “We’re going to need more booze. Your cousins are going to drink us into the ground.”
“There’s an extra case that Braden stored in the kitchen pantry just in case,” I said, having witnessed him stashing it after our alcohol run.
“I’ll get it,” Callum stood up.
“Maybe Dean feels like helping you,” Grammy said. “He must be bored out of his mind at this event.”
I looked over at Cassie who was back to catching up with Dermot at his table. Grammy followed my line of sight and all I could think was that she knew—somehow she knew—that Cassie and I weren’t really together.
“Not at all,” I said. “Your family is great. But I can definitely help Callum.”
Grammy smiled, and I detected a wicked glint in her eyes.
21
Callum
Fuck, Dean was messing with my head. I was already hard from him talking about kissing me. But there was definitely another layer of depth between us as well, after our serious discussion about coming out. I had shared something with him that I hadn’t told anybody other than Jason and I had no earthly idea why, except maybe that I trusted him after such a short period of time.
He walked unassumingly beside me back to the house, and it was as if we couldn’t do or say anything to draw attention to ourselves. Away from the noise of the music and reception, it was strangely serene back here. My ears were ringing simply from the lack of noise.
My heart hammered as Dean’s hand brushed innocently against mine. Damn, I wanted to grab him and kiss him senseless, the way we did last night against that oak tree. We walked up the steps and into the kitchen. I opened the creaky pantry door and flipped on the light that hung from a string. It was a decent sized room, much like a closet, and it held all of our extra food supplies. If the apocalypse ever came, this family would be set.
I spotted the box of liquor on the ground as the pantry door creaked closed behind Dean.
Breathing heavily, we stared each other down, the air growing positively electric. I didn’t know who stepped forward first but suddenly we were toe to toe sharing the same air.
“Dean,” I said. “Fuck.”
“Don’t think,” he whispered as his fingers wrapped around my neck and his soft lips brushed over mine. “Just feel.”
I moaned at the taste of him. As his tongue entered my mouth, I wanted to stand there the rest of the night just like that, kissing him. His fingers traced down my collarbone to my chest and brushed over my nipples. I hissed from the contact.
He drew his mouth away. “Are you sensitive here?”
“God, yeah,” I said, as he rubbed his knuckles over my nipples again. “Always have been.”
And then his fingers were loosening my tie. Dean swung the long strands of blue material over my neck and unfastened the top few buttons, exposing my chest. I considered that somebody could walk into the house at any second but found I didn’t even care, not when his hands were on me.
His tongue feathered across my nipples over and over again and I moaned as my head sank back against the shelf of canned goods. Nobody had paid this much attention to my chest before. My cock, sure. But this was heaven.
“You are sensitive,” he grunted out. “Damn, I love that.”
When he sucked on one of the hardened pebbles, I gasped, and nearly came in my pants. I reached down to adjust myself but he swatted my hand away. “I’m about to make a mess.”
“Tell me when you’re close,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “Got it?”
Fuck, he was going to have to pull off and then I’d be walking around with blue balls all night.
He palmed my rigid cock through my pants and I thrust into his hand, my fingers digging into the edge of the shelf to steady myself.
“Got it?” he asked again, switching to my other nipple, and I could hardly think straight.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, so blissed out I would agree to anything at that point.
As his tongued continued to lick, bite, and suck my nipples, I skated dangerous close to the edge. His mouth traveled a couple of inches upward and his lips closed tightly around the skin. My hands braced his head, my fingers tightening in his thick hair. When his mouth popped off, he’d left a substantial mark. “That’s so you remember me being here.”
“You think I’d ever fucking forget?” I groaned low and throaty, the familiar heat licking down my spine and drawing my balls up tight. “Oh God, I’m going to come. So close…”
He kept sucking while his hands worked swiftly to unclasp my belt and unzip my pants.
“Damn, that is one nice cock,” he said, holding my shaft in his fist as he knelt down and ran his tongue over the slit. My back arched as I propelled my length toward his wet and inviting lips, begging for more. “I want you to come in my mouth. I can’t wait to taste you.”
Before I could register his words, he closed his lips over my head and sucked me into his warm heat, while his fingertips simultaneously clamped down on my nipples. All of the different sensations were too much to bear at once and I groaned loud and long, shooting my seed down his throat.
My knees trembling, my knuckles white from my grip on the shelf behind me, he cleaned up every last drop and continued laving my softened cock until I nudged his face away.
He drew his lips from my dick and looked up at me, his eyes glazed over with lust. His thumb swiped at the corner of his mouth as he hummed.
I yanked him to his feet and kissed him, my tongue digging deep in his mouth, unwilling to let him go right then. After a minute more, he pulled back and helped get my clothes back in place.
“Now I’ll taste you in my mouth the rest of the night,” he said over his shoulder as he pushed through the door and strode ahead of me, maybe to give himself a chance to cool off.
I stood there breathing heavily and marveling at the fact that I just got sucked off in my own kitchen pantry with my family a few hundred feet outside. Fuck, I had never been that careless before. But damn, I couldn’t say I regretted even one second of it.
As I lifted the case of wine I thought about how I needed more of Dean. I didn’t want him to leave without getting a taste of him too. He had just made me come from nipple stimulation alone and that made my cheeks flame hot.
When I got back to the reception, Dean was sitting beside Cassie and sipping from a bottle of beer. I thought of the fact that he would have to continue pretending to be her date for the remainder of his hours here, might even hold her hand a few times more. The idea of him touching somebody else after he’d just been with me, made my stomach turn.
I knew then that I would tell Cassie first thing in the morning.
Dean barely made eye contact with me the rest of the night and that did not sit well. I found I needed his warm and intense gaze, at least for one more day. So that I knew for certain he wanted me as plainly as I wanted him.
Though it didn’t make a lick of sense, no way I wanted him to leave without at least knowing one thing. That we’d have given whatever this was between us a decent shot, if we could’ve had it any other way.
22
Dean
It was difficult not to stare at Callum as I sat at a table beside Cassie. But I knew as soon as I made eye contact, and saw his tie slightly askew, I would be hard as a fence post again and I needed to keep my longing for him in check.
Damn, he’d been so responsive to nipple stimulation. I didn’t know many guys who were that sensitive and it was fucking hot. To be able to put my mouth on his cock and taste his come did things to me as well. I wished we had been alone in his room so I could’ve kept going, had him all to myself for longer.
“So tell me about Dermot,” I said to Cassie, who had a distracted glaze to her eyes.
“He…we…” she said in a flustered voice that I’d only heard early on in the year when she’d been crushing hard on her professor.
“Whoa,” I said, trying to keep my humor in check. “You like him.”
“Stop,” she said, color rising in her cheeks. “We were always friends in school. Just lost touch in recent years.”
My gaze swung across the grassy field to check out Dermot more carefully. He was broad shouldered with nice blonde hair and dark eyes. “Well he’s certainly changed if your reaction to him is any indication.”
“You got that right,” she said in a wistful voice. My friend was definitely smitten.
“Does he think you’re here with me?” I asked, low in her ear.
She chewed her lip. “I kind of told him that we were only platonic. He brought a friend to the reception as well.”
“So you can tell him about us but not your family?” I said, in mock outrage.
“My family is different,” she scoffed. “You can see that for yourself.”
“I’m only teasing you,” I said, hoping like hell she and Callum talked soon. “But I’m starting to think that you would’ve been fine this week without me. Outside of Jerry trailing along behind you every chance he got.”
“Exactly,” she said. “So my plan worked, even if I pretended in front of my family as well. Eventually I’ll tell them something.”
The bride was tipsy and swaying in her wedding dress on the dance floor. Earlier she had been dirty dancing with the groom. Everybody seemed to be having a good time, even Mr. Montgomery, who had been sitting at a table with distant relatives.
The Deepest Blue (Roadmap to Your Heart #2) Page 11