Chapter 20 – Seth
What the fuck are my tired eyes seeing on Brianna’s TV right now?
There’s a man. A big-ass man with thick black hair covering his chest. He looks like he’s in his mid-forties to early fifties and he’s hovering over a naked woman with light brown hair.
Her back is arched off the bed and she’s moaning like her life depends on it.
Meanwhile this guy’s shoving a massive purple dildo inside of her like he’s searching for something.
I blink, trying to make sense of what’s happening here.
Bri. In the corner. Cheek’s beet red. Air blowing directly in her face from the vents. Lips parted in shock.
The guy. The naked woman. The purple dildo. The moaning.
Maybe I’m hallucinating from exhaustion, but then I look back at Bri and I see a bead of sweat forming on her forehead as she aggressively punches every button on her phone like that can somehow change the view. The low-budget porn is still playing on the hotel TV screen.
I glance back at it just in time to see the guy turn to give the woman a break. He tosses the dildo across the room like it’s a boomerang. And for a second, I panic because if that thing does come swinging back, we’re about to witness a literal crime scene.
“How much more can you take?” he says in an accent that’s obviously Australian.
“I can take a lot more. Give me your dick,” the woman responds.
Before I can blink, the older gentleman pushes down his gray boxers and holy fuck.
Horse cock.
Not that I’m comparing. Okay, I’m comparing a little. This guy is hung like a thoroughbred. And—wait a minute. Is that…? Yep, it sure is. This guy, with salt and pepper in his hair and a chest full of hair thicker than a blanket, has a pierced dick.
“Bri?” I croak out, choking on my laughter now. She looks mortified. I’m not laughing at her, I’m just trying to understand how this happened. “What are we watching?”
Her gaze darts to me guiltily, and before she can stop herself, she starts laughing.
And then I lose it too. Actual tears are streaming down her face.
She’s hiccupping between laughs, shoulders shaking as she tries and fails to get herself under control.
Meanwhile, I’m flat on my stomach with my face buried in a pillow, the entire bed shaking beneath me because I’m laughing so hard.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion from this whole day. Maybe it’s the sheer absurdity of the situation. Or maybe it’s the fact that Bri looks so adorably mortified by getting caught watching her choice of entertainment. Whatever the reason, neither of us can stop.
Every time I think I’ve got myself under control, I glance at her and see her red cheeks, watery eyes, and horrified expression, and I’m gone all over again.
“Stop, Seth!” she’s practically wheezing now from trying to keep it together but she’s smiling.
I wipe at my eyes and try to catch my breath. When I look at her this time, I swear all the air leaves this cold room. Even high on energy drinks and sugar, after driving all night, looking embarrassed as hell over being caught watching porn, she’s still the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen.
A gorgeous, porn-loving goddess.
“What… what is this?” I manage to ask between gasps of air, gesturing to the TV because whatever porn it is, it looks like it was shot on the first Nokia phone.
The guy’s mid-thrust while the woman is thrashing back and forth on the bed.
She’s either an amazing actress or that cock piercing might be a wise investment.
Brianna punches at her phone again, and this time, she gets the video to pause. She lets out a soft breath of relief, but now the whole video is frozen with the horse cock front and center mid-thrust inside the woman.
“It’s the Wellingtons.” She laughs softly.
“The who?”
She stands and crosses to the bed. Then she drops down beside me with a soft thud, flopping onto her back. An instant later, she throws an arm over her face like she’s actively trying to disappear from the world.
“The Wellingtons. They’re a couple. It’s married people porn,” she mutters under her breath, her arms covering her eyes like she can’t bear to look me in the eye.
“They have porn… with people role-playing that they’re married?”
“No.” She groans, voice muffled by her arm. “They’re really married. It’s married people… who do porn. Together as a couple. With only each other.”
I glance back at the frozen screen where Mr. Horse Cock and Mrs. Loves-A-Good-Purple-Dildo are still stuck mid-action.
“These two are married in real life?”
Bri nods but I still can’t see her face. “This is their real life. They do porn together. I watch it. I like it. It’s…”
She doesn’t have to finish her sentence. Brianna finds this romantic.
I pause, letting that sink in. For a woman who’s never been married, she’s got a fascination with long-term commitment and couples who fuck like they’re still on their honeymoon.
I reach over, gently lifting her arm away from her face, and fuck me she’s so pretty it hurts to look at. Her eyes are sealed shut. Her lips are pushed out in a pout. Her little nose is turned up and sniffling like she doesn’t want to talk about this with me.
“Bri, look at me.” Her dark lashes flutter open, and her pretty green eyes gaze up at me, soft and vulnerable.
She took off her glasses from driving earlier.
I wonder if she can still see me. It wouldn’t take much.
We’re both in the bed. I’m so close. One lean down.
One kiss. I could sweep my tongue into her mouth and get a taste of her again. Of what I’ve been missing.
Having her in my house, around my daughter, and at my workplace training the guys I work with; while knowing I can’t touch her again, feels like a special kind of torture. Because I like her. A lot. Everything I learn about her just makes me like her more.
And I want her. I’m so tired of pushing her away.
My hand moves to her cheek, and I brush my thumb slowly along her skin, down over her chin and across her bottom lip. She doesn’t break eye contact. Just watches me as I take her in, my gaze tracing every soft detail of her face. She knows I want her. She wants me too.
“Fifteen years,” she whispers.
I raise a brow. “Fifteen years what?”
“They’ve been in a married and committed relationship for fifteen years. Been doing porn together for five of them.”
Her voice cracks just a little, and I swear to God—there’s a tear in her eyes as she talks about them like they’re people that she knows personally.
“Isn’t that beautiful?” she asks.
Ah, shit.
“Yeah,” I rasp out because I might not be as romantic as Bri, but I can see that means a lot to her.
I’ve also been married. Twice. And I loved both of my wives in different ways for different reasons.
I know what it’s like to want that—the long game.
The commitment. The trust. But not just for the length of it like it’s something to brag about.
For the goodness that comes with being known so completely by someone else that you want them to be in your family.
To have someone thinking about you when you’re away and checking in.
To come home to someone who gives a damn how your day went.
To have a person who listens. Who doesn’t judge. Who loves you unconditionally—really loves you.
Sadly, I’m not sure I got it exactly right with either of my marriages, which is a good reminder at how badly I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to love, romance and connection. A good reminder that I fuck things up.
I clear my throat, trying to shake off the ache that’s creeping into my chest.
“It’s… beautiful,” I tell her. “That type of commitment is rare.”
Brianna’s eyes search mine, and for a split second, I wonder if she can see straight through me—see the part of me that still aches for that kind of everlasting love. But the reality is, some things aren’t made to last. And that’s where the pain is. In the loss.
She offers me a soft smile.
“Yeah. It’s romantic. Even if it is porn.” Her voice is barely a whisper, her eyes drifting back to the TV where Mr. and Mrs. Wellington are still locked in their marital bliss, frozen on the screen.
“But Bri…” I murmur, my voice softer now as I brush a lock of her light brown hair from her cheek, staring into her eyes, “not all marriages are like that.”
Her eyes finally flicker to mine. “Were yours?”
Dammit. I set myself up for that question. I roll onto my back, breaking our gaze as I stare up at the hotel room ceiling to mirror her posture.
“No.”
Not even close.
“I loved Sawyer’s mom.” I swallow hard, feeling the familiar ache that comes when I think about everything that happened crawl up at my throat. “But our start was… complicated.”
Bri doesn’t say anything, but I can feel the bed shift as she rolls onto her side to watch me. I continue staring at the ceiling, working through my words.
“I was only twenty years old when I got her pregnant. She was twenty-one. We’d only been together for a couple of months, and it wasn’t going anywhere serious. I was just entering the league.”
And then everything changed when we found out she was pregnant. My dreams for my career, my plans, everything was different because now I had a girlfriend and baby depending on me.
“We made it work, though. For Sawyer. And for each other. We… we grew to love each other after the wedding and Sawyer.”
Bri nods softly, her expression gentle. “It was a short marriage?”
“Yeah. We got married when Sawyer was one… but it only lasted for two years before she passed away.”
There’s silence. It stretches between us until I roll onto my side to look at her.
Her eyes are dark as they search my face, real empathy etched there.
It reminds me of the lack of understanding my ex-wife gave me the first time I told her about Sawyer’s mom.
Bri’s always met this discussion with so much grace and understanding. I’ve never met anyone so compassionate.
“I’m so sorry, Seth.”
I nod.