Chapter 16 Tex
The last biker pulls out of the lot at midnight.
I've been watching the clock for two hours, willing it to move faster. I've never done this before. I love this bar and the nights. I love the noise and the smoke and the feeling of being at the center of it all. But tonight, for the first time, I want everyone to leave and go home.
Because Stormy is standing at the serving station wiping down the counter and the light is catching his hair. He keeps looking at me across the parking lot with those blue-green eyes and every time he does, my heart rate accelerates to a level that's not medically sound.
Everything changed today in a bed upstairs with his hand on my beard and his mouth on mine with his eyes open the entire time, watching me, choosing me.
And then it changed again at the grill when he walked up behind me and put his hand on my lower back like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And yet again when he walked to my side and leaned into my arm and stayed there, in front of everyone.
He's not afraid anymore. Or maybe he is, but he's choosing not to let it win.
Watching that choice happen in real time, watching him override a lifetime of survival instincts to stand next to me has been the most incredible and agonizing experience of my life.
Because I want to touch him so badly my hands ache with it and I will not rush a single second of this.
I told him we had all the time in the world and I meant it.
Sheila finishes counting the register and sets the cash box on the bar. "We had a good night," she says. "Better than last Friday. We're trending up." She looks at me and at Stormy. "I'm going home."
"Drive carefully, Mama Sheila."
"Always." She picks up her massive purse and walks past me. She says, very quietly, so only I can hear: "About damn time, baby. Take good care of him."
Then she's gone. Her truck rumbles out of the lot and the taillights disappear down the beach road and it's just us.
Stormy finishes wiping the counter. He folds the rag and sets it down.
He stands there, looking at me across twenty feet of empty parking lot.
The silence between us isn't the silence of two people who don't know what to say.
It's the silence of two people who know exactly what's about to happen and are standing on the edge of it.
I walk over to him slowly. Giving him every second he needs to change his mind, to step back. He watches me come. His chin is up and his shoulders are back. He's the bravest person I've ever known.
"Are you tired?" I ask. "Ready to go up to bed?"
He nods. "Yes."
I open my arms to him. Wide. All the way.
This is the invitation I've been holding back since the first night, since the moment his eyes looked at me from under a motorcycle visor and my heart said so clearly, I can still hear it, oh, there you are. Where have you been all my life?
He crosses the distance between us in three quick steps and walks straight into my chest. I close my arms around him, and breathe.
Thank fuck.
He's finally here. Inside the circle of my arms, his face against my chest, his hands on my back, and he fits perfectly. As if he was measured for this, as if this space between my arms was always his and I was just keeping it warm until he was ready to fill it.
I squeeze him and hold him the way I've been wanting to hold him for weeks, tight and complete, my arms wrapped around his back, my hands spread wide across his shoulder blades, pulling him against me until there's no space left between us.
He's small against me. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, fast but steady, and his hands are gripping the back of my shirt at my waist like he's never going to let go.
"I should probably clarify my question," I say. "Ready to go to bed with me?" I need to hear him say it again. I need to know this is what he wants, that every step from here forward is what he's choosing.
He tips his head back and looks up at me. His face is open and flushed. His eyes are bright. The smile he gives me remakes his entire face the way it did the first time I saw it and has been remaking me ever since.
"Yes, I'm ready to go to bed with you, Tex," he says.
I pick him up. My hands slide down to his thighs and I lift him easily.
He wraps his legs around my waist, his arms around my neck, and his face is above mine now, looking down at me.
I carry him the way I carried him out of the water except this time we're both dry and choosing this.
His eyes are alive with heat. His legs tighten around me and his hands lock behind my neck.
I carry him across the parking lot, through the open bar door and up the stairs.
His weight is nothing. I carry him up three flights without losing my breath. The whole way he's looking at me with those eyes, his fingers are in my hair and every point where his body presses against mine is burning.
I stop in the hallway. "Shower first?" I ask. "We both smell like Big Bertha and I love that grill but she's not invited to this party."
He laughs and I feel it vibrate through his chest into mine.
"Definitely," he says. "Shower first."
I carry him to the bathroom. His legs are shaky when I set him on his feet and I keep one hand on his hip to steady him. The bathroom is small, just a shower stall, a sink, and a toilet. Two grown men can barely fit in here, but that's fine. That's perfect. I don't want any space between us.
I pull his shirt off. Slow. Up and over his head, and I see the bruises again. They're faded now, almost gone, yellowed ghosts of what they were, but they're still there. I see them and I don't react. I don't flinch or stare or let my face do anything except stay focused on him.
I tug my own shirt off. His gaze traces my chest, my stomach, lingering on the dark hair there. My hands settle at his waistband. I pause, thumbs brushing lightly over the skin just above the elastic, waiting. Asking without words.
He nods, small but sure.
I ease the shorts down his thighs, kneeling briefly to help him step out. Then he's bare in front of me—thin frame, ribs still faintly visible but softer now from weeks of real meals, skin kissed gold by the Florida sun.
He's beautiful.
The most beautiful thing I've ever seen, standing uncovered in my bathroom, not hiding, not shrinking.
He's hard. His erection throbs visibly with his heartbeat, precome beading at the slit, and the sight of it—the proof of his desire—nearly undoes me because I know what it means.
This isn't a body being manipulated into responding.
This is pure want.
His want for me.
Real and visible and pointed at me. I have to close my eyes for a second because the trust of that — his body telling me the truth without him having to say a word — is almost more than I can take.
I strip off my jeans and briefs in one motion. His eyes drop to my cock. Thick, hard, already leaking, and his flush deepens, spreading down his throat and chest. He swallows, lips parting.
I turn on the shower. The water comes down warm. I step in and hold out my hand to him. Palm up, fingers open. An invitation. The same way I've offered him everything since the day we met.
Here. This is yours if you want it.
He takes my hand and steps in. The water hits us both, soaking hair, running in rivulets over skin.
I draw him close until our bodies align, skin to skin for the first time with nothing between us.
The feeling of it, the full-body contact, warm and wet, sends a current through me so strong my knees nearly buckle.
"Do you know how long I've wanted this?" I ask. "Since the truck, Stormy. Since you lifted that visor and I saw your eyes. Since the first night, lying on the other side of that bedroom wall. Knowing I had to wait a long time. Knowing you might never be ready."
He looks up at me. The water is running down his face and his eyes are wide and locked on mine. He's listening.
"I would've waited forever for you. You know that, right?
If you never kissed me, if you never touched my face, if you never walked into my arms, I would've waited.
I would've spent the rest of my life standing six inches away from you and never closing the gap.
Because scaring you away would have been worse than never having you. "
"You didn't scare me away." His hands flatten against my chest, fingers spreading.
I lean down and kiss him. Not like the careful first kiss.
This one carries six weeks of longing. Six weeks of almost-touches, of restraint, of quiet ache.
My mouth covers his, slow and deep. His lips part immediately, welcoming.
The taste of him, warm, faintly sweet, mixed with shower water is intoxicating.
My hands cradle his face, thumbs along his jaw, fingers threading into wet hair.
I kiss him thoroughly, tongue sliding against his in lazy strokes, savoring every soft sigh he gives me.
I kiss him like I have all night. I kiss him like I have the rest of my life.
This kiss is the door opening. Both of us walking through it at the same time.
He makes a sound against my mouth. Low, quiet, a sound that lives in the back of his throat and vibrates through his body into mine.
His hands are on my waist and his fingers dig in.
The sound gets louder, less controlled, and hearing him lose control by choice, because he wants to, because it feels good and not because someone is taking it, unravels me.
"Tell me if anything is too much," I say against his mouth. "Tell me to stop and I stop. Any time. Any reason. You're in control here, not me. You hear me?"
"I hear you." His voice is wrecked, husky, breathless. "Don't stop."