Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Yosh
Iwake to birdsong, a rooster crowing somewhere in the distance, and the powerful rush of the ocean slamming against the rocks.
I’m still getting used to the sounds here. Arcadia wakes softly, all rustling palms and calm water. This side of the island is different— raw and untamed.
Morning has already found its way into the room. Thin strips of gold spill through the shutters, cutting across the floor, the sheets, the chair where Tom dropped half his clothes last night like the unapologetic disaster he is.
I let myself arrive slowly into the morning, letting the sounds and light settle into me. Then the touch registers, and my eyes fly open, my body going rigid.
Tom’s leg is tangled with mine, his hand resting warm and possessive on my stomach.
The sensitive skin beneath my ear is being teased by the warm gush of his breath. Yes, that one spot he’s vampire-level obsessed with.
It has my body giving out and my cock giving in, needy and eager.
I try to call his name, but only a sad squeak escapes.
I shouldn’t let this happen, but I can’t make myself to move his hand. Not now his fingers are tracing idly shapes just below my navel, drawing each of them slow enough that my lungs keep stuttering.
I thread my fingers through his to hold him in place, just below my ribs.
We trade small clumsy strokes with our thumbs.
His finger glides over the crease of my knuckle, I drag mine back the other way, accepting whatever invitation this is. And with it, I let him take the lead.
It feels natural, like an intimate Sunday morning ritual we’ve been doing for ages.
We've hit a point of no return, but I want it. I want it more than anything. He makes me feel things I thought I’d lost for good. I close my eyes and let myself feel everything.
The soft kisses on my seventh cervical vertebra, the tightening of his arm against my chest as he presses his hard pulsing cock against my tailbone.
A soundless gasp rips out of me.
He’s got me like a violin in his hands. Fingers skating over my abs, pressing into my hip, dragging torturously slow down the dark trail below my navel until I’m biting back sounds I don’t want him to hear.
He lifts the elastic of my waistband, smoothly sliding his hand inside.
Fingers find the tip of my cock, smearing, circling through precum, sliding down to take me in his grip.
My hips jerk, my breaths turning shallow and uneven. My head tips back against his shoulder, and he rewards me with more kisses, delicate little flicks of his tongue behind my ear. Soft bites. Gentle suction around my helix piercing.
My whole body catches fire. I grow hard in his hand, trapped in my boxers, tortured by the thin stretch of fabric straining against me.
I shove the fabric down just enough to ease the tightness, my cock still in his hand.
I rock back to grind against his hardness, a bolt move to see how he will react. He moves with me, pressing into the curve of my ass. A slow push and give.
Mutual pressure and release. Found rhythm. His heavy breathing turning into a series of feral grunts.
God, I can’t. I just can’t. I feel myself thicken and quiver in his grip, my orgasm rising.
“Tom…” My voice breaks in a strangled moan of his name and I come hard.
I come so fucking hard. Over his hand, in the sheets. A spurt even makes it to my braid.
In the endless seconds that follow, he keeps draining me, kissing my jawline, grinding against my entrance, praising me softly by telling me I’m doing so good for him. Then the whispering stops and the rambling begins.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He reaches over me, grabbing for the tissue box on the nightstand.
I turn. He gasps softly and whines on the exhale, coming into the crumpled pieces of paper, eyes closed, face scrunched tight.
My jaw drops as I watch him finish in his own hand. Not on me, not in the sheets, not even holding it back—If that was an option—so I could return the favor.
In zombie mode, I offer a couple more tissues.
“Funny, you don’t just handing out tissues in your office,” he says, first proper sentence this morning.
I’m left staring at him. I simply have no words at this point.
A thousand thoughts are racing through my head, and none of them are confident, nor reassuring.
He wipes the last traces from his hand, tosses the tissues aside, and drops back onto the mattress with a content grin.
What the fuck have I done? Is this some twisted power play? Did I just fall into his trap? For him to break me and prove he’s the one in control and always has been? I feel so naive.
“Don’t do that,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Overthink. Did it feel good?”
I stay quiet because I’m not sure what he will do with my answer.
“Word of advice? Don’t question the things that feel good. La dolce vita. La vie en rose. What do they say here in the Caribbean?” He gestures vaguely still catching his breath, then turns, crawling over.
“Yosh, relax that beautiful brain of yours.” He caresses my temple with the back of his fingers, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I understand how delicate this is. We’re good. No situation. I promise.”
He called my brain beautiful.
I cough as I compose myself. That sounded very collected, mature even, if you ignore the circumstances. It surprises me, and it does hush the panic riding a derby in my mind. But one question claws at me, and I need clarity.
“Tom, are you bisexual?”
I lift my gaze to find him softly snoring in a starfish position.
“Great. You’re that kind of guy,” I mumble.
At least he’s getting some sleep. I know he’s had a few rough nights. This buys me some me-time to gather my thoughts.
I can’t believe he felt easy enough to fall back asleep. It seems I’m more confused than he is. He spoke as though he was making art, getting high on what he’d just created. But that’s not what that was to me. Or maybe it was and I can’t see?
No. The real question is what it means to him, and what it means to me.
I stand up, watching the rise and fall of his chest. His limbs are everywhere, totally at ease in my bed. Typical.
Maybe that’s what I like about him. Tom McKenna is so unapologetically himself. He’s such a wild thing with all the right words ready to spit out. Yet when he’s with me, he finds his peace and allows himself to let his guard down.
His curls have fallen over his eyes, hiding half his face. I reach down and carefully push them back to have a better look at him.
His frame is slim, the outlines of his ribs visible, with a patch of golden hair on his chest.
I picture myself buried in his neck, my fingers brushing through it, following that heavenly trail of fuzz until my hand disappears under the sheets.
Those damn white sheets. Wrapped low on his hips like he belongs on one of those Vatican renaissance ceilings.
Messy curls on my pillow, thousands of freckles beneath his eyes. It hurts how handsome he is. And he’s in my bed. My bed. Hah! Not someone else’s.
The tattoo on his ribs, however, is still a mystery to me.
That mystical wolf inside the hollow of a half moon.
I remember he’d told me about it. Half Moon Wolves, the name of his old band.
I wonder what it means to him now. What it means to them, because I know Calvin has the exact same one on his nape.
I wonder if it’s a halcyon memory of their golden days touring and climbing charts. Or perhaps something else. A scar?
There’s still so much I don’t know about his world.
I grab a tank top and my running shorts from the closet.
The bedroom floor is cold under my feet. It fades as I step into the kitchen.
The fridge offers nothing but cold water, so I pour a glass and head outside.
I sit down and take a sip from my glass, closing my eyes and letting the cold water refresh my mouth. Time to breathe.
A deep first inhale. Hold.
I’m grateful. The sun warms my skin every morning. The sea offers me a peaceful white noise. This garden, with my name on the deed, feels like a safe cocoon.
It’s everything I’d dreamed of when I was at my lowest.
So I won’t push my luck with Tom. This is already more than I deserve.
But fuck, I hate that the way he held me in his arms had felt so good.
Is it wrong to want more? Am I allowed to be selfish? No, I’m not.
It reminds me of what I told Tom a couple of days ago, when he’d asked what I would say to my younger self. I remember exactly what I answered. That it would be okay to want something for yourself.
Seven seconds to exhale. Push your lungs empty. Another inhale.
God. When I finally want something for myself, it has to be him.
And beneath that want is the same voice that tells me I don’t deserve any of it. Not Tom, not the peace of my garden, not even the air I’m holding in my lungs.
I survived when I shouldn’t have.
A tear slides down my cheek, followed by a quiet sob. I swallow the next ones down.
I wipe my face and look around. The world seems to freeze. Birds are flying in slow motion, the sounds of dawn vanishing around me. Even the palm trees have stopped swaying.
I can’t go back there.
This has to stop.
I’m done. I’m so fucking done with myself.
There’s this insanely hot pain in the ass in my bed, making it very clear he wants me.
The only thing I don’t know is how he wants me, if he’s playing, if it’s more.
But I want him to want me, in any way he can.
I get up and head for the storage room.
Trainers on. Laces tight. The road offers peace. That’s why I run until my lungs burn and my brain shuts the hell up.
I will take the shoreline into town and pick up some breakfast for sleeping cutie. Food always wins hearts.