callum
TWENTY-FIVE
NOW
I’d been unable to sleep when I gave in and texted Damien. I’d tossed and turned for hours thinking about him and everything that had happened in such a short amount of time.
After much deliberation, I gave in and sent him a text. My heart did a funny fluttery thing when he texted me back right away. It nearly stopped entirely when I realized he was right outside my house. Which was endearing, if not a little bit stalkerish.
“It doesn’t feel real,” I said, still clinging to him. “How did you even find me?”
I pulled back and stared at Damien. “Did you ask my parents?”
“No, I stalked you on social media. On which you should really be more careful, by the way. There’s a lot of weirdos out there.”
I glared at him, sort of. Well, I tried to glare at him, but it was hard when I was impossibly happy to see him.
“Are you going to invite me in?” Damien held me tight.
“I thought you wanted me to go for a walk?”
“I said that because I wanted you to come outside so I wouldn’t freak you out by knocking on your door in the middle of the night.”
Callum laughed and tugged me toward the door. “You’re so weird.”
“It’s worked for me so far.”
My house was on the small side, but I loved it and thought it was homey.
The front door opened into the living room, but there was a half wall separating the entrance from the main living space.
A coat closet sat opposite. And on the half wall sat my fluffy, black, kind of ugly cat.
His bottom fangs stuck out and his nose was a little pushed in.
His meow was hoarse, like he’d smoked two packs a day all his life.
“That’s Crudinski.”
“That’s an appropriate name.” Damien almost reached for him, but stopped. “If I try to pet him, will he tear my skin off?”
“Crud is a gentleman. Aren’t you, my sweet cruddy kitty?” I cooed at Crudinski, petting him with one hand. He leaned into my touch, and I thought how sad was it that I wished Damien would lean into my touch like that.
Tentatively Damien reached out again and Crudinski stopped soaking up all of my attention long enough to give him a quick sniff before determining that he wasn’t worth sniffing a second time. He turned back to me and headbutted my hand, demanding more petting.
“Back off, kitty cat. You get his attention all the time,” Damien teased the cat, gently stroking his fur even though Crud was pretending he didn’t exist. I continued to scratch Crudinski under the chin and, at one point, Crudinski turned his head and looked at Damien as if to gloat about how easily he stole my focus.
Damien didn’t mind the lack of affection from Crudinski. He just smiled and continued to gently pet him, and I realized with horror that I was jealous of my cat.
“I always knew you were a cat person.” Damien toed out of his shoes and Crudinski decided then that he’d had enough affection and jumped down.
“That’s funny, because I always knew you were a pet rock person,” I teased, and Damien’s easy laughter took a sledgehammer to my chest.
Fuck. I’d missed him so much that the concept of missing him had become inadequate. To say I missed him was like saying the universe was big. Both statements were true but woefully understated.
I cleared my throat. “Did you want the grand tour?”
“Sure.”
A moment of awkwardness hung between us and then I motioned to the side. “That’s the living room.”
Damien snorted but didn’t otherwise mock me for being awkward as hell and acting like I’d never had a guest before.
Damien followed me into the house, past the couch to where the small space branched off. A kitchen on one side, and a hallway that led to the bedrooms. “The kitchen is through there. There’s a door to get to the back yard.”
“Do you have a pool?”
I caught his gaze and answered with a half smile. “Sorry, no pool. But I do have a hammock, a barbeque, and a small gas fire pit.”
“Sounds nice.”
I stood rooted to the floor, suddenly shy.
Uncertainty twisted in my chest. What was he even doing here?
And why wasn’t I upset that he’d basically stalked me and found out where I lived?
That was a red flag, right? Normal people shouldn’t be low-key turned on that their ex stalked them to their house.
“It is.” I had to stop and clear my throat as a sudden bout of nerves washed through me. “Nice, I mean. But not as nice as my bedroom.” I motioned to the door at the end of the hallway.
“If your bedroom wasn’t as nice as a back yard, I’d worry about your living conditions.”
I rolled my eyes. Humor and awkward fumbling would only get me so far. “Okay, fuck this,” I said.
Before he could think of what I might mean by that, I threw myself at him. Grabbed him by the shirt and tugged him close. Our mouths met with a clack of teeth and a sigh, and everything was suddenly better.
The past ten years fell away. So did the distance between us, the separation, and the absence of him.
Underneath it all was the same raw want that I’d felt in the beginning.
The kiss was incandescent and his hands were everywhere.
Sliding up my chest, clutching my face. Thrusting into my hair.
His fingers brushed through the short hairs at the back of my neck.
My body throbbed to the beat of my heart.
I managed to remember how to kiss and breathe and how to drive Damien crazy.
I slowed the kiss as if we had all the time in the world.
I skimmed my hands down his back. His shirt was crazy soft but not as soft as his skin.
I slid my hands under his shirt and along his waist with a featherlight touch that had him sighing, his body swaying into me, backing me up.
“Show me your room,” Damien whispered.
I couldn’t make myself stop touching him, so I backed up slowly, letting muscle memory steer me down the hallway. Damien reached behind me and opened my door and only then did I turn around.
My bed wasn’t made because I’d been tossing and turning when he’d shown up. But the room was tidy otherwise. There was a pile of clean laundry on the chair that Crudinski had already laid on and got his hair all over. Thankfully, at the moment, he was making himself scarce.
“I always wondered what adult Callum’s room looked like.” Damien plastered himself against my back. His lips brushed against my neck, and I didn’t try to hide the way I shivered. Or that I tilted my head and let my body ask for more.
“I hope it doesn’t disappoint.”
“It’s cleaner than I thought it would be.” Damien laughed and kissed me again. His hands rested on my waist, but they traveled lower, gently inching my pajama bottoms down.
“Oh, fuck off,” I said, as breathless as if we’d still been kissing.
God, I’d forgotten how intense it could be sometimes to be near him.
To let him touch me. How it made me want him with an intensity that only seemed to have grown over time.
Like it was a monster that had feasted on his absence and only grown stronger and wilder without him and was now thrashing, trying to break free.
Damien’s hand slid under the waist of my pants and I nearly collapsed when his knuckles brushed against my rigid cock.
Then his hand flipped over and he palmed my erection.
At the same time, his other arm had wrapped around me and he held me against him, squeezing my pec.
His lips glided over my neck, hot breath ghosted over my flesh.
I was too close and too far away and wearing too many clothes and entirely too exposed.
My heart fluttered like a hummingbird, and I couldn’t think of anything else except how fucking right this felt.
He touched me like no time had passed between us. Like he was an expert in my body still and clearly he was, because the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. And the simple truth was that no one had ever made me feel a fraction of what I felt when I was with him.
No one had ever made me feel like my body wanted to fly apart just so he could put me back together.
I turned my head, and Damien was there to capture my mouth in a kiss.
Our tongues battled and our ragged breathing roared in my ears like a storm blowing in.
The hair on my arms stood on end when Damien turned me in his embrace so he could kiss me properly, sealing his mouth over mine, delving his tongue deep inside like he could taste my longing.
I’d fucking ached for him. I’d tried not to. I’d tried to forget about him and put the past behind me. It felt juvenile to let myself be hung up on someone I’d fallen for in high school, but I never learned how to let go.
I never learned how to stop loving him.
“Damien, please.” I tugged at the bottom of his shirt and then it was gone.
In one smooth motion, he pulled it off over his head and tossed it aside somewhere and then his mouth was on me again, attacking me.
And then it was on my neck again. My throat.
My clavicle. His hands roamed my body, touching me everywhere with a reverence that I could feel in my bones.
It was like neither of us were convinced this was real.
Both of us were in this hallucination and were expecting it to end at any moment.
But it didn’t. And as the seconds sped past, it became increasingly apparent that this was real.
Damien was here.
In my house.
In my bedroom.
For a second, I remembered what had to happen to make this possible, and then I quickly shoved that thought aside. I’d address it later. Right now there was only me and him and my hummingbird heart trying to fly out of my chest.
Damien went to his knees in front of me and buried his face in my groin. I sank my hands into his hair and tipped my head back, unable to look down at him for fear that I’d come at the sight of a dream come true.
He eased my pants down the rest of the way and let them pool at my feet. I let them stay there, unwilling or unable to move in case I broke the spell. I’d dreamed of this. Of having him here. Of being able to touch him again. Hold him again and kiss him again.
Able to love him again.
I looked down, unable to stop myself and saw him looking up at me.
I’d never stopped wanting him and missing him, and now he was here, and despite the circumstances that led to this, I was obscenely happy. I was happy in a way that didn’t feel entirely appropriate, and I realized that I didn’t care.
Not even a little.
Damien held my gaze as he moved in, parting his lips, he pressed a kiss against the shaft of my cock near the base, then higher up.
And again. Each time he touched me, it felt like a million megawatts of energy zipped through me, and it took everything in me to stay still when he finally took me in his mouth.
I wanted to fuck his face. I wanted to unleash a decade of anguish on him and choke him with it the way it had choked me.
But Damien was absurdly gentle with me. His mouth cradled me like I was fragile and not as solid as steel.
He handled my balls gently, teasing me as his tongue did wicked things to my dick, it all made me crazy for him.
It made me want to pull him apart when it was all I could do to hold myself together.
I moved my hands so I wouldn’t give in to the temptation to drive myself deep into his throat, but he grabbed them and put them back when he looked up at me imploringly.
“Are you sure?” I asked, my hands trembling with the gravity of what he was asking for.
Damien pulled back and I watched the string of saliva that connected us break suddenly. “I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
Fuck. My. Life.
Neither had I.