Chapter 31
Oliver
“What if we ran away?” I whisper, my lips hovering over the skin on the back of Darius’s neck.
He rubs his face against the pillow, his voice thick with sleep when he responds.
“Hmm, where would we go?”
My hand glides over the smooth skin at his ribs, trailing along his stomach and stopping at the waistband of the tiny yellow shorts he wore to bed.
“Somewhere that is always sunny. Where we could lie on the beach whenever we wanted.” I have one arm beneath his body, and I use it to drag him closer, so that his back is to my chest. I bite my way down his neck, careful not to leave marks, and he wriggles in my hold, pressing his ass into my morning wood.
“And what would we do for work?”
My hand dips lower, fingers delving beneath the fabric of his shorts. I run my fingers through the patch of pubic hair, exploring further down before wrapping my hand around his cock. Darius groans, hips moving to push into my hold.
“We could have a little coffee shop on the beach. You make the coffees, and I’ll serve them. Maybe I’ll sell handmade furniture on the side.” I loosen my grip and move my hand in lazy strokes, enough to tease but not enough to take him over the edge.
“That sounds nice.” His body is warm and the perfect fit against mine.
He protests when I remove my hand, but quickly continues speaking when he realises I’m stripping off his shorts to give myself better access.
“We could have a little house that we renovate ourselves.” Darius lifts his hips and, though the position is awkward, I get his shorts off and then my own before hauling him back against my chest. Miles of naked, sleep-warm skin in my hold.
“And sunflowers in the garden,” I add, rubbing my erection in the crease of his ass. He wraps his arm around my neck, leaning back to chase my lips, and I give him what he’s seeking, pressing our mouths together, my tongue invading.
Tasting.
Devouring.
I swallow the moans vibrating from his chest as I rut my cock against him, pleasure building in my core. I wrap a hand around his shaft again, this time using a firmer grip, starting at the base, stroking and twisting up and down.
When Darius speaks again, he’s panting, writhing on the bed, pressing himself harder against me, as if he’s trying to erase any space that might exist between us. “What about a hammock in the garden? You could –” he groans deeply when I swipe my thumb over his tip “– fuck me in it.”
“Hmm.” I bite his bottom lip, eliciting the sweetest whimper, before pushing him forward so that he’s flat on his stomach, face pressed to the rumpled sheets.
Crawling over him, I rest my body on my forearms and bring my face to his temple, nuzzling my nose over the light hair there.
Then, I lick his earlobe and blow on it, feeling him tremble beneath me.
“I’d fuck you in all the rooms of our home. On every counter, too.”
Darius groans, then repositions his hands, one stretching towards the headboard, the other bent beneath his cheek. There’s a stirring of anger in my belly when I see his splint, but I push it away, refusing to let that man into this moment.
Leaning back, I spit into my palm and slick the saliva over my shaft before settling my weight on top of him. Using one hand, I guide my dick into the space between his thighs.
“Cross your legs at the ankles, babygirl,” I command. Darius shuffles on the bed, crossing his legs, tightening his body’s grip on my throbbing erection.
“I want all of that with you, Ollie, but –” he groans when my cock rubs against his taint. I push into the tight space, kissing the back of his neck and over his cheek, then rest my forehead on his temple.
“I know.” For now, it’s a fantasy – one I don’t know if we’ll ever have the chance to make come true, but one I hold on to. And it makes my pulse race and my blood sing with a heady mix of want and need and hope.
Darius squeezes his legs, and I moan, the friction calling all my attention to the here and now. To the moment where the man I love is with me. Where he’s mine and I’m his and that is all that could possibly matter.
Moving my hips, I fuck into the tight channel created by his thighs.
“So tight,” I rasp. “Feels so good.” Needing to kiss him, I lean over and press my lips to his. The position isn’t the best, but Darius kisses me back, his tongue duelling for control, and I melt, feeling him everywhere. His breath in my lungs. His scent in my nose. His sweat on my skin.
Bodies entangled.
Hearts connected.
Heat rises beneath my skin, nerve endings coming alive and sending bolts of pleasure ricocheting through me.
Darius whimpers into the kiss and I move faster, the glide eased by the pre-cum dripping from my cock.
My hard thrusts push him into the mattress and he moves his hips in time with mine, chasing his orgasm as he fucks the mattress.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” I bury my nose in his hair, inhaling more of his scent.
“I can’t get enough of you. You are perfect.
Every inch of you, made to be adored.” I kiss any spot I can reach, sweat beading on the back of my neck as I work myself harder and faster between his legs.
My orgasm is right there, the inevitable plummet into unrivalled bliss waiting for me.
“Ollie. Ollie, please, I need…more…fuck, please.”
Fuck, I need to come, but I need him to come first. “I’ve got you.
Hold on for me, baby.” Bringing a finger to Darius’s mouth, I slide it between his lips.
He sucks on the digit, getting it nice and wet before I pull it out.
Sitting on my knees, I spread his cheeks and tap the finger at his puckered entrance.
His body is sweat-slicked and his thighs are red, glistening with my pre-cum.
When I push my finger into his body, Darius gasps, tensing at the intrusion.
“Let me in. I want to make you feel good.”
He breathes out, bearing down on me, and then I’m slipping fully inside. When I crook my finger, tapping against his prostate, his hips lift off the bed and a loud moan fills the air.
“Yes,” he says, humping the bed and my finger simultaneously. He’s lost to the pleasure as I continue to play with the sensitive bundle of nerves inside him. His movements grow frantic and he’s babbling incoherently, my name falling from his lips like a song.
“That’s it, baby. Take what you need. So good and perfect for me.”
His entire body tightens, squeezing around my finger as he cries out, painting the sheets with his cum. My cock throbs, need coursing through me at an alarming rate.
“Fuck,” Darius chuckles, his body melting into the mattress, a satiated smile gracing his face. My finger slips out and I blanket him with my body, my hard cock trapped between us.
“Can you take more? I really want to fuck you.” My voice is a needy rasp in his ear.
“Yes. Fuck me, please.”
“Do you have condoms?” I ask, and he sucks in a breath, twisting beneath me. I lift, giving him space to roll over. He pushes onto his elbows, his blue eyes locked onto mine.
“Do we need them? Are you…have you?” The smile he was wearing a moment ago has vanished, leaving behind a deep frown.
Trepidation twists at my chest. “I’ve been tested since the last guy and I’m negative.”
He looks away from me, his voice a whisper when he speaks again. “You were with someone else?”
I nod, though he’s not looking at me.
“I fooled around with a few people. Hand jobs. A few blow jobs. But no kissing and nothing more.” I press a palm to each of his cheeks and angle his head to look at me.
“I was angry and hurt and I tried to go back to the Oliver I was before you. The one who never got attached. Who didn’t fall in love.
Easy and casual. No feelings. No commitments.
” I hate the hurt on his face. I would never intentionally hurt him, but I thought we were done.
I never would have fucked around if I knew the truth.
“I thought you had left me. That you were sleeping with him. You told me you cheated.”
He rubs at his eyes, shaking his head. “I wasn’t. I haven’t been with anyone else.”
“I know that now. I never wanted to believe that there was someone else. But in the beginning I did – when the anger was so visceral, it was tearing me apart – I believed you. When I saw the wedding invite, I knew we were over.”
“But something changed?” he asks. I drop my hands from his face to his legs.
“Yeah. I watched you marry Floyd, and the whole time something was bothering me. But I told myself it was because it was him up there and not me. And then at Bar La Vella, when I saw you, I knew something wasn’t right.
You looked at me that night like you loved me, and you never looked at him like that, not even on your wedding day. ”
Darius scoots up onto his knees, so we’re both kneeling on the bed, face to face.
“I don’t love him. I don’t even like him. You are my person, Ollie. The love of my life, but I was given an impossible choice, and I did what I thought was best.”
“I know you did. I just wish you had told me the truth so I could have helped you figure something else out. We could have come up with a plan together. I wish you had leaned on me, Darius, the way I leaned on you.” I don’t mean for my words to come out the way they do, tinged with an anger he doesn’t deserve, but I am angry – for the time lost, for the hurt, for still not knowing how to move forward.
Darius climbs off the bed and paces the length of the room.
“I have played every scenario over a thousand times. There was only one way my dad and everyone who works for him came out of this okay, and that was by me marrying Floyd.”
Moving so that my legs are over the side of the bed, I grab Darius around the waist and pull him between my legs. His hands land on my shoulder as he looks down at me.
“If I had told you, what would you have done?” he asks.
The question throws me, and I bite my bottom lip, thinking over my answer.
On one hand, I know I would have fought him on it, tried desperately to get him to give up on his father.
But on the other hand, there was a time in my life when I would have sacrificed so much for my mother or father, even my own happiness.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“And now?”
“He hurt you, D. That’s not okay. None of this is.”
“I know it isn’t, and I’m keeping my distance from him as much as I can. I’ll be okay.”
My hands are on his hip and I squeeze the gentle flesh beneath them, because I need to feel the solidness of him, acknowledge that he’s really here.
I also hope my touch conveys how much I want him to give up everything for me.
I may never feel like I deserve him, but I’m selfish enough to want all of him.
“If I asked you to leave him, would you?” I ask, already so sure of the answer.
Darius’s eyes are wet when he shakes his head.
“This isn’t me not choosing you, Ollie. It really isn’t that simple. This is just me choosing to help my dad. I need you to understand that.”
I’m trying, so much so that I hate what I’m about to say, the little jealous monster inside me rearing its head, but I also know it’s the only way he can save his dad while still being mine.
“Okay. We’ll make it work.” I’d tear off little pieces of my soul and throw them into the storm if it meant having Darius in my life. And if I can’t have all of him, I’ll settle for the parts that I can.
“How?”
My stomach sinks at my next words. “You go back to playing happy husbands with Floyd. We’ll see each other whenever we can. I will love you from the sidelines, Darius, until this is over and then it’s my ring you’ll wear and me you’ll call your husband.”
Darius smiles through the tears threatening to fall. “Are you asking me to marry you, Mr Cross?”
Sweeping a hand up to the back of his neck, I pull him into a gentle kiss.
“I’m making you a promise. And I need you to make me one, too.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“Promise me that if he hurts you again, this all ends. Screw your father and whatever deal you have. You are everything to me. My here and now, and my future. In this lifetime and all the others. I won’t let you go.”
Darius straddles my lap, wrapping his arms around my neck, his lips pressed to the racing pulse at my throat.
“I promise.”