Chapter 37
WREN
I like being back at work. I’m depressed as fuck, but construction I know. It’s second nature, all muscle memory, and the distraction has been nice, but I’ve only had a couple of days here and there, and it’s nowhere near enough to get me out of my funk.
And I’m pretty sure Jake’s noticed.
“Next job, I promise. You’ll be my main guy.” He thinks I’m not myself because of the work situation, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I keep working while we talk, finding the power of the nail gun therapeutic. Pop, pop, pop.
Darcy breaking things off and moving on with Harvey immediately has those ugly abandonment issues rising up and eating at me until I can’t sleep. I have no appetite, but Remy’s all but force-feeding me.
“It’s all good,” I say. “I’m enjoying the laid-back nature of being the spare on a site. No pressure. Just … doing it to occupy my time.” Pop.
“Yeah, it’s not like you need the money anymore. I still can’t believe you’re a millionaire, man. If it were me, I wouldn’t be returning to work.”
“Technically, my bio family are the millionaires.” Billionaires, actually, but I’m already finding that money changes the way people look at you. “I just got a small inheritance that I refuse to touch.”
Though if I’m going to keep that up, I am going to need more than a couple of shifts here and there.
I keep imagining ways to make Darcy and I work, but each and every scenario has the truth coming out and his whole world imploding. Not only his but Tobias’s and Junior’s as well. The company.
Everything is at stake.
So while I let myself indulge in the fantasy of him walking on-site and sweeping me in his arms and promising me forever—choosing me over our family’s obligations—I know it will never happen.
But the ache for him is so strong I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold out before I break. Before I reach out and ask for one moment of mercy.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jake asks. “You haven’t been the same since you’ve been back.”
“I’ll be fine.” Pop. “It was just weird having a family for a while.” Pop.
“Wanna talk about what happened?”
I glance up at him. “You sound like you’re asking for a root canal. And no, I don’t. I shouldn’t have tried to have relationships with them. Two of my brothers hated me from the beginning, and the one who didn’t … Well, he does now.”
Not that I actually believe that.
He doesn’t hate me. It was just easier to say goodbye to me than I thought it would be.
I understand the obligation, the role he had been taught to be in from when he was a child, but the way he ended it, the way he was able to walk away … he made it obvious that it was easy. I never could have done that.
I can’t help asking myself if he’s in as much pain as I am. If he’s enjoying being set up with Harvey. If he sees a real future with him. One with kids—heirs to his bullshit legacy that should’ve been mine.
That might sound like I’m bitter because I didn’t have his life, but if being with Darcy has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t want his life. I’m grateful for Warren Ritcherson for saving me from that kind of pressure.
But I also still hate him. Because if he had been a part of my life from the beginning, if he’d allowed me to grow up knowing my brothers, having relationships with them, maybe I wouldn’t feel like Darcy’s been unfairly ripped from my hands. Because I wouldn’t see Darcy the way I see him now.
Perfect.
Irresistible.
Someone I’d give everything up for.
And that’s the difference between us. I’m willing to do anything to be with him.
He’s willing to choose money over me. Obligation. Pressure. He’s choosing to live a lonely existence all because his parents told him to.
“It’s beer o’clock,” Jake says. “You coming?”
“Nah, I’m just gonna go home.” I’m not in a socializing mood.
“I’ll try to get you some more shifts.”
“Thanks.”
We put our tools away and pack up for the afternoon, but on my way home, I have to drive through the downtown area. It’s a fight not to go to Darcy’s apartment. Not that he’d be there anyway.
I’m almost tempted to go to the office. To barge in, lock him inside his glass cage, and take him right there on his desk so I can show him what he’s missing.
But in that scenario, the only loser will be me.
Because it doesn’t matter how much I make him come, how owned his body could be. He will never choose me.
I guess it’s true what they say: like father, like son, and genetics has nothing to do with it.
It’s a relief, even to myself, when I pull up to my place. I’m able to continue to lie to myself that I’m not going to crack.
I’m going to protect myself because it’s what I need to do. Being in Darcy’s orbit will destroy me.
And as I walk up to my front door, thinking I’m strong as fuck and my resolve won’t break, I see him.
Sitting on my porch.
Looking like shit.
He hasn’t shaved. His eyes are red, hair messy. He’s every bit the same disheveled, heartbroken man I am. “I needed to see you.”
The last thread holding on to my strength snaps, and when he stands, I can’t hold myself back.
“Inside,” I growl.
Darcy’s right behind me as I unlock my door, and we head inside.
He doesn’t speak a word. He doesn’t have to.
Darcy takes his jacket off as we walk. His tie goes next.
By the time we’ve made it to my bedroom, we’re both shirtless. I’m sure I smell like sawdust and sweat, but he doesn’t seem to care when he steps forward and breathes me in.
His hands go right to my belt buckle. He watches me, his eyes intent on mine, while he undoes my belt and pants.
Just don’t let him kiss you, I tell myself. If his mouth lands on mine, I’m done for. There’s no coming back. No recovering from losing him again in that way.
So when he rises up to try, I turn my head and kiss his cheek. Then his jaw. I suck on his neck while we shuffle out of our pants and underwear.
We tumble to the bed, me on top of him, his hands wandering down my sides to grip my ass.
“I need you inside me,” he rasps, and I lift up on my elbows.
The urge to kiss him is almost too strong, but I refrain. Instead, I pull all the way back and stand so I can make my way to the bedside table, where there are supplies.
Wordlessly, I throw lube on the bed and then hold up a condom. “Do we need this?”
He frowns. “We never bothered before. Why—” Darcy slumps. “I haven’t had sex with Harvey if that’s what you’re implying. Fuck, Wren, do you really think that little of me?”
“You’re going to marry him,” I point out but drop the condom. Even if we’re torn apart, even if I can never be his choice, I trust his word. I still trust him.
“It’s a business arrangement, and he knows the deal.”
My head swivels in his direction. “The whole deal?”
“No. Just that … I’m emotionally unavailable. And, for the foreseeable future, also physically unavailable.”
“But it’s not completely off the table.”
“It is while I can’t get you out of my head.”
Somehow, that makes everything so much worse. I climb back onto the bed and go to open my mouth, but he sits up and cups my jaw.
“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
His words cut through me, twisting the knife that’s already buried in my heart.
Fuck it. I can’t … I can’t not kiss him after that.
I attack his mouth with my own. It’s all tongues and moans as we swallow each other down, as I lower myself onto him, knees on either side of his hips, and straddle his waist. Our mouths don’t part, holding on to the moment. My heart is so full and painful all at the same time.
I don’t want to break it off. I don’t want to stop kissing him.
But he pulls away and murmurs, “I need you.” Darcy knows exactly how to get what he wants, and I can be bitter about that later.
Right now, all I want to do is make him happy.
I move my hand to his throat, gripping just hard enough to have his eyes roll back in his head and for me to push him down so he’s on his back.
Keeping my hand where it is, I work my way down his chest with my mouth. I suck on a nipple, and he arches into me while my free hand finds its way under his cock to squeeze his balls.
His breathing is shallow and quick, his squirming beneath me is needy, and I can sense him already getting so close to the damn edge he’s going to make me slow down.
As much as I’d love him to come, I don’t want him to get off and then realize this was a mistake.
It is, but I don’t want him to come to his senses yet.
We didn’t get this. The goodbye. And while I’m under no delusion that this will bring me any kind of closure, I at least hope it’s a step in the right direction.
We tried to fuck each other out of our systems, but that was never going to work.
This … knowing it has to be the last time …
maybe this will be the kick that gets me to move on.
When I reach his belly button, I lap at the drop of precum on his skin.
His salty taste turns me on something fierce, but I’m forcing myself to hold back. To not give in just yet.
I release his throat to grab the lube, and while I slick up my fingers and my dick, I sink lower and suck the tip of his cock in my mouth.
Darcy’s loud gasp drives me wild. I lick over his slit and then take him in my mouth as far as I can.
With a lubed hand and fingers, I go back to massaging his sac and let my pinky finger slip between his ass cheeks and tease his hole.
He swears under his breath and thrusts his hips upward until his dick hits the back of my throat.
Goose bumps break out along his skin when I push my finger inside him. His ass grips tight, and I can’t wait for it to be my cock. I’ve missed the way his ass squeezes around me. The way I get high off him. Drunk.
I need to feel it again.
For the last time.
I work him open faster after that, no more patience left.
He writhes, he begs, and when I’m confident enough that he’s ready for me, I hold his knees up and slam home.
He cries out, but when I pause to make sure he’s okay, Darcy shakes his head. “Keep going. Do that again.”
I thrust inside him again. It’s not nice or easy. I know it’s probably hurting him. Yet there’s a part of me that likes it that way. Darcy should be feeling me for days after this. Knowing who gave him the twinge in his ass. Reminding him of the man he’s walking away from.
I go harder. Push faster. His hips meet every thrust, and his breathing increases.
I’m not going to last long, but I know he won’t either.
He’s leaking onto his stomach like a faulty tap, and as tempting as it is to wipe it off with my finger and suck it into my mouth, my hands are too busy leaving bruises on his hips while I move inside him.
Harder.
Faster.
Until that beautiful moment where he tenses around me and falls apart in the most gorgeous way possible.
Flushed skin.
Breathless.
Mouth hanging open while his eyes are slammed shut.
I’m pulled over the edge with him, filling him up, coming inside him, and I thought this is what I wanted. What I needed to move on.
But it’s not.
The best feeling in the world is drowned out by the overwhelming urge to cry.
I lower myself onto him, skin to skin, chest to chest, and I’m still inside him when I set the tears free.
“I don’t wish I knew how to quit you,” I whisper. “I wish I knew how to make you mine.”