Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KNOX
“We’ll call for a tow truck as soon as we get home,” I promised Gage as he buckled himself into my truck and set his duffel bag at his feet.
He looked damp and bedraggled and pink-cheeked and perfect, and it was all I could do not to haul him against me right then and there.
“As soon as we get you home and warm,” I amended, tucking his car keys in my pocket.
“Home,” Gage repeated slowly. “Home?”
I was so in love, so besotted, so drunk on relief and high on the feeling of being the luckiest bastard in the universe that even Gage’s repeating thing was adorable.
“Home,” I agreed. “To Sunday Orchard? Where we live?”
“Riiiight.” Gage licked his lips. “Except… that’s far away. And the weather is bad.”
Ah, I hadn’t even thought about that. I took his hand in my own larger one and brought it to my lips for a kiss. “I promise, baby, I’ve driven in snow for decades. I know what I’m doing.”
“Riiiight,” Gage said again. “But the Apple of My Eye Bed and Breakfast is just there.” He pointed out the windshield up ahead.
“Exponentially closer. And, you know, if we go home, Webb is gonna wanna know where my car is, and Drew is gonna be all worried about me being in wet clothes, and Marco’s gonna make us a hot toddy, and Aiden is going to want to build a snowman, and…
I love that. I cannot tell you how much I love that.
But, um, at this exact moment, I was sort of thinking… ”
I flipped on my blinker and pulled into the parking lot without another word.
“Who is this reasonable man who looks like my Knox Sunday?” Gage wondered.
“Your Knox Sunday, huh?” Little carbonation bubbles of joy were fizzing up in my stomach, and I thought that if this was what true happiness felt like, I’d never actually experienced it before that moment. And I still wouldn’t have, if not for Gage.
“My Knox Sunday,” he confirmed, and just looking at him, I knew he felt the same joy I did.
When we parked, I grabbed his bag before he could, then went around the truck to help him down, partly because he was still a little jittery and mostly because I was. We giggled our way up the front steps of the old Victorian house like a pair of drunks and walked into…
“Oh. Wow. That’s…” Gage stammered. “Apples.”
There were apple clocks on the apple wallpaper and apple figurines on apple-shaped shelves. On the table in front of the apple-printed sofa sat an apple-shaped teapot.
“I forgot it was like this,” I told him with a snicker. “I haven’t been here since I was a kid.”
“I don’t think it’s changed much since then,” he whispered back. “Or at all.”
“Gage!” Helena Fortnum called from behind the front desk. “Full moon tonight. Come to drink some hooch and get naked with me?”
Gage’s eyes widened, and he looked from me to Helena and back again. I saw the moment he realized that the bed-and-breakfast had been a strategic error, and we’d have been better off taking our chances with my family.
Fortunately, I wasn’t nearly as polite as Gage was.
“We need a room, Ms. Fortnum,” I said firmly, stepping in front of him. “Gage’s car slid off the road a few yards down, and we need to escape the storm for a little while. We’ll also need to call Hiram about coming to tow the car—”
She raised an eyebrow. “Just the one room?”
Suddenly, I felt about eight years old, which was the last time I’d been on the receiving end of that eyebrow. “Er. Yes, ma’am?”
“Mmmhmm. So you’ve decided to make an honest man of our Gage?” She pursed her lips.
Gage snickered and pressed his face against my back.
“I have. I very definitely have. Which is why we need a room,” I persisted, loving the feel of Gage’s laughter vibrating through my skin. “Before Gage catches a chill in his wet clothes.”
Ms. Fortnum’s face broke out into a wide smile. “I always knew you had it in you, Knox Sunday. Leave Gage’s keys with me and I’ll call Hiram myself.” She winked. “I’ll tell them to send the bill to Sunday Orchard.”
“Perfect,” I agreed.
She held out a key, but before I could grab it, she feinted left to catch a glimpse of Gage. “Gage, I never did tell you what sort of student Knox was, did I?”
Gage moved around me, curiosity caught. “No, ma’am, you never did.” He side-eyed me. “I still say it was paste eating.”
I stuck a single finger in the beltloop of his pants right above his ass and hauled him back against me.
“It wasn’t paste eating,” I growled, and his breathing hitched.
“He was the protective one.” She winked at me over Goodman’s head. “The one who’d give up everything to make sure everyone he loved was safe and happy. To make sure he didn’t let anyone down. I’m glad he has someone looking out for him now.”
I blinked at her, stunned, for one beat and then another while Gage beamed up at me.
“I can see that,” he said softly. “And I promise, I will.”
We stumbled down the hall and into our room, shedding our clothes as we went.
“Did you know you can actually experience hypothermia indoors?” I asked, yanking his shirt off.
“Which is why you’re… undressing me?” Gage asked with his signature cheeky grin.
“It’s important to get these wet clothes off. We need to get you warmed up.” I moved my hands to his waistband and tried to focus on removing his clothes instead of memorizing every inch of his still-tan skin with my hungry eyes.
“I’ll trust your expertise in this,” he said, lying back on the bed and wiggling his butt a little to help me peel his pants off. I bit back a groan as he continued. “Because in Florida, we get naked for the opposite reason.”
I closed my eyes for a moment as the image of him stretched out naked on a sunny, sandy beach flashed through my mind.
“Christ,” I muttered under my breath. I was going to have to add “See Goodman naked on a beach” to my bucket list.
“You’re cold, too,” he said with a little mischief in his eyes. “Maybe you need the same hypothermia treatment you’re giving me.”
I met his eyes and saw everything I’d ever wanted in them. Affection, desire, humor, intelligence… joy.
Gage Goodman was full of joy. He radiated it even when he was shivering and covered in goose bumps. I loved that about him. He made me happy, period. And I was going to do everything I could to make sure he was just as happy.
I pinched his ass before leaning in to kiss his cold lips. His laughter faded into our shared kisses while I did my best to warm him inch by inch with my hands on his bare skin.
We tumbled around on the bed, kissing and touching and pulling off the final pieces of clothing before we were completely naked and plenty warmed up.
“Want you,” Gage said breathlessly. “I didn’t… I didn’t let myself hope for this, and I want to feel you… make love to you… knowing it’s real. Maybe that sounds silly, but—”
“It sounds amazing,” I said in a rough voice. This was all too good to be true. “I’m sorry I fought it… you and me. This. It was…”
Gage brushed my hair back from where it hung in my face. “Scary?”
“Terrifying,” I breathed. “I can’t control it. I worried that I wouldn’t be enough for you and you’d want to leave. I worried that I’d hold you back.”
“From what?” he asked, wrapping arms and legs around me to keep me close.
“Having everything you ever wanted. Making a big life for yourself… Your dreams.”
Gage brought my face down until our foreheads pressed together. “I see it’s time to begin reenacting our declarations. I love you, Knox Sunday. I fell in love with your happy-go-lucky smile before I even knew you. You are the dream. You are my big life.”
I couldn’t say anything past the lump in my throat.
Instead, I kissed him gently and tried to pour my heart out through my kisses.
I moved my mouth down his body to worship as much of him as I could reach with my lips and tongue.
When I finally had him breathless and begging, the way I liked, I flipped him over and shoved his knees under him while raining kisses down his spine.
At this point, Gage’s ability to make sensible words was completely gone. The noises he made were muffled by the pillow but encouraging. I loved bringing him pleasure. And I selfishly enjoyed using his strong, sexy body for my own pleasure.
I spread his tight ass cheeks apart and licked over his hole.
Gage let out a surprised meep sound.
“This good?”
“Good, yes. Gnfhhh,” he said as I dove back in with his approval.
His body was warm and soft, pliant and willing. I indulged myself with a long, lingering taste of him. In addition to his usual sea-salt scent, he also smelled a little like the snow and the pine trees around the bed-and-breakfast.
I wondered if he would always keep some of the Key embedded in his skin or if he would gradually begin to smell like everything I loved about living in Vermont.
Someone had already turned on the gas fire in the fireplace opposite the bed, and I felt the warmth of it bathe my bare back as I continued to satisfy myself with Gage’s body. With every swipe of my tongue over his tender entrance, I felt my dick throb harder and harder.
“Baby, you ready for me?” I asked. He was sprawled flat across the bed with his ass in the air. His messy hair and dazed eyes made my heart squeeze tightly in my chest.
“Get inside me now.”
I wanted to laugh. Being with Gage made me giddy and light. He reminded me that I was not my job, that I was so much more than my professional successes, that as long as I had him, I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be.
“Home and permanence,” I whispered. Just like Webb had said, damn him.
“Knox? Are you waiting until I’m as old as you are? Because that’s not how math works, baby.”
He made me so damned happy.
I ran a hand up his spine and followed the trail with kisses. “You’re gorgeous and sexy,” I murmured into his skin. “And I want to spend my life giving you things to feel joyful about.”
Gage turned over onto his back and peered up at me. His face was flushed with pink from exertion now, rather than cold, and I wondered if I’d ever seen anything more beautiful.