22. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
Arnav
As we stepped onto the back porch, the cold air hit me in the face. We’re not staying out here long. I leaned against the railing that had been cleared of the snow that had fallen last night.
The moon shone brightly, competing with the illumination from the streetlight down the street. My parents had a large property, but I could spot lights on in their neighbors’ houses.
Foster didn’t huddle like I did. He wore a warm jacket and had the air of a man who regularly worked outside in the cold.
“Are you okay?” I tried to discern his features in the darkness. Maybe this wasn’t such a great place to talk . No doubt I was in shadow as well.
He cocked his head. “I’m okay. Why would you think I wasn’t okay?” He offered a smile.
I couldn’t tell if that smile was tight or genuine.
“Because I just, as my father said, bulldozed you. I didn’t mean to. Just, in the middle of all that…”
“Love?”
“Yeah.” He gets it . “They mean everything to me. You mean everything to me. It all sort of came together. I should’ve waited. Until you said it was okay. And then to do it in private, but…” For a lawyer, the words weren’t coming easily. Things could have gone so badly wrong. Hell, they still might.
He grasped my hands. “We really should be wearing gloves.”
I made a noise of agreement in my throat.
“So we won’t stay out here long. Just long enough for me to assure you that you didn’t do anything wrong. We’ve talked about the big stuff, Arnav. The really big stuff.”
“Having kids. Moving in. The pup and Daddy stuff.”
He nodded. “From the first moment I saw you at Club Kink, I knew you were someone who would understand. That you were putting yourself out there as much as I was.”
“Plus Quinton’s party.”
A laugh escaped him. “Yes, well, that is a memory I’ll cherish. How we met was unorthodox. My feelings for you aren’t. Even if I never sleep in my dog bed again, I’ll still be happy. I just want you.”
I pressed my finger to his lips. “I want you to be happy, and I know, for you, that means being a pup. I’m hoping one day we can return to Kink. That you’ll be comfortable playing with the other pups. That I can hang out with the Daddies and trade stories of our scamps.” I fingered the leather in my pocket. “I have a gift for you. Obviously something we’re not going to tell my family about.”
He grinned, his white teeth shining. “Oh, something tells me that I’m going to enjoy this.” He ducked his head. “Daddy.”
“Oh, you know me well.” I removed the gift. “I should’ve wrapped it or put it in a box or something. I bought it on the way home from work yesterday, and maybe I should’ve given it to you this morning—”
“You gave me presents this morning.”
That was true. But they felt small in comparison to what he meant to me.
He leaned over to whisper in my ear. “All the toys and the blow job. Remember that?”
My cock sat up and took notice. “Uh, yeah, that. Well, plenty more where those come from.” I pressed my gift into his hands.
For a moment, he stood stock still. Slowly, he fingered the studded leather. “Is this…?”
“Yep. In turquoise, because I know that’s your favorite color. It suits you. But we can always return it. There are fancier ones. Ones with patterns. You know, I almost bought a plaid one. In fact, I think I might go back—”
He cut me off with a massive bear hug.
“Oof.” The breath was nearly stolen from me. But I didn’t care. Nothing else mattered except his evident happiness.
He rubbed his cheek against mine.
Scenting me.
He did that frequently. As if he couldn’t get close enough to me.
I didn’t mind in the least.
Finally, he pulled back, but grasped my hands.
I squeezed them. “Look, I plan to get something more elaborate for when we go out. This is for us.”
“I’m sort of crying.” He sniffed.
“From happiness, I hope.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” I guided his hand to tuck the collar into his pocket and then coaxed him to zip it up. “You know…”
“Know?” He sniffed again.
“I know a couple who got married today. Adam and Dean. Up at Healing Horses Ranch.”
“Okay, I heard something about that.”
“Maybe one day we could, you know…”
“Get married?” He laughed. “First you ask me to live in sin with you, and then you suggest we might marry?”
“Backwards?”
“For us? No.” He caressed my cheek—much as I often did for him. “I know this is nuts. Truly.”
“Time doesn’t make a relationship more solid.”
He stilled.
“I’m sorry—”
“No.” He pushed the word out. “I never felt for him the way I feel for you. And not just because you understand me—although that’s a big part of it. But because you’ve never judged. The attraction I felt for you was well, explosive. Hence the blow job in an upstairs bedroom with thirty people below at the party.”
I cleared my throat. My toes were going numb.
“I can see my life with you. Us both working. Us both doing volunteer stuff that fills our souls. Coming home together each night to cuddle and make love. Time with our friends. Time with your family—”
“My nutty family—”
“Your loving family.” He smiled—hard to see in the shadows, but there nonetheless. “We’re going to make it through. I see forever.” He swallowed audibly. “And I hate that I’m going to go first and leave you alone—”
I pressed my finger to his lips. “We’ve got a hell of a long way to go before that’s something we need to worry about.” I wanted to point out that my cousin had died from cancer last year. And she’d been Samara’s age. Time wasn’t guaranteed. We needed to grab what we’d been given and live every moment to the fullest.
Those words didn’t come. Instead, I removed my finger and replaced it with my lips.
He grasped the back of my neck and pulled me in for a drugging kiss. He made me feel like we were going to be that way forever.
The sound of the sliding glass door had us pulling apart.
“Papi says come inside or your balls will freeze off.” Rashmi laughed.
“He did not say that.” I linked arms with Foster and tugged him toward the door. My balls weren’t frozen—yet—but they were trying to climb back inside my body.
“I think I’m blushing.” Foster directed the comment to Rashmi.
She linked arms with him even as we toed off our shoes—which we hadn’t done up or anything. “I think you’re going to get along just fine in this family.”
I nearly made a snide comment about her divorce, but I caught myself. A couple of times today, I’d seen her looking sad. Whether because of the children she might’ve wanted but didn’t have, or because of the loving relationships her siblings were in—which she no longer had—I couldn’t be certain. Regardless, teasing her didn’t feel right.
Foster pecked her cheek. “I think I’m going to be okay too.”
And so we were.