13. Cole
THIRTEEN
Cole
We don’t talk as we climb the stairs to our loft. We don’t need to. We read each other’s thoughts. Everything that went wrong fades away. It’ll come back. That kind of loss will never fade. But for now, it’s just us.
Three steps up, Morgan pins me against the wall with my hands over my head, and rubs his cock in slow, aching circles while he inhales my scent from my pits, shameless, insatiable, totally fucking feral. Goosebumps light up across my skin, then his lips are on me again.
“Need you now.” His voice rumbles in his chest as he drags me up the stairs.
When we reach our door, he crowds me from behind, and pulls my keys from my pocket, then thrusts the key into the lock.
The door pops open, and I fall forward, arms windmilling, but Morgan is there to catch me.
Just like he’s always been there to save me, even from myself, to save me when I drown in grief and regret, when I want to drown in him.
“I’ve got you.” He twirls me to face him, then grabs my ass and hoists me up against him.
I loop my arms around his neck and tighten my legs around his waist, kissing him as he carries me over the threshold like it’s our wedding night. No. No wedding memories. This is just sex. Goodbye sex.
I can’t let this happen again. I should have let him go, but I couldn’t.
I’ll be stronger next time. The minute he claimed me with that ‘You’re my husband.
You don’t fuck anyone else’ line, I was powerless.
But it wasn’t the promise of sex that compelled me to claim him too; it was the threat of losing him for good.
Morgan kicks the door shut behind us, and I take over, sliding his jacket off his shoulders, peeling his shirt and hoodie up and over his head. “I missed touching you.”
His eyes glimmer with unshed tears. “I missed you so fucking much.”
God, I’m such a selfish asshole to deprive him for so long.
I rove my hands through his chest hair, then down his abs on my way to free the top button of his pants.
Kissing his neck, I wrench the zipper down, trying to break it so I can loan him a pair of my pants, and keep his to savor his scent any time I want.
I shove my hand inside his boxer briefs and wrap my hand around the only other cock I’ve known aside from my own.
“Oh my god,” Morgan groans, head tipping back.
I swear I can feel his cock throbbing against my palm. I can’t wait to feel him inside me. It’s probably going to hurt, but it will be worth it. I want the memory of his touch to haunt me for days.
Stroking him slowly, I hover my lips over his nipple and blow, then pull back to watch it harden, before sucking it into my mouth. Morgan has the sexiest pecs, all tight and plump with muscle. He doesn’t even have to work that hard in the gym. He’s just gifted.
He sucks in a stilted breath and wets his bottom lip as I milk pre-cum from his tip and sip it from my fingers. One taste isn’t enough to sate me.
“Fuck, I’m famished for you.” I sink to my knees, dragging his pants and boxer briefs down only enough to take him out, and look up with contrition. “Can I?”
He strokes my hair, then nods.
An exhale escapes my tight chest. I didn’t realize how heavily the threat of his rejection weighed on me until it lifted. Is this what I’ve been putting him through? I’ll show him the truth then, show him I never stopped wanting him.
I nuzzle my way up his jeans, wishing I’d taken the time to strip him after all, but too impatient to stop. My mouth waters as I kiss and lick his balls, hanging heavy like he saved a big load for me, then swirl my tongue around his tip and swallow him down.
Morgan’s eyes slam shut, face anguished with lust. I take nothing for granted, memorizing every sensation, filling in the details I forgot—the velvety vein traversing his length, the perfect fit of his tip notched in my throat, the sexy soundtrack of sighs and soft moans.
“That feels amazing.” His hand falls to my head. “But you’re wearing too many clothes for what I want to do to you.”
My muscles tense and pain seeps back in. This is the first time my husband is going to see all of me since we separated. He liked what he saw at Seb’s, but what if I disappoint him? What if I can’t take him? By the time he undresses me completely, I’m trembling.
“Fuck me. You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he says.
Heat floods my face. I exhale a quivering breath.
Morgan cups my cheek. “Nervous?”
I nod.
“Don’t be. You’re perfect.”
I resist the urge to argue.
“Perfect,” he repeats, holding my gaze.
He roams his hands down my sides, igniting goosebumps in his wake, then palms my ass and wraps a hand around my cock. I rise onto the balls of my feet, nearly levitating with ecstasy before returning to earth.
Morgan freezes. “What the fuck?”
“Huh?” I follow his gaze to the row of boxes stacked against the wall. Shit.
Eleven boxes. That’s all it took to erase the evidence of our marriage. Packing each one was like cutting my heart out with a rusty bait knife.
He swivels slowly, scanning the loft for any trace I left behind. He won’t find anything. I packed all but a few hoodies and sweatpants tucked away in a drawer for when my yearning is too painful.
He pulls his pants up, and walks to the row of boxes.
“Outerwear,” he reads off a box I labeled with a ballpoint pen because I was in too much pain after packing to find a permanent marker. “Welding equipment. Miscellaneous tools. Shoes.” He shakes his head, reading each one until he stops at the one labeled Us.
“Us,” he whispers, then looks to me and asks, “Us?”
Two letters, a single word, a bomb dropped.
“Morgan, I’m sorry.”
“Quiet.” He slides his fingers under the top flap of the box and huffs in irritation.
I always use too much tape. He used to tease me about it. Finally, he rips the cardboard edges apart with brute force, tearing a gash down one corner. The cufflinks we wore on our wedding day tumble out, jingling as they skitter across the floor and disappear under the bed.
“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, and peers inside at our relationship archives.
I don’t need to look. I remember every love letter, photograph, and memento.
Morgan’s thick lashes shadow his gaze as he picks up the framed photo from our wedding day.
Seb married us with an officiant certificate he got off the internet.
We invited a handful of loved ones and friends to a small ceremony on Briar’s bow.
Morgan and I wore matching seafoam tuxes hand-embroidered with buttercups and forget-me-nots, backlit by the golden hour of a late summer sunset, Puget Sound unfurling before us, promising fair seas and safe voyage.
He tosses the frame back in, and pulls out another from that day. This one’s my favorite. I cajoled Morgan into wearing brand-new yellow bibs over navy striped sweaters with the forget-me-not boutonnieres from our tuxes pinned to our straps.
To quote Lawrence, we looked gay as hell.
In the picture, Morgan grips the straps of my bib, tugging me toward him and into a candid kiss against the rail. My lips are curved into a smile. I don’t even remember smiling. It just happened automatically. He places the frame photo side down on the box beside it.
“I didn’t want to hurt you. It hurt to look at anything that reminded me of you.”
He shakes his head, drags his palm over his stubble and looks up at the ceiling before leveling hardened eyes on me.
“You’ve done a lot of fucked up shit. Kicking me out without warning, not giving a shit where I ended up, knowing what you know, knowing how I wound up in Dan’s house.
You did exactly what my uncle did to me.
No. What you did was worse. You’re my husband.
You chose me. My parents and my uncle never wanted me, but you did.
You chose me and then you abandoned me.”
His devastation wrecks me. I want to go to him, but I’m frozen.
A sob escapes him. He rakes his hands through his hair. “Without you, I’m rudderless. The only thing keeping me going was the hope that maybe one day you’d let me come home, but you’d already packed my boxes.” His voice raises. “You packed away us!”
I jump. A lightning bolt of pain arcs down my spine. He’s never shouted at me. Not like this. Not unless we’re on the Bering Sea.
He inhales slowly, reining in his anger. “Even social services let me take a few photos, the stuffed fox I still slept with at ten years old because it was my only constant, the only way I could sleep in all the unfamiliar places my parents stayed at. I assume it’s in one of those boxes there?”
I nod. It’s tucked inside the box labeled Fragile/Priceless.
“You became that fox. You were my home. You kept me safe while I slept, then you kicked me out, and changed the fucking locks.”
He steps forward, crowding me until our chests touch.
“What are you doing?”
He cocks his head to the side. “Not sure yet.” His eyes turn predatory, hungry for revenge as he herds me toward the bed.
My pulse gallops ahead, recognizing on some primordial level that I’ve become prey.
I’m terrified, but not of him. He won’t hurt me.
I’m afraid that I’ve hurt him in ways that will never heal.
I’m afraid that he’ll leave. I’m even more afraid that he’ll stay, and I’ll slice his wounds deeper, infect him with my selfish regret, and make him as miserable as I am. I’m afraid I already have.
“Maybe I’ll edge you until you’re begging me to take you, and leave you like that. Unsatisfied and desperate. Powerless. Exactly the way you left me when you abandoned me.”
I inhale sharply, cock taking notice. I can’t help it.
He smiles, sinister and lascivious. “Or maybe I’ll fuck you the way only I can, fill you up and plug my cum inside you so you can savor it because it’s the last time you’ll ever have me, because you’re too stubborn to come back to me.
” He lowers his lips to my ear. “Is that what you want, Sunshine?”
“No.”
“I thought so.”