Chapter 21 #2
Sex was simply a release for me as it always had been since I’d started hooking up with guys at sixteen. I’d never had any lingering feelings outside of that and certainly not after a fucking handjob.
I squeezed myself again.
But...
Oh, fuck me.
My phone’s ringtone went off again, Lila most likely calling back to pep talk me up about this date. No matter how enthused I tried to sound on the phone when she’d first called, she probably saw right through my bullshit.
That was the problem with having sisters. They were too good at calling things out that my brothers would’ve simply left alone.
Dragging myself up from my bed with another sigh, I shuffled over to my dresser to retrieve my phone. The number that flashed across the screen wasn’t my sister’s however, and was some random one that I didn’t have saved in my phone.
Curiously, I answered. “Hello?”
“Hey.” Avery.
My heart jumped. “Hey...”
“Sorry, I got your phone number from the shop after they told me you went home early. Hope that was okay.”
“No, no. It’s fine. Everything okay?”
“Uh.” There was some noise in the background, the sounds of voices and something like a pager going off that passed by rather quickly. “Yes and no.”
Was it my place to ask?
I’d had this man’s cock shoved down my throat not even two days ago—didn’t that award me some kind of privilege?
Fuck it.
“What happened? Where are you?”
“The hospital. My ex-wife’s daughter had a really bad fever that wouldn’t break, so she brought her in. She’s hooked up to a bunch of machines right now that are helping her breathe. They think it’s RSV.”
My eyes widened. “Jesus. That’s rough.”
“Yeah. She’s being a little trooper, though.”
I could hear the pride in his voice, sending another dagger through my chest. I tried to ignore it, knowing that having a sick kid far outweighed my own insecurities at the moment. I could dwell on my own feelings later when I wasn’t listening to the sounds of a hospital in the background.
“Glad to hear it. You with her mom right now?”
“Yeah, we—” Some kind of alarm went off near him, causing him to curse softly under his breath. “Hold on.”
As the other line went silent, I found myself wandering back over to my bed and sitting down on the edge of it. It was only a few more long seconds that passed by before the other end clicked and I could hear Avery’s soft breathing again.
“Sorry about that,” he said. The background sounded much quieter, his voice mirroring it. “This place is a madhouse today.”
Such was city life. There was no rest for anyone, let alone the medical staff at a hospital.
Avery running off without a second thought to be with his ex and her (their?) kid showed the type of man he was. And as much as it pained me to think about, those were the markings of a great father. That little girl was lucky, as was his ex.
“Hey, I’m sorry about all of this,” he said, surprising me. “I didn’t—I wasn’t planning on leaving you like that.”
“No worries,” was all I could think to say to that. I wanted desperately to read between the lines, but refused myself from going any further than what was at face value. “I’m glad you’re there to support them.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, well the fiancé’s not. He had all sorts of things to say to my ex this morning when she called to update him. He’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong, but he has a tendency to get jealous whenever I’m in the picture.”
I wondered why that was. Perhaps there was still obvious chemistry between Avery and his ex that the fiancé was constantly picking up on. Or maybe their shared child was a cause for tension between the ex and her fiancé.
“Which is ridiculous,” Avery continued. “Because I’m not even in the picture. Carrie and I remained friends because there was no animosity between us when we divorced. Hell, I even sent them a damn night nurse after Carrie gave birth as a pushing gift.”
Not his kid.
Oh my god, I could fucking cry.
“That was nice of you,” I barely choked out before my voice cracked.
“I guess. What else was I supposed to get her? They’d already gotten plenty of diapers and outfits.”
I let out a soft snort.
Leave it to a billionaire to think of grand gestures as small acts of service. Such a typical Avery thing to do, though. He’d never once begged for a thank you after enacting a good deed, and half the time was surprised when he got one in the first place.
That was the charming thing about him. Helping people was second nature and not once did he ever expect anything in return. He was a good man—far better than me or anyone else I knew for that matter.
“Anyway,” he cleared his throat. “How, uh, how are you?”
“Is that code for something?”
He cleared his throat again. “I meant—fuck. Last night, Bran. How... are you okay?”
What a loaded question.
To be honest, I was fucking messed up in the head with no discernable way of fixing that, short of putting my damn brain inside of a tub of bleach and hoping for a damn miracle.
It was safe to say that getting entangled with Avery was as I’d predicted the second he’d walked into my shop looking like a lost puppy: going to be my downfall.
Here was the problem, though. I didn’t know how to care about that. All I could focus on were these damn butterflies in my stomach that refused to calm down since the second he’d said that the child in question wasn’t his and that his ex had a damn fiancé.
Did that give me hope for something to bud between us?
Yes, of fucking course it did. No matter how much I tried to stamp these damn feelings down, nothing was stopping them from cracking through the concrete and blooming all the same.
“How are you?” I shot back instead of answering him.
“Don’t do this to me. Please.” The fear in his voice was not lost on me at all. “Did we—tell me if I fucked up.”
I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing.
Only Avery would think that after giving me a mind blowing orgasm and sending me to cloud fucking nine would count as him ‘fucking up’. Honestly, most men would be walking around with their heads held high and a kick in their step if they were in his shoes.
It never occurred to me how Avery was perceiving any of this. How he’d been worried about me when I’d be doing the same thing for him.
“I’m good,” I said.
“Brandon.”
Smiling, I said, “Avery. It was good.”
He was quiet on the other end for a long moment. “Really?”
“Yes. It was great.” Being bold like this sent a hot flash through my body. At this point, though, I didn’t care. He asked, so he’d get an honest answer. Even if it made me look like a damn fool.
“Bran, I...” He pulled in a sharp inhale. “I liked touching you. Like that.”
I pitched backward, hitting my mattress hard enough to bounce my body. I gnawed on my bottom lip a little while cupping myself through my jeans again, giving my rapidly hardening cock a good squeeze.
Imagining it as his hands was only making me hornier—needier.
“How much?” I asked.
“A lot.”
Aching to be let free, I yanked at the front button and shoved my jeans down just enough to get a hand wrapped around my cock. It throbbed against my palm, his confession causing a little bit of precum to bead at the tip.
“I did, too.” Admitting it out loud was risky, even with his own confession having just been made.
I wasn’t used to playing all of my cards like this, putting my raw wants and desires out on the table for the person that I wanted most to see and examine, to pick apart and potentially reject me over.
Perhaps my horny brain was giving me less fucks to give, or Avery’s own words were fueling me to being completely transparent.
On the other end of the line, his breathing became labored. “Fuck...”
“You know what else I liked?” I waited for his response and then said, “I liked you watching me.”
“You were... you looked so fucking good, Brandon.”
I gave my cock a long stroke, curling my palm up around the wet head and dragging it back down toward my balls.
Who knew getting off to being this honest was a thing?
A week ago I would’ve been mortified at the thought of Avery ever suspecting I was attracted to him.
Now I had my fucking hand wrapped around my cock, getting off to him telling me how much he liked watching me come.
“Avery...” I darted my tongue out to wet my lips. “Where are you?”
“Um. I’m hiding out in an empty bathroom. One of those family ones.”
“You’re alone?”
“Yeah.”
Perfect. “How hard are you?”
The strangled sound was music to my fucking ears. “Jesus Christ.”
“I want you to touch yourself with me.”
“With you?”
I hummed in response, flexing my fingers around the base of my cock and then giving myself a few quick strokes to force more precum to leak out. I smeared it from the tip and down again, getting myself slick enough not to be uncomfortable.
On the other end of the line, there was some rustling and then the sound of a toilet seat slamming down. Getting him to do this in a hospital was risky and even more so with him taking up a family bathroom with the sole purpose of getting him off.
I wasn’t about to regret a damn thing, though. Not when I knew the second he had himself in his hand by the way he groaned into the phone.
“Shit,” he muttered.
My horny brain was screaming at me to tell him to take a picture and send it over—an impulse that was damn hard to ignore over the rushing of blood in my ears that was soon traveling down to my crotch.
Damn, what I wouldn’t give to add a photo like that to my own personal spank bank collection. He’d be the first one in that folder. Maybe even the only.
“You were a natural,” I told him. “Could’ve sworn you’d given someone a handjob before.”
“Just you.”