Chapter 18 Homecoming
EIGHTEEN
Homecoming
This was too easy. It’s too good to be true. Tristan Chase is on my lap. I have him firmly in my grasp. Yesterday he could barely look at me, and now…now I think he might kill me if I ask him one more clarifying question. If this is real, then there’ll be time for that later.
His lips are right in front of mine, and we’ve both waited long enough. I drag my nose down his, lift my chin, and our mouths meet, opening together as we kiss for the first time in four years, diving head first into this dream. It’s better than I remember. So much better because memories lie.
I shove my hands into his hair, and I kiss him harder, deeper—desperate to fill the void he left when he went away. And he does it. With a quiet passion that feels like it hasn’t ebbed in all the time we’ve been apart. “Tristan,” I whisper in disbelief.
“Mm.”
How could I have ever second-guessed this?
Fuck it, I’ll figure it out later.
I run my hands down his back. When I’m gripping his waist, he kisses me again, his tongue sweeping past mine, drawing out a sigh from me that turns into a groan of wanting more.
His wet lips close over mine, breathless as he draws his mouth away. He stands up, taking my hand, and we leave the kitchen. Side by side, we enter the hallway, headed for my bedroom.
“I’ve never been in here before,” he says.
I don’t have to be a genius to know he’s thinking about Jayne as he takes a sweeping glance around the corner room.
Staring at the meticulously made bed, he whispers, “Tell me again how much you want this.”
I’m beyond words. “Let me show you instead.” With his hand in mine, I lead him to the bed.
He turns to me and strips off his shirt.
Mine has buttons, but I get to work on them.
He helps me with the bottom three and then slides it past my shoulders, leaning in to kiss the tendon at the base of my neck.
He smells so good. Different. More like vanilla and spice than coconut and spring.
I kiss his shorter hair, dying a little bit at the way it curls against my face.
When he pulls away, he reaches behind his neck to unclasp the necklace. I open my mouth to stop him, but he looks up at me and shakes his head. “You said you wanted it back.”
“I think I was talking about you.”
Regardless, he puts the necklace back on me. He adjusts the small charm, still warm from his skin, to rest between my collarbones, planting a kiss on it before he gives it a fond look. “Just like I remember…”
I touch his perfect face, running my paint-stained thumb over his jaw. I kiss the lips that were meant for me as his hands move up my back, pulling me closer. And then it’s just like that night—the night on the walkway in front of his house—I can’t get him close enough.
Every single ounce of how much I missed him, how long I’ve waited and hoped for this, comes out in the way I reclaim his body. I want it all back. Voice, words, skin, hair.
Water, breath, blood, and bone.
He’s inside me like that. He never left.
I kiss him with growing intensity, finally moving him onto the bed. He pushes at the waistband of my jeans, and I get the hint. “Yours, too. Please.”
He slides off his white shorts, taking his underwear with them. I do the same, stripping naked for him. As soon as I’m undressed, he takes me over, urging me onto my back as his lean thighs straddle my hips. I rest my hands on them, feeling the lines of his quadriceps, the soft hair.
He stares down at me, and I remember the last time we were like this so powerfully, I come as close as I’ve ever come to letting out a sob of relief. From me, it just comes out as a grunt.
He kisses me with the same overwhelming passion I felt earlier, but this time he pours it into me. Once he’s taken all my breath away, he slides himself down my body, not stopping until my dick is in his mouth.
“Holy shit, angel.”
His mouth slides off my cock, and he gives me a look I can’t interpret. “We’re gonna get some things off our chests tonight, okay?”
“Uh-huh.” I’d agree to walk to Canada if he asked.
“Who sucks you better?”
“Oh, shit,” I say as he wraps his mouth around my cock again. “Fuck…you do.”
No fucking contest.
He locks gazes with me and gives me a thumbs up, like I passed this round.
My cock rubs back and forth over his tongue as he proves me right over and over again.
Then he swallows, working his lips further and further down my shaft.
I feel myself hit the back of his throat and still, he swallows again.
His nose meets my pubic bone, and he inhales deeply before pulling off with a gasp.
Saliva covers his mouth and chin, and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
I grab my dick, choking off the almost overwhelming surge. I nearly come.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, still breathing heavy as he notices the way I’m clenched tight to hold myself back. “Is that fast for you?” he asks.
“Yes,” I manage to whisper. “Very.”
Then he hits me with, “Why girls?”
Now is not the time to discuss Liam. God willing, I’ll never have to. I stick with answering the question because it’s not like I haven’t had to deal with defending my bisexuality to Liam twenty times, too.
“I mean, I don’t know. Because they’re around. My friends were always straight—”
“West’s not straight.”
I grimace. “Yeah well, I found that out about the same time you did.”
“You’re not mad at him are you?”
I glare up at Tristan and let my cock go, no longer in any danger of coming.
“Archer—that was all me. I was fucking relentless. And you know how good I looked that night.”
He had looked good that night. So damn good I upended my entire life. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll deal with him eventually.”
He takes my dick in his hand and starts stroking it slowly, keeping it in play. “Why Jayne Beck?”
“First, she’s not that bad. I know you’re not a fan, and I don’t blame you, but she was a pretty easy person to get along with most of the time.”
He cocks his head to the side.
I understand I’m being tested, but I don’t think he’s asking the right questions. Still, I humor him. “I knew I wouldn’t fall for her. That’s why Jayne.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to fall for your girlfriend?”
“I’m not a huge fan of getting attached.”
He lifts his brows. “Oh?”
I reach up and touch his face, cupping his jaw. “Yeah, it doesn’t always go that well for me.”
“I guess I just don’t understand being bi.”
“I’m not sure I can explain it for you. I’ve been this way my whole life.”
“You literally have no preference?”
I give him an obvious look up and down before pulling him in for a kiss.
He has to let go of my erection, but he lands heavily on my chest and takes my mouth for all it’s worth.
I run my hands down his back and flip him over so I’m the one on top.
I kiss him again, lining our cocks up between us before we start moving together.
On a breath, I say, “I do have a preference. But no one else is you. You’re all I’ve wanted since we met. ”
“I’m still the only guy?”
“Am I?”
“Okay, fine, don’t answer that.” He wraps his legs around mine, rocking up against me. “But I do want to know this. You don’t wanna settle down with a woman? Make babies? Live a life no one looks at you sideways for?”
“If I want babies, I think I can figure out a way to make them with you.”
“Oh, fuck…Archer, say more.”
“Do you want babies?”
“I want you.”
I kiss him again, hard. When I stop to breathe, he hits me with his next question. “How many people have you been with?”
“Are you gonna answer the same question?”
“Six,” he says. “Not including you.”
“But I was first?” I move to kiss his nipples, play with those salacious steel bars.
He arches toward me. “Yes. Yes, you were first. So how many?”
“Do we mean penetrative sex or just hook-ups?”
“Sex, I guess, but then my answer’s four—including you.”
“I don’t think I’ve cracked ten.”
“Really?” he asks, sounding surprised.
“I mean, I’d have to think about it, put pen to paper.”
“Fuck it, I don’t care. When did you get tested last?”
“Today.”
“You—seriously?”
“Well, I saw you yesterday, so…” I close my mouth around his nipple again, glancing up to see him with his head lifted, looking down at me.
“That’s fucking romantic,” he says.
I wink at him.
“Fuck me.”
“I’m going to.”
“Today?”
I nod, kissing up his chest to connect with his mouth again. The need to be inside him escalates significantly with that particular kiss. There are things I want to know, too. Things I think I should know. Questions I have, but I’m falling too fast to catch myself.
“I take it you have appropriately sized condoms?”
I laugh. I actually forgot that part about that night. “Yeah. And I take it you have a valid ID?”
He laughs, too. “Fuck off. You try having a once in a lifetime opportunity when you’re seventeen and then come and tell me you were all fucking ethical about pursuing it.”
“You know, I hated myself for a long time after that, but I never could manage to hate you.”
“I tried to hate you, too,” he says quietly.
That hurts, even if it’s totally understandable. I reach for my nightstand, thinking maybe it’s better if we just shut the fuck up and get back together already.
He grabs my arm, stopping me mid-reach. I look down at his precious face.
“Archer,” he softly says, “The other three meant nothing. There’s never been anyone in the world for me but you.”
I kiss him so hard, I’m in danger of bruising our mouths. Flipping him over, I say, “I assume since you asked about the condoms, you want this like last time?”
He nods, neck arching to connect his mouth with mine. “You inside me? Yes. Fuck yes. If that’s okay.”
“I will do fucking anything for you, but that’s like—you never need to worry about where I want to be.”