Sixteen
SIXTEEN
TAYLOR
I t’s amazing that a man who doesn’t believe in marriage could bring an entire wedding venue to tears. Taylor reaches for the tissue he stuffed into the inside pocket of his blazer, sniffling at Ethan’s words.
Ethan stands under the flower arch between the two brides. Taylor sits in the very last row of the barn, which is beautifully decorated with rustic touches. The acoustics are also top notch. Taylor feels the notes from the electric organ in his bones, causing goose bumps to dash up and down his arms.
Nothing causes more goose bumps, though, than Ethan Golding’s impassioned musings on love and connection. He spins a speech as well as he can wear a suit. The tailored, charcoal number Taylor fished from the hall closet near the washing machine is lucky to be worn by such a man.
Ethan addresses the room. “We are not here to witness Once Upon a Time… Kimmie and Sloane’s love story began six years ago during a particularly memorable sorority rush.” This garners laughter. “Today’s ceremony marks a beautiful transition. A formal turning of the page to a new chapter—from partners to wives. Before this gorgeous crowd of family and friends, they publicly commit themselves to a long-lasting union of respect and honor.”
Taylor’s heart is a fritzing elevator, riding up into his throat and down into his stomach. Last night spilled the water glass all over the control panel. Now there’s no telling what might happen as he listens with rapt attention.
“Love is an infinite resource. It constantly renews and replenishes,” Ethan says, looking up from his note cards with a bashful smile. “Today, the romantic love between Kimmie and Sloane joins with all the love in this room and reforms stronger for the future. For that, we can rejoice.”
Nobody in the room seems like the religious type but a few “hallelujahs” and “amens” get shouted out. Taylor folds his hands in his lap and tries not to read too much into Ethan’s words. If he thinks about his own love life as a story, he’s not sure he’s ever truly picked up the pen to author it. But the man at the front of the room is providing ample inspiration to start, even if Ethan can’t—or won’t—play the second hero in it.
At the end of the sweet, sentimental ceremony, guests are ushered outside into a heated tent where appetizers and specialty cocktails are served under a canopy of twinkling lights. The happy couple goes off with the photographer to take pictures while the event staff turns over the barn for the full-scale reception and dance party.
Taylor holds ground beside the propped-open doors for Ethan. The night air feels good on his warm cheeks where tear tracks are surely still visible. “Look what you did to me,” he says jokingly, holding up a crumpled tissue in his fist.
“I take my duties seriously,” Ethan says with a rumbling laugh. “Shall we head home?”
Ethan Golding should not be allowed to look like that and ask questions like that at the same time. He deserves jail for such a lethal combination. Of course Ethan means his home, but Taylor’s brain brews up a steaming fantasy where it’s their home, which he gulps down with fervor regardless of the scalding, permanent burn it may cause.
In stride, they start up the path. Ethan’s hand brushes suspiciously close to Taylor’s. He yearns for the lightest touch, to know whether last night meant something equally as salient to Ethan as it did to him.
Heart skittering, he’s just about mustered the nerve to reach out for the hold and test the waters when they’re intercepted by Sloane and Kimmie. “Where do you two think you’re going?”
“Home,” Ethan says. There it is. That word again. Taylor wants to live inside that word. Snuggle up inside the O with Ethan and never leave.
“Congratulations,” Taylor says, sensing his fantasy usurp his critical thinking skills.
“You can’t skip out now. The party’s just getting started,” says Sloane.
“We wouldn’t want to overstay our welcome,” Ethan says.
“Your welcome? You run the place and you saved our wedding. Get a kebab, grab a drink and come dance with us,” Kimmie says.
“Please,” Sloane begs, vowels stretched like Silly Putty.
Unable to resist, they U-turn back toward the tent, grab drinks—a draft beer for Ethan and a cosmo for Taylor—and they find an unoccupied table near the back corner to stand in.
The alcohol loosens Taylor’s lips, so much so that he muses aloud, “I hope my wedding is like this someday.”
“I assume based on—” Ethan clears his throat “—last night that you’re not seeing anyone.”
“You would assume correctly. I haven’t seen anyone in a long while.” This cosmo might as well have a truth serum mixed in it.
“Slim pickings in California?” Ethan asks, elbows resting on the table. He’s looking out into the crowd of well-dressed, talkative people.
“No, but I do have a specific type,” says Taylor. Ethan’s eyes shift sideways, loaded with intrigue. “That, and I don’t have the time to meet people. My life is Amy Lu.”
“I know what that’s like.” Ethan tips his glass so it taps Taylor’s. His brain supplies the clink that never comes because the glasses are plastic.
“What was Amy like?” Beat. “Back then?”
“Oh, she was… I guess I would say she was like…” It’s difficult to witness Ethan struggle for words when he was so eloquent during the ceremony. Taylor can sense this is a common experience for Ethan—thoughts chugging along faster than he can feasibly get them out.
“Like someone you could fall in love with?” Taylor asks. The question churns thick in the air. He shouldn’t have asked it. Especially not here. This way. Words ringing back, it sounds dismissive. It wasn’t meant to be… It’s just…
Ethan wears a slack-jawed expression, eyes two pools of wonder. “I’m not sure what to say because I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Taylor’s seen it play out with his siblings. There are those like Finn and Sasha, who throw themselves so completely into their careers and mold their lives and personalities and social circles around it. Then, there are those like Sam and Todd who work to live. Jobs are a means to an end to pursue hobbies and passions and lives.
Ethan is most definitely the second kind of person, unchanging in his values or objectives simply because of the industry he finds himself in. No wonder it didn’t work out with Amy. She goes where the work takes her. Ethan takes the work where he’s at. Could Taylor be like that, too?
Taylor closely inspects how he’s changed himself around Amy Lu. That’s how he knows Ethan’s stronger than him. Without having known him for long, he understands Ethan’s strength goes much deeper than the physical brawn. And he sees why Ethan had to step away from his family unit to maintain his peace.
“I think when you meet in your twenties like we did, you’re still inventing yourself. In your late twenties, you solidify. You say to the world, ‘This is the kind of adult I am.’ But then your thirties hit, and you start wondering if you ever truly knew yourself at all. If you were too hasty in your projections. Who we were in our twenties were compatible. Who we became in our thirties just weren’t,” he says. “Which I think is why weddings are hard for me now because if people aren’t static—right?—if we’re constantly growing, how can you be sure that this person you’ve grown with won’t start to grow in the opposite direction?”
“You don’t,” Taylor says. “I guess that’s why you have to choose to live in the now.”
Ethan steps closer. The outside edges of their shoes touch, and their upper arms brush. “Like last night, I was completely in the now.”
Taylor’s breath catches. He wasn’t sure they would discuss the topic. It could’ve been a fiery fever dream, destined to cool and fizzle away. “Me, too.”
“I have to tell you something.” Ethan’s hand rakes down his beard. “The Snow White cottage is back in commission. It’s yours again, if you want it.”
“What is it that you want?” Taylor asks, voice breathy.
Their eyes lock. “Now? Frankly, I want another night like last night.”
Every word Taylor’s ever learned leaks from his brain and out through his ear. Heat blossoms across his covered chest.
Ethan smirks. “At thirty-nine, I never would’ve been able to admit that.”
“Then I’m glad you’re forty,” Taylor says.
“Is that your type?” Ethan asks, stretching out his smirk.
“Doesn’t matter,” Taylor says, pivoting to face Ethan. Because it truly doesn’t. This is for the night, not forever. There’s not even a possibility of forever. Not with someone who doesn’t believe in it. Not with someone who lives on the opposite coast. And most importantly, not with someone who was formerly married to his well-connected boss.
So, he can do sex tonight.
He can even do sex in the morning, followed by a nooner, ending in one final tryst before sleep on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, he’ll move his things back to the Snow White cottage, drive the nearly three hours to pick up Amy and Samara at the airport and put this whole escapade behind him.
That sounds far better than giving this up earlier than necessary.
It’s what Ethan wants, and Taylor gives people what they want.
It’s a nice bonus here that it’s what he wants, too.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ethan says, glugging back the last of his drink and slamming it down on the table. Taylor’s in no mood to argue with that firm sign of assurance. They leave the crowded, stuffy tent behind in a hurry.
The minute they’re through the front door of the house, Ethan hauls Taylor off his feet as they kiss. Injured hand be damned. There’s that delightful weightlessness again from the night of the bedtime stories. This go-around, he doubts he’s being taken to the guest room for a good night’s sleep. Tonight, he’s going to get fucked like a king on the queen-sized bed he saw in Ethan’s bedroom.
Except Ethan hesitates at the bedroom door. Sets Taylor back on his feet. Or tries to. Taylor’s knees have grown weak, so he tips forward into Ethan’s chest, clutching the man for balance. His breath shortens. “Everything okay?”
Ethan presses the inside of his forearm to the top of the door frame, rests his head there, closes his eyes and exhales loudly through his nostrils. “This is going to sound silly. I haven’t slept with anyone in there since Amy.”
Taylor fumbles for a good response while he processes this and clicks together why last night they had to stay in the living room. The guest room isn’t a good option, either.
“Now I’ve gone and killed the mood,” Ethan says, voice emulating a tire with a nail in it.
“No,” Taylor says, shaking his head for emphasis. “No, I’m…thinking about what we can do. You said the Snow White cottage is—”
“I can’t go and get the key now. It’ll look too—”
“The couch?”
“It’s old. I’m afraid it won’t support that kind of…activity.” Ethan bites his bottom lip.
Taylor slumps back against the wood of the door. “I understand.”
Only then does the timid man from the couch last night vanish. Ethan’s blue eyes go dark gray and wolfish with need as he places one strong hand on Taylor’s waist and uses the other to push open the bedroom door. “Fuck it.”
Ethan’s holding him so tightly that he could almost forget to breathe. Not that he really needs to. The high of being this close to Ethan Golding after he just said fuck it is giving him all the life he needs.
Ethan lifts him again and lays him across the duvet. Ethan’s blazer is a blur of fabric shot clear across the room, and his purple tie—which was already crooked after the ceremony—gets ripped from his neck in one frantic tug. Needfully, Taylor takes Ethan’s face in his hands and guides him in close. Lips brush.
It doesn’t matter how Ethan is acting or what sexual confidence he’s radiating right now. Taylor won’t forget what he said last night. I need you to be gentle with me. Heaps of vulnerability were needed to admit that, so Taylor keeps his touches light and his kisses inbounds. It’s not until Ethan undoes his belt and hauls out his solid, thick cock between the fly of his trousers that Taylor’s ardent hunger takes over.
Holding back is impossible when faced with that mouthwatering dick. He swings around onto his stomach, head near the edge of the bed, mouth open. Ethan works himself between Taylor’s lips. He’s overwhelmed with the taste of musk and saltiness and the sage and bergamot bar soap, which Taylor’s been secretly borrowing in the shower every morning.
Precum tickles the back of his throat as his nose buries itself in the neat hairs at the end of his length. Ethan’s groan is a gunshot; Taylor is the racehorse leading the pack out of the gate. It’s a symbiotic thrust and gulp, sink and bob. His right hand reaches up to play with Ethan’s large balls, which are surprisingly heavy despite his spectacular load last night.
“You’re wearing far too many clothes for my liking,” Ethan says, combing his fingers through Taylor’s hair and rearing himself back. “Allow me.”
Ethan starts with Taylor’s dress shoes, which he unlaces and carefully sets at the foot of the bed. He’s much more considerate with Taylor’s clothes than he was with his own, but Taylor really wishes he wouldn’t be. He craves nakedness. Now.
Yet…
His mind is a whirlpool of comfort. Luxuriating in this tender moment reminds him of being young—only one kid of two. Of falling asleep on a long car ride home from who-even-remembers-where and his dad carrying him up to bed, tugging him out of his street clothes, and tucking him under the blankets in the bottom bunk of the bed he shared with Owen. This was before the baby boom, the chaos, the fend-for-yourself of it all. And here Ethan is, resurrecting a memory, a sensation of care he thought he’d never experience again.
The next kiss is a thank-you, though Ethan can’t know that.
Can he?
When Ethan finishes the job of stripping Taylor down to nothing, he smiles in a knowing way that makes Taylor wonder some more if Ethan’s secretly a mind reader. Wonder morphs into awe when Ethan lunges toward him and takes his entire dick in his mouth. Holy mother of—
“Christ, you’re a delicious mouthful,” says Ethan, coming up for air, but only momentarily.
Taylor falls right off the perch of his elbows, head bouncing on the mattress from the rapturous impact. Ecstasy swings slow through his body as his erection grows harder and longer, impaling the back of Ethan’s throat. The pressure and the warmth are enough to make him blow.
“Ease off,” Taylor says.
When Ethan retreats, he looks like he’s posing for an X-rated Bear of the Month calendar. He’s naked from the waist down. Up top, his white shirt is unbuttoned and flung open, tie like an ornament around his neck. Tall, sheer socks slip up and around his large, firm calves. If this image were preserved on a calendar, say, hung above Taylor’s desk in his bedroom, he’d never get any work done. He’d be too busy staring, salivating, groping the front of his pants all day.
“Not good?” Ethan asks, appearing almost bashful for nearly sucking the soul straight out of his dick.
Taylor can’t help but laugh heartily. “ Too good.”
Ethan’s toothy smile has a dastardly glint to it. “I’ve been without practice. Good to know I’ve still got it.”
Taylor rises to his knees so he’s eye to eye with Ethan, who’s standing beside the bed. Leisurely, he drapes his arms over Ethan’s hair-dusted shoulders and kisses him slowly on the mouth. Their cock heads kiss, too, causing a fizzy jolt to shoot through Taylor’s pelvis. He rocks into it until the rock becomes a steady grind and their kisses include more tongue.
It’s sloppy, maybe, and dazedly filthy, but it makes Taylor’s heart sprint like never before.
“Am I being gentle enough?” Taylor asks, remembering himself suddenly. “I can keep my tongue to myself.”
“That sounds like a fucking punishment,” Ethan says through a gravelly throat. “I want your tongue. I want it everywhere.”
So he starts with the shell of Ethan’s ear. It’s inferno-hot, and there’s a slight coating of sweat along the side of his neck that Taylor happily laps at. That saltiness is quenching in a strange way. Before long, his tongue is winding circles around Ethan’s nipples, hidden in the dense forest of his perfect, fluffy chest hair. It finds rest at the tip of Ethan’s swollen dick that leaks like a faucet. He takes one, long dreg from the tap before turning around so his ass is lined up with Ethan’s sharpshooter.
At first, Ethan’s cock just rests there along the cleft. The heat and pulse are enough to drive Taylor mad. Just knowing that thick cock is primed right there at his hole is a great tease. The slow slip of that spit-covered cock gliding between his cheeks sends waves of pleasure up his spine.
There’s Ethan’s tongue—flat and wet and explorative. Then, there’s Ethan’s fingers—thick and nimble. Last, there’s…nothing?
Taylor’s eyes had closed as he sank deep into the digital stimulation. He expected the natural chain of events to go forth without intervention. Now he finds Ethan standing behind him, cock solid, condom in hand, eyes closed.
“Do you not want to fuck me?” Taylor asks.
“I do,” Ethan says, not opening his eyes. He lets loose an audible exhale. “I’m sad to say that I just don’t think this is going to last very long.” Embarrassment ebbs out between his words.
Taylor spins around and grabs Ethan’s chin, which prompts his eyes to flutter open. “It doesn’t matter if you last twelve seconds. I just want to feel you inside me.” Taylor’s chest hiccups. His statement feels more naked than his body does. Expressing his personal wants has never been his forte.
But the heat rushing through every corner of his body makes him bold, and Ethan’s dick stretching him open makes him gasp, and his own hand between his legs makes him come harder than he ever has before.