Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
DEAN
Well past two and the party was still going.
Music slinked along the sand in sleepy pulses—slow beats and sultry vocals, made for swaying barefoot and unbothered.
Fairy lights swung between palm trees, slightly blurry, painting streaks behind my lids each time I blinked.
Pretty, yes. Damp sand stuck between my toes, waves licking at my ankles, shirt hanging open.
The drink in my hand was sweet, stronger than it tasted.
Rum? Jet fuel? Either way, I couldn’t feel my teeth.
Tay was…? There—some twenty feet away, flailing off the beat as if it were a disco tune rather than some lo-fi lounge type of stuff.
Grinning and loose-limbed. One of Charley’s college friends twirled under his arm and pretended to swoon against his chest. He caught her, head tipping back in a laugh, lights hugging his cheekbones.
Oh.
Some kind of realization, not sure what. Want you, mine, at least for now. My whole body felt somehow stretched out, overflowing with champagne and this tropical island night, like I was floating a couple of steps to my left. Huh.
He caught my eye and grinned—blinding, almost a little painful. Pointed at himself and mouthed, “Rescue me.”
I could do that. My drink was mostly semi-frozen slush by now, but I knocked back the last of it before I weaved my way over. “Thought you don’t dance?”
“Mm-hmm.” He leaned into me like this was forever.
Uh? One hand splayed out over my stomach, my shirt fluttering in the breeze, everything a little too warm and just right.
“Distraction,” he said, and I needed a moment to remember what I’d asked.
Dancing, right. “They started asking how we met, if it was love at first sight.”
“Could’ve told them I asked you out across…” Words. I sorted them into a semblance of order. “Across an open chest cavity mid-surgery.”
“And they say romance is dead.” He pulled me into a kiss that was two-thirds laughter, sweeter than my drink, a little sloppy.
Might have taken it somewhere nice if it wasn’t for Charley—barreling into us like a spinning top on a mission.
She flung her arms around both our necks, glitter still dusting her collarbones, eyes glittering, too.
“You two!” She said it like a complete sentence, voice far too loud. “You’re actually—wow. I didn’t think he’d ever… you know.”
“Charley.” I caught her while Tay laughed into my shoulder. “You all right there?”
“Awesome. Perfect. I’m just—I’m so happy.” Faintly slurred emphasis embellished the words, and she blinked at me through glassy, sincere eyes. “Are you?”
One arm around her, the other around Tay’s waist, steadying them both or maybe just holding on. “Never been better.”
“No.” She focused on me in that way she had sometimes, like, razor focus, only now it was a bit hazy around the edges. Her or me, wasn’t sure. “Are you, Dean? Happy. Really?”
“I am.” True in a way that surprised me. I hadn’t really wanted to come here, and now I didn’t want to leave. Life was strange.
“Good.” She smiled, kissed my cheek, and repeated it. “Good.”
I watched her wander off, Tay warm against my side.
The music had gone even sleepier now, something ambient and stretched like a lullaby.
A rising tide brought water closer to the lanterns dug into the sand, dotting the shoreline like pearls, and I felt my grin tug a little crooked, something strange and airy and nostalgic pulling me in three directions.
I turned to look at Tay—really look. His slightly parted lips, the smudge of glitter near one cheekbone like he was dipped in light, a weird gentleness in the curve of his neck.
Flushed and gorgeous, nothing to do with symmetry and all down to how he made reality lurch like I’d missed a step. A beautiful dream.
“So.” Not sure why my voice came out sandpaper-rough. “Come here often?”
Recognition sparked in his smile, something dark and a little breathless in the way he met my eyes.
He shifted his weight, cocked one hip out, and let his head dip at an angle that was a little coy and flirty, as if we truly were in a bar, two strangers meeting for the first time. “That’s your best line?”
“Had a better one.” I let it sit for a half beat, a grin tickling at my stomach and chest, the moment stretching silly and happy and somehow also heavy between us. Didn’t make sense—no matter. “But then you smiled at me.”
“You know…” His low laugh sparkled like sunshine on water. “Maybe for once, with you, I’d have crossed the room.”
An echo of something, took me a moment to place it—my own words mirrored back at me, morning light and the sweet burst of fruit on my tongue, now turned velvet night and a lingering trace of rum.
“If I’d seen you at a club? I’d have crossed the room.
” There might have been a “probably” in there, a translucent attempt to soften how much I’d wanted him even then.
“Or maybe we’d have met in the middle,” I said.
One night.
I’d have been one in a long line, just another forgettable face, and I—I might have woken up trying to recall his name. The thought sat sour at the back of my throat, and I swallowed around it. No—I’d remember. I’d remember him.
“Maybe,” he replied, and for a second, it was like I’d spoken out loud. No, right—that we might have met in the middle.
I reached for him, fingers curling around his upper arm, perhaps a little too tightly. Game, this was a game. I leaned in, pitching my voice low, playful. “Come home with me?”
His smile changed into something I couldn’t quite define, eyes as black as the nighttime ocean. “Always.”
Just a line. I knew that, yet it felt heavier than it should, out of tune with the hazy music throbbing along the sand and in my bones. The booze, the wedding, everything swirling through me like intoxicating smoke, knocking me just a little bit off-center.
So I kissed him—because I could, because I wanted to, because right here and now, he was mine. I pulled back with a grin that felt borrowed, grabbed his hand, and tugged him into the night with me.
Tay’s back hit the wall with a soft thump.
I felt it all the way down to my toes as if it’d been me when I was the one who’d pushed him, my body flush with his, my thigh between his legs. I kissed him, deep enough to rearrange the air inside my chest.
He pressed into it, sloppy and sweet, teeth scraping just slightly against my bottom lip.
I tasted smiles and the ghost of lime on his tongue, sharp and bright.
His fingers slipped beneath the hem of my shirt, scrabbling at the waistband of my dress pants like he’d forgotten what he’d meant to do, nose bumping mine as a laugh got tangled in the absent space between us.
I dragged my lips along the curve of his jaw. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Just happy.”
“Me too.” I felt drunk—on him or on rum, couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Reality spinning around us, so fucking good when I got him out of his jacket and pushed up his shirt, warm skin, oh. Stupid buttons putting up a fight.
“Seems unlikely,” he said.
I blinked up at him, attention dripping from his eyelashes to his mouth. “Huh?”
“Not personal,” he said.
“What’s not?”
“The buttons. Don’t think they were designed to personally offend you.”
I must have said something out loud—not my style, losing track of my mouth.
“You don’t know that,” I said, finally getting the last button undone so I could brush the shirt off his shoulders. He shifted away from the wall so it could drop while I already reached for his pants. Clumsy fingers, ugh. Get a fucking grip, Dean.
“What’s the rush?” Tay asked, even as he canted his hips for better access, voice a shade darker than before.
I nipped at his throat. “Want you.”
“Yeah?” Something tucked underneath, a question within a question, too much for my slippery thoughts to grasp.
My attention tripped over faint traces of sweat and cologne, the hitch of his breath when I got his pants open and skimmed my knuckles along his half-hard cock.
If I’d seen him in a crowded club, God, I would have fought every damn guy there for a chance with him.
And it’d be worth it for the way he looked at me now—soft and a little awed, painfully open.
“Yeah,” I said. An answer to… something.
His fingers curled into my hair. “Dean—”
“I know.” Hadn’t meant to cut him off, but something about the heavy way he’d said my name, just, like—it had felt like gravity pulling us toward tomorrow and the day after, toward home.
Something about Einstein, right? Time moving more slowly next to massive objects, and this—I just—my thoughts all twisted up like vines, but this, now…
It felt big. Big enough that time ought to slow down for us.
“Yeah?” he asked again, couldn’t be quite sure, only knew we’d already overstretched the word tonight. I still echoed it back at him.
“Yeah.”
For a few beats, measured by the slow rolling of waves beneath our feet, we were quiet—his arm around my back, my forehead pressed to his shoulder, slotted together like two pieces of the same puzzle. Breathing. The ceiling fan stirred pockets of air into a light breeze.
I slipped a hand down the front of his boxer briefs and only thought to ask, “Can I?” when my fingertips already skirted along the base of his cock.
He laughed—not like it was funny, more like he was overwhelmed and turned on and maybe just the slightest hint dizzy. “Please, yes.”
Everything felt off-balance and loose, reality drifting even though I was grounded by the solid heat of his body against mine. I raised my head and met his half-lidded eyes. He looked a little dazed—like the whole night had finally caught up with him, turned him sleepy-eyed and pliant in my hands.
I smiled, something that started low in my gut and traveled all the way up to curl the ends of my lips. “Love a polite boy.”