Epilogue
. . .
Five Years Later:
“Happy birthday, dear Evan! Happy birthday to you!”
“Is this where you throw me in a boat, push me out to sea, then light it on fire?”
“Fifty is not that old!”
Heath watched his husband weather the ribbing, knowing full well he was enjoying every moment. He might not be the youngest at the resort—Heath had that badge locked down—but he certainly wasn’t the oldest, and Olivia’s family took great pretend offense to his griping.
“This might be the last year we’re invited,” he said with a smile, when they returned to the villa after entirely too much cake and revelry.
“You say that every year, yet here we are.”
“I need to try harder, then. Is that what you’re saying?”
“You need to come over here so I can give you my present, is what you need to do.”
Evan never hesitated when Heath took that tone with him. His gorgeous, powerful husband enjoyed nothing more than being bossed onto his knees after a day spent trying to save the world.
His husband. Those words still sent an electric thrill through his body.
Evan approached, unbuttoning his shirt with each step. “I’m listening.”
“You’re still entirely too clothed.”
That lopsided grin curled those perfect, kissable lips as he pulled the shirt open and started on his pants. “Would you like to help, or are you enjoying the show?”
Heath pondered, before laying back on the bed and folding his hands behind his head. “I think I’m enjoying the show.”
Evan whipped off his belt, handing it over when Heath made a chastising sound and held out his hand. He had plans for that a little later.
The loose linen pants hit the floor, as though they sensed the growing impatience in the air. Evan stood at the end of the bed, cock jutting against the front of his boxer briefs, his open shirt displaying the ridges of muscle across his chest and stomach. He made fifty look so very good.
“Come here.”
Heath palmed his own cock through his pants as Evan crawled onto the bed until he was straddling his thighs. With a flick of his gaze, Heath commanded him to unbuckle, unbutton, and unzip, groaning when his achingly stiff dick pulled free.
“What do you want for your birthday?”
“I thought you already had a present?”
Heath smiled and sat up, running his fingers through the ginger-brown hair covering Evan’s utterly perfect torso.
“I thought we weren’t lesbians?” Evan had teased on the night Heath told him he never wanted him to leave his bed.
It was mid-March. That in-between, where winter lingered and spring played coy temptress from the shadows. Snow sat in moldering mounds at the far ends of parking lots, its crisp white brilliance beaten into dull grey submission after weeks of rain, mud, and salt-caked tires.
Evan had followed him home after the holiday gala and never quite left. Somehow, through the sale of the grand Beacon Hill townhouse and the purge of numerous other belongings, he’d become one of Heath’s most prized possessions.
Evan was a force to be reckoned with outside the cozy walls of this shabby-chic condo. Within them, however, he was just a beautiful man whose smile rendered Heath into a gibbering mess, and whose cooking needed to be brought to the attention of the FDA.
“Why can you only remember the snarky things I say, but never to start the dishwasher?”
“Because starting the dishwasher is boring.”
“I suppose I should be grateful I rank above it in interest, then.”
There was that smile, liquefying his bones. “Your snark is never boring, and it usually leads to your sharp tongue being used for even more interesting purposes.”
“Such as?”
“Such as…”
Evan was otherworldly. Then and still. His kiss unraveled the very fabric of time, and his fingers wove the threads into something new and beautiful. A pocket of intimacy where urgency existed only in their need to feel closer.
It was the best kind of frustration, those slow and gentle teases with teeth and tongue. The hands on bare skin, suggestively gripping and caressing, luring one another into a shared web until patience snapped and a bone-deep need for one another took hold.
“I’m still waiting for your example,” he teased hours later, when they lay sated and sweaty in a mess of jumbled bedding.
“Hmm?”
The vibration of Evan’s query matched the humming beneath his skin and drove Heath to the brink. Perhaps he had a bit of strength left.
“The myriad purposes of my tongue. I assumed you had examples.”
Evan rolled onto his side, brushing the hair from Heath’s face as they locked eyes. “The last couple of hours weren’t enough?”
“I don’t think it’s possible for me to get enough of you.”
It was the closest he’d yet come to admitting how hopelessly in love he was.
He couldn’t say it, because it was ridiculous to feel so strongly after so short a time, especially when Evan was still so new to the very concept of life with another man.
But the feeling was there and agonizingly intense during moments such as this, when the world outside was still and it was just the two of them in the darkness.
“Is that your goal?”
Heath furrowed his brow, seeking the secrets of the universe in Evan’s mischievous hazel gaze. “Is what my goal?”
“To get enough of me.”
“I thought I was the one who spoke in riddles.”
“You’ve rubbed off.”
He certainly had. And then some.
“If you’re asking for an expiration date, I’m afraid I don’t have one.”
Nor did he want one. Stupid, hopeless, romantic fool he was.
Evan smiled while kissing him. Just a light peck, but as always it escalated until they were both breathless and hard.
“Then say yes.”
“To?”
Did it matter with the man’s fingers wrapped around his dick? He’d agree to anything if it meant movement and pressure and hot cum bathing his skin.
“Marrying me.”
Heath’s mouth watered at Evan’s bulge, so close, but still contained. Pre-cum soaked through the cotton of his briefs, and he could taste it on his tongue from memory.
“Birthday boy’s choice.”
“You’re saying I can do whatever I want?”
“Correct.”
“Happy fucking birthday to me…”
Evan tucked a finger beneath his chin and lifted his face for a long, slow kiss. Heath sighed and melted open, reaching for the straining cock in front of him.
Evan grabbed his wrist and shook his head. “No.”
“No?”
Shedding his shirt, he lay on his back and hiked his hips to peel the underwear down his legs. The sight tore a moan from Heath’s chest. That thickness standing proud from within its nest of ginger curls, the tip wet and inviting as it bobbed against Evan’s stomach.
“I don’t get to cum until you do.”
Heath raised a brow. “No?”
“No. And I want you to fuck me for it.”
“You want me to fuck you until I cum, while making you wait on your birthday?”
“Did I stutter?”
“You get bratty with me, and I’ll bring in the belt early.”
“Whatever you wish, sir.”
Saying yes to a surprise proposal mere months after meeting, when they hadn’t declared their love or put an official title on what they even were to each other, remained the most shockingly impulsive decision he’d ever made in his life.
Five years and he still hadn’t woken up. The dream that was Evan Westin continued to exist next to him every morning. Insisted upon making him tea, despite loathing it himself, and spoiled him rotten no matter how grumpy he got over it—which was very.
Evan made him laugh, sigh, and scream. Weakened him with a look and melted him with a single touch of his elegant hands. He read him literature by a roaring fire on snowy winter evenings, then slipped into bed and adjusted his attitude until they both slept like the dead.
He was the luckiest curmudgeon in a long and storied history of churlish assholes, and he’d never regret it for a single second.