Chapter 36 #2
A soft snick reached his ears, barely audible over his moaning and gasping for air.
A moment later, two fingers covered in lubricant skated up the crack of his ass and over the puckered hole.
One then both entered him, lighting his nerves up from the inside.
His skin was the only thing keeping his body from exploding into a million pieces as Brett fucked and stretched him slowly.
“Faster,” he begged. “Hurry. Please! I need your cock inside me. It’s been too long.”
That was an understatement, but now that his memory had returned, he knew anytime Brett wasn’t inside him was too long.
Releasing Julian’s shaft, Brett rose on his knees, staring down where his fingers still slid in and out of Julian’s hole. Then his gaze lifted to meet Julian’s. “Grab under your knees.”
He did as instructed and pulled them up toward his chest. The new position opened him up more, and Brett added a third finger.
“Oh, god! Please! I’m ready. Please fuck me!”
Brett leaned down and brushed his lips over Julian’s. “With pleasure, love.”
When the fingers left him, he felt empty, but not for long. Brett lined his cock up, and the tip breached Julian’s sphincter with ease. The burn was intense, but not unbearable. In fact, he welcomed it. Needed it.
With several quick thrusts, Brett went deeper until he bottomed out with a strangled groan.
“How could I have forgotten how good it feels to be inside you?” Tears filled his eyes as he leaned forward, setting a hand on either side of Julian’s head, his hips cradled by Julian’s legs. “How could I have forgotten you?”
Reaching up, Julian brushed aside a tear that rolled down his lover’s cheek. “It’s not your fault—I was deceived.” His thumb lingered against Brett’s skin. “But if I had to make that choice again, I would, to save you. I’d do anything for you—you’re the love of my life.”
“And I would do anything for you too.” Brett’s face tightened with emotion. “But a life without you in it is no life at all.”
Julian kissed him again before pulling Brett down until their foreheads rested against each other. “According to Elara, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.” His fingers slipped into Brett’s hair. “We’re here now. That’s what matters.”
A wicked grin spread across his face. “Well, that and the fact that I’m going to go insane if you don’t fuck me damn good and proper.”
The corners of Brett’s mouth ticked up. “I’m not sure about proper, but damn good I can do.”
Thrusting his pelvis, he set a pace that put Julian on a collision course with an orgasm with the strength of a tsunami.
As Brett’s cock slammed into him and nailed his prostate over and over, Julian rose with the swell of the need to come.
He reached down between them and wrapped his hand around his sensitive shaft.
The first touch almost sent him over the edge, but he held on as long as he could, not wanting their lovemaking to end—not yet.
But nature had its own plans, and when he climaxed, he screamed Brett’s name as spurts of cum coated his chest and abdomen.
He clenched around Brett’s cock, and the man’s pace faltered.
With one final plunge, Brett let out a strangled groan as he emptied his seed into Julian’s depths.
His hips and legs twitched as the orgasm lingered.
Moments later, Brett slid from Julian’s body. Gasping, they both struggled to replenish their lungs with oxygen.
Brett rolled to the side, wrapping his arms and legs around Julian, and together, they succumbed to slumber.
When the sun rose the next morning, the couple was spent after making love and rediscovering each other for most of the night. Julian woke with a heavy, vibrating pressure on his chest.
Orion.
“Of course it’s you. And your white mark is on the other ear again. Tell me, does it change whenever you want it to, or does it have something to do with day and night or the moon and tides?”
The cat’s eyes opened into slits as they glared at him before closing again.
Beside Julian, Brett chuckled, his voice rough with sleep. “Did you really expect an answer?”
“Maybe. After the last thirty-six hours, I wouldn’t have found it surprising.
“I would. I think Orion prefers to keep his secrets to himself.”
Julian smiled and let his head sink deeper into the pillow. Morning light spilled through the cottage windows in pale gold bands. The air smelled like salt, cedar, and sex. Brett’s warmth seeped into him beneath the blankets, and Julian’s body ached in the best possible way.
For the first time since waking up on the beach, the hollow panic and uncertainty inside him were gone.
Not every memory had returned. There were still gaps, blurred places in his mind where pieces remained out of reach. But the important things were there now. Brett. Their life together. Their love. The feeling of belonging somewhere instead of drifting untethered through the world.
Orion abruptly stood, kneading sharp paws into Julian’s chest before hopping down from the bed with all the dignity of a king abandoning his subjects.
He watched the cat disappear around the foot of the bed. “I’m pretty sure he’s been judging me this entire time.”
“He judges everyone,” Brett murmured. “You just survived the inspection.”
A quiet laugh escaped Julian as he turned his head on the pillow to look at the love of his life. Mussed auburn hair, sleepy hazel eyes, stubble shadowing his jaw—Brett looked younger like this. Softer. At peace in a way Julian suspected had been missing for a long time.
“You okay?” Brett asked, studying him.
“Yeah.” He reached across the mattress and brushed his fingers along Brett’s jaw. “I think I finally am.”
A slow breath left him, like the words had hit deep, before he caught Julian’s hand and pressed a kiss into his palm. “Good.”
Within minutes, Brett’s eyelids closed again, and sleep reclaimed him.
Julian stayed where he was, watching him. He brushed his fingers through the man’s silky hair, savoring the simple fact that he could. That Brett was there. Alive. Warm beside him instead of lost to memory and time.
Outside, gulls cried overhead while waves rolled onto the shore, the rhythm familiar now instead of lonely. The sound wrapped around Julian like something ancient and welcoming.
His gaze drifted again toward the rolltop desk across from the bed and landed on the brass compass resting on the top shelf beside the lighthouse figurine.
Something inside him tugged hard.
Careful not to wake his lover, Julian slipped from the bed and padded across the room. Picking up the compass, he turned it over and read the inscription he already knew was there.
The tide will whisper you home.
Maybe the tide whispered, but Brett was the reason Julian had listened.