Chapter 34
chapter thirty-four
Tobi looked so fucking gorgeous, even under the dim lighting from the shitty hotel lamp. We had to travel a bit to get back here, but it was worth it to spend some quality time together like this. The world outside was so quiet. So peaceful. Even the moon seemed to shine differently in Arkansas.
I could see the stars a lot easier, and I could’ve sworn I saw Tobi’s name written in them. They knew he was back, and they’d prepared for that. They’d welcomed him.
Gently, I caressed the side of his face, smiling when he did the same. There was a small gap in between us on the bed, though it wasn’t to keep us apart. It was so we could see each other—really see each other.
He leaned in closer to me, whispering. “I love you, Cal.”
“I love you, Tobes. I’m so proud of you.”
“Me too, honestly.”
“You should be. You did something really hard.”
He sighed, wrapping his fingers around my wrist, holding it where it was on his face. “Do you think we’ll be okay?”
I shook my head, crossing the small distance between us. “We’re already okay, baby doll. I know things will only get better from here.”
“I’m just so fucking grateful to have you again.”
I understood that all too well. There was a time when I thought I’d never see him again, and I never fully accepted that. My heart kept yearning, despite the chances seeming slimmer and slimmer that he’d come back. “You’ve got me. From now until the end of time. I promise.”
He nuzzled his nose with mine, leaning in to kiss me. Kissing Tobi would never get boring. Now that I could do it so freely again, I realized just how often I’d taken it for granted when we were younger. I never knew just how much I’d craved him until I didn’t have him.
Never again. I’d never find myself complacent or content with not having his touch again.
I caved to the pull between us, cupping his jaw to lure him in, savoring the taste of his lips on mine like a man close to death. Life was so fucking precious and so ridiculously short, yet there was an entire life sitting in wait with his kiss. I could taste it. I could see it. I could feel it.
There was a future between us. A long future with red fondant wedding cake and fights about who stole the blanket during the night and whether we should get another puppy so Fishy could have a friend.
There was a future waiting for us where we sat on the rocking chairs on my porch, watching the sun rise in the mornings with hot coffee and nothing else on our minds except each other. Except the fact that we got to live another day while loving each other.
We were lucky. Lucky to have souls like ours that refused to part, even after a decade of missing each other.
I trusted that wouldn’t happen again. I fully, completely trusted that Tobi was here to stay, and that relief?
It was the best fucking thing I’d ever felt in my entire life.
Knowing that, even if he strayed from his sobriety, he’d come back to me, and I’d wait.
I’d wait until he was ready because I knew he would. I knew he’d come back without a doubt.
“Callum,” Tobi breathed, his hand curling in the back of my hair. “Cal, I need you.”
Hearing how breathless he was just from our kiss alone, I felt the same. I needed him. I always needed him, and I didn’t think that’d ever change. “Then take me, Tobes.”
He pulled away just enough to look me in the eye. “I don’t…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I’m doing; I just know I need you close. As close as fucking possible.”
I heard the uncertainty in his voice and vowed to banish it. There was no need. “Don’t talk, baby doll. Just take. Take what you need because I need it, too. You don’t have to know what you’re doing. Just do it.”
The way his eyes slowly fluttered closed, I assumed that was exactly what he’d needed to hear. We didn’t need to stutter with indecision anymore. We’d already gone through that for far too long. We needed to just be.
He nudged me, making me lie on my back as he threw his legs over my hips. I breathed him in as he leaned down to kiss me, whimpering and reveling in the way his hands traced up from my stomach to my chest, traveling further up to my neck.
The first rock of his hips had me gasping and arching my back, meeting him just right. “Shit, that feels good.” I panted.
“Does it?”
I nodded. “Again. Please.”
He held one side of my neck as he kissed the other, rolling his hips again.
Tiny shocks of something I’d never felt before made their way up my spine with each slight rake of his teeth against my skin and the press of his hard cock against mine.
I found myself losing all sense of direction and time.
Once he’d ridden his hands up under my shirt and found my nipples, I was a mess. Every touch felt like an explosion going off in my body, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I just couldn’t.
I lifted just enough to help him get rid of my shirt, the cold air creating goosebumps on my arms and bare chest. Tobi looked down at me, subtly biting at his lip. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
I didn't think I’d ever felt that way before he’d said it.
His lips pressed against my chest, making a trail down, down, down to my stomach.
It almost tickled, but it was so soft. He was being so soft—almost reverent.
Like he was savoring each moment and every touch.
My stomach muscles constricted as he situated himself between my legs and lathed at my hip bones.
He treated every part of me like it was precious.
I was so fucking hard. So goddamn turned on, looking down and seeing his eyes flick up at me beneath his lashes. He tugged at the waistband of my pajama pants, asking me permission with his gaze.
Just a nod. A small, short, eager-as-hell nod.
Slowly, ever so fucking slowly, he pulled my pants down, my cock twitching the moment the cool, open air touched my skin. Tobi wrapped a hand around me, giving me a short, experimental tug.
My eyes rolled as I threw my head back, my hips bucking without my permission.
No one had ever touched me like this. No one had ever gotten this close to me before.
I didn’t know what to do. It felt so goddamn foreign, yet so fucking good, and I was already clutching the sheets beside me.
Anyone else, and I would’ve been embarrassed.
“I…I want to taste you, Cal.”
Either my heart stopped for a second, or it picked up pace. “Please.” Holy shit, was that my voice? Did I seriously sound that fucking wrecked already?
The first lick up my shaft had me chanting in my head.
Don’t come. Don’t come. Don’t come. Like a live fucking wire, I was one second from going off, and I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready to let that happen. Feeling Tobi touch me like this was everything and fucking more, and I didn’t want it to end. Not so soon. Not yet.
Not yet.
But then he closed his lips around me, sucking my cock into his mouth, and I realized just how screwed I was. This was what we’d been working toward back then—being able to have each other in this way. It was the ultimate vulnerability.
The closest we could feel to each other without living in each other’s skin.
Intimacy on a level we’d never explored before, that we were now exploring together. As a couple. As us.
It fucking brought tears to my eyes, and that was embarrassing.
I couldn’t stop my hips from moving in time with him, his hand stroking me along with his mouth.
There wasn’t a single moment where my cock wasn’t being touched, and I couldn’t fucking handle it.
It was so much. So much of a new thing. A new step.
A new vow to each other that couldn’t be broken because I’d never given it to anyone else. I’d been waiting.
Waiting for Tobi.
And I would’ve waited the rest of my life if I had to.
“Tobi, fuck.” I whined, arching my back as he swallowed around me. Fucking swallowed.
His mouth was so tight and warm, and his tongue felt so goddamn good when he flicked it over my tip. One of his hands reached down, cupping my balls, rolling them between his fingers. My stomach was tightening, and I knew. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it much longer.
I was already so on edge. I was never going to make it further. “I’m gonna come. Oh, fuck, shit, I’m gonna come.”
Tobi stroked me faster, panting, as he looked up at me. “It’s okay. Let go, baby. Let go, and I’ll catch you.”
He moaned around my dick as he took me to the back of his throat, somehow so much tighter than before.
His lips were stretched so fucking pretty around me, spit dribbling down the side of his face.
It glistened. Fucking glistened. And his eyes—oh, god, his eyes.
They weren’t the big, sad brown eyes I remembered.
They were bright. So bright. So beautiful.
I was lost in them, making high-pitched whimpers over and over as new feelings and new sensations rocked my entire fucking world.
He’d catch me.
I squeezed my eyes shut as I let out a long, deep moan. My hand went to the top of his head, just resting there, needing something to ground me as I fought the urge to curl in on myself. Tobi didn’t pull away. He moaned with me, his eyelids fluttering as he swallowed every fucking drop.
I melted into the mattress, panting and huffing, as Tobi let go of my softening cock. He crawled up right beside me, laying his head directly onto my outstretched arm.
He whispered, resting a hand over my heart. “So beautiful.”
The truth. He was telling me the truth.
I’d told him that day in the bar that I’d find out the truth. I meant that, and he knew it, even though he’d been lying to me. But this? Us lying together, our hearts beating with and for each other, was the truth I’d been searching for. Not about why he left. Not about where he’d been.
The truth was our love. The love that’d carried on despite the odds. The truth was that we were always meant to find each other again, no matter how that journey looked. No matter how long it took. Nothing else mattered.
Loving Tobias Weaver was the easiest thing I’d ever done. Losing Tobias Weaver was the hardest thing I’d ever gone through. Finding Tobias Weaver was the second-to-last thing I needed in life to feel complete. Taking his last name was the only thing left.