Chapter 11 #2
The water is cold when I wade in waist-deep.
I cup handfuls of it and splash it over my face.
His taste won’t leave. The memory won’t fade either.
I scrub at my mouth and jaw, trying to wash them away.
I can still feel myself shamefully hard inside my breeches.
My cock hasn’t calmed despite the frigid water.
Fucking deflate, I tell it.
It’s refusing to listen to reason or cold or anything else.
Well, shit. I breathe out slowly through my teeth.
I don’t look back toward the bank because I already know what I’d see. Garrett will still be standing against that rock with his breeches barely pulled up and his hand braced on the stone. If I turn now and see the expression on his face I won’t be able to keep doing this.
So I don’t turn.
I stand in the water until my legs ache from the cold, counting to a hundred and then starting over again.
Eventually, mercifully, my body begins to listen to reason and the shameful hardness starts to fade.
I wade out and pull my breeches back up properly, lacing them with fingers that have gone clumsy from the cold. One more handful of water splashed over my face then I straighten and turn toward the bank.
Garrett is in the river now, waist-deep in the water and washing himself in silence. He doesn’t look at me and I don’t look at him. I walk past him without stopping or slowing, keeping my eyes fixed on the game trail up the slope.
“Do you want a hand with that?” he offers, feigning concern.
This sick fucking bastard.
He knew I was hard and perhaps still am. My foot finds the first root of the trail. Behind me, I hear him move. Water sloshing, footsteps hitting the bank. I quicken my pace.
Ridiculous. I’m a fucking assassin and he’s making me feel like prey.
I start running.
The trail blurs past me, roots and rocks I should be navigating with ease. But I can hear him behind me, gaining.
My lungs pull in sharp cold air. Tree trunks blur past while the forest narrows around the trail. I know this terrain but panic makes me clumsy.
“Wolf.”
I ignore him and push harder. He is getting closer now. His breathing ghosts at my back close enough to raise the hair on my neck. I don’t make it ten more steps.
Something slams into me from behind.
My back hits a tree hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Garrett’s body pins me there, his weight pressing me against the rough bark. One hand braced beside my head, the other gripping my hip.
I throw the entirety of my weight against him. He doesn’t move. We’re pressed so tight that I don’t know the frantic beating in my ears is my own heartbeat or his. His face is inches from mine, eyes burning with something fierce and hungry.
“As I recall,” he says, pausing and taking a breath. “I made you come twice. You still owe me one.”
His voice is rough, wrecked from what I just did to him.
I try to push him away. My hands flat against his chest, shoving hard. He doesn’t budge.
“I told you I’m not into guys,” I say it again.
He laughs, breathless and bitter. “Sure, Wolf. You’re not into guys. You just like to suck their cock.”
I shove harder. “Fuck you.”
“That’s exactly where this is going.” His hand slides down from my hip, finds the laces of my breeches. “We’re perfect for each other, you know that?”
“No we’re not—”
His mouth cuts me off, hot and demanding against my throat. Not a kiss, but teeth. Biting down on the nape of my neck hard enough to make me gasp.
“Stop lying to yourself,” he mutters against my skin. His fingers are working my laces loose now. “Stop lying to me.”
He trails a path from my collarbone down to my chest, nibbling and sucking along the way. A delicious tingle spreads down my spine and my eyelids are growing heavy. His mouth finds my nipple. I feel his teeth close around it and my hips jerk forward sharply.
“Garrett—”
He flicks his tongue over my sore nipple and I shudder at the sensation.
“We’re the same,” he mutters against my heated skin. “Both pretending to be something we’re not. Both so fucking scared of wanting.”
Another stroke sends my knees buckling. I nearly collapse to the ground. This is too much.
His hand slips inside my loosened breeches. I feel his fingers brush against bare skin, wrapping around my cock.
“Wait, please—”
“Shh…Let me see you.” He pushes the fabric down my hips. I’m completely exposed now, cock hard and leaking in his hand.
Shame burns through me. I’ve never been this vulnerable with anyone.
“Don’t look at me,” I manage.
“Why not?” He strokes me once. “You’re beautiful.”
“I’m not.” I gasp.
“You are.” His thumb swipes over the head, gathering wetness. “Look at how hard you are for me. How perfect.”
I turn my face away, unable to meet his eyes.
His hand tightens on my cock, forcing my attention back. “Wolf. Look at me.”
I don’t want to. But something in his voice makes me obey.
His eyes are dark with want, fixed on where his hand wraps around me. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re beautiful. I want to see every inch of you.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I grit out, trembling against the tree.
“Why would I do that when I have you to fuck?” His grip tightens as he says it.
A branch snaps somewhere in the distance. It’s probably just a deer, but it’s enough to make me tense.
“Someone might see us,” I try to push him away.
Garrett pauses, then chuckles raspy and deep. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that, Wolf?”
“What—”
He gives me another tug and squeeze. It draws the remaining air in my lungs.
“The thought of getting caught really does it for you, doesn’t it?” His voice drops lower, teasing. “You got harder.”
He strokes me once to prove his point. “I felt it. The second you thought about being seen, your cock practically jumped in my hand.”
Heat floods my face. “That’s not… I’m not—”
“Nasty little Wolf.” He smirks and strokes once slowly from root to tip.
A gasp tears from my throat. My head tilts back against the tree. His hand moves again. Once, slowly. Twice, with more pressure.
“Why are you doing this to me?” The question comes out strangled and desperate.
“Isn’t it obvious?” His voice softens slightly. “Because I like you.”
His thumb swipes over the head of my cock, gathering the wetness already leaking there. He uses it to slick his palm, making the next stroke smooth. “I really like you.”
I’m already so hard it hurts. My hands are still on his chest but I’ve stopped pushing. I’m gripping his tunic instead, holding on.
“Stop fighting so much,” he murmurs against my throat.
I want to keep resisting. This is insane. I’m supposed to be protecting him. But then I remember. All those nights lying awake in my room, knowing he was just on the other side of that connecting door. Imagining what it would feel like to cross that threshold. To let him touch me like this.
The mornings watching him train, sweat-slicked and powerful, and having to look away before he caught me staring. Every stolen glance, every accidental touch that feels like a brand. I realize I’ve been wanting this.
I’ve been wanting him.
“Take my cock out, Wolf.” The order comes out dark, patient.
I still for a second.
I’ve pictured this in the dark, in the shower. He’s giving me permission to stop pretending. Finally, I’m allowed to want what I’ve been denying.
I drop my shaky hands from his shirt down to his waist. My fingers fumble with the laces of his breeches.
The knots resist at first but I force myself to focus. They slowly loosen and I pause, hands frozen at his waistband.
“It’s alright,” Garrett says quietly. His free hand comes up to cup my jaw. “You’re doing fine.”
I pull the fabric down. His cock springs free, thick and hard. I swallow hard at the sight of it. I had this in my mouth earlier and took it down my throat. The reality of that hits different now as I’m looking at it, remembering the stretch and the weight.
“Touch me,” Garrett says. Not an order this time. A plea.
My hand moves carefully, fingers wrapping around his length gently.
“Wolf.” His hand tightens on my cock, stroking faster. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
I stroke him once, testing.
His breath catches. But he doesn’t stop working me though or even slow down.
Garrett shifts his grip, angling us together. His hand wraps around both of us at once and everything in my brain whites out.
We’re skin on skin.
His cock is pressed flush against mine with nothing between us.
“You’re leaking for me,” he murmurs it against my throat.
My eyes drop between us. I can’t look away from the sight. His hand wraps around us together, fingers barely meeting around the width. Both of us hard and drenched, sliding against each other. It nearly undoes me.
“Look at us,” Garrett breathes out in wonder and awe. “Look how well we fit.”
No one has ever touched me this way before. The pleasure is so intense it borders on pain. “You made me like this. This is your fault, Garrett.”
My body is all weird because of him.
“I guess it can’t be helped then. I’ll take responsibility for ruining you.” He starts to stroke. Slow at first, then faster. The friction is intense, overwhelming. I can feel every ridge and every vein. He is throbbing against me.
My head falls back against the tree. Pleasure shoots up my spine with each stroke of his hand. I bite my lips to keep myself from moaning like a fucking idiot. But I can’t hold it in.
“Is this better than your fantasies, Wolf?” he asks, breathless now. “Better than what you imagined in that shower?”
Shit, shit. There’s no way he heard what I did in the shower. I want to tell him to shut up and deny everything.
Instead I crash my lips against his. I must be out of my goddamn mind.
His mouth opens in surprise against mine and I take advantage, claiming his mouth roughly. Garrett tastes like fire and damnation. My hand comes up to grip the back of his head, holding him there while I pour everything I can’t say into the kiss.