Chapter 8
EDDIE
“Come on.” I wrapped my arm around Tyler’s shoulders and urged him into the living room.
He stumbled and flopped onto the couch. Anger tore me apart inside.
Why would anyone hurt him? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
I grabbed a tissue and handed it to him, and I massaged his shoulder as he blew his nose.
I sat beside him for a minute, pressing us together from thigh to hip, my arm sliding around his waist as naturally as if he had been made for me. I gave him a squeeze, hoping I was helping. “Let me get you a washcloth.”
With my heart in my throat, I rushed to the bathroom and got a cloth, soaking it in cold water.
My actions were mechanical as I wrung out the cloth.
Why would Tyler want me to fuck him? I wasn’t a virgin, but I didn’t suffer from the delusion that my skills could make someone forget the nightmare he’d been through.
So, why? Because he thought I’d killed for him? I searched my eyes in the mirror over the sink and didn’t see any easy answers.
He’d gotten hurt after I’d left.
Groaning, I scrutinized my blue eyes, wishing I could see into my own brain and sort through the crap floating around in there.
And how fucking good was it to hear someone say they wanted me?
Really good. I shivered and heat settled low in my stomach as excitement made my cock twitch.
My dick wasn’t magic by any stretch of the imagination, but I wanted to do anything he asked.
Cold drops hit my toes and snapped me out of my thoughts. I rushed back to Tyler, who was sniffling while pink blazed in the apple of his left cheek, then sat beside him.
“There you go. I got you.” I brushed back his shaggy blond hair and wiped down his face, not shying away from any part of him, then rolled the cloth and rested it across his eyes for a minute while a heavy silence gathered in the room.
Not even the glow from the Christmas tree could chase off the intense feelings.
Tyler’s chest rose and fell, interrupted by hitched breaths here and there.
How could anyone hurt him, let alone a whole list full of people?
I grimaced at the thought of my name on the list and didn’t go down that mental path.
The guy I’d known before I’d left for California was mostly happy.
Did well in school. Was quick to smile. My stomach churned.
What did those people do to him? Tyler said he couldn’t talk about it, at least, not right now, but I needed to work on being brave for him so he could tell me.
Someone had scooped out the center of my chest and there was a raw, bleeding hole hidden in there.
“Better?”
Tyler shrugged. He grabbed the washcloth and tossed it on the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Uh, helping? Like you asked?”
He rolled his eyes, then grabbed my shoulders and pulled me in.
Our noses bumped and it wasn’t elegant, but that hole in my chest seemed to vanish when our mouths fused.
I licked my way between his lips as heat scrabbled around in my stomach, and he sighed, wrapping his arms around my neck.
Our kiss softened as I mapped out the slick skin of his tongue with mine, but that chaotic sensation of a gathering lightning strike buzzed a frantic tempo beneath my skin.
I gripped his waist until my fingers hurt.
Lust drugged my thoughts and sizzled in my gut.
Tyler’s mouth.
His firm, compact muscles.
All I could think about was him for a few minutes, and it was a delicious mental vacation.
Tyler nipped my bottom lip, and the shock of the pain pulsed in my cockhead and made the air in my lungs vanish. I held on to him while my head spun.
“Fuck me here,” he whispered.
His breath sent sparks cascading down my spine.
“I want to see what your skin looks like lit up by the Christmas lights.” His left eye was wide and his jaw trembled.
“Okay.” I couldn’t glance away as his hand traveled down to give himself a squeeze. The tent he’d pitched in my green boxers didn’t leave much to the imagination. His hard cock was rubbing—leaking—against underwear I’d worn. “Oh shit.”
“You like that?” he asked, breath ragged.
“Trick? Trick question? Yes. Fuck yes.” I exhaled slowly, and he chuckled, a sound full of confidence that both intrigued and concerned me.
I was older, but I figured he’d been in positions like this, after everything Mike had said earlier.
Chances were good he’d been naked with men more than I had.
His experience showed in the way he moved and how he dragged his gaze possessively down my body to my dick.
He wasn’t shy.
I fucking loved it. But again, I was feeling wobbly inside, too.
“Come get a piece.” He flipped the leg of the boxers up.
They were big on him, and seconds later, I was staring at his cock, my very own Christmas miracle.
This part of him was thick, solid, bigger than I’d guessed.
He had a fat mushroom tip that would make deep throating him intense, probably cut off my oxygen. I never shied away from a challenge.
“Can I touch you?” Part of me was worried I was doing all the wrong things. My fingers curled into fists and I forced them open.
“I offered.” He grabbed my hand and guided my fingers around the hot silk of his shaft. “So, fucking yes.”
My control snapped and I attacked his lips. I stroked him, but I was so excited that it was a little fumbled, and I had nothing close to a rhythm. I dragged my mouth from his lips and dropped kisses to the swath of scars on his face.
His brow furrowed and his hips rocked. “Throw me on my back and fuck me already. What are you waiting for?” he growled out, and tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.
Uncertainty slapped me, but before I could do more than pull back and study his face, his lips were on mine again.
And seconds later, he tugged on my sweatpants.
Between the two of us, we got them down to my thighs.
He shimmied out of his boxers and launched himself at me. I held him close as he straddled me.
His damp hair looked like it needed to be grabbed, so I did with a great amount of satisfaction while scraping my teeth down the column of his bruised neck. His balls bumped my cockhead, and I humped upward, teasing myself against the warmth.
“Eddie. Fuck. Me,” he ordered against my lips. His urgency and the way he reached down to angle me so that my dick glided between his asscheeks had me nodding.
“Anything you want, I’ll do.” I was wedged against his hole, a hair’s breadth from heaven with him grinding against me before my brain kicked back into gear.
“Lube!” I gasped, bunching Tyler’s T-shirt between both my hands at his back and using it to physically move him out of the danger zone.
“Just stuff my ass with this cock.” He spat on his palm, and lightning sparked into every molecule in my body as he reached back and no doubt sank his own fingers into that hot hole.
“Lube is a must.” I grabbed him around the waist and tipped him to the side.
I laughed at his outraged scowl as I hopped up and hobbled away from the couch.
I almost died before I got out of my sweats, then raced up the stairs to my room, taking the steps two at a time.
The lube was hiding between the folds of my comforter, but I fished it out fast, snagged a condom from the nightstand, and dashed back.
On the next to last step, my foot slipped, but I saved myself with the railing. I was in such a hurry because I caught sight of him sprawled out with one leg resting over the back of the couch, a helpful hand on his dick. I sprinted over to him.
He sat up as I was going for another kiss, and I groaned as his forehead connected with my nose. I grabbed it and took a step back.
“Ouch.”
“Are you okay? You’re even a danger to yourself during sex.” He cackled, flopping backward onto the couch. It was such a warm, happy sound that it made the pain worth it.
“Don’t forget to others, too. You all right?” I lowered my hands, but since there was no blood, I figured I’d live.
He nodded and snagged my thigh with both hands, dragging me down onto the couch between his legs.
From there I got lost in more kisses and the sweet tangle of his arms and legs. My cock slid along the slick precum dripping from his slit. Beautiful. I carded my hand into his hair so I could hold him still and raid his mouth, stealing all the happy noises spilling out of him.
He wrenched his head to the side. “In me.”
“Yeah. Love that idea. Yes.” I found the lube where it had slid between two cushions and squirted far too much on my fingers.
I easily found his hole and pushed. His ass gripped me and made me grit my teeth against the wave of heat that thrilled through me.
This was going to be fucking good, I could already tell.
It was too intense.
Too much.
I was going to stumble my way through this the way I did everything else.
Rather than completely embarrass myself, I slid down and wrapped my lips around him, eyes rolling back as the taste of him hit my tongue.
The mushroom tip gave me plenty to dance my tongue around, and I growled a little when he bucked his hips.
“What are you . . . ? Oh fuck,” he whispered, then gasped.
Tyler yanked roughly on my hair, dragging me closer so that his cock tapped the back of my throat.
I gagged and swallowed, and he moaned as I slid down until my nose brushed his pubes.
He must not have been holding it together any better than me, because he shivered and whined, grinding deeper.
I felt the unmistakable pulse of him unloading down my throat.
I slid my hand to my cock, slick with precum and the rest of the lube, and barely stroked before heat punched through me.
“Fuck! What just—Oh my God.”
“Mmm.” I swallowed around him as bursts of cum jetted out of me. My vision darkened for a few seconds before it came back in spots, then cleared up as the pleasure eased off. I hadn’t been able to suck in any oxygen for a bit, and I reached the critical point.
When I sat back on my knees, air rushed into my lungs and my head spun.
We stared at each other, and I snickered, a raspy sound, since my throat had just been through the sex version of Fight Night.
“Did you walk through a tornado?” I used my clean hand to pat down his hair, but it didn’t do much.
Tyler smiled and ducked his head shyly. I think we were both feeling stunned.
The washcloth from earlier was still on the floor. I grabbed it and cleaned up before tossing it down again. My heart bumped along faster when he opened his arms for me, and I snuggled in, resting most of my weight to the side but letting him cradle me close.
“What happened here?” I asked, running my fingers over the scars on his left arm.
“Work accident,” he murmured. “My boss was a dick. It’s a long story.”
We gazed at the tree, and this time the silence that fell was comfortable.
“Those look dangerous.” Tyler pointed at three oversized star ornaments made of solid red glass.
The points glinted prettily in the light from the tree.
Each one was heavy as hell. I’d set them beside the coffee table because I’d run out of energy to try to move them anywhere else in the room.
“Are you sure it’s safe for you to have them? ”
I shrugged. “A local artist was selling them. I felt bad for her because she had big decorations and a bunch of floor vases that no one was looking at. I’m not a flower person, but I do like the holidays. The stars remind me of the seventies, so I thought they would go with the house.”
“They do, but are you sure someone with your, uh, you know—”
“Gracefulness?” I flinched.
“Yeah, that. Are you sure you should keep something so sharp on your floor?” He wrinkled his nose.
“They haven’t murdered anyone yet,” I mumbled.
He let out an amused groan and pinched my side.
Shit. Now all I could think about was what we’d done earlier. Hiding that body tonight might not have been the right thing, but it was the safest thing for both of us to stay off Dad’s radar. And the longer Tyler held me in his arms, the more I was certain he’d deserved some revenge.
I was about ninety percent sure that wasn’t the sex talking. But who cared if it was? I didn’t.
“Some of those red-and-white ornaments on the tree are dicks,” he mumbled.
I choked on nothing and coughed as he laughed.
“They’re candy canes! The same artist who did the stars made them.
Blown glass pieces. Jeez. I never noticed that.
” He wasn’t wrong, though. The curved tip that went around the tree branch was a little bulbous.
And mushroom shaped. For fuck’s sake, how did I not notice that?
“Blown.” He pinched my side again, and I swatted at him. “Right.”
I snorted, and when I glanced up, his eyes were closed. As I watched him taking a well-deserved nap in the soft glow of the holiday lights, I knew I would always make the choice that kept him safe.
“You’re not going to have to be scared of any of those men on that list ever again.” I brushed his hair off his forehead, then leaned up and ghosted my lips across his. “That’s a promise.”