Chapter 13 #2
“Yeah. So…your personality has to be like that, doesn’t it?
Most people find me…off-putting.” That was probably the nicest insult people had used to describe me.
“They don’t like me. Someone once told me they didn’t know why, but that I got under their skin and they wanted to punch me in the mouth every time I spoke. ”
“What the fuck? Who was it?”
“No one important.”
Quinn growled. He actually growled. “I want a name, Ferris. That is fucking bullshit.”
I couldn’t stop my smile as I leaned over and squeezed his wrist. “He was some guy from high school. I don’t even remember his name.
I’m just saying that…that I thought everyone would feel the way he did about me because a lot of kids back then shared his opinion.
Only I went to college, and my housemates kind of liked me.
And some of them are my real friends. Then some NHL recruiters liked me. And…and you like me.”
“I am fucking obsessed with you,” he said fiercely.
My chest went warm. “My mom used to tell me it was because people were jealous of me. I always knew that was bullshit. People just preferred what they preferred. They weren’t used to people blurting out whatever was on their mind, and I made them uncomfortable when I did that.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Quinn answered. The car slowed down, and he took a turn into a nice neighborhood with very old-looking brownstones. They looked expensive. Maybe not quite as nice as Beacon Hill, but close.
He pulled into a parking spot in front of a stoop with several steps, and I felt a twinge in my gut.
“You live there?”
He pointed to the one with the forest-green door to the left of the one I was staring at. That one only had two steps. “That’s me.”
I could manage two stairs. I could even manage six with help, but I wasn’t going to put my weight on him, considering his own leg.
When Quinn turned his car off, I opened the door and swung my legs out, grabbing my crutches from the back seat and nearly braining him as I pulled them across. He let out a little chuckle as he helped me get everything out, and before I could stand up all the way, he was there.
In front of me.
Like a ballast.
“Hello,” he said softly when I stepped up onto the curb. His hands reached out and touched my waist, and there was something about the way he didn’t look around to see who was watching that made me feel…
Hell, there wasn’t a word for it. Accepted was the closest thing I could think of. He wasn’t ashamed to be out here with me. Touching me. Leaning in.
Kissing me.
His lips were soft as they grazed mine, and he hummed against my skin as he smudged his mouth over the line of my jaw.
“Are you ready to come inside?” he asked.
I couldn’t speak, so instead, I curled one hand around his wrist, held tightly, then nodded. The way he smiled again, the way he stepped back but didn’t break my grip on him, told me that was answer enough.
His couch was comfortable. Not as comfortable as the one I never sat on in the frat house—but that one had been used by decades of students who came before me. The one at the apartment my mom was renting was stiff and smelled like that starch stuff that comes out of a can.
This…this was different. It wasn’t new. It had Quinn’s scent all over it and a spot that seemed to mold to him perfectly.
And he had a cat. I hadn’t realized it. I hadn’t given too much thought about Quinn living his life once he left me at my doorstep.
But he did. He had a fish too. He had photos of people on his walls and three hockey pucks on his mantle with masking tape on the side—one for his first-ever goal, one for his first-ever hat trick, and the one from the final game he played before his accident.
He had his Sharks jersey framed on the wall in the entryway, and there was a closet door cracked open, and I saw skates and an old, battered hockey stick.
Quinn existed outside of my own mind, and something about that tipped me sideways. I was still struggling to put everything right when he brought me a glass of water, then sat so close to me our thighs were touching.
“You look nervous,” he said after a silence that had definitely become awkward.
I cleared my throat. “You…live here.”
Before he answered, the cat jumped up onto the sofa beside him and pressed against his leg. I thought maybe it was a good time to pet her, but he didn’t move his hands from his lap. “I do live here. I bought this house.”
“Are you going to pet your cat?”
“She’s not fond of being touched.”
“Hard relate,” I murmured.
He snorted and reached out, dragging two fingers firmly down the side of my neck. It sent shivers down my spine, and my soft dick felt a little plump when he pulled away. “I disagree. You like to be touched so long as someone knows how to do it the right way.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “How do you know?”
“You’re an easy study, sweetheart. If people don’t know, it’s because they’re too lazy or too narcissistic to pay attention. Does it bother you that I figured you out?”
“No. Yes.” I took a beat. “No. But I’m not used to being so…seen. It makes me feel a little weird.”
“Bad weird?”
I couldn’t really answer that. So I didn’t.
He took that in stride. He didn’t repeat himself. He just inched his hand closer again. “May I?”
I turned my palm up, and he pressed his down over it. His hands were softer than they had been when we first met. Maybe he’d gotten a manicure. I ran my thumb over his blunt nails. His touch was so familiar now. The sex, the shower, the two appointments—it shouldn’t have been enough, but it was.
“Do you want me?” I asked him.
He made a soft choking sound. “Yes, Ferris. I want you more than I’m comfortable saying out loud.”
That might have sounded like a threat. Or something dangerous, maybe. If it had been anyone else, I probably would have grabbed my crutches and attempted to run out on him. But I understood the words he wasn’t saying. The emotions he was feeling that didn’t really have form or definition.
What I felt for him was so much. It was bigger than me, and it felt like my chest was struggling to contain it.
“I want to make out now,” I blurted.
He made a startled noise, but before I could apologize—and really, I probably would have—he twisted his body and took me by the sides of my neck.
His touch was perfect—grounding without feeling like he was choking me.
His thumbs stroked upward, tracing my jawline, and his eyes were roaming over me like he was kissing me with his gaze first.
“How far can I go?”
I frowned.
“I want you, sweetheart. I want all of you. How far would you like to go today?”
“Oh.” I hadn’t really thought that far. “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to get hard since I got hurt.”
“If you don’t—”
“I want you to make me orgasm,” I told him plainly. “I think I’d like if you sucked my dick.”
Air rushed from his lungs, past his parted lips, and then he nodded. I stole a glance at his eyes and saw his pupils were all wide again, like they had been that first time. I wondered if mine were like that too.
Maybe I could find out one day if he fucked me in front of a mirror. The thought was instantly erotic. I could picture it almost perfectly—him behind me, my legs spread and bent, holding my weight as he took me from behind.
I’d be able to see what he did to me. I’d be able to read it on my face and watch it in my body as I took him deeper—all the way in. I’d be able to see what it looked like when he made me come.
“Kiss me,” I begged.
He didn’t wait for me to ask twice. He gripped me tighter than before and immediately devoured my mouth.
The kiss felt like coming home. It felt like being lit on fire from the inside, but not hot enough to burn.
His tongue tasted a little bit like our dinner—sort of spiced and rich.
It was warm and it was wet and he pushed it inside my mouth, almost like he was mimicking the way he’d once fucked me in the ass.
My dick was hard now—not all the way, but close.
Taking Quinn’s hand, I pressed it over my crotch, and he groaned before breaking away and gasping against my shoulder. “You want me to suck you off now?”
I nodded frantically. I hadn’t felt like this since the night I was with him, and I was pent-up. It had been too long, and I wasn’t going to last. “I…I might…” I took a beat. I needed him to know.
“It’s okay,” he said softly as he urged me to stand up. “Can you do it like this? Can you hold yourself up?”
“Wait,” I said. “W-wait. Wait.”
He paused, his entire body almost frozen midway through reaching for me.
“I’m going to come.”
He blinked up at me. “Right now?”
“No. But…your mouth,” I said. Fuck, why couldn’t I just say what I meant in these situations. I licked my lips. “It’ll be a lot.”
“Oh.” His gaze met mine, and he reached for the waistband of my sweats. “That’s alright. I don’t want you standing for too long anyway.” He stretched his leg under the coffee table as he moved himself to the very edge of the cushion.
His powerful, incredible hands had my sweats pulled to my knees with a single tug, and then those hands were on me. The barely there calluses were rough against my dick as he gave me a single stroke, then looked up into my face as he parted his lips and fitted them around me.
“Shit,” I gasped. My hands flew to his shoulders to brace myself, and he hummed, nodding as he sucked me in a little deeper. And then a little more.
My vision started to white out almost immediately, the room a sort of greyish blur.
I needed something to focus on, so I lost myself in the way his shirt was soft under my palms and the way his hair was long enough to touch the back of my hand.
Then he curled his tongue and sucked hard, and I was lost.
I didn’t realize I was falling forward until he caught me, my dick hitting the back of his throat as it pulsed and spilled. I could feel him swallowing hard as his arms cinched around my waist, and for that moment, there was no pain.
There was nothing except him and wild ecstasy I didn’t know was possible to feel.
A short forever later, I blinked down at him.
He had pulled off me and tucked me back into my sweats before I was aware of anything happening.
There was a dazed look on his face—his eyes sort of feverish and red.
When he noticed I was staring, he lifted my shirt and pressed a warm kiss to my lower stomach.
“Do you…should I—?” Those were the only four words I could manage right then, and all I could hope was that he understood what I was asking.
“No. Sweetheart, that was all for you. You’re so gorgeous when you let go.” He kissed my stomach again, then let my shirt fall down and used his powerful hands to turn me and ease me back down to the couch beside him.
I fell against him, easy, like I had always belonged there. For the first time in so long, after being so stimulated, I didn’t need space. I just needed the weight of his body against mine and the way he was still while my hands were restless.
He didn’t move as my fingertips danced across his chest, and when I looked up, he was smiling.
“I’m okay here?”
He met my gaze, and his mouth lifted higher into a grin. “You’re perfect.”