28. Chapter 27 Katrina
M ay 2024
“Carter!” I gasp out, surprised to find my boyfriend standing on the other side of my door. He’d been in Texas for another meet and was supposed to be flying back to Georgia. “What are you—”
I don’t get a chance to finish before he swoops down and kisses me. I let out a surprised gasp, which he uses to his advantage as his tongue slides in, tangling with mine. Sighing against the kiss, my hands scramble to find something to hold on to—his biceps, hips, hair, shoulders, anything. Everything.
Hands on my hips, he’s moving us further into the house, swinging the door closed behind him. I stay lost in the moment, lost in him, and the way he makes me feel. When he backs me into the wall, though, I pull back for a breath. Carter wastes no time, tilting my head so he can move his lips down to my neck.
“Carter,” I breathe between kisses, licks, and bites. “What’s going on?” I swallow back a moan as he sucks at my pulse point, not hard enough to leave a mark but hard enough to have warmth pooling in my stomach. “H-h-how are you here?”
“Changed my flight.” I see a flash of his green eyes before he’s leaning down to kiss me again. I melt against him.
Eventually, I focus on what he said and have more questions. Questions I, unfortunately, need answers to. Tugging at his hair, I pull back until he focuses on me. Forehead against forehead, we both try to catch our breath. Which would be easier if Carter didn’t keep pressing quick, sweet kisses against my lips.
“Why did you change your flight?” The question is breathless when I finally manage to get it out.
“You quit your job,” he reminds me, squeezing my hips gently. “I’m so proud of you, Kat. I obviously wanted to be here for you.”
I arch a brow. “And this is your idea of being here for me?”
Grinning, he presses even closer, which I didn’t think was possible. “Being here for you.” He presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Celebrating what you did.” Another kiss to the underside of my jaw. “Helping you forget.” A kiss to my pulse point. “It’s multilayered. Covering all my bases.”
He finally brings his lips back to mine, allowing me to melt against him once more. As soon as I sink into the kiss, we’re moving again. As he pushes me toward the stairs leading up to the bedrooms, he pulls away enough to lock eyes with me. There’s a question in his eyes, one neither of us is ready to ask aloud, but I already know my answer.
“Take me to bed, Carter.”
Groaning, he pulls away from me enough to give me space to take his hands and lead him up the stairs. He’s practically running up them behind me. I let out a squeal of laughter when I’m suddenly picked up and slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“Carter!” I gasp, reaching out to place a smack on the easy target that is his ass. His laughter is more than enough to make my grin widen.
We’re about to have sex, but we’re laughing. I guess I never really understood that this can be fun.
“Put me down.”
“Gimme a second,” he calls back. A moment later, we’re walking into a room that is unfamiliar.
“Carter, this is the guest bedroom!” The only time I’ve used this room is for yoga and other workouts. “We can’t do it here.”
“Why? It has a bed.”
“But no condoms,” I reply with a laugh.
Groaning, he steps back out of the room in search of mine, with me still slung over him. Seconds later, I’m tossed on the bed. Breathing heavily from my laughter, my eyes track his every movement as he tugs his shirt over his head and tosses it aside. He doesn’t bother with his sweatpants just yet as he crawls onto the bed, hovering over me for just a moment before connecting our lips in a deep, dirty kiss.
After that, things kind of happen in a blur and we’re both down to our underwear. I gasp, eyes rolling back as his lips trace the line of my bra. I arch my back as his hands reach behind me to remove it. He pulls it out of the way before he cups my left breast, tweaking the nipple as his lips close around the other one. I gasp his name, arching into him.
The air in the room is heavy, but I’m only focused on the way I keep trying to pull him in deeper and press closer to him. I feel the weight of him on top of me, so strong and broad, and I know I can get lost in this. In the way his hands feel against my skin, the way his hair feels running through my fingers, the way the faintest smell of chlorine will always linger on him. I want so much. I want everything and I don’t even know how to ask for it.
His fingers trail down my stomach, then move to my hips to pull my underwear down my legs. I kick them off as soon as I’m able. He’s switched his attention to the other breast by the time my hand drifts between us to cup the bulge in his boxer briefs.
“Fuck,” he groans against my skin as my fingers skate down the hard length. “Condom?”
“Nightstand.”
He shuffles off me, and I whimper at the loss of heat from his body. He’s back as quickly as he goes, though. One hand holding the condom and the other pushing down his own underwear. I take the condom from him, opening the packet so I can roll it on as soon as he’s naked. He groans as I pump my hand along him once, then twice.
“Love,” he moans, pulling me in closer by the hips. I melt at the pet name. “You’re perfect.”
Every piece of me ignites with a fire I’ve never felt before, my legs tightening against his hips to pull him closer to me. I whimper his name followed by a please that sounds desperate to even my own ears. His fingers find my clit, circling in a way that makes my toes curl. I need him, all of him, now.
“Carter,” I gasp, nails scratching down his back.
His fingers slip inside, causing my mouth to drop open in a silent scream as his lips trail kisses down my stomach. I know where this is going and any other night, I’d be all for it, but not now. Not tonight. Tonight, I’m too pent up, too ready for him to take me. My fingers grip his hair, tugging until he looks up at me through his lashes. He groans when I tug his hair again, but he seems to get the message because he moves back up to claim my lips in another kiss.
I take control of the kiss, and he lets me. Willingly melts against me. When we part for the briefest breath, I catch his top lip between my teeth before murmuring, “Fuck me.”
“Shit, Kat,” he moans. “I got you, love.”
I arch against him at the name, which earns a faint smirk from him. He repositions us for a better angle, which results in me feeling him brush against where I want him the most. My eyes flutter shut as he sinks into me, giving me plenty of time to adjust. When my eyes open again, he’s looking at me with such love and adoration I want to stay here forever, but then he moves, and stars explode behind my eyes.
It’s never felt like this before and I’m not sure it’ll ever feel like this again, but it’s everything I’ve ever wished for. The rest of the room is still as we sink into this bliss together. The sounds we make are drowned out by the feeling of having all of Carter to myself. He tangles our fingers together, gripping my hand as he pulls me closer and closer to the edge. I finally tip over the edge I’ve been teetering on when he whispers, “let go,” in my ear, tone low, and breath warm. He follows right behind me.
L ater, Carter and I are just relaxing in bed. I’m on my side and he’s sprawled out on his stomach beside me. My fingers trace over a faded tattoo inked into his shoulder blade. Despite meeting him shirtless for the first time, I’ve never noticed this one.
“I didn’t know you had more than one tattoo.” My voice is barely a whisper, not wanting to break the mood in the room. Goosebumps prickling his skin, and he turns his head to look up at me. “It looks older.”
“It was my first tattoo. I got it when I was almost twenty.” A smile tugs at his lips, the memory clearly coming to life in his mind. I want to understand the happiness. “It was a good night.”
“Well, now you have to tell me,” I tease, poking his shoulder until he laughs. “Come on, out with it. Why a wave?”
Carter turns, sitting up until he can rest against the headboard, hiding the tattoo from my view. His arm winds around my waist, fingers sneaking beneath the loose shirt I’d thrown on to rub gently against my side.
“I tried to stick it out in Nashville, after everything with Will went down, and at first, I could handle it. But the second year was hell. The more I started winning and breaking records, the more pissed off Jacobson and some of the other guys got. All because the queer kid can’t have what they want. They all started making rude comments and wouldn’t stop messing with me. The coaches did nothing, nor did any of the other guys. My grades were suffering, and my mental health was at an all-time low.”
I frown, trying to picture Carter in that situation. This man is the literal definition of a cinnamon roll; he’s sweet and comforting, so full of life, and love I can’t even imagine someone being able to zap that out of him. I know it happened, though. I know what the person who did it can do and my heart aches.
“I finished my last final and flew out to Arizona to visit Bryce,” he continues. “He still had a couple of days left and was planning on staying in Arizona for the summer to train, but it didn’t matter. I needed out of there and I wasn’t ready to go back home to my parents.”
“You weren’t staying in Nashville to train with your team like Bryce was staying in Arizona?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, my coach in Nashville didn’t see a whole lot of potential in me, so I was released to go back home for the summer. I was going to train at the club Bry and I grew up in back in Flagstaff. I don’t want to say there’s a reason he liked Will better, but it’s kind of hard not to draw those conclusions.”
The same conclusions I’m drawing just by hearing the story. Bryce had told me that none of Carter’s coaches or the school did anything but the bare minimum. Whatever was needed to keep them from getting a negative reputation and Carter never pinpointed what was happening publicly. I wonder how that coach feels now, knowing Carter is still going strong and his star swimmer from that group doesn’t even want to own up to his past career.
“I’d basically been lying to Bryce for months, not telling him how bad it had gotten, but I think he knew. He’s always been able to tell when I’m not being honest with him. I basically crashed my first day there and Bryce let me get away with it. That night, we got drunk, and he took it as the opportunity it was and got me talking. I unloaded everything on him: how unhappy I was and how much I hated school. At that point, I was considering quitting the team just to make myself a little happier, but that’d mean giving up on the dream.”
He takes a deep breath before continuing, seemingly needing to gather his emotions. “Bryce reminded me I didn’t have to stay at the school. That leaving Nashville wasn’t quitting or giving in to whatever was happening by leaving. When I decided what school I wanted to go to, I made the choice based on what campus would provide me with the best opportunity to reach my dream, and it ended up not being Nashville.”
“Those are extremely solid points for a drunk Bryce Clark.” I grin at him, hoping to ease some of the tension. It must have worked, because he gives me a small smile. “Especially at almost twenty.”
“Hold on, he doesn’t stay so eloquent,” Carter laughs. “We made the decision to talk to his coach the next morning to see about getting me transferred to Arizona, which had been my second choice. The rest of the night resulted in us getting drunker and drunker.”
“Unless you’re about to tell me Bryce has a secret talent as a tattoo artist, I don’t understand how this results in you getting a wave tattoo.” His laugh brings a smile to my face.
Even the picture of Bryce being a secret tattoo artist was also more than I could bear, and my giggle sputtered out of me.
It took the two of us a second to calm down before Carter could continue his story.
“We were really drunk, and Bryce started talking about how important our friendship is to him and I was agreeing with him because I knew, even back then, he’d do anything for me, and I’d do the same for him. He decided we needed something permanent, a reminder of what it means. It wasn’t hard to find a tattoo shop in a college town that would ink two drunk idiots, clearly under twenty-one.”
I had to bite back a laugh. “Okay, but why a wave?”
“I actually don’t remember,” he admits with a sheepish smile. “All I remember lying on the table as the artist got to work on mine while Bryce was in the next bed. One of them asked why we wanted waves; Bryce drunkenly declared our friendship is like the water, always flowing.”
I clap my hand over my mouth, trying to hold in the laugh, but it comes out sounding like a snort. “Oh, my god.”
He’s red now, blushing at the memory. “We were pretty wasted. One of the artists asked for clarification and all Bryce could say was, ‘water, man,’ and I nodded in agreement like it made total sense.”
I bite at the corner of my lip, tears stinging the corner of my eyes. “I mean, at least it’s something that’s relevant to your friendship.”
“True,” he agrees with a laugh. “Now you know the story of the wave tattoo.”
I’m barely able to contain my giggles. “I do, but does this mean Bryce has a matching one?” His cheeks turn redder. “Oh, my god, that’s so cute! Where’s his at?”
Carter is shaking his head before I can even get the question out. “I’m not telling you that. He will kill me if he finds out I told you. I’m not kidding, Kat, your boyfriend will be dead. Is that what you want?”
I pout, but he remains adamant about not telling me. “Fine. I’ll just ask Josie about it.”
If anyone knows where his secret bestie tattoo with Carter is, it’ll be Josie. Josie will absolutely be willing to give me something else to tease her boyfriend about.
“Do what you have to do,” Carter replies. “Just keep me out of it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about my best friend anymore.”
I look up to see him staring down at me, heat in his eyes. Warmth stirs in my stomach. “Oh, yeah, what do you want to talk about then?”
Carter doesn’t answer, and instead moves in a fluid motion until I’m lying on my back, staring up at him. He grins at me, my legs moving around his waist to pull him in closer as he leans down to kiss me. At first, it’s not much of a kiss since we’re both smiling too big for it to be more than grins pressing against grins. A few seconds later, we melt into something slow, languid, and deep.
I relax against it, content to stay in his arms for the rest of the night.