Chapter 17 #2
Then I lost the battle to keep my eyes from scanning his body, and his demeanor changed.
He shifted his hands to hips, obviously no longer caring I could see his nearly naked body.
“I was getting clothes. I didn’t realize you’d tossed yours in on top of mine.
” His words softened as he shrugged. “I needed a pair of shorts.”
I was suddenly very aware of being covered only by a damp towel wrapped around my waist. “Looks like you need a fuckin’ pair of underwear too.” I gestured vaguely.
Bryce grinned and glanced down at himself. “What? These are new. You like?”
Holy.
Mother.
Of.
God.
This fuckin’ fucker.
“What the hell you need new jockstraps for?” Shit. Was he going on a date? Had I messed things up by focusing only on my own damn self while Bryce was out there looking for his person?
And did I care I maybe wasn’t his person?
Fuck.
He chuckled, crossed his arms over his chest, and lifted his chin. A wicked gleam in his eyes. “Maybe I wanted to feel sexy today. They make my ass look good.” He turned and cupped his bare ass cheeks. “Right?”
A literal growl rumbled through my chest. “Shut the fuck up,” I grumbled, knocking my shoulder against his as I reached down to grab my clothes.
Whichever clothes I got my hands on were fine.
Anything was good enough as long as I got away from Bryce.
Quickly.
As if you really want to get away from him.
His skin was soft and warm against mine, and he smelled fresh and ready to start our day—like soap and coffee—and I should have walked away as quickly as I did the one and only time I caught my parents having sex.
Instead, I stood there like an idiot, breathing him in and recalling how damn good his ass looked in that damn jockstrap.
All those years of pushing it all aside.
The disgust I’d held so deep inside.
The chokehold of fear, loathing, and desperation gripping me every damn day.
All the lies I fed myself, half convinced it didn’t mean anything, the other half of me begging and pleading with any deity that would listen to please make me stop having the fuckin’ feelings I knew deep down were as impossible to stop as the sunrise.
The pieces had all been there from the very beginning.
All I had to do was give the puzzle a big fuck off.
Ignore.
Avoid.
Lie.
Until fuckin’ Bryce Armstrong came to town and ran his stupid, perfect ass right across my property.
All the puzzle pieces I’d worked so hard to ignore slowly began clicking into place, and now I had no clue how to work the puzzle or if I even wanted to.
No.
I knew.
I wanted to.
But fuck if I had any idea how to be with a man.
“Sorry,” Bryce murmured, his coffee-laced breath soft against my shoulder. “I’ll just—”
As he shifted to move away from me, my arm shot out and caught him around the waist. Bryce’s arm pressed against mine from shoulder to forearm, he faced the door, and I faced the dryer.
I could have let go.
Should have let go.
It would have been easy. Let go. Laugh it off. Go back to pretending.
But the ripple of emotion flowing through me, the zing of awareness zapping every single nerve ending from my head to my toes…how could I go back? How could I finally let myself feel what my heart and soul had been begging to feel for decades and then just shrug it off like it didn’t matter?
It mattered.
This mattered.
He mattered.
And the potential sparking between us mattered.
I’d faced death, embraced the fear, and took hold of my health.
I’d recognized my addictions, owned them, and accepted I would never not be an addict.
Recovery was something I’d forever be dealing with—and to be honest, deep down, I knew I needed to commit myself to it more than I had.
Being in recovery was a scary place to be, but shining light on the dark corners of my life had been as healing as it was terrifying even if I was well-aware there were a lot more dark corners to shine that healing light into.
But I’d be fuckin’ god damned if I was going to work my ass off through two of the hardest, shittiest parts of my life only to turn my back on the potential of something I’d desperately longed for as long as I could remember.
“Case…” Bryce whispered, his words heavy with the same desperate hope and smoldering desire burning inside me.
In one smooth motion, I hauled him against me, bringing his chest flush to mine, and pressed his ass into the dryer.
Bryce grunted in surprise, but he shut up quickly when I covered his mouth with mine.
The kiss started slow and exploratory.
A kiss was a kiss.
But also, no kiss had ever been like that kiss.
New, unknown, and thrilling. I tested the hard press of our lips together, the rough drag of his stubble against mine. The simmering heat of our mouths together answered that long-unspoken question fermenting deep inside for all those years.
Even if I’d never allowed the question to be voiced, the kiss provided me with the answer.
The truth.
My truth.
With a gentle flick of my tongue, Bryce groaned and opened for me.
And then the kiss took on a life of its own. Hungry and deep. Tasting, demanding, savoring the flavor of his mouth on mine. Bryce’s hands trailed from my waist to my shoulders and back down to my towel-clad ass. Gripping tightly, he pulled me hard against him, our stiff cocks pressing together.
The desperate moan was embarrassing as hell, but there was no damn way I could experience the kiss and the connection of our bodies and not react.
I may have sounded like a fuckin’ heifer in heat, but I didn’t give a flyin’ fuck.
Bryce tasted too good. The fiery heat, the hard press of our bodies, that feeling of yes, this…
this is right…this is what I’ve longed for stole my breath and set fire to my blood.
Bryce tore his mouth away and rested his forehead against mine. Our chests heaved, our hard cocks pressed together, longing for more friction.
“Fuck.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Why’d you fuckin’ stop?”
Bryce chuckled. “I needed a minute. Didn’t want to bust a nut two minutes in.”
My dick begged for me to tell Bryce to get on his knees and give me what he’d offered.
My brain pushed back, saying to play it safe.
And my heart?
Well, my damn heart was already doodling Casey Joe + Bryce on the edges of my Biology notebook.
Mother.
Fuckin’.
Fuck.
“What do you want?” Bryce asked. “It’s your call.”
“The fuck it is,” I growled. “You don’t get to offer to suck me off—or whatever the fuck that was—and then make me do the damn decidin’.”
Bryce groaned, burying his face in my neck. “It would be a lot easier to make good choices if my dick wasn’t about to explode.”
Knowing I had him just as hard as he had me shot a surge of pride racing through my veins. Fuckin’ Bryce Armstrong wanted me, and damn if that wasn’t a total ego boost. “If you don’t want to take this any further, we need to get dressed and start workin’ on shit.”
Fuckin’ hell.
Don’t say you want to stop.
Please don’t say you want to stop.
“What shit?” Bryce murmured against the sensitive skin under my ear, the soft whisper of his lips lighting my senses on fire. Senses I didn’t know I had. Senses I wanted Bryce to explore all over my fuckin’ body.
“Fuck if I know,” I muttered. “Work shit. Any shit.”
Bryce chuckled. “What if I want to take it further?”
My groan of indecision turned into a hiss of pleasure when Bryce traced his finger over my rock-hard cock, the textured material of my towel heightening the sensation. “Fuckin’ hell.”
I yanked Bryce out of the laundry room and toward the stairs.
Before I got us up five steps, Bryce gripped my hips and spun me around.
With a gentle shove, he maneuvered me into a sitting position and knelt between my knees.
His hand on the towel tucked tightly around my waist, eyes locked with mine, Bryce leaned in and feathered his lips over mine. “Are we doing this?”
The kiss flamed the inferno, but more than the molten desire it sent coursing through my blood, his lips against mine were a promise of more.
I feasted on his mouth, savoring the rough burn of our stubble and the hard press of our lips.
Kissing him may have been new and exciting, but it was also somehow surprisingly familiar and right—a staccato beat of yes, yes, yes thundered in my chest.
This kiss.
This moment.
This man.
I wanted more.
With Bryce.
I wanted everything.
With Bryce.
This man who had somehow become someone I turned to, someone I relied on, someone I enjoyed spending time with.
He had become my everything.
In the farthest recesses of my mind, a tiny danger-danger alarm wailed, but the heat of Bryce’s tongue against mine, the sensual comfort of his hands caressing up and down my torso, and the throbbing of my dick thoroughly drowned out any rational thought.
“What do you want?” Bryce asked, nipping at my bottom lip.
“Fuckin’ everythin’.” The gruff words, whispered into his open mouth, coaxed a delicious moan from him.
“Gotta be a bit more specific.” Bryce pressed a trail of kisses along my jawline, to my neck, and down to my chest. When he dragged his teeth over my nipple before sucking it between his lips with a soothing swipe of his tongue, I knew I’d died and gone to heaven.
“You want me to suck you? Wanna suck me? Fuck me?” He panted through the options.
His words hitched on the next ones. “Me fuck you? Fingers, mouths, full-on penetration?” He listed a menu of choices like we were at the most enticing all-you-can-eat buffet.
The way the word yes quivered out of me wasn’t my finest moment, but who the fuck even cared? I cleared my throat and tried again. “Yeah, that.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
Bryce chuckled. “All of it? Of course, you’d tackle your first homosexual experience with gusto.”
“Who says it’s my first homosexual experience?” I managed to ask in words just above a damn whimper while Bryce sucked my other nipple and watched me with fire in his eyes.
He quirked a brow. “Is it not?”