Chapter Twenty-one
Baxter
Lake had been quiet all the way back to his place. “Are you pissed at me?” I finally asked once we were through the front door.
He gave me a long look. “Don’t you already know the answer to that?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been trying to stay out of your thoughts. It feels invasive now that we’re…”
“Sleeping together,” Lake finished for me.
“Yeah.”
He shrugged off his coat, tossing that and the reclaimed leather jacket over the back of the sofa. “I probably won’t even wear it again,” he said. “It’d remind me too much of him. I’ll give it to charity. Or burn it.”
“At least he won’t be wearing it anymore.”
“True.”
When he headed into the kitchen, I followed, leaning against the counter while he fiddled with the central heating.
Given how cold it was in the house, I assumed he was turning it on.
It hadn’t taken me long to work out that Lake’s financial situation was precarious.
Every third thought seemed to circle back to money.
And instead of teaching to earn some, he’d been helping me.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “About whether you’re pissed.”
He turned to face me, arms crossed. He got handsomer with every passing day. Or maybe I just liked him more. “I should be,” he admitted. “What you did wasn’t nice.”
“It wasn’t,” I agreed. “But what he did wasn’t either. And sometimes, with people like that, you have to speak a language they understand.”
Lake nodded slowly. “His face,” he said after a moment, “when you started naming all the men in his life… He had no idea how you were doing it. It scared the crap out of him.”
“Good. Between that and his father knowing the truth, maybe he’ll find a source of income that doesn’t involve prostituting himself and fleecing everyone he meets.”
“Do you think he can stop?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
A quiet moment settled between us before Lake spoke again. “I’ve gotten used to you doing it. Reading my mind, that is. I don’t really have anything to hide. Except…”
The familiar flush crept into his cheeks, and he looked away.
“Except what?” I asked, my curiosity well and truly piqued.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to scare you away.”
“You won’t.”
“I might,” he said quietly, “if you poke around in my head and realize how much I like you.”
“Oh.” A tea towel with a picture of Big Ben on it had suddenly become fascinating for Lake. “Nice tea towel,” I said dryly.
“Did you know Big Ben was destroyed by fire in 1834?”
Instead of answering, I took his hand and tugged him out of the kitchen. “No more Big Ben facts.”
“Not even that there are three hundred and twelve pieces of glass in each dial?”
I nudged him toward the stairs. “Definitely not.”
“What about the numbers being approximately sixty centimeters tall?”
I responded with an exaggerated snore as we reached the top step.
“The minute hand is four-point-two meters long and weighs one hundred kilograms,” he said, laughing now.
“I’m starting to wonder,” I said as I dragged him into the bedroom, “how you ever lost your virginity.”
“Because Nathan Donohue was an even bigger nerd than I was.”
“Nathan Donohue? Should I be jealous?”
“Absolutely not. It was excruciatingly awkward as first times go. I lasted about five seconds, which would’ve been mortifying, except Nathan only lasted three.”
I laughed as I kicked off my shoes. “Not exactly love’s young dream, then?”
“No, far from it. I’ve gotten better.”
“You have,” I said, smiling. “A lot better.” Lake took that as his cue to strip. I gave myself a moment to admire his broad chest before shedding the rest of my clothes. Once my shirt hit the floor, I paused with my hands on the fastening of my trousers. “I brought you a present.”
“Yeah?” The delight in his voice made me wish it was a real one, and I resolved to fix that. “Close your eyes. Hands out in front of you.”
He looked dubious but complied. I rifled through my pockets, depositing the box and the tube I’d been carrying around all night into his palms. “You can look.”
“Condoms and lube,” he said, smiling. “You shouldn’t have.”
“No?” I went to take them back, but his hands snapped shut. “Don’t you dare.”
He placed them reverently on the bedside table as I stepped out of my trousers and underwear and threw myself on the bed. “This is a good bed. Very comfortable.”
“It was a gift,” Lake said. “From an admirer.”
“An admirer?” I kept a straight face, but it took work. “A here’s a bed, now you can fuck me in it kind of gift?”
“I think so,” Lake said. He was naked now, his cock well on its way to being hard. “I can’t think of any other reason they would have bought it for me.”
“Maybe they were worried about someone of your advanced age sleeping on a sofa which isn’t really fit for purpose.”
Lake crawled onto the bed, shaking his head. “No, I saw the look in their eyes. They were brimming over with carnal thoughts.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Carnal thoughts, hey? They sound like someone you should perhaps stay away from. What if they’re a slut?”
“They’re not,” Lake said seriously. “They were a bit lost for a while, but sex was just a coping mechanism.”
That landed harder than expected, a lump forming in my throat. I tugged him down between my thighs, our cocks pressing together as he braced himself above me. “For the record,” I said, “you liking me isn’t going to make me run.”
“What if I fall in love with you?”
If my head hadn’t been on a pillow, it would’ve snapped back. I stared at him, momentarily rendered speechless as Lake’s cheeks predictably flooded with color. “Is that… likely?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. But if I do, I won’t be able to hide it. And that’s what comes after really liking someone, isn’t it?” He swallowed. “Now, are you going to run away?”
I lifted my head to look down at our bodies. “That’s tricky when you’re on top of me.”
“You could push me off.”
“I could.”
“Are you going to?”
Instead of answering, I kissed him. Long and deep and messy, with plenty of grinding. “Maybe after,” I said once we’d come up for air.
“I was thinking,” Lake murmured, “that this mind-reading thing might have some advantages.”
“How so?”
“I can talk to you.”
I frowned. “You can talk to me, anyway.”
He smiled against my skin as he kissed his way down my chest. “Not when my mouth is full, I can’t.”
“Oh.”
I understood just before he swallowed me, once again showing his impressive lack of a gag reflex.
“You taste so good.”
When he glanced up, lips stretched around my cock, I nodded to show I’d gotten it loud and clear.
Thoughts poured from him after that, most of it dirty talk that told me how much he enjoyed sucking my cock.
The danger of mind-reading during sex was catching stray thoughts.
Nothing was more off-putting than someone considering whether they needed to buy milk while getting down to it.
Lake’s thoughts never wavered. He focused entirely on me, on giving me pleasure.
When he wondered if I liked something, I told him. When he thought about fingering me while sucking me off, I encouraged him, and then told him how good it felt. Having permission to be in his head like that created an intimacy that went far beyond sex.
He pulled off before I came, and we switched positions. I rolled a condom onto him and added lube, his gaze dark and hooded. “Thank you for the bed,” he said.
I climbed astride him. “I thought we established I had an ulterior motive.”
“Even then?”
“I threw myself at you the night we met. What more proof do you need?”
“You thought it was expected.”
“Maybe. But I still found you incredibly attractive. I just had to get Glenn out of the way.”
Lake ran his hands up my chest, thumbs circling my nipples in a way that had me arching my back. “Glenn was never competition. I stopped seeing him because of you.”
“I know.” I’d long since plucked that thought from his head. “Should I feel bad that I messed things up for you? Maybe you would have been happy together.”
“Maybe.” He steadied my hips as I lowered myself onto him, the blunt head of his cock pressing against my hole. “But who says we won’t be happy?”
I paused on the brink of taking him inside, pondering the likelihood of that. “I’m not sure I know how anymore.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Lake said earnestly.
“What if we can’t?”
“We will. However long it takes.”
“Don’t make me cry during sex.” I was only half joking, Lake’s tenderness causing a tangible pressure in my chest. Bracing my hands on his chest, I slid down an inch, letting the slight sting of pain as he breached me redirect my focus from emotion to more immediate concerns.
“Look at him. So fucking gorgeous while he’s taking my cock. I’m so fucking lucky.”
I turned my head to hide a smile in my shoulder under the guise of it being an itch. If he thought that now, wait until I rode him so hard he was begging to come. “Ready?” I asked once I was fully seated.
It was a rhetorical question, the throbbing cock in my arse coupled with the sheen of sweat on Lake’s skin characteristic of a man who’d never been more ready to fuck.
We started slow, finding our rhythm, sometimes combining fucking with kissing, Lake meeting me halfway. The pace built until I was riding him hard, Lake groaning as he thrust deep and bottomed out.
“I don’t want to come before him. I don’t want to disappoint him.”
“Not a competition,” I gasped. “There’s no first and second prizes.”
“Damn,” he panted. “And I was hoping for a certificate or a rosette.”
I was already primed and ready by the time he wrapped a hand around my leaking cock. I cried out as I came, not caring what Lake’s neighbors might think, and taking a primal pleasure in the cum that splashed across his chest. My orgasm triggered his, Lake shuddering and coming within seconds.
I collapsed against him, breathing hard, and grinning at the emptiness of Lake’s mind. What bigger compliment could there be?
“What’s so funny?” he asked sleepily.
I got rid of the condom before answering, curling up beside Lake and running my fingers through the sticky mess on his chest. “Nothing. Everything.”
“Deep.”
“No historical anecdote to share? Something about jesters and their role in medieval courts, maybe.”
Lake rolled to face me, capturing my hand. “What’s history?” That made me smile more. “You’re staying tonight, right?”
“Yeah.” I had neither the energy nor the inclination to get dressed and worry about getting home.
He propped himself up. “Can I ask you something?”
“I won’t marry you yet. It’s too soon.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’ve spent a few nights here.”
“I have.”
“I haven’t noticed you having any nightmares. Do I sleep that deeply? Because you can wake me up, you know.”
“I don’t have them when I’m with you.” It was such a simple truth to tell. Yet, it was also momentous. And Lake’s pleased—bordering on smug—smile said he felt the same. I shoved him, and he fell back laughing.
For someone who’d said they didn’t know how to be happy, I was doing a pretty convincing job of it. Maybe I needed to never leave this bed. Lake and I could just exist in three states of being: before sex, during, and after.