Chapter 23 Pretend
Pretend
Josha
“It’s never been about what I wanted, Gem. And we were never perfect. That part was always pretend.”
He’s not buying it this time.
“Bullshit,” he snaps. “Don’t tell me there was never anything real between us.
I get that you’re scared. You have every reason to be.
I’m so fucking scared, I can’t see straight.
I’m terrified of being back here, of getting sober, of facing my family.
But I’m not scared of this.” His fingers flex at my waist, sending goosebumps straight to my delusional dick, even as his voice cracks with strain.
“What do I have to do to convince you I’m done fucking this up?
You want to hit me? Fuck me? Put me on my knees in the dirt and make me suck you off? ”
My dick jolts with each careless offer—all of the above.
Why can’t he see that I am not allowed to want him? Every time I’ve let this desire free, it’s been my ruin. I’ve trusted the lust in those aquamarine eyes before and drowned in the undertow.
But the hard ridge of his erection sears along my thigh, capturing the anger in my chest and dragging it someplace lower and infinitely more dangerous until I am a rage of want. A maelstrom.
My limbs are saturated with it.
I peel back from his vortex, releasing his shirt to create some desperately needed distance. He lets me go with a rough exhalation, resignation already writing its story in the slump of his shoulders and the way he drops his head back on the roof of the truck.
“You’re still talking about me, Gem,” I tell him. “And it’s the same fucking cop-out. You say you’re not scared of this? Then tell me what ‘this’ is. Tell me what you fucking want.”
“I want all of it,” he says, and his voice is wrecked. His eyes find mine, and a shudder runs over his body, ricocheting through the invisible cords connecting us and begging me to believe. “All you have to say is yes.”
I am not ashamed enough to resist him.
And my body is tired of making sacrifices to protect my heart.
Two years ago, I was urgent and selfishly eager, and I bulldozed through his hidden doubts, even though I knew they were there. I won’t make that mistake again. I won’t choose for him, no matter what lures he plays at dangling.
This time, I need him to be sure.
“If I say yes—if I touch you—you’re not going to change your mind and tell me to stop?”
“No. Fuck no. Never again.”
This version of him is beaten and bruised, rough-hewn and raw—the lines of his face made lethal by the loss of his sable curls. The tentacles of his tattoos climb over his arms and peek from his collar, tracing sinew and lean muscle, and dark, two-day stubble coats his jaw. He could be a stranger.
But he’s always been dangerous in ways it took me years to unstitch.
And his Neptune eyes are the same as the boy on the surfboard. The boy who backflipped off my chicken coop and brought me soup and spent a thousand nights with his hip pressed to mine on a narrow twin bed while the glow from my laptop painted superhero shadows over his face.
Quill.
I still want him.
I’ve never really been able to say no.
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank fuck.” Closing the distance between us, he sinks his hands into my hair and stretches up on his toes to bring his mouth to mine.
The kiss is tires on gravel and fiberglass on the sea. It’s hotel sheets and hammocks and snowmelt in the Sierra Mountain sun.
He still tastes like destiny.
This is going to hurt.
But until then…
I wrap my arms around his waist and let him in.
The exposed arch of his low back forms a perfect shelf, and my skin thrills at the contact.
Slipping beneath his Henley, I drag my greedy fingers up the grooves along his spine and down his ribs before pressing my thumbs into the divots above his ass, as if now that I’m touching all these long-coveted parts of him, I can’t get enough.
My heart thuds wildly as his tongue explores every inch of my mouth, the barbell intoxicating me with pornographic promise. He holds nothing back, grinding his rigid cock against mine as a low rumble builds in his throat, and the last wisps of my sanity curl away like embers on the wind.
“Fuck, Rocket,” he groans, breaking the kiss to bury his face in the crook of my neck. “Let me take you to bed.”
My brain breaks to static. Mistaking my hesitation for reluctance, he slips a hand between us to palm my erection. “When I said I wanted it all, that included your cock.”
“You also said something about getting on your knees in the dirt,” I remind him, my voice faint beneath the roaring in my ears.
“And I’m willing. But—” He nips at my earlobe, sending electric shivers sparking down my spine. “If you take me inside, we could get naked first, and I really, really want to see you naked.”
Theoretically, we could strip right here.
The driveway is a quarter mile long, and the forest screens the property on all sides.
Plus, the fawn-skittish part of me that’s convinced he’s going to change his mind shies from the idea of letting him go, even for the few minutes it would take us to move to my room.
My hands dip to cup his ass, trapping him against me as if he isn’t already as close as he can get.
He wants this.
I can figure out why tomorrow. Besides, I’d be an idiot to pass up the chance to savor him after all these years.
I lead him inside.
The main bedroom was the first thing I changed after my dad died and my mom and Jeremy moved out. I didn’t want to keep sleeping in my childhood bed, but there was no way I’d be comfortable in the room where my parents fought and fell apart and sometimes fucked without major renovations.
So I ripped up the threadbare carpet and laid laminate flooring and a braided rug.
I repainted the walls and replaced the curtains.
I spent too much money on a secondhand king-sized bed and a new mattress, then covered it with linen bedding in shades of sand and forest greens.
And if anyone had told me I was recreating a certain hammock-hung clearing in the woods, I probably would have punched them.
But watching Gem turn in a slow, admiring circle as he slots into place like a puzzle piece, there’s no denying the truth. The frantic edge of my lust has abated, and I take a moment to marvel at the miracle of having him here, in this space.
“You did all this?” he asks. I shrug, shoving my hands in my pockets as I lean against the door. “It suits you.”
It suits you too.
He runs his hand over the coverlet and bends to inspect the stack of books next to the half-pint Mason jar of screws and drill bits on my nightstand. Silently willing him not to start digging through the pile, I cross to join him.
Of course, he’s a nosy fucker, and the smirk he shoots me when he finds the novel with the shirtless male cover model has me fighting a blush.
“Shut up,” I tell him when he opens his mouth.
With what I’m sure is a supreme exercise in restraint, he swallows his comment. Instead, he places a hand in the center of my chest and pushes me gently until I’m sitting on the bed. Then he backs up as much as the room will allow and starts taking off his clothes.
He doesn’t rush. With one hand, he reaches back to tug his Henley over his head, baring his inked torso in one smooth movement.
His other hand works the button of his jeans as he toes off his boots.
And even though there’s no trace of the cocky fuckboy—even though he stumbles as he peels out of his jeans and his eyes never leave my face—he makes undressing into an art form that has my heart racing in my throat.
He’s fearless in his nudity, radiating all the sex appeal I remember from my frustrated teenage years—now, finally, directed at me. My dick is rock hard again, even as my brain continues its struggle to poke holes in what’s happening.
He’s fucking stunning. I haven’t allowed myself to really look at him until now.
I’ve been building firewalls, keeping him contained.
But even the fading bruises, mingling with the ink that swarms his torso and snakes over his arms and down his leg, only add to his wicked beauty.
Lean muscles rippling unfairly, he stalks toward me like a wild thing.
“What—” I swallow. “What now?”
It should be easy. I’ve imagined him naked and willing a thousand times.
I’ve made plans, back when I was naive enough to think they couldn’t hurt me.
But seeing him exposed and immediate in the muted light streaking through the curtains, my head swims at all the things I could do with unshackled access to his body, and I tremble, overwhelmed to inaction.
“Now I’m gonna suck you off. Because I want to. And you want me to. And we’re both going to enjoy the hell out of it.”
Okay, that’s hot as hell. Still, I search his face for any sign of hesitation.
“Have you…done that before?”
“Nope.”
Relief courses through me, complicated by doubt. Despite my expectations, he didn’t even flinch at the Fourth Base scene, and a part of me wondered if it was because he’d been experimenting with other guys. But if he hasn’t…
“How do you know you’re going to like it?” I ask.
“Because I’ve been fantasizing about having your cock in my mouth ever since you let that little twink get there first.” He steps between my thighs and plucks at the neck of my T-shirt. “Now take off your clothes.”
I’m not nearly as graceful about it as he was, but I tell myself it’s because he insists on helping—tugging impatiently at my jeans while I’m still navigating my sleeves, and laughing when he lands on his ass with a liberated boot in his lap.
Something thornier than lust stirs in my chest at the sound of his carefree laughter, throwing me back to dandelion wishes and smothered secrets as he tosses my jeans and briefs carelessly aside.
“Gem—” I cut off with a gasp when his hand comes up to circle my cock, my amorphous doubts scattering back into the past. “Oh.”