Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
Nash
This may be a colossally stupid idea, but I’m having a hard time trying to convince myself not to follow through with it.
I pull the white leather bag and rolling case from my trunk as Moose dives out and heads for the front yard. “Come on, Moose,” I tell him, jerking my head toward the door. “Knock knock.”
As ordered, he runs past me like a bullet, headed for the front door.
He smacks his left paw against the bottom of the door twice, then moves into a sitting position with his tail wagging behind him.
It may be one of the more useless tasks that I’ve taught him, but it’s one of my favorites.
He’s always particularly proud of himself afterward, especially when someone actually answers the door.
I follow his path up the walkway, landing next to Moose just as the front door opens. Emmett stands in front of us, dressed in a white hoodie and a pair of dark jeans. His hair is mussed, but still brushed away from his face, and a generous five o’clock shadow dusts his jawline.
“Did you just knock on my door?” Emmett asks the dog with a cackle, crouching down to scratch behind his ears. His eyes scan my luggage, twisting confusion into his features before he meets my gaze. “What’s with the haul?”
“Moose and I decided that you shouldn’t be alone for your first week home.
” Without giving him the chance to protest, I push past him into the house and Moose follows.
The small yellow dog that bit me is dead-to-the-world asleep on the couch in front of the window.
“What a very well-trained guard dog you have.”
“She just spent five days with Zipper and the girls, she’s earned that nap.”
“And how are you?” I wrap my arm around his neck and pull him close to me to press my lips to his.
“Tired of being asked that, really glad to see you, and ready for a real shower,” he answers, ticking each item off on his fingers as he goes down the list.
“Well, the third one is an easy fix,” I tell him. Moving toward his kitchen, I open the cabinet that he keeps his liquor in. “The first one might take some time.”
The cabinet is completely empty – and that sets off alarm bells in my mind.
I move through the other cabinets while he watches with his arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow arched in amusement.
When I’ve finally made it through every nook and cranny of his kitchen, coming up empty, he finally deigns to speak up.
“Dad dumped it all ten minutes ago before he left.” I don’t miss the subtle laughter lacing his words, and I’m so grateful for it. “I’m not a drunk, you know.”
“Maybe not, but you’ve shown everyone what your weapons of choice are, and it’s not as if we can keep you from bathing.” I take the steps necessary to get close to him, cupping his face in my hands as I press my lips to his. Letting out a satisfied sigh, I tell him, “Let’s take that shower.”
I follow as he takes my hand and leads me toward the bathroom, pushing open the door to reveal a brand-new walk-in shower; the deep bathtub that was here before is now a thing of the past.
“Davis had some thoughts on the ‘preventing me from bathing’ thing, too,” he jokes.
For a second – just a microscopic, hardly-noticeable second – I think there’s a chance that the Texan might actually grow on me.
Emmett reaches into the shower to turn on the faucet before peeling off the hoodie that he’s wearing, and I follow suit with my own sweater.
When he turns to face me again, my eyes snap toward a large bruise and a pair of burns that mar the previously-perfect skin of his chest, and it makes my entire body ache to look at them.
His eyes follow mine, trailing back to the blemishes, and he reaches forward to grab onto my belt. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he tells me with a shake of his head as his hands work to slip the leather free.
It hits me all at once how close I came to really losing him.
It was one thing to send him away; to know that he would need time, but after a while, he would be alright without me.
I could see a future for him. I could see him healing, exploring, figuring out who he was without me and without the fear and shame that he felt while we were together.
I saw him freeing himself – whatever that looked like for him, letting our time together serve as a wild memory of a life that he once lived. I could see him being okay.
I never imagined him hanging over the edge of a cliff. I never would have dreamed that he would take a running fucking leap off of it and try to leave the world behind.
I never would have imagined that in ignoring his phone call that day, that I almost missed the last chance that I would ever have to speak to him.
To hear his voice.
To reach out and cherish him the way that he deserves to be cherished, even just for a minute.
My hand grips the back of his neck like a vise as I pull him close to me. Our lips join in a heated kiss that sends need for him screaming through every inch of my body, and my cock swells as his hips press against mine.
“I missed you, but I’m not going to fuck you like I miss you, pretty boy,” I breathe against his lips.
“I’m going to fuck you like I need you.” As we force each others’ pants to the ground, I tell him, “I’m going to fuck you like I crave you.
And I’m not going to stop fucking you until you’re a shaking, blubbering mess. ”
Pulling him into the shower with me, I settle onto the bench protruding from the wall.
I give the Texan my silent thanks as I pull Emmett onto my lap with his chest pressed against mine.
He lets out the most beautiful moan as I press my lips to the skin of his jaw, trailing kisses back toward his earlobe before bringing my mouth to his.
As his tongue slides into my mouth, his cock twitches against my skin. I nibble at his earlobe as I tell him, “Give me your ass, pretty boy.”
He stares at me for a moment, something written on his face that he won’t share with me. He’s hiding something, and I can both see it behind his honeyed eyes and feel it in the shift of his body. I had hoped he would be finished holding things back from me, but it’s clear that he isn’t.
I won’t let him hide any parts of himself from me anymore.
Balling a fist in his hair, I yank his head back and force him to stare into my eyes, if he’s going to insist on staring. “No secrets.”
“I love you.” My heart races as his hand wraps itself around my cock while he confesses. “I’m obnoxiously, embarrassingly in love with you.”
“Good,” I tell him as I drive myself into his grip, “because I’m desperately in love with you.”
My lips crash into his and my tongue slips into his mouth, tangling with his own.
My hand takes his cock, giving him slow, firm strokes, and a loud moan forces him away from me, his eyes closing and his mouth falling open.
He leans backward under the stream of water, which drenches him, and I’m stuck in disbelief as I soak him in.
He is divine, wounds and all.
“Stand up,” I order him.
When he complies, I waste no time in slamming his chest against the wall of the shower, forcing a grunt from him in response. I push his arms above his head, holding them in place against the shower wall before I push my cock inside of him.
“Fuck, Nash,” he whines. “Christ.”
I trail along the curve of his shoulder, working my way toward the base of his ticklish neck, pressing my lips to his skin between my words.
“Every part of you is mine…do you understand me?”
His breath heaves as I pound into him. “Yes.”
“I’m not finished.” My hand moves to grip his jaw, forcing him to look over his shoulder as I meet him in a kiss.
“Every part. The good parts,” I kiss him.
“The parts that make you avoid looking in the mirror.” My tongue slips into his mouth as I kiss him again.
“Every piece of your darkness and all of your light. It’s all mine.
” I press my lips to the shell of his ear, growling as I order him, “Now say it.”
“I am yours,” he breathes. “But you’re mine, too.”
I press the head of my cock against the sweet spot inside of him as he whimpers. “How many other men did you fuck?”
“One.” A smirk crosses his features, mischief lighting up behind his eyes before his lips meet mine. “And it was good. Took my cock like a champ.”
He wants to make me jealous. He wants me to think about another man touching him, taking what’s mine; making those desperate moans claw their way from his throat while he tries so hard not to come.
And I give him exactly what he wants.
I press his cheek into the shower wall as I pull out and push back in, pounding into him and forcing him to shudder and cry out against my movements.
“Don’t even think about coming,” I order as his body tenses and strained whimpers force their way from his mouth. His mouth drops open as I drive into him hard to emphasize my every word. “I’m—” thrust. “Not—” thrust. “Finished with—” thrust. “You—” thrust. “Yet.”
I just got you back. Let me stay here a while longer. Let me cherish this.
He’s barely able to speak as he forces out, “Prick.”
“Do I need to shut you up again?” I growl against his ear.
I don’t offer him the chance to answer me before hooking an arm under his knee and forcing his leg up to let me push deeper inside of him. A strain of garbled syllables leave his lips as his fingers press against the tiled wall, clawing at it until the pads of them turn white.
“Shit,” he whines, “I’m gonna—”
“No you’re not. Not yet.” I press a kiss to his temple as I slam my hips into him. “I haven’t fucked you in three months, and you owe me.”
“I owe—”
The attitude behind his voice quickly dissolves into incoherent whimpers as I reach for his swollen cock with my free hand, the occasional desperate ‘yes’ slipping past his lips.
“You like it when I fuck you like a whore, don’t you, pretty boy?” I ask him with a gentle kiss to his temple. “Were you this loud when you fucked another man?”
“No,” he admits, his voice tight and strained. As his body tenses and shudders, he pleads with me. “Nash, pleasepleasepleaseplease, oh my— fuck.”
The gasping breaths that signify the battle between him and his orgasm make my own scratch at the surface of my nerves, making my balls tighten and my spine tense.
I pump my hand harder as he begs for mercy and I can feel his entire body struggling to hold on.
It isn’t until he dissolves into a series of unintelligible moans and his body shakes against mine that I feel my own orgasm cresting and I finally tell him the words he’s been desperate to hear:
“Come for me, Emmett.”
The strangled sound that he makes while his cock twitches, spilling cum onto my hand, is like music to my fucking ears.
I grunt my own release into his ear as I fill him up, offering him gentle strokes through both of our comedowns.
Still inside of him, I rest my chin on his shoulder and press my lips to the sensitive spot on his neck that makes him let out that giggle that I love so much.
Ten minutes later, I’m standing in the bathroom doorway, watching as Emmett shaves the five o’clock shadow from his face. I’ll miss it; it suits him. Though, to be fair, the man could shave hearts and stripes into his facial hair or dye his skin turquoise and I would still feel that it suited him.
“Are you really gonna stay here all week?” He asks, glancing at me in the mirror.
“Yes.” I pull a drink from the glass of water in my hand. “My staff will handle my house.”
A coy smile crosses his features as he reaches forward to rinse his razor under the stream of the faucet.
I watch as he taps off the excess water against the edge of the sink and brings the razor to his skin again, angling his jaw as he pulls the blades through the foam coating his skin.
Could he do this without my company? Sure, of course he could, he’s a grown man.
However, I have no intention of letting him out of my sight until I’m certain that he’s not going anywhere.
I don’t think that I’ve ever felt fear quite like I did when I left my house that night.
I’ve never felt grief like I did when I saw Emmett lying in the street, knocking on Death’s door and begging to be let in.
I’ve also never felt relief like I did when God answered my prayer; and I won’t take that for granted.
He kept my pretty boy like I asked Him to when I couldn’t, and I’m grateful for that, but I’ve got it from here.
“My dad wants to talk to you,” Emmett tells me.
“I’m sure that he does.” I step forward, placing my hands on his hips and my chin on his shoulder. “Tell him to meet me at Envy tomorrow night at ten o’clock.”
I wait while he finishes shaving, and I watch as he pulls a bottle of antidepressants from his medicine cabinet.
He drops one of the pills into his mouth and uses my water to wash it down.
I didn’t realize that I could feel proud of someone for doing something as simple as swallowing a pill, but I suppose that it isn’t that simple for him, is it?
As I follow him into his bedroom, my eyes fall on the small stack of envelopes sitting on his desk. A couple of them have fallen out of place, but paired with the eerie neatness of the rest of the space, the disorganization of them looks almost purposeful.
“What are these?” I ask as I pick up the stack.
“Don’t.”
Dad. Rowan. Anna. Logan. Mariah. Nash. Macie. Sarah.
Each envelope is addressed to people whom he has either loved or been hurt by in his life; in my case, I suppose that it’s a little bit of both.
“Are these suicide notes?”
“They’re letters that no one needs to read,” he says as he reaches to take them from my hands.
“Where’s the Texan’s?”
“He took it when he came to do the shower,” he answers, “and he already called to chew me out for it.”
I move quickly to snatch the envelopes from his hand again, turning my body away from his to block him from taking them back. I leave the rest of them alone, but I pull the one addressed to me from the pile before turning around, smacking the others against his chest and tearing open the envelope.
“Nash,” he warns, “do you really wanna fight while we’re still making up?”
As I pull out the carefully-folded four page letter, I answer him honestly. “No. I want to know what you needed to tell me when your world was ending.”
“Fine,” he sighs, no longer holding eye contact with me. “But I can’t be in here while you read it.”
As he exits the room, he pulls the door nearly closed behind him, resting the latch against the door jamb. Inhaling a heavy breath, I take a seat on the foot of his bed and unfold the pages of the letter, carefully reading every word that he has to say.