Chapter Eighteen #4
“Thank God,” Ethan admitted. “I absolutely can’t eat cake now.”
Gene wiggled his eyebrows.
“I was thinking you, me, naked in bed, and dessert after the fact. At some point, I’m getting my man naked, and we’re absolutely doing kinky, dirty, and borderline foul things,” he said, reiterating what he’d just said.
Blackhawk leaned on the table, his chin in his hand.
“Oh, intriguing. Is that tonight’s plan?” Ethan asked. “Asking for a man who is absolutely willing to roll around with his man in bed.”
Gene grinned.
“Well, then, that’s what we’re going to do. Want to go back, shut this off for a while, and just be a couple?” he asked. “We can research later.”
Absolutely.
Ethan wanted that.
Before Gene, he’d work long hours into the night, but now that he found love, and his person, he enjoyed putting work away to have a life.
With him.
“Deal,” he said, kicking back his wine.
Gene pulled cash from his wallet and got Kiki’s attention. She took the money, and Gene grabbed the cake box.
“Ohhh, let me see the dessert.”
Yeah, that wasn’t happening.
“NOPE. I’m dessert. Cake is just the afterthought. There’s no way I’m letting you have cake before me. Cum first. Cake later.”
Ethan laughed.
Getting up, they headed out, and as they reached the door, Ethan dropped his man’s hand, just in case they were walking out into a media free-for-all.
Pleasantly, they were not.
When he could see that they were in the clear, he slipped it back into his, and gave him a squeeze.
“I can’t wait to be able to hold your hand all of the time,” Ethan admitted.
That made Gene’s heart flutter.
Oh, he craved that.
One day, he’d make that happen.
Putting the cake on the back seat, out of Ethan’s reach, Gene got them on the road.
Luckily for them, it was a short trip to the hotel. Because Gene could feel his man staring at him in the darkness of the vehicle.
“You’re going to jump me, aren’t you?” Gene asked, hopefully.
There was no hesitation.
“Yep.”
He was curious.
“It’s going to be wild, isn’t it?”
Again, Gene got lucky.
“Yep.”
He sighed.
“I love my life,” he admitted. “Never let it be said that I’m not giddy with the prospect of the next fifty years with you.”
Ethan leaned over and teased the man’s earlobe as he drove. Then, he bit it, making him moan.
Jesus.
His dick was hard.
“I can’t wait to get older with you, Gene,” he whispered. “You’re sexy now, but I bet you’re going to make me crazy with how good you’re going to look when you’re older.”
Gene swallowed.
Ethan’s hand was on his chest, and he was working on the buttons of his shirt as he whispered dirty things in his ear.
“I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us,” he whispered. “Oh, and I can’t wait to ride your cock.”
Jesus.
H.
Christ.
Someone was absolutely turned on, and Gene was thanking the powers that be that his lover liked sex.
Ethan had his shirt unbuttoned, and he sighed.
He’d forgotten they were both in body armor they’d borrowed from the cop.
“Foiled again,” Ethan said, going back to the man’s ear. “I can’t wait to get to your actual body,” he said, biting him on the same hickey he had on his neck.
Sue him.
Ethan liked him marked up.
As he made the mark darker, Gene moaned and tried to focus on the road. Only, Ethan’s hand was over his rock-hard erection, squeezing him intimately.
What wouldn’t he give to be naked?
“Have I mentioned how much I love your body?” he whispered in Gene’s ear.
The man just swallowed, because the temperature in the car was definitely going up.
He was breaking out in a sweat as his body was being tormented.
“Yes, and never stop,” Gene whispered, his lips suddenly dry from licking them. His body was being assaulted by the scent of mate, and he liked it.
A.
Lot.
Thankfully, he got them to the hotel.
Gene pulled that rental into a parking spot so damn fast so that he could take the man up on his offer.
Yeah, he wanted to be balls deep in his man.
As soon as he put it in park, Ethan was over the console and parked in his lap. That’s when he found his mouth and kissed him like it was the end of the world.
Gene held on.
So many things were going through his mind.
All of them were dirty.
He was a horny man himself, and there was a sexy Native in his lap. Now, he needed to get him upstairs to their room, naked, and under him in bed.
When Ethan broke the kiss, he stared into his eyes.
“Take me to bed and fill me with your cum.”
Oh, well, if your man said take him to bed, you did only one thing.
You took him to bed.
“God, I don’t deserve this kind of sexiness, but I’m damn glad the universe dropped you in my lap. I’m going to fill you with so much cum,” he muttered, as Ethan kissed him again.
The hot tangle of tongues drove him absolutely wild.
Yeah, Gene had won the man lottery.
When he broke the kiss, Ethan was staring into his eyes. It was dark out, since the sun had already set, and all Gene wanted was him in bed.
“Hurry,” Ethan whispered. “I need you.”
That was all he had to hear.
Pushing the door open, Gene managed to shove Ethan out of the car and not have him land on his ass.
Then, he followed.
He’d just locked the door when Ethan got rough, spinning him, and shoving him against the side of the vehicle.
Sometimes, he forgot that Ethan was an agent, and just as strong as he was.
When he hit the vehicle with his back, a soft moan escaped his lips as he was orally assaulted with another kiss.
As they stood there, soft snow began falling, and they were mouth-to-mouth in the parking lot.
It was silent there, and they took that moment to make a memory.
Ethan’s hand was on Gene’s ass, and his were in his man’s raven’s wing hair.
Fuck.
Gene loved his life.
“EJ,” he whispered, as he was destroyed by a kiss. Gene couldn’t imagine a day where he didn’t get to experience this feeling of love.
It was all-consuming.
Slowly, his man set him free, and I stared into his eyes.
“I love you. I know I don’t say it nearly enough, but it’s what I feel for you. You make me happy, and I hope that one day, we’ll get to spend it the way we want.”
Gene knew what that would be.
Married.
“Let’s go inside. Someone’s overdressed,” Ethan said. “Two someones.”
On that, he could agree.
He almost walked away when he recalled what he needed to do.
He didn’t want to wait a single second longer. This was something they both needed to heal the trauma in both of their lives.
They needed a promise of forever.
“Wait,” Gene said, as he reached into the back of the vehicle and grabbed the take-out container of cake. “I think I need dessert.”
Ethan stared at him.
“Now? In the snow?”
Gene handed him the container.
“Open it,” he said, finding this to be the perfect moment. With the snow falling, and the parking lot quiet, why not? It was all kinds of romantic. How many times would he get Ethan outside in the falling snow?
It was kissing his hair, and making it shine in the parking lot lights.
Ethan took it and popped the lid open. Inside, there was a piece of cake. Beside it was a pile of whipped cream, and in that there were two gold bands.
He blinked and looked up at Gene.
“I was going to propose afterward, but now, it feels right,” he said, plucking the two rings out of the fluffy cream. Licking one, he got down on his knee, not caring that his pants were getting wet from the snow.
“Ethan Jackson Blackhawk, I know we can’t make it legal, but I want to make it official. Will you do me the honor of marrying me in this moment? Will you take this ring as a promise that one day, when we can, we will sign that paper and make it legal?” he asked.
Ethan stood there.
Oh, he’d not expected this.
Not.
At.
All.
Never let it be said that Gene didn’t shock the hell out of him on a regular basis. Someone had been planning, clearly.
He simply stared.
“I promise to love, honor, and never betray you. I’ll love you no matter what happens, and I’ll be by your side through it all. I promise to protect your heart and be the armor to your soul so that no one ever hurts you again.”
Tears filled Ethan’s eyes.
“I promise to make sure that each day I celebrate our love, and show you that not only are you my work partner, but you’re also my chosen partner in life. I love you, EJ. Be mine.”
He didn’t answer, but instead he held out his hand. Gene didn’t hesitate to slide that ring onto his finger.
“Forever,” Gene promised. “Until death do we part, and then, even afterward too.”
Ethan’s heart hitched.
“Let me have the other ring,” he finally said, his heart racing in his chest.
All day, he’d been working, but thinking about how he could give Gene the commitment he needed. It puzzled him, since he wasn’t the romantic one.
Everything he knew about wooing his man, was being learned on the fly.
From his man.
Why wasn’t he shocked that Gene had beaten him to the punch on this one?
At his request, Gene gave it to him.
And Blackhawk made his commitment.
“I love you,” Ethan admitted. “I love you because of how big of a heart you have, and how much you make me feel special. No one ever has,” he said. “But you, Gene Patrick Cantrell have always made me feel like I’m the most important person in the world.”
Gene was pulled up to his feet, and Ethan mimicked what Gene had just done. He went down on his knee and stared up at his man.
“Before you, I thought I’d be alone. Now, I know that we are meant to be and always will be.
I don’t doubt it for a single second. Wear this ring for me, so every time we see it, we know that this…
this is the most valuable thing in our lives.
I have faith for the first time, and I can’t imagine my life without you.
I promise that one day, I’ll marry you and make it official. I’ll give you me now, and later.”
He slipped the ring onto Gene’s finger and got up.
“Forever, Gene. You and me until the end, no matter where the journey takes us.”
That worked for Gene.