Chapter 36 #2
I shift in my seat and hope the rolling feeling in my stomach will even out soon. Otherwise, I’m going to blow chunks all over the nice couple sitting in front of me. “I don’t want to miss the game. I’ll never hear the end of it from Carter.”
I’ve been drifting in and out of an uncomfortable sleep for the past hour when the door to my bedroom pushes open slowly.
“Wells?” It’s Kellan, and he’s already tip-toeing across the room. I can hear him quickly disrobing before he slides into what’s become his side of the bed. He wraps his arm around my torso. “Are you okay?”
I look at the clock on my end table. It’s barely midnight. “What are you doing here? Not another bar fight, I hope.”
He laughs. “With mid-terms, the bar was pretty dead. They cut me early.” His fingertips skim across my shoulder, and I can’t help but feel like I don’t deserve someone as good as him.
I was less than talkative any time he texted me earlier tonight, and I didn’t get into what happened with my dad.
But he doesn’t let me retreat inward. He’s here, making me face my fears. The real question is, can I?
I lengthen my body against him. “Tonight went about how I expected. Sorry, I just wasn’t in the mood to talk about it.”
He places a soft kiss against my ear. “You know I know that family can be hard. Want to tell me what happened?”
It’s easier, somehow, that I don’t have to look at him directly, and I try to focus on how good it feels that he’s tracing light patterns up my arm. “My dad offered me a job after graduation.”
His fingers skim downward as he asks, “And that’s not a good thing? Seems like he wants to bring you back into the fold?”
“It’s in London.” I know how he feels about my words because his hand stops moving.
A part of me wishes that he’d tell me to stay.
That he wants me here. That no matter what happens with his pro career, that we’ll figure it out.
But I know that he’s not going to do that.
He’s too self-sacrificing to try and make me mold my future to his.
Instead, I’m not surprised when he pushes the idea back to me. “Would that be something you want to do?”
“The Wellingtons expanded their business empire recently, and apparently no country is safe. He’s looking for someone to manage the day-to-day over there.
But really, I think he just wants to put me on another continent so that I can’t make any trouble for him here.
God, he probably wants to make sure that Carter and I don’t actually become friends, either. ”
Silence hovers in the darkened room until finally Kellan speaks. Or, more accurately, gives a voice to the elephant in the room. “We haven’t really talked about what happens after graduation.”
“I figured that July would force us to talk about things, whether we’re ready or not.” July 1st is the deadline where free agents are allowed to start being picked up by professional teams. Until then, we have no idea where Kellan could end up.
Kellan groans. “Don’t remind me.”
“I’ve been trying not to.” I know that he’s incredibly stressed about it, so I try not to pepper him with hypotheticals and possible scenarios. It would only make both of us miserable for the time we have left together.
His voice is soft against my ear. “It feels like we’ve finally gotten to a really good place, and now we have a timer ticking down to when everything will probably change.”
I nod. “Even if the NHL doesn’t sign you immediately, there’s a really good chance that a farm team will. So, no matter what, I think that it’s safe to say you’ll be picked up.”
“You’ve been doing research?” The surprise in his voice is evident.
I laugh hoarsely. “It’s a coping mechanism. Get all the information about something so that I’m not knocked sideways by anything.”
“It’s called being a control freak,” he murmurs before adding, “But I mean… not getting signed wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Less scrutiny about my personal life. I wouldn’t have to leave Massachusetts.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. In all of our conversations, this has never come up. I need to see him, so I roll over in bed, trying to find his eyes in the dark. “What are you talking about?”
“I love hockey, but I also felt so much pressure to succeed because I needed to help my family. It felt like the only way to pull us out of our situation. But… that’s not the case anymore.
And sure, it would be a level of security that we’ve never known if I’m making a pro paycheck, but I’d probably miss so much time with my brothers, too.
I’ve just been thinking about a lot of things differently lately. ”
“Why didn’t you mention this?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t want to freak you out. Or make you feel pressured into committing to something with me that you weren’t ready for. There are lots of reasons why I’m considering what comes next–not just us.”
“What would you do instead?” My mind is going a million miles a minute, and I’m resisting the urge to turn on the light so that I can look at him more closely.
“Probably try to get a job at a local car dealership as their mascot.” He flashes me a winsome smile, but I don’t match it.
“Kellan…”
I lean into the hand he’s cupped against my jaw.
“For the first time in my life, I feel like I have options. I promise, I’m not losing my mind.
And it would suck–a lot–if you were in London, but…
” He quiets, and I can just see the way he’s pulled his lip between his teeth, mulling over whatever he’s gearing up to say.
“I wouldn’t want it to be the end of us.
No matter where you end up. Or me, for that matter. ”
My heart feels like it can’t fit in my chest right now.
Like it’s ballooning against my ribcage and trying to push out of my body.
I’ve been afraid to ask Kellan where we stand.
I don’t exactly have a great track record of showing my true self to the people who are supposed to love me unconditionally and getting a great response.
I pull back. Is that what this is? Love? Having someone hold my heart in their hands and trusting that they’ll take care of it?
“Wells?” Kellan asks, and I can feel his eyes searching mine in the darkness.
Instead of answering him, I close the inches of space between us and find his lips.
They’re soft–still a little cold from the evening that he spent outside.
Immediately, I want more. It becomes an unbearable need.
To have his body pressed against mine. To share warmth back and forth between us like we’re a single person.
I slide my leg between his thighs, so that we’re slotted together as I ease on top of him.
This isn’t about power. Or control. It’s about needing to feel connected to him, like he’s the only thing keeping me from falling off the Earth.
There’s this concept–singularity. Where intense and unpredictable change happens and causes existing rules to break down. I feel like I’m living in that moment right now when Kellan wraps his arms around me and runs the pads of his fingertips down my back, pulling me closer.
The walls that I’ve spent years putting up to protect myself are crumbling beneath the weight of his presence under me and against me. I feel his hard bulge pressing against my own need. I’m drunk on the feeling, and I moan into the darkened room.
Nothing makes sense. How we’re going fast but also slow. How the low sounds that Kellan is whispering in my ear sound like gunshots in the way they reverberate through me. I’m being both pulled apart and held together by his touch.
“I’ve got you,” he soothes as I realize I’m grinding against him, already finding a rhythm with his own hips. “Take what you need, baby. I’m here for it.”
But I’m only taking it because he’s giving it to me.
I’m only getting closer because he’s opened himself up and is allowing me to share this moment with him.
I’m not the one in control, and I don’t know what ever made me think that I was.
“Kellan,” I pant as my cock starts straining, each brush of my sensitive tip against his hard lines of muscle causing pleasure to wash through my body.
I’ve never come like this before, grinding on top of someone as they guide me through it. I’m already so fucking close when Kellan’s fingers snake under my briefs and ghost along my ass but not entering my hole.
“Can I?” he asks, looking up at me with those big, expressive eyes that I’ve been so lost in for months that I didn’t realize I was never going to find my way out. I’m in this new place, and there’s no going back to where I used to exist.
I nod. “Yes. Please,” I say, the trust in my voice unmistakable. It seems like Kellan hears it too, and he wastes no time easing his finger against me, starting to rub small circles as I get used to the pressure.
I’m already seeing stars when he slips his eager finger inside, his other hand bracketing along my hip.
He starts to work into me slowly, and my back arches when he pushes in deeper and hits my prostate.
It happens in a rush, a high that bursts through me like a star’s exploding endlessly into the galaxy.
I barely register that the hand that was holding me close has found its way to my throbbing cock, where he’s rubbing wetness across the tip before sliding his hand down my length.
When he says, “Let me be good to you,” I splinter into a billion individual atoms, my orgasm hurtling through me. And through it all is Kellan, clutching me close, holding me like it’s the only thing stopping me from floating away.
I blink my eyes open and look down at Kellan, who’s staring at me like I’m the most perfect thing he’s ever seen. And if it isn’t the look of a man in love shining in his own eyes, the same look that I know is reflected in my own, then I don’t know what is.