Chapter 24
24
GAVIN
A s I made my way back to the bedroom, I felt like I was floating on a cloud toward the prettiest horizon while every bad feeling stayed down on the ground.
Beck had gone upstairs to talk to Anya for a minute, and though I’d been nervous to be left by myself after doing that with him, the feelings I was experiencing were close to bliss.
Maybe all those awful emotions I was so familiar with would pummel me all at once soon, maybe they were waiting for the post-orgasmic high to fully fade. I didn’t know. All I knew for sure was that fate had somehow brought me back to Beck, had let us be together again, and I didn’t want to mess that up. Nothing was worth losing him a second time, and I wanted to do whatever it took to stay by his side.
If he wanted me there.
There was no going back. I was falling head first into the most uncertain future, but the present was the kind of solace I’d been needing for years. It felt like a chance for absolution, a chance to burn away all the bad and let the good breathe again.
I changed my shirt, then sat on the bed and waited for Beck to return to me. There were so many more things I wanted to do with him, and I felt this urgency inside of me, pushing me to do them all, quick, before I missed my only opportunity. I tried to shove it aside because I didn’t want to believe that this was just temporary.
I heard him coming down the hall, heavy footsteps easing any doubts that were trying to creep in. He paused in the doorway when he saw me, and when he smiled, I tried to give him one back. It didn’t quite get there.
“Are you okay?” he asked, stepping into the room.
“You already asked me that,” I said.
“And I’ll keep asking that forever,” he said wryly.
My heart skipped a beat, and then another. Forever?
Beck started walking across the room and dragged his shirt over his head. Everything inside of me stilled as I stared at that muscled torso. Beck exuded strength and confidence and masculine beauty, and it pulled me in like he was a waterfall and I was stuck in the rapids, heading right toward him. Going over was inevitable.
Beck’s muscles shifted and bunched as he tossed his shirt into the hamper, and then he was dragging his sweats down and off until he stood before me in black boxer briefs that were short-circuiting my brain.
It was hard to look at him and remember the small, gangly kid he used to be. His body was enormous and toned to perfection now.
“You good in those?” he asked, nodding at my sweatpants.
I looked down at myself, then back up at him. “Yeah.” I eyed him again, and the thought of him wrapping all those muscles and all that skin around me was exhilarating. I wanted to take all my clothes off, but I didn’t want him looking at my scars. Then he’d start asking questions I didn’t want to answer.
“All right. You sure you’re okay?” He crawled onto the bed, scooting toward me, and my pulse was pounding in my ears. I wished I was under the covers so he wouldn’t see my growing erection.
“I’m fine, Beck, stop asking me,” I grumbled, choosing to turn onto my side. It had been a long, long time since someone—since Beck —had cared about how I was, and there was no easy way to suddenly be comfortable with talking about my feelings.
I heard Beck shift behind me, and when his big body pressed against mine, I stiffened.
“Is this okay?” he asked softly. His hand came down on my bicep, the heat of him so damn comforting.
I let myself relax, let myself melt into him, and whispered, “Yeah.”
He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me back into his chest, slotting his knees into the backs of mine and slipping a foot beneath my calf until it was touching my foot. His other arm came up above my head, his fingers immediately slipping into my hair.
I moaned when he stroked and then tugged, the hand on my chest holding me tight against him.
Every discordant note in my soul began humming in harmony with his closeness. His touch. With him . I felt him rest his cheek on top of my head, felt his chest deflate as he sighed.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
I stared at the wall in front of me. “For what?”
“For letting me in. I meant what I said.”
“You said a lot of shit,” I muttered, pushing back against him, trying to get closer.
I felt his lips at my ear, and then his deep voice made me shiver against him. “When I told you I missed you. Because I have missed you every day for ten years, Gavin.”
There was a clamp around my heart, cranking tighter and tighter.
When I started to turn—because I wanted to be looking into his eyes—he gave me the space to do so, pulling his leg out from between mine. I awkwardly rolled until I was facing him, then threw my leg over his, wrapped my arms around his torso, and settled my head on the pillow. Beck’s eyes looked like the ocean on a cloudy night because of the low lighting, and they pulled me into their watery depths. He got his arms around me and dragged me as close as I could be.
I looked into his eyes and whispered, “I missed you too, Becky. Every single day.” Part of me was afraid he would try to argue with that, try to say something like well you sure as fuck didn’t act like it , but I knew better. Beck wasn’t like that.
His eyes moved back and forth between mine, and he brought his hand up to stroke along my cheek, then threaded his fingers into my hair. “You remember what you used to say to me?”
Yeah. I remembered. I knew exactly what he was talking about. “You’re the sky and I’m the stars,” I said quietly.
“Yeah. And no matter how far you fall, I’ll still be there to catch you.”
My eyes welled with tears as I stared at him, and it hit me all at once how deeply I had longed for a moment like this. To be here again. It always felt unreachable, like some parallel reality that I’d only get to look at from a distance. Like a dream I’d only get to visit when my eyes were shut.
But it wasn’t a dream. I was right here, in Beck’s arms. He was holding me, touching me, but the overwhelm of a decade of grieving his loss had me tucking my head under his chin and sobbing into his skin. He just held me, rubbed my back, and told me it was okay, over and over again.
It wasn’t okay, but I couldn’t fix anything I’d done, no matter how much I wished I could.
When the tears finally stopped, I blubbered out the one question that had haunted me for ten years. “Why’d you leave me? Why? I came back that day and you were just gone. You were gone and I was all alone with him and I needed you?—”
Beck made a rough noise in his throat and squeezed me hard. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, and there was so much anguish in his voice that it gutted me. “I didn’t want to leave you, Gavin. I swear to Christ, I didn’t want to go. I begged my mom to stay, but she wouldn’t let me. All I wanted to do was find you. I tried to go after you, but I hit my head when your dad threw me off him and couldn’t. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. You have no idea how much I wish I had fought harder. I’m so sorry, baby.”
I lifted a fist and weakly brought it down on his arm. “Stop apologizing, you asshole,” I croaked. A broken, wet laugh burst out of Beck, and I pulled my head out from under his chin. There were tears in his eyes, and when one slipped past his lashes and raced toward his nose, I brushed it away.
He grabbed my hand and kissed my fingers, then held it against his heart. “I know we can’t do anything to change the past, but I promise you, Gavin, if you’ll let me, I will never let anyone hurt you again. Okay? I will always protect you.”
I’d thought my tears were done, but a few more decided to fall. “Always?”
“If that’s what you want,” he said softly, searching my eyes.
“All I ever wanted was you, Beck. Even after you left.”
His lips parted, then shut, and I knew that he wanted to ask what happened after that.
I never wanted to tell him.
“Can we?—”
“Gavin, what?—”
We both paused, staring into each other’s eyes.
“Do you?—”
“I never?—”
I burst out laughing, feeling like a crazy person. I was emotionally wrung out, physically spent, and mentally drained. I just wanted Beck to hold me as I drifted away.
Beck’s hand was in my hair again, and I closed my eyes and hummed in contentment.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard you laugh,” he said quietly. I peeled my eyes open again to find him looking at me. I wondered how his mom could have left him. He was so good, so perfect, and for her to be able to just abandon him…it angered me and broke my heart at the same time.
All these years I thought he’d been happy, living a life full of love and normalcy. It never occurred to me that maybe he’d been struggling, too. Why would it? He’d always seemed so damn happy. So unaffected.
I knew better than to take anyone at face value.
“When did your mom leave you?” I asked.
Beck’s brows lifted in surprise, but his gaze drifted to a spot above my head, like he was thinking about it. Remembering. “When I was eighteen. I guess she figured I could take care of myself at that point. I don’t know. But it was a really stressful time because I was about to start college and I had to get a lawyer, fight for legal guardianship of Anya so they didn’t take her away from me. Her dad leaving her everything in his will is what saved us.” His eyes found mine again. “It was fine, after a while. She was never really here anyway. Mentally or physically. Her drinking just got worse and worse, but…it was just who she was. Whether she wanted it to be or not.” He shrugged, like it didn’t matter.
I knew his mom drank when we were young. He’d often come over if it got to be too much for him. He came over a lot.
Sorrow for Beck and the hand he was dealt washed over me, and I said, “I didn’t know it was that bad.”
His fingers were lazily petting through my hair. “Yeah. I was so focused on you that I didn’t really think about it when we were together. You made everything seem bearable. You were the first and only person that ever made me feel like I actually existed. I mattered to one person, and that was enough.”
There were unspoken words there; words that had lived in my heart for a decade. That after he’d left, after we were separated, after I shut him out in the worst way, he didn’t feel so alive. Things weren’t so bearable anymore.
“Becky,” I whispered, spreading my fingers across his cheek.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. His eyes bored into mine with a sadness that spoke to my own. It was a silent confirmation that maybe we could make things bearable again.
If anyone could, it was Beck.
And then he ruined the moment by being a dick and saying, “So where did you get those hideous tattoos? Because…” I scowled at him as he trailed a finger down my arm, tracing over the shitty ink on my skin. His lips curved in amusement. “…this is some really ugly work. It looks like you let a teenager with a shaky hand dip a needle in an ink pot and go nuts.”
“Oh fuck you, it’s not that bad,” I muttered. Yeah, they were ugly tattoos, but he didn’t have to fucking say that.
Beck slid his hand up my arm, over my shoulder, and cupped my cheek. He stared into my eyes and whispered, “It’s pretty bad. Laughably bad.”
“You’re laughably bad,” I said, caught in those eyes.
He smiled and kissed my nose. “So where did you get them?”
I sighed. I was deeply ashamed of the things I’d done, but…this was Beck. “I let some teenager with a shaky hand practice on me in exchange for money.”
Beck’s smile slowly fell away, and then he was sifting his fingers through my hair as he hummed in acknowledgment. “At the shelter?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. I tried to get a job after getting out of jail, but no one would hire me, so…yeah.”
“Well I guess they’re not that bad,” he said, his smile returning. “You did what you could with what you had. You don’t have to be ashamed of that.”
I squeezed my eyes shut when it felt like I might cry again. “Yeah,” I said thickly, moving my face closer to his until we were almost touching.
We stayed like that for a while, looking at each other. Touching each other. And when my eyes began to drift closed, when opening them again became too hard a task, Beck reached over and turned off the lamp.
When he wrapped me in his arms as tight as he could, I had one last thought before falling asleep—that my depression stemmed more from losing Beck and living without him than anything my dad had done. It was as if half my heart had been cut from my chest, and the other half did what it could for as long as it was able, but at some point, it began to fail.
Because it knew a life without Beck wasn’t much of a life at all.
“That’s—Jesus, that’s not how you do it, you’re gonna break his wrist,” Beck said, moving Anya’s hand away from me. “Slower for now, this is just practice.”
It was Sunday and we were in the family room teaching Anya some basic self-defense moves—per her request. She said one of the girls at her school had gotten mugged, so she wanted to be able to protect herself. The mugger had been caught, she said, which was all Beck cared about. He then forbade her from leaving the house unless she was going to school. She just laughed until she was wheezing, then walked away.
And then she came back and said she was just kidding because there was hardly ever any crime here and what kind of a mugger would steal from a high schooler? She just wanted us to drop everything we were doing and teach her some cool moves.
She was something else.
“Okay. Gav, try to grab her again. Anya, go over his hand with yours and take that—yes, good,” he said as Anya pinched the side of my hand by my pinky finger. “Now twist it. Slowly.”
Anya’s face was hilariously focused as she turned my wrist out until almost my whole palm was facing up.
“Good,” Beck said, watching closely. He was fucking sexy when he acted the part of instructor. Totally in control, totally knowledgeable. If Anya wasn’t here, I’d be jumping on him right now. “You see how he can’t move his elbow?” His eyes cut to mine, making my heart pick up its pace. “Try and move your elbow.”
I showed Anya how I couldn’t move my elbow at all, and she smirked. “Hell yeah, I’m a karate master,” she said.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Beck muttered. “I don’t think there’s a respectful bone in your body. Okay, now, in real life, the guy—or girl—will probably try and use their other hand. If it’s a guy, you just knee him in the balls.”
“Are we practicing that, too?”
I ripped my hand out of her grasp and stepped away from her, scowling in her direction. She cackled like the demon child she was.
“Do you want to learn this shit or not?” Beck said. He was using his stern voice now, and my dick jerked in my sweats.
Fuck.
I’d been imagining him using that voice with me for days. Yesterday had been a long day of training and lessons, so we got home late and he fell asleep almost immediately after his shower. I just held him and stared at him, stroking his hair like a total weirdo. He slept in today, so I sat outside and drank some coffee, watching the leaves fall while I waited for him to wake up.
To say I was obsessed with Beck would be an understatement.
“Yeah, I do!” she said, throwing her arms in the air. “It was just a joke! God, you guys are so sensitive.”
“Well you know what else is really sensitive? Ba?—”
“Gavin!” Beck barked, and now I was half-hard. I needed to leave the room. His eyes only held amusement when they met mine, though. There was a trace of heat there, too.
I really needed to go.
I ran a hand through my hair and said, “I gotta?—”
The doorbell rang, startling me. Anya said, “Who’s that? Sara usually texts me if she’s coming over, she never rings the bell. That’s not even a real thing anymore, nobody does that.”
“I’ll get it,” Beck said, walking out of the family room. Anya slinked after him, the nosiest little busybody in the world.
I rubbed a hand down my face and went over to the couch, falling into the cushions and leaning my head back. I heard voices—Beck’s voice, Anya’s cheerful chatter, and a third voice. Male.
My heart started to pound. Was that my dad? Had he found me?
But—no, it didn’t sound like him. And Beck wouldn’t just open the door for him.
Just as I was about to get up to peer around the corner, Anya stomped back into the family room with a scowl on her face.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked. The anxiety thrumming in my veins was making me feel jittery.
“Beck banished me so he could talk to his ex alone ,” she said, plopping down beside me on the couch.
My stomach sank, and then it felt like my entire body was dropping off a ledge. “Ex?” I whispered.
“Yeah. Kyle something-or-other. He’s super boring, if you ask me. But Beck never asked me.” She kicked her feet up onto the coffee table with a sigh, completely unaware that I was having a breakdown right beside her.
My blood began to boil, and I swore I could hear it popping and hissing beneath my skin. My hands were shaking, and when I heard the front door shut, when Beck didn’t walk back in here and the voices disappeared, I felt like I’d been kicked to the ground.
“You okay, Gavorini?”
“I’m fine,” I whispered. I stood up and stormed to the windows facing the front, peering outside.
“Oooh, are we spying? I’m in.” Anya squished in beside me with a hand on my shoulder, and the comfort I got from that simple touch helped ease some of the anger racing through my veins.
Beck was standing on the porch with a guy about our age, maybe older. He was tall, fit, and handsome. He wore a navy cardigan, tan khakis and his shoes looked like they were made of some kind of expensive leather. His hair was dirty blond, slicked back, not a strand out of place. He was smiling at Beck, who had his hands in his pockets and was smiling sheepishly back.
I fucking hated him.
Both of them.
I felt like I had steam coming out of my ears.
“Looks like they’re—oh, whoa, where are you going?”
I stalked to the front door and ripped it open. Beck turned around in surprise, and the other guy’s eyes widened as he looked at me.
“Gavin, what?—”
I cut Beck off. “What are you doing?” I aimed the question at Beck while glaring at the well-dressed asshole.
“Um. Talking to a friend,” he said slowly.
I watched Kyle’s eyes dart to Beck, disappointment flashing across his face. Then his gaze flew back to mine, and he gave me a slow, deliberate once-over. “Wow,” he said. “Didn’t know you were into criminals, Beck.”
I was out of the house before any rational thought could form, about to grab this fucker’s stupid fucking cardigan when Beck threw himself in front of me, hands fisting in my sweatshirt as his eyes locked onto mine.
“No,” he said softly.
I glared up at him, more hurt than angry, I knew that. But I wanted the anger to take over, wanted to let the more satisfying emotion win control.
“You lied to me,” I said, my voice shaking. He didn’t lie, I knew that, too. He didn’t make any promises to me, but it felt like it all the same.
Beck had completely blocked Kyle from my view with his body. I knew it was a strategic move on his part, and it was fucking working. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine.
“No, I didn’t, Gavin. I promise.”
I shut my eyes and brought my hands up to squeeze his wrists, wanting him to let go and hold on forever all at once.
I opened my eyes when I felt his lips on my forehead, and then he let go of me, turned around, and said, “Maybe I am. But I’m definitely not into judgmental assholes. Get the fuck off my property, Kyle.”
The soft words held a wealth of anger, and though I couldn’t see him, I heard Kyle laugh bitterly and say, “What a joke,” and then heard him run down the steps, his stupid shoes clacking against the path as he walked away.
Beck sighed, and when he faced me again, his eyes began cataloging every microexpression, every last inch of my face before meeting mine. “Let’s go inside and talk,” he said, and those words made me want to throw up.
He reached for me, but I turned and stomped inside before he could touch me. I walked as fast as I could to the bedroom, not meeting Anya’s eyes. I heard Beck say something to her, heard her quiet words as she replied, but the noise in my mind was louder than anything.
I was jealous. I knew that. I didn’t have a right to be. It’s not like we were dating. And I knew he hadn’t even seen Kyle since he found me drunk in the bushes because he was always— always —with me.
Except for when I got my cast off.
Was that the important lesson he couldn’t miss?
When I got to the room, I slammed the door. Not because I thought it would keep Beck out. No, just for the pure satisfaction of it. I wanted to hit something, wanted to scream, but instead, I sat down on the bed and listened to Beck’s heavy footsteps as he made his way down the hall.
And then he knocked. Like this wasn’t his fucking room.
I wasn’t even going to dignify that with a response.
Beck didn’t wait for one, either. He pushed the door open two seconds later, closing and locking it behind him, and the only emotion on his face was concern.
Every single bit of my anger began to deflate, until all I was left with was the hurt.
“Hey,” he said, walking to the bed and sitting beside me. “I just sent Anya to the store. Can you talk to me? He’s nobody, okay? I haven’t even spoken to him since the day I found y?—”
I put my hand on his chest, shoved him down to his back, and straddled him. His hands flew to my thighs as he stared up at me in surprise.
“Did you go see him when I got my cast off?” I asked, grinding down onto him as I grabbed his hair. His eyes darkened with desire as his fingers dug into my legs.
“No, I didn’t,” he said. His hands snaked higher until his thumbs were pressing into the crease between my groin and my hips, sending zaps of pleasure humming through my balls. “He’s nothing to me. We went out for two weeks and called it quits. That was months ago, before you came back into my life.”
“Don’t lie to me, Beck,” I growled. His hand came up to my hair, and when he yanked hard, my cock pulsed as I moaned. My eyes rolled back, and then he flipped us, lowering his body until the weight of him was almost crushing me. Both of his hands were in my hair now, rough fingers tugging at the strands and making me thrust into his hardness as bursts of the most delicious pleasure and pain tangled together.
Beck’s voice was low and rough when he said, “I have never fucking lied to you.” He bit my lower lip, drawing a moan from me as I jerked against him. I slid my hands under his shirt, scraping my nails up his back as he rolled his hips into me.
But I was mad, wasn’t I? Or I was sad. I wanted to fight him. Wanted him to pin me to the bed. Dominate me.
With an angry grunt, I hooked an arm around his and thrust up with my hips, throwing him off balance, quickly pushing him to the side and rolling on top of him. He immediately wrapped his legs around my waist and locked his ankles together, a dangerous glint in his eyes as I grabbed his hips.
“You want me to be rough with you?” he said, his voice husky now. “Is that it? You need me to handle you, princess?”
Those words had a thousand electric sparks of lust pulsing through my groin until I bowed over him, unable to breathe. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, groaning as I bit down and then sucked. He got his hands into my hair again, drawing me back to look into my eyes.
“I’d like to see you try,” I whispered, mesmerized by the intensity in his gaze.
His lips drew up in a small smile, and before I could even suck in a breath, he’d grabbed my arm, moved his torso out from under me as he pushed me down into the bed face first, then maneuvered himself on top of me. He had both my arms pressed against my back now, and when he straddled me and rubbed his hard cock into my ass, I moaned into the comforter.
His lips were at my ear, his hips moving in a slow, erotic rhythm that shoved every thought from my head until I was just a buzzing hive of sensation and need. I tried to push back against him, but he had me thoroughly pinned, and that knowledge had precum dribbling from my cock.
I felt his lips move as he murmured, “What do you need, princess? You need me to punish you for being so rude?”
“Oh, fuck, Beck,” I groaned, so fucking hard it was painful. He slid his cock along the crease of my ass, and I could feel the heat of it through our clothes. I wanted him to bury it inside me, to fill me with his cum, to fuck me and own me.
“How should I punish you?” he said, sifting his fingers into my hair. He jerked my head back until I could see him, and the rapt attention he gave every inch of my face left me panting. “With my tongue?”
My eyes rolled back when he tightened his grip in my hair, and I was whining incessantly now. My balls were throbbing right along with my cock, and I thought I might come just from hearing his voice.
“With my fingers?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I panted, trying to grind my hips into the bed. I needed relief, the building pressure and the heat almost unbearable.
He bit the shell of my ear, making me cry out, and growled, “With my cock?”
“Beck,” I gasped, every nerve-ending on fire.
“Say please, princess.”
“Please, please, please, please, please,” I whined.
“Fuck, the way you beg,” he said roughly, and I could hear in his voice how much his own control was slipping. Fast. He shifted his weight, there was the sound of a drawer opening, and then he was moving away from me.
“No, don’t le—” I cut off on a strangled sound as Beck dragged my sweats over my ass and down my legs, then stripped me of them completely.
“Do you ever wear underwear?” he asked. His hot palm on my right cheek made me buck, and when it disappeared, when he smacked my ass hard enough to sting, my breath got caught in my throat. The pain made me dizzy, and then a warm, hazy heat seeped down my spine and spread through my groin. The pleasure of it was unlike anything I’d ever felt, and I realized I was moaning and humping into the bed, and Beck was rubbing his hand against the flesh he’d just smacked. His thumb drifted into my crease, so close to my hole that I pushed back, trying to get him there.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured soothingly, still stroking his palm over my ass. “I’ll get there. Move your knees up for me, baby.” He tapped the back of one knee, and even though I felt more exposed than I ever had in my entire life, the desire coursing through my body was helping to mute any anxiety that tried to rise. I drew my knees up, feeling cool air brush against my hole.
“Fuck,” Beck whispered raggedly. He still had a hand on my wrists, was still pinning them against my back, and I felt his fingers flex a few times. Then his hand was in my hair, a gentle caress. “You’re okay with this, right?” he asked softly.
“Yes,” I said. “ Yes , Beck, please ,” I begged. I felt like I might start crying from the discomfort of being so fucking aroused.
I felt his forehead press between my shoulder blades, and then he kissed me there, over my shirt. “Okay. I got you, baby,” he said. I heard the snap of a cap, and when the lube began drizzling between my cheeks, when he started spreading it around my hole with his fingers, I turned my face into the mattress and moaned.
“Are you gonna fuck me?” I mumbled into the blanket. I desperately needed his answer to be yes.
“What?” he said, his fingers pausing.
I turned my face to the side. “Fuck me, Beck. Please. Please fuck me. I want to feel you inside me.”
His fingers disappeared, and I wanted to bang my head into something hard. What the fuck now?
“Gavin, I think you should start with something a little…smaller. You’ve never had anything in your ass before.”
“Yes I have,” I said right away. I could feel my face heating at the admission, but I needed him to fuck me so damn bad, to fill me with himself, to do for me what no other person on this earth could do, and I didn’t care what secrets I had to divulge to get him to do that.
“What?” he said, incredulous. And then there was anger in his next words. A delicious, jealous, possessive anger that curled inside me, coiling around my bones and squeezing. “When have you had something in your ass, Gavin?” His voice was so, so soft, and the dangerous edge to it had me grinding my cock into the mattress.
“Lots of times,” I hedged, wanting more of his anger.
“Like when ?” he growled, wrapping his lube-coated fingers around my hip to stop me from moving.
“Like when I fucked myself on my own fingers. Or used the dildos I bought. Like then.”
Beck’s fingers loosened, and then he trailed them down until they were kneading the flesh of my ass, pulling my cheek aside like he was imagining me doing what I’d just said. “You did that?”
“Yes,” I groaned. “So can you please fuck me? Please. I need you, Beck.”
“What did you think about when you fucked yourself?” His voice was right next to my ear again, the husky warmth of it sending anticipatory shivers down my spine.
“You,” I rasped. “It was always you.”
Always.