CHAPTER 17
Remy
I’m in a bed. With Chris. And he’s sleeping.
I’m in Chris’ bed, and we didn’t have sex. I love how good that feels.
He’s on his side, facing me, a slow, even stream of breath hitting his pillow.
I got back from Kansas Sunday night and could barely get to sleep, knowing I’d get to see him in less than twenty-four hours.
Coming home from work to find the old, cracked pavers removed from my front yard and replaced by a meticulously pea-gravel-lined path of his mosaic stones made me want to sprint across town the second I saw it. How is this my life?
Hair mussed, a flake of baked rice stuck to the bottom of his lower lip for some reason, he couldn’t look more endearing at the moment. Reaching out, I brush it off his face, and he stirs.
Blinking, his blown pupils locate me. He jerks his head up.
“Huh? Remy?” he grunts groggily. Gaze darting around the room as though he’s checking for threats, he exhales and drops his head back to his pillow with a smile. “What time is it?”
“Like…four in the morning.”
“Oh, my God,” he groans, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I’ve never slept that long.”
“Yeah, I think that’s the last gummy bear I’ll ever eat.”
Reaching over, he runs the backs of his knuckles across my jaw. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I chuckle, flattered that he’s concerned about my first time doing something so foolish. “Are you? Is the pain any better? I think it finally stopped raining.”
“Yeah, a little bit.”
He canvases the lump that I am under his covers, his smile growing. “This is a change.”
“What?”
“You in my bed.”
“I think Gale is mad at me. She snorted and walked out.”
“She’s a diva about her beauty sleep. She’ll get used to it.”
His mouth drops open while a flutter tickles my chest over the permanence he insinuated. He has nothing to be embarrassed about, though. I’m ready for permanence.
Being here and how our time together has progressed to shy kisses feels…natural. For once, I don’t have the nagging worry that I’m jumping into something because it seems comfortable or expected. Leaning half over him, I cup his cheek and press my lips to his.
His stubble is soft against my palm, his body going pliant beneath me where our chests are touching. I don’t understand how anyone ever could have seen him as an emotionless, iron bulldozer, even when he was playing ball. The way his hand slips onto my waist, kneading my skin, is hungry but gentle.
I taste and taste, rediscovering his mouth.
His tongue tangles gently with mine, saturating my taste buds with his flavor.
His gasps and the needy vocals he lets out pull me under with each drag of his lips over mine.
I feel like I’ve come home even though I just left there.
The pads of his fingertips graze my side where my shirt has ridden up, and just that skin-to-skin touch washes my body in gooseflesh.
I need air, but that would require me to stop kissing him. Air is overrated right now.
“I missed you,” I confess, sliding my hand under his shirt, smoothing my palm over his warm skin.
“You have no idea,” he rasps, moving his mouth to my neck.
His lips drag kisses over the base of my throat, stopping to suck on the spot just below my Adam’s apple. A wisp of static zings down to my toes, and I moan. Whatever he just did, I can’t get close enough to him now, or maybe it’s from knowing how much he missed me, too.
I drag the inside of my knee up to his hip, not caring what an invitation that must look like.
I think we’ve both signed up for the same party, judging by the way his hand grips my ass and squeezes.
Sliding my hand up his back, I can feel the puckered lines of his scars.
I should have asked him if he was okay. I pull back to do so, but stop myself, seeing the hunger in his eyes.
He lives with this every single day. While it’s kind to be thoughtful, I don’t think anyone would want to be reminded of that in the throes of passion.
So, instead, I tug his shirt up, silently letting him know I like looking at him, no matter how his body has changed.
He raises his arms and takes over, so I wrestle my shirt off. When we embrace again, our appreciative sounds collide just before our mouths crash into each other’s.
Nothing is enough, and yet every touch is more profound than any other I’ve ever felt.
The path his fingertips make across my skin, his hot breath against my face, next to my ear, and the rise and fall of his stomach against mine.
When I reach for the button of his jeans, I remember I’m at a disadvantage.
Dear Lord, did I really crawl into his bed last night in just my underwear?
Those calloused hands that made the most breathtaking sun mosaic as the centerpiece of my new walk-up slip under the elastic waistband.
A fingertip traces the vein on the underside of my cock all the way up to the tip.
My hand forgets how to unfasten a button, and my lungs forget how to work when that fingertip draws the glossy fluid I’m leaking over the dome of my cockhead.
You’d think I’ve never been touched before by the high-pitched sound I make, my eyes pinching shut.
I’m starting to think I haven’t. It’s not really a touch unless it’s by Chris. My body still lives only for this man.
“Remy,” he rumbles reverently, rubbing his thigh against my balls and wrapping his hand around me.
I bury my next noise against his lips and fumble between us, finally getting the snap on his jeans undone.
Before I can capture his zipper, he rolls us.
And then he’s gone, out of reach for me to reciprocate, kissing a trail of hot, wet kisses down my torso and kneading my thigh.
I work the muscles in his shoulders, wanting to give back something pleasing in return as his stubble tickles the sensitive skin just above my underwear.
Glancing down past my heaving chest, the look of focus on his face has my cock jerking under the damp fabric of my underwear.
He hooks his fingers under the elastic again and tugs them down, not even bothering to slide them all the way off.
I have the foresight to blurt out that I’m on PrEP, to which he smiles and informs me that he’s clear, making me know this really is probably about to happen.
His mouth is back on me a second later, meticulously lavishing every inch of skin on the insides of my thighs.
“Chris,” I rasp, my stomach muscles quivering.
His hot breath moves to my cock. I’m stone-still, remembering how very few times I saw his face down there in college.
He’d give me a few teasing licks or capture my tip with curiosity and wonder in his expressions that told me it was foreign to him.
I think he wasn’t just not out, but even less experienced than I was.
We were each other’s education in some ways, and usually in too much of a hurry for more foreplay than grasping me in his fist or my teasing him with my mouth.
So, when his tongue traces a slow path up my length and he presses a kiss to the tip of my cock, I nearly choke seeing him engulf me in his mouth next.
His eyes slip closed, and he groans. The vibrations hum through my groin.
The drag of the undersides of his lips up my sensitive skin sends a shudder through me.
He stops to lap and kiss my glans. It’s the torturous edging he used to do with words, but this time with actions.
Mature, humble, more patient Chris is going to make me lose my mind.
When I slide my fingers into his hair, he moans and shifts his head into the touch, taking me back in.
All the while, his fingertips lightly trace the V of my hip juncture, down to the inside of my thigh, and back.
I’m being adored, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take.
Widening my legs, I fist the comforter with my toes, trying to fight the urge to thrust my hips.
“Chris…please.”
I don’t even know what I’m begging for. For him to finish? For him to stop so I can get my mouth on him that much sooner?
He doesn’t take much pity on me. While his mouth tightens and his tongue continues to dance around me on every upstroke, his pace stays the same, as if to say, ‘Enjoy it. We have all the time in the world.’
But we don’t. We’ve already missed fifteen years, and I suddenly want to catch up immediately. I want to touch him, too, like it will subliminally transfer the new feelings I have as well as reinforce the old ones.
His hand fists the base of my cock, tightening the pressure that’s built inside of me.
Lips stretched and shiny with his slobber, he makes another tight draw with his mouth in time with the movement of his hand.
I’m done for, and I try to warn him by tugging on his hair.
He stays put, picking up the pace with determination.
That alone is so fucking sexy, I have to fight to keep my eyes open to watch as I come.
He makes little moans and half-growls, feeding on all the pent-up tension that drains from my body down his throat. It’s nothing short of devouring.
He pulls off and presses a few kisses to my waning cock while I twitch and reach for him mindlessly, willing my pulse to get under control.
“Come here,” I beg.
His puffy mouth is a hundred percent more kissable than before, but I manage to roll into him enough that he flops onto his back beside me. Moving to his neck, I press a quick kiss there, too eager to hear him moaning from my mouth around him for the first time in years to linger any longer.
“That was definitely one way to make me feel not awkward about falling asleep in your bed.”
He chuckles and rubs my shoulders. My waistband is still down around my knees, so I tug it up to let me move and then proceed to scoot further down the bed.
I reach for his fly, eager to pick up where I left off.
My fingers graze over the denim. Feeling the outline of his cock, I can tell he’s not even half hard.
Did he not enjoy giving? Because it really seemed like he did.
His hand clasps around my wrist, gently drawing it away.
I look up at him, confusion probably written all over my face.
He tugs me back up to him and kisses me, soft and slow, spreading more of that satiated warmth I’m still living on through me.
When he draws back, still holding my wrist like he’s afraid to release it, though, he must see the uncertainty in my eyes.
I don’t understand the guilt on his face.
“It, uh, doesn’t always work, especially when I’m in pain.” He releases my wrist and rubs my arm soothingly. “Sorry.”
Oh, shit. Shit. I hadn’t even considered that. I deal with nerve damage all day at work, and yet I let the heat of the moment lead me off a cliff of anticipation. Shifting, I lie down next to him, wishing the stroke of my hand against his cheek could wipe away the shame he’s trying to hold back.
“Why are you sorry?”
“Yeah, I guess you got out of a blow job. So, nothing to be sorry for,” he jokes.
“I wasn’t going to just to reciprocate. I was looking forward to it, but don’t think I mind. And just for the record, please don’t think you need to do that if you don’t like it.”
“Hey, my mouth has lots of plans for that cock,” he assures me, cupping my face and giving me a kiss. “It still turns me on to touch you, even if my dick doesn’t show it all the time.”
“Well, you certainly showed it.”
“I am sorry, though.” His thumb traces the edge of my chin where he fixes his gaze. “I should have warned you. About my problem.”
I hate that he might be avoiding looking at me, so I dip my head. “Chris, I just forgot my own name. Please stop apologizing.”
He searches my eyes, looking so vulnerable it breaks something in my heart, but then he smirks. “Well, you seemed to remember mine, so I guess I can live with that.”
And there’s the other side of Chris that’s had my soul signing itself over to him recently.
I press my lips to his, holding them there.
It’s a thank you to life and to him for giving us this second chance.
He smiles at me so tenderly that I want to call off work and lie here with him all day.
However, I imagine bringing over a controlled substance, stripping down to my underwear, and falling asleep in his bed were enough for one day.
Sighing, I lay my head on his chest, wanting to laugh at myself.
He watched The Vampire Diaries with me. I may have missed a few things in the past twelve hours, but not that.
My soul seals an envelope and silently delivers itself to him in companionable silence.
Smiling, I trace circles above his nipple.
“So, I noticed I lost my pants… Fucking gummy bears, huh?”
The laugh that rumbles underneath my ear tells me that I’ve recalled all I really need to know about the evening. Chris is happy. I’m happy, and we’re happy together.